hmau

No, you don't understand. If this goes on...

I-I could very well find myself killed!

Wha?

Have you tried the cops?

*sigh* Of course I have. They said I'm just overthinking it. I asked around and someone told me about you guys. You're a detective agency, right? Figuring out who wants to kill me and making sure I'm safe should be right up your alley!

Besides, I'm pretty sure... the L.G.D. are actually working with those guys.

That's gotta be why they're ignoring me!

Oh? The L.G.D.'s in on it, you say?

Alright, interesting. We'll take the case!

Normally, we charge a thousand LMD per billable hour, but I'll give you a discount. 30 thousand for the whole job. How's that?

Wait, slow down there, Aak.

(Whispers) Look, I'm sick of eating nothing but cup noodles every single day. Which of the gigs you picked up lately even got us paid, anyway? At this rate, we'll be dead before Lee's back.

And please calm down a little, Mr... uh...

Hung looks down at the business card he got from the man earlier. He works for a famous corporation in Lungmen, with a fairly impressive title next to his name to boot.

Hung thinks to himself, the client probably has much more lavish meals than cup noodles every day.

Mr. Lau.

You said earlier that you think you're being followed. Are you sure you are not imagining things?

For example, a few days ago I was at the wet markets picking up groceries, and I was certain someone was following me... until I realized it was just a cloudbeast cub.

I'm telling you, it's not like that! Look...

Mr. Lau cautiously looks around.

Lately, there've been all these strange marks on the walls outside my front door. I looked it up on the intercity net! They all say it means somebody's out to get me!

And I actually felt some strange glances! Both during my commute and even at the office! It always feels like there's somebody observing me.

Ugh... Just thinking about it gives me chills.

Look, maybe it's just a stray cloudbeast...

Why would there be a stray cloudbeast in an office building?!

And scariest of all is that I keep hearing someone whispering at night...

Mr. Lau, at the end of the street, you'll find a store that sells essential oils. There's this oil with a calming effect that I've tried out. It really helps give you sleep better.

Maybe you're just a little tense lately. Try massaging yourself with some of that oil. It'll calm you down.

*sigh* Not you too...

But you know, it does sound like somebody might be following him.

You don't just constantly feel like somebody's watching you for no reason.

And speaking from experience, if you can notice them at all, it just shows how fearless they are. They aren't afraid of being seen, much less what you'd do after you find out.

Right?!

Hey now, stop scaring the client. This is nothing like that. Your situation's... a lot more unique.

By the way, Mr. Lau, are the marks still there?

Yeah, you bet they are! I wiped them off once, but then they showed up again, and I didn't dare wipe them off again... On top of that, they keep multiplying every few days.

Then let's go have a look right now.

Now?

When else? If I were the mastermind behind this, I'd definitely be watching him in the dead of night.

Hung looks at the time displayed on his terminal and scratches his head.

We don't even know if there's actually a mastermind per se...

But alright. Mr. Lau, would you mind if we go have a look now? Maybe it could offer you some peace of mind.

N-Not at all!

Hold up, let me bring my camera!

As the sparse traffic speeds down the road, the streetlights lining the sidewalks light up one after another. Mr. Lau is walking in front of the two investigators, looking back from time to time.

What? You think someone's following you again?

I don't feel them now. Weird... I was sure somebody was watching me on my way to your office...

Maybe you're just a little too nervous. The old man at the canteen downstairs loves to watch people come and go when he's got nothing to do. He probably just thought you looked a little strange.

I-Is that so...

Oh, here we are. My flat is here, up on the second floor.

Mr. Lau's home is in an old shopping district. The mottled coating on the outer wall is starting to peel off, and there is a damp stench in the staircase.

Fearfully, he points at the walls by his front door. There are indeed multiple strange marks. One is particularly evident, with three more slender traces criss-crossing each other and leading toward the door.

Look, right here! I wiped them off before, then a couple days later, they showed up again. The same pattern, too. Always the same pattern...

The spacing's consistent, but the depth's different... Doesn't look manmade—

Is it a ghost, then?!

More like they were made by machines.

