Vivian felt like her lungs were about to explode. By the time she followed Cicero to the edge of Concorde Square, her soul was already halfway out of her body.
“I can’t go on…” Vivian leaned against a gas lamp post, doubled over in a thoroughly ungraceful manner. “I’m going to die right here, I swear…”
“There are enough corpses here already. One more won’t make a difference.” Cicero wasn’t even out of breath. Are capitalists and humans really two different species?
Concorde Square was boiling over like a kettle left on the stove.
Police whistles and the screeching of carriage wheels blended together in a chaotic symphony. A few ragged peddlers stood outside the police cordon, loudly hawking wooden trinkets of unknown origin to the crowd.
“Make way! Make way! Police business!” Inspector Jacques bulldozed a path ahead, his twin mustaches bobbing furiously with every shout.
The crowd was forcibly parted, revealing the core of the scene within.
A man lay there.
The victim was dressed in a tailcoat, with a Gold Iris Badge pinned to his chest.
He sat on the stone steps by the fountain, his neck eerily empty.
There wasn’t a trace of blood on his clothes, nor any sign of a gruesome spray around him.
“This is the third one!” Jacques clutched his hair, making his already thinning hairline even more tragic.
“No murder weapon, no witnesses, not even a scream!”
Cicero ignored Jacques’ meltdown. With his cane, he gently lifted the cordon and stepped inside.
Vivian followed, her eyes locked on the headless corpse’s hand—there was a Ruby Ring on one finger that looked like it could fetch a fortune.
If only she could…
“Put away your thoughts of selling evidence.” Cicero spoke without turning his head.
“That’s illegal appropriation. You’ll end up in the Bastille Prison Ruins feeding rats.”
“I’m just conducting a visual appraisal!” Vivian shot back with righteous indignation, then squatted beside the corpse.
Up close, the body looked even stranger.
As a detective novel fan in her previous life, she’d seen plenty of crime scene photos, but this was her first time seeing a head wiped away as if erased by a giant rubber.
The discomfort she felt was quickly overwhelmed by curiosity.
She reached out, wanting to touch the wound.
“Stop! That’s desecrating the dead!” Jacques shouted.
In this era, women were supposed to scream, faint, or cover their noses with a handkerchief at the sight of a corpse—not poke at it as if picking out pork at the market.
“This is data collection, Inspector.” Vivian didn’t even lift her head, her fingers pressing steadily against the smooth cut.
The texture was odd.
Hard, as if a thin shell had been instantly carbonized by extreme heat.
“It’s still warm.” Vivian narrowed her eyes, her mind racing.
“There are no tear marks at the edge, so the weapon must have been extremely sharp, or… moved incredibly fast. And—”
She leaned in to sniff.
Jacques looked like he was about to vomit.
“And what?” Cicero stood nearby, looking down at her.
“There’s a scent.” Vivian wrinkled her nose. “Not blood, and not the stench of a corpse.”
She leaned even closer, her nose nearly touching the charred wound.
“It’s steam. The smell of high-pressure steam scorching cotton.”
Vivian lifted her head, her eyes alight. “And… roses. Damask Rose, mixed with musk and a hint of… machine oil?”
“You’re saying the murderer is some lunatic who irons clothes while spraying perfume?” Jacques felt he’d just heard the most ridiculous deduction of his life.
“Why not?” Vivian stood up and dusted off her hands.
“Maybe our killer’s a lady with high standards, and insisted on giving her victim’s neck a steam bath before the murder.”
“A lady?” Cicero caught the key word.
“That sort of rose perfume,” Vivian pointed to her nose, “I’ve seen it in a shop window on Saint-Germain Boulevard. Two hundred francs for an ounce. The scent lingers and it’s aggressive—only self-assured noblewomen use it.”
She paused, then added, “Of course, if the killer’s some rich cross-dresser, then forget I said anything.”
Cicero raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. He turned, scanning the empty ground around the corpse.
There was nothing—only a few fallen leaves and some pigeon feathers.
“The head?” Jacques was still stuck on that point.
“Even if it was cut off, shouldn’t the head have dropped to the ground? Don’t tell me it grew wings and flew away?”
“Maybe it didn’t fly.” Cicero said calmly, “Maybe… it just doesn’t want to be seen by you.”
“Doesn’t want to be seen?”
Cicero lifted his black cane and tapped gently on the air just above the corpse.
“Ding—”
A crisp sound rang out.
Ripples spread in the air—visible to the naked eye—like a stone tossed into a still lake.
“What was that sound?” Vivian was stunned. She clearly saw the cane strike empty air.
Cicero opened his eyes, a glimmer flashing in their depths. “Some things lose their ‘form,’ but not their ‘location.’”
He drew a circle in the air around that spot with his cane.
“His head is right here.”
Cicero tapped the empty space with a finger. “It’s just that someone took away the Concept of Visibility for this head.”
“The concept… was taken away?” Vivian felt her materialist worldview crumbling.
“Like changing the font color to white in a document?”
“I don’t understand your nonsense jargon.” Cicero shook his head.
He turned to Jacques. “Inspector, have your men seal off this circle. No one enters.”
“Wait a second.” Suddenly, Vivian realized something. “If the head is still there, then how did the wound get steam-burned?”
“If the wound wasn’t instantly carbonized and sealed, blood would have sprayed everywhere, outlining the shape of the head.”
“A perfect crime.” Vivian murmured, “If it was Industrial Technology…”
“Is it possible to achieve such instant, high-temperature, precise cutting with today’s industry?”
“Not with today’s industry, but in the past, it was possible.”
“The past?”
“Before 1789. That was the Alchemical Era—the golden age of alchemy and mechanical engineering.” Cicero turned and walked out.
“Let’s go, Detective. The show’s over here.”
“That’s it? We’re not catching the murderer?” Vivian hurried after him.
“Catching the murderer is the Police’s job. We handle the ‘anomaly.’” Cicero stepped over the cordon; the crowd parted like a receding tide.
“Besides, I know who the owner of that perfume is.”
Vivian’s eyes sparkled. “You know who the killer is?”
“Not certain.” Cicero stopped and glanced back at her.
“But I know a madwoman—she’s the best Femme Fatale Engineer in all Paris.”
“Sounds like a rich lady.” Vivian always had her own focus.
“A dangerous Widow,” Cicero corrected.
“Make sure you add your overtime pay to the invoice. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up—Police Station funds are usually spent on coffee and donuts.”
Behind them, Jacques was still barking orders, directing his men to build barriers around empty air, shouting, “Don’t let anyone in!”
Vivian glanced back at the corpse sitting by the fountain.
The headless Councilman still sat perfectly straight, as if silently delivering a speech in this insane era.
Steam, perfume, a vanished concept.
This world was even crazier than she’d imagined.
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