Chapter 69: Chapter 62: One Million Pounds

The morning was foggy in Birmingham City. Pedestrians on the street couldn’t see each other, as if walking through a sea of clouds.

"Boss, a copy of the latest *Birmingham Times*."

At the newsstand, the customer tossed out one krona. The vendor gave the forgettable-looking customer a glance, slid a newspaper over, and the customer grabbed it and left.

(One krona: twenty-five pence, circulation ceased in 1990.)

He stopped at a small breakfast shop on the street, buying a classic, dry English breakfast of dark bread and black tea.

As he ate, Baron listened to the morning news being read aloud in the shop—a report on "yet another robbery in the quaint city of Birmingham. A Lloyds Bank armored truck was hit, with the amount totaling as high as one million pounds, and the whereabouts of the robbers and the loot have yet to be found."

From his past life to the present, Baron had always maintained the good habit of reading the newspaper.

In his past life, he read the paper mainly to keep up with major world events. Even if those events had little to do with him personally, he always felt that knowing more was better. ’Who knows when it might be useful?’

Now, his motives for reading the paper were a bit different. Besides reacquainting himself with the current global situation, he was also looking for news that could potentially threaten his personal safety.

For example, today, he learned from the newspaper that Lankao had honored his oath and pleaded guilty, admitting that he was the legendary murderer, the Blood Biter, who had created a major stir on the Outer Side (and the Inner Side).

Not only did he kill Eleanor’s family, but he also confessed to the other cases.

The news also had a story about the victim, Lady Eleanor. It said that because of her family’s death, she had become mentally unstable and had dug up their bodies from the cemetery...

A passerby happened to see this bizarre scene through a window and was frightened enough to call the police. Who knows what kind of psychological scar it left on him.

However, it was worth noting that the reporter who wrote the article had also left a special comment under the section about Lady Eleanor, saying:

Lady Eleanor’s family had died in a car accident six years ago. He remembered covering the story on-site at the time.

Writing this story again felt surreal, so he went to look for old newspapers from that year.

But for some reason, all of them, including the publisher’s original drafts of the accident report from that year, had disappeared. It was as if it had all been a dream that never happened. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Anyone with old newspapers from that year is asked to please call. A reward is offered. The number is xxxxxx...

Baron was silent for a moment. He closed the newspaper, hailed a taxi on the street, gave a destination, and left.

...

Next came Birmingham’s rainy season. The rain was nonstop. Gray rain clouds rolled in from the sea to the west, pouring tens of millions of tons of water down upon the city of steel and industry.

The taxi stopped in a puddle by the roadside. Baron got out and paid 4.5 pounds for the five-mile trip.

It was worth noting that in 1987, the base fare for a taxi in the United Kingdom was four pounds, with an additional ten pence for every 1/3 of a mile (approximately 0.54 kilometers).

This also meant that it would have been impossible for Baron’s previous taxi ride to have cost only three pounds.

Following his memory, Baron entered an apartment building and stopped before apartment 6 on the 5th floor.

This was his predecessor’s home on the Outer Side.

As expected, the door was sealed with police tape, making it impossible to enter.

But considering the police on the Outer Side had probably already dropped the warrant for his arrest, unless there were members of the Law Enforcement Organization inside, theoretically, Baron entering now wouldn’t be considered breaking and entering.

He gripped the doorknob, his Golden Eye flashing, and listened for any movement inside the room. After confirming no one was standing guard, he tore off the seal and entered.

He was slightly apprehensive as he entered, cautiously looking around. He left the door ajar behind him for an easy escape.

Perhaps because the rented room was small, its layout was clear at a glance. After pausing in place for about a minute, Baron was fairly certain no Law Enforcers were lying in wait.

’Probably because I was either fleeing or being hunted, and in the end, everyone must assume I’ve already been judged by the Time Death Judgment.’

Baron let out a long sigh of relief. This meant he had plenty of time to search for information about the Inner Side left behind by his predecessor.

Lankao’s mention of "Dissociative Identity Disorder" had, after all, caught his attention.

Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as DID.

It’s a condition where an individual exhibits two or more distinct and independent personality states. Each personality has its own unique memories, behavioral patterns, and even physiological reactions (such as allergies).

A typical symptom is ’fragmented memory loss’ during personality switches, such as being suddenly unable to recall a period of time, or discovering objects or traces of actions that seem unrelated to oneself.

Baron was surprised to realize that if he wasn’t absolutely sure he had truly lived for twenty-eight years in another world—and that he hadn’t experienced any blackouts since transmigrating and starting his life on the run—

then his status as a Transmigrator perfectly fit the symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Now that Baron thought about it, everything had been strange ever since he transmigrated.

The most significant point was the memory loss, which forced him to rely on reading the diary left by his predecessor to understand his situation at the time.

’But now that I think about it, I have to ask, what kind of respectable person even keeps a diary?’

’But what if the diary wasn’t meant only for the writer’s own eyes?’

Ever since learning about the Blessing of Suffering from Lankao, Baron couldn’t stop thinking.

’Had his predecessor known about the Dissociative Identity Disorder all along, and purposely left that diary to remind his ’other’ self of what to watch out for?’

’And in turn, would that ’other’ self also leave another diary on top of that, to remind the original self of what he had done?’

’Or perhaps... were there hidden clues left in his predecessor’s diary?’