Eldritch Horror Theatre

After staring at Fu Qian in disbelief for a long moment, Su Gao finally confirmed she wasn’t seeing things and bowed deeply to him.

Her bow plunged the restaurant back into dead silence.

This guy who called himself an expert actually knew Executive Yama Su!

And judging by her reaction, Executive Yama Su respected him quite a bit.

This turn of events left the two grunts rooted to the spot, the first one forgetting to even close his mouth.

Fu Qian paid no attention to them.

’She actually remembers me!’

’This Warehouse is far from simple!’

”During our last operation, I realized you had disappeared before I even had the chance to thank you.

Looking back, if it weren’t for your guidance, Mr. Fu, the consequences would have been unimaginable.We tried searching for you afterward but never found any trace. I thought your injuries had flared up... It’s so good to see you safe and sound.”

Su Gao was visibly excited, blurting out what was likely a year’s worth of words in a single breath.

”Thanks for your concern!”

’She really remembers everything. And from the sound of it, my teleportation after completing the assignment just looked like a sudden disappearance to them? They didn’t notice any special anomalies.’

A flood of information flashed through Fu Qian’s mind in an instant, but on the surface, he merely nodded and offered a casual greeting.

”And there’s no need to be so polite. Just call me Fu Qian!”

”I also thought I was a dead man last time, but I managed to survive by a stroke of luck. My injuries healed a long time ago. I suppose good and evil eventually get their due.”

Fu Qian labeled himself as a member of the Justice Faction without batting an eye.

”Mm!”

Su Gao harbored no doubts about Fu Qian’s vague explanation, simply nodding earnestly in agreement.

Then, as if suddenly remembering something, her eyes lit up.

”Your appearance here this time... could it be that you’re also here to deal with Ill Omen?”

”Exactly!”

It was just as he had guessed. This would save him a lot of trouble. Fu Qian nodded with exceptional satisfaction.

Her goal aligned perfectly with his.

Pleasant surprise showed on Su Gao’s face, and she felt inexplicably reassured.

”That’s wonderful!”

There was even a hint of joy in her voice, though she quickly regained her composure and pointed toward the decapitated young woman.

”What do you make of this?”

”I’m just here to eat today. You go ahead with your work.”

Fu Qian replied cryptically. He had no interest in the bloody murder before him and only wanted to be a spectator.

”Understood.”

Su Gao didn’t mind Fu Qian’s slacking in the slightest and turned her attention back to the crime scene.

Their previous experience together had left her with an almost blind trust in him.

”Mr. Fu?”

The two grunts cautiously sidled up to him.

Su Gao’s attitude toward Fu Qian had left them somewhat shocked.

From the sound of it, this guy had even done Executive Yama Su a huge favor?

No wonder he gave off such an unfathomable vibe.

”I’m Lu Jun, an official member of the West Plain City Night Watchers Squad. I was a bit impolite earlier. Please don’t take offense.”

After hesitating again and again, the first grunt finally offered a sincere apology.

In a world of high martial arts, the basic law of respecting the strong still held true.

Though Lu Jun wasn’t necessarily afraid of Fu Qian as a member of the Night Watchers, respect for the strong was practically carved into his bones.

”It’s fine.”

Fu Qian wasn’t about to hold it against the guy. He had always considered himself a reasonable man.

He knew perfectly well how much hostility his previous self-centered attitude had drawn. Being at a crime scene on top of that, it was completely normal to arouse suspicion.

If the guy hadn’t reacted at all, it would have been a dereliction of duty.

Seeing how easygoing Fu Qian was, Lu Jun visibly breathed a sigh of relief and shifted his focus to the current case.

”We’ve looked into the situation. The deceased is named Geng Yue, married. Today’s lunch was booked two weeks ago, but the other party never showed up. She had been waiting here for about half an hour.

Judging by the wounds, we can confirm this was the work of a transcendent, very likely the Ill Omen we’re looking for.”

”It’s certainly a transcendent’s method, but we can’t be sure it was Ill Omen just yet.”

Su Gao said with a nod.

”While killing in public to stir up panic does fit Ill Omen’s modus operandi, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions too quickly.”

”Handle this as a standard transcendent murder case for now.”

”Understood.”

Lu Jun hurriedly agreed. It was obvious that Su Gao put a lot of pressure on the two Night Watchers; both of them spoke to her with extreme caution.

”The other person on the reservation never showing up is quite irregular. We’ve decided to start investigating from that angle. For example, we’ll go look for her husband first. What do you think?”

As Lu Jun asked this, Su Gao turned to Fu Qian with an incredibly natural expression, seemingly asking for his opinion.

’Don’t look at me like that!’

’He’s asking for your opinion, okay? What’s with this fangirl attitude?’

’Now that you have a professional here, you’ve completely given up on thinking for yourself?’

Fu Qian pondered for a moment.

”Looking for the husband is never a bad move, but you’d better investigate this no-show as well. They might provide more valuable clues.”

”Are you saying the person who didn’t show up wasn’t her husband?”

Lu Jun looked startled.

”You’re not married, are you?”

Fu Qian asked, shaking his head at him.

”How did you kno... What do you mean?”

”I can tell from that naive mindset of yours. Do you have some unrealistically high expectations for marriage?”

Fu Qian sighed.

”A married woman booking a restaurant half a month in advance, dressing to the nines, arriving early to wait for her husband, and not pulling a knife on him after waiting for half an hour... What kind of position do you have to sleep in to dream up a scenario like that?”

...

After successfully showing a young man the cruel reality of marriage, the group left the restaurant where the incident occurred.

As for the victim’s body, since she was an ordinary person and they had already gathered the necessary information, the rest would naturally be handled by the local security forces.

The Night Watchers had their own set of protocols for this sort of thing.

”After our last operation, I applied to join the Yama Enforcer Squad, which specializes in hunting down transcendent criminals. Ill Omen is my first target.”

”This guy is quite powerful and acts with complete impunity. He kills almost entirely on a whim, and his targets aren’t limited to transcendents.

Because his movements are so elusive, we still know very little about him.

On top of that, he moves on quickly after committing a bloody crime in one place. We can only track him based on his modus operandi right now. I’ve been trailing Ill Omen all the way here.”

On the way back to the Night Watchers Base, Su Gao gave a brief overview of the current situation.

From the information she revealed, this Ill Omen was indeed not going to be easy to deal with. To think that even the highly capable Night Watchers didn’t have a name for him; tracking him down would likely be difficult.

In addition, one point of concern for Fu Qian was the clear objective of his current assignment: take down Ill Omen before the disaster strikes.

This ’disaster’ definitely wasn’t referring to Ill Omen’s killing spree. What could it be? And how was it connected to Ill Omen?