At 4:57 in the afternoon, there was a knock on the door of the detective agency.
The clock that Oliver saw was three minutes ahead.
Lu Li was woken up, and his eyes, which seemed to be coated with a layer of hazy mist, gradually became clear and turned into a pool of quiet springs.
This time I didn’t fall into that weird dream again, but I couldn’t remember what I was dreaming about.
After washing up, he walked towards Oliver who was waiting outside the door. Before going out, Lu Li took the top hat from the hat rack and closed the door.
Click——
The door closed, and the dark detective agency returned to silence.
…
"Selling chestnuts, selling chestnuts!"
"The eel we just caught, four shillings a pound——"
"Give me back the headband!"
The sound of hawking echoed in the bustling sailor streets, and children played and ran past. The smell of fish wafted in the air, coming from the sailors returning from the sea, or the fish they brought back.
"Do you want to come with me?"
Lu Li tilted his head and said to Oliver who was following him.
"No, I'll turn left ahead." Oliver pointed to the corner ahead.
When they reached the corner, Oliver said hello and slipped away. Lu Li watched him leave, put on his top hat, and blended into the bustling crowd.
…
"Your Excellency, Exorcist, do you need me to close the hall now?"
On the second floor of the gallery, Lu Li opened the door and walked into the office and was warmly received by Benjamin.
The bare bookshelf and the smooth and new desktop showed that everything last night was not an illusion. Suddenly, Lu Li did not tell him what was going on in the office before leaving this morning.
But now that Benjamin looked unconcerned, Lu Li didn't mention it.
"Wait until the end of normal business hours." Lu Li replied.
"Well……"
Benjamin showed embarrassment: "There are no guests in the gallery now."
The gallery finally closed at 6 o'clock at the end of business hours. Employees left one after another, and Benjamin was the last one to leave.
Lu Li stood in front of the door and watched Benjamin leave. Instead of turning back to the gallery, he walked down the steps, walked around to the back of the gallery, and walked under a window on the second floor.
There was the window of the second-floor office, and it was also the place where Lu Li left the undead baby last night, but there were no traces on the ground.
After determining that the undead baby was unlikely to appear here, Lu Li returned to the main entrance of the gallery, took down the business sign on the door, and closed the door.
The sky began to darken, but there was still some time before it would become completely dark. Lu Li lit the oil lamp, covered the windshield, and waited quietly for nightfall.
The gallery corridor gradually became dark, hazy, and invisible. After half an hour, only a small circle of oil lamps around Lu Li was left.
Wow——
A strange friction sound echoed deep in the corridor.
The sculpture comes alive.
Lu Li stood up, picked up the oil lamp, walked around the desk and walked towards the depths of the corridor.
After walking more than ten meters, he saw his sculpture approaching on the corridor.
"Good evening."
Lu Li said hello: "I need your help."
There was no need to wait for the sculpture to reply. Lu Li picked up the sculpture and walked towards the end of the corridor to the stairs leading to the second floor.
"I know you can hear and think. I need your help to keep an eye on Athena by the stairs. You should know her. If she appears from the lounge, come and tell me."
Lu Li put down the sculpture in front of the stairs, looked at the lifeless stone eyes of the sculpture and said, "If you don't want to, you can walk away."
He took a few steps back, turned around and left. A few seconds passed, but there was no sound of moving stones against the floor behind him.
It worked.
Passing by Anna's portrait, the girl in the painting is still frozen, with no sign of coming to life.
Withdrawing his gaze, Lu Li continued to move forward.
But at this moment, a pair of slightly transparent palms came out from behind Lu Li's head, covering Lu Li's eyes.
"Guess who I am?" A laughter as clear as an oriole sounded from behind.
Lu Li stopped, but still slower. The translucent palms blocking his eyes didn't react in time, and pressed into Lu Li's head from his eye sockets, and he hurriedly recovered.
"Anna." Lu Li said.
"What the hell, you didn't even guess wrong on purpose."
Anna dropped her hands angrily and floated in front of Lu Li with a puffy face.
"...?" Lu Li's dark eyes showed some confusion. Does this kind of guessing who I am game require deliberately answering wrong names?
Lu Li put aside his confusion in an instant, regained his composure and said, "Can you sense the location of other ghosts?"
"It's okay if you don't hide your aura specially." Anna nodded.
"Very good, I need your help." Lu Li nodded lightly.
…
"I feel it...there!"
Behind the outer wall of the gallery, Lu Li held an oil lamp and raised it high.
Anna floated beside her, shouting in surprise.
They were looking for something under the wall - or a ghost.
Lu Li raised his head, followed Anna's direction to a higher place, and found an umbilical cord hanging from a tree branch several meters above the ground.
The arms are raised higher, and the ghost baby hanging from the tree appears in the light of the oil lamp.
Its umbilical cord was wrapped around a tree branch. Sensing the light of the oil lamp, the ghost baby struggled and swung its arms and legs.
Lu Li looked at Anna beside him and pointed to the tree: "Take that ghost baby down."
"Hmm... it looks so strange. Is this a human cub?" Anna floated up to the tree branch and complained, but she untied the umbilical cord without any disdain and held the ghost baby in front of Lu Li.
Lu Li stretched out his hands and held up the ghost baby while Anna was puzzled.
It hadn't fully grown yet, and its hands and feet, whose knuckles were still connected, hugged Lu Li's arm. Its mouth opened, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth - it didn't scream, and it didn't bite.
It just smiles happily when it sees the same kind, even though its vocal cords have not grown yet and it cannot make a sound.
Yesterday, Lu Li would not have been so provocative. But after encountering ghosts like Anna and the sculpture that did not attack people and could communicate, Lu Li's attitude changed somewhat.
Ghosts were once living people, so why can't they have human nature?
Looking down at the ghost baby, this ghost baby is less than seven months old and has not yet fully developed. It has layers of wrinkles and a layer of fine hair. Its face is more like the snout of a beast. It looks like an evil ghost.
Cub.
In fact, this is indeed the case.
Lu Li reached out to touch its eyelids and found that it could see. Its five fingers were like the webs of a frog, connected with a thin and transparent film to grab Lu Li's fingers.
Lu Li looked away, looked at Anna who looked strange, and walked back to the main entrance of the gallery.
After locking the door, Lu Li took off his coat, wrapped the ghost baby, and placed it next to the oil lamp on the desk.
He raised his head and looked at Anna, who was looking increasingly weird and hesitant to speak: "What do you want to say?"
"Is it your child?"
"no."
"Then why did you bring it back...?"
"It's Athena's child."
"...?"
"It will calm Athena's resentment."
"The question is, why are you doing this?"
Lu Li was silent for a moment, staring into Anna's eyes.
