Current currencies: 19211 Spirit Fragments, 102 Vision Slivers. If not for the tree creature in the Emerson family house, his exploration from last night would have yielded a negative amount of Spirit Fragments in total. It seemed that the human dog, and the office people were all pretty "worthless".
Or, there was another possibility, they were just the lowest followers of bigger, more "elite" targets. Maybe it was the glowing mushroom dangling all the human shadows, maybe it was the other shadows in the fog. Either way, the dangerous ability from that human dog could only be an indication that the mushroom must be worth quite a lot.
The sky outside the window was still gray. So he just woke up, went to the home gym in the basement and began working out.
He really did not have a habit of doing it. But after punching through two reasonably thick wooden panels to strike at a human dog, he became more curious how his actual strength was - even if in real life his abilities were "nerfed".
The first thing he tried was bench press. He tried the bare bar at first - no problem. One 10 pound weight on each side, no problem. Two 10 pound weights on each side, no problem.
He kept adding weights, until he ran out - at this point, he had one 45 pound, one 25 pound and two 10 pound weights on each side. There were more smaller weights, just that there was no room to put them. And even this was not as difficult as he thought - he did a few sets of five pushes, and one set of ten pushes. It seemed he still had more energy.
He tried the pull-down machine, and he was able to pull down 250 pounds pretty easily. So he just increased the weight, until he reached 350 pounds. He did three sets of 10 pulls before he gave up - his muscles began to sore, and he did not want to not be able to use his arms tomorrow.
There was still time, so he just went back to his room and took a shower. Then, he went into the kitchen and started making himself some breakfast - the wonderful chef would no longer come, and he just had a hankering for some sunny side up eggs.
As he lifted the third egg from the pan and put it on his plate, Wu Xiangyu walked into the kitchen: "Oh, Xiaoming, it's you?"
"Yeah?" Wu Xiaoming chuckled: "Do you want some? I - I am just trying my best here, so you'll have to excuse me."
"Hmm, sage, pepper, a little butter? Not bad." Wu Xiangyu took a quick look at Wu Xiaoming's plate: "But this is - quite unusual, you're in the mood to cook breakfast?"
"Well, I am feeling a bit guilty after eating the chef's food for too long so I decided to learn a little bit." Wu Xiaoming shrugged: "But - yeah - I want to go out and check out the location for the show, and I'm not feeling like eating the food outside, so - "
"Good, good." Wu Xiangyu nodded and smiled: "But thanks for offering, I just need to grab a cup of coffee and head out. I need to go out of town for a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks. You take care, alright? "
"Okay." Wu Xiaoming was not sure what to say: "You take care as well."
It took Wu Xiaoming almost an hour to get to the Sproutlinger Hotel. Something might have happened on the usual road, that there was a jam every few blocks.
Just as expected, there was no longer a police enclosure of the entire parking lot behind the building. Though, the location where the poor soul's body lay was still closed up by barriers and police tapes. Having checked around for anyone who might be watching, he snuck into the parking lot from the side, then went up to the enclosure.
The pool of blood was still there on the ground, along with the chalk outline of the body and some evidence markers. He was no detective, so he couldn't tell what any of them meant. Even the chalk outline seemed somewhat out of place - he just assumed the police would have taken a lot of pictures of the body's location and position, thus making the outline somewhat unnecessary.
There were a few barely visible traces of black smoke coming from the pool of blood. Honestly it was a bit surprising that they were still here.
He knelt down just outside of the tapes and narrowed his eyes. For some reason, the outline seemed somewhat unnatural to him - but he just could not put his finger on it.
Just this moment, footsteps from a single person came up from behind. Wu Xiaoming stood up and turned around, just in time to meet the man face to face - it was Du Bai.
"What are you doing here?" Wu Xiaoming and Du Bai asked almost at the same time.
"I'm a police officer working this case, remember?" Du Bai frowned: "Don't tell me you're here to investigate your ghost haunting theory."
"Well, I guess you wouldn't like my answer to your question." Wu Xiaoming scratched his head: "Can you tell me what you found? Also - the chalk lines here - people - I mean the police, still use that?"
"No. " Du Bai shook his head: "We don't. This is just from the request of the head detective's consultant. A REAL consultant from MAGLAA."
"Oh yeah." Wu Xiaoming shrugged: "A registered medium, right? Someone who has been active in the business for at least three years, and-slash-or has been approved by the consultancy committee of the LAPD?"
