The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 356: The Death of Vincent

The sound of dripping water echoed through the cramped, damp room.

A barely audible whisper reverberated through the cellar, mingling with Lu Li's dreams, blurring the line between reality and illusion.

Consciousness slowly returned. The distant whispers, the pain in his abdomen, the cold of the wall behind him—it all grew sharper.

Lu Li’s thoughts began to clear. He pried open eyelids that felt as if they had been glued shut. A light source on the wall cast dim rays, and his vision gradually focused.

The ancient voice was silent.

Clank! Lu Li shifted his arm. Something was binding his wrists. With every movement, the clanking of chains followed.

The whispering stopped. His movement had caught the attention of someone else in the cellar.

Anxious, fragmented words reached him. A shadow flickered before his eyes. Having just regained consciousness, Lu Li couldn’t tell who it was or to whom the words belonged.

“Where is Sara?” Lu Li frowned.

“...Sara... took... the body... She didn’t... Rola’s body... with those guards...”The voice and the image slowly came into focus. The butler was sitting beside the baroness, tending to her while simultaneously answering Lu Li.

Bloodstains seeped through the bandages on the baroness’s legs. A soft blanket lay beneath her, protecting her from the cold and infection. Sensing Lu Li’s gaze, her face, twisted in pain, became calm for a moment.

If not for her pallor and missing legs, she looked relatively well.

“How long was I unconscious?” Lu Li asked.

Clank, clank... Lu Li shook his chained hands again. The other end of the chain, driven into the wall, looked flimsy. He could see how clumsily Sara had hammered it in.

“Four hours.”

It was approaching noon.

A cellar in the barn.

Lu Li looked at Anna beside him. The baroness, noticing his glance, winced again in pain.

“You look... different,” Lu Li said, gazing into Anna’s scarlet eyes. An unpleasant chill emanated from her.

“Do... do I?” The cold gradually receded, and the scarlet in her eyes flickered. The redness faded, but like a white towel stained with something, they could never be the same again. A red tint remained in their depths.

And an icy glint.

Anna averted her gaze and muttered, “Perhaps it’s because I’ve become a vengeful spirit...”

“I see,” Lu Li didn’t press further and shifted his gaze to Petra.

An inexplicable bitterness and loneliness washed over Anna. The negative emotions that had subsided with Lu Li’s awakening stirred once more.

“What happened to you and Vincent?” Lu Li asked Petra, who, like him, was chained to the wall. Petra’s forehead was bandaged—a blow to the head had knocked him out, which was why he was here, alive.

Vincent was here too, but in a different state.

In a corner of the cellar lay two mangled bodies: Adam and the exorcist, David.

In the middle of the cellar, several tables had been pushed together to form a long one. Vincent lay on it. His skin had taken on a strange gray hue, and his chest was slashed open—several, perhaps even a dozen, stab wounds.

Petra leaned the back of his head against the wall, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Remember my plan that failed?”

“To plant the bodies on Sara?”

“Yes. I modified it,” Petra said with a bitter smile. “I wanted to kill Sara...”

Their current situation spoke for itself.

“Help me sit up,” Lu Li said to Anna, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Anna’s negative emotions vanished instantly. After a moment’s hesitation, she helped Lu Li lean against the wall.

“Take this,” the butler offered a blanket. Anna took it and tucked it behind Lu Li’s back.

Petra began to recount what had happened after they had split up.

...

“A brilliant idea! Kill the main character in her own story! Are you serious?” Vincent scoffed, glancing at Petra’s bandaged arm. “You even lost an arm!”

“I still have my left one,” Petra replied, raising his healthy arm.

“You idiot! Don’t you get what I’m saying? This insane idea has nothing to do with your arm, because it won’t work!”

Petra looked at Vincent calmly. “Some things you have to do to find out.”

Everyone, including Petra, understood it was madness.

But Petra decided to try anyway.

This was the fundamental difference between the Investigators’ and the Night’s Watch’s approach to anomalies.

“Is it worth it?” Vincent couldn’t understand Petra’s insistence. “You know better than I do how dangerous this plan is.”

“But we have to try. Don’t forget, our client is still in Sara’s cellar. If the baroness dies there, you won’t get your generous reward. Or...”

Petra stared intently at Vincent.

“Are you afraid?”

Vincent fell silent, pacing nervously in the rain. At one point, he stopped, splashing water from under his feet, and asked, “What are you proposing? What’s the specific plan?”

Petra’s plan had two parts. If one failed, the other could proceed.

The first part: Petra, pretending to be weakened by his injury, would get close enough to Sara and try to kill her.

The second part: Vincent was to act if Petra failed.

Vincent was to find the viscount or the guards and tell them about Sara’s actions, so they would rescue the baroness and Lu Li from the cellar.

The viscount was unlikely to kill his own daughter. He would probably call a doctor or lock Sara away.

As informants, they might become the viscount’s targets—he might try to get rid of them to cover up the secret. But right now, any trouble was better than remaining prisoners of the deranged Sara.

The outcome was already decided, for they already knew what had happened.

Petra managed to get close to Sara and drew his weapon, but due to the interference of the ancient voice, Sara miraculously dodged, receiving only a scratch on her arm. Then she knocked Petra unconscious and threw him into the cellar.

Vincent went to the viscount’s study but was intercepted by Sara. She seduced him, led him to the cellar, and, deceiving him with lies, killed him.

Vincent couldn’t resist. The plot demanded that he follow Sara, believe her, and finally, be killed while defenseless.

Petra finished his story.

Lu Li surveyed the cellar again. A fire burned in a corner fireplace, casting out warmth, and several oil lamps illuminated every corner.

Sara had outsmarted them all and locked them in this not-so-dark cellar.