Chapter 146: The Unfinished Ritual
“You actually got photos from the scene.” Li Duojin glanced at Chen Xiaolin, thinking this female reporter really had something.
“Things that can be settled with money aren’t issues.” Chen Xiaolin said, showing her mobile phone to Li Duojin, “Master Li, since you’ve been saying you have some skills and felt something strange as soon as you entered the room, what are your thoughts on these symbols and this attic?”
Li Duojin didn’t answer immediately. He just focused and looked at the complex symbol that seemed composed of basic shapes for a while before saying: “I don’t recognize these symbols either. They don’t look like things that circulated in ancient times in the Shenzhou Region. They either existed in even more ancient times, experienced a long hiatus, and reappeared, or they existed farther away, transmitted from somewhere on the other shore across the ocean.
But what I can determine is that some irregular sacrificial ritual was held here. Although I don’t know what purpose the ritual was performed for, nor what phenomena were triggered during the ritual process, I know this sacrificial ritual caused an unimaginable bad consequence.”
“Bad consequence?” Chen Xiaolin frowned, “Can you tell me your guess?”
“Are you scared by the atmosphere here?” Li Duojin asked teasingly. Seeing her choked by his words, he smiled, “Your imagination shouldn’t be just this much, right? Although it’s been cleaned very thoroughly here, combined with what you saw earlier, you should be able to imagine something.”
Chen Xiaolin opened her mouth, and the somewhat unconvinced her steadied her mind, recalling on her own the signs she noticed along the way when she entered the attic.
The deformed metal door bulging with multiple human faces, scratch marks everywhere, traces of fighting that couldn’t be completely covered, the tablecloth engraved with mysterious symbols, sacrificial ritual… Zheng Yu… chopping people…
“Could violence and bloodshed have happened here too?” Chen Xiaolin was startled, staring at Li Duojin.
Li Duojin nodded to her, but his gaze slightly unfocused, shifting away to behind the pitch-black Chen Xiaolin. Several miserably dead broken-bone corpses, dragging their barely connected limbs, with flesh and blood tissue not fully removed stitched together, wandered around the attic. From the moment he entered the attic, his special eyes had let him see the victims who once died here.
Chen Xiaolin pressed: “How can you be sure? Where are the people then? If it was serious, there should at least be bloodstains and corpses left behind.”
“The law enforcement officers who came here to investigate and the Mysterious Group cleaned up afterward, or they were handled by other beings.” Li Duojin didn’t care about where the corpses were. What he was curious about was other things. “What exactly was this ritual for? When was it held? What was the result? How did the being that went mad killing people here get in? There’s no sign of intrusion here at all. And how did it get out? There are no traces left outside the house either.”
“Mysterious Group?” Chen Xiaolin widened her eyes, “You think this incident even involved the Mysterious Group?”
“Not only do I think so confidently, I’m certain they really came.” Li Duojin said to Chen Xiaolin.
Chen Xiaolin stared intently at him, only to see Li Duojin remove his phone case and take out a magnetic card from the inner compartment, which clearly stated information about Li Duojin’s profession.
Mysterious Investigator Certification
Name: Li Duojin
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Rating: D
……
Seeing the documents Li Duojin showed, Chen Xiaolin finally understood Li Duojin’s true identity. She slightly tensed her toes: “So your real identity is Mysterious Investigator, and fake master is your side job.”
“Strictly speaking, my main job is just an ordinary temple keeper. Though ordinary, it’s not fake. Mysterious Investigator is my side job.” Li Duojin shook his head, correcting Chen Xiaolin’s view of him.
As he spoke, Li Duojin didn’t want to argue further with Chen Xiaolin and said: “The reason I agreed to come to Magic City for Boss Zhang wasn’t purely because of money. Actually, at the same time I agreed to him, I had already received an investigation mission, so I had started investigating the anomaly behind this murder case long ago. Fishing for benefits from Boss Zhang this time was just incidental.
As you know, Mysterious Investigator missions are basically investigation and handling of anomalies in their own jurisdiction, issued by the organization. Since I could receive such a mission, it means the Mysterious Group had already conducted a preliminary investigation here.”
“You’re using me?” Chen Xiaolin then realized she was the one being manipulated by him.
Li Duojin smiled indifferently: “Why say it like that? We’re just mutually beneficial. You want the truth, you said you could provide clues and were willing to pay to hire me, so naturally I had to come along.”
Chen Xiaolin gritted her teeth: “Dog scammer.”
“I don’t recommend you insult yourself like that.” Li Duojin shook his head.
Chen Xiaolin couldn’t argue too much with Li Duojin either. She focused her death stare on Li Duojin’s face: “What did you discover? Tell me quickly! I don’t care what your identity is right now. I’m the one paying!”
Li Duojin shrugged: “That’s all I have. The rest are guesses, inferences without substantial evidence. Do you want to hear them?”
Without waiting for Chen Xiaolin to answer, he already saw the anger in her widened eyeballs and continued right away: “I suspect Zheng Yu’s serial killings at the time were also part of the ritual.”
“Part of the ritual?” Chen Xiaolin’s expression fluctuated, worried, “When exactly did he start believing in these things? He’s not such an irrational person.”
“When encountering certain powerful anomalies, a person’s reason and spirit are unreliable.” Li Duojin comforted, “He might have been unintentionally contaminated, or his spirit was later induced.”
Chen Xiaolin sighed inwardly, then suddenly remembered the experience she heard from Uncle Wang the sanitation worker when talking to him: “Wait, you said it’s a ritual. I just remembered what that sanitation worker at JOJO Amusement Park said.”
“You mean the surviving sanitation worker who was luckily rescued by law enforcement officers?” Li Duojin had heard something about it, but he had just arrived in Magic City today and hadn’t had time to investigate this person yet, so he asked, “What did he say?”
Chen Xiaolin: “He told me that up to his death, Zheng Yu kept saying things to him like ‘the mission is entrusted to you’.”
“Mission?” Li Duojin thought thoughtfully, “Could it mean the ritual isn’t fully completed yet and needs to continue?”
Chen Xiaolin shuddered all over, clenching her fists tight.
……
Uncle Wang finally glanced back at the amusement park with slight reluctance, then shouldered his luggage packed into a sack and left without looking back.
Uncle Wang, who didn’t want to resign, ultimately left early.
On the small path during Yang Kang~~~
