Detective Agency of the Bizarre

"Is it over?"

"It's over."

The flintlock pistol was returned to its holster, the increasingly dense and unwilling coldness dissipating around him.

Everything came to a temporary close.

Lu Li opened the breech and stuffed new silver-plated bullets into the barrel.

Anna hadn't yet detached herself from the story and murmured to herself, "When people die they become ghosts, but where do ghosts go when they die..."

"Good question."

Lu Li put away the flintlock pistol and responded.

He could take this question to Hades.

"What do we do now?" Anna asked curiously, and thinking of something, drifted back with a touch of fear.

Lu Li guessed what she was thinking: "I will try to communicate with Benjamin, to get him to agree to let you stay."

"Oh." Anna nodded obediently, relaxing.

"Hold this for me."

Lu Li handed the oil lamp to Anna, turned around to pick up the sculpture, placed it back on its base, took back the oil lamp, and walked toward the depths of the corridor, finally making a round through the gallery.

"Do you remember anything from your life?"

Lu Li asked.

Floating behind him, Anna scratched her silky short hair, a bit lost, "I remember some, but some is missing, uh... I can't recall most of it."

"What do you remember?"

Finding the light from the oil lamp a bit strange, Lu Li raised the oil lamp and saw that the glass wind guard had some dust on it, and he wiped it off with his hand.

"How am I supposed to answer that..." Anna was somewhat troubled, not knowing where to start.

"Like the saying 'Stay in a place with light when it gets dark.'"

"Eh? Why do you need to stay in a place with light when it gets dark?"

Anna expressed even more questions than Lu Li.

She had died from illness when this Ailen Peninsula had not yet suffered from the disaster of darkness; and after waking up, she had always wandered inside the painting, with no one to talk to.

One could say she knew nothing about the outside world.

"...Something happened not long ago, it might be Belfast, or the Ailen Peninsula, or even the whole world." Lu Li explained what he knew about the darkness disaster in turn.

"Has it become that terrifying?" Anna shivered, fearfully clinging closer to Lu Li and the oil lamp, as if she wanted to burrow into him.

"Don't you sense anything? After all, most of the time after nightfall, you are in the dark."

"Um... I was always in the painting, sometimes I could see other night guards passing outside, I tried to talk to them but I scared them away. It was just yesterday I suddenly felt like I could come out, and then..."

Then she just did that and almost got stuck in the painting.

In Lu Li's eyes, ghosts were beings that could survive in the dark, like Asina and Ruth, whether they were affected or not was unknown.

"Wait... if you have to stay inside and light oil lamps after dark... you actually took me out to find the baby just now!" Anna exclaimed belatedly in alarm.

"But we've been staying in the light," Lu Li replied.

Although the night was dangerous, it was only so in places not enveloped by light. The taverns in Belfast remained crowded every night, residents on night shifts carried kerosene lamps or torches home, and the electric lights near government facilities or noble mansions gathered groups of homeless people together.

People struggled to survive in the night but also bravely maintained the status quo.

Ahead, within the range of the oil lamp, the stairs to the second floor appeared.

Lu Li stepped onto the stairs, his gaze falling on the wall to the painting named "Count Dracula."

It was a half-body portrait, the middle-aged man in the painting wore garments that Lu Li could not identify, similar to medieval luxury, with a face sharp as if carved by a knife.

He lacked the talent to appreciate art; other than its eeriness, he saw nothing else in the painting.

"Where are we going?" Anna asked curiously.

"To take a round through the gallery, to see if there's any other presence of the supernatural."

Lu Li stepped onto the second floor stair, and he and Anna turned their backs to the paintings. Meanwhile, the portrait of Count Dracula in the painting came to life instantaneously, as his eyes began to move slowly, turning blood red and three-dimensional.

His teeth sharpened, his nails began to grow, and the surface of the painting suddenly bulged, as if to break free from the canvas.

"If we find one, do we perform an exorcism?"

"Yes."

Lu Li touched the handle of his gun. The Spirit-Calling Gun required nourishment; being able to become stronger by harming ghosts had, to a certain extent, changed Lu Li's approach to combat.

Before, Lu Li would avoid fighting if possible, preferring peaceful resolutions. Now, he still preferred peaceful resolutions, but if the other party did not intend to keep the peace... then he would find a way to eliminate them.

The spectral shadow in the painting, hearing their conversation, began to retreat back into it.

Lu Li suddenly became aware and looked towards the stairway's portrait with his deep black eyes.

The ghost that had already retreated back into the painting innocently shifted its gaze away.

Lu Li lifted the oil lamp, the shifting light making the eyes in the portrait seem alive as they moved.

Withdrawing his gaze, Lu Li stepped up to the second floor of the gallery.

"How long have you been here?" On the corridor, Lu Li asked Anna.

"For about a few months…"

Each night when she woke up, Anna could only face the darkness inside and outside the picture frame, or the occasional ghost that passed by in the corridor, the moving sculptures, and the night watchmen on patrol.

She couldn't remember how long she had endured this boredom and loneliness.

"Besides Asina and the others, do you know of any other paranormal phenomena?"

"It doesn't seem like there are any…"

Lu Li glanced briefly outside the doors of the office and rest area before moving on, focusing his attention on the last two rooms: the studio and the storage room.

The former contained only some incomplete sketches on easels, while the latter stored items like coal, frames, and other various things.

Confirming there were no other supernatural presences here, the human and ghost returned to the table by the front door on the first floor.

The time had just reached nine o'clock, and the rest of the night was going to pass peacefully.

...

The flame flickered, and the kerosene around the wick was nearly dried up.

It was almost out of oil, but Lu Li did not plan to replenish it, for daylight was approaching.

"Will I see you again tomorrow..."

In front of the empty picture frame with only a background, Anna lowered her head and spoke softly.

Lu Li was silent, not speaking.

Anna felt dejected. Was she going to keep up with the same tedium again, and then face the night watchmen who would scream in terror...?

She looked up cautiously at Lu Li: "Then, will you come to see me often?"

"Probably not."

"Eh——"

Anna's drawn-out whine at Lu Li's blunt refusal puffed her cheeks in indignation: "Fine then! Just let me die here bored and lonely!"

She turned and immersed herself back into the painting, sitting gracefully on the chair within the frame, becoming the noble young girl once more.

"Achoo!"

She suddenly sneezed, then chuckled sheepishly for a moment. Remembering she was still annoyed with Lu Li, she hummed lightly and returned to her previous composed posture.

The figure in the portrait gradually solidified.

A faint light from the window pierced the corridor, casting a dim, gray veil over the gallery.