bookpub Chapter 2 Situation
Chapter 2 Situation
Lucius stood in front of the full-length mirror, looking at himself:
With brown hair and brown eyes, his features were handsome in the dim light, with a straight nose and a well-defined jawline.
She has a slender but thin figure, and her collarbone is clearly visible through the open collar of her shirt.
Because he was still a university student, his eyes were clear and innocent.
The knocking on the door pulled Lucius back to reality.
"Someone is visiting so late?" Lucius asked, a hint of doubt creeping in. He glanced at the pocket watch on the bedside table: 1:14 a.m.
Lucius straightened his shirt collar and asked, pointing towards the door, "Who is it?"
There was silence outside the door for a few seconds, then a slightly disgruntled voice rang out:
"I am Leo Harrison. Lucius, I think you should remember that the time for gaslighting is over."
The person outside seemed to glance at his pocket watch before continuing, "It's already past one o'clock. Do you know how much more money this will cost me?"
Leo Harrison… Lucius remembered.
This is his landlord, an obese man in his fifties who always wears a gray vest with worn-out cuffs but is always impeccably clean.
He lived in the smallest room at the far end of the second floor, and his daily job was to patrol every corner of the apartment building, constantly talking about saving money and fines.
If anyone uses an extra lamp, burns a little extra coal, or forgets to turn off the bathroom tap, he will appear at their door on time.
"Okay, coming right away!" Lucius replied.
He quickly straightened his clothes, checked himself in the mirror to make sure everything was alright, then took two steps forward, turned the handle, and opened the door to the room.
The scene outside the door startled him slightly.
Besides Leo Harrison, who was standing in a gray vest, there were three other officers wearing top hats and dark uniforms.
It was a bit strange to call them police officers, because although the three men's dark uniforms were the same style as those of the Hull City Police Department officers, with double-breasted brass buttons and stand-up collars, Lucius did not recognize the epaulets on them.
The silver six-pointed star flowers each have a different symbol in the center: a flame, a lamp, or a snowflake.
Leo Harrison spoke first: "Lucius, I'm not some rich philanthropist, you know the rules."
Lights must be turned off after 11 p.m., which is stipulated in Article 8 of Section 2 of the rental agreement. This time, there will be an extra charge of at least 2 pence for leaving the lights on after the designated time...
"Ahem..." He was interrupted by a cough from a middle-aged police officer wearing a flame epaulette before he could finish speaking.
Leo Harrison seemed to realize something, gave a forced laugh, stepped back two paces to let the three inspectors stand in front of him, and lowered his voice to say:
"Lucius, these three officers have something to ask you."
After saying that, he didn't mention the fine again, and without waiting for Lucius's response, he disappeared down the corridor in a few steps.
After seeing Leo Harrison leave, Lucius turned around, stepped aside slightly, and pointed into the room, saying:
"Please come in. What do you officers want to ask?"
The middle-aged police officer with the flame epaulettes was the first to enter the room; he was muscular and had broad shoulders.
Upon closer inspection, Lucius discovered that his hair was extremely sparse, his head was almost completely bald, and his eyebrows were drawn on with charcoal.
As he surveyed the small room, he asked in a deep voice:
"You know Ethan Carter, right?"
Lucius paused for a moment when he heard the name: Ethan Carter, a student in his research group.
My father is the vice president of the Hull Chamber of Commerce, and the family runs the largest wool textile factory on the East Coast.
Besides Ethan, there was another female student in the research group, Ava Mitchell.
The three of them worked in the same research office for nearly a year. The two of them followed Professor Marcus to be in charge of the restoration of cultural relics, while Lucius was in charge of the translation of documents on his own.
Although we don't have a deep friendship, we meet at the weekly group meetings.
Ethan would sometimes invite him and Ava to dine at a small restaurant near the school gate, and he would always insist on paying the bill, saying with a smile, "My father says it's never a bad thing to make more friends."
"What happened to him?"
The middle-aged man with the flame epaulettes did not answer immediately; he gestured to his two companions behind him to begin their operation.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius saw the man with the snowflake epaulettes walk unceremoniously toward the bedside table.
He was thin, with prominent cheekbones and deep-set eyes, and the uniform looked somewhat loose on him.
Another smiling officer with a light epaulette was near the desk. He looked to be no more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a kind face, but his inspection was anything but sloppy.
Oh no! I forgot to put away that tracement manuscript!
Wait, those words have already crawled into my body, and the draft paper is blank.
Lucius realized this and breathed a slight sigh of relief, but even so, the unannounced search still made him uneasy.
He raised his voice slightly, his tone becoming more urgent, and with the normal reaction of an innocent student facing public authority, he shouted:
"What do you mean by this?"
"This is the necessary procedure!" The middle-aged police officer's voice brought him back to reality, his previously calm expression turning serious. "Mr. Lucius, I want to inform you that Mr. Ethan has passed away."
"It was suicide," he added.
"How could this be!?" Lucius exclaimed in astonishment.
"Just a few weeks ago he was saying he was going to travel to the South Pole this summer, and his father had even booked the boat tickets for him."
In my memory, Ethan Carter was a wealthy young man who was cheerful to the point of being carefree, well-mannered, and unpretentious.
He had no worries that a letter from his father couldn't solve; if one letter wasn't enough, then two would.
How could someone like that commit suicide?
Suddenly, Lucius thought of what he had just experienced. If the original owner died because of this, did the entire research group encounter a similar situation?
"Where are Ava and Professor Marcus?" Lucius asked hastily.
"Ms. Ava has also passed away." The middle-aged police officer's tone became meaningful. "As for Professor Marcus, he's missing."
"Did Professor Marcus do this?" Lucius speculated.
The middle-aged police officer shook his head:
"No, judging from the traces at the scene, they both committed suicide."
The cause of death was strange. There were no external injuries. He was lying on the floor of the teaching and research office, as if he were asleep.
Three days later, complaints about the stench emanating from the body led other professors and students to open the door and discover the scene, prompting them to immediately call the police.
"Just as I thought..." Lucius thought to himself.
The way they both died was exactly the same as the original owner's, except that the original owner had just passed away when the original owner transmigrated.
"Fortunately, the corpse was still quite fresh when I transmigrated," he thought optimistically.