novelraw Chapter 288: The Clown’s Invitation
Chapter 288: The Clown’s Invitation
That crudely drawn smiling face on the note pierced the bubble of false cheer constructed from alcohol and jazz within the bar.
Lin Jie refolded the note and tucked it into his pocket.
He glanced at the few Swamp Spawn exuding a dangerous aura in the corner, ultimately suppressing the impulse to go investigate further.
The Baroness delivering this "invitation" to him in this manner at this time point made her intention abundantly clear.
This was a commission.
He drained the bourbon in his glass in one gulp, the spicy liquor bringing a sliver of warmth back to his body.
…
Early the next morning, Lin Jie once again arrived at the secret base disguised as a cotton transfer warehouse on the banks of the Mississippi River.
The Baroness was still the picture of languid allure.
She was sitting in a rocking chair, leisurely flipping through a fashion magazine from Paris."Good morning, Mr. Lin." Seeing Lin Jie's arrival, she set down the magazine and greeted him with a smile. "Was last night's 'aperitif' to your taste?"
"The flavor was quite unique." Lin Jie's reply was equally succinct. "I'd like to know the full 'recipe' for this drink."
"I do enjoy dealing with intelligent people." A satisfied smile appeared on Isabella's face.
She retrieved a neatly bound manila file folder, already prepared, from her desk drawer and handed it to Lin Jie.
On the cover of the folder, written in red ink, was a disturbing codename.
—"The Smiling Clown".
"He first appeared six months ago." Isabella began recounting the bloody history behind this codename to Lin Jie.
"The first victim was a Red Sect Voodoo priest who had fled here from Haiti. He was found dead at his own altar, a stiff smile frozen on his face. No signs of struggle were left around him, only an ordinary playing card with a smiling face drawn on it."
"At first, we thought it was just an internal vendetta within Voodoo. But soon, a second, then a third victim appeared in succession."
"An informant on the docks who specialized in providing information to smugglers, a female Voodoo apprentice who had just learned how to make curse dolls, a holy man with minor spiritual sensitivity who had snuck in from the Gulf of Mexico…"
Isabella's tone grew grave.
"…All the victims had one thing in common. They all belonged to the fringes of the inner world. Not strong in power, not deep in background, drifting in the power vacuum zones between the major factions. They were like the weakest, most overlooked herbivores in this dark forest."
"And that Smiling Clown is the predator who has set his sights on them."
"He doesn't steal valuables or pilfer any worthwhile Spiritual Materials. He seems… to simply be enjoying the pleasure derived from the act of killing itself."
"He treats each murder as a piece of 'artistic creation', and that smiling face card is his signature left for the world."
"Last night's Level 7 intelligence informant, Sidney Porter, was the first person from our I.A.R.C. to die by his hand." Finally, a trace of anger could be heard in Isabella's tone. "This is a direct provocation against the New Orleans branch."
Lin Jie listened silently while rapidly flipping through the materials inside the file folder.
Inside were detailed information on each victim, along with realistic post-mortem sketches of the victims' appearances, drawn by the Association's professional Cartographers based on scene descriptions.
Every face in those sketches was twisted by deep muscle spasms into a grotesque, maniacal grin.
"We attempted to hunt him." Isabella continued. "The branch dispatched two teams composed of senior Investigators, but both failed. He moves like a true ghost, with no discernible pattern to his actions, and is very adept at using New Orleans' labyrinthine urban terrain to evade our pursuit."
"It wasn't until a month ago that we managed to roughly piece together his true identity through some special intelligence channels."
She pulled a yellowed promotional poster from the bottom of the file folder.
The poster depicted a clown wearing a ridiculous costume, his face caked in thick greasepaint.
Below, his name was written in exaggerated font—"Signor Geppetto and His Merry Puppet Theater".
"His real name is unknown to anyone." Isabella pointed at the clown on the poster. "All we know is that he was once a low-tier performer in the Barnum & Bailey Circus, responsible for performing 'Punch and Judy' puppet shows."
"According to circus records, he was unsociable, taciturn, and suffered from some severe mental illness. Three years ago, due to an accident, he fell from a height during a performance, breaking both his legs. He was subsequently abandoned by the circus and vanished from everyone's sight."
"We have reason to believe that it was after this that he, through some unknown, chance encounter, unexpectedly obtained a… Grotesque Armament." Isabella's tone became meaningful. "A… terrifying weapon capable of turning his morbid, twisted comedy into reality."
