Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 509 - 509 Twenty-eight and a half tentacles

509: Twenty-eight and a half tentacles 509: Twenty-eight and a half tentacles Seaside Town Police Station was at the other end of Sea Wind Street, which they had passed by on their way there.

The carriage stopped beside the Police Station, and Lu Li, along with the invisible Anna, walked into the station.

The atmosphere in the Police Station that afternoon was permeated with lethargy, with only a few officers scattered about the work area.

Lu Li approached the reception officer, who was enjoying an afternoon snack, and showed his badge, “Investigator here, I’d like to learn about the death case from two days ago.”

“Certainly…

Sure…

Of course.

Richa!

The Investigator is here, you’ve got work to do!” The officer coughed up crumbs of bread and called out unclearly with a loud voice.

Bang—

As soon as his words ended, a door to a corner records room was suddenly flung open, and a disheveled figure holding a stack of paper documents emerged.

He was carrying too much and didn’t control his balance when bumping into the door, resulting in the papers, held high above his head, tilting and crashing down onto the nearest desk with a rustle.

“Sitting closest to the records room has its perks, doesn’t it?” someone working at a nearby desk teased him.

With a stubbly beard, Richa sighed, hands on hips, paying no mind to the jumbled mess on the desk and floor, and turned to walk toward the front entrance of the station.

“This is the Exorcist sent from above, wanting to know about that case,” the reception officer introduced to Richa.

“I’m here on a private investigation, the Exorcist hasn’t arrived yet,” Lu Li interjected, observing Richa.

This sort of unkempt individual was usually either an obsessive or a workaholic.

In other words, they were the capable sort.

“No matter, just repeating it once more,” Richa said indifferently, catching his breath and adding, “The Postman case was handled by me and another guy…

before it turned into a mess.

Want to take a look at the diary first?”

“Lady Merlin said the diary is the source of contamination,” Lu Li stated calmly.

“Of course, but you are an Exorcist, so you should have a way to be unaffected, right?” Richa reasoned.

“Or I can tell you what’s written there, but that might miss the hidden messages in the diary.”

“Do you know the contents?”

“Only those who read the diary go mad, and we lost one of the finest officers in Seaside Town because of it.

But before that happened, he told me what was written, and I didn’t go mad.”

“I can look at the diary,” Anna’s voice echoed from the void.

As a ghost, she was naturally immune to the contamination source.

The reception officer’s expression became alarmed, while Richa subtly stepped back.

“Where is the diary?” Lu Li asked, looking toward Richa, who’d stepped back, his tone still calm.

Richa composed himself, although he still circled around Lu Li, went to the door, casually took an oil lamp from a row of lamps, and turned back to say, “Come with me.”

Lu Li followed Richa out of the Police Station, being led deeper into the town.

“The diary isn’t in the Police Station?” Lu Li inquired.

“The chief of the Police Station and some others unanimously believed that even the mere presence of such an evil object could bring misfortune, so it was placed in an abandoned house,” Richa said, with a scornful tone for his colleagues.

“Hope it’s still there, not stolen,” Lu Li remarked.

“Don’t worry, no one would go to an abandoned house full of nothing to steal a diary that’s good for nothing,” Richa replied.

Lu Li’s worries proved to be unnecessary.

When the dilapidated abandoned house came into view, he noticed the Blood-Colored Tentacles hanging from the cloudy sky landed right there.

Richa kicked open the wooden door, stepped aside, and handed the oil lamp to Lu Li with a nod toward the table: “It’s on the table.”

“You stay outside, I’ll go in myself.”

Anna, in the void, said as she took the oil lamp from Lu Li.

Richa watched the floating oil lamp, then shuffled further to the edge.

“The tentacles have touched the diary, keep your distance,” Lu Li reminded.

In the quiet and dimness filled with floating dust, the delicate blood-colored threads settled on the diary lying on the dining table.

“Hmm.”

The oil lamp in the air floated into the room and settled next to the diary.

Whoosh—

The ordinary diary seemed to be stirred by the wind, flipping open its cover.

[The cigarette in my hand is smiling at me.

It’s raining again, a loud rain, louder than yesterday.

They’re drifting outside the window, wanting me to go out and play.

I drew the curtains shut; it’s a trap.

The claws under the bed have reached out again, I lit the hunter, and he’s happily laughing, the room is very bright, and the claws have drawn back.

Fire is important, without light it’s dangerous.

Light is bright, darkness is black.

Shadows scurry about, I impaled one with a harpoon, and it behaved.

The bed is dozing off, and I’m sleepy, the hunter is sleepy too.

I climbed onto the bed, but the bed pushed me off.

The sweater is peering from the closet; it’s knitting another sweater, not for me to wear, it’s for other sweaters.

There’s a knock at the door, the alarm clock is back.

I told it to leave quickly, or the day won’t get bright, it wanted my eyes, I gave them to it, it deceived me.

It didn’t leave, it’s been dark all this time.

It’s hiding, not letting me find it.]

The diary was filled with a mass of untidy and scribbled content without punctuation, riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, all the text twisted together like mating snakes, as if a madman’s delusions were made manifest in writing.

Anna, keeping her distance from the diary, struggled to decipher and record the contents, then closed the diary and retreated outside with the oil lamp.

As Anna moved away from the diary, Lu Li’s hand withdrew from the holster.

“What does it say?” Lu Li asked.

“The twisted words are polluting the consciousness.

The first sentence is ‘The cigarette in my hand is smiling at me,'” Anna cautiously recited the first line of the diary, then relayed its cumbersome contents to him after confirming that Lu Li was not affected.

“I thought at first it was the ramblings of a madman until I matched these contents to the crime scene,” Richa interjected, having already started to get used to Anna’s presence.

“What else struck you as odd?” Lu Li inquired about other details.

Anna, unseen by Lu Li, furrowed her brow and said, “The text is disgusting, it feels like it’s smeared with blood and flesh.”

“Let’s go to the next place where the Blood-Colored Tentacles touched down,” Lu Li nodded and looked at Richa, “Please take us to the crime scene and tell us the details of the case.”

As expected, they should be in the same place.

By then, the fragmented information should fit together into a complete message.

Richa closed the door again and waved his hand: “We’ll talk as we walk.”

After speaking, he led Lu Li and the invisible Anna towards the coastline.

A few minutes later, Richa stopped on the steps by the street, took off his leather shoes and hole-ridden socks, and walked barefoot on the soft, damp sand.

He glanced at Lu Li’s rain boots and said nothing, continuing north along the coast toward the mountain ranges.

After a relatively lengthy journey, almost reaching the limits of Seaside Town, Lu Li gazed into the distance, and at the end of the light-brown sand, a dark spot appeared on the beach.

And with it hung the Blood-Colored Tentacles from the clouds.