Chapter 123: Return To The Museum
Returning to Liuhua Street once again, it was already one o’clock in the early morning.
In this city without a vibrant nightlife culture, after nine o’clock is when the merchants turn off the lights and close up shop. At one o’clock in the early morning, the entire street was excessively quiet.
Parking the car at the entrance of this commercial culture street, Li Nuowei and Drake got out and walked into the street.
The street was empty of people, but in Li Nuowei’s eyes, it was full of eerie “living things” everywhere—those Inner world creatures with work and rest schedules opposite to humans were standing behind the glass of roadside clothing stores, inside the closed food carts, like terminally ill mental illness patients separated by glass and railings, lurking menacingly at the people entering this midnight street.
Drake noticed Li Nuowei’s tense, alert, and nervous emotions. He thought Li Nuowei was afraid of the dark and couldn’t help teasing, “What are you afraid of?”
The things you’re afraid of, you can’t see.
Li Nuowei sighed and said, “It’s not about being afraid of something. I’m wondering what you want to investigate.”
“My family history.” Drake looked at the other and said, “Since my bloodline has an inseparable relationship with the abnormal organization that once swept through this city, cracking my family history should also have some effect on solving the anomaly events in Liuhua Port.”
“How do you know your family history is related to Liuhua Port? Back then, the Anhai Divine Society was spread across multiple coastal cities, and some even reached inland cities.” Li Nuowei emphasized.
Drake thought of that taxi driver who had already been sent to the heavens by Li Nuowei, and the respectful attitudes of those remnants of the abnormal organization on Liuhua Street toward him, and the mysterious words they had said.
They clearly had a knowing impression of his appearance, undoubtedly recognizing the parents who gave him this face. Whichever side it was, they must be deeply involved with them and have profound ties to the Anhai Divine Society.
“Their attitude.” Drake said, “They recognize me.”
“So it’s just based on intuition?” Li Nuowei found it amusing, “Looks like our famous detective solves cases with intuition too.”
“Of course it relies on it. Intuition isn’t metaphysics; it’s just a performance of experience accumulated to a certain degree.” Drake grinned, his interlocking shark teeth smooth and round under the moonlight, emitting a cold gleam.
The two walked on the empty street and gradually arrived in front of the museum that Drake had visited during the day.
The front door’s material was sturdy, not suitable for a direct forced entry. They circled around the museum and soon discovered that this museum, modified from a small building, also had a back door on one side.
Li Nuowei looked at Drake: “Then it’s up to your violence.”
Drake, gradually transforming into a merman, was bursting with power. For him, forcibly breaking open such a small door was no difficult task.
Drake shrugged, decisively lifted his foot and kicked it. The redwood door containing metal immediately broke and deformed.
One kick wasn’t enough; Drake stepped back and followed with another kick, completely smashing the door.
Bang!
The deformed door crashed to the ground.
The commotion they made wasn’t small—in fact, it was excessively ostentatious—but the surrounding small buildings showed no movement at all, not a single light came on. In the distant black street alley, several canine figures were silently gazing at them, eerie glow in their eyes, just like those lifeless, hollow eyes plastered to the windows.
Feeling those lines of sight hidden in the darkness, both Drake and Li Nuowei couldn’t help but have their heartbeats quicken, feeling a bit of the panic and disarray of criminals caught at the scene.
Enduring the pressure of the gazes, Drake and Li Nuowei entered the museum through the destroyed back door. Using the flashlight beams from their mobile phones to illuminate the dark corridor, they walked to the museum’s hall.
Drake felt a bit crowded; Li Nuowei’s arms kept brushing against his. He looked over in confusion, only to find it wasn’t because the passage was narrow, but because Li Nuowei seemed nervous about something. He was subconsciously avoiding it, leaning on the living thing beside him.
“What are you looking at?” Drake noticed Li Nuowei’s line of sight scanning over the sculptures in the museum.
“Hush.” Li Nuowei made a silencing gesture, his eyes full of worry and panic.
Drake had thought that someone like Li Nuowei, who had experienced hundreds or thousands of deaths, was fearless, or at least numb to fear by now. But Li Nuowei’s current performance was as if he had seen a fear more despairing than death itself.
“You’re not afraid of these things, are you?” Drake said in a low voice, his expression somewhat strange.
Li Nuowei felt a bitter taste inside; of course he wasn’t afraid of those real sculptures. What made him apprehensive was in another dimension, those “lives” disguised as sculptures—those eerie things that seemed able to see them across spacetime.
They were gazing at the two walking in the museum, quietly closing in, attempting to surround them.
Li Nuowei didn’t know what the result of being surrounded by them would be, but it surely wouldn’t be anything good. He urged Drake to walk faster.
Drake was somewhat helpless, but fortunately, there was nothing worth investigating on the first floor of the museum. What he was curious about was that ancient book on the second floor.
The copybook placed in front of the ancient book display only had half the content of the manuscript. The guide at the time said the latter half was lost and couldn’t be copied, but Drake absolutely didn’t believe it.
The copybook was a one-to-one restoration of the ancient book, meticulously so down to nearly identical paper thickness. The only difference was in their degree of newness. If so, the copybook and ancient book should be the same thickness. How could the ancient book, as the manuscript, be missing half its content like the copybook? The missing lower half of the copybook was clearly deliberately hidden by someone with intent.
Arriving at the display case of the ancient book, Li Nuowei looked back and saw those malevolent Inner world sculpture creatures stopped at the entrance to the second-floor stairs, no longer moving, as if wary of something, just staring fixedly at him and Drake.
Li Nuowei breathed a sigh of relief and caught Drake’s glance.
He blinked, instantly understanding Drake’s implication, and said, “If you want to smash it, go ahead. Worst case, we get caught or die. As long as we really get some useful information, dying once isn’t a big deal. Next time we restart, you won’t need to come back and check it again—I can just tell you directly.”
Drake laughed, “Alright, then I’ll leave it to you.”
With that, Drake swung his fist, now covered in scales, smashing toward the sturdy display case. The glass immediately shattered. As he swung, scales fell from his ear fist, and blood kept dripping from the wounds where the scales had detached.
Drake took the ancient book from the display case and quickly flipped through it without mercy. The fragile pages, like dry leaves, crumbled into pieces with just a light touch.
Soon, Drake turned to the page he had seen last time in the copybook and found that the original indeed had complete content, with much more after that which the copybook lacked.
