The more bustling a place used to be, the more desolate and eerie it becomes after abandonment. The gallery served as a perfect example of this.
It was so quiet that even a heartbeat could be heard, and nearby, the sound of friction was distinctly clear.
Lu Li raised the oil lamp a little higher. The light spread out slightly, yet it still failed to reveal the source of the eerie scraping noise.
Ignoring the oil painting for the moment, Lu Li set down the oil lamp and turned to walk back.
Thud—Thud—
In the empty and desolate dark corridor, the sound of footsteps slowly echoed, penetrating the darkness.
The shadows shifted with the sway of the oil lamp. After covering some distance, a strange reflection appeared at the edge of the light straight ahead.
It was the path that Lu Li had just come from. He was certain there had been no obstacles on the road before.
Lu Li took a few more steps forward, bringing the reflection into the oil lamp's range.
His dark pupils contracted slightly.
There stood a sculpture in the middle of the corridor, its cold, rigid face staring at Lu Li, one stone leg poised as if mid-stride, motionless.
An inexplicable chill emerged all around him.
Lu Li had thought the supernatural phenomena would appear a bit later, but as soon as night fell, they seemed eager to manifest.
The envelope had mentioned that the sculptures moved around and just needed to be returned to their original places, so since that was the case…
Holding the oil lamp, Lu Li walked step by step toward the sculpture. His dark eyes, unblinking, stared at the sculpture, but no change occurred even as he stood before it.
It was a life-sized sculpture, nearly as tall as Lu Li's chin, showing off the natural limestone color of the stone. It was not yet painted, and perhaps it didn't need to be. Unlike the sharply defined male statues, this female sculpture was soft and aesthetically pleasing, with the only real fault being its nudity.
But after all, it was only a sculpture, even the finest features couldn't conceal that stiffness.
Lu Li quietly observed the sculpture, then suddenly tilted his head, looking at a pedestal not two meters behind it diagonally.
The sculpture had moved from there... in an inexplicable way.
It seemed it would not move while under the gaze.
A slight movement made the oil lamp in his hand wobble, and between the shifting lights and shadows, those dull limestone eyes seemed to come alive, turning slightly toward Lu Li.
Lu Li momentarily felt as if he were being watched, he averted his gaze, his own eyes falling on the integrated eyes of the sculpture.
Everything remained unchanged, as if the sensation of being watched was just an illusion.
Following the instructions in the envelope, Lu Li placed the oil lamp on the floor, reached out to embrace the sculpture's waist, and felt a strange, cold, slippery, yet very solid texture.
Lu Li picked up the sculpture, which weighed roughly 50 pounds, lighter than expected for a stone sculpture.
He lifted it to the pedestal and set it down, yet there was a problem. It was originally posed standing but now appeared to be walking.
Perhaps it would return to its original form by daylight.
Lu Li thought to himself, walking backwards, then bent down to pick up the oil lamp.
Since he always kept his eyes on the sculpture, there was no hair-raising phenomenon of looking down to pick up the oil lamp and then looking up to suddenly find the sculpture in front of him.
Holding the oil lamp and passing by the sculpture, Lu Li turned to face the sculpture and stepped back a few steps until the sculpture was nearly five or six meters away at the edge of the light, before turning back around.
Whoosh—
The moment he turned around, the eerie scraping noise sounded again.
Lu Li, sensing something, turned his head and saw one delicate slender right leg stepping off the pedestal, though before, it should have been the left foot that was forward.
The moment Lu Li's eyes left it, it had moved again.
Lu Li's brows suddenly furrowed.
The envelope only mentioned that the sculpture should be put back in its original place after being moved, but it did not state what to do if the sculpture kept moving.
He couldn't just let the sculpture roam the gallery while he tried to deal with the paranormal incident… or wait, he could.
Lu Li wasn't actually a nighttime security guard and didn't need to go out of his way to earn a 20-shilling wage per night. On the contrary, Lu Li was there to resolve the paranormal occurrences.
Undoubtedly, the sculpture was one of the paranormal phenomena.
If the statue disappeared, the paranormal phenomena in the gallery would decrease.
Put another way, if Lu Li caused the sculpture to be damaged or removed, Benjamin would have to pay him a corresponding fee.
Because he had resolved a paranormal incident.
That is, if the sculpture couldn't be repaired and returned.
Deciding on his next steps, Lu Li no longer forcefully restored the sculpture, letting it move about the gallery corridor.
Lu Li wouldn't actively destroy the sculpture, but if it attempted to jump out of the second-floor window as the envelope suggested, he wouldn't stop it.
Ignoring the shifting friction sounds behind him, Lu Li headed back to the desk in front of the main entrance.
The oil lamp, placed at a corner of the desk, gradually steadied its flickering flame.
Sitting in the cold wooden chair behind the desk, the breeze he brought along hadn't completely dissipated when the continuous friction sound suddenly stopped.
At the edge of the oil lamp's light range, a figure stood on the boundary between light and shadow, ambiguous in brightness.
Unexpectedly, it had followed Lu Li all the way back.
Annoyingly clingy.
Temporarily ignoring the sculpture, Lu Li lowered his eyes in thought about how to resolve the other three paranormal phenomena.
Apart from the oil painting, two deceased female employees were confirmed to be ghosts; their lingering in the museum might have a reason, perhaps because this was where they died. Or it could mean…the person who killed them had ties to the gallery.
Benjamin's image uncontainably surfaced in his mind.
Lu Li lightly tapped the desk with his fingers. If that was the case, having Oliver investigate the victims' backgrounds and inspecting the second floor himself became crucial.
If Benjamin was the murderer, he could demand a large hush-money and consultancy fee, then have Oliver report to the police.
Or Oliver could demand it, and he could report to the police.
Just then, the desk suddenly shook slightly.
Aware of it, Lu Li looked up to find a rigid face occupying his entire field of vision, breathing out coldness that bounced back.
The sculpture clung to the edge of the desk, stepping onto it and not moving an inch.
It seemed Lu Li had to deal with the sculpture's issue before anything else.
The envelope didn't specify what would happen if the approaching sculpture was continuously ignored, but the outcomes were either nothing or something worse.
Barely noticeably, his gaze flitted between the legs of the sculpture. Lu Li rose from his seat but didn't go for the oil lamp. He walked around the mannequin, arriving at the front door to unlock it and pull one open.
An unsettling aura permeated the silent, dark street.
Sometime unknown, a thin white fog had formed outside, with the windows of surrounding buildings glowing dimly.
Lu Li turned around and the sculpture had resumed its normal standing position, taking steps towards him, now turned away.
Lu Li picked up the sculpture and moved her outside the gallery door, setting her down: "I have work to do, you go play for now."
He retreated back into the gallery, and with a quiet click, Lu Li locked the door from the inside.
It was exiled.
Or to put it more pleasantly: it was freed.