Volume 8 Breaking the Ground] Chapter 18 The Conspiracy of the Orange Core -

Chapter 18: The Conspiracy of the Orange Core

Polstone is a small village located near Clama, south of Paris, where some of the old brick and timber houses still remain unchanged for hundreds of years. In recent years, due to its beautiful scenery and location, many wealthy families in the metropolis have chosen to move here, and many nobles have also expropriated part of the land here for their private estate for their own pleasure. Their villas loom on the edge of the forest, and the prospect of the village is evident with the opening of small merchants, medium-sized shops and later a few petrol stations to meet the needs of the market...... Today, it is a town that has been modernized to a nondescript level.

However, there is still some traditional thing that has been preserved here, and that is oranges. It is home to one of the largest orange plantations in Oak County, and is world-renowned for its production and quality. It's just that the town itself is not very famous, and of course this is a very normal thing. Just like many people who talk about the term "Bordeaux wine" at every turn, talk to you about the aroma of cedar and blackcurrant, the sweetness and crunch of the taste, and the fact that too much red wine will turn garnet red when it is too young, and so on, in general, this kind of person, if you throw him a map of France and ask him to find out where "Bordeaux" is, he will immediately fall into a long silence.

In short, Polstone is a lesser-known place, and oranges are no more attractive than red wine, and although they are cheaper and fresher to buy locally than you would buy them at the supermarket at your doorstep, few people will come to the origin to save a few bucks.

On June 19, Tianyi rented a car, listened to the little songs on the radio all the way, whistled and hummed songs and drove to this town.

You ask him what he's here for? Well, he's here to buy oranges......

If he buys a few hundred catties of oranges and brings them back to Paris to set up a stall, counting the money for renting cars and gas, as well as his own labor, and ensuring that he is not killed by the Paris city management in the process of selling, he will probably be able to make a small profit in the end.

I think after this account is calculated, many people will understand why only large contractors can pick up the first-level wholesale of vegetables and fruits, while ordinary merchants can only batch second, third, and fourth-level goods......

Anyway...... It can basically be judged that Tianyi came to buy oranges because he planned to eat them himself.

He drove here on purpose, and then returned to Paris, took a few pounds of oranges back to his hotel room, and then went to return the car, as if he had bought something unsightly.

Because he woke up late, it was already nine o'clock in the evening when he finally returned to the hotel that day to face the large pile of oranges on the table.

"Ah...... Troublesome fruits. Tianyi grabbed an orange and said to himself, he hated fruits with seeds and pits, and the type of food that could be completely swallowed by peeling off the skin was the type he liked. Foods like watermelons, grapes, and oranges that you have to bite into bitter seeds or cores and have to spend a lot of effort to spit out something after eating them in your mouth, Tianyi usually refuses to eat them because they are troublesome.

But tonight, as he sat down at his table, he did something very strange, he ate four oranges in a row, very slowly, very carefully, as if he were doing a very important job, and the back and the voice of the chewing were indescribably strange......

............

On the morning of June 20, an apartment building in Paris.

A black man in his forties walked out of the house, and as he did every morning, he went to the first floor to check his mailbox, take out newspapers, throw away garbage leaflets, and prepare to go to work.

But today was a little different, and he saw a yellowed envelope in the mailbox, with no stamps or addresses on it, only his name: Garas Dadan.

He tucked the morning newspaper under his arm, and opened the envelope as he walked out of the building, Garras thought that this should be another trick of some advertisers, and many insurance companies have recently mailed some "invitations" to your door in a decent manner, in fact, they are asking you to attend a symposium with the same content as a sales conference, offer some worthless gifts, and then try their best to sell the insurance to you.

"I don't even have stamps, so it seems that this time I just found someone to stuff it into the mailbox, and even the postage was saved. Garas muttered, opening the envelope. He took out a slightly yellowed piece of stationery, and then he found that there were other things in the envelope, and when he looked closer, those things were about a centimeter long, and the surface was faint yellowish-white, oval-shaped, and clearly orange cores.

"Bastard...... This is disgusting, is it because the employee in charge of delivering the letter at the insurance company was dissatisfied and spit orange kernels in it......" Gallas threw away the envelope, and the hand holding the letter touched the paper with only his index finger and thumb, as if the paper was not clean.

With two fingers in each hand, he carefully unfolded the letter and found that it was written the following words: "Hello, Garas Dadan, this is our first greeting to you, and probably the last, you has crossed our boundaries,.。 ”

Garas froze until the beeping of the car horn and the roar of the driver drove him back to the side of the road.

