novelraw Chapter 184: A Night Visit to Halili
Chapter 184: A Night Visit to Halili
That "suicidal" Reverberation Touch targeting the entire desert sea inflicted a mental backlash more prolonged than any Lin Jie had ever experienced before.
When he finally managed to wrench himself free from that ocean of memories formed by thousands of years of history—thanks to the faint Guardian Divinity of Serene Heart and the half-bottle of potent brandy Ethan had poured into his mouth—his world was still spinning uncontrollably.
His brain felt like an old phonograph that had been overloaded with excessive electrical current, endlessly echoing with the chaotic and contradictory historical noise from different eras.
It took him half an hour to finally pull his consciousness back from that dizzying sensation that had assimilated him with this ancient land.
Yet, this costly adventure yielded a rather substantial reward.
While he hadn't been able to directly see the specific traces of the perpetrator like William's Zulu's Gaze could, he had glimpsed, in a macro and fundamental way, some of the truths recorded by this land over the past several millennia.
And most importantly, he had obtained one final piece: the last visual remnant from the deceased guard.
"Khan el-Khalili..."
Leaning against the shadow of a sun-scorched steam car, Lin Jie uttered a name tinged with exoticism and clamor in a hoarse voice.
"The last place that guard visited before he died was... the Khan el-Khalili Grand Bazaar.""Khan el-Khalili?" Ethan's brow furrowed tightly, his eyes flashing with undisguised disgust. "That labyrinthine, chaotic place full of thieves, swindlers, and the stench of cheap spices?"
As a noble raised in London's top social circles, Ethan felt a physical revulsion towards that ancient, chaotic, and plebeian open-air bazaar within Cairo.
"But it's also the place with the most freely flowing information in all of Cairo, even all of Egypt, and the most likely place to find clues about the Descendants of Apophis." Julian, the scholar, offered his own functional perspective as a supplement.
He had long since looked up all the information about this bazaar from the "Cairo Traveler's Guide" he carried with him.
"Not only does it have the public spice and handicraft markets, but there's also a vast underground trading network, unknown to the outside world, formed by small antique dealers, information brokers, and inner world intermediaries."
"It's said that if you have enough money or a sufficiently weighty reputation, you can even buy artifacts unearthed from unnamed pharaohs' tombs from there."
Julian's words made Ethan's expression turn even uglier.
But he also knew that what this French scholar said was an indisputable fact.
In Egypt, this land torn apart by colonialism and poverty, "history" itself was a commodity that could be openly bought and sold.
"Then our next step is quite clear." Lin Jie forced himself to stand up from the ground.
His black eyes, still bloodshot, swept over each of his companions present.
"Tonight, we infiltrate Khan el-Khalili under cover of darkness."
...
Under the night sky, the Khan el-Khalili Grand Bazaar erupted with a vitality brimming with life and sin, illuminated by countless star-like Arabian-style glass lanterns.
The maze-like stone-paved alleys, wide enough for only two people to walk abreast, were packed with people of all kinds.
The cries of vendors, the sounds of haggling, the braying of camels, and the exotic melodies of lutes drifting from those "private clubs" hidden on the second floors, inaccessible to the public, all intertwined into a human symphony reminiscent of "One Thousand and One Nights."
The four "uninvited guests" from London had shed their distinctly Western attire.
They all donned the loose white robes commonly worn by locals, which could envelop their entire bodies.
They also used thick headscarves to conceal their overly conspicuous hair colors and faces.
Upon entering the bazaar, the team immediately split into two groups according to the plan Lin Jie had long since devised.
Although Ethan despised the plebeian atmosphere here, the surname "Redgrave" was the most effective "door knocker" in this place.
He broke away from the group alone.
He was going to seek out those high-end antique dealers hidden in the deepest parts of the bazaar, who specialized in underground transactions with wealthy European merchants and collectors.
He would use his family's financial power and reputation to spread a highly tempting rumor: "A mysterious big buyer from England is sparing no expense to seek any collection or intelligence related to the Tear of Apophis or the cult of the Descendants of Apophis."
He intended to use the most direct and effective method to actively lure out those big fish possibly connected to the diamond theft case.
Meanwhile, the well-coordinated Iron Triangle of Lin Jie, William, and Julian was responsible for executing another, more mystical tracking task.
"Right here."
Lin Jie stood at a crossroads selling various hookahs and slowly closed his eyes.
He immersed his entire consciousness into that final visual remnant from the guard.
His mental world was overlaid with a translucent filter from the past, and the phantoms of several locals and a tall Englishman appeared in his memory.
That phantom, looking utterly bewildered, was being led by those locals towards a narrow alley rarely frequented by tourists.
"He went this way."
Lin Jie opened his eyes and spoke with certainty.
Then he led his companions, following the footsteps of that "ghost" from the past that only he could see.
It was a peculiar "time-walking" tracking experience.
Following the memory of the now-deceased guard, they traversed this ancient, labyrinthine bazaar of immense size.
They passed through the weavers' alley selling colorful Egyptian carpets, they detoured around a lively street square where performers were fire-eating and snake-charming.
They also passed by the entrance of an underground opium den, from whose door crack drifted the strong scents of opium and hashish, a sign hanging on the door reading "By Invitation Only."
Each time the phantoms in his memory hesitated momentarily at some complex intersection, Lin Jie could keenly sense an invisible mental tug strengthening.
An unseen fishing line was dragging several dazed fish step by step towards a prepared slaughterhouse.
Finally, after at least seven or eight complex turns, the phantoms of the guard finally stopped at the end of a secluded, poorly lit dead-end alley reeking of piled garbage and dead rats.
At the end of that dead-end alley, there was only a small backdoor haphazardly nailed together from a few worn-out wooden planks.
Above the door hung a wooden sign blackened by soot.
On the sign, a line of words was written in clumsy, tourist-style English.
"Best Egyptian Souvenirs."
At that moment, Ethan also caught up, following the markers Lin Jie and the others had left behind, his voice tinged with barely suppressed excitement.
"I found it!"
"From an old swindler who claimed to be the seventy-second generation descendant of the 'Pharaoh's Royal Jeweler,' I bought an 'absolutely reliable' piece of intelligence for a full hundred pounds!"
"He said if I truly wanted to find clues about Apophis, I must go to that souvenir shop in Khan el-Khalili Bazaar that everyone in the know is aware of..."
"The one run by a mysterious female proprietor named 'Nephthys,' specializing in peddling cheap replica 'Scarab' amulets to Western tourists!"
Lin Jie slowly raised his head, his gaze piercing through the dilapidated wooden door as if he could already see the trap awaiting them behind it.
A playful smile appeared on his face. All the clues and fishing lines had converged.
Ultimately, they all pointed to the same inconspicuous destination.