Mr. Lau, whoever's behind this, looks like they brought a machine to spook you.

Wh-What...

Hung crouches down and observes the wall. He lightly touches the dust on the ground and rubs it between his fingers, revealing a faint light-blue gleam.

Aak starts to take pictures of the wall, as Hung turns around toward the staircase.

It's a false alarm, Mr. Lau. This wasn't drawn deliberately. The faint light-blue powder here is just dried soap.

And considering the pattern in the spacing... this is probably from a cleaning robot.

How can you be so sure?

There are tread marks. Look.

Aak and Mr. Lau look toward where Hung is pointing, and see faint tread marks on the floor beneath the marks on the wall.

Uh, you sure? Maybe the culprit rode one of those little scooters here to mark his walls.

H-Huh?

It's okay, Mr. Lau. The marks are likely just a misunderstanding. Now how about we figure out what the whispers you heard at night were? Do you mind if we go inside?

P-Please, by all means!

(Whispers) But I heard somebody running away when I opened the door yesterday... Was that the janitor?

The night is deep. Mr. Lau's home is lit by only a few small lights. Through the window blinds, the red light of the neon signs outside can be seen flashing.

Hung stays at the door to check if there is any moment outside as Aak looks out the window, pointing a flashlight at the building across the street and occasionally taking pictures with his camera.

Meanwhile, Mr. Lau has wrapped himself up in a blanket, with a flashlight clenched tightly in his hand. The only thing that can be heard inside the room is the faint sound of the breeze, interrupted intermittently by the shutter of Aak's camera.

Doesn't look like anyone passed outside. I can just barely hear cars speeding past and nothing else. Aak, what are you looking at over there?

You know, the folks in this neighborhood all seem pretty nice. There's even somebody downstairs feeding a stray cloudbeast at this hour.

Say, do you think anyone'd come feed <i>us</i> if we went downstairs and lied down on the ground at night?

Looks like he's done feeding it. The cloudbeast cub is coming this way now... Oh, look at it hop. What a lively one.

Let me take a picture...

No, that can't be a stray. Look, it's got a collar.

Oh, that's Siumi. Probably a pet that got lost. You can always find someone feeding it these days.

It's pretty friendly, too. Every night, it comes up to my window for a walk. Wait, why are we talking about cloudbeasts?

Just wait a little longer. Every night around this time, you can hear these strange whispers coming from the wall...

Bzz—zzz—

Right after he finishes his sentence, the room falls silent for a brief moment, before the gang actually hears a strange noise.

Th-That's the sound!

It sounds like some kinda current to me...

Mr. Lau is so anxious that he begins to sweat. Aak finds himself bewildered, too. On the other hand, Hung's usual cool composure remains unchanged. He stands up slowly, and presses his ear against the wall for a few seconds. Then, he heads toward the kitchen.

After a few minutes, the sound dissipates.

Huh? The sound of the current stopped. What did you just do?

That was the air purifier. There was something stuck inside, and I pulled it out.

The fan's a little loose, and it got stuck inside the machine when it was turning. That's why it was making all that noise. Maybe it only sounded like voices because it's in the other room.

That's it? What was stuck inside anyway?

Looks like some kind of component.

It's been some time since I used it, actually. But since the air quality in town's been pretty bad lately, I've been keeping it on to at least get some fresher air inside the place, and it hasn't been turned off the entire time. Never thought something could be stuck inside...

Oh, maybe it fell inside when that plumber came to fix the pipes last week? I knew it... The plumbers on the intercity net are all unreliable... That's what I get for being cheap.

This part...

*sigh* Good thing I had you two come check this out for me. If it weren't for you, I probably wouldn't be able to live here anymore.

You're just too on edge. Calm down. Lungmen isn't full of conspiracies, and there's no such thing as ghosts.

You've been imagining things because of all these strange marks and sounds, and I can sympathize with that, but you seem overly nervous. I hope you don't mind me asking, but did something happen recently?

If you ask me, given that you think someone's been following you, and that you're even worried about threats to your life... there has to be something more than the marks on the wall and the air purifier's sounds that got you so worried in the first place.