Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 570 - 570 Eighty-nine

570: Eighty-nine.

This man wants to die.

570: Eighty-nine.

This man wants to die.

Anna had become what she was now, and Lu Li was one of the initiators.

Lu Li’s emotional indifference made it difficult for him to grasp the potential meaning of such emotions that stem from the depths of the human heart.

It was hard to say whether Anna’s change was good or bad—if Lu Li hadn’t intervened in Anna’s post-mortem life, she might have fallen into the abyss and become a new evil spirit, or she might have been killed by an Exorcist before that happened.

Instead of being like she was now, having lost a part of herself but also retained a part.

The former was clearly much worse than the latter.

“Not being a shadow anymore is the first thing you should do,” Lu Li said to Anna.

“There’s no need to hide from others, unless they disgust you.”

Though emotions were even harder for Lu Li to understand than those twisted, forbidden pieces of knowledge, he could manipulate them through logic and reasoning—the root cause of Anna becoming what she was now was her desire to be a shadow of herself, so he let her stop hiding and actively engage with everything around her.

“What if it’s a group of civilians?”

“You judge for yourself whether to show yourself,” Lu Li said, suddenly turning his head towards the door as if he heard something.

Thud—Thud, thud—

A slow knock at the door sounded from outside.

Lu Li glanced at the time, it was 9:20 PM, quite late at night for the people here.

Who would come to visit a house that had been uninhabited for a long time in the middle of the night?

Three knocks at the door, the evil spirits of the city, the Uninvited Guests…

At this moment, Anna suddenly asked, “Do you feel something?”

Her words made Lu Li frown slightly.

“The knocking, didn’t you hear it?”

Thud—Thud, thud—

After a five-second interval from the first knock, the second set of knocks sounded, and Anna gently shook her head: “There is no sound outside the door—”

Her gaze locked with Lu Li’s and quickly turned cold: “It’s ‘the Door.'”

Lu Li did not reply.

Calculating the time, the visiting date of “the Door” was roughly around these days.

But who knew whether the presence guarding outside the door at this moment was truly the Uninvited Guests or “the Door” disguised as the Uninvited Guests?

One does not open the door and dies, another does open the door and dies.

“Don’t let it hear you, because once it hears you, it can see you.

Don’t let it see you, because once it sees you, it can touch you.

Don’t let it touch you…”

Anna whispered the only information about “the Door” and looked up at Lu Li, “I’ll go check outside the door.”

“Hmm.”

Lu Li nodded, watching Anna float through the wall.

Thud—Thud, thud—

The third set of knocks rang out.

Lu Li sat in the wooden chair, with no intention of getting up to open the door.

He continued to watch for a few more seconds, then his gaze suddenly fell on the windows on both sides with their curtains drawn.

What gave him a slight sense of relief was that there were no eyeballs filled with bloodshot veins peeking through the gaps.

Suddenly, a contour surfaced on the wall; Lu Li’s eyes fell upon it, a vine-like black silhouette snaking along the wall and vanishing from sight.

Soon Anna returned to the room and said to Lu Li, “There’s nothing there, I couldn’t sense anything either.”

“It’s gone now, the one disguised as the Uninvited Guests left after the third set of knocks went unanswered.”

Lu Li faintly sensed the presence that had pervaded outside the door had disappeared.

After entering the second stage, “the Door’s” first invasion had not caused Lu Li any substantial trouble, it was more a mental concern—the sense of urgency.

Although the threat of the Blood-Colored Tentacles had been removed, the sword of Damocles named “Door” still hung overhead.

The recent visit from the “Door” had prompted Lu Li to implement that plan earlier than planned.

He lowered his head and looked at the patched hat of Richard’s lying on the table.

“We should leave now,” Lu Li said.

He went upstairs, where the children were embracing each other in their made-up beds, sleeping, with only Jimmy and Mera still awake, keeping watch.

They were reluctant to see Lu Li go, but he assured them that he would come back during the day to bring supplies like bedding and kerosene.

Amid the children’s farewells, Lu Li walked down the stairs and left the children’s new home.

“Are you going to the refuge?” Anna asked.

For Lu Li, there was nowhere safer than that place.

“Not for now.”

Before that, Lu Li needed to return to the Detective Agency one more time to take care of a matter, a trouble.

…

Belfast Sailor District.

Most of the Long House residents had already fallen into unsettled sleep amidst fear and anxiety.

During the quiet of the night, a grating noise of something heavy being moved broke the silence, emanating from an unknown room.

Creak—

Lu Li dragged a wooden chair to the center of the living room, took the hemp rope hanging on the back of the chair, stepped onto the chair, and tied the rope to the beam under the ceiling.

“I don’t agree with your decision,” Anna said, her chilling presence indicating her emotions were barely under control.

“This is the best chance to get information on the ‘Door’.

There’s been no word back from headquarters, something might have happened.”

The other end of the hemp rope dangled down.

Lu Li stepped off the stool, took off his woolen coat and threw it onto the couch, and then loosened his black tie, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt.

The black cat jumped onto the couch, nesting in the still-warm coat.

Lu Li turned around only to find Anna standing just behind him, watching him with a look of sorrow: “But how can I accept your …death?”

Those sorrowful eyes, as if shattered, could break any man’s heart.

After a brief silence, Lu Li replied to her, “It’s only near-death.”

“But there’s a possibility you might never wake up again, right?”

For some reason, Lu Li suddenly found it difficult to look directly into those eyes, so he turned his head, walked past Anna, and sat down on the chair still marked with the imprint of his shoes: “That’s why your help is crucial: make sure you release the rope before I’m strangled to death.”

Anna turned around, looking at Lu Li sitting upright: “You promised to make me more than a shadow, to use my own power to protect you.”

“That’s not contradictory,” Lu Li replied.

“We still have time, why don’t we wait until the ‘Door’ becomes truly dangerous before we consider taking the risk?”

Lu Li raised his head and calmly said to Anna, “This world is like a sandcastle built on the beach.

Out at sea, a tsunami is brewing.

The longer we delay, the more dangerous the surroundings become, the greater the change.”

“What could be more dangerous than going to hell?”

Indeed, that was the plan Lu Li intended to implement—venturing into hell.

Richard was the only known clue about the “Door,” and he was already dead, his soul possibly in hell.

So Lu Li planned to go there, find him, and get clear answers.

This audacious plan would astonish anyone who knew of it and provoke anyone who cared about Lu Li to object.

“If ‘entering hell in a near-death state’ doesn’t reassure you, let me put it another way.” Lu Li, realizing Anna’s resistance to his death, changed his approach and said, “I intend to communicate with hell, to ask Richard’s spirit some questions.”