60: Sixty.

Hell here is empty 60: Sixty.

Hell here is empty “Exorcist Mr., you ask…

should this girl forgive them?”

The girl lifted her head, revealing a face streaming with two horrifying trails of bloody tears, and eerily smiled.

“Why should she forgive?”

Lu Li didn’t ask how she knew his identity, nor did he pay attention to the substantial evil intent.

He raised a finger and pointed it towards the ground, saying,

“Hell here is empty.”

The girl’s head was crowned with a dark halo that seemed to devour everything around her, a horrifying malice surged—this sight was familiar like the dark spirit under the library—but the girl standing here harbored deeper resentment.

“Shouldn’t you stop me, as an exorcist?”

Her blood-stained eyes stared fixedly at Lu Li, seemingly hating everything in this world—including Lu Li in front of her.

Put another way: she was looking for a reason to strike at Lu Li.

A pitiful girl.

Even after being bullied to death and turning into a vindictive spirit capable of anything…

she still strived to hold onto some sort of belief.

Anna sensed the hostility surging through the air, puffed up her breath like a frightened cat, ready to retaliate.

“You are right, I am an exorcist, I cannot ignore it.” Lu Li nodded calmly and then suddenly turned to Anna, who was on high alert, and said, “We haven’t seen anything, the deserted Weird And Multicolored Detective Agency hasn’t welcomed a single client till now.”

“Huh?” Anna’s breath hitched, and she foolishly tilted her head.

Lu Li had already turned his head back, saying to Mishelia, “She agreed.”

“Are you sympathizing with me?” The girl’s unstable breath continued to rise.

The black, loathsome halo gradually transformed from illusion to reality.

“If you need sympathy, then I am sympathizing.

If you think sympathy is unbearable, then I am merely doing what I must do,” Lu Li responded.

“…You are a clever good person.” Mishelia’s beautiful cheeks slowly relaxed, her breath no longer targeted at Lu Li; she eerily chuckled lowly, “But why didn’t I meet you sooner?”

“It’s not too late now.” Lu Li shifted on his feet, turned his chair to face away from the girl.

His eyes closed, he concealed his deepest emotions and whispered softly,

“Go now, before anyone else finds out.”

“I have seen inside you,”

Mishelia suddenly said, staring at Lu Li’s back.

“It is bright, vibrant.”

“I hope it never gets tainted in this lifetime.”

The terrifying presence gradually distanced itself from the detective agency.

After Mishelia left, Lu Li opened his eyes.

“She is so pitiful…

Boss, did you do that out of sympathy too?” Anna asked in a complex tone.

If it were before her death she might have done something, but she too was dead, a ghost, powerless.

“Facing this story, no one can remain indifferent,” Lu Li slowly moved back, his unfocused gaze sweeping across the dim detective agency.

“But did we just agree to let her go?”

“What else?” Lu Li countered.

Anna, anxious, waved her hands and explained, “I mean…

what if the police station or some night watchman finds out and comes to trouble you?

Mishelia must have gone back to kill those who hurt her!”

Lu Li did not speak, instead he silently looked up and glanced at Anna.

His usually unfluctuating black eyes were as calm as ever, and in that moment, Anna understood the message he was conveying.

He did not care.

Anna was momentarily at a loss for words.

But she always felt there was something wrong, and after pondering for a while, she suddenly realized where the problem lay: “Mishelia was killed by those villains, yet those villains do not have to bear any punishment.”

The council would not prosecute people for spreading rumors, especially when those rumors were politically neutral.

Lu Li gently shook his head, “Logically, you are correct, but the essence is wrong.

If you want someone dead, the most direct and effortless way is to take a knife and kill him.

The most complicated and roundabout way is to understand his personality and destroy him in a gentle manner.

For instance, using rumors to break up his family, to make him lose his job, and to drive him to mental illness, until he can no longer bear it and commits suicide.”

“The former is murder; the latter is merely slander, but do you think there is any difference between the two?”

Anna was silent.

Both were acts of murder, yet the latter was more malicious and more destructive to a person—but the cost was insignificant.

Lu Li continued, “Law is the last resort for advising people and also the lowest standard of morality.

If someone does something immoral—believe me, the only reason they haven’t crossed that line is because they cannot afford the cost of breaking the law.”

Anna highly agreed with Lu Li’s perspective, but that did not mean she was optimistic.

As an educated noble young lady, she was well aware that similar incidents were still prevalent in the world.

She said softly, “But we know we can’t control such matters…”

Lu Li did not directly answer her, instead he said, “I have a story to tell.”

Without waiting for Anna to respond, he slowly began his narration.

On a morning after a storm, a man went for a walk by the sea.

As he walked along the shore, he noticed that in the shallow puddles on the beach, there were many small fish that the previous night’s storm had swept ashore.

They were trapped in the shallow puddles, unable to return to the vast sea, though it was only an arm’s length away.

There might be hundreds or even thousands of trapped small fish.

Before long, the water in the shallow puddles would be absorbed by the sand or evaporated by the sun, and all these small fish would die.

The man continued walking.

Suddenly, he saw a little boy ahead walking slowly, and continuously bending down by each puddle—he was picking up the small fish from the puddles and throwing them back into the sea with all his might.

The man stopped and watched the boy, observing him saving the lives of the small fish.

Eventually, the man couldn’t restrain himself and went over, “Kid, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of small fish in these puddles, you can’t save them all.”

“I know,” the boy answered without looking up.

“Oh?

Then why keep throwing?

Who cares?”

“This little fish cares!” the boy replied as he picked up another fish and threw it back into the sea.

“This one cares, this one too!

And this one, and this one, and this one…”

Having finished the story, Lu Li took out yesterday’s newspaper, and some discussions from residents and students appeared in the form of text comments at the end of the article.

“I was just joking; how did I become a murderer?”

“This is suicide?

Wow, the psychological resilience of today’s kids is really too weak.”

“It was all her doing; what we did was merely spread the word about her; why does it seem like she’s the victim?”

“She was a good girl, I mean at least she knew how stupid her actions were and then killed herself out of shame.”

The fish was dead, but maggots were still wriggling on its carcass, multiplying and growing.