by N. Heller
"Miss, are you also a passer-by?" he asked again after noticing that Lin Sanjiu did not respond.
Lin Sanjiu didn't say anything. She nodded her head but took another two steps back.
"Come and take a look," the old man's voice invited her warmly with his hoarse voice as he pointed to the door with his fan. "Fate must have brought you here. Come on in. It'll be interesting, I promise. The ticket isn't even expensive."
The old man seemed like a tour guide to a crappy tourist spot. He sighed when he heard Lin Sanjiu, "There is a "Notorious Serial Killers simulation" inside this building. It's super fun, I promise! It has been a long time since someone appeared around here. It's too hard to gather enough people to run the simulation."
"That's right! Posthumans are either kidnapped or killed by Gods. I don't think they have the chance to even enter this pocket dimension." Lin Sanjiu shook her head at the man and started walking away.
"Hey! Hey! This simulation is super interesting and not dangerous at all. Plus, the ticket isn't expensive!" The old man ran out and stopped when he was a few meters away from the house. He didn't continue.
"A being from a Pocket dimension probably can't move too far from it."
"Please take pity on me. Just this time. Today, there are already three rare customers. I only lack one more player to start the simulation. If you don't join, they'll leave too…"
"There are three customers?" Lin Sanjiu reacted immediately and stopped walking. "What are the customers like?"
Noticing that Lin Sanjiu had stopped, the old man's eyes lit up. "The first few customers are all males. They aren't old. They seem to be in their twenties or thirties. Two of them came together, the other customer looks younger than them. He looks quite gentle…" he enthused.
Lin Sanjiu's heart raced. She couldn't help sweeping her gaze toward the brick house. She did this as if she could look through the walls and figure out if the person inside was Ji Shanqing. Her grand prize had a feminine look so people mistook him as both male and female. The old man could have also made a mistake.
After thinking for a while, she eventually sighed and walked down the sand dune.
"If that's the case, I'll go in and have a look," Lin Sanjiu grasped her [Battle Item] just to be safe, "You mentioned that you need a ticket?"
"Yes," the old man looked as if he couldn't believe his luck. He smiled profusely."But, it isn't expensive. It isn't expensive at all. It is almost free."
The brick house looked bland, it even seemed dull. Lin Sanjiu stood in front of its glass doors and asked warily, "What do you mean by it's not expensive?"
"You just have to give me an item that is white."
"That's intriguing,**" Lin Sanjiu took a white towel from her card deck. It just so happens that she had as many towels with her. "Will this do?"
"Yes, yes!" the old man took the towel. He took the initiative to push open the large glass doors and invited her in. The lights were not on. Amidst the shadowy darkness was a hall which was as monotonous as its exterior.
The hall wasn't big. There were several posters on the wall but it was too dark to see what was on them. There was a door with the word 'entrance' on it under a dim green light. The door stood silently at the end of the hall.
"Didn't you say that there were already three people here?"
"Yes, once you walk through the entrance, you will see the other three players," the old man suddenly spoke a lot faster as though he had repeated his introduction of the place many times, "This is a murder case simulation. It is very safe. This is based on true murder cases from all over the world. Once you enter, you and the other players will be randomly assigned a role in the murder case. You will never be assigned as the murderer. After all, you have to catch the murderer."
"No, no. If that is the case, wouldn't the simulation go on forever if you don't catch the murderer?" the old man treated the white towel with extreme care as he held it in his arms. "Actually, this is a simulation, you can do whatever you want inside. You could protect the victims, catch the murderer, look at the scenery, eat and relax… It's all fine. It's up to you."
"How can we end the simulation?"
"You will have to wait until the murderer gets caught or until the murderer stops committing his or her murders. Then, the simulation will end. The murder cases follow the same course as history. Even if all of you don't catch the murderer, it will not affect the simulation."
As he said that, the old man helped Lin Sanjiu open the door.
"You haven't told me what murder cases—"
Lin Sanjiu still had many questions she wanted to clarify so she held the door with one hand. However, when the door opened, a cool gust of wind assaulted her. It swept her through the door, grabbing her waist like a rope. Even with her strength, she couldn't resist the force. She staggered and stumbled through the door and into the dim surroundings.
Bump. She heard the sound of the door closing behind her. Lin Sanjiu steadied herself and looked around. She was stunned. There was a light drizzle and it made the bluish-gray morning quite foggy. There were shallow puddles of water on the uneven cobblestone streets. The puddles were filled with mud and dirt. In spite of the cold, wet weather, there was a faint lingering smell of sulfur in the air. Through the smog, one would see an occasional horse carriage passing through the narrow streets interspersed between various European-styled buildings.
Lin Sanjiu heard a splashing sound from a puddle not far from her. Three people approached her and stopped beside her. Lin Sanjiu turned her head immediately but was quickly overwhelmed by disappointment.
"Where… where is this place?" A tall lanky man looked around, slightly bewildered. The person standing beside that man looked very similar to him but was shorter by a head. He looked like a younger version of the first man. Both men had irregularly shaped faces like potatoes. They seemed to be brothers.
"This is London, 19th century."
