The detective was standing there, sighing heavily, when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a figure that had somehow appeared in his office.
“Who’s there?!”
The detective reacted swiftly, his hand immediately reaching into the pocket of his overcoat.
Before he could even draw his gun, a familiar voice reached his ears.
“Don’t be alarmed. It’s me.”
The detective turned his head. A young man with black hair emerged from the shadows.
“Su?! You’re back?!”
Seeing Su Fan return, the detective’s face immediately lit up with pleasant surprise.
However, that surprise soon turned into puzzlement.
“How did you get in? Why didn’t anyone inform me? Are they withholding information?”
As he said this, the detective immediately made to head for the door.
“It’s normal they wouldn’t know. I came in through here.”
Su Fan pointed in a certain direction.
The detective followed his gaze and saw the window he had opened earlier for ventilation.
Although most buildings outside the city center weren’t very tall, his office was on the fourth floor.
Su had actually managed to sneak in through the window via the external drainpipe, completely undetected.
Has his abilities grown stronger again? the detective mused inwardly with a sigh.
But actually, the detective was mistaken.
A mere fourth floor was no trouble at all for Su Fan. He could simply leap up in a single bound after confirming no one was around.
Walking over to the other side of the detective’s desk, Su Fan pulled out a chair and sat down.
“I saw the message Karl sent. His ability to escape and return was partly due to luck.”
“Is the thing causing trouble this time really that powerful?”
The detective looked rather worried and continued, “Su, maybe I should still try to find you some backup.”
He knew that even if he did, Su Fan would likely end up fighting alone in the end, but having a little more support was better than nothing.
“There’s no time for that,” Su Fan shook his head.
“Other people have gotten involved. I’ll also have to be careful not to accidentally harm them.”
“When the time comes to act, just have your police force help evacuate the civilians in the surrounding area.”
At this point, Su Fan suddenly paused.
Karl had said that neighborhood was practically overrun by cultists.
With such a large-scale change in the resident population, how had the patrol officers not noticed anything unusual…
And how had so many people successfully infiltrated the area in the first place?
The moment this thought occurred to him, Su Fan immediately expanded his spiritual sense, scanning every corner of the room.
Seeing Su Fan fall silent, the detective also quieted down immediately, waiting for his next move.
He then saw Su Fan raise his hand. A small, black button-shaped object flew out from under the desk, landing in his palm before being crushed to pieces.
The detective’s face immediately changed.
A listening device!
When was it installed? By whom?!
The detective’s first reaction was shock, followed swiftly by anger.
There was a mole inside the police station, and they had bugged his office!
The detective quickly ran through recent events in his mind.
Their operations had been going smoothly lately, with no major arrests failing.
That meant the person who planted the bug wasn’t placed there by the gangs.
So that meant…
An expression of disbelief gradually surfaced in the detective’s eyes.
“It seems you’ve already guessed. The one who planted the listening device is probably the cultist who has taken over the neighborhood Karl and the others investigated this afternoon,” Su Fan said softly.
“Lately, some inexplicable beliefs have been spreading within the police station. I wanted to address it, but I lacked a proper justification,” the detective said with a bitter smile.
Su Fan pulled a pen from a cup on the side, tore a page from a notepad, and began sketching a symbol on it.
While drawing, Su Fan’s pen abruptly paused.
That unsettling feeling of being watched appeared once again.
However, the Evil-Warding Talismans that both Su Fan and the detective carried on them at all times immediately took effect, shielding them from the prying eyes.
During this time, the detective wasn’t idle either.
“This is the information I’ve collected and compiled about that family. See if you can find any useful clues,” the detective said, handing over a folder just as Su Fan finished his drawing.
The two exchanged what they held.
Taking the documents, Su Fan skimmed through them rapidly, quickly committing all the information to memory.
Peter.
Steve.
Linda.
Finally, when he flipped to Charles, Su Fan stopped.
Charles, also known as Charlie.
Raised by his maternal grandmother from a young age.
His name was also given by his grandmother.
Ellen was quite a mysterious old woman.
Although nearly seventy, she never made a mistake in handling affairs. After her daughter got married, she used unknown means to resolve all the difficulties, big and small, that they encountered.
She also possessed considerable wealth and artistic talent.
Her artistic pursuits included, but were not limited to, painting, sculpture, design, literature…
She was even skilled in financial management.
Her boundless energy and exceptional talents were truly astonishing.
Yet, this very same old woman had passed away peacefully just a few months ago, with no prior signs.
Reading this, a cold smile touched the corner of Su Fan’s mouth.
A late bloomer in middle age was understandable. But an old woman with one foot in the grave displaying all this? Who would believe there wasn’t something sinister going on?
The information below further confirmed Su Fan’s suspicions.
The husband who starved to death. The son who claimed his body was about to be taken over and resisted to the death.
And the behavior of desperately trying to get close during her daughter’s pregnancy.
This old woman offered the boys from her family’s bloodline to that entity.
Her eldest son was exceptionally strong-willed, so she set her sights on her unborn grandson instead.
However, Linda’s husband was very vigilant. He moved away with Linda and obtained a restraining order from the court.
Until the eldest son grew up, Ellen was forbidden from approaching Linda’s home.
So the old woman settled for the next best thing and placed the demon’s soul into her little granddaughter?
That demon seemed to crave a male body as its vessel.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t have made its current vessel, Charles, develop physical characteristics of both genders.
Just then, Su Fan’s phone suddenly rang.
“Su. I think our opponent this time might be far more troublesome than we imagined,” Sam’s grave voice came from the other end of the line.
In the antique shop, Dean was busy making holy water and drawing demon-resisting sigils.
Sam, meanwhile, was looking at the book in front of him as he continued speaking to Su Fan.
“Drawing symbols related to demons can attract the attention of the corresponding entity. So, when making books on the subject, they always deliberately include an error in part of the symbol.”
“It took me quite some time.”
“But after multiple comparisons, I finally identified the demon represented by that symbol.”
On the desk, the open book displayed an illustration.
A figure with the beautiful face of a woman and the body of a man, wearing a crown, sat upon a dromedary camel.
Hanging from one side of the camel were three female heads.
“One of the Seventy-Two Pillar Demon Gods of Solomon. Ranked ninth. Chief of the Principalities. Paimon.”
