Chapter 122: 120: Return to the Museum

120: Return to the Museum

Arriving at Liuhua Twelve Streets once again, it was already one o'clock in the morning.

In this city, which lacked a culture of bustling nightlife, nine o'clock was the time for merchants to turn off their lights and close up shop; at one in the morning, the entire street was excessively silent.

Parking the car at the entrance of this commercial and cultural street, Li Nuowei and Drake got out and walked into the street.

The street was empty, but in Li Nuowei's eyes, it was filled with eerie "living things" everywhere; those Inner World creatures whose daily routines were the opposite of humans were standing behind the glass of roadside clothing stores and inside closed-up food carts, like terminally ill mental patients, glaring covetously through the glass and fences at the people who had walked into this midnight street.

Drake noticed Li Nuowei's guarded and nervous state; thinking Li Nuowei was afraid of the dark, he couldn't help but tease, "What are you afraid of?"

The things I'm afraid of, you can't see.

Li Nuowei sighed and said, "I'm not afraid of anything; I'm wondering what it is you want to investigate?"

"My background." Drake looked at the other person and said, "Since my bloodline has an inseparable connection to the Abnormal organization that once swept through this city, then unraveling my background is key to solving..."

"How do you know your background is related to Liuhua Port? The Anhai Divine Society of those years was spread across many coastal cities, and some even spread into inland cities," Li Nuowei emphasized.

Drake recalled the taxi driver whom Li Nuowei had already sent to heaven, as well as the respectful attitude the remnants of those Abnormal organizations on Liuhua Twelve Streets had shown him, and the mysterious things they had said.

They clearly had a knowing impression of his face; they must have known the parents who had bestowed these features upon him. Regardless of which side it was, it was certainly deeply intertwined with them and had a profound connection to the Anhai Divine Society.

"Their attitude," Drake said. "They recognize me."

"So you're relying on intuition?" Li Nuowei found it amusing. "It seems our great detective solves cases by intuition too."

"Of course I rely on it. Intuition isn't metaphysics; it's just a manifestation of experience accumulated to a certain degree." Drake grinned, his interlocking shark teeth smooth and rounded in the moonlight, revealing a cold, chilling gleam.

The two walked along the empty street and gradually arrived in front of the museum Drake had visited during the day.

The material of the main entrance was sturdy, making a frontal forced entry inadvisable. They circled the museum and soon discovered that this museum, converted from a small Western-style house, had a back door on one side.

Li Nuowei looked at Drake: "Then I'll leave the violence to you."

Gradually transforming into a fish-man, Drake's strength was explosive; for him, forcibly breaking open such a small door was not a difficult task.

Drake shrugged and decisively raised his foot to kick it; the rosewood door, reinforced with metal, was immediately kicked through, twisted and deformed.

One kick wasn't enough; Drake stepped back and delivered another, completely smashing the door to pieces.

Bang!

The deformed door was kicked to the ground.

The commotion they made was not small, even somewhat excessively ostentatious, yet the surrounding small buildings remained completely still. Not a single light turned on, and in the distant black alleys, several dogs were silently staring at them, their eyes glowing with an eerie, ghostly light, just like those dull, hollow eyes pressed against the windows.

Feeling those gazes hidden in the darkness, both Drake and Li Nuowei couldn't help but feel their heartbeats quicken, a sense of panic like criminals caught in the act.

Bearing the pressure of those gazes, Drake and Li Nuowei walked through the destroyed back door into the museum. The two used the flashlight beams from their phones to illuminate the dark corridor and walked into the museum's lobby.

Drake felt a bit crowded; Li Nuowei's arm brushed against his from time to time. He looked over in confusion, only to find that it wasn't that the passageway was narrow, but that Li Nuowei seemed to be nervous about something, subconsciously avoiding it and leaning against the living creature beside him.

"What are you looking at?" Drake noticed Li Nuowei's gaze sweeping over the sculptures inside the museum.

"Shh." Li Nuowei made a gesture for silence, his eyes full of worry and panic.

Drake had thought that someone like Li Nuowei, who had experienced death hundreds or thousands of times, would be fearless, or that even if he felt fear, he would have long since become numb. Yet, Li Nuowei's current expression was as if to say he saw a terror more desperate than death itself.

"You aren't afraid of these things, are you?" Drake said in a low voice, his expression somewhat strange.

Li Nuowei felt bitter inwardly. He certainly wasn't afraid of the sculptures in reality; what he was terrified of were the lives in another dimension that were "disguised" as sculptures. Those eerie things seemed to be able to see them across space and time.

They were currently staring at the two people 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 certainly wouldn't be a good thing. 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 the Ancient Book on the second floor.

The replica placed in front of the Ancient Book display stand only contained half the content of the original manuscript. The guide at the time said the latter half was lost and could not be copied, but Drake absolutely did not believe this.

The replica was a one-to-one restoration of the Ancient Book, so finely restored that even the thickness of the paper was almost identical. The two only differed in their age. Since that was the case, the replica and the Ancient Book were the exact same thickness; as the original manuscript, how could the Ancient Book be missing half its content like the replica? The missing second half of the replica was clearly deliberately hidden by someone with ulterior motives.

Arriving in front of the display case for the Ancient Book, Li Nuowei looked back at what was behind them and discovered that those malicious Inner World sculptural creatures had stopped at the entrance to the second-floor staircase and would move no further, as if wary of something, merely staring fixedly at him and Drake.

Li Nuowei breathed a sigh of relief and caught the look Drake cast his way.

He blinked, instantly grasping Drake's deep meaning, and said: "If you want to smash it, then smash it. At worst, we'll get caught or die. As long as we can really get some useful information, dying once isn't a big deal. Anyway, you won't have to come back and look at it again next time; I can tell you directly."

Drake laughed, "Alright, then I'll leave it to you."

Saying this, Drake swung his fist, which was already covered in Scale, and struck the sturdy display case. The glass of the display case shattered instantly, and as he swung his fist, scales scattered, and blood dripped continuously from the wounds where the scales had fallen off.

Drake took the Ancient Book out of the display case and, without a hint of pity, quickly flipped through the pages of the Ancient Book, which were as fragile as withered leaves. Some of the pages shattered into pieces at the slightest touch.

Before long, Drake flipped to the page he had seen in the replica last time and discovered that the content was indeed complete, with much more content following it that was not in the replica.