The joint organization personnel hiding in the money hiding place told Lu Li that it was not Richard who appeared.
Because the height and body shape did not match, they ruled out the possibility of wearing makeup and were following the person.
Lu Li asked them to continue following him, hung up the phone and walked out of the phone booth.
"Keep going or go back?" Anna asked.
"continue."
After getting on the carriage, Lu Li took the reins.
…
Watchtown, the last time I was here was just after arriving in this world.
That wasn't Lu Li's first contact with weirdness, but it was his first contact with the weirdness and darkness of this world.
Half an hour later, the carriage drove into Watchtown.
Because it is backed by Watchtown, it is one of the few towns that still remains prosperous.
Hades, the exorcist he first met, moved here, but Lu Li's goal was not him, nor this town.
After crossing Watchtown, he contacted the United Exorcist Organization again at a phone booth on the side of the street. After confirming that Richard still hadn't appeared, the carriage went straight to the abandoned lunatic asylum on the outskirts.
After a while, the building standing in the wilderness came into view.
Anna was also looking there, with a touch of reminiscence.
The last time she came, she was just a weak ghost who could drag Lu Li back and needed to be protected by him.
The asylum still looks abandoned, with muddy paths covered with rotten leaves, windows all broken, and mottled walls with traces of the vines that once climbed on them.
Richard knew about Anna's existence, but didn't know about Anna's current power, so Anna hid in the other world and waited for opportunities.
After parking the carriage outside the courtyard of the lunatic asylum, Lu Li held an oil lamp and walked through the courtyard and up the steps.
Broken glass and stones were trampled, and the crisp noise disturbed the silence of the asylum.
A cordon was set up in front of the lunatic asylum's gate. Since Lu Li escaped from here last time and contacted the police station, the place has been cordoned off by the police.
Lu Li lowered his head and passed through the cordon to enter the hall. He turned towards the passage on the right side of the asylum, and the walls covered with strange graffiti emerged.
The scrawled eyeball that Lu Li had been waiting for was still on the wall. Lu Li, who had realized something, looked at the other graffiti - the bloody tentacles clustered like seaweed, and the bloody pieces of flesh. It was like the scrawled graffiti drawn by a child. Although abstract,
But it was enough for Lu Li to formulate the answer.
The answer lies in the riddle.
After walking through the passage filled with garbage and debris, Lu Li came to the stairs.
The police who dealt with it last time had cleared the blocked stairs leading to the basement. After briefly stopping under the broken steps on the second floor, Lu Li stepped into the increasingly dark basement.
Boom——
When walking down the last step, Lu Li mentioned a rope hidden in the darkness. The rope stretched straight, and a sound of breaking through the air sounded from the darkness.
The outline rushed into the range of the oil lamp, revealing the outline of the bucket. When it was still half a meter away from Luli, it hit an invisible wall of air, fell over with a crash, and spilled a bucket of water.
Wow——
The meandering water flowing along the protective shield briefly distorted Lu Li's vision of the surroundings. He narrowed his black eyes slightly and looked into the darkness further away.
Nothing came out of the darkness anymore.
The empty bucket hung by the rope was shaking overhead. Anna found a piece of cloth at the bottom of the bucket and took it out.
"There is a note."
Anna handed it to Lu Li.
He raised the oil lamp and saw a crooked line written on the wet cloth stained with water.
[This is just a small punishment, if you move forward, your life will no longer belong to you]
"A child's prank." Anna sneered.
But this is indeed Richard's way of doing things. After all, he had just betrayed himself two hours ago, just for some shillings.
But Anna didn't want to imagine that the enemy who framed Lu Li was too easy to deal with: "But it could also be a trap to make you careless."
Lu Li knew this very well, but the note reminded Lu Li that there might be danger waiting for Lu Li ahead.
Throwing down the cloth, Lu Li started to retrace his steps and retreated to the gray corridor on the first floor.
"Aren't we going to explore the underground level?"
"Let's try another method." Lu Li said.
He had no intention of personally testing the traps Richard had set, whether they were childish pranks or deadly traps.
Lu Li asked Anna to pile flammable branches or wooden sticks on the last level of the steps leading to the basement, pour some kerosene on them, and then ignite them.
The flames gradually rose, and the acrid smoke twisted and rose, gradually filling the surrounding space.
If Richard was in the basement, he wouldn't be able to endure the choking smoke—and even if he could, his character has nothing to do with tolerance.
People who know how to tolerate will not take risks and send provocative letters.
The fire was getting bigger and bigger, and the heat wave and smoke continued to force Lu Li to retreat. The fire seemed to have ignited other things in the abandoned lunatic asylum. Smoke began to rise from the walls, covering the corridor like mist.
Realizing that the entire abandoned lunatic asylum might be burned down by flames, Lu Li retreated to the garden.
The fire spread quickly, and the cold and rainy days of the previous few days did not stop the flames from burning. The black smoke rising from the damp wood gathered in the sky above the asylum, and the thick smoke column was clearly visible from miles away.
I think it won't be too long before the Watchtown Police Department will notice something strange here and send someone here.
Lu Li waited quietly, waiting for smoke to fill the asylum and force Richard out.
If he hides here.
The fire was no longer in the basement, and there was a faint light of fire emerging from the thick smoke on the first floor.
Smoke has filled the entire lunatic asylum, and people outside the garden looked up quietly.
A new change appeared, a figure suddenly passed through a window that was still intact.
It was no longer an illusion caused by the rising smoke. Lu Li stared and saw the figure becoming clearer. He opened the window and threw down a rope.
Richard appears.
He was not hiding in the basement, but on the third floor of the lunatic asylum.
Richard's news is true, he really betrayed himself.
Anna's eyes turned cold. The fox who had escaped many times and hid with Lu Li finally appeared.
The breath was brewing, and she attacked Richard who was walking out of the window in a panic dozens of meters away, and seemed to be coughing violently. But the next moment, her brows furrowed.
"My strength cannot reach him..."
In the dark perception, an indescribable and strange aura twisted Richard's whole body.
"Maybe it has something to do with the remains of the ancient god on his body." Lu Li said while looking at Richard on the rope.
Richard moved downwards, shouting angrily that echoed in the abandoned garden: "You violated the rules!"
"This is against the rules...you actually burned this place down!"
"It's worth it to force you out." Lu Li replied.
Before the fire spread upstairs, Richard finally climbed to the bottom of the rope, jumped down, and landed in front of the steps.
But he didn't notice a stone under his feet, his ankle twisted outward, and Richard, who was unsteady on his feet, rolled down the stairs with a scream.
As Lu Li watched, Richard, who kept screaming, rolled all the way to the bottom of the steps, his face covered in blood after the collision.
"I surrender!"
Richard, who looked miserable, raised his hands and screamed.