Lin Jie's gaze fell on the last page of the file.
Drawn there was a conceptual sketch of the Grotesque Armament, reconstructed based on the scattered descriptions of a few eyewitnesses.
It was a seemingly ordinary wooden club, about the length of a forearm.
One end of the club was carved into the head of a "Mr. Punch", brimming with absurdity and hilarity, grinning with a wide, laughing mouth.
"[Punch's Comedy Baton]." Lin Jie read the name of this Grotesque Armament in a low voice.
"Correct." Isabella nodded. "That is all the intelligence we currently have on him. A mentally unstable former circus performer harboring hatred for the entire world, a madman who treats killing as a performance and the death masks of his victims as applause."
"And… a Grotesque Armament with unknown effects."
She looked at Lin Jie, her gaze carrying scrutiny and expectation.
"So, Mr. Lin? Are you satisfied with this Bloody Mary I've specially mixed for you? Do you have the confidence to bring down the final curtain on this farce that has already lasted half a year?"
Lin Jie closed the file folder. His facial expression didn't change much, but a spark of excitement ignited within him.
Unlike facing UMAs before, this time he would be confronting a criminal possessing human intelligence, yet endowed with the bizarre power of a UMA.
"I'll wipe that smile off his face." Lin Jie's reply was concise.
That very afternoon, Lin Jie began his first on-site investigation.
The crime scene was located in a back alley behind Bourbon Street, infamous for its bloody history and filthy environment—"Guillotine Alley".
It was said that during the French colonial period, this was where prisoners were publicly executed.
The alley had long been sealed off by the New Orleans police with crude wooden planks and police tape.
But this level of blockade was meaningless to Lin Jie.
He waited until nightfall, easily circumvented the police's line of sight, and silently infiltrated this alleyway saturated with the aura of death.
The faint scent of blood, not yet fully dissipated, still lingered in the alley.
The body of the deceased, Sidney Porter, had already been taken away by Association personnel, but the scene remained preserved in its initial state.
An empty money pouch casually discarded.
Several pools of dried vomit.
And… that twisted smiling face drawn on the damp wall, a mixture of the victim's blood and brain matter.
Lin Jie put on gloves and crouched down.
He focused his gaze on a very inconspicuous corner that most investigators would overlook.
There lay a somewhat deformed, trampled invitation to last night's masquerade ball.
Lin Jie reached out, his fingertips gently touching the dew-dampened slip of paper.
[Reverberation Touch] activated.
Instantly, fragmented memories, mingled with noise and screams, flooded into his mind!
He saw a man of average build wearing a simple domino mask—Sidney Porter—excitedly counting a wad of cash he had just swindled from some Swamp Spawn by selling them fake information.
He saw Sidney Porter staggering out of that underground bar, ready to seek out some higher-class entertainment.
He saw, just as Sidney Porter turned into this dark alley, a figure dressed in a ridiculous clown costume quietly appear behind him.
He saw that Smiling Clown raise the wooden club in his hand and, with a theatrically slow motion, gently tap it against the back of Sidney Porter's head.
Immediately after, Lin Jie's entire mental world was submerged by an irresistible, falsely-colored wave of "happiness"!
Countless streamers and balloons exploded before his eyes!
Melodious circus music rang in his ears!
He found himself in a grand, never-ending carnival!
He saw himself achieving fame and success, saw William fully recovered, saw all his teammates standing at the pinnacle of the world, receiving the admiration and cheers of thousands!
All his deepest, most cherished desires, at this moment, were realized in the most perfect, most unreal way imaginable!
He felt the muscles on his face begin to pull upward uncontrollably, a huge, stiff smile slowly blooming across his features.
He even felt a powerful urge to burst into laughter!
However, just at the moment before his consciousness was about to sink completely into this ocean of sweet poison constructed from false joy—
A clarity, cold as an ocean current from the deep, abruptly surged from the palm of his right hand holding the [Serene Heart]!
This Grotesque Armament, sensing its master was under intense mental contamination, automatically activated its most powerful Zen force field!
Lin Jie's consciousness, on the verge of being swallowed by ecstasy, snapped back to clarity.
"He can actually infect me through the memories…" He gasped for breath heavily.
He touched the stiff smile that hadn't yet fully faded from his face, a sliver of unease towards this unseen Smiling Clown arising in his heart.
This… was his ability.
A murder method capable of directly invading another's brain, stirring their deepest desires, then causing them to "laugh themselves to death" from nervous system overload within extreme hallucinations of happiness!