The Bronze Bell Mystery
"As the bronze bell swallows a corpse, the Star Reader in the wheelchair calculates a countdown to the police officer's death."
"At midnight, rust-colored blood seeps from the bronze bell. The pale man in the wheelchair is working out the death equation for a detective:
'Your badge is the offering, your scars are the star chart, your heartbeat...'
His bloodstained fingertips brush his mechanical eye. Cracked glass refracts an eerie blue glow.
'...is the only thing that can make me stop calculating.'
As the rusted gears begin to turn backward, fourteen bloody marks burn new divisions into the clock face.
'Officer, have you ever heard a bronze bell breathe?'
Fu Hansheng's wheelchair rolls over a floor strewn with shattered police badges. Its mechanical joints shriek in time with the swinging pendulum.
'It's waiting for the fifteenth offering, or for you to break the chains of this cycle with your own hands.'
In this game woven from blood, rust, and time, the truth has long since been swallowed by the tolling bell.
The only thing clear is the bandaged hand that keeps reaching out to you:
'Come on. Either become my accomplice, or...'
The web of light in his mechanical eye suddenly fractures like a spiderweb.
'Let me carve your heartbeat into an eternal finale.'"
There's no romance, but there's plenty to ship.
It's a little boring, so just treat it like music.
