Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 268 - 268 125

268: 125.

Clothes, Coma, and Fishing Net 268: 125.

Clothes, Coma, and Fishing Net Something brushed across his face, like swirling whirlpools or some creature of the sea.

The icy, gloomy seawater enveloped the figure smashed into it.

Lu Li pursed his lips, squinted his eyes, kicked and paddled with his legs, and swam upwards towards the surface.

The floating raincoat slipped off his shoulders and detached from Lu Li’s body.

Suddenly, Lu Li felt something bind his left foot and pull him downward.

He looked down, only to see endless darkness.

In the pitch-black depths with no light, directions were indistinguishable, even the boundary between up and down became blurred.

Narrowing his dark eyes, Lu Li reached into his coat and took out a flashlight to turn it on.

The dim beam illuminated a limited area, dispelling the looming malice within the darkness.

Something black was wrapped around Lu Li’s left ankle.

It was the raincoat that had slipped off Lu Li.

Lu Li pulled out the Spirit-Calling Gun, the barrel engraved with rose petals pointed downward, hesitated briefly, then decided to smash it.

The water parted as the Spirit-Calling Gun descended slowly toward the black raincoat at his ankle.

The scene that unfolded was like magic; the animate black raincoat dissipated into nothingness instantly upon contact with the Spirit-Calling Gun, as if darkness pierced by sunlight.

Having swiftly dealt with the black raincoat, Lu Li did not have time to put away the Spirit-Calling Gun as he continued to swim toward the surface.

He sensed the presence of more of its kind emerging from the seabed— the group of clothes was approaching.

Lu Li did not know how far he was from the surface, but he seemed to hear the noise above the sea.

Unable to distinguish if it was a hallucination or reality, an old sweater caught up to Lu Li first, entangled his ankles, and dragged him downward.

Lu Li replicated his earlier action, brandishing the Spirit-Calling Gun once more.

The sweater, as if a weathered building, gently touched and disintegrated into ash.

But from the debris of the sweater, two more malicious clumps rose and wrapped around Lu Li’s legs, stopping his ascent toward the surface yet again.

Lu Li dispersed them, but more clothes from the seabed wrapped around him, increasingly numerous as they were destroyed.

Gurgle gurgle—

Lu Li released a large burst of bubbles.

The breath he had taken hastily before diving was almost completely used up.

Lu Li still pursed his lips, using the Spirit-Calling Gun as a blunt weapon.

With each swing, an article of clothing dispersed, but even more pounced at him.

Gurgle—

Another burst of bubbles escaped from Lu Li’s mouth, and what’s worse, he choked on water.

Unable to hold his breath, Lu Li inhaled some seawater into his lungs.

A severe rejection reaction occurred in his lungs and windpipe, creating an urge to cough the water out, and coughing necessitated inhaling air—

A terrifying vicious cycle ensued.

Lu Li, who had remained calm and composed from the start, began to cough violently, each cough drawing more seawater into his trachea and alveoli.

Fragments of bubbles rushed out from Lu Li’s mouth and nose, his defenses crumbling instantly.

He curled up, no longer able to fight against the pulling clothes.

He used his last strength to put the Spirit-Calling Gun back into its holster.

Gradually, no more bubbles came out from Lu Li’s mouth, and layers of clothing wrapped around his body, dragging him down into the unfathomable depths of the sea.

As his consciousness faded, Lu Li shoved the flashlight into the end, wedging it between his teeth.

Between the dancing of his hair, his arms drifted powerlessly, and his eyes, as deep as abysses, dimmed.

…

“Ah… huh…”

Anna yawned and slumped her head on the desk.

She sat in the chair Lu Li most frequently used, staring at the minute hand on the clock.

It was just 8 o’clock in the evening, eight hours until daylight.

“The night is so long,”

Anna muttered vaguely.

…

Clatter——clatter——

Chains, decay, heavy footsteps.

These three words formed an unsettling scene.

They appeared in Lu Li’s hazy consciousness, accompanied by coldness and weakness.

For a long time afterward, these three sensations dominated all that Lu Li was aware of.

As time passed, pain and crowding joined the words.

This was good news, indicating that Lu Li was regaining consciousness.

Clatter——clatter——

Lu Li weakly opened his eyes, not knowing how many times the sound had resonated.

The flashlight he had clenched in his mouth at the last moment of drowning had vanished without a trace, and his unconscious body couldn’t feel whether the Spirit-Calling Gun was still on him.

Decaying bodies filled his entire line of sight, resembling a horrific scene from hell.

It took Lu Li considerable effort to recognize that these bodies were fish corpses.

He was mixed in with them, indistinguishable from each other.

The variously sized fish had long been dead, their bodies uniformly coated with a sticky black substance, and Lu Li guessed he was similar.

His gaze moved beyond the piles of fish corpses to the distance.

The outside world looked spotty, covered with tangled black threads—it was a fishing net with holes the size of fists.

Snap.

A fish tail slapped Lu Li’s face.

Lu Li shook the only part of his body he could move, his head, and pushed away the large fish nearly as long as an arm.

Clatter——clatter——

The grating sound of the iron chains resounded again, originating from above his head, hanging the fishing net in which he was ensnared.

Sea air passed through gaps between the bodies, blowing with a smell of decay.

So he had been hauled up in a fishing net…

His body still couldn’t move, but sensation was gradually returning.

He turned his head, taking in his surroundings.

The fishing net was suspended over a ship, and Lu Li could hear heavy footsteps carried by the sea breeze, the same hollow sounds of walking on a deck that he had heard many times during the day.

Occasionally, the fishing net would sway with the rocking of the ship, and each time, Lu Li could peek through the net and the bodies to glimpse the outside.

Everywhere was pitch black—the fish corpses, the deck, the sea surface, even the blowing sea wind—all distinctly layered in black.

Pale black, light black, deep black, rich black.

Lu Li lowered his head and discovered he too was black.

It was now obvious.

Either his mind was disturbed, or this ship was haunted.

The Nikola Counter on his wrist maintained its incessant tittering, so the former could be ruled out.

Clatter——clatter——

After quietly watching for a while, the sound of the chains above suddenly intensified.

The fishing net vibrated accordingly, and the long-decayed fish bodies inside seemed to come alive, thrashing.

Lu Li, who had been initially on top, was gradually pressed under by the fish corpses.

The fish corpses enshrouded Lu Li like the clothes he had worn earlier, preventing him from observing the outside.

The vibrations lasted several minutes, and suddenly, at one moment, Lu Li free-fell along with all the fish corpses in the net.

Thump——

Before Lu Li could consider what was below, he had already crashed into a slick mass of fish corpses.

A sharp pain shot through his chest, likely from a fish fin that had cut his skin.

He instantly raised his head, looking around.

The fish corpses from the net fell onto a conveyor belt about a dozen meters long; the belt was moving, and at its end, several dark, massive shadows wielding cleavers were swiftly chopping at the conveyor belt ahead——