Chapter 81 - 81 Eighty-one

Words : 1477 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

81: Eighty-one. The Shadow in the Wall 81: Eighty-one. The Shadow in the Wall A carriage slowly stopped on a dark street. The sparse candlelight shone through some residential windows, but most of the windows were pitch-black. In a world where darkness equaled danger, this often meant that no one lived inside. Number 103 Oak Street, the client’s residence. Under the tall courtyard wall, a carriage quietly stopped not far away, and the residential windows behind the courtyard wall were dark, without a single light on. “Are we late... or has it already ended?” Outside the carriage, Lu Li, holding an oil lamp, murmured to himself. The former meant the client had been killed, the latter meant other exorcists had beaten him to the punch. Anna couldn’t understand the difference between the two, sitting on the side with her head tilted. “Can you feel the presence of your kind inside?” Lu Li asked, turning his head. “I can’t feel anything...” Anna shook her head slightly. This indicated two possibilities: there were no ghosts inside, or the ghost inside was stronger than Anna. The former was almost certainly out of the question, meaning... Lu Li did not rush in; during this quiet observation, time silently passed by. “The radiance of God showers upon mankind~ The gleam of money does the same~” Suddenly, at a certain moment, a humming sound arose from the far end of the street, slowly drawing closer. Lu Li’s gaze fell on the rear of the carriage, where in the darkness, a figure holding an oil lamp swayed while coming toward him, humming something, like a drunkard staggering home from the tavern. But the voice was very familiar; just a few hours ago, Lu Li had spoken at length with the owner of that voice... and had casually given him 1000 shillings. The humming grew fainter, and Hades, who had decided to save money by walking several miles at midnight, noticed the carriage ahead and the figure under the oil lamp beside it. “Hide your aura.” Lu Li said to Anna, as he wasn’t sure what the local exorcists’ attitudes were towards ghosts. On the other hand, Hades stopped his staggering, a look of suspicion on his face as he approached the carriage until he saw the figure sitting on top— “What are you doing here!?” Hades exclaimed, his voice carrying down the quiet street, and almost instantly shifting his attention, “Are you stealing my business!?” He hadn’t expected Hades to be Marcus’s competitor... but indeed, it did make sense. Someone as money-oriented as Hades was indeed a good match for Marcus. “Instead of talking about stealing business, we’d better find the client first,” Lu Li said, dropping his guard as he was dealing with an acquaintance. The client was the mistress of the house, and with no one here and no lights on, the situation was eerie. Coming back to his senses, Hades, with a look of grave concern, ran towards the front door, and Lu Li, not wanting to miss the opportunity to make money and save people, followed suit. Hades, who had run ahead of Lu Li onto the street, dashed to the neighboring iron gate, rattled it a few times, and, seeing that it was locked, began climbing the wall. With his dress shoes finding purchase on several protrusions of the wall, Hades managed to agilely scale to its top and leap down behind it. Age had caught up with him; he was slightly out of breath after climbing over. Seeing no lights inside the window, his heart tightened. “I hope there’s no one here...” “How could there be no one, the client’s family is inside,” Lu Li, who had followed closely behind, pushed open the front door, entered the yard, and furrowed his brows, his dark eyes still as a deep well. Lu Li briefly grasped the Spirit-Calling Gun, and in that instant of contact, he “saw” that the entire house was shrouded in a hazy aura like fog. Without even bothering to ask how Lu Li had opened the iron gate, Hades’s expression suddenly changed: “This is bad!” He attempted to push the door open, but to no avail; it was locked from the inside, immovable. Before he could think of breaking through a window, Lu Li called out to Anna, asking her to go inside and open the door. Anna stole a glance at Hades before her figure slipped behind the door. Hades looked at Lu Li in astonishment: “A ghost!?” “Yes,” Lu Li replied succinctly, with no intention to elaborate. As his voice trailed off, the door creaked open slowly, and Anna drifted out from the dark void behind it. Hades didn’t care about Anna’s identity for the time being, and like Lu Li, he pressed his hand against the gun handle at his waist, lifted the oil lamp, and walked into the room. Wearing his bowler hat, he looked like a sheriff ready for a case. “Don’t stray too far from me after we enter,” Lu Li said, gazing at Hades’s retreating back and followed him through the door. His palm gripped the handle of the gun, ready to draw the Spirit-Calling Gun at any moment. “Is anybody there?” The flickering light from the oil lamp cast unsteady shadows as Hades slowly surveyed his surroundings, his figure hunched slightly as he moved forward. Behind him, Lu Li stood erect, while Anna looked on with curiosity, as if they were strolling down a street rather than exploring a house fraught with danger. Walking several meters along the dark corridor, an open door appeared within their line of sight. Hades passed by the pitch-black room, lifting the oil lamp to illuminate the inside, where the outline of a piano emerged from the edge of the darkness. After observing it, Hades withdrew his gaze and continued onward. They came across another open door, and once again Hades lifted the oil lamp. The bedding was a mess with the sheets thrown off—a bedroom with no one inside. Continuing forward, Hades suddenly stopped after a few meters, his expression turning solemn. He bit the handle of the oil lamp, freeing his left hand to reach into his coat and grasp a strange piece of black withered branch. “This is...” The black withered branch seemed to be some kind of Homogeneous Item, and holding it, Hades appeared to sense something, scanning the surroundings. “Anna, tear off the wallpaper.” Suddenly, Lu Li spoke up. An obedient nod from Anna, and suddenly a wild wind surged around her, spreading along the entire corridor. The gust tangled their hair, carrying with it a chill breath that swept through the vicinity. Shreds of paper fluttered in the air, spiraling down from above. “This...” Hades had let go of the branch. Peering through the falling debris, he saw what lay behind the wallpaper, his face filled with horror. Thick black and red lines ran chaotically across the wall like a child’s scribbles—intense, deep, building layer upon layer. The ceiling and the walls were covered in them, extending beneath the wallpaper. A black silhouette emerged where the hole had been before. The shape of a family of three holding hands, seemingly joyful, presented an extremely discomfiting image on the wall. Staring at the eerie hand-in-hand black silhouette, a chill shot up Hades’s spine into his mind as he exclaimed, “It’s a talisman!” “A talisman?” Lu Li stared at the silhouette of the family of three, tilting his head slightly. “Symbols imbued with Weird Power... Those lines are the imprints, the entire house has been marked with talismans!” “So?” “There’s another layer of space within the talisman, I must destroy it, otherwise the spirits inside the walls will come out!” Hades said gravely. He took out the withered branch again and began to tear at the bark with his teeth. Lu Li noticed the marks of gnawing all over the branch. Hades painfully swallowed a piece of bark the size of a fingernail, as fierce blue veins burst forth across his face. He retreated the way they came, back towards the piano room they had passed before. Rushing into the room, he looked up and shouted to Lu Li, “I’m going to break the talisman, but I can’t protect you. You and your ghost had better get out quickly.” “Alright.” Seeing that Hades could apparently handle the situation, Lu Li turned without hesitation and walked out of the room. Reaching the door, Lu Li paused and looked back, “Should I close the door?” The pitch darkness of the piano room came into view; there was no light and no sign of anyone. Hades was gone, and with him, so was Anna.

Chapter 81 - 81 Eighty-one

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