Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 524 - 524 Forty-three

524: Forty-three.

The third believer 524: Forty-three.

The third believer Murder, sinful.

The laws of this world still remained at a relatively primitive level—enshrouded beneath a veneer called civilization.

Their primary use was to maintain the status of the upper class, rather than justice.

If the man had saved a noble instead of his own daughter, even after killing several thugs, and with a noble on his side, he could easily have wiped clean the fact of murder.

Not only would he be innocent, but if that noble were kind and benevolent enough, he might even have received a substantial sum of money.

But regrettably, he had saved only his own daughter.

No matter what the man’s motives were, he had violated the law, and at most because his opponents were thugs, a part of his punishment might be reduced, and then lessened further due to the sympathy of the judge and jury.

On the way to the church, the man washed the bloodstains off his hands and face in the pond, then smeared the blood on his clothes with mud, and then sat before the Confessional, anxiously awaiting the Lord’s judgment.

The trembling body indicated that the man did not dare to think what would happen to his underage daughter after his own death by hanging for murder.

Even if she were fostered with relatives, the man could hardly ensure that those poor relatives would take good care of his daughter.

Hearing the man’s confession, Lu Li indeed considered persuading him to turn himself in.

His dark eyes slightly raised, Lu Li looked at the content on the latticed wood wall that resembled a proverb: “Only truth can win the hearts of the people.”

Truth, huh…

Lu Li picked up a quill and wrote.

“I can help you, but before anything else, I want to know if you are confessing the sins you have committed, or are you merely afraid of the…

consequences…

after the crime,”

The man read aloud the content on the paper, with the trembling of his palm transferring to the paper, and murmured in a lost lamb’s confused whisper, “I…

I don’t know…”

He could not be sure, but it meant there was still hope for salvation.

“Tell me your name.”

Lu Li wrote, passing the still-wet ink paper through the wide hole.

“Arthur Green Pierce, Arthur is the Christian name given to me by the priest.”

“Green, you have committed a sin, but there is a reason for everything.

The mistake is not all yours to bear, and now you have the opportunity to confess and save your fallen self,”

Lu Li thought about the kind of rhetoric the church usually used to bamboozle the believers and wrote similar words on the paper.

The pair of rough, strong hands outside the wide hole gradually stopped trembling, and Green Pierce earnestly pleaded, “Lord, please tell me what to do…”

“Do you know a lady named Olivia Kikan and a Viscount named Rivis?”

Fortunately, the paper with the content written above was not rejected and successfully passed through the wide hole, gripped in Green Pierce’s hand.

“Olivia…

I do not know her, but I know Viscount Rivis, he lives in this Tafeng City.”

Tafeng City.

Lu Li noted the name of the town and wrote: “Find Viscount Rivis, Olivia will soon seek him out, before she is struck dead by Viscount Rivis’ carriage, find her, save her, help her, and your path to redemption lies in her.”

The tragedy might have already occurred, but it was always worth a try.

This could give Green Pierce a reasonable “truth” to pursue, and might even save a pitiful soul.

But just in case, as he passed out the paper, Lu Li added a new foundational piece of information.

“Remember, do not get caught by the police before you have helped her.

If the tragedy has already occurred…

make arrangements for what follows, such as saying goodbye.”

“I remember the Lord’s proverb,” he said.

Green Pierce left, his footsteps gradually disappearing from earshot.

Just as on the upper floor, the scene changed, time in the church accelerated, only to be interrupted by a figure bursting into the church, returning to normal.

That silhouette did not head towards the Confessional at the edge.

In the twilight of the church, where the organ no longer sounded and the sun was setting, the slight figure walked past rows of seats, stopping before the front row where Lu Li could not observe.

The trial did not convey Lu Li Green Pierce’s fate through the words of an outsider, only the devout quietly reciting prayers were heard.

As time passed, the low murmuring prayers were mixed with the faint sound of a girl’s sobbing.

Another figure walked past the benches, seeming to stop beside the girl, and then an elderly voice softly asked, “Child, tell me what happened.”

“Father, my father has passed away…”

In the confessional, Lu Li’s eyes slightly lowered.

He already knew the outcome of the events.

“Arthur?

What happened to him…” the priest said in surprise, calling out Green Pierce’s Christian name.

“I was bullied by a gang of thugs, and my father rushed over to kill them.

He got away, but then he was caught by that gang, and then…then…”

Sobs replaced the heartbreaking words that were difficult to utter.

“Good child…it’s okay…everything is going to get better.”

“Wuu wuu wuu…he…he was killed by those bastards…in front of everyone…how could they do this…”

“The wicked will be punished, and Arthur has returned to the Lord’s embrace, don’t be too sad for him…”

Lu Li quietly listened to his daughter’s sorrow and the priest’s consolation until they left the empty church.

Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—

Lu Li’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked in the direction of the sound.

Two hazy figures emerged on the hollow wooden wall, sweeping the floor and whispering softly in the spacious, deserted church.

“Did you hear?

Olivia was killed by Viscount Rivis’s carriage…” one voice said.

“Who is Olivia?” another voice asked.

This scene had happened before.

Lu Li’s efforts only added an episode to the situation, but nothing had changed.

Listening silently to the nun’s unchanged narrative, the curtain fell outside the confessional.

The second layer of the trial ended, still with a disastrous outcome.

Lu Li picked up the oil lamp that emitted the only source of light and pushed open the wooden door behind him.

Just as imagined, the walls and stairs had deteriorated further; the edges of the steps were completely eroded, like a stone staircase neglected for decades.

The wall’s pocked and dim areas revealed the truth behind it.

That was an abyss which, at a glance, would instill a thick, desperate sense of despair in one’s heart.

If the outcome at the next level is still not satisfactory, this space would become even worse.

By then, the vast abyss blocked on the outside would appear utterly exposed before Lu Li.

Holding the oil lamp, Lu Li, without a word, stepped on the severely weathered stone steps to the third level’s carved wooden door.

Pulling open the door, the church was bathed in the warmth of the afternoon sunlight and the echoing sound of the organ seemed to make one forget the horror outside.

Lu Li’s gaze swept over the maxims on the hollow wooden wall.

Those were two new sentences.

[The difference between the Sage and the ordinary is that the former knows what should and should not be done, while the latter does not.]

[Admitting one’s own incompetence is more painful than death itself.]