Ed had refused to have a gun. This is evident from the fact that he was bare-handed and unarmed for a few months in Stuttgard.

Documentation is not critical. Every private investigator in Stuttgar can carry a gun as long as he has a license. Stuttgar's private detective license itself has the effect of a gun license, as long as you register it with the relevant authorities, everything is fine, there is nothing to worry about - but Ed does not use a gun because of this.

In the past years, the gun was Ed's most familiar companion, his most solid support on the battlefield most of the time, and the benefactor who had saved his life countless times. When he was a mercenary in his previous mercenary days, there was a joke in almost every legion - "When everyone betrays you, only a gun can be faithful". Now that I think about it, this sentence is really the most plausible nonsense that those of them have invented.

Ed didn't want to use a gun, precisely because he was too familiar. He came to Stuttgard, to this civilized city under a civilized society, so that he could start a new life, a new life that was different from the past. He still remembers the phrase - "the war is over" - the war is fucking over! At least the war and the battlefield that Ed was familiar with had completely ceased to exist, and it was completely wiped out in the starry sky. So good, good, let him go through the past, and then it's time to look forward.

And the gun—the gun, each time takes Edra back into the past. He couldn't forget—how could he forget—the darkness that accompanied the guns, from which he should have come out, but it was much more difficult than he had imagined.

He'd fired a gun in Stuttgard many times so far—certainly not as much as he had on the interstellar battlefield, but it was more than he could have imagined. He imagined his new life in the peaceful city, but he didn't need to shoot so many times. He originally thought that the problem was with him, but now he saw clearly that he did have a problem, but he was not the only one who had the problem.

He had only one problem, and that was to think he had fled the battlefield – when in fact he had only fled the battlefield he knew, and now he was in the middle of another war, another war in which he was temporarily familiar with the rules. If he wants to live on his own terms in this war, he must be renewed - to hold the gun in his hand again!

That's what he thought, and that's what Marcy and Shiro suggested to him. Since Susan's incident, Ed has now really had a bit of a fun connection with the huge organization of the Imperial Council level of the underground criminal empire in Stuttgar, and the relationship between the two is now very delicate, and it is not strange that you don't do it for 10,000 years, but if you do, it is not strange that your ashes will be scattered on the same day.

Ed actually felt a little funny. Because if. If X really wanted him dead, it wouldn't be much use for him to have a small gun, but it was better than nothing.

But at the same time, this incident also aroused Ed's anger a bit. He took the initiative to introduce Tilo, bought a pistol model that met his requirements from the underground black market, and then asked Marcy to help complete the registration at the police station - because the type of pistol Ed was very uncommon, not to mention some do-it-yourself modifications - he maintained a gloomy mood for a long time, reminiscing about the past years, finding the state that had been discarded by himself, and trying to make himself the cold-blooded, perfect self he once was, and back to the self he needed now.

There are two interesting things - one is that Ed realizes that he can't do it at all. He could no longer go back to the past, to the past, to the state he was familiar with. He has completely become another person, another him...... A little strange, a little irritable, a little annoying, but he couldn't get rid of a guy he didn't know. And this guy, although he is not familiar with it, he finds that Marcy and Albert and Eliqi and even the tithing that Luo is familiar with are the same guy, not his old self.

Another interesting thing is that he found that his group of people seemed to be purely unfounded. For more than two months in a row, whether it was Susan or . X, all of them didn't move at all. Susan's situation was the same as Marcy had predicted, as if the world had evaporated, and there was no news. Although Tia Luo ostensibly returned to his practice and resumed his normal and uneventful life as a doctor, Ed knew that she had investigated more than once and had achieved nothing so far, and although she herself seemed to have expected this, she did not seem to be ready to stop. Ed had talked to her again, and the answer she gave Ed was very clear.

"I'm going to see her again," she said, "one last time—and then I'll let it go." ”

And then there was no then. Ed knew that he couldn't get Tilo to figure it out or make any concessions on Susan's matter, and the only way for her to move forward was to untie the knot in her heart, and the only way she could untie the knot in her heart was to meet Susan again, talk again, and make everything clear, and then she could say anything else, and then she would not let go of what she said.

