Chapter 100 – Conversing with the Dead

One had to admit that even among peers there were vast differences. The gap between one Spirit Detective and another could be enormous—some people needed two shots of medication just from glancing at a malevolent entity, their ribs aching when they later calculated the cost-benefit ratio. Others were like those legendary investigators from the stories, kicking open the door the moment they saw an Otherworld and barging right in, then beating the entities inside to a pulp…

But Little Red Riding Hood quickly adjusted her mindset, deciding not to hold herself to the same standard as this “Inn Trio” before her. After all, according to the Special Operations Bureau’s assessment (as well as her own judgment), the three members of this entire “inn” couldn’t piece together a single “human” between them. One of them was very likely a high-risk entity—what kind of sane person would compete with an entity over “Otherworld adaptability”?

Yu Sheng, however, had no idea what the Red-Clothed Girl was mulling over during her sudden silence. He simply circled around the eerie and terrifying “sacrificer” once more, trying to discover additional clues, and asked curiously, “So you’re saying if a person did this, how twisted would they have to be? I can understand breaking in to steal something—after all, we’re essentially here to steal things too—but to pull something like this after the theft? What’s the point?”

“A heretical religious ritual. The sacrifice was likely the primary objective, and taking the Weeping One statue may have just been incidental,” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. “The ones who do this sort of thing are usually cultists or extremists. They hope to gain powerful strength, enlightenment, blessings, or the ‘attention’ of certain eldritch beings by offering sacrifices to the Otherworld. And judging from the powerful psychic contamination this ‘sacrificer’ is already producing, whoever performed this sacrifice… was an ‘expert.'”

“People like that actually exist?!” Yu Sheng’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Something as sinister as the Otherworld actually has followers?”

“What they follow isn’t the Otherworld itself, but power and things of higher dimensions. The Otherworld is simply the most convenient path to the supernatural they can find—of course such people exist, and there are quite a few of them,” Little Red Riding Hood sighed, revealing yet another facet of this world’s truth to Yu Sheng, the clueless newcomer. “The Holy Seclusion Society, the Black Dot Syndicate, Angel Cult devotees, and those ‘Gatherings of the Converted’ who wander through the Otherworld, so far gone that it’s hard to say whether they still count as human—any of them could do something like this.”

She paused here, her expression growing complicated. “The Otherworld… many people have suffered greatly because of it. It exists in the Borderland, and it exists in the world beyond the Borderland too. We can rescue many people, but far more are beyond saving before we can reach them, falling into… the ‘other side’ of the world, never to return.

“Those who weren’t saved but didn’t die either—they’ve either gone mad, been taken away by the groups I mentioned, or transformed entirely into something beyond human. The Otherworld’s various influences cause massive changes to the human psyche. Being lured by power, deceived by hallucinations, controlled by false memories—these are all common occurrences.

“When you think about it, you should understand. With so many bizarre Otherworlds and dangerous entities, prolonged contact makes it impossible for everyone to remain forever resolute and steadfast in their humanity. There will always be people who stray from the path. It’s just that…”

“Just that?” Yu Sheng had been earnestly absorbing this new knowledge, and when she suddenly stopped, he instinctively prompted her.

“It’s just that this kind of ‘unauthorized intrusion’ is quite unusual for the Borderland,” Little Red Riding Hood’s tone grew grave. “The entire Borderland is monitored by the ‘node network.’ How did the intruder in the museum sneak in undetected?”

“That’s a headache for the Special Operations Bureau to deal with. The ‘nodes’ are their setup. If there’s actually a vulnerability in the system, that’ll be a real mess.”

Yu Sheng said this with a shake of his head, then strode toward the sacrificial victim on the elevated platform.

Little Red Riding Hood cried out in alarm the moment she saw what he was doing. “What are you doing?!”

“Getting him down,” Yu Sheng said matter-of-factly. “The man’s already dead. He shouldn’t have to keep suffering like this. I’ve seen it with my own eyes—I can’t just leave him.”

“Watch out for curses! This sort of thing is best left to the Bureau’s deep-dive—” Little Red Riding Hood reflexively warned him, but stopped halfway through.

A fully equipped deep-dive operative from the Special Operations Bureau might not even have as high a “resistance” as this man standing before her…

“Do we need to preserve the scene?” Yu Sheng turned back and asked Little Red Riding Hood curiously.

“…Yes,” Little Red Riding Hood thought for a moment and nodded. “We’d better not touch anything. Leave this to the professionals.”

“Oh,” Yu Sheng felt that made sense and could only let out a somewhat regretful sigh. By this point he had already reached the platform, examined how the Iron Thorns were wound around the body, found their opening, and had his hand gripping a section without barbs, ready to pull them off with force. But considering the necessity of “preserving the scene,” he let go, and after a moment’s hesitation, gave a nod to the victim kneeling on the platform. “Sorry about this, buddy. I’m no professional either—once we get out of here, I’ll report to the pol… to the Special Operations Bureau and have them send people to get you out. Hang tight here a little longer.”

