Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 802: Thirty-five. The Crimson Cheongsam

Chapter 802: Thirty-five. The Crimson Cheongsam

Lu Li’s steps halted, standing at the school gate.

"Don’t you feel like we’ve forgotten something?"

"What?" Yang Chunxue, floating beside, tilted her head.

Lu Li didn’t say a word, turned around, and re-entered the academy, retracing his steps.

Yang Chunxue followed behind him, unclear about the situation, as they returned to the theater.

The empty theater was only noisy on the stage. The play would open in a few days, and they needed to rehearse diligently.

The unexpected coma of one of the lead actresses didn’t affect their rhythm; she had been taken to the infirmary under the school leadership’s instruction to assist Lu Li.

Playing the role of Wan Jun, the woman in the cheongsam, was volunteered by Sun Yan.

So when Lu Li and Yang Chunxue returned to the theater, they saw Sun Yan in high heels and a cheongsam, her voice melodious.

The cheongsam was as bright as blood, with an unseen chill pervading around.

"Sun Yan!"

Yang Chunxue’s breath was unsteady, and countless blood veins suddenly erupted beside her.

Sun Yan, rehearsing on stage, seemed to sense something, and during a speaking pause, glanced at them with smiling eyes.

But at this moment, an arm stopped Yang Chunxue who was about to flare up.

"Watch first." Lu Li’s calm voice, like fine rain, settled into Yang Chunxue’s restless heart. "It hasn’t run away."

This sentence had two meanings.

The Ghost Cheongsam was still on stage, making it inconvenient to act, and it was strange that the Ghost Cheongsam hadn’t tried to escape this time.

Lu Li walked down the slope and sat on the edge of the front few rows near the stage.

This distance ensured that whatever the Ghost Cheongsam wanted to do, it couldn’t.

Lu Li’s return didn’t disturb the students’ rehearsal, and only the two teachers on the side exchanged puzzled glances, wanting to approach but were wordlessly stopped by Lu Li raising his hand.

"Please, help your father; he really needs money for treatment." The elderly-makeup-wearing, shabby-dressed girl tightly clenched Sun Yan’s arm.

Sun Yan showed none of her usual tomboyish demeanor. Her face was slightly pale, somewhat weak. But her eyes carried indelible pain and despair: "Does he deserve to be called a father? What kind of father sells his seven-year-old daughter as a gambling debt to that kind of place!"

The plot was simple. During the Republic of China, a well-off father was set up by a casino and lost all his family’s possessions. To repay the remaining debt, he decided to sell his wife or daughter. He chose to sell his daughter, then went to the countryside with his wife to start a new life.

But he didn’t know that the sold daughter fell into the local brothel. Who would care about her being just seven years old at the time?

After several tragic years, Wan Jun grew to 13 and remained graceful. Then, she was noticed by a warlord and removed from the plight of being sullied by many, to be married as the eighteenth concubine.

Once, while accompanying the warlord’s troops back home, she was coincidentally spotted by her once-wealthy husband-reduced-to-poverty wife on the street. By then, Wan Jun was already 16, but the invisible blood bond made the wife recognize Wan Jun.

The couple felt they had wronged their daughter from the start. The wife initially wanted to bless her daughter, but upon returning home to see her sick husband bedridden, she had no choice but to visit and beg.

Wan Jun, weak-minded, only rejected meeting her biological mother, who sold her, but later, in her soft-heartedness, gave her some jewelry to pawn for medical treatment.

The husband’s illness was suppressed and improved, but from his meager wife’s reluctant words, he learned it was the daughter he had sold who paid. He was thrilled, wanting to gamble once more to get rich and convinced his wife with the excuse of bringing their daughter back to live a stable life to obtain a large amount of money from Wan Jun again.

The ending, as expected, was that the husband lost all the money again, got his legs broken, and was thrown onto the street, and the wife couldn’t bear the trauma and deceit and went insane.

The peaceful days didn’t last long. The Japanese Army entered the city, wantonly abducting local women. The warlord’s residence was breached, and the screams and cries of women mixed.

The final scene was: two Japanese soldiers madly crashing into the room door, Wan Jun sitting sideways on a redwood chair in the main hall, wearing a cheongsam, with an elegant screen behind her, setting off her fair skin and serene beauty like a painting.

With the door continuously crashing, Wan Jun, who had endured her entire life, finally chose to take charge of her fate at the last moment, picking up scissors to slit her throat, dyeing her cheongsam as red as blood, ending her life at the tender age of 16 amidst the chaos.

Half an hour later, the rehearsal ended.

The audience felt moved, stepping onto the stage, offering water and towels.

"You acted so well..."

"This role was meant for you, my god!"

"I really believed we were just acting with a concubine from the Republic of China."

Receiving the compliments, Sun Yan only gracefully smiled like a lady and walked off the stage to Lu Li.

"Thank you, sir." She gracefully bowed and said softly. Then, with a look of apology, glanced at Yang Chunxue: "Miss, I did this with no malice and did not harm your friend."

"I know, which is why you can still stand in front of me," Yang Chunxue grumbled, though her eyes were slightly red.

"Is this your story?" Lu Li asked.

"Yes... I’m embarrassed for you two to see. After my suicide, my ghost attached to this outfit and turned into a costume through various turns of events, and I used some means to make the academy students perform it, experiencing it personally as fulfillment of a last wish." Sun Yan, or rather Wan Jun, pursed her lips with a gentle smile.

Wow, Sun Yan can look so pretty... No, wait!

Yang Chunxue snapped back from that smile, warily: "What about my Sun Yan, will she be okay!"

"Miss, rest assured. After I disperse, the aura will gradually disappear, and Miss Sun Yan will simply need a few days to recuperate, and..." Wan Jun slightly lowered her head, expressing some modesty: "Her monthly cycle might be delayed a bit."

Her aura was gradually dissipating; she could already be freed.

"Thank you, sir, for granting me this opportunity."

In the last few seconds of vanishing, gentle words echoed, and the next moment, those gentle as water eyes were replaced by puzzlement.

Wan Jun’s essence completely vanished.

"Why is she thanking you, you did nothing. Ah, this woman still tried to seduce you before leaving, ugh!" Yang Chunxue grumbled discontentedly, supporting the wavering Sun Yan.

"Chunxue?" Sun Yan became aware, coming to her senses.

Yang Chunxue scolded unhappily: "Are you an idiot! You dared to approach such a dangerous thing; don’t you know that cheongsam is a ghost! And blame that guy, for forgetting to deal with the Ghost Flag——"

"I know."

"Eh? You... you did it on purpose!?" Wide-eyed with a pale blush, Yang Chunxue was very surprised.

Sun Yan’s face was pale, forcing a faint smile, but the sorrow in her eyes was impossible to conceal: "My parents died..."

Yang Chunxue was stunned.

"Half a month ago, they went back to the countryside to visit relatives and had a car accident..."

"I’ll wait for you in the car." Lu Li suddenly said.

It was difficult to tell if Lu Li didn’t want to see this painful scene or if he wanted to give the two some private space.

In any case, he turned and left without hesitation.