Chapter 308: The Big and Little Kings

The group arrived at Box 6 and saw a young man in a suit with a bow tie standing at the door, glancing left and right, restless and anxious as an ant on a hot pan.

Seeing Frasoles at the front of the group, the man’s face lit up with excitement. “Mr. Milicato! You’ve finally arrived!”

“Who’s he?” Ning Zhe asked casually.

“The deceased Daisel’s personal driver,” Frasoles said without turning around. “The deceased was attending the ‘Gift Auction’ inside the theater; he was waiting for his employer in the refreshment room.”

As he spoke, two burly male attendants pulled back the curtain on either side, and Ning Zhe peered inside: an oval room with two crescent-shaped sofas on either side; a white-haired old man lay face-down on the table, his gray, bloodless corpse-face staring straight at the door, eyes rolled white.

“This is how the body looked when first discovered. After the doctor examined it, we returned it to its original position—there should be little difference,” Frasoles said. Strange events cannot be judged by ordinary logic; perhaps something useful remains.

Ning Zhe nodded and stepped into the oval room.

“Sir, this—” Daisel’s driver opened his mouth to speak, but Frasoles raised a hand to cut him off: “Don’t speak.”

The Saint Gloria Opera House was Frasoles’s private property, backed by a long chain of well-established human trafficking operations; slave trading was the core business of the Milicato family, and the “Gift Girls” were merely the most elite fraction of that chain. As the Milicato family’s white glove for over a century, the Dake family had a duty to assist when Milicato’s interests were threatened.

Just as they had brutally suppressed worker uprisings in African nations in the past.

By the principle of equal rights and responsibilities, Fan Daike was obligated to resolve the supernatural incident in the opera house—but Ning Zhe was not. He weighed the pros and cons, deciding to stay and observe: if he could quell the incident, all the better; if the risk was too great, he would abandon the “Fan Daike” identity and flee.

Ning Zhe entered the room, his gaze silently sweeping over the corpse of “Bruno Daisel,” finally settling on the oval glass table at the center of the box.

As previously stated, the doctor found no external injuries or signs of poisoning on Daisel’s body. Fifteen minutes earlier, he had been eagerly anticipating returning home to “unwrap his gift”; the next second, he collapsed dead onto the table without warning—like an old man in a tale who passed away peacefully in his rocking chair beneath the sun, or a web-addicted teen who suddenly dropped dead at his desk after days of nonstop gaming.

Daisel had ordered no food or drink; the room was empty except for a pitcher of iced water, two glass cups, and several scattered playing cards.

Ning Zhe bent down and picked up a card beneath the sofa— a black-and-white joker, known in the Nine Provinces as the “Little King.” He picked up another from the table: the Ace of Hearts.

“Was he the first victim?” Ning Zhe asked.

“No,” Frasoles shook his head.

He walked into the room, activated the embedded electronic screen on the table, which displayed a city map of Vivian Port. Frasoles zoomed in and marked several red dots with his finger:

“The first victim was here—in a public restroom in the residential area west of the mega-mall. A woman with a child discovered his body; his condition was identical to Daisel’s. The second victim was here—in a small tavern…”

As Frasoles traced the map, a series of bright red dots formed an S-shaped curve in chronological order: “This ghost first appeared in the western residential area of the mega-mall, then moved southward, leaving behind a trail of mysterious deaths. Daisel is the most recent victim.”

“Have there been any new deaths since Daisel’s?” Ning Zhe asked again.

“No, he’s the latest one,” Frasoles answered without hesitation.

So he had successfully sealed the opera house with the ink-drawn thread, trapping the ghost within— the crimson curve had not extended further.

“Which means the ghost is still inside the opera house.”

Ning Zhe gathered every playing card scattered across the table, floor, and beneath the sofas: the Big King, the Little King,

Ace of Hearts, Jack of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, King of Hearts,

Ace of Spades, Jack of Spades, Queen of Spades, King of Spades.

Ten cards total, all different; broadly divisible into red and black suits—the Little King likely belonged to the spades side, by instinct.

“Can you pull up the room’s surveillance footage?” Ning Zhe asked after organizing the cards.

Frasoles shook his head: “The Milicato family’s commercial reputation is more precious than gold. There are no surveillance cameras or listening devices here.”

“Understood,” Ning Zhe said, unsurprised—he’d known the question was pointless, but hoped for a miracle.

“While the box has none, the opera house’s corridors and other public areas are monitored,” Frasoles added. “Footage shows that, aside from an attendant asking Daisel if he needed a drink at the start, he remained alone in the room the entire time—no one else entered.”

“When was he last confirmed alive?”

“Ten minutes ago—he just purchased ‘Aremiya’ and ordered his subordinate to deliver her to his hotel. He then returned to Box 6; the corridor footage shows he was still alive then.”

Frasoles pulled up the corridor and main entrance footage on screen. Ning Zhe fast-forwarded through it—everything matched his account.

No error. No omission. No inconsistency.

“So Daisel died only after sending the girl away and returning to Box 6—and he was alone the entire time. No one, human or machine, witnessed anyone else enter or exit the box before or after his death.”

“Correct,” Frasoles nodded.

“Alright…” Ning Zhe’s resolve was already crumbling. Daisel’s death was too bizarre—there were virtually no usable clues.

Ning Zhe sighed. A slender, swaying silhouette in a blood-red wedding dress silently appeared in the center of the room, holding a yellow almanac as brittle as dried leaves, her pale fingers lifting a page upward.

【Lunar August 1st】

【Auspicious: Ancestral rites, prayers, consecration, exorcism, lighting fire】

【Inauspicious: Burial, mourning, felling trees, planting, acupuncture】

Today’s fortune was neither good nor bad—auspicious and inauspicious equally balanced.

Ning Zhe was pondering how to subtly trigger today’s auspicious acts when a cry came from outside. Both turned—two male attendants stood on either side of the curtain, staring at each other in shock; Xia Yubing stood in the middle, hand over her mouth, face ashen.

“Someone’s missing,” Ning Zhe said without hesitation and rushed out. The corridor, which had held four people waiting, now held only three: Xia Yubing and the two attendants.

“Where’s Daisel’s driver? He’s gone.”

(End of Chapter)