Little Red Riding Hood watched Yu Sheng with an odd expression. He quickly noticed her gaze and turned around. “What?”

Little Red Riding Hood nearly let slip what she was actually thinking—”Didn’t expect you to be so human”—but caught herself at the last second and changed it to: “…Didn’t expect you to be so compassionate. Too many terrible things happen in the Otherworld. A lot of people have gotten used to it. When they see a victim, they just observe a moment of silence in their hearts, then walk out and file a report for the Bureau to send body recovery. Very few people care as much as you do… or even talk to the dead.”

When she finished, Hu Li beside her furrowed her brows slightly. “Isn’t that a bit cold?”

Little Red Riding Hood sighed. “In the Otherworld, corpses themselves often become hazards. It’s all too common for a victim’s remains to become the next threat.”

Yu Sheng waved his hand dismissively. “Can’t help it. I’m a rookie—I don’t know the rules.” As he spoke, his fingertips inadvertently brushed across the edge of the platform.

He touched the blood that had nearly dried.

Everything around him fell silent in an instant.

It all happened in a flash. Yu Sheng didn’t even realize what was going on at first—he saw Little Red Riding Hood, Eileen, and Hu Li suddenly freeze in place. Then all the color in the Great Hall rapidly drained away, growing dim and oppressive. A monotone palette of black, white, and gray blanketed the entire exhibition hall. In this abruptly frozen and silent world, he stood dazed for two or three seconds before hearing a faint creaking sound from behind him.

It sounded like stiff joints being forced to turn—against such a quiet backdrop, the sudden noise was almost grating.

Yu Sheng slowly turned his head.

The corpse on the platform—the one bound in Iron Thorns, bled to death—was also slowly turning its head.

One growing increasingly horrified, the other’s face covered in blood.

“What the—” Yu Sheng blurted out instinctively, but cut himself off mid-exclamation, because the corpse before him had opened its mouth.

“The ones who killed me…” the corpse’s lips moved, producing a hoarse, strained voice. “The ones who killed me, were… were…”

Yu Sheng still had no idea what was happening, but hearing this nearly drove him mad with urgency. “Give me the important stuff first! Forget about grammar!”

Then he watched the corpse suddenly draw in a breath—

“The ones who killed me were Angel Cult devotees, two males, one about one-seventy tall dark-skinned heavyset short hair wears glasses in his thirties with a mole on his forehead, the other about one-eighty very thin bald high-bridged nose in his forties wears a silver watch on his left hand, while they were doing it they kept repeating stuff like ‘you shall aid His descent’ and ‘deliver the savior from the sea of suffering,’ heavy southern-district Wusong River accent, they didn’t take the Weeping One statue they just tossed it in the corridor across the way, they weren’t interested in it they just came for the sacrifice ritual it hurt so much…”

The corpse rattled off this enormous string of information at an astonishing speed, seemingly even biting its tongue once or twice in the process. Then it suddenly relaxed entirely, tilting its head slightly upward, gazing at the ceiling of the White Exhibition Hall, and murmured slowly and softly, as if speaking in a dream: “Ah… eternal peace has come for me…”

It slowly lowered its head, returning to the hands-covering-face posture of the “Weeping One,” and went completely still.

Yu Sheng: “…”

He stood by the platform, utterly dumbfounded. The corpse’s rapid-fire delivery had been so fast he hadn’t even fully processed it. When it suddenly went quiet, his mind was a complete blank. Two seconds passed before he couldn’t help blurting out: “Hey, wait! Can you say that one more time?!”

The corpse did not respond. Instead, the black, white, and gray drained from the exhibition hall in a rush, and Eileen, Hu Li, and Little Red Riding Hood—who had been frozen just a moment ago—all snapped back to normal in an instant, as if nothing unusual had occurred at all.

It was Eileen who first noticed the subtle change in Yu Sheng’s expression and the shift in his Atmosphere. She looked at him curiously. “Huh? What happened? Why so serious all of a sudden?”

Yu Sheng snapped to attention, drew a deep breath, and turned to Little Red Riding Hood—

“The killers were Angel Cult devotees, two men, one about one-seventy dark-skinned heavyset short hair glasses thirties mole on his forehead, the other one-eighty thin bald high nose bridge forties wearing a watch on his left hand, the two of them kept saying something about ‘aiding His descent’ and ‘delivering the savior from the sea of suffering’ or something like that I didn’t catch it all exactly but that was the gist, heavy accent from south-city Wudao River or whatever river, and they threw the Weeping One statue in the corridor across the way… almost forgot that last part.”

Little Red Riding Hood stared at him blankly. “…Huh?”

(End of Chapter)