The Gentleman at the End-Chapter 738 - 736: Spoon

"An emergency has occurred, please choose a method of check."

1. Sanity check - if successful, confront the unknown entity without losing fear value.

2. Agility check - if successful, leave the staircase and return to the entrance hall.

3. Strength check - if successful, destroy the current staircase, preventing the event from happening.

"That voice again..."

For some unknown reason, Grep had felt somewhat irritable in his heart since meeting William.

Currently, following the character traits of the detective he was portraying, Grep quickly thought of a method not listed in the checking options. With an experimental attitude, he ignored the prompt in his mind and opened a bottle of whiskey, taking a sip to let the alcohol surge to his head.

He leaped up, grabbed the handrail at the edge of the second floor, and flipped himself up.

He completely bypassed what should have been the intersection at the staircase corner,

Standing at the entrance on the second floor and looking back at the staircase again, everything was gone, the terrible gurgling sound had also completely disappeared.

"Exactly, I can definitely make better decisions... The words echoing in my mind are more like a ’directed script’, hinting how an individual should make choices at certain points to produce a dramatic or fear effect.

However, I still cannot let my guard down, just like the encounter with the blond woman in the hotel, thinking I had escaped danger when the event had not actually ended."

At that moment, the prompt reappeared, but this time the tone of the sentence was not standard, sounding more like a person speaking.

"You actually chose not to follow the ’narration’; doing this can diminish the performance effect, you can’t be so clever next time."

Grep ignored it, focusing on scrutinizing the situation on the second floor.

There were four rooms,

a bathroom,

one was the master bedroom for the couple,

one was a study and storage room,

and one was a room once prepared for a future child, which also served as a storage room now,

Grep quickly surveyed the conditions of all the rooms,

only to immediately spot a problem at the first glance when his gaze swept through the bathroom—he noticed the bathtub faucet wasn’t tightly closed, and the bathtub was already filled with water.

Most importantly, there were many black hairs floating on the water surface, most likely the same ones that had been in the sandwich earlier. The bathroom tiles in the corner also had some hard-to-clean blood stains.

"Let’s check out the other places first, so I don’t run into any more problematic decisions."

He went into the master bedroom, a spacious room decorated in a minimalist black and white scheme, clean and neat, with photos of the couple hung above the bed,

and a rather complicated medicine box on the nightstand, mostly containing neuro-suppression medications.

Grep ransacked the wardrobe without any reservations, finding many outfits of the same type and numerous face masks, apparently needed by the lady to be changed multiple times a day.

Furthermore, his keen third-eye insight unexpectedly discovered an access to an attic hidden at the top of the wardrobe, completely locked and requiring a key.

After leaving the master bedroom, he moved to the study,

likewise very tidy, with bookshelves housing numerous engineering books related to the homeowner’s work, as well as some biology and medical books.

Grep then turned to the desk by the window, deducing from the freshly opened ink and wear marks on the edge of the desk that the homeowner must have used the desk frequently.

However, the desk drawer was also locked, and by looking through it with his "Third Eye", he saw that it contained a thick notebook, stuffed with sticky notes. freeωebnovēl.c૦m

Just as Grep was about to open the drawer and retrieve the notebook,

the study door that he should have closed casually was steadily opening without any noise, a dark figure standing at the doorway, eyes wide open.

Grep immediately sensed the peering sensation from behind, reaching for the revolver on his waist, prepared to draw and shoot as he turned around.

Pivoting on his heels,

when Grep saw clearly who the dark figure at the door was, his hand gradually moved away from his waist.

Standing at the door was not a ghost but the homeowner William, who also kindly smiled and said:

"Mr. 71, I forgot to tell you earlier that I’ve quit my job and have become quite idle; I spend some time each day here in the study trying to read some biology and medical books to better understand my wife’s illness.

The drawer contains my study notebook, it’s filled with material on this topic, if you wish to check, I can open it for you now."

"No need, it’s just a detective’s curiosity, now that I know what’s inside there’s no need to open it.

By the way, your house must have an attic space, right?"

Grep pointed at the ceiling.

William tapped his right fist on his left palm, "Detective, your insight is indeed remarkable.

We had an attic when we bought this house; it was used by the previous owner as a storage space.

But, for my wife and I, since we have no children, the children’s room is sufficient for storage, so we really don’t need the attic and chose to seal it off.

If you, detective, feel it necessary to take a look, here is the key, you should be able to find the entrance."

With that, a copper key had already fallen into Grep’s hand.

"By the way, Mr. Grep, have you felt a sense of being watched from the moment you arrived?"

"No."

William’s gaze shifted slightly, "Oh—okay. Then I won’t disturb your investigation, call me anytime if you need anything."

As William left, Grep looking at the key in his hand, felt his suspicion grow and became more vigilant.

"What exactly is William up to..."

Clutching the key, he returned to the master bedroom’s closet; the copper key perfectly matched the lock,

Click! When he pushed open the panel leading to the attic, no dust fell, which made Grep’s nerves tighten further.

"He said the attic wasn’t used, but there isn’t even a speck of dust up there..."

Grip on his revolver, he cautiously propped himself up to enter the dark and gloomy attic area, the Third Eye on his forehead already wide open.

The first thing that was clear was that the vast attic was empty, yet you could see scraping marks left by fingernails on the floorboards, even bite marks.

"Is that... iron chains?"

Grep quickly noticed the corner of the attic, where iron chains used for binding were actually screwed into the wall, and as he tried to approach,

Click! The panel behind him suddenly shut, even locking.

He immediately tried to return at his fastest speed, but he was a second too late—the entrance was completely sealed off, and the darkness of the attic became overwhelmingly silent.

Just as Grep was about to call out the homeowner’s name, a completely different sense of peeping came from behind him, accompanied by bubbling sounds from deep within a throat.

Chuckle—chuckle—chuckle

Grep spun around, only to find a black-haired woman had appeared at the previously empty corner where the chains hung.

Her wrists bore red marks from the chains,

her face obscured by black hair, making it impossible to discern her features,

Suddenly, she moved in a highly distorted manner, flipping her elbows around and began crawling intensely, and upon closer observation, it was clear all her fingernails were gone.

"Sanity check in progress..."

The prompt came at that moment.

Grep stared at the crawling, distorted woman, hesitating to pull the trigger in his hand. Not until she crawled up to him, sweeping her dangling hair under his nose, face to face at zero distance.

Even so, he neither closed his eyes nor fired his gun.

"You dared to stare directly at the tormented entity before you, and made the correct decision not to attack and showed no malice.

The malignant entity before you no longer perceives you as an enemy, check successful."

The prompt ended,

the woman still clinging in front of Grep emitting strange throat sounds when something wriggled in her neck, and a spoon emerged from her mouth.

Clink!

The spoon hit the floor, and the woman before him vanished.

This spoon was precisely the object Grep had seen at the staircase when he first stepped into the villa; its reappearance was enough to prove the importance of this tool.

What purpose could the "Peeping Tom" hidden within the villa have for insisting on showing this object? Grep already had an answer in his heart.