. X's movements were as quiet as Susan's. In fact, this is not difficult to understand in retrospect, and the current situation is that anyone with a discerning eye can see that Susan is. The relationship between the two can even be described as inextricably linked, and it is not as simple as ordinary subordinate employers and employees. This has aroused the interest of a lot of people, including Albert – a lot of people – and this is clearly not. X is willing, and that's one of the reasons why they've let Susan not hear from her in recent times. And if they do it again at this time, it will be tantamount to shooting themselves in the foot, and there will definitely be more people who are interested in Susan's affairs, and there will definitely be more trouble.

In particular, the identities of Ed and Shilo are very troublesome. Needless to say, both her personal abilities and her connection to the Black Table made people very reluctant to touch her. You must know that the Black Table is the same as the Blood Duke Albert, the Owl, and. X himself, like himself, is one of the five incumbent member organizations on the twelve seats of the Empty Court, and the five major organizations must be careful not to cause any friction with each other, because there are too many political factors in the dark world, and if the member organizations of the Empty Court, as the supreme authority, are unstable with each other, it will cause turmoil in the entire underground kingdom.

As for Ed, it's even more toothache in some ways. He had nothing but a small ex-Foreign Legion mercenary - there were thousands of such people everywhere in the stars - but Marcy's presence made him as hot as a red-hot nail. But anyone who knows and knows Ed knows that he and Marcy are close, and that's not a good thing for the gangsters. Gangsters can't do anything to the police, absolutely not, otherwise they're causing big trouble for everyone. For those who act on their own, the first to sanction them will be their own people, their immediate superiors.

Marcy may not have a high position in the police industry, but she is not a small celebrity, and she also has "good relations" with senior executives at all levels - anyone who knows a little about her story knows that she has confronted more than one boss more than once in just a few months since she arrived at Stuttgard, and she has won every time. She is a living iron pepper, tough and irascible, and few people have ever bargained for her hands. And such a person, if. X has taken action on her only close friend, so you can imagine how she will react. With her character and her influence in the police community today, . X will undoubtedly have a solid drink - they will definitely settle this matter eventually, but until then, they will have a solid drink. And this is not worth the loss, and it is not good for business at all. It's a loss-making business.

It was Albert who helped Ed figure it out. He laughed dumbly when he learned about the consideration of Eddard and Marcy and the others, and took a moment to explain to Ed a little bit of the doorway, telling Ed that his current situation was unless he continued to be blatantly opposed to Shilo. X and Susan chased after him, otherwise he would normally be fine - what Tithro did, she could do it herself, but if Ed wanted to learn, he wouldn't say it was death, but it was pretty much the same. The reason for this is simple, because Ed is not a tithe—the two are right. The portion size is completely different for X.

So Ed relaxed, started his work again, and resumed his daily work. And then he ended up here today, in a nightclub on Babloer Beach, one of the six coastal towns in the heart of Stuttgard. He found himself gradually becoming familiar with everything new and old-fashioned around him.

Sitting back on the barstool, Ed bowed his head, elbowed the bar, and played with his fingers. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but Red Tie just came back at this time, holding a tray in his hand, which was the wine that Ed wanted, as well as tonic water.

He put them down in the same way, very carefully. He always had that screaming plastic smile on his face, and he couldn't fault it perfectly. It was as if he had met Ed for the first time today, as if nothing had happened between the two of them before, and he nodded politely to Ed and then turned around and walked away, at a fast pace.

Ed amusedly watched the back leave, sticking out his tongue and licking his lower lip. His gaze fell back to the cloudy wine glass in front of him, which he had spent a large bill for, and was about to stretch out his hand, when suddenly someone moved faster and snatched a glass first.

Ed blinked, turned his head, and saw the man half-pour his gin with orange juice in one gulp, and then squirt it all out again at once—all over his face.