The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 219: Youth

The dim, blackish light from the oil lamp by the door spilled into the dark room beyond. Inside stood countless rusty iron shelves, along with a desk and chair near the entrance.

The cabin had clearly been abandoned for a long time. The black substance covering the floor resembled the surface of a swamp—it wasn't dry, yet it held no footprints.

Lu Li's gaze swept over the empty shelves before he headed for the desk by the door, leaving a fresh trail of footprints behind him.

Lu Li pulled the drawer's handle.

Creak.

The drawer was empty.

A key couldn't open an empty door.

Following the logic of a locked-room puzzle, Lu Li let his eyes wander, scanning the dark corners of the cabin. His attention landed on a coat rack by the door.

A hat hung on the rack.

He walked around the desk, approached the rack, and lifted the hat from its peg. Its original light-gray color was completely obscured by a coat of the ubiquitous black substance, rendering it pitch-black.The hat seemed to be the only object in the cabin.

Making a mental note that the rack and chair might also prove useful, Lu Li left the room.

There were no other exits in this corridor. The other doors were locked; no shadows could be seen behind them, and the key didn't fit.

Only the door at the far end of the hall would open. It revealed a narrow staircase leading down.

Lu Li could see vines clinging to the walls below, and nestled among them were eyes with slitted vertical pupils. After watching in silence for a moment, he shut the door, unwilling to venture into such an unknown.

Returning to the previous corridor, to the door of the repair crew's cabin, he noticed several small heads peeking out from the slightly ajar door. When they saw him, they immediately ducked back inside.

Lu Li walked past. Several pairs of eyes were still watching him from the crack.

"Grrr!" a voice suddenly called from behind the door. A thin arm shot out from the opening, pointing directly at the hat in Lu Li's hands.

The other shadow-repairmen saw the hat as well. A piercing clamor of voices erupted.

"Grrr! Grrr! Grrr!"

The door swung wide, and the shadow-repairmen crowded the entrance, their gazes fixed on the hat with something akin to reverence.

Lu Li stopped and, after a moment's thought, held the hat out to them.

"Grrr..."

The shadow-repairmen exchanged glances, and one of them was shoved forward. It timidly extended a thin hand and took the hat from Lu Li.

"Grrr! Grrr!"

The other shadow-repairmen cried out in delight and swarmed around the one holding the hat.

Amidst a piercing clamor of voices, the hat was passed from hand to hand. Each shadow that put it on began to jump and shout with joy.

They celebrated for quite some time, but when the hat reached one particular shadow, its mood suddenly shifted.

"Grrr..." it muttered, pointing at the hat.

"Grrr, grrr..."

Whether it was because of its words or something else, the mood of the other shadows soured as well. They stared at the hat with a kind of regret, as if something were missing.

The hat...

Realizing what was wrong, Lu Li briefly left the repair crew's cabin. He returned a minute later with a lock of hair in his hand.

It was the only other item he had that was connected to the hat.

"Grrr..."

The shadow-repairmen carefully took the hair from Lu Li. This seemed to be exactly what they needed. They tucked the lock of hair inside the hat and placed it on one of their heads.

The hair fell over its forehead, covering half of its face.

"Grrr!"

The shadows came alive again and began snatching the hat from one another.

Several shadow-repairmen, tools in hand, ran out of the room and soon returned with other shadows.

They had gone to call the others.

They hadn't forgotten Lu Li, who stood by the door. After a hushed exchange, one of the shadows went back into the room and retrieved something from a hiding spot beneath the floorboards.

It was a bottle of clean water. There was no black substance on it, as if it had been wiped clean often.

The water could be used for drinking or washing.

Lu Li accepted the trade. He took the bottle and left.

On his way to the morgue, Lu Li saw more and more shadow-repairmen returning to the cabin, including those who had been kneeling and hammering rivets. For them, the hat with the hair was like a sacred relic.

Click.

Closing the morgue door behind him, Lu Li glanced at the still-motionless locker doors and raised the bottle.

It was a thick-walled, square glass bottle with no label. The shape was practical for storage and kept it from rolling around on the floor when the ship pitched.

Lu Li unscrewed the cap, peered inside, and brought the bottle to his nose. There was no smell—neither strange nor ordinary—but the bottle seemed to exude a sense of freshness.

It was, indeed, water.

Lu Li unwrapped the cloth from his hand and poured a little water onto his palm, washing the black substance from the cut. The dried black mass peeled away, revealing a clean wound beneath. It wasn't swollen or festering; there were no signs of infection.

Lu Li wiped the skin around his eyes with his damp hand, removing the black substance.

Come to think of it, the hallucinations hadn't appeared in a long time. Could it be related to the strangeness of this place?

But as soon as Lu Li opened his eyes again, he was plunged into impenetrable darkness.

Along with the black substance, his strange ability to see in the dark had vanished.

So, that stuff was what allowed me to see...

Lu Li whispered to himself. Suddenly, his heart clenched as if in a vise. His own breath returned to him, cold and reeking of fish. Someone was watching him in the darkness, muttering incomprehensibly. The whispers echoed through the grim morgue.

The curse of the Night Calamity had returned.

And with it came the hallucinations caused by his plummeting Mind Level.

For a moment, Lu Li's body froze, but he instantly raised his hand and smeared the black substance back onto his eyelids.

The whispers and the cold, fishy smell vanished. Lu Li opened his eyes, and his vision returned. Once again, he could distinguish the shades of black all around him.

This strange black substance protected Lu Li not only from the shadows but also from the darkness and the hallucinations.

Lu Li screwed the cap back onto the nearly full bottle and placed it in a locker near the door.

The water needed to be used for something else—at least, not like this.

After stowing the bottle, Lu Li left the cabin again.

He needed to trade for another pair of shoes.

Back in the corridor, Lu Li saw the shadow with seven or eight tentacles trailing from beneath it. It was easy to recognize.

A snippet of plaintive muttering reached Lu Li. As he drew closer to the octopus-shadow, he saw it clutching one of its tentacles. A rivet was sticking out of the floorboards nearby.

Lu Li remembered the shadow-repairmen who had run off.

The octopus-shadow had refused to trade the shoes earlier, but perhaps now... it would reconsider.