Logan reentered the room, and the hallway began to fill again with the sounds of the surrounding tenants talking and the electrical currents of various devices.
Everything before was like a dream.
Before he knew it, he had fallen into the musty goose down comforter, the back of his head hitting the brass bedrail with a muffled thud, and the pain in his head couldn't stop the sudden tiredness.
The next morning's light pierced the leaden-gray clouds and refracted tiny flecks of gold on the cast-iron window panes, and Logan opened his bleary eyes to a chill that wrapped around his body!
Last night's half-open stained-glass window was now wide open, and the wind, with its characteristic Thames rust smell, haunted the room and him, while lifting a slightly yellowed envelope from the corner of the table.
Letters! A new letter appeared on the table!
"Received by Zhang Shan" in three lines pierced through the plain white envelope, and the ink glowed a strange indigo color in the morning mist.
Who was Zhang Shan?
Logan scratched his head in confusion.
Did he send it to the wrong person?
As he braced himself, he caught a glimpse of something different on the floor-the muddy imprints of military boot patterns snaked from the windowsill to the desk, a few grains of dark red grit stuck between the lines of his size 43 boots, the tips of which pressed thin cracks into the oak floor.
As he crouched down, his nostrils were suddenly flooded with the fishy saltiness of seaweed - the grit was clearly the rusty deposits characteristic of the lower Thames.
He turned his head sharply to look at the half-open window, where the blinds were shaking spasmodically in the wind, and for a moment seemed to reflect the profile of the man in the ducktail.
Thief! There was a burglar in the house!
Logan surveyed all the places around him where he could hide.
There was little furniture in the room, not much space, the bottom of the bed was close to the floor, and the bathroom door was open, so the contents were in plain view.
It was certain that the thief had left.
It was a letter not to be read! It might even be able to figure out the identity of the little thief!
He stretched out his index finger and hooked it around the edge of the envelope, and his fingertips immediately felt some kind of cool silky touch - this was by no means a material that could be bought from an ordinary post office.
Half a pale cyan fingerprint remained on the envelope's opening edge, as if someone had hastily stuffed it in wearing rubber gloves.
The rustling sound of the polyester paper sliding down when the envelope was opened was similar to the scales of a viper rubbing against the green stone as it molted. The jagged cracks on the edges of the paper are the characteristic cuts of a military letter opener.
The letter was written in Chinese:
"Zhang Shan:
I heard that you have successfully infiltrated it, when the time is ripe, we will strike as soon as possible to save the remaining people, please go to the bar on the south side of the city, there will be a person with a black high brimmed hat waiting for you there, secret word: dark night is coming, handover time, April 21st, 2020 at 19:00 sharp.
--First Meeting."
Saved? Saved from who?
The handover was set for tonight, and the letter appeared on the table as if it were stuck in a good spot.
Infiltrate it?
Where had this man infiltrated it?
From what he now knew, London was walled in!
So it was possible that these people had infiltrated from east London? What was Zhang Shan's role in this? And what was the Society of the Forerunner again?
Logan shook his head, putting all that behind him for now, because as he shuffled around, he looked away to see Anna leaning against the chrome doorframe of the black Bentley, croissant caramel crunch shells reflecting the morning sunlight and casting an amber halo between her dark brown curls.
Just the thing to tell her about what was going on around her.
As he washed up, Logan closed the window and scanned the room, then placed a hair by the door lock to prevent any other petty thieves from entering through the doorway this time.
The gilt earrings beside Anna's ears shook in the morning mist with flecks of crushed diamonds, and when her dark brown curls were lifted by the wind, the crunchy shell of her croissant caramel was refracting beeswax-colored prisms of light as if she were holding a solidified amber, "Morning." Her fingertips tapped the rusted "10 Baker Street" on the sign.
The croissant turned out to be three times heavier than expected, and the moment the caramelized brittle shell made contact with the warmth of her palm, it erupted into a fine crunch like ice breaking off, and Logan nodded in response.
"By the way, look at this... (muffled)" The moment Logan lifted the gilt pocket watch, the attached bracelet made a metallic scrape like a viper's spit. The bracelet shone like liquid gold between his fingers, but it didn't reflect half as well in Anna's irises.
When he realized that the other man's eyes were piercing right through the pocket watch, he swallowed with a roll in his throat and turned to tug at the collar of his cold-sweat-soaked linen shirt.
From Anna's perspective, it looked like Logan over there was just waving his empty hand.
"See what?" Anna asked, confused, "And what did you say?"
"This (muffled)," the pocket watch came to rest in front of Anna's eyes, its lavender pupils displaying nothing but Logan's lush palm prints.
It was just! The pocket watch seemed to be visible only to herself.
"Someone sneaked in last night back up the river." Logan turned away from the conversation, kicking away the bottle of wine along the curb, the glass cut a sharp mournful sound on the asphalt, "Left a note in Chinese about a meeting at the bar south of the city at seven tonight."
"You mean someone came into your house yesterday and told you to meet them tonight at the bar on the south side of town?" Anna's lotus steps moved lightly, pacing slowly around Logan, her gaze skimming over his angular face and lingering briefly on the blonde hair that was as brilliant as the sunrise, "Judging from the writing, the script looks like Chinese, could it be a letter from the Dragon Kingdom!"
Dragon Kingdom? Li was also from the Dragon Kingdom!
This letter came from outside London? What exactly is outside the fog?
"Logically speaking, outsiders who enter London would normally greet our British Special Operations Division, but they didn't, and made the mistake of giving the letter to you, you can't be..." Anna's scrutinizing gaze hovered over Logan's face for a long moment, "A spy, I believe."
Anna's eyes were wrapped in a few cool glints. Logan suddenly felt a slight itch on the back of his neck, as if there were vines climbing up, and unconsciously straightened his spine like a green pine.
"Haha, just kidding! Your hair and five senses no matter which way you look at it, you don't look like a Dragon Kingdom person! And you also came back with us not long ago, so that's even more unlikely." The corners of Anna's lips lightly raised, a wry smile like spring water breaking through the ice spread out, the slight hooks at the end of her eyes seemed to be hiding a thousand schemes. Vegetable hand gently raised, fingertips with if not the force fell on Logan's shoulder.
Logan took a long breath, when being suspected, whether right or wrong, the person concerned will be nervous, and it is Anna this kind of ability with the existence of 'forbidden ruins'.
"You didn't come here to wait for me, did you?" Logan wiped the thin beads of sweat from his head.
"Unfortunately you guessed wrong, I was waiting for you, otherwise, how were you supposed to find me and our office?" Anna laughed softly.
The black Bentley sped along the highway and arrived in front of a mansion in no time.
The mansion loomed large and covered a vast area, standing in the middle of the city.
"Please." Anna pointed to the side door for him to go through.
The mansion had two entrances, the main entrance had an old man standing tall like a pine, full of essence, his eyes gleaming as he surveyed every passerby. The side door was very different, only to see a young guy lazily lying on the table, sound asleep.
Logan was about to enter when he caught a glimpse of his information automatically surfacing in the comings and goings in front of the young guy!
"Name: logan, arrival time: 8:21:56 on April 21, 2020 ...."