Another young man standing beside them answered softly. The mild-looking young man immediately lowered his head the moment he noticed Lin Sanjiu's gaze.
"I guess this is 1888, to be precise… This is the era when Jack the Ripper was alive," the young man said with a softer voice.
Chapter 539 - The First Day
Lin Sanjiu and the brothers looked towards the source of the sound.
The gas lamps on the sides of the street went out one by one. The young man lowered his face so that he could mask his facial features from the other three people. He wasn't tall, and he wore a high-shouldered vintage denim jacket that didn't really go well with his scrawny body frame.
"How did you know that this is 19th-century London?" One of the potato brothers asked.
Both brothers had round eyes with black and large irises. Their faces were somehow different, but they looked very similar. Whenever they were talking, they always stared at you, making you want to avert your gaze away. After all, it was uncomfortable for most people to maintain eye contact.
Lin Sanjiu looked around, and she found out that the elder brother's height only reached her eyebrows. Although she was a woman, she was the tallest amongst four of them.
The young man seemed to be an introvert. He shrunk back a little when he heard their query, but soon lifted his face again, "... Because I've always been interested in Jack the Ripper and read a lot about him, so I knew it at first glance. When did you guys arrive here?"
He spoke with a slight Cantonese accent. Having a pair of phoenix eyes with double eyelids, he had a stunning androgynous outlook. It was no wonder Lin Sanjiu mistook the old man's description as her grand prize.
"We have been waiting here for a long time," the elder brother said impatiently. As he averted his steely gaze away from the young man, Lin Sanjiu could sense the latter relaxed, "So, when will the whatever-Jack go murder people? How should we capture him?"
The young man shook his head, "I'm afraid I have no idea… It all happened hundreds of years ago, and until now no one knew who Jack the Ripper was
. Even the London Constabulary had a hard time tracking him down… It's not that easy to capture him."
The younger brother let out a sigh. He surveyed around and said to himself, "... Don't you guys feel this place is a little bit… creepy?"
"Not only that," Lin Sanjiu chimed in, drawing attention to her. She rubbed her temples and sighed, "... I suppose this pocket dimension is not as safe as the old man claimed. At the very least, I think we can't use either of our Evolving Abilities or Special Items."
As she said that, she had secretly put the [Battle Item] into her pocket. It now looked like ordinary porcelain. Initially, she wanted to put it into her card, but she was unable to do so. Her [Planar World] would not reply to her call no matter how many times she tried to summon it.
None of them knew each other (aside from the potato brothers). They were there merely because they had entered the same Pocket Dimension, and it was impossible for them to trust a stranger. Hence, it was considered reasonable if they refused to say their Evolving Abilities had been sealed away.
After they had a short discussion, the group of four decided to go down the street to see if they could find anything useful. Their appointed characters were inconsequential—ordinary residents that resided in the slums of the East End of London. They walked for a while, and the brothers were the first to get "identified" when they bumped into a heavily drunk Eastern European immigrant. It turned out that their roles were owners of a tavern nearby.
The immigrant kept asking them, "What's up peeps. Are you guys on your way to open the tavern now?"
The clear blue sky in the morning was darkened by the drizzle and mist. Although the young man had read a lot about Jack the Ripper, it was apparently his first-time visit to London. The group went round and round several times before they finally stumbled upon the infamous Whitechapel in East End. According to him, Jack the Ripper's first victim was a middle-aged p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e. Her body was found here, and according to the autopsy, it was said that she had suffered 39 stab wounds in the b.r.e.a.s.ts and genitals.
The rain continued to fall, and the alley seemed even darker. The air in the 19th-century London was often poisoned with a pungent sulphuric smell, and the entire capital was covered in a dense fog that not even rain could wash away. Silently, the four of them traveled down the hazy alley, which looked extremely unreal. All of a sudden, after they had walked for some time, there was the sound of heels hitting the cobblestone.
Click, clack, click, clack , it went like this.
They all were stunned, then they saw a young woman coming out from the rain and fog ahead. She wrapped her shoulders with a time-worn shawl, walking with hasty steps. After turning down a corner, she was startled by the group of people blocking her way. She hitched up her skirt and recoiled a few steps back. However, she seemed to heave a sigh of relief when she saw Lin Sanjiu.
"Carol," she called. There was a dark circle below one of her eyes. The corner of her lips had swollen up, blood was seeping out. A cheap-priced perfume hung about her, and her make-up was smudged. Judging from the woman's attire, it wasn't hard to tell her occupation.
The young woman walked a few steps closer to Lin Sanjiu and looked at the young man. She pressed nearer and asked, "... Are you going home? Are they your two new customers?"
Exchanging glances, Lin Sanjiu, and the young man was torn between tears and laughter. They had never expected that the game had given them a Dutch widow identity.
Since Lin Sanjiu had no idea how to reply, she just answered, "Ah."
"You guys have to watch out," the young p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e said, her voice teetering on fear. She used her hand to cover the dark circle under her eye, "... There is a killer here. He has killed two people around here. If you can go home early, please do yourself a favor and get home as early as possible!"
Hearing this, the few posthumans looked at each other.
