The Devil’s Cage

After turning left and right a dozen times and walking almost for 20 minutes, Lee stopped before a two-story building.

Oaker looked around with strange eyes, he never thought that the base of operations of the Funeral Society member would be located on the commercial street.

Though what followed was a sudden realization.

Only because it was located in the commercial street with that much visitor traffic, when people saw someone unusual dressing on the street, no one would doubt anything, especially the exterior of the building was decorated with all sorts of weird ornaments and the signboard of a tattoo parlor.

The inspector nodded slightly.

With such decorations around the building, no one would doubt anything if someone dressed in an extreme peculiar manner. There indeed was a trend a few years back, the youngsters were so hyped about vampires that some of them really installed four sharp fangs onto their teeth.

Ding!

Lee opened the locked door and entered inside.

The wind chime hung outside to let out a pleasant sound as the door was opened, the inspector then followed quickly and tried to inspect what was inside the building.

What he saw was posters, catalogs for tattoos, nothing different than a common tattoo parlor.

Right after that, Oaker shifted his eyes to the second floor.

”The second floor is my office, the basement is the foyer,” Lee said with a smile and did a please gesture, leading the inspector down to the basement.

Oaker went straight down without a second thought.

The moment Lee appeared before him, wanting to lead him somewhere, Oaker always knew who he was going to meet and at the same time predicted what was the meeting for. So, there was no need for further hesitation.

After going down along the wooden stairs, the inspector went down to the basement foyer.

It was a small living room and Kana, Tanya, and Jen who Oaker had met once before were at the tea table chit-chatting.

When the girls heard the squeaking noise from the wooden stairs, they quickly stopped their chit-chats and laid their eyes on the inspector.

”I’m here to see Bird of Death…”

”My knight shall see no mortals!”

”Hmph!”

”Good day inspector.”

Before Inspector Oaker finished his words, three different replied were fired at him.

Even though Oaker had been through lots of storms, it still gave him a headache at the moment.

One girl was heavily stuck in her own world, acting like a mentally ill patient.

Another girl had an ice cold face as if someone owed her a couple millions of dollars.

The last one seemed quite normal if removed the absent-minded state.

The inspector came up with the wisest choice right away, search for Kieran himself.

After all, it was just a basement living room and there were only three rooms available.

The girls would definitely take up at least one to two rooms and judging from their character, the rooms that they would choose…

Just as Oaker was trying to guess which room was Kieran in, Kieran called out to him.

”Inspector Oaker? Please, over here.”

Kieran’s voice came from the last door in the corner.

Oaker quickly went over and pushed open the door.

Yet the moment he wanted to step into the room, he had to halt his steps.

The whole room’s carpet was filled with books!

Book after book was laid on the floor, opened up in a messy way yet seemingly arranged in an extremely orderly manner.

Not only was the floor was filled with books, even the bed and the sofa were too and judging from the papers, the books had quite the age as well.

”Pardon me.”

Kieran smiled in an apologetic way while sitting down cross-legged. He then stood up from the carpet and carefully kept away all the books, opening a path for the inspector.

At the same time, he moved away from the two stacks of books from the sofa to the bed, allowing Oaker to have a proper seat.

Although Oaker’s experience grew as he aged, simultaneously, his vigor was fading away with his age as well. Back in the old days, staying up for a couple nights wasn’t really a problem for the inspector but now, staying up one night for the rescue operation had caused quite the burden on his body.

Oaker leaned back on the sofa, slightly relaxing his body before looking at Kieran.

”You want to tell me, you are not the one who stole Artitelgar portrait?” Oaker asked.

”Do you think it’s me?” Kieran replied to his question.

”I don’t know but I will judge with my logic and common sense. But against people like you, my logic couldn’t comprehend sh*t, so I don’t know!”

Oaker said in an honest manner and shook his head after thinking for a while.

Kieran couldn’t help but smile at the honesty the inspector presented, he casually picked up a file beside him and handed it over.

The file in Oaker’s hand looked a bit aged. He opened it with a dubious mind.

Inside the file was a medical record.

”Ling? Her heart, liver and kidney had problems?”

The inspector frowned even harder when he read through the record.

Based on his medical understanding, any person who had such disease couldn’t have survived yet Ling who had those diseases since birth survived and lived quite a healthy life.

If it wasn’t for that accident…

”Hold on!”

Oaker raised his head at Kieran when the sudden realization struck him.

”Right, it’s what you think. Ling was the murderer behind the serial suicidal incident in Saint Brilliant High School.” Kieran said in a calm tone.

”Even for survival, killing others is not right!” Oaker said as he continued to frown.

Kiera shrugged. He couldn’t comment any further, not at Ling or Oaker.

Last night when Kieran went through the files, he already knew why Ling did what she did.

To live. It was simple yet hard.

For a person that never tasted despair, they could never understand how torturing it was but after experiencing the pain of despair, the urge to survive could cause one to disregard everything else, just like himself!

Of course, Kieran didn’t regret his decision, maybe because of sharing the same experience with Ling, he could feel empathy for her but an enemy was an enemy, no mercy shall be given.

Readjusting his emotions, Kieran continued, ”Well now, I’ve helped you in solving the freaky cases in Saint Brilliant, now I suppose you can lend me a hand?”

”The thieving case that you are involved in is out of my reach. That millionaire is not someone a small inspector like me can meet nor persuade, not even the mayor of the city!”

It seemed like Oaker has misunderstood Kieran’s intention.

”No no, I don’t need you to persuade him, what I need is what your abilities are capable of. Help me investigate this case of theft, from the start to end, its best if you can provide me with extreme details.”

”How is it? Sound simple enough?” Kieran waved his hands and said.

”Very well then.” Inspector Oaker nodded right away.

Just like what Kieran said, it wasn’t a difficult task for him. When a case of theft like this happened, it was only common that an inspector was involved.

Oaker too moved out right away in a rigorous and effective manner, though when he arrived at the door, he suddenly asked, ”It isn’t hard for that fella to investigate stuff like this right?”

Who was the fellow that Oaker was referring to?

It was, of course, Lee, the member of the Funeral Society.

”I don’t trust him.” Kieran answered.

”Wise choice.” The inspector nodded and left quickly without saying anything else.

After hearing Oaker’s footsteps leave the premises, Kieran closed the door and rubbed the ever-swelling temple of his.

Then his attention shifted to the spot where he hid the bird’s nest under the books.

Inside the nest, an egg similar to a quail’s egg was beating slowly.