Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 82 - 82 Eighty-two

82: Eighty-two.

Talisman 82: Eighty-two.

Talisman Lu Li reentered the piano room, lifted the oil lamp, and looked around.

The room was pitch-black and eerily silent, with no sign of Anna and Hades.

What calamity had they encountered?

Or was the one encountering a calamity himself?

Lu Li walked straight to the window and tried to push it open.

The window wouldn’t budge, as if it had merged with the space around it.

Lu Li took a half step back and swung his elbow out!

Thud——

His elbow connected solidly with the glass, making a muffled sound.

The window didn’t shake, and the acute pain that traveled up his arm was as clear as if he had struck a stone wall.

It seemed it wasn’t them who had disappeared, but he himself who was trapped.

An unsettling, cryptic scent was pervading the entire room, and indeed the whole house.

Lu Li turned his attention to the coffee cup on the low table beside the piano, reaching out to pick it up.

Yet Lu Li failed, his palm grasping the cup, trying to lift it.

It was as if fixed to the table, utterly immovable.

Even the coffee within didn’t ripple in the slightest.

Lu Li tapped his fingers lightly on the coffee inside the cup.

Dong dong——

There was no rebound, and the sound was as dull as tapping on concrete, making his fingernails ache slightly.

The coffee clearly hadn’t frozen.

The scenery around him remained unchanged, yet all objects were immovable…

Lu Li pondered.

Da——da——da——

Suddenly at this moment, slow and heavy footsteps sounded from outside the door.

Lu Li’s expression tensed, and without bothering about the room seemingly frozen in time, he hurried toward the door.

But the moment Lu Li was about to reach the door, it closed abruptly without any breeze, banging shut and sweeping up a corner of his clothes.

Lu Li stopped abruptly, pulling the Flintlock Pistol halfway out of its holster, ready to fire.

Clang——

A crisp sound suddenly came from behind him, the coffee cup was knocked over, and coffee spilled across the floor.

It was as if some invisible presence was moving the items in the room.

While staying on guard, Lu Li suddenly saw a piece of paper flutter up and land on the piano keys, followed by a feather pen rising and writing in the air.

Under the glow of the oil lamp, Lu Li saw a line of writing emerge on the paper.

[Where did you go]

Immediately after, another line appeared.

[You disappeared after you went out, but your ghost can see you, she says you’re on the wall, but no matter how we call, you don’t respond.]

On the wall?

Lu Li realized something, walked over to the window, and looked out into the pitch-black exterior.

Outside was covered by a thick black fog, impenetrable to sight.

“Am I inside a talisman…”

Lu Li murmured.

The feather pen paused, then continued to write, [She told me she can hear your voice, are you in the talisman?]

“Hmm,” Lu Li nodded.

Anna said she appeared on the wall, just like those black silhouettes, which only meant that he was in the same space as them.

Although Lu Li didn’t know how he’d gotten there.

Hades didn’t understand either, but he clearly knew Lu Li wouldn’t have the answer.

Da——da——

The footsteps were still approaching from outside the door.

Lu Li looked towards the door and said, “Lock the door first, I can’t move or see anything in the room, and now there’s a ghost outside the door.”

[Is there enough time?]

The quill had stopped writing.

“If you had asked a few more questions, it would have been too late.”

The quill was tossed onto the paper, and Lu Li’s gaze shifted to see the door suddenly lock itself.

Thud—thud—thud—

The footsteps were already very close, reaching the door in an instant before the sound suddenly disappeared, plunging the dim hallway into dead silence.

Their last echo was just behind the door.

Lu Li’s oil lamp shone towards the door.

The ghastly pale wooden door under the light had its reflective doorknob slowly move downward.

Click—

The door was pushed, but it did not open.

Because it was locked from the inside, whatever was outside could not come in.

Real-world Hades also observed the doorknob being turned downward.

He suddenly understood the purpose of the talisman and picked up the quill to write, “How did you get in?”

The handwriting was sloppy, but clear enough for Lu Li to recognize.

After writing, Hades looked at Anna, who conveyed Lu Li’s words, “If I knew, I wouldn’t still be here.”

[I think I might know what’s happening…]

[Hang in there.

I will try to wipe away part of the talisman to create an opening.

During this period, I can’t help you, and you must find your own way to avoid danger.]

“Okay.”

Lu Li replied, and he heard footsteps beginning to leave from outside the door.

“Open the door.”

[Why?]

“If they can come in by other means, I won’t have a place to run.” After thinking, Lu Li added, “Take good care of Anna.

I don’t want anything to happen to her when I get out.”

The quill paused for a long time, then slowly began to move: [Understood, don’t die.]

The quill fell back onto the paper, uncontrolled by anyone.

Lu Li set the oil lamp aside, wiped the nonexistent dust off the piano stool, and took a seat.

Squeak—

The lock on the door was undone and slowly opened.

Lu Li’s attention was on the doorway.

But at that moment, a dry, pitch-black hand appeared outside the door, clutching the doorframe.

Then a dark head eerily poked out from the edge of the door, its face wearing a sinister smile that seemed neither happy nor sad, peering in.

In the dim room lit only by the oil lamp, a shadowy figure silently peeping in from the doorway was enough to strike terror—Lu Li watched it expressionlessly and quietly.

Lu Li wanted to lure it inside, to close the distance, as he couldn’t be sure he could kill it with the Spirit-Calling Gun from the current distance of seven or eight meters.

Regrettably, he found that he couldn’t express emotions like “fear” or “panic,” so he tried another tactic.

“Ah, how terrifying, what should I do, am I going to die, won’t someone save me?”

Lu Li said these words to the ghost outside the door with a calm face and an even tone.

The ghost remained motionless, still quietly observing Lu Li.

Abandoning the idea of luring the enemy deeper, Lu Li stood up, concealing his right hand behind him, and slowly approached the doorway.

The ghost by the door seemed to sense something and began to retract its head.

Lu Li wouldn’t let it escape.

His foot stomped down, and he dashed out, the gust of his movement bearing down on the ghost.

The ghost at the door tried to flee upon sensing danger.

The Flintlock Pistol hidden behind was no longer concealed; Lu Li gripped it, extended his arm, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

A thunderous roar echoed back and forth in the space-fusing residence, and the recoil of the shot flung the shadowy figure into the air.

Lu Li reached the corridor, but found the ghost moving extremely fast, defying gravity as it climbed the ceiling, using all its limbs to drill into a corner, moving entirely unlike its previous slow approach.

Lu Li glanced back at the other end of the corridor before pursuing into the corner where the ghost had vanished.

A staircase spiraling upward appeared before him.

At the upper end of the stairs, within the reach of light, the ghost hung from the ceiling, pausing as its scorched, sinister face with its eerie smile silently watched Lu Li from above before it turned and climbed like a spider, instantly disappearing into the darkness.

Was it luring him over?

Or something else…