Black Mist

"Here we are, sir. That'll be forty-five lubi." "Mm... what?" "Forty-five lubi." "Right." Naturally, Karen didn't carry his personal stash around, but he usually kept a few hundred lubi tucked in his pockets. He handed over a fifty-lubi note. The driver took it and smiled. "Thank you for your generosity, sir." "Uh?" Karen could only nod, resigning himself to the fact that his five lubi in change had just become a nonrefundable tip. He climbed out of the car, and the taxi drove off. *Taxis really are expensive.* Fifty lubi was enough to cover a family of four's living expenses for an entire day—and that meant three square meals, at least basic ones. Besides, the distance from the Crown Ballroom to Mink Street wasn't very far. At that moment, Karen felt transported back to his college days, staring intently at the red digits on the meter as they ticked steadily upward from the base fare. The Inmeles family hearse wasn't parked by the curb out front, which meant Uncle Mason and the others hadn't returned yet. *Sigh...* Looking at the building he was supposed to call "home," Karen felt a complicated swirl of emotions. *Police department, report, accident, not an aberrant demon...* The key words from the woman in the grey dress echoed repeatedly in his mind. Two people had shown up at a ballroom where an accident had just occurred, having received word directly from the police. That meant they held some official authority—and ultimately, it all tied back to "aberrant demons." On the surface, this world looked completely normal. At least, that was the conclusion one would draw from newspapers and books. In reality, it was nothing of the sort. Human nature was to seek benefit and avoid harm. Before the taxi had pulled up, Karen's sole focus had been escaping this family to live the life of an ordinary person—a life he would gradually make comfortable and prosperous through his own efforts, of course. Yet now he suddenly realized that beneath the veneer of normalcy lay a turbulent undercurrent. At home, his grandfather constantly weighed whether or not to kill him. So far, however, the old man's actual actions amounted to nothing more than keeping him confined; as long as Karen didn't take the initiative to flee Rojia City, he wouldn't cross any forbidden lines. Outside, by contrast, the world felt like a witch hunt. *"How could you not be an aberrant demon! How could you not be an aberrant demon!"* Mr. Hoffen's screams from the hospital bed still rang in his ears. His left fist clenched once more. Although Karen didn't fully understand what an "aberrant demon" was, his nature as a soul borrowing a corpse had stripped away his confidence from the very beginning. He knew all too well that he wasn't the original product. So was it even worth going out into the world? Compared to the dangerous unknown outside, his grandfather's image suddenly seemed... much kinder. The ideal time to kill him had been during those first few days after he woke up. Diss hadn't struck then; on the surface, it had looked like hesitation and deliberation, but as time passed, people inevitably made peace with things and grew accustomed to them. After all, Karen hadn't acted like an unruly brat, throwing tantrums around the house or scowling at everyone as if they owed him ten thousand lubi. Instead, he was sensible, obedient, and well-behaved. With time, his grandfather's anger and murderous intent were bound to fade. In truth, the longer he stayed in this house, the safer he would become. Just then, Karen saw Diss approaching from the west, dressed in priest's vestments. Karen watched him without blinking. He stared until a flicker of puzzlement crossed Diss's face, and the old man came to a halt in front of him. "Grandfather, you're back." "Mm." Karen pushed the door open and stepped inside alongside his grandfather. "Father, you're back." "Mm." Aunt Mary then turned to Karen. "Your uncle called from the hospital to ask if you'd made it home. He said hearses from other mortuaries had arrived on the scene, so to avoid losing the client, he drove straight to the hospital without waiting for you. "I'll give him an earful when he gets back. An accident just happened on that street, with people killed and everything—it must have been utter chaos. How could he just leave you behind?" Normally, Aunt Mary had a sharp tongue but a soft heart with Karen. In front of Diss, even her tongue softened to bean curd. "Aunt Mary, I'm an adult. How could an adult not know how to find his way home? No matter where I am, I can always follow the scent of home back." Diss walked over to the sofa, sat down, and asked, "What happened?" Aunt Mary patted Karen gently on the shoulder, then headed up to the second-floor kitchen to prepare tea and refreshments. Karen took a seat across from Diss and recounted the events at the Crown Ballroom. When he reached the part about finding the corpse hidden under the stage, Aunt Mary, who had just set down the tea tray, gasped and quickly covered her mouth. This wasn't Aunt Mary trying to act delicate and timid in front of her father-in-law. True, she had grown into an exceptional mortician, but that didn't mean her courage had grown alongside her skills. She wasn't afraid of corpses because she viewed them as another kind of "client." Once you grew accustomed to them, the dread vanished, much like a snake handler losing their fear of snakes. Yet when it came to a twisted serial killer, who could say whether he might target her next? There was no telling if she might become a "guest" in her own parlor one day. After detailing the state of the corpse, Karen laid out the analysis he had shared with Inspector Duke. Originally, he had planned to keep that part to himself; after all, he wanted to quietly develop his own connections and network. But after encountering that man and woman getting out of the taxi, he had changed his mind. *Grandfather, look: your grandson doesn't just cook and offer grief counseling; he can even help the police solve murders.