.

That night, Ed was thrown into cold storage by Duroc Sr., where he stayed overnight. The old detective was not polite to him at all, he could not hear anything he said, and he touched him all over his body, not even his underwear, and stripped everything that should be picked. Not only was Ed robbed of his pistol and two magazines, but even the specially modified belt of arms was not spared. When he was guarded by prison guards and walked into his cell, he had to hold his pants in one hand all the time.

Because of this incident, Ed thought back and forth in his heart for a long time. But when he came back to his senses, he forgot what he was talking about, and felt as if he had a vivax malaria, and he was delirious and vaguely muttered to himself, and then when he came to his senses, he just remembered that there had been such a thing, but he couldn't remember the details clearly. Then he began to bother with himself, how he got into this way, when he became like this, how he could have become like this—but because it was so troublesome, he quickly stopped and gave up. Thinking about it, thinking about it, of course he can think about it, anyway, he has been crazy for more than a day or two.

He remembered what old Duroc had said before—the old fellow had only said that one meaningful sentence, or had he reluctantly given in because he had been impatient with his endless attempts to negotiate the whole time—the damn old stone—and he had directly and rudely interrupted all of Ed's patient, detailed, and dutiful explanatory speeches for the sake of work, and simply told Ed what he would do, and what he wanted Ed to do.

"I'll look everything into it. Until then, you just have to wait quietly. ”

So Ed came here, the detention center of the Bablour town office under the Stuttgar police headquarters. Of course, this was not the first time he had been to a detention center, and he was as familiar with this kind of place as he was with his second home.

But even so, the different cold storage in different places and different bureaus are still slightly different from each other. Ed's cell wasn't a single room, but had two bunks, bunk beds like in a student dormitory, and the mattress was uneven, but it was very thick. There are also two blankets, which are neither dirty nor clean.

By the time Ed came inside, it was late enough that the child would be spanked by his parents if he didn't sleep. Ed washed the company, using the cell's washbasin and inferior gray soap, and unfortunately he didn't find a razor, otherwise he should have shaved his face.

Then he sat down on his bunk, in a daze. It wasn't until a moment later that he remembered something, took out a lighter and a cigar from his bosom, pulled out an "intermission" and bit it in his mouth.

The prison guards who guard places like the detention center are certainly not the smartest of all the policemen, but they are the mentors and friends of the tea stalls and fans at the forks in the road of life that are peaceful and wise. They have friendly smiles and onlooker eyes, and their rich experience in reading people often makes them reveal some different opinions at some individual moments, which makes you suddenly open your mouth, enlighten, and then scold you for seeing a ghost.

It is not reliable to say that it is reliable, and it is very reliable to say that it is not reliable. Ed thought that the guys from the local bureau were pretty reliable, and when he came in, they looked him up and down with thin eyes, as if they wanted to distinguish the color of his underwear. Then they let him go and did not take his cigar and lighter.

It's certainly not because of how much they like Ed. Ed knows that he has many, many virtues, but being likable is definitely not one of them. He doesn't even like himself very much—that's, of course, he likes himself the most—but if you look at it on the surface, he's no different from those boring office workers who walk into the train on time every day in a black swan suit and squeeze their lives. In other words, there are thousands of men of the same level as him on the street.

The reasons for the prison guards' actions are simpler, more logical, colder and more humane. It may sound a bit contradictory, but it's true. People who are thrown into this kind of place, unless there is some special situation or special relationship that leads to the special development of the story later, will basically have the same process. They would wait, they would be waited until the preliminary trial, and then they would be forced to take off their original clothes and put on prison uniforms, no ties, no belts, no shoelaces, and sit in their bunks waiting for the court to begin, with nothing else to do, nothing else to do – but until then, things were fine, clothes could be kept, lighters and cigarettes could be kept. It's your last moment of comfort.

