For a moment.
Brian opened his eyes with a strange expression on his face.
The owner of this "obsession" turned out to be Andres, whom he had killed.
Calculating the time.
It must have been during the afternoon cleaning at the motel that they discovered the body and called the police.
Brian stroked his slightly stubbled chin.
This guy had a high drop rate.
While he was alive.
He got taken down by me as material for a task.
After dying, he even switched roles to become a task NPC, issuing a new quest.
This beast's obsession was also quite bizarre: to dance on Carolina Ellis's grave and urinate.
Carolina Ellis, that was Andres's wife.
The color and intensity of Andres's obsession were only slightly less than that of the single mother's obsession from before.
It was clear.
Andres held a strong discontent for his wife, who wasn't exactly a saint either.
This discontent even surpassed the grudge of Brian killing him.
"Dancing on a deceased person's grave and urinating is inhumane!
However…
On the other hand.
Dancing compacts the soil on the grave.
Urination fertilizes the grass above.
This is an act of kindness and righteousness!"
After such self-justification, Brian still decided to complete this obsession after some time had passed.
...
In the following workdays.
Brian was very diligent.
Every time he finished his work, he would head to the morgue.
Some people asked out of curiosity.
Brian used the new department at the end of the month as an excuse, claiming he was ambitious.
The establishment of the new department wasn't a secret anymore.
Not just Brian.
Many people in the Forensic Bureau wanted to use this opportunity to receive better treatment.
So no one suspected Brian's unusual behavior.
...
After a few days.
Brian felt very frustrated.
He had come in contact with over a hundred and seventy bodies.
And only collected three new obsessions.
The first new obsession belonged to an old lady.
Her obsession was to find her long-lost first love and tell him about her years of longing and affection.
She was someone who, due to a youthful promise, had kept herself chaste all her life because of love.
Brian swore.
He really wanted to help this respectable old lady fulfill her obsession.
But after investigating.
Brian found out that the old lady's first love had kicked the bucket over a decade ago.
And the death was quite messy: he didn't pay for a prostitute, was subjected to gang violence as punishment, and was left beside the road as a deterrent, eventually bleeding out.
The real kicker was, after more than a decade with no one to look after, the old lady's first love's ashes were who knows where.
Brian couldn't fulfill this obsession either.
...
The next two obsessions he gained.
Were more or less the same.
Either Brian found them too difficult to complete.
Or the obsessions were too bizarre.
Brian couldn't bring himself to do it.
The only thing he gained these past few days was the certainty that obsessions are not easily formed.
Thinking about it makes sense.
Everyone.
In their lifetime, will have many regrets.
But most people's regrets are not overly intense.
It seemed the corpses most likely to harbor obsessions were those who had intense emotions and regrets while they were alive, or those who had undergone extremely painful experiences just before death, suitable for cultivating strong obsessions.
Unfortunately.
Brian discovered that recently, very few homicide victims were being brought to the Forensic Bureau.
After inquiring with colleagues from the field service.
Brian found out.
After the phenomenon of the Blood Moon.
The corpses clearly implicated in homicides were being sent directly to the mortuary at the Detective Bureau (Homicide Unit).
The Los Angeles County Forensic Bureau had been stripped of its powers.
Brian guessed.
This was in preparation for the establishment of the "Crime Experiment Group" that would follow.
Regarding this,
he had no choice but to quietly wait for the recruitment of the new department to begin.
...
Day off.
Brian left the suburban private medical facility with a smile on his face.
He had come today specifically to visit his foster parents.
To keep his foster parents from seeing the pressure he was under,
every time he visited, Brian smiled like an idiot.
Back in his car,
Brian rubbed the cramps out of his smiling face, pulled a bunch of small notes from his pocket, threw away the contacts given to him by female nurses and doctors, and kept the payment bill, sighing deeply.
To gather new obsessions and to smoothly join the new department at the end of the month,
Brian had recently focused all his energy on work.
As a result, his part-time income had significantly decreased.
Next month's medical expenses were still up in the air.
"Two people, that's tens of thousands of US dollars a month, medical care really is a mountain weighing down on ordinary people's heads..."
Brian crumpled up the payment bill in his hand, tossed it under the passenger seat, started the car, and prepared to head to his next destination.
He was quite busy today.
...
Almost an hour later,
Brian looked at the old, dilapidated Children's House in front of him and knocked on the door.
After a moment,
a white-haired elderly woman who looked to be in her fifties, holding a child's sweater she hadn't finished knitting, opened the door somewhat bewilderedly.
Brian looked at the old woman with a gentle smile on his face, "Mrs. Brown, I'm Brian, long time no see."
"Who are you?"
The old woman looked at the tall, handsome Brian in front of her, puzzled, "Sorry, I don't seem to remember you."
Brian wasn't surprised at this.
The last time he was here, he was only eight years old.
At that time, Mrs. Brown was not yet the matron of the Children's House.
Brian recognized her because in recent years, when he was wealthy, he had donated to the Children's House's official website a few times and had seen photos of Mrs. Brown.
Just as Brian was about to explain something,
Mrs. Brown seemed to remember something, her pupils shrank, she kept retreating, looking at Brian as if she had seen a demon, her hands holding the yarn trembling uncontrollably.
"Brian!"
"I remember now!"
"Child of Disaster!"
"You are the Child of Disaster from more than a decade ago!"
Amid Mrs. Brown's frightened cries, a white-haired, one-eyed black man rushed out of the kitchen holding a kitchen knife, his expression fierce, "Mrs. Brown, what's going on!"
Brian: ...
...
A few minutes later,
Brian silently left the Children's House, still watched by the wary one-eyed black man.
He hadn't expected that after so many years,
someone would still remember the nickname "Child of Disaster" from his past...
Brian had come this time
to visit the three-year-old little girl from his first obsession, Alli.
Unfortunately, he only obtained an address.
He was able to get the new address of little Alli only after showing Mrs. Brown his several donation records to the Children's House.
Due to Z state's Fooly policy,
families that adopt children receive a substantial subsidy every month.
Therefore, adopting children is quite prevalent in Los Angeles, sometimes even requiring a queue, affecting some families that truly wish to adopt children.
This has led in recent years
to many families not wanting to wait and opt to adopt children from certain countries abroad with more lenient vetting processes.
Three-year-old Alli
was adopted by a couple that met the adoption criteria on her third day at the house.
"I hope this little girl meets someone who loves her as her mother did."
Brian felt a touch of melancholy.
...
Just as Brian was about to get in his car and leave,
"Whimper~"
At that moment,
a thin dog, all bones and jet-black fur, suddenly darted out from a nearby alley, biting onto Brian's pant leg as if trying to pull him into the small alley on the street.
Looking at the dirty little dog,
Brian frowned slightly, preparing to kick it away, but as he lifted his foot, he thought of the little girl Alli.
He sighed, closed the car door again, and followed the dog's tugging into the alley.
It was a narrow alley, not very long, ending at a large trash bin connected to the garbage chute of the adjacent apartment building.
Next to the trash bin was a large dog, just as dirty and skinny.
The moment he saw the big dog,
Brian's pupils contracted.
Damn!
Do dogs also develop obsessions???