Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 808 - 1. Subterranean Rock Layers

Chapter 808: 1. Subterranean Rock Layers

The rushing sound of water faintly echoed in his ears.

As if he were near a waterfall, or beside a riverbank.

The chaotic noise flooded his mind like twisted, shifting shadows, making him nauseous.

Lu Li slowly woke up, turning over with a searing pain in his chest, lying prone on the cold, hard rock as he dry-heaved.

There was nothing to vomit; Lu Li thought perhaps a long time had passed.

The retching seemed to clear the tangled confusion from his mind, and his consciousness slowly became clearer.

Lu Li sat up and observed his surroundings. He seemed to be on a rock jutting from the center of a river, with a rushing river surrounding him, and darkness encircling them both.

A weakly glowing oil lamp lay beside him, a coat spread beneath him to shield him from the rock, preventing his body from becoming as cold as the stone.

His chest wound had also been treated. His shirt had been torn into strips of bandage, wrapped around the wound, and the blood that soaked through stained the fabric.

A sudden splash resounded.

The exceptionally clear sound of water abruptly emerged, and a shadowy figure rose from the flow, climbing onto the rock.

It was a silhouette cloaked entirely in darkness, seeming to be draped in faint light beneath the oil lamp.

Until a pair of pale hands emerged from the black robe, wringing the darkness bit by bit, forming layers of folded black fabric.

"You seem unsurprised by my appearance?" A young woman’s voice emerged from within the black robe, ordinary to the point of being indistinguishable, but Lu Li recognized her.

An old friend: Friday.

Lu Li’s eyes lowered slightly. "The unconscious me wouldn’t have lit the oil lamp, nor treated the wound."

"So you seem disappointed?"

Dragging the dripping wet black robe, Friday walked barefoot to the oil lamp, placed it down, and sat cross-legged: "Disappointed you’re still alive, or disappointed to see it’s me..."

Lu Li’s dark eyes froze, staring at the shadows beneath the robe: "You knew all along?"

Friday tilted her head as if drying her hair, wringing the fabric on one side without answering.

"Then what happened."

Friday tilted to the other side, continuing to wring the fabric on the left.

Lu Li asked her no more, silently recalling the events prior.

He was only a few miles from the oasis when Anna suddenly appeared and attacked, a spear piercing his chest, plunging him into the abyss...

Clap—clap—clap—

Crisp clapping suddenly came from the side.

"The heroine, in order to protect the hero, willingly becomes a mindless specter, helping the hero break free from shackles. The hero, at the final juncture of breaking free from manipulation, would rather be killed by the heroine than kill her—"

Friday, draped in her crumpled black robe, applauded.

"An impressively memorable tale."

Lu Li gazed calmly, forming some speculations.

"Was the figure in the seaside cabin you?"

He thought about the words he had heard on the return journey after preventing Richard from obtaining the shell of the Old Ones, and the black-robed silhouette that entered the cabin and left behind the "lighthouse" when he fell asleep there.

"I don’t understand what you’re saying." Friday spread her hands. "I was just talking about this novel."

Clap—

A wet book was slapped down beside the oil lamp, with a summary printed on its brown cover.

[The heroine, in order to protect the hero, willingly becomes a mindless specter, helping the hero break free from shackles. The hero, at the final juncture of breaking free from manipulation, would rather be killed by the heroine than kill her—]

A strange coincidence?

Lu Li’s gaze fell upon the oil lamp that Friday had brought back, reaching out to pick it up.

A familiar feeling welled up.

Realizing something, Lu Li flipped the oil lamp over, and two lines of inscription were etched on the base.

[The brilliance of humanity gathers in the wick]

[It should be in its rightful place]

"Lighthouse." Lu Li looked at Friday.

"I just fished it out from underwater, seems like it belongs to you? Quite lucky." Friday whistled lightly.

Lu Li no longer pressed the matter, surveying the pitch-black night sky around them: "Are we in the Old Riverbed?"

"No."

Friday shook her head, holding the lit oil lamp aloft, revealing the wet, glistening walls.

She circled the edge of the rock while the rock walls enclosed them from all sides.

"We’re underground."

Lu Li furrowed his brow as a sudden headache pierced his mind, memories from before unconsciousness were stirred by Friday, surging like a tide: he fell into the abyss, not knowing how far, crashing into water as hard as a stone path, then blacking out.

Clutching his wound, Lu Li rose, taking the oil lamp from Friday’s hand to examine the surroundings.

Just as Friday said, they were in a narrow cavity formed by the underground rock layers. An underground river flowed past the edges.

"Why are you here?" Lu Li asked Friday, who had sat down again.

"I should be the one asking you that." Friday picked up the book, tossed it to a corner, and raised her head inquiringly: "I arrived before you. I saw you being swept here by the current and pulled you up. If I’d been any slower, you’d have been carried further down. No need to thank me."

"Thank you."

Lu Li crouched by the rushing dark river, cupped the clear, icy water, and sipped. The good news was that these underground waters were potable freshwater.

The bad news was they were trapped here.

"How far are we from the surface?"

"Who knows, maybe we’re not far from the center of the Earth." Friday replied, her tone devoid of despair at being trapped underground.

Lu Li halted his exploration and returned to the center of the rock. There was nothing here but rock and water.

"How did you get here?" he asked the enigmatic Friday.

Friday leaned calmly against the rock wall, recounting her own journey: "I was following the fleet dispatched against The Time of Silence. After their failure, I jumped into the river and was swept into one of the many abysses in the wilderness. What about you?"

"Same as you." Lu Li answered succinctly.

He lowered his head to check his wound, and Friday added from the side: "Your wound was severe. When I pulled you up, I could barely find a pulse. I simply bandaged it, thinking I’d be living here with a corpse. Didn’t expect you to wake."

"Thank you." Lu Li expressed his gratitude again.

Despite Friday’s mysterious identity and elusive whereabouts, more alien than human, Lu Li never formed prejudices based on identity.

Especially as Friday had saved Lu Li for the second time.

"I need some rest." Lu Li settled into the coat laid out like a blanket, his forehead beaded with cold sweat as chilling as the river water.

Perhaps due to excessive blood loss or hypothermia, it was difficult for him to focus his thoughts, and he felt fatigued and weary.

"Now? Here?" Friday looked around the darkness. "You’ll freeze to death in your sleep."

Everything in the freezing rock layers was sapping away his warmth.

"Staying awake doesn’t make the situation better." Lu Li simply replied, gripping the reclaimed "lighthouse."

The "lighthouse" emitted a warm glow like sunlight, illuminating the rock layers and dispelling the surrounding chill. Even Friday felt comfort and ease.

However, Lu Li did not keep the brightness burning for long; after a dozen or so seconds, he released his grip amidst the lingering light, curling up and drifting into deep slumber.

Peaceful as if awaiting eternal rest.