A few seconds later, a piece of information passed through Gallas's mind, he turned around, trotted a few steps, and like a madman, he dug through the envelope that he had just thrown in from the trash can, the orange cores had already spilled a lot, and there were five left, he looked at the dry and small orange cores, his eyes widened, and the fear in his heart gradually rose......

In the evening of the same day, the Paris police station.

Garras sat in the reception room, glass of water in hand, looking nervous and waiting.

After a while, a middle-aged police officer walked in and sat down across from the desk: "Mr. Dadan, is it?"

Garras nodded, "Yes." ”

"I'm Officer Césaire, hello. ”

"Hello. ”

Cecaire took a registration form and said as he looked at it: "You reported that you were intimidated?"

"Yes, officer. ”

Cezaire took out the letter and envelope that Garas had received in the morning, as well as a transparent evidence bag containing five orange cores.

After putting these on the table, Cezaire said in an official tone: "Sir, are you sure you need to investigate this matter? Did you know that almost every month, we receive several similar reports. In fact, there is nothing to be afraid of, maybe there are a few little hooligans, where you offend them, they pretend to be members of the resistance group, or some kind of racist, and play some little tricks of threatening letters, just to create some psychological pressure on the victims, in fact, they will not do anything, at most they will smash other people's glass, of course, if they do smash it, there are cameras on every street, and we can arrest them within half an hour. ”

"You don't understand, officer! This is the real Ku Klux Klan, no joke!" Gallas said.

"Well, well, Mr. Dardan, why are you so sure?" said Cesaire with a shrug.

"I checked, there were no sender's fingerprints on the envelope or stationery, only mine, and the five orange cores were also tampered with and cleaned......

"Whoa...... Wait, wait, sir. Césaire looked down at the form again, "What the hell do you do?"

"I work at the Louvre, mostly in writing, editing annotations for artworks, or updating materials and explanations for the docents in the museum. Garras replied, "I also do some research and appraisal of artworks, and we have equipment in the laboratory there......"

"So you took the evidence and went to the test?" asked Césaire.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Gallas pulled back the topic of his private use of public property: "Listen, officer, I was also skeptical when I first saw the letter in the morning, but after testing, I am ninety percent sure that this is not a joke, and I, and my family, are in danger, and there is one now!" he said solemnly.

Caire looked at Garas for five or six seconds with a complicated look, and then let out a long breath, "Okay, sir, I'll have to record a detailed confession for you, you wait first." He went out for a while longer and came back with a voice recorder.

"Let's get started, Mr. Dadan. "I'm going to ask you a few questions, and if you think of anything that might help the case, tell me as much as you can." ”

Gallas couldn't wait to say, "First of all, officer, I want to emphasize the seriousness of this matter, you should have some knowledge of the Ku Klux Klan, right?"

"Hmm...... No. Césaire replied unabashedly, without the slightest intention of pretending to understand.

When Garras heard this, he frowned, spread his hands, and put on an expression of disbelief.

In the 22nd century, racial discrimination is an issue that is rarely mentioned anymore, and the most people who hear the name of the Ku Klux Klan know that this organization is related to racism, and those who join such organizations will be discriminated against by everyone......

"Kukluxklan is their name, and it comes from the imaginary sound that resembles a trigger-fired gun. This fearsome secret society was formed by Confederate soldiers who had been defeated after the Civil War in the 19th century, and quickly established chapters throughout the United States, in what was formerly Star County, with the Tennessee, Louisiana, Carolina, Georgia, and Florida states being the most powerful. The Ku Klux Klan used all kinds of terror against the black voters of the time, murdering or expelling those who disagreed with them, in order to achieve their political goals......"

"Okay...... Mr. Dardan. Césaire didn't want to listen to you after so many years on the job, and he interrupted, "That's the end of the history lesson, I know what these guys mean, let's get back to the case." ”

"No! I was about to get to the point. Garras continued: "The problem is the way they carry out their atrocities, and they usually send the hostile person something oddly shaped but recognizable, such as a small leafy twig, a few watermelon seeds, or a few orange pits. It is a warning that the person being warned can choose to abandon his or her views or flee overseas. If left unchecked, they will be killed, often in a strange or unexpected way.

This is the oldest and most orthodox practice, and it was in the twentieth century that the nature of the organization gradually changed, and the members continued to expand, causing them to lose their original rigor and systematization, and similar traditions were ignored. ”

Cezaire looked at the orange core on the table: "Mr. Dadan, maybe it's just because of your understanding of this period of history that you can't help but connect these things, maybe the person who intimidated you just looked up some information about the Ku Klux Klan on the Internet, and on a whim, he used the orange core and imitated it very similarly." ”

Garras said, "How do you explain the fingerprints, and the orange kernels have been processed?"