Ed knew that he couldn't sleep, so he didn't even think about sleeping, so it was better to sit down and relax, smoke for a while, and take a "half-time" break. Halftime is very important, especially for people like Ed and Marcy. Their own work is very special, there is no time to rest, and their own personality and attitude make them unusually focused and serious about their work, almost to the extent of seriousness, which makes conscious rest more meaningful to them. Ed sometimes wondered if that was the reason Marcy chose the "Intermission" sign in the first place.

After a person enters the detention center, after the body is locked in a cell, time basically stops. But even if time stops, thinking doesn't stop. Ed smoked a cigarette and turned his brain. He was thinking about all the shit that had happened tonight—he had been commissioned by Madame Bean's old enchantress to come to this unfamiliar Barblair beach in search of the old enchantress's nasty and precious young domestic servant—he really didn't know what was so good about that girl that made this savage old lady so important—he wandered around here for many circles, and at last he found a clue, and at last some charismatic old-fashioned bastard said he knew the man he was looking for. It was supposed to be such a happy thing, but the old thing acted as if the Adele he was looking for was some very sensitive person, and had to drag him to another place to tell him what he wanted. Thinking about it now, he didn't have a tough attitude at that time, like Marcy, and told him to hurry up and say whatever he needed on the spot, don't grind and chirp, nonsense, it was really a huge mistake, but even so, no one would have thought that he would collapse as soon as he got up and turned his head. And the name that the young man mentioned before he fired the gun...... The Donfrie Family...... Why did you make Ed so upset?

"Don Fried...... Golden Sailing ...... Dark Paradise. ”

Thoughtful in his mouth, Ed chewed on the small cigarette butt of a cigarillo, put his hands behind his head, and lay down on the bed, his eyes as hazy as the rising white smoke. Then he heard the guards knocking on the door of his cell, loud and loud, as if he was deliberately mentioning his spirit in passing to get Eddard's attention.

"Someone is looking for it. Detective Duroc. The guard said, unlocking the door and leaning his head and half of his body inside, "Put out the smoke and don't leave it on the ground." ”

Ed got up and glanced at the guard with a frown. This wasn't to say he was emotional, of course, but it was simply a headache, because of the few glasses of wine he had drunk that night—he felt that he really had to work on his drinking powers, and asked Marcy what the secret of a thousand glasses of alcohol was another day—he threw the cigar butt down the toilet and flushed it, and followed the guard out of his cell. The guard still had his belt in his hand, and he put it back on as he went, finally no longer having to walk with his pants on. He's got a thin waist.

Old Duroc was waiting for Ed in the reception room. The building of the Babloer Beach sub-bureau is a bit of a homely compared to the city bureau headquarters, but the scenery is good, it happens to be built on the seaside, it is an authentic sea-view room, a large sea-view room - if this place is exclusive to a person, then it is absolutely cool - even if it is not yet dawn, the sky is still dark and thick, Ed can see the bright neon light on the sea outside through the window.

It's not hard to understand at all. Since Bablore Beach is one of the few coastal towns in Stuttgarh, water business naturally accounts for the majority of the local economy and trade. What Ed sees from afar now is the lights of several giant oil tankers that dock at the shores of the Bablore Inland Sea all year round - in fact, they are cruise ships, and they are serious entertainment industries, but anyone with a discerning eye knows that they are a few super-casinos on the sea in the cloak of legality, and the daily flow of money in them can almost dye the waters of the Bablore Inland Sea bright yellow, and you can sift out the golden sand with your teeth with a sip.

And the one in charge of all the local maritime business is the Golden Sailing Family. This dark organization, one of the three super crime groups to which Bablair belongs, firmly controls all water-related trade in Bablair, and is the absolute overlord of the Barblair Inland Sea.

Ed's expression became a little strange at this moment. Although he knew that it was none of his business, he was still a little curious - what kind of feeling would a tough and stubborn guy like old Duroc feel when he looked out of the window of his place of work every day at such a scene on the sea outside. It's funny to think about.

He sat down while lewd in his heart. He looked up and saw the old detective sitting across from him with his fingers crossed, looking at him with his eyelids drooping and his face gloomy, like an entomologist looking at a monkey tied to a tree waiting to be slaughtered.