The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 550: Best Friends

After Lu Li and Anna left the church with the priest, a luxurious carriage bearing the Levais family crest pulled to a stop at the cemetery entrance.

Viscount Levais, accompanied by his daughter Mary, entered the church. Their figures seemed to be enveloped in a soft light.

"I've fulfilled your request. Could you answer my questions now?" Mary asked gently, looking intently at the silhouette in the confessional.

But only silence answered her, which couldn't help but disappoint the girl.

Viscount Levais stepped aside and spoke to a nun, inquiring about the priest from the confessional. The nun, looking puzzled, replied that there had only ever been one priest at the church, and the confessional hadn't been used for quite some time.

Left without an answer, the viscount thoughtfully returned to his daughter, but then he strode decisively to the side of the confessional and flung open the wooden door.

An empty confessional met his gaze; there was no one inside.

"There's no one there," he pronounced.

"Are you familiar with this handwriting?" Mary asked, pulling out the folded sheets of rough paper. But her hand suddenly froze.

She realized the pages were completely blank, as if not a single line had ever been written on them.The viscount took the sheets from his daughter's hand. There were no marks on them at all, just blank paper, as if they had been that way from the very beginning.

"This is certainly no simple, naive trick for the congregation," Viscount Levais thought.

"All the writing is gone..." Mary whispered, her shoulders slumping in disappointment.

"But such phenomena are never random... Perhaps, one day, you will appear in this world again?" the viscount murmured thoughtfully.

Just then, a man burst into the church, jolting the viscount and Mary from their reflections.

A priest in a cassock ran up to Mary excitedly, holding a pack of cigarettes.

A priest behaving this way toward a girl in a wheelchair was a strange and bewildering sight, until he spoke:

"He asked me to give this to you. And he said that smoking won't cure your worries," the priest relayed.

...

On a bustling street, Anna leisurely pushed Lu Li's wheelchair toward the city center.

"Why didn't you let me handle those thugs?" Anna asked. She could have easily controlled them and made them retreat.

Sometimes, being a mere observer wasn't as simple as it sounded. The nameless girl who had taken refuge in the church was now being pursued. When the thugs burst in after her, Anna's black cloak drew their attention and suspicion, but it amounted to nothing more than a minor nuisance.

Anna could have handled them all without any trouble, but Lu Li had simply removed his holstered pistol and placed it on the bench beside him.

Now that an exorcist was involved, everyone knew what that unusually shaped flintlock—a Spirit Gun—signified. The thugs didn't dare approach, giving the room a cursory glance before leaving.

"Otherwise, we would disrupt things," Lu Li explained.

"And what would happen if we did interfere?" Anna inquired, a hint of interest in her voice. This brand of "fatalism" clearly intrigued her.

"Logically, it's like a machine," Lu Li explained calmly. "As long as all the gears turn correctly, the system works. If one of them breaks, the rest stop too."

In truth, it was far more complicated than that.

"How amusing..." Anna murmured. Everything that had happened today made her think of fate as a tapestry of fine threads—some straight, some tangled, all interwoven. They could be altered, especially from above, where the slightest twitch could cause immense changes below.

What if one could manipulate them...

After they had traveled some distance in silence, Anna spoke again. "This whole story started the moment we arrived in Typhoon. Isn't that a coincidence?"

Lu Li shook his head. "That doesn't matter."

In any case, everything that was happening was merely the whim of some entity.

Fortunately, based on Lu Li's past experiences, this entity bore no hostility toward him or humanity in general. In fact, it seemed to deliberately avoid harming him. Instead, it had simply placed a small beetle inside his little house as a "reward."

Lu Li hadn't been frightened like the other ants. Following the scent of food, he had made his way to his house and received his gift.

As he was lost in thought, the Typhoon police station came into view ahead.

Inside, Lu Li identified himself and asked for permission to visit the Ripper.

Viscount Levais and his daughter had recently visited the prisoner as well, so the police officers led Lu Li and Anna to the underground cells without hesitation. They were clearly wary that such a notorious criminal might have ties to anomalies.

At the far end of the cold, damp prison, Lu Li saw John Peters shackled in heavy iron chains.

The man stood with his back to the bars, his figure swaying slightly.

He was quietly humming a sinister nursery rhyme that radiated a palpable sense of danger.

One of the guards rapped his club warily against the bars, sternly telling him to be quiet.

John Peters turned around slowly. His face was sullen and detached, completely indifferent to his surroundings.

It was clear this was his true nature, and recent events had merely given him license to stop hiding it.

The guard left them alone for a moment, leaving only Lu Li, Anna, and John Peters in the cell.

"Who are you?" John Peters asked, sizing up Lu Li. But his gaze quickly darted to Anna's dark silhouette, and his pupils contracted. He instantly looked away.

An animal instinct screamed at him that the girl in the black cloak was more dangerous than a sharp knife held to his eye.

"The one who started it all," Lu Li replied, watching the prisoner intently. "Where is the old book?"

"Let me out, and I'll give it to you," he offered.

"Impossible," Lu Li replied calmly.

Unlike ordinary people, John Peters was a predator by nature, devoid of sympathy or emotion. Only Mary had awakened something human in him, and she was the one who had sent him to prison.

"Let me be frank: I doubt a book like that would interest people like you," John Peters said. He used the plural "you" deliberately, subtly sensing that Lu Li wasn't the only unusual person here. His insight surpassed that of many exorcists.

"I just want to help a girl," Lu Li said simply.

"Mary?" A flicker of emotion entered his voice, surprising Anna, who had expected him to hate the girl. Instead, John Peters's tone became desperate. He practically scrambled toward the bars, his chains rattling against the floor. "The book is hidden in a box under my bed! Please, help her become herself again!"

"I'll do my best," Lu Li promised.

Having gotten what he came for, Lu Li didn't linger. Anna wheeled him out of the dungeon.

Behind them, the rattling of chains could still be heard, but it was no longer mournful. It was a light, almost joyful sound.

About ten minutes later, the Levais family carriage arrived at the prison.

"Was someone just here?!" the viscount demanded at the entrance, his voice stern and imperious.

A light wind was blowing, and no one paid his question any mind. Only the wind seemed to notice, carrying the sound into the depths of the prison.

A hesitant guard finally answered, "Yes, my lord. A man who introduced himself as an exorcist was here. He spoke with John Peters."

"Which way did he go?"

"I don't know, but he was asking for John Peters's address, so maybe..." the guard faltered.

The viscount nodded, turned, and took hold of Mary's wheelchair, calmly wheeling his daughter outside.

"Goodbye, dear Miss Mary!" a cry suddenly echoed from the depths of the dungeon.

"Farewell, John..." Mary whispered, her gaze falling to the ground.