"It feels so nice to have a place to stay," the young p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e smiled dryly, "I thought the man from yesterday was going to let me stay at his place, but who knew? Anyway, I'm going to try my luck at the pier, perhaps I can still get somebody before the sunsets."
After that, she left without waiting for Lin Sanjiu them to reply. From a closer range, her high-heeled shoes no longer produced the crisp cl.i.c.k.i.n.g sound; it sounded more like spoiled high-heeled shoes of inferior quality where the toebox hit the outsole.
The young man withdrew his eyes from the young p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e after she had gone far. He turned around and whispered to the other three people, "What should we do now? Jack the Ripper has already murdered two people."
"All of them are p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.es?" Lin Sanjiu asked, her brows creased in concern, "How many people did he kill?"
"Five, all are harlots," the young man replied softly, "All the murders happened between 31 August and 9 November 1888. After that, he vanished."
Before Lin Sanjiu could give any comment, the young man's cheeks flushed, "Well, it's not easy to have such a chance… I--I really want to know the real identity of Jack the Ripper."
"How about you? What's your thought?" The elder brother looked at Lin Sanjiu.
"Let's move in a team," Lin Sanjiu said after some contemplation. She turned to the young man and tried to talk him down, "Let's find a place to settle down first. After that, you can go out and investigate who Jack the Ripper is."
The young man lowered his head, and Lin Sanjiu took it as a yes.
It wasn't hard to find a place to stay, but it wasn't an easy task either. In the end, the young man gave a suggestion, "Hey guys, I have a suggestion. Why don't you two pretend to be drunk and ask around for the location of your house? I suppose tavern owners should at least have a house to stay, right?"
Though the suggestion was a little bit stupid, and the process was kind of tedious, they still found their rented house.
However, it seemed that life was difficult for the two tavern owners as well. They rented the house together with an old coachman and a cobbler. The backyard was full of the ammoniacal smell of the horse's excretion and leather odor. The smell was so strong that even when they closed the window, they still could smell it inside the house.
After the four of them had settled down in the ill-lit, claustrophobic living room, Lin Sanjiu heaved a long sigh of relief. The air in the house smelled damp and dusty. It was as if the house had been left vacant for a long time. Lin Sanjiu allowed her gaze to jump from one person to another. She found that, aside from the young man, whose eyes were brimming with excitement at the prospect of meeting Jack the Ripper in person, the brothers had the same blank and lost expression on their faces.
"Why are you so interested in this serial killer?" The elder brother asked, slouching into a single sofa. They could only see his eyes, which glowed mysteriously in the dark.
"Since we're here, can you tell us more about this whatever-Jack?" The younger brother asked, sitting in an almost identical fashion as his brother.
Lin Sanjiu could tell this was the topic the young man had been waiting for. It was obvious that he had done plenty of research about Jack the Ripper. The moment the younger brother told him to tell them more about his idol, his timid self disappeared, and his confident side took the stage. He told them everything about Jack the Ripper, from his origin to his criminal motive through the entire case. He remembered every detail, and he even could point out the different origin.
"Every time I talk about Jack the Ripper, people would say I am a freak," the young man realized that he had been too agitated when he was about to come to an end of the chronicle about Jack the Ripper. He lowered his head in embarrassment and said, "But there are a lot of people out there who, like me, are serial killer fanatics; it's no rare thing. I've also heard that some admirers communicated with serial killers through letter-writing after they had been arrested and imprisoned. Some of them even tie the knot in prison…"
Lin Sanjiu had heard about this as well.
"Hey, the sky is getting dark,
" the younger brother glanced out of the window and called out to them.
The other three people followed his gaze and they were all stunned. It seemed that the time flow in the game was faster than the time in the real world. They were merely listening to the young man talks about Jack the Ripper and the sun had already set. As the day turned dark, p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.es, hooligans, drunkard, all came out from their lairs and began to gather under the gas lamps, filling the alley. All kinds of women of different ages and appearance stood beside the street in groups, shivering in the cold and waited for their customers to arrive.
"You can go now if you want to search for the murderer," the elder brother said to the youngster. He pointed at the shadow that hid under the lamps, "We two can accompany you if—"
He couldn't finish his sentence as he was interrupted by a rapping on the door. Four of them looked at each other, and since Lin Sanjiu was nearest to the door, she got up and went to open the door. Once the door was opened, the woman outside stunned.
"Carol? Didn't Mr. Dalton called me over?" The woman had a pair of bright red lips, and her face was white. Though she had put on heavy make-up, she couldn't hide her saggy skin and wrinkles. The woman raised her voice, assaulting Lin Sanjiu's ears with her sharp tone, "Why are you here, Carol? Did you undercut me?"
" Ptui ! Close the door and get your a.s.s back into that filthy room of yours! My service demands money!" The p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e spat phlegm next to Lin Sanjiu's shoe.
It seemed that Dalton was the name of the brothers in the game. The woman was giving Lin Sanjiu a headache, and just as she turned around to have the brothers sent her off, she was first met with a pair of bright eyes.
"Annie?" The youngster stammered, "Are you, Annie Chapman?"
The old p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e turned her head and asked, she felt confused, "... Yes, I am. What's wrong with that?"