* "Heavens, Karen, you figured all that out yourself?" Aunt Mary exclaimed from the side, her face full of awe despite barely understanding. "How did you do it?" "To put it simply, by placing myself in his shoes," Karen said, simplifying the concept as much as possible—not just for his aunt, but for his grandfather as well. Diss, after all, would never ask something like: *Heavens, my grandson, how did you do it?* "I stepped into the killer's perspective, using the clues and details he left behind to deduce his... psychological motives." Diss took a sip of black tea and asked impassively, "You can place yourself into a killer's role so easily?" "..." Karen went quiet for a second. That sounded uncomfortably close to birds of a feather flocking together. Karen quickly clarified, "Grandfather, Aunt Mary, it's actually like this: generally speaking, the more a killer thinks of himself as an artist, the easier his mind is to read, and the easier it is to step into his shoes. "Some people think they're special—say, preferring solitude and disliking socializing. But more than ninety percent of people dislike socializing, and among the remaining ten percent who excel at it, most would rather be left alone in peace if given the choice. "Or take being sentimental and melancholic, easily empathizing with people and things, harboring a constant urge to unburden themselves, to record and preserve their feelings. Most people around thirty who have accomplished nothing, men and women alike, mistake themselves for natural-born writers. "The more people strive to stand out, the more they crave uniqueness, the more they believe they deserve to be high-profile and special, the more ordinary they actually are. So their thought processes are remarkably easy to adopt. "When they break free from the cage of humanity and start killing for pleasure, they cease being human and become beasts. And how many beasts are truly intelligent?" Karen explained all this in one breath, then took a long drink of tea. Diss listened thoughtfully. "A novel theory." "So all those brilliant villains in the movies and novels I've read were just lies?" Aunt Mary asked. "There are exceptions to everything, Aunt Mary. But fictional works generally portray villains that way to heighten the drama and conflict." Karen picked up the teapot, half-rising to refill his grandfather's cup before continuing, "Truly wise people know how to refrain from slaughter." Aunt Mary patted her chest. "Yes, exactly. The good people must have the most smart ones among them." The telephone rang, and Aunt Mary went over to answer it. "Yes... yes, I understand. Understood, mm." Hanging up the receiver, her face beamed with delight. But seeing her father-in-law still sitting there, she tried her best to suppress her smile. Genuine joy was hard to contain entirely, leaving her expression looking rather stiff. "Father, Mason just called again from the hospital. The injured man who was sent for emergency care didn't make it. His family has agreed to let us handle the funeral arrangements. Mason and the others will bring the body back toward evening." "That late?" Diss asked. "Because they're still waiting for the family of the other deceased—the one whose head was sheared in half. When the hospital contacted his wife, she insisted her husband was on a business trip in Wien. Mason wants to wait a bit longer at the hospital to lock down that contract too." When someone passed away, their loved ones were usually numb, reduced to marionettes stripped of the ability to think. Add to that the instinctive desire to arrange a proper funeral quickly so the deceased could rest in peace, and whichever mortuary made first contact almost always secured the job. Diss nodded. "Very well. Go get ready." "Yes, Father." Aunt Mary headed down to the basement to prepare for the arrival of their guest. Seeing Diss remain on the sofa, Karen hesitated, not daring to leave just yet. "Weren't you afraid?" Diss asked. "Seeing a scene like that." "Not really," Karen replied. "I've gotten a bit used to it lately." "You seem to have something more to say." "No, Grandfather. What could I possibly keep from you?" "Mm." Diss stood up. "I'm going to the study." "Alright, Grandfather." Karen rose, waiting until Diss's figure disappeared up the stairs before sinking back into the sofa. To be honest, he had genuinely wanted to ask Diss about aberrant demons earlier, and about the man and woman from the taxi while he was at it. But on second thought, he felt the timing was wrong. Some windowpanes, even if paper-thin and practically translucent, still served a crucial purpose. Karen worried that if he asked point-blank, his grandfather might patiently explain the concept of aberrant demons, introduce him to the hidden side of the world unknown to ordinary people, and even analyze which organization that pair belonged to, what their responsibilities were, and what authority they held. And once the explanation concluded, his grandfather would sigh, stand up, and say: *"Now that everything is out in the open, I won't deceive myself any longer. Aberrant demon, prepare to die."