Chapter 83
"No, no, no, stop stop stop. TMI, TMI.” as Jianmen continued to explain his understanding of The Will, Josephine put her hands over her ears and shook her head: "You know this kind of explanation hurts more than it helps.”
"Oops, my apologies.” Jianmen immediately: "I was too excited.”
"Yeah, next time, don’t get too excited right off the start. And that goes with anything.” Josephine chuckled and stood up, waving away the broken glass and burnt paper on the reception’s desk from a few words accidentally uttered by Jianmen: "It’s getting late and I should get going. Anything else you need my help on? Anything at all?”
"Yes, I have a request, not super urgent but I would appreciate it if you can find it.” Jianmen also stood up: "I would like some training documentations of Paladins. It doesn’t have to be the top secret kind, just some basic manuals would suffice. But of course, the more magical the better.”
"No problem. ” Josephine smiled: "What’s with the sudden interest in Paladins? Another hunt for interesting reads?”
"Teaching material. I won’t plagiarize, I promise.”
"Pfft, no worries on that. We haven’t had a mentionable Paladin sect in decades. I would say the few that still exist might want to thank you if you figured something out of their tomes. ” Josephine reached into her pocket in search of something: "Payment can be due on delivery on this request, as I am not entirely sure what I or my people can find. And also, I have a favor to ask you as well.”
"No problem. Shoot.”
"We have been trying to track down two runaways.” Josephine took out two pictures in crystal frames and handed them to Jianmen: "We have some trackable pictures of them. But they are quite good at hiding themselves so these are probably not accurate anymore. ”
"And you need my help on breaking the cloaking spell? ”
"No, not really, just keep your eyes out for something weird in the area, if you noticed them.” Josephine handed a small piece of golden metal nugget to Jianmen: "My prepayment, I don’t know if you’ll ever need it. But consider it a thank you note. You should know that there are rewards on their whereabouts. So you’ll get a cut if you have any useful information.”
"And what happens if you find them?”
"I’ll bring them back to the academy and have them grounded for a month. Maybe manually copy the Instruction Manual 100 times. And hopefully without having to fend off enemies for them.” Josephine curiously looked at Jianmen: "What, you have something already?”
"I did have a run-in with an interesting couple.” Jianmen extended his hand in the direction of the diner, a small dog-shaped fridge magnet flew over and landed on his hand, then he handed the fridge magnet to Josephine: "Here. Not sure if that’s them.”
Josephine gently placed an unseal spell on the fridge magnet, then immediately stared at Jianmen with narrowed eyes, as the fridge magnet had cartoon dog with a cartoonishly lewd smile on its face with a cross depicting its butthole, and a small ball of blue light slowly rose from this cross into the air. "Very mature, Jianmen, very mature.”
"Well, I didn’t actually mean to capture it. I had to store it somewhere.” Jianmen shrugged with a coy smile.
"Yeah, that is totally what happened.” Josephine shook her head, and she swiftly captured the small blue ball of light with a small crystal ball: "Thanks. This may have been them. Did they say anything?”
"Something about that recent movie festival, they said the festival is finished and they had nothing to see.” Jianmen shrugged.
"Of course. The film festival.” Josephine nodded: "Yeah you might wanna pay attention to the next one here. The festival’s biggest sponsor is a close friend of ours, and if you’re willing to pay a suitable entry fee, you can get into a yearly underground expo where you can do some window shopping.”
"Huh. Noted, figured I’ll need some things soon.” Jianmen nodded.
"Oh, and one last thing.” Josephine walked over to the front of the reception’s desk and started walking backwards towards the front door: "Maybe thanks to you, or maybe not, but a certain area in Los Angeles started having elevated levels of paranormal activity ever since the tunnels cleared - some people are dealing with it, but I guess I’d let you know.”
"Yeah. Sorry. Small traces of karmic pollution may linger around the area and that could be an effect.” Jianmen shook his head: "But that would be your problem. I trust that you, your people, and the rest of the world can handle it.”
"Yeah, yeah. Just let me know if you heard anything. And give my regards to your students.” Josephine turned around and exited from the front door, an SUV was already by the side of the road waiting for her.
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Third floor of the North Wing of the Clearwater Municipal Hospital was quite different from the first floor. For one, it didn’t have as many regular hospital rooms, instead it had a few very big and spacious ones and the others seemed to have old and broken remnants of soft paddings on the wall.
And maybe it was because of the smaller number of windows causing less moonlight to shine into the interior, the third floor was much darker than the first as well.
"This place is hella creepy.” Branston’s voice was trembling, but Jason wasn’t sure if it was due to fear or excitement, or both, "Alright let’s find room 3-5-13.”
"This is 3-5-9 and 3-5-7, so it should be in front of us.” Tim checked the room numbers on the rooms on his side and said, these two rooms were all rooms with the broken paddings on the wall, "And the things on the wall… what are they?”
"Psychiatric padded cells. They were used to hold mentally unstable and self-harming patients.” Adam explained with a frown: "I’ve got a bad feeling about this… the official documentations I read… it didn’t say that there were psychiatry units here. Guess someone doctored those records as well.”
"‘Doctored’, ha, nice one.” Branston turned the camera to Adam: "So what are you saying here Adam?”
"I am saying, at least from what I’ve read, that the documents on Clearwater Municipal Hospital kept in the San Jose County and San Jose City archives failed to mention there being some psychiatric cells in the hospital.” Adam organized himself a bit and pointed at the camera: "Branston gang - please try searching for additional information on this hospital. I feel like something is very fishy here.”
"Woah-oh oh! You hear that Branston gang? Do your thing!” Branston turned the camera back to his face and shouted excitedly: "Boy oh boy, we’re ghost hunting AND we’re uncovering shady secrets? This is gonna be wild!”
The next moment, Adam and Tim both flinched and jumped, dropping their Spirit Calming Incense sticks on the ground.
"What? What happened?” both Jason and Branston asked.
"Didn’t you hear that?” Tim asked, looking at the other 3 with a scared look: "A woman… a woman’s cries.”
"No? What are you talking about?” Adam shook his head: "I heard some yelling, like a really angry yell...”