“Hey Boss. ” when Jason and Caroline went back into the inn’s diner, they saw Jianmen was in there chugging down large bottles of his homemade rice wine and fruit wine: “Jeez Boss, you need to lay off the alcohol there. When did this problem start?”

 

“Not a problem.” Jianmen put down his bottle and answered. His face did not look drunk at all, but his mannerisms were kind of strange compared to how he usually is: “NOT a problem - I just needed some of my wine to heal. You know, cleansing bad karma is hard!”

 

“Okay, boss. You’re drunk. Take a breather and lay down your wine. ” Jason went over and took away two of the bottles placed right in front of Jianmen.

 

“No! No! I need to drink! No!” Jianmen tried to stop Jason, but his moves were too clumsy to do it, and later Caroline joined in, and took away the other two bottles.

 

“Damn, my students, you learned so fast...” Jianmen laid on the table, unable to move, his right arm still in bandage and there were some burn marks on his right shoulder.

 

“Damn. I’ve never seen him like this. What happened?” Jason and Caroline tried to look for Dave, but Dave was not at the reception’s desk.

 

“Hey! Hey! You two! Come here!” Jianmen started yelling at them from the diner.

 

“What? Boss? You’re not getting any more alcohol. ” Caroline asked with arms crossed in front of herself.

 

“What do you take me for? I don’t get drunk on normal alcohol. Give me a bottle of vodka and it wouldn't even faze me.” Jianmen sat straight, looked straight at both his students and said: “You know the task I assigned you? Looks like I forgot to remind you, since I forgot you weren’t my other students and don’t know the basics to necromancy - remember to check the body! Okay? The body you found in the hotel? Chains and shiny things in the mouth, it could be something fishy!”

 

“Okay, boss. Thanks.” Jason and Caroline’s eyes met, they were already thinking about trying to find a way to investigate the corpse they found, “Can we go to the basement and get some Demon Suppression Sigils then?”

 

“No! No going into the basement unless I said so!” Jianmen lightly banged his head on the table and said: “The Sigils are in the cupboard near the fridge...”

 

“Huh? What about our meditation and visualization sessions then?”

 

“I’ll let you know. ” Jianmen suddenly sat straight up on his chair and said, pointing at the cupboard: “Now take your sigils and go!”

 

“Okay, okay, you’re the boss.” Caroline went over to the cupboard and took out a big ziplock bag of folded sigils.

 

“Go! And be careful!” Jianmen’s yelling followed them out the diner, then they almost bumped into Thomas and Aimee.

 

“Hooo! Detective Chaver ! Didn’t see you there! ” Jason apologized awkwardly, “What can we help you with?”

 

“Um, sorry. We were just coming to check on you, and say thanks to Mr. Yu for his flowers.” Aimee answered: “We didn’t know how he found out, but we’re very grateful.”

 

“Flowers? What?” Jason and Caroline were both confused.

 

“We had a car accident the other day. We are fine, miraculously. Our father got injured but he’ll recover.” Thomas sighed and said: “How are y'all doing?”

 

“Geez, I’m so sorry.” Caroline frowned: “How did it happen?”

 

“Some guy lost control of the car and T-boned us. We were actually extremely lucky.” Thomas explained with a bright smile: “Dad’s resting at home now, he’s seen worse. He used to be in the LAPD...”

 

“Is Mr. Yu here?” Aimee cut Thomas off as he was about to go on.

 

“He’s um… he’s super drunk right now. Might not be a good time.” Caroline looked slightly embarrassed.

 

“Okay, maybe next time, then.” Aimee nodded and was about to drag Thomas away.

 

“Officers? Can I ask for a favor?” Jason tried to grab onto Aimee’s shoulder but retracted his arm and did not commit: “It’s about a case in San Francisco.”

 

“We don’t really have connections with the SFPD. So I’m afraid we’re not much help.” Aimee turned around and looked at Jason with curiosity in her eyes: “You guys in trouble?”

 

“Ah, no no no, you misunderstood.” Jason chuckled nervously: “We are not in trouble - at least not yet. We just want to take a look at a super old corpse that was recently discovered at the Prime Royals Hotel...”

 

“What - that was you guys?” Thomas laughed out loud and clapped his hands, while Aimee stared at him annoyedly: “Oh god, we heard some influencers discovered that piece of historic body from the Prime Royals, didn’t expect that was you guys! Hahahahaha...”

 

“Okay, the stream was that viral?” Caroline asked while having her palm on her forehead.

 

“We didn’t watch the stream. We just heard of it when we’re at our precinct earlier. We haven’t got a chance to look at it yet.” Aimee shook her head and asked in a serious tone: “You guys really broke the wall to a historic hotel?”

 

“And found the body! They found a body!” Thomas defended Caroline and Jason: “It would be extremely stupid for them to get into trouble!”

 

“The hotel’s in San Francisco, we don’t know that!” Aimee sighed heavily and looked at both Caroline and Jason: “What did the SFPD tell you?”

 

“Hold on, do you really think we could get in trouble?” Jason became much more concerned after hearing what Aimee said.

 

“No, that’s just my sis being a perpetual worrier.” Thomas cut Aimee off: “What do you want? I’m all ears.”

 

“We would like to take a look at the corpse, and help you guys.” Caroline explained: “Or help the SFPD - we are pretty familiar with some of the occult stuff, so if it is a murder case or other types of cases, we can definitely help.”

 

“How’d you know it was related to occult?” Thomas seemed surprised that Caroline even suggested this.

 

“We found it, and we took a really good look.” Caroline tried to act natural as she explained: “The body had metal chains on it and something shiny in the mouth - it is quite common in some pretty serious occult groups. I don’t know if the SFPD had contacts that specialize in this, but I am pretty sure we can offer them help if they want.”

 

“Okay, okay. What about this?” Thomas told Caroline and Jason: “I’ll call one of my buddies at the SFPD forensics, see if they can okay you as temporary civilian consultants. And you have to be our civilian consultants in martial arts.”

 

“You are the police, why do you need martial arts consultants?” Jason was really confused by this request.

 

“You’d be surprised how much we need it.” Thomas winked at both Caroline and Jason.