"- and has passed basic LAPD crime investigation training, yes." Du Bai shrugged: "Good, you remembered and did your homework. Do you know now why you can't be a 'paranormal consultant'?"
"Uh, sure." Wu Xiaoming sighed, the took a look at Du Bai's shoulders and arms - the spots where he saw black smoke last time - he did not see anything: "But - it's not against the law if I look into it from my angle, as long as I don't interfere with your investigation, right?"
"I'd suggest you get back to your life, Xiaoming." Du Bai's facial expression turned stern: "Because - take it from me, obstruction is pretty serious in high profile cases. And it's the kind of thing that studios and publishers don't take kindly."
"Well then, I guess I'll need to be extra careful, then." Wu Xiaoming took a look at the chalk outline before backing away from the scene: "Please let me know how I can help. And - please keep an open mind, please?"
"Go home." Du Bai took a deep breath and waved Wu Xiaoming away.
Wu Xiaoming did not go home, he simply went to the same coffee shop across the street and sat down. Things looked only more suspicious right now. If Du Bai caught whatever unclean energy from investigating the scene, and it dissipated from time, how come it didn't happen to the location of the body? Also he finally realized what was bothering him about the chalk outline - it was not white, in fact, it was slightly yellow in color, like rice, or stale egg white. As far as he knew, normal chalk wouldn't have this kind of color.
"Xiaoming?" A familiar voice interrupted his thoughts. It was none other than Leslie McKinsey, the director himself.
"Director? What are you doing here?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing." Leslie McKinsey sat down by Wu Xiaoming: "You - you wouldn't happen to be checking out the scene by yourself, are you?"
"I - actually am. " Wu Xiaoming was slightly embarrassed to admit: "Aren't you here for that as well? "
"Well - " Leslie McKinsey sighed and turned his eyes in the direction of the parking lot behind the hotel building: " - yes. Yeah, you know, after what happened with the last one, the studio is already on edge. But our producer is firmly on our side so things are just still progressing - and then this happened, our PR is kinda scrambling right now. They haven't told us to put things on hold yet, but - I haven't really answered my phone or looked at my email."
"Did the police talk to you too?"
"Yes, wait - " Leslie McKinsey's facial expression changed: " - You didn't say anything compromising to them, did you?"
"No! Of course not! " Wu Xiaoming tried to hide his embarrassment even further: "But they wouldn't tell me anything either, did they tell you anything?"
"As a matter of fact, they did, because the lead detective - I forgot his name - he thinks telling me more information might be helpful to the investigation, so - " Leslie McKinsey sighed and laid back on the chair. A barista delivered Wu Xiaoming's coffee over, but Leslie McKinsey just picked up and drank half the cup: "Ugh - sorry Xiaoming." He then said to the barista: "Can I get another cup of this? This is my friend's, sorry."
"Of course, anything else?"
"Yes, cheesecake for both of us." Leslie McKinsey turned to Wu Xiaoming: "You eat cheesecakes, right?"
"Sure." Wu Xiaoming shrugged.
"Cheesecakes." Leslie McKinsey nodded at the barista, then turned back to Wu Xiaoming after she went away, with a lowered voice: "They don't think it was suicide."
"Oh? What is it?"
"He didn't tell me. But - from everything - the man's here to travel, with a fat stack of cash, has a cruise booked for later, and apparently plans to visit a few other tourist sites here in LA." Leslie McKinsey sighed: "Also - here's one thing - he didn't die from the fall. "
"Huh?"
"He's already dead before the jump, that's what I learned. He was very likely tossed from the building. And - there's hand marks on the body - neck area." Leslie McKinsey leaned in a bit closer and asked: "Apparently, the actual cause of death might be asphyxiation - from what, he didn't say."
The implication from what the director told him stuck with him for the rest of the day. Wu Xiaoming came home immediately after the brief coffee chat. His father left him a note, telling him that he needed to be out for a bit and might come back late, and he could just order take out with his prime online order account.
He did not really spend much time enjoying his food. Instead, when he was chewing through his prime seafood fried rice, he was still looking on his phone, regarding MAGLAA, regarding the history and stories of Sproutlinger Hotel, and regarding places where he could potentially purchase things that could help him perform exorcist rituals if need be.
When the time was late, he took a shower, locked the doors and windows, then went to sleep.
As he came out of his father's house in the ethereal realm, something unexpected appeared on the road in front of the house, just outside of the range of aura protecting the house.
A human-shaped shadow, shrouded by black smoke, was standing on the road, his eyes fixed on his father's house.
He recognized the face, it was Nicolas Sproutlinger.