"So I want to ...... Even if it's just an imitation, this intimidator is not an ordinary person, he is at least a cautious guy, this kind of person can be very dangerous, and it can really threaten the life of you and your family.

So, please don't worry about the identity of the other party, even if it's a tight-knit organization with a long history, we have to find a motive to solve the case. My question is, Mr. Dardan, what do you think has put you in such a dangerous situation? You didn't change your skin color today, you have a family, you haven't lived in Paris for a year or two, why did they send you this time?"

"I don't know...... he didn't think about the question, but he didn't have a very definite answer: "My wife, she's white, we have a good relationship, and we've been talking about having a baby lately...... Could it be ......," he said as he thought.

"Have you told your relatives and friends about wanting to have children?" or have you talked about it in public?"

"We go to the restaurant almost once or twice a week for dinner, it's usually a good restaurant, maybe we talked a few times during the meal, I'm not sure if it will be heard, and besides, my wife may have told her parents, siblings, we both have jobs, and my wife may talk about this when talking to colleagues, which is a very common thing, it's a good thing......"

"But now it seems likely that it will be a reason for racists to get into trouble with you," Sasaire said. ”

"I've never had a violent incident of racism or discrimination, I've only read about it in books. Garras said solemnly: "In my opinion, those are very old history, some things that have been abandoned by human civilization, such as religious massacres, slavery and the like. I really didn't expect that something like this would happen to me today, and I was stupid when I saw that letter. ”

"You have to keep your composure, Mr. Dardan, there's nothing to be afraid of those who send threatening letters, if they are really capable, what you see in the mailbox should be an explosive device, not an envelope with an orange core. "What you need now is to continue to work and live normally, not to let a letter ruin everything, if you live in fear all day long, and the psychological burden is extremely heavy, then you are in the hands of the intimidators."

Tonight, I will send two plainclothes agents to drive an inconspicuous car to your neighborhood to squat, if there is an accident or a suspicious person wandering around, they will be the first to deal with it. In the past few days, you can act as usual, and if there is progress in the case, or if there is any problem, I will take the initiative to contact you. ”

Gallas and Cezaire discussed many more details, about the situation of the plainclothes police officers, what to do in case of danger, and how to ensure the safety of his wife, etc., and Caire explained for a long time before Gallas returned home with a feeling of apprehension.

When Gallas walked out of the police station, just across the street from the Paris police station, a man in a floral shirt and suspenders, a sunhat that covered half of his face, a camera around his neck, a travel magazine and a map of Paris in his hand, stood looking around, and muttering, "Ah...... It took so long to come out, and it seems that I succeeded in convincing the police. ”

Tianyi closed the impurities in his hand and walked forward leisurely, thinking in his heart: This guy is also a cultural person, so he should be able to find clues on Qi Xin...... Fingerprints, orange cores, handwriting, letter paper, if he hadn't found all of them and reported the crime today, these pieces of evidence would have been left behind, but the police might not be able to analyze the message I wanted to convey. Is it time to ramp up intimidation......

"Hey, man. A man's voice rang out beside him.

Tianyi looked back and saw that it was Officer George.

It was no coincidence that he met him at the door of the police station, Tianyi didn't show any unusual expression, although he knew George, he knew that George didn't recognize him, so there was no need to panic at all.

"Sorry, I don't smoke. Tianyi also deliberately changed his accent, and it would seem strange for his tourists to dress up fluently in French English, French Chinese, or simply French.

To explain here, in this parallel universe, the empire has unified languages, and schools around the world have Mandarin and English are taught, both of which are global lingua franca, and minors receiving formal education must be proficient in at least one of them. Generally speaking, if you choose English, it will be more convenient to study science knowledge in the future, and if you choose Chinese, you will be able to study both arts and sciences, and both will naturally be the best. As for other languages, they have become similar to the dialects of various regions, and people's accents will still vary depending on where they were born, but not every local school will systematically teach these unofficial languages.

"Ah, it's fine. George's tone was also very steady, "By the way, may I ask, sir, what are you doing standing on the opposite side of the police station for nearly an hour?"

At this moment, Tianyi's heart instinctively burst out with a word, a thousand words, all in one sentence: Fack!

When George asked, Tianyi had already passed by him, and now Tianyi had two options, the first was to run away, and the second was to turn around and continue to whirlwind.

"Don't you turn your head back for fear that I'll remember your face?" George walked over as he spoke, he took out a lighter himself, and lit a cigarette: "Whew...... I caught a glimpse of you before I left the police station to eat, and when I came back I found you still there, and then I kept an eye on you for twenty minutes. He took a puff of his cigarette: "Are you following the gentleman who just left the police station?"

......