Outside the window lies a harbor, the gloomy gray weather leaving Rodest Port as just a silhouette.
The smokestacks of the industrial district have been inactive for many days, yet a mysterious fog still shrouds Belfast.
A hand pressed against the filthy floor, a figure crawled up from the dark room.
The cold, damp sea breeze poured into the room through the window fra that had lost its glass, then left through the gaping, gnawed door fra. The rusted wind chis hung silently swaying. On the disassembled wooden chair lay a filthy, blood-stained coat, long dry, wrapped around a skeleton. Malignant mildew climbed the walls, caked with mold and larvae corpses.
The room, as if draped in a veil, stirred deep and ancient mories within Lu Li.
Ignoring the dust that inevitably clung to the hem of his coat and the knees of his trousers, Lu Li stood by the window.
A shroud of gray world enveloped the desolate, dead city, with the leaden sea being the only moving entity in this sketch.
There is no Land of Light, no Dark Era.
Lu Li sensed his cursed title.
No Dreamwalker, no Speaker of the Trees, no lighthouse, none of the cursed titles he once possessed.
His hand reached for his waist.
No Spirit-Calling Gun, no stomach, and certainly no Doomsday Apocalypse.
His dark eyes lowered slightly, Lu Li looked at the back of his extended left hand.
No Devil’s Curse, no scars burying Redemption Fragnts.
Leaving the window, Lu Li approached the room’s only corpse and drew a half-exposed pen from his pocket.
Once a valuable handcrafted pen, now consorting with dust and rust, bore tiny letters: Featherly ???.
The surna was obscured by scratches, and whatever sharp object left the scratches also tore the fabric of the pocket, leaving the exposed bones with gnaw marks similar to the door fra.
So creature had once broken into the psychiatrist’s office long ago, killing the unprepared doctor but not consuming him—at least not the parts wrapped in clothing.
The pen, long no longer usable, was placed back with the bones, and Lu Li walked to the door, pushing the broken door. Unbearable under force, the door fell backward, and the loud noise that could reach the street echoed down the dusty, cobweb-laden old corridor.
After maintaining silence to listen for a mont, no other sounds arose, and Lu Li stepped out of the room.
The unfallen dust in the corridor showed no strange footprints, and this building had been long neglected.
Lu Li arrived on the empty street, where there were similarly no traces of living beings.
Gazing at the buildings stretching along Sugard Mountain, there’s no Agate Lake Camp, no Land of Vortex.
Walking along the naless street towards the port, nothing happened on the way, as if Belfast had long been lost and abandoned.
Abandoned by humans, abandoned by bizarre entities.
Reaching the seaside street where the sea breeze blew, Lu Li entered the Anres Brothers Maintenance Station, faded by wind and rain. Stepping over the collapsed, decayed wooden racks, he reached the deepest part.
In the gloom, faded murals appeared faintly, blocking Lu Li’s path.
Feeling around, tapping on the walls, finding no holes, and only a solid thud resonating from the wall.
No investigator base.
Exiting the dim maintenance station, a vast sea bay blew with ocean winds, and anchored ships drifted solitarily on the sea outside Rodest Port.
Where had everyone gone?
Lu Li walked from the coastal street towards the mountaintop, encountering neither survivors nor bizarre entities. Passing by Pris Aristocrat Academy along the way, Lu Li stood outside the rusting fence, gazing at the ancient, historic building.
No Oliver and Jojo.
From the surface buildings of Belfast, he took a brief pause at the crumbling gates of Kael’thas Cathedral and outside the Lost Graveyard, passing through streets that whispered the silent tales of forr prosperity, sketched under the pencil of a decadent painter. He climbed the hill affectionately dubbed "Little McDonald Mountain" by the Belfast People, standing on the second peak of Sugard Mountain, gazing at the endless ocean.
Locating himself, Lu Li arrived at the Belfast Library outside a district.
The great fire turned this temple of knowledge to ashes, and the politician’s excuses left the sorrowful ruins unattended.
Leaving footprints on the scorched soil, Lu Li ventured into the hazardous ruins, pushing open the dust-laden iron door, dust cascading down, with several stone steps extending into impenetrable darkness.
Lu Li tossed a piece of charcoal found in the ruins into the darkness, and only an echo resonated from the depths, nothing else.
No Ophelia.
Leaving the library ruins, Lu Li then arrived at Da Vinci District No. 23.
Madam Anne’s Art Gallery was supposed to be here...
It should have been.
Before him, the building that was supposed to be Madam Anne’s Art Gallery had beco the office of a shipping company.
Lu Li stepped over the collapsed door, entering the office, circumnavigating the tilted, fallen desks, and reached the innermost room.
Ignoring the corner-locked safe, Lu Li looked at a docunt pressed beneath the glass panel of the desk.
The typewritten font was indiscernible, but only the right-bottom corner’s blurred scrawl identifiable as a person’s na. Lu Li lifted the glass panel to extract the docunt, but the moisture stains beneath ripped the paper to shreds.
Water destroyed the text, yet preserved it.
Lu Li walked out of the office, proceeding along the street, spotting a gallery at No. 25 beside the shipping company.
The iron gate of the gallery was locked and rusted shut; Lu Li rolled up his sleeves, climbed into the gallery through the shattered windowpane.
Bang—
The sound of falling echoed down the corridor, polished shoes stepping on dried muddy stains, and the dust and dirt from broken sculptures, as Lu Li entered the art gallery unrelated to his mory.
The artworks that once required artistic talent and knowledge to appreciate had now returned to dust, consorting with the mud and gray.
Exquisite oil paintings hung askew on the walls, lying on the ground, without exception, twisted and muddied by rain. They beca unrecognizable, lting likenesses of wax figurines.
Lu Li arrived at the place in his mory, a painting fra turned on the floor, which he lifted.
Being enclosed had preserved the oil painting well—a farr with a pitchfork standing before a farmstead.
No Anna.
Lu Li’s eyes slightly drooped, returning the painting fra to its original place, continuing forward along the silent, echoing corridor.
No sculptures, no Dracula.
Reaching the end of the corridor, Lu Li retraced his steps, pausing slightly before exiting the Naless Gallery through the window, and arriving at a wide crossroads, he raised his head to gaze towards Sugard Mountain—there should be no Baron Joseph there either.
Now, there was only one last place to go.
Sailor District.
The place with the most mories.
Approaching evening, Lu Li arrived before the low Long House.
The door and windows were boarded up. But due to moisture, the boards were now severely decayed.
Lu Li easily pried off the planks sealing the window, dim light probing into the room.
On prying off the third board, Lu Li paused, gazing into the light-filled room.
An old yet unfamiliar arrangent lay before him.
There was no The Weird And Multicolored Detective Agency.
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