* When it came to reading human nature, Karen was a professional. He wasn't about to dismantle the barrier staying Diss's hand just to satisfy his own curiosity. That would be infinitely more dangerous than his previous visit to the basement for a "chat" with Mr. Mossan. Karen knew the difference between taking risks and courting death. "Meow..." Karen looked down to find Purr crouched beside the sofa at some point. Over the past few days, Purr had seemed listless, as though she were sick. He reached out and scooped her up. Purr didn't resist, nor did she display her usual haughtiness; instead, she had an air of resigned defeat. In Karen's memory, this cat had always been remarkably expressive. "Whimper..." Over in the corner by the living room entrance, the golden retriever rested its chin flat against the floor tiles, looking on with pure envy. Mr. Hoffen had yet to be discharged, so the dog was still staying with the Inmeles family. The adults and children in the house didn't have much enthusiasm for pets; they didn't dislike it, but none of them bothered to pet it either. Only Karen took time every day to walk it around the neighborhood. Karen waved to the retriever, and it scrambled up immediately, panting happily with its tongue out as it trotted over and nuzzled its head beneath his palm. A cat on his lap, a dog beside him, the lingering aroma of black tea rising from the coffee table, and all of it inside his family's sprawling detached villa. Karen suddenly felt that this kind of life wasn't bad at all. He might not have the power to alter objective reality, but reality was merciful enough to let him choose a comfortable sleeping posture. *Power...* Karen sat up abruptly. Purr, who had been resting on his lap, lifted her head in confusion. Deprived of head pats, the retriever nudged closer, pressing its head beneath Karen's palm once more. Jeff's dream. Mr. Mossan's weeping. Did he have the power to elicit a reaction from the victim beneath that stage as well? If the victim could speak, couldn't the killer be identified immediately? Society often said that forensic pathologists made the dead "speak." If a victim could literally, truly speak, it would be the ultimate nightmare for every killer in the world! Yet... Karen glanced at his left palm again, having lost count of how many times he had checked the scar today. Leaving aside the fact that he hadn't even mastered this "ability," even if he truly possessed and commanded it, would he really use it to help the police catch killers? *Police department, report, accident, not an aberrant demon...* He'd have to be insane. "Karen." "Aunt Mary?" Aunt Mary had come back up from the basement, holding a box which she handed to Karen, her eyes darting toward the stairs. "What's this?" Karen took the box and opened it to find a wristwatch branded "Monroe." It wasn't a luxury piece, but it wasn't cheap either, running about two thousand lubi. White-collar workers in office buildings favored this brand. "Thank you, Aunt Mary." Karen assumed she had bought it for him, but she shook her head. "It's not from me. Mrs. Hughes had someone bring it over specifically for you." *Mrs. Hughes?* The proprietress of the crematorium. Aunt Mary lowered her voice further. "Even though Mrs. Hughes and I are good friends..." Karen had noticed that the other day. Mrs. Hughes had teased Uncle Mason to his face about falling while climbing through another woman's window, which was effectively warning her friend's husband on Mary's behalf. "...I still have to warn you: Mrs. Hughes is a bit... rather free with her affections. You shouldn't spend too much time around her, understand?" Like Uncle Mason, Aunt Mary worried that a hot-blooded young man like Karen would be hooked the moment Mrs. Hughes crooked her finger. To Mrs. Hughes, it might just be a diversion to stave off boredom and loneliness, but to a boy, it would cost him his innocence. After all, Karen was fifteen—an age when boys were bursting with restless vigor. How many boys that age could resist the charms of a mature woman? For her nephew's sake, Aunt Mary hadn't hesitated to speak ill of her own close friend. Earlier, because Karen had returned with Diss, she hadn't dared bring out the watch in front of him. "I understand, Aunt Mary." *That Mrs. Hughes is trying to make me her boy toy.* "Then could you please have someone return the watch for me, Aunt Mary?" "No need to return it. Just keep it, as long as you keep your head on straight. I'll take care of the return gift—we'll treat it as an exchange between friends. But you should still call her now to say thank you. For courtesy's sake." "Alright, Aunt Mary." "Her number is in the address book." "Got it." Karen picked up the receiver and flipped through the directory beside the telephone. Due to their business dealings, Hughes Crematorium was listed near the front, making it easy to find. He dialed the number and waited for a good while, but no one answered. *Busy, maybe?* Karen hung up and dialed again. *Click...* This time, the call was answered almost immediately. Karen spoke into the receiver. "Hello? Is this Hughes Crematorium?" There were faint sounds on the other end, but no one spoke. Karen tried again. "Hello?" "You're disturbing my artistic creation..."