Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 195 - 195 Fifty-two

195: Fifty-two.

Weird Shadow in the Forest 195: Fifty-two.

Weird Shadow in the Forest Anna carefully knelt in the rain, praying over the char-burnt body.

Her actions somewhat resembled a curious child reaching through the bars of a circus lion’s cage to touch the lion.

There was neither breath nor heartbeat, the body was completely dead.

Anna stared blankly for a while, suddenly remembering she was outside alone, she quickly turned back towards the cabin and passed through the closed wooden doors into the house.

The bright, steady light of the fire brought warmth, dispelling the cold.

Lu Li was tidying up the cabin; he picked up the overturned pots and placed them aside, rearranged the stones around the fireplace, resetting the collapsed fire and added new wood.

Lu Li removed the bedding from the bed, wiped the wooden planks around the campfire dry, and wrapped up the few suspicious pieces of meat, throwing them into a quiet corner of the pot.

“Take the corpse outside and bring some wood back while you’re at it,”

Lu Li said to Anna, as if she had been chased into the cabin.

There were still some remnants of the male owner on the ground in front of the door, and the charred body of a little boy was nailed to the wall.

Although these remains in the house wouldn’t disturb Lu Li, they were somewhat strange; it was better to throw them outside.

The remains of this unknown family of three, which still bore a scent, should scare off certain existences.

“Oh.”

Anna nodded, used her powers to remove the stick from the little boy’s mouth, lifted him up, gathered the fragments in front of the door.

The smaller debris from before had been blown into the corners by the wild wind entering the cabin, so there was no need to bother with them.

A crack opened in the wooden door only for the wind carrying rainwater to push it open wider, causing the light within to flicker.

Anna promptly shut the wooden door; the fire calmed down again.

After all, she didn’t have a physical body and didn’t need to open the door to come back.

Anna tossed the corpse into the woodshed and carried some wood, hastily leaving the pitch-dark woodshed and walking straight through the main door.

“I’m back!”

Anna shouted crisply as she re-entered the cabin.

Bang—Crash—

The door trembled lightly, and with that trembling, there seemed to be something falling outside.

Anna suddenly froze, staring blankly at her empty arms.

Oh?

I clearly remember carrying them in…

Where’s the wood?

After briefly tidying up the cabin, Lu Li walked over to the diary, bent down to pick up the diary whose pages had blown open, and without looking up said, “You are a ghost, the wood is not.”

“Oh…

ehehe.”

Anna chuckled, scratching her head as she turned and floated outside.

She then remembered the door wasn’t open, so she floated back into the cabin, opened the door, picked up the wood scattered at the doorway, and returned inside.

Lu Li tossed the diary to Anna, who had just set down the wood, picked up the damp wood, and placed it around the campfire to dry: “Next time you read a diary, make sure you read all of it.”

“Eh?”

Anna, puzzled, tilted her head, picked up the diary, realized she was holding it upside down, turned it right, and floated to the side of the campfire to turn to the first page of the diary.

[September 13.

My name is Reina, and my mother told me I could write a diary once I learned to read.

I asked my mother what a diary was, and she said it’s where you write down things you want to say but haven’t said, I didn’t understand.

So she told me to write whatever.]

The handwriting wasn’t very neat, but the traces left on the paper could make one imagine a little boy sitting at the table, his small hand gripping a quill, carefully tracing each word of the diary.

[September 14.

Betty is a fool; I saw her chasing her own tail around many, many times.

Doesn’t she get dizzy?]

[September 15.

What to write?]

[September 16.

Don’t know what to write.]

[September 17.

I took Betty to the park, she ran so fast I could barely keep up.

There were many other kids like me there, I met Rachel, met Johnny, met Ben, they liked Betty a lot, took me to play lots of fun games, um…

I think I understand what a diary is now.]

After finishing the first page, Anna turned to the next, only to find that this sort of content extended for dozens more pages.

Usually, the always-bored Anna would have read them eagerly, one by one, but she wanted to understand the meaning behind Lu Li’s words.

Looking up at Lu Li, she saw him take a water bottle from his backpack, set it beside a stone to heat it up, and then took out some shriveled, hard bread, preparing to eat quickly.

Skimming over the subsequent content, Anna kept flipping through the pages until she came across a page where the writing had changed.

Starting from the middle of this page, the handwriting in the diary had transformed.

The neat and forceful writing had become sloppy, filled with misspellings.

[April 8.

We’re off to Belfast tomorrow!

Mother says it’s more bustling than the mainland, though I don’t know what ‘bustling’ means.]

[April 9.

I spent a long time unable to sleep; Mother said it was because I was too excited, and told me to sleep quickly, as we leave tomorrow.]

[April 10.

The carriage is so shaky…]

[April 11.

I heard the adults say something about a marsh ahead… What’s a marsh?]

[April 12.

I’m upset… I don’t know what happened, but Mother and Father rushed in panicked and took me running, leading me into the woods where the ground was damp; could this be a swamp?

There are a lot of bugs here, but fortunately, we found a house before dark, home to a family of three like us, and a little boy!]

The diary entries stopped for a few days here, and after that the handwriting began to change.

[April 15.

Mom told me this is called a diary, where you can write anything you think of.

I want to eat big meat!]

At this point, a terrifying thought flashed through Anna’s mind.

This thought made her shiver uncontrollably.

Reina and the little boy had never been the same person!

The diary belonged to Reina, and like her own family, he and his family had fled here to be taken in by another family; then the diary ended up in the hands of the little boy…

And what was that ‘big meat’…?

Anna continued reading, finding what she wanted underneath a few lines of crooked writing.

[April 19.

We fed our guests the big meat, and he cried terribly, which I really disliked.

But in a while, we will be able to make him into big meat too!]

Is this what Lu Li meant…?

Anna murmured softly, her gaze subconsciously shifting towards Lu Li.

Lu Li stood in front of a window, his face reflected in the glass.

He observed the cabin outside using the creeping light of lightning.

If not for the Six-legged Savages suddenly bursting in, and Lu Li somehow discovering something was wrong, they would definitely have attacked us too…

Anna lowered her head, realizing she had unconsciously flipped to the last page of the diary.

[A storm is coming; Dad said there’s no game today, so we’ll have to eat the not-so-fresh food, I hate storms]

[Guests have come!

That’s great, Mum and Dad will surely treat them well, and I’ll get to eat big meat again!]

[But only the guests get to eat the best parts, I want some too…]

This passage had another part added, perhaps by the little boy just before the Six-legged Savages burst in.

Anna whispered softly, reading out the content above.

“When Uncle returns, we can all eat the big meat together…”

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, casting a ghostly pall over a piece of marshland at the edge of the forest.

A shadowy figure, wielding an axe, loomed on the horizon.