"So, I’m a loyal follower, so be it," Wayne didn’t care, after all, he really did get to lick in the movie. Unlike the second male lead, the photographer boyfriend in the script, who didn’t even have a single kissing scene with the female protagonist.
During the last kissing scene, Lily asked Wayne if he wanted to make it real, and Wayne decisively refused. If Lily were just an ordinary superstar, he wouldn’t mind even doing a bed scene, but knowing she was a doomed expendable character, he couldn’t bring himself to take advantage of her.
Lily didn’t insist, and a misaligned shot brought an end to all of Wayne’s scenes on the cruise.
At 3 a.m. on August 8, Wayne’s Essence of Life was filled, six points of light blossomed, and his resonant soul was infinitely satisfied.
On August 10, the North Star arrived at the North Sea’s Dragonheart Island.
From a high vantage point, Dragonheart Island resembled the shape of a heart, excluding the sparsely distributed uninhabited islets around it, covering an area of approximately 600 square kilometers.
One side of the island was mountains and dense forests, while the other side was flat terrain with a natural harbor that wasn’t great, only suitable for coastal supply lines and not a strategic military location.
By comparison, an archipelago 200 nautical miles away was more suitable for naval port requirements.
But I digress. The geographic location of Dragonheart Island meant it had a thriving fishing industry, with capitalists watching over the natural fishing grounds and hardworking islanders, reaping significant surplus value.
In the past two years, the capitalists had set their sights on the island’s primal jungle, starting to develop tourism projects, but the persistent economic downturn forced them to postpone these plans.
Wayne stepped onto the port, bid farewell to the film crew, and with his invitation in hand, found the driver who would take him to his destination, Bart Manor.
Bart Manor was located on the volcanic cliffs of Dragonheart Island’s Crescent Bay and belonged to the local wealthy Bart Family. The deceased, Myron Bart, had drowned there a month ago.
According to the police investigation, it was an accidental drowning, with no possibility of foul play. But Myron’s wife, Marina, didn’t think so. She contacted the White Glove Association and invited a professional detective to re-investigate her husband’s cause of death.
Marina believed her husband was murdered, and the killer was a member of the family.
A case involving property division, very classic, exists in any era and any background.
Wayne sat in the back seat, with the coastline and fishing boats to his left and houses of varying heights to his right, occasionally spotting a church, which immediately piqued his interest. He curiously struck up a conversation with the driver.
It was a church similar to the Heavenly Father’s Court, hanging a strange pentagram symbol, definitely not the traditional faith he remembered.
Due to the Earth Core Cult, Wayne was very resistant to these peculiar churches, always feeling that behind these churches stood the Evil God, ready to initiate collective sacrifices at the drop of a hat.
"That’s the Sea God Society. The islanders all believe in the Sea God, praying to him for safety from storms before setting out to sea and for a bountiful return..."
The driver talked about the standard belief of Dragonheart Island with a degree of reverence for the Sea God, despite not being a believer himself. Most of his relatives and friends worked in the fishing industry company, so he was somewhat influenced and believed a little.
After all, it’s all the same whom you believe in. The Sea God Society doesn’t charge for indulgence certificates, it’s free, so believing a bit doesn’t hurt.
Wayne wholeheartedly agreed with this simple and unadorned faith. He probed from the side, subtly inquiring if the Sea God Society gave out eggs or conducted the sort of rituals involving sacrifices.
The driver thought for a moment. As far as he knew, the Sea God was a peaceful and unselfish deity who never asked for anything from the believers. The faith was also very simple, focusing on sincerity being effective. Devout believers who returned safely from the sea merely had to fulfil their vows at the church.
The method of fulfilling vows was quite simple: there was a pond in the center of the church square connected to the sea, and every sailor who went out to sea would release a fish in the pond as a symbol of being reborn from the jaws of death.
Wayne didn’t find anything suspicious, noting that it indeed seemed a plain and pure faith, but he still remembered the name Sea God Society. His imagination running wild, he connected the deceased Myron’s fishing company, suspecting that this might be a case of malicious revenge and murder.
Forty minutes later, the vehicle arrived at Bart Manor, a four-story house built on the edge of a cliff with one side facing the sea, offering quite the spectacular view.
