The detective is dead, I did it.

Chapter 29 Helena of the Witch's Guild

"I see. How's work at the mansion? Is it tiring?"

"Actually, it's alright."

For some reason, the adult suddenly adopted a tone more like casual conversation between friends, but Amy still responded immediately, afraid of offending him with her negligence.

After all, the other party could decide one's life or death with just a single word.

In this mansion, the lives of servants are the least valuable.

"It must be exhausting, right? After all, you've got such a fat pig as your owner."

Li Ang's extremely rude words left Amy speechless with surprise.

She had never seen anyone dare to insult Viscount Cavendish in such a way.

Even though the maids loathed each other to the extreme, and even called each other idiots who were worse than pigs in their hearts, none of them dared to say it out loud, not even in casual conversation.

Not knowing how to answer Li Ang, Amy could only keep her mouth shut and remain silent.

After all, she was just a weak, pitiful, and helpless maid. She had no right to interfere in the feuds between such important figures.

"By the way, were all the guards at the manor sent to prison? Is there any chance they'll be able to come back?"

Upon hearing Li Ang say that, Amy's eyes instantly welled up with tears.

Among the dozen or so guards who were unjustly sent to prison and tortured, one was her childhood sweetheart.

The two had agreed to return to their hometown in the countryside to get married after saving enough money, but unexpectedly, on the very first day of their plan, they were sent to prison and their fate was unknown.

Even so, the plan must continue.

Please accept my condolences.

Although Amy didn't say anything, Li Ang could guess what was going on from her suddenly reddened eyes.

He offered a word of comfort and then left to continue searching the mansion.

First, he familiarized himself with the general layout of the mansion. Every maid who passed by would stop and bow in greeting, and Li Ang would then use his ability to scan her.

When he encountered those who helped him, he would take the initiative to talk to them for a few minutes, and then he discovered a certain pattern.

The maids whose prompts ended with the label "assistant" were all relatively young and had been working at the mansion for less than three years.

There are four people in total.

Just in case, he also spoke with the ordinary maids, most of whom had worked there for over twenty years.

This precipitous difference in working hours is highly illogical.

Logically speaking, nobles do indeed prefer older maids who are responsible for cleaning their mansions.

It's not that they have unusual tastes, but rather that these maids are generally more experienced and more hardworking.

They might already have their own families, even children, so no matter how much they are beaten or scolded, they dare not easily give up this job. They are the nobles' favorite lower-ranking maids.

However, these maids can only account for about half of the total number of female maids, which should be about 50/50 with the number of young maids.

Li Ang did not immediately tell Charlotte about his discovery, after all, he had not yet found the real culprit behind it all.

Although he didn't have concrete evidence yet, he had already pieced together a rough outline in his mind: the maids in this mansion seemed to be plotting something, and the cradle girl from the Witch's Guild was the one holding the pawn.

But what exactly is the Witches' Guild? Is it an organization created by witches?

This was the second time he had seen the relevant vocabulary, so he decided to ask Charlotte about it when he got back.

After using his abilities to examine all the maids working in the mansion, Li Ang returned to the garden to investigate the maids working there.

In an inconspicuous corner stood a maid.

Wearing a black and white uniform, with a white apron tied meticulously, and a white headscarf covering all her hair except for a few strands of golden hair peeking out from behind her ears.

In front of her was a clump of roses that had already finished blooming. In her hand, she held a pair of gardening shears and was bending over, intently pruning the dead branches.

Her movements were skillful and her cuts were neat, but Li Ang noticed that some of the dead branches she cut were not completely dead, and fresh sap was seeping from the cuts.

So Li Ang walked towards the other person.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel, but the maid didn't look up, continuing to prune the withered branches with focused concentration, as if she hadn't noticed anyone approaching at all.

As Li Ang walked up to her, a prompt appeared above her body:

Helena, the fourteenth pillar of the Witches' Guild, Cradle Maiden, Sequence 7. Abilities: Declaration of Crime, Shapeshifting, Alchemy.

The fourteenth pillar of the Witches' Guild, a Sequence 7 ability user.

Judging from the opponent's abilities, none of them seemed to be related to combat. However, Li Ang did not dare to be careless and instead focused his attention on actively approaching the opponent.

The other maid didn't seem any different from the others. If it weren't for the prompt that only he could see, he would have thought she was just an ordinary garden maid.

"These flowers aren't blooming very well," Li Ang said casually, leaning closer to the other person.

Helena's hand paused slightly, then she continued cutting, and with a "snap," a dead branch snapped off.

"Yes." Her tone was very respectful, with the demeanor expected of a junior maid when facing a customer. "There's been a lot of rain this year, and the roots have been soaking."

"Roots?" Li Ang took a step forward, bent down, and glanced at the roots of the rose bush.

The soil surface was covered with a layer of freshly sprinkled wood ash, so there was nothing unusual about it, and he didn't know much about floral art either.

"The soil isn't good either," Helena added, keeping her head down to avoid meeting Li Ang's gaze. "The soil underneath is all lime. The roots can't get down there."

"Lime?" Li Ang frowned.

Even he knew that lime shouldn't be placed under the soil in the garden unless it was to hide something, so he first used lime as a base, then covered it with a layer of soil before planting the flower bushes.

“It’s the same old problem.” Helena cut off another withered branch and placed it on the neat pile of broken branches at her feet. “Many things in this mansion are like this. The flowers don’t grow well, not because the soil is bad, but because someone deliberately mixes lime into the soil to prevent the flowers from growing too well.”

Li Ang remained silent. He sensed a hidden meaning in her words, but he wasn't sure what she was trying to say.

Li Ang watched as she arranged the withered branches one by one. Her movements were fine, except that her fingers were long and slender, without the calluses that other maids usually have.

"Have you been here a long time?" he asked.

"It's been two months, guest."

Li Ang nodded. "So what did you do before?"

"My family used to make perfume, and I have a younger brother. But my father went bankrupt and committed suicide, and my mother also died for love. So, with nowhere else to turn, I had no choice but to come and work at the Viscount's mansion."

This answer is flawless.

Perfume merchants are generally very wealthy, and their children don't need to do any work, so their hands naturally stay in good condition.

In addition, the other party had only recently entered the mansion and was doing relatively easy work such as gardening maid, so it was understandable that she didn't have calluses on her hands.

Unfortunately, Li Ang saw through her from the very beginning.