Chapter 25 : Preparation

“Is this what you meant by ‘helping’?”

On another street in Sinhe, Rachel looked at the three people in front of her with a gloomy expression, letting out a disgruntled “tsk.”

“I think this is indeed useful,” Andrew said.

“Dress me up like a tart to seduce Blake Morton? Is this really useful?”

Rachel looked down at her outfit—a sky-blue, backless halter dress, semi-transparent white thigh-high stockings, and matching white, high-heeled peep-toe shoes.

These clothes were just bought at the nearby mall, chosen for her by Diana.
As for her original clothes, they were all stuffed into a bag and carried by Yuhui.

“These stockings feel so thin and sheer. What denier did you buy?” Rachel pinched the stocking on her thigh.

“12 denier,” Diana answered truthfully.

‘Feels like… there’s a lot exposed,’ Rachel silently raised her hand to cover her chest.
The dress was very daring, so much so that her “career line” was completely exposed.

“Hey, I don’t think I can handle these high heels,” Rachel tried to take a few steps, feeling her center of gravity was a bit unstable.
Her feet moved cautiously, like an old person with a cane, stopping every half step.

“How long is this heel? 8cm? Or 10cm? I can’t take it anymore!”

Rachel didn’t like high heels.
It had been a year since she had become a woman, but she had never tried wearing high heels in that year.

Rachel didn’t deny that after becoming a woman, she had also tried to dress herself up and make herself more charming.
After all, her sexual orientation had always been women, so it wasn’t incomprehensible to dress up to please herself and gain some vanity.
But she had always disliked wearing high heels.

On the one hand, high heels were very inconvenient to move in, all show and no go.
On the other hand, she had once read in an article that women who wore high heels for a long time experienced less pleasure during lovemaking.
This statement had made Rachel extremely averse to high heels ever since.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. To catch the ‘Arsonist,’ we have to trouble you a bit,” Diana apologized.

“Wait a minute, I understand you don’t know, but Yuhui, you should say something. Have you forgotten that I’ve confronted Blake before? He and I, the two of us, face to face in a confined room! How could he not recognize me?”

“It’s precisely because you’ve met him that you need to disguise yourself to cover up your appearance. I need to do the same,” Yuhui explained.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Andrew said.
“Diana will do some makeup for you to give you a new look.”

“Disguise?” Rachel was stunned.
“Is it reliable?”

“You can rest assured about that too,” Andrew said.
“Considering that a magical disguise might not work on the ‘Arsonist,’ we will use a more primitive method.”

Andrew continued, “To find the ‘Arsonist,’ we have to risk being discovered by him. A physical disguise is a must. Since that’s the case, we might as well design a look that is more likely to attract him.”

“Wait, what are you going to turn me into?” Rachel took two steps back.
She didn’t want her perfect appearance to be turned into something strange.

“Change it to a look that matches the victims’ characteristics.”

Yuhui held several photos in his hand, each corresponding to a victim.
“So far, these victims are all between 25 and 35 years old, one married, one divorced, all temporarily living alone. Appearance…”

He hesitated for a second, then continued, “Good-looking.”

“Oh… I see,” Rachel said, covering her chest with one hand and her dress with the other, a look of disgust on her face.
“This guy is picky. So he likes that type, beautiful young married women.”

“Maybe he has an Oedipus complex,” Yuhui said noncommittally.

“Shouldn’t it be a preference for married women?” Rachel retorted.
“What does that have to do with an Oedipus complex?”

Yuhui didn’t answer, but instead showed a thoughtful expression, as if he was recalling something.

“Diana will do her best to make you up to match the victims’ characteristics,” Andrew said.

“To put it bluntly, you’re making me ten years older!”

“More or less. You are indeed too young and need some adjustments. Of course, it’s not just your age, but also a certain difference from your original self. At least, the ‘Arsonist’ can’t recognize you as you.”

“One last question,” Rachel raised her hand.
“Sinhe City is a city, no matter how small. Can I really ‘trap’ Blake by myself, strutting around here? Isn’t that too fanciful!”

“Leave the disguise to Diana. As for how to make you appear in the ‘Arsonist’s’ eyes, leave that to me,” Andrew smiled.
“I have a way.”

“You, what are you going to do?” Rachel shivered at Andrew’s slightly sinister smile.

“A little ability of mine,” Andrew took out the book from his coat and opened the brown leather cover.
“We’ve already been to the church in Sinhe this morning. There, we found some undissipated magical traces left by the criminal.”

“I can use these traces to perform a kind of magical ‘replication’ to roughly locate the caster of this magic. But, only roughly.”

“Like a hound,” Rachel whistled in surprise.
“But how did you get into the crime scene without our permission?”

“That’s right, like a hound, it can track the scent of magic. It’s just that my ability is limited and I can’t pinpoint the location.”

“What’s the approximate range?”

“About 30 mu.”

“Twenty thousand square meters…” Rachel roughly imagined the size in her mind.
“Wait a minute, you still haven’t answered me. How did you get into the crime scene?”

“…Don’t mind those details.”

With that, Andrew opened the book on his own and took out two small transparent glass bottles from his pocket.
The bottles contained tiny, bright specks of light, like fireflies in the night.

Rachel glanced at Andrew’s book.
It was completely blank, not a single word, not a single stroke, not even a speck of pigment or ink.
The hundreds of pages of the book were all completely blank white paper.

Andrew pulled out the rubber stopper of the small glass bottle and “poured” the light inside onto the white paper.
Rachel’s eyes widened in surprise—the white paper was “wet” by the light out of thin air, as if someone had poured a glass of water on it.

But Rachel didn’t see any liquid flowing from the mouth of the bottle.
Although what was poured from the bottle was floating light, the white paper was stained by a completely invisible liquid.

The water stain spread from the center of the white paper to the surroundings, quickly soaking the entire sheet.
Andrew reached out and tore off the blank page, and closed the book.
The other pages in the book were not wet.

A few seconds later, golden lines exuding light appeared on the wet paper.
Soon, these lines formed various regular shapes: buildings, streets, a moat, a highway bridge…