The Bizarre Detective Agency Chapter 51

Richard seemed at a loss for words. "Well, it was a pleasure meeting you, and... uh... goodbye," he finally managed.

Richard blinked and shut the iron door. A moment later, his face reappeared in the grated window above it. "A good friend of mine will be by to see you later," he said. "He's not quite himself at the moment—no, no, no, that's not the right way to put it... Anyway, if I stick around, he might use me as a vessel, too, so just to be safe... Right, I've already said too much."

He locked the iron door from the outside, his footsteps gradually fading into the distance. Silence descended upon the operating room.

Lu Li turned his head, his gaze falling on the glowing brain in the glass jar. He then looked down and tested the restraints on his hands. He found the straps binding his right wrist were badly frayed. With a sharp tug, he ripped them free, buckle and all.

Perhaps Richard had been so confident in the iron door that he hadn't bothered to check the sturdiness of the bed's restraints.

Working calmly, Lu Li freed his wrist and then began to undo the straps at his waist and legs.

He had just undone the last strap on his legs and was starting on his left arm when footsteps echoed from the corridor beyond the iron door.

Quickly, Lu Li lay back down, draping the loose straps casually over his body.

A few seconds later, Richard's face reappeared at the door's grate. He peered inside suspiciously and snapped, "You've been up, haven't you!"

"Good..." Richard nodded, satisfied. Then his smile froze.

"Wait a second..."

Lu Li sat up on the edge of the bed, letting his legs dangle. Flexing his wrist, he said, "You really should get a new bed. This one is far from secure."

"Damn it..." A flicker of annoyance crossed the masked man's face, but he quickly recovered with a sneer. "It doesn't matter. You're not getting through that door."

"Of course I won't," Lu Li agreed with a serious nod. The shirt beneath his coat strained as he drew a deep breath.

In the next instant, he bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Help!"

His cry ripped through the operating room and echoed down the corridor.

Richard was stunned. He couldn't imagine anyone yelling "Help!" with such thunderous confidence and authority. It was the kind of tone better suited to a war cry like "You have nowhere to run!" or "Get him!"

Just as Richard recovered his wits and opened his mouth to mock Lu Li's futile effort, a rapid series of questions echoed from above:

"What happened? What happened? What happened? What happened? What happened?" Anna floated down through a hole in the dilapidated ceiling.

"Where did a ghost come from?!" the masked man cried out. Like Stephen before him, he didn't hesitate. Realizing the situation had spiraled out of his control, he turned and fled without a backward glance.

"What's going on? Who was that? Were you yelling for help, or was he?" Anna asked, still trying to piece things together.

"Catch him and open the door," Lu Li said, pulling the last strap from his other wrist and getting to his feet.

"Uh... alright, on it," Anna said, finding the whole thing rather amusing. She nodded, turned, and drifted straight through the iron door in pursuit of Richard.

A moment later, the lock on the outside fell with a metallic clang. The door, no longer secured, swung slightly ajar.

A single Anna could probably unlock every door on an entire street.

Lu Li remained seated on the bed, calmly undoing the final strap on his left wrist. He reached up and touched the back of his head.

A large lump had formed, and his fingers came away sticky. He didn't need to see it to know it was blood.

He wiped his hand nonchalantly on his shirt, leaving several bloody smears, and walked over to the table to gather his belongings.

In the glow of the portable lamp, Lu Li's shadow stretched long and thin. He picked up his Spirit Gun, swung open the cylinder, inspected it, then snapped it shut with a crisp click.

Suddenly, his head snapped around, his gaze fixed on the corner beside the operating table.

The moment his fingers had closed around the Spirit Gun, Lu Li had felt a strange aura emanate from somewhere nearby.

Almost instantly, Lu Li connected the portable lamp to the sudden appearance of the aura.

"So that's what Richard meant..." he muttered. "Summon a ghost and set it on me..." Holstering the Spirit Gun, Lu Li raised the portable lamp.

The shadows had nowhere to hide. The beam revealed a hole in the previously dark corner, its edges showing clear signs of being dug out. It was impossible to tell where it led, but the aura was definitely coming from inside.

The door was open, but Lu Li was in no hurry to leave.

The reason was simple: the aura's intensity felt contained, and Lu Li had no intention of passing up such a meal.

Something stirred in the depths of the hole. A few seconds later, a massive head emerged from the opening. The creature was vaguely humanoid, its skin a pale white, utterly hairless. Thick layers of fat obscured any discernible facial features.

Logically, if the head had struggled so much to get through, the body should never have been able to follow. But the mass of fat undulated as if boneless, oozing into the operating room and slowly taking on a more defined form.

Most ghosts retained the appearance they had in death, but this one was clearly different...

The quivering folds of fat slowly coalesced into a humanoid shape. The creature hadn't even fully emerged, yet the once-spacious operating room already felt suffocatingly small.

Lu Li's gaze drifted involuntarily to the Spirit Gun at his hip.

Something told him a pistol would be next to useless against a creature of this size.

Pop!

A wet pop echoed in the room. A single, bloodshot eye squeezed out from between the folds of fat and fixed its gaze on Lu Li.

A rasping, indistinct voice emanated from the mass of flesh. "Is... this... my... body...? I... like it."

The fleshy mass quivered, as if in delight. "Thank... you... for... bringing... it... to me..."

"You're welcome," Lu Li replied. "But how about a little appetizer before the main course?" He decided he'd seen enough.

It wasn't just because the creature was still squeezing its way out, but because staring at it any longer might put him off eating meat for a very long time.

Scanning the room, Lu Li walked over to a corner behind the door where various bits of junk were piled up.

A broom... too light. A scalpel... too small. A length of pipe... too short.

After dismissing everything even remotely suitable, his eyes landed on a cast-iron radiator propped against the wall.

The radiator's connecting pipes had been sheared off, and a half-meter iron pipe had been welded to it, forming a handle for what looked like a gargantuan, brutal cleaver. It had to weigh at least thirty kilograms.

What could be handier?

As the fleshy mass continued to ooze into the room behind him, Lu Li gripped the pipe and hefted the makeshift weapon. Rusty water trickled from its lower end, leaving a wet trail on the floor.

A scraping sound came from behind him. He walked toward the quivering mass of flesh in the corner, still struggling to free itself from the narrow hole. Until it was fully out, it was nothing more than an immobile target.

Lu Li tightened his grip on the pipe, the muscles in his arms bulging beneath his shirt. With a grunt, he heaved the heavy radiator into the air and brought it crashing down like a colossal hammer!