The Bizarre Detective Agency Chapter 60

"Sir, are you saying... she should forgive them?"

The ghost girl lifted her head, her face streaked with two horrifying trails of bloody tears. She gave a bitter laugh.

"Why should I forgive them?"

Lu Li didn't ask how she knew who he was, nor did he pay any mind to the thick, almost palpable malice emanating from her. He simply raised a finger, pointed toward the ground, and declared, "Hell is empty."

Above the ghost girl's head, a black halo seemed to devour everything around it, radiating a terrifying malice. The scene was familiar—the specter beneath the library had been just like this, but the girl before him burned with an even deeper, more profound hatred.

"As an exorcist, aren't you supposed to stop me?"

Her bleeding eyes remained fixed on Lu Li, burning with a hatred that seemed to encompass the entire world, including him.

In other words, she was trying to provoke him into attacking her.

Poor girl. Hounded to death and reborn as a powerful vengeful spirit, yet she was still trying to cling to some semblance of her own principles.

"You're right. I am an exorcist, and I cannot simply stand by," Lu Li acknowledged with a calm nod. He then turned to Anna, who was poised for a fight. "We didn't see a thing. The Bizarre Detective Agency is empty, and we still haven't had a single client."

"Huh?" Anna froze, tilting her head in confusion.

Lu Li turned back to Michelle.

"She agrees."

"Do you pity me?"

The ghost girl's volatile aura continued to swell. The vile black halo above her gradually grew denser.

"If you need pity, then yes, I pity you. If you find that pity unbearable, then I am simply doing what must be done," Lu Li replied.

"...You are a wise and good man." Michelle's beautiful face softened, and her oppressive aura was no longer directed at Lu Li.

She gave another bitter laugh. "But why couldn't I have met you sooner?"

"It's not too late now," Lu Li murmured, shifting in his chair to turn his back to the ghost. He closed his eyes, concealing the true depths of his feelings. "Go, before anyone else sees you."

"I've seen your heart," Michelle said suddenly, her gaze fixed on Lu Li's back.

"It's bright, and alive."

"I hope it is never tainted."

The terrifying aura gradually receded from the detective agency. Once Michelle was gone, Lu Li opened his eyes.

"She's so tragic... Boss, did you let her go out of pity?" Anna's voice was a complex mix of emotions. In life, she might have done something to help, but now, as a ghost herself, she was powerless.

"Faced with a story like that, no one could remain unmoved." Lu Li turned slowly, his unfocused gaze drifting across the darkened detective agency.

"But we just let her go like that?"

"What else could we have done?" Lu Li countered.

Anna gestured frantically. "I mean... what if the police or the Night's Watch find out? They'll come after you! Michelle has obviously returned to kill the people who wronged her!"

Lu Li remained silent, merely lifting his eyes to look at Anna.

His dark eyes, which so rarely betrayed any emotion, were as calm as ever. In that moment, Anna understood exactly what he meant.

He didn't care.

For a moment, Anna was speechless.

Still, something felt wrong. After a moment's thought, she realized what was bothering her. "Michelle was murdered by those monsters, but they'll never be punished for it."

The Council won't punish people for spreading rumors, especially when those rumors have nothing to do with politics.

Lu Li shook his head. "Your logic is sound, but that's not the heart of the matter. If you want someone dead, the simplest way is to take a knife and kill them. The most difficult and insidious way is to understand their character and subtly destroy them from the inside out. You use rumors to ruin their family, cost them their job, and drive them mad until, finally, they can no longer bear it and take their own life."

"The first is murder. The second is merely slander. But do you really see a difference between them?"

Anna fell silent. Both were murder, but the second was even crueler. It destroys a person utterly, and the price for committing it is next to nothing.

Lu Li continued, "The law is humanity's last resort, and it sets the lowest possible bar for morality. When someone commits an act of profound immorality—believe me, the only reason they don't cross the line into outright crime is the fear of punishment."

Anna agreed completely with Lu Li's reasoning, but that didn't mean she condoned it. As an educated aristocrat in life, and a ghost in death, she understood all too well that such things happened constantly.

"But we know there's nothing that can be done about it..." she murmured.

Lu Li didn't answer her directly. Instead, he said, "Let me tell you a story."

He didn't wait for Anna to reply before he began.

One morning, after a great storm, a man went for a walk along the seashore. As he walked, he noticed that countless small fish had been washed ashore by the tide and were now stranded in tide pools on the sand. They were trapped, unable to return to the sea, though it was only a few feet away. There must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. Soon, the water in the pools would be absorbed by the sand or evaporate under the sun, and all the fish would die.

The man continued on his way. Suddenly, he saw a little boy up ahead, walking very slowly and constantly bending down at each pool. He was picking up the fish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean with all his might. The man stopped and watched the boy as he went about saving the tiny lives.

Finally, the man could watch no longer and approached him. "Son, there are hundreds, thousands of fish in these pools. You can't possibly save them all."

"I know," the boy replied, without looking up.

"Oh? Then why do you keep doing it? What difference does it make?"

"It makes a difference to this one!" the boy declared, picking up another fish and tossing it into the sea. "And to this one! And this one, and this one, and this one..."

When he finished the story, Lu Li picked up yesterday's newspaper. At the end of the article were comments from local residents and students.

[I was just joking around, how did that make me a murderer?]

[She killed herself over that? Ugh, kids these days are so weak.]

[She's the one who did all that stuff, we just told everyone about it. Why is she acting like the victim?]

[She was a good girl. I mean, at least she realized how stupid she'd been and had the decency to kill herself out of shame.]

The fish was dead, but the maggots were still writhing in its remains, multiplying and growing fat.