Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 517 - 517 Thirty-six

517: Thirty-six.

Old Rum Tavern 517: Thirty-six.

Old Rum Tavern The more urgent Richard became, the greater Lu Li’s advantage grew.

Sensitive, clever, irritable, and neurotic—these were the tags Lu Li once briefly attached to Richard.

The former were strengths, while the latter were weaknesses.

It was also a point Lu Li could exploit.

As Anna said, he would not sit back and watch as the Blood-Colored Tentacles were eradicated one by one without taking action.

It was the best time Lu Li had forced him out.

After staying a while at the Detective Agency, Lu Li, with an invisible Anna, went to the market, where they bought only one more fish than last time, but at nearly twice the price.

Back at the Detective Agency, Anna darted into the kitchen to prepare food for Lu Li and the black cat.

Lu Li walked around to his desk, picked up the telephone, and contacted the investigator base, learning that Tesla had entered the shelter.

But Lu Li was not there for this; he demanded all the current leads on capturing Richard, and ten minutes later, the Police Station delivered an organized dossier.

It recorded Richard’s past and the last place he was seen.

Richard, like the Oliver siblings, had no surname and came from the streets, having joined the gang Black Adder Snake, and also Old Rum and Blue Geoff.

The latter two gangs had been destroyed in gang wars, with only the Old Rum Gang surviving—also the gang Richard stayed with the longest and was most recently associated with.

The Police Station believed Richard still had ties to the Old Rum Gang, but the leaders denied it.

They said Richard had voluntarily left the slums and Belfast three years ago to go alone to Watch Town on the mountain’s other side.

This was consistent with police investigations; it seemed he had provoked someone there, got badly beaten, injuring his brain and mental faculties, and was then sent to an Asylum in the suburbs.

Clearly, Richard wasn’t insane—at least, not completely.

The information during his time at the Asylum was a blank; the Asylum had closed too long ago, and its former staff were hard to find, especially during this severe shortage of manpower.

Subsequently, he hid in the deserted Asylum’s basement, set a trap for Lu Li to encounter the door, and because Lu Li mistakenly broke into the Asylum, Richard attacked him but was countered by Lu Li and fled.

The last time Richard was spotted was a week ago.

The previously fled Richard returned to Ailen Peninsula from the Main Affinity Continent and briefly hid in Shadow Town, where the town’s police nearly captured him, but he still managed to escape.

Lu Li thought of something, pondering.

Regardless, the figure lurking in the background was getting closer to Richard, who had recently fled back to the Ailen Peninsula.

After having read through it once, Anna, flipping through a cookbook, looked up at Lu Li setting down the materials, “Where do you think he could be hiding?”

“Probably right in Belfast,” Lu Li said, spreading out a parchment map and moving his finger to the sections marking the slums: “I plan to check out the Old Rum Gang; they should know something.”

“Are we ignoring the Blood-Colored Tentacles for now?”

“Give Richard the illusion we’ve changed our target.”

Catching him off guard was crucial, at least so Richard wouldn’t know Lu Li’s intentions and set traps along the way beforehand.

After all, at this moment, Lu Li was the one exposed in plain sight.

“It will still be half an hour before the food is ready.” Boiling water burbled in the kitchen.

“Turn off the heat, we’ll eat when we get back.”

“Okay.”

The black cat stayed at the Detective Agency, along with the statues.

Anna asked the statues to protect the black cat, also to clean their bodies, and then left the Detective Agency with Lu Li to head for the slums.

Circling a few streets leading to the harbor, potentially congested with bustling areas, the carriage arrived at the slums after several minutes.

Asking ragged passers-by about the Old Rum Gang’s headquarters, those passers-by fled swiftly as if from a scorpion.

It was an elderly resident living nearby who told Lu Li about the Old Rum Tavern—three blocks away.

…

Blackwater District, the stronghold of the Old Rum Gang.

The residents here were all intricately linked to the Old Rum Gang: the young men would join the gang, while the elderly and women provided back-end support.

Gang factions in slums would typically parasitize in this manner: big gangs occupied entire streets or multiple districts, while small gangs crowded into the districts that big gangs disdained, fighting over territory all day.

The carriage moved forward through the district, where sewage flowed freely and the air was filled with a stench that the fine rain could not wash away, stopping in front of a tavern guarded by a watchman.

Lu Li stepped down from the carriage, asked the guard to watch it carefully, and walked into the noisy tavern while under the gaze of two surprised eyes.

The cold and chill of the streets were blocked outside, replaced by the chaotic warmth of the noisy tavern, with the smell of alcohol and smoke rushing towards him.

Circling around the drunks stumbling in their chaotic steps and slumped over wooden chairs, Lu Li headed to the counter.

As he moved deeper into the tavern, more and more gang members noticed this outsider and quieted down to stare.

Someone of Lu Li’s “upper class” stature wouldn’t usually come here.

Even the wealthy who ventured into slums for curiosity usually only sampled superficially, stopping at the periphery.

The noise in the tavern gradually decreased, with more and more eyes turning towards Lu Li standing in front of the counter.

Leaning against the liquor cabinet behind the counter, the bartender looked up at Lu Li, not saying a word.

“I want to see the leader of the Old Rum Gang,” Lu Li told him.

The atmosphere in the tavern briefly froze, and the bartender, pointing at Lu Li with a smile revealing a missing front tooth, shouted to those around, “This guy wants to see our boss!”

“Hahahaha.”

“What rich man, go back where you came from!”

“Booooo—”

The laughter erupted the next moment, unbridled mockery thrown at Lu Li, with some thugs making indecent gestures to insult him.

“Are you a noble?” the bartender asked with a grin, his words carrying a whistling sound.

“No.”

“Then are you the sheriff?”

The inquiring voice came from behind, as a stout young boss with a bare torso, and a dancer thickly made-up in his arms, walked out from the crowd.

“Neither.”

“Oh.” The young boss nodded, then turned to his subordinates, “Strip him of all his valuable things and throw him out naked.”

Several muscular men who had been waiting crack their knuckles and walked toward Lu Li with sinister smiles.

“Can we take him now!” someone suddenly shouted from the crowd.

Amid the clamor, the youth said with a playful tone, “We are not like the scum of the Blue Geoff Gang.”

As his words fell, he noticed the dancer in his arms staring at Lu Li, her eyes gleaming.

After a brief pause, he added, “Remember to get the consent of this upper-class person before you act.”

Amid the noisy, eerie laughter, the thugs moved closer to Lu Li and then simultaneously felt a chill brush their faces.

The next moment, a violent surge of air erupted around Lu Li, so fierce it seemed to expel all filth.

The people and chairs in the tavern were blown away like scraps of paper in a hurricane, scattering towards the edges and stacking up in layers.

Seconds later, as the wind died down, the now sparse tavern was left with only countless stacked, screaming figures at the edges.

Crash—

The top layer of chairs was flipped over, and the bloodied face of the young boss was lifted by an unseen force by his collar, dragged like a dead dog in front of Lu Li, facing a pair of calm, watchful black eyes.

“Can you take me to see your leader now?”