Having seen many luxury mansions, Wayne felt that Bart Manor was just average. Compared to the grand mansions of the Lando Family, it was merely a rural little farm.
The car passed through the towering fence and double iron gates, and Wayne asked to get out and walk; he wanted to visit the garden pond where the deceased had drowned.
A month gone by, finding any clues was definitely impossible, but familiarizing himself with the scene was better than nothing, certainly better than having no information at all.
The driver didn’t object and praised Wayne’s professional attitude. He drove to the scene of the incident, stopped the car, lit a cigarette, and quietly waited.
Bart Manor might be average, but the manor’s lawns and green spaces were extensive. A large plot had been fenced off for construction, and the pond was larger than Wayne imagined—a small artificial lake with an air of grandeur.
Wayne walked halfway around the lake. With his excellent vision, he confirmed that it was no more than three meters at its deepest. Assuming the deceased could swim, the possibility of accidental drowning seemed indeed small.
But that didn’t exclude the possibility of accidental drowning. According to the driver, the deceased had drunk a lot of alcohol. Death by drowning after drinking, he mused, was plausible—not just in an artificial lake, but even a bowl of tomato soup could suffocate a person.
As he was thinking, two figures appeared ahead, one tall and one short. Wayne looked intently at the pair, examining their clothes and appearance.
The young girl on the left was around 1.6 meters tall, seventeen or eighteen years old, her black-and-white maid’s uniform smooth and neat, her weight evidently not over a hundred pounds.
The noblewoman on the right had an indifferent manner, standing nearly 1.8 meters tall, almost as tall as Wayne.
She wore a long black dress, with a high, straight nose, prominent cheekbones, a square, firm jaw, and very distinct, angular features.
There was something interesting about the way she walked, not the elegance typical of noblewomen, but rather a different kind of presence, bold and efficient, with each step taken meticulously, as if it were a habit of a professional model.
"Who are you?" the woman stopped, her gaze cold as she looked at Wayne.
"My name is Wayne, a detective from Lundan, here by the commission of Mrs. Marina Bart."
"Hello, Detective Wayne, I am Marina Bart."
"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Bart."
Wayne made small talk with Marina for a bit. She might have just lost her husband, her face remained icy throughout. Seeing Wayne eager to discuss the case right after meeting, she instructed the maid beside her to accompany Wayne and continue walking along the lake.
"The lady doesn’t seem too happy, it looks like she really loved her husband."
Wayne looked at the 1.6-meter-tall maid, noticed that the girl was quite pretty, and, with a cheerful grin, reached out his hand: "Wayne, what may I call you?"
Likewise, the servant was a reflection of her mistress, Oga too had a cold countenance. Facing the enthusiastic Wayne, she was very quiet and spoke little.
"Alright, Oga, without further ado, could you tell me the exact location where Mr. Bart died?" Wayne asked, pointing to the man-made lake.
"The master didn’t die in the lake, he was not drowned. He shot himself in his study," replied the maid Oga.
Wayne was momentarily stunned, "If it was suicide, why claim that he died from drowning after getting drunk?"
"Because it wasn’t a dignified way to die."
"And drowning from drunkenness is dignified?"
Oga nodded earnestly and began to describe simply, "It was one evening with red wine, the lake, the moon, and a poetry-reciting old nobleman."
What the hell, truly freakin’ romantic!
Wayne thought of someone who had supposedly died the same way, got drunk trying to scoop up the moon, and ended up gone.
Put it that way, and it couldn’t be more romantic.
He shook his head, speechless. He could understand that, considering the deceased was a nobleman turned capitalist who had always lived in opulence from his ancestors to his present day, a dignified death was concocted for the sake of family reputation among other reasons.
This was just making things harder for the detective!
"Oga, could you take me to the study to have a look?"
Oga was very aloof, practically silent unless Wayne initiated conversation. However, she was proactive in her cooperation and forthcoming with any investigation-related information she knew.
"Besides the lady, the young master also hired a detective, who arrived a week ago."
"Oh, what is the name of the other investigator?"
"Kell Polo, a famous detective from Lundan."
Polo, that surname reeks of dear old Agatha!