"Clues to the Clown potion."
……
At the head of the ancient and mottled bronze long table, Klein read the "divination statement" several times, leaned back, and entered slumber.
His surroundings quickly became peaceful and silent. What he saw through the "eye" was ethereal and hazy — countless twisted, unrecognizable images flashed rapidly through the void, like drops of dew on the tender petals of a morning flower.
Gradually, Klein grasped his own spirituality and recovered a measure of awareness.
He saw a fireplace before him, and in front of the fireplace sat an old woman in a black-and-white dress, resting in a rocking chair.
Although the woman had her head bowed and her face was not visible, Klein felt with absolute certainty in his heart that she was an elderly lady, and he was quite sure of it.
Facing the old woman was a table, on which lay a newspaper and a tin jar inlaid with silver.
"This is…" Feeling a striking sense of familiarity with the scene, Klein quickly identified what he was looking at:
This was Riel Bieber and his mother's residence!
The place where he had first seen the "giant's view" in person!
"There are clues to the Clown potion here?" The thought had barely flashed through Klein's mind before the surrounding scene shifted.
It was a gray-white warehouse, tucked away at the innermost part of a row of identical buildings;
Scattered inside were bone after bone, pale and stark, along with several clumps of flesh and gore, flattened as though crushed by boulders;
Just as Klein recognized where this was and remembered what those things were, the images in his eyes twisted and shattered like a reflection disturbed on the surface of water, giving rise to a new, hazy vision:
A naked body lay on a long table draped with white cloth, and floating before it was a sphere of blood tinged with a hint of blue.
Klein immediately furrowed his brow and muttered to himself:
"First it was Riel Bieber's hiding place and his remains, and now it's what the Tailed Clown's wrist brand turned into?"
Just as he tried to deduce what these images truly symbolized, the shifting of the scene abruptly intensified:
A marble coffee table, a leather sofa set arranged with one main and two side pieces, a chandelier suspended high from the ceiling;
Klein Moretti, black-haired with brown eyes and an intellectual air; a plump, fair-skinned man of comfortable wealth; a beautiful young lady wearing sheer gloves;
A middle-aged man in black robes with thick, stiff brown hair standing upright; the same plump, fair-skinned man; a half-century-old man with disheveled eyebrows, thinning brown hair, and gray-blue eyes — and resting on the round table between them, a dark black notebook, ancient and profound in aura.
The Antigonus family's notebook!
Klein shot upright, and the dream dissipated without a trace.
Gazing at the boundless Gray Fog and the crimson stars beyond the magnificent temple, he thought with a mixture of astonishment and confusion:
"I was divining clues for the Clown potion... How did the Antigonus family's notebook come up?"
"Let me think, let me think — that rotund fellow was Welch, yes, Welch, the unlucky soul who purchased the Antigonus family's notebook and triggered the whole chain of events that followed... The young lady with gauze gloves and a delicate appearance was Naya..."
"I remember now. That marble coffee table and leather sofa combination was the signature of Welch's residence. That was where I met the medium, Daly."
"In other words, I just saw the living room of Welch's residence. I saw the original owner and two classmates discussing the notebook."
Klein's thoughts settled and he regained his composure, his fingers tapping the edge of the bronze table in a steady rhythm:
"And what does that final image represent? The notebook appeared, Welch appeared — could it be the scene where he purchased that 'antique'?"
"One of the other two people present looks very familiar. That middle-aged man in the black classical robe — I feel like I've seen him somewhere before... Hedgehog-like brown hair, heavy dark circles under his eyes... Yes, I know who he is. Hanass Vancent. The Hanass Vancent from the divination club, who died 'peacefully' after the captain infiltrated his dream because Selena had secretly learned the forbidden incantation!"
"Hiss — he was the one who sold the notebook to Welch?"
"After going around in circles, everything connects like this. The world really is small — no, Tingen really is small! Thinking about it carefully, it's entirely possible. Hanass Vancent wasn't an ordinary diviner; he had clearly delved deep into the mystical domain and caught the attention of some ancient evil god. He had the channels, the ability, and the opportunity to obtain a notebook that the Secret Order had accidentally leaked..."
"No wonder the Captain and the others never found out where Welch bought the notebook — the direction was completely wrong. They were trying to trace it through the antiquities market... Later, once the notebook's whereabouts became known, they abandoned that line of investigation altogether."
"What a pity that Hanass Vancent had only just died. Otherwise, we definitely could have found out something about the notebook from him... As someone who had delved into the mystical domain, he must have studied that notebook... His death really was quite the coincidence!"
"However, there was still another person present — an elderly man in his fifties. He might know quite a lot as well."
Klein's fingers, which had been lightly tapping the table's edge, paused as he reviewed every scene he had witnessed in the "dream divination":
"Reil Bieber's home; Reil Bieber's hiding spot; Reil Bieber's remains; the thing that the swallowtailed clown's wrist brand transformed into; Welch's home; the scene of Welch, Naya, and the original owner exchanging words; the 'group portrait' of Welch, Hanass Vancent, and the Antigonus family's notebook... Heh — apart from the swallowtailed clown's brand, every single one is directly related to the Antigonus family's notebook!"
"But I was divining clues for the Clown potion... This isn't science — no, this isn't mysticism!"