Minister Zou’s heart had never beaten so fast before.
The identical metal door extended endlessly along the corridor, and he ran too fast, causing his route counting to go awry.
The repeated cross-shaped corridors flew past his eyes time and time again, and the ground was so clean that it was almost cruel, with nothing that could serve as a landmark.
How many corridors and intersections had he crossed? Nine? Ten?
Did he turn left at the last corner? His mind was in such a mess that he couldn’t trust his memory.
That weird “Zhang Wei” never appeared again. At the end of the corridor, there was only darkness. In the corner of his eye, he saw his clothes and occasionally heard rustling noises from somewhere, causing Minister Zou to jump up and down like a frightened bird.
He was already exhausted from his limited physical strength, and his breath was mixed with a faint smell of blood. Minister Zou swallowed some saliva, and his throat was so dry it hurt.
He was lost in the most dangerous bottom floor of the corpse vault, with unknown monsters lurking in the darkness.
There was no food or water and no external means of communication. The space here was chaotic and disorderly, with no chance of getting lucky and leaving.
The only way out was to find the staircase where he came down.
However, the staircase was hidden behind thousands of metal doors, and all the others were morgues for storing dangerous corpses. If he tried each one by one, who knew what terrifying things he might encounter?
The more he thought, the more panicked he became. Minister Zou couldn’t think clearly and wished to die.
What should he do? What should he do?
Minister Zou’s running steps gradually slowed down, and his entire body was soaked in sweat. He couldn’t run anymore, and silver stars were dancing in his vision. He couldn’t help but lean against the icy wall and take deep breaths.
The lighting next to him suddenly turned on, and Minister Zou’s eyes frantically rolled around, then suddenly froze—
Two steps away from him at the crossroad, there was a pair of neatly placed leather shoes, which were Zhang Wei’s. Upon closer inspection, there was a dark red liquid stain on the shoe surface, like blood.
He had come back.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!” Minister Zou let out a desperate scream, clawing at his scalp with both hands. He seemed to want to scream out his own collapse, and his nails were stained with bright red blood.
Tap, tap, tap.
This time, it was a very light sound.
Minister Zou lifted his head in despair. A black figure stood quietly on the edge of the light and darkness, a dozen steps away from him. That figure looked like an adult man, standing stiff and straight, like a mannequin in a shopping mall.
The person didn’t move at all until the sensor light went off and the shadow was completely covered by darkness.
Minister Zou couldn’t take it anymore. He screamed and stood up, slamming into the wall in front of him. In his last sight, the figure stiffly rushed forward and ran towards him.
……
Minister Zou suddenly hit a wall, startling Zhong Chengshuo.
To ensure the other’s mental health, he politely maintained a safe distance, preparing to approach slowly depending on the situation, just like dealing with wild animals. Who knew that Minister Zou was more violent than wild animals and slammed himself directly into a wall?
Zhong Chengshuo quickly ran and went to Minister Zou’s side. The person had fallen to the floor with his eyes rolled back. In the end, Minister Zou was afraid of death, so the impact wasn’t severe and was more like fainting from fright.
Zhong Chengshuo had no choice. He took off Minister Zou’s coat and made a simple pillow. Then, he went back to his own morgue, following his memory, and took a bottle of distilled water from the workbench—this was what Zhang Wei used to make corpse preservatives, and there was no strange smell, so it could be drunk.
With the water ready to feed the other person, Zhong Chengshuo sat cross-legged beside Minister Zou and fell into contemplation.
Fear.
It was the emotion he was most curious about and had never experienced before.
Not long ago, he finally got a taste of fear. It was like an initial crack that rapidly spread, extending countless tiny lines called “negative emotions”. He still remembered the feeling of being torn and tortured by his inner self. It wasn’t comfortable, but subtly useful.
After wandering for so long, Zhong Chengshuo could vaguely sense the cause of that fear.
Losing his head and most of his senses, his thoughts were chaotic. He had experienced this kind of state of being “blank” before. At that time, he didn’t have any special reaction, but this time, being in this “fragile” situation, he had an extra Yin Ren in his heart.
The unstable desert started to blow, and the rolling, dry grass met an everlasting spark.
In his heart’s desert, a flame was lit for the first time.
A scorching, deadly flame, yet indispensable… This was his entire impression of “fear” for the moment.
Looking through the blurred vision of the dead, Zhong Chengshuo looked at his own hands.
At first, it was only a slight attraction to the sharpness, and he never thought it would start a storm.
A very strange feeling. Zhong Chengshuo had never missed that person like this before. He didn’t know when the idea of “accepting death calmly” had completely disappeared from his heart.
He had to go back.
Zhong Chengshuo touched his poorly connected head and poured half a bottle of water on Minister Zou’s face.
Poor Minister Zou woke up and saw his former colleague with dilated pupils.
He jumped backward like a live shrimp and shrank into the corner of the wall. “Don’t—don’t—don’t kill me… Don’t kill me…”
Zhong Chengshuo sat still, slowly raising his hands, trying to make his voice sound hoarse and innocent. “I won’t kill you… I’m also very scared. I want to go home…”
“You’re dead!” Minister Zou screamed, “And something is wrong with your body! Who are you?”
Zhang Wei’s pupils widened!!!
…And Zhang Wei was only 1.7 meters tall with loose flesh all over. The guy in front of him was definitely 1.8 meters tall, in decent shape, and as sturdy as a beautiful wild beast.
Zhong Chengshuo thought for a moment with solemnity. “My surname is Cheng, and I am Zhang Wei’s fitness instructor. I remembered rushing off from work yesterday, and when I woke up, I was in this state… Where am I? I just want to go home. My lover is still waiting for me.”
The middle-aged man in front of him was dressed in scientific attire, so he shouldn’t be someone who would roll up his sleeves to fight him.
As expected.
“An evil spirit? Does being possessed by an evil spirit change your physique?…It seems…that there are documents abroad about possession changing the body…” Upon hearing that the person in front of him was a fitness instructor, Minister Zou could preliminarily exclude the awakening of a century-old demon and finally catch his breath.
He had encountered evil spirits before, and they were full of lies. To be honest, Minister Zou didn’t believe the “fitness instructor” nonsense.
But the fact that the other party was willing to deceive him meant that he still had some use.
Thinking of this, a faint hope appeared in Minister Zou’s eyes. “You, ahem, ahem, you said you just wanted to go home?”
“Yes,” Zhong Chengshuo said, both truthfully and untruthfully. “I want to leave here.”
Minister Zou vigorously wiped his face twice, stood up tremblingly, and his tone was a bit erratic. “No problem, brother. Hey, the owner of this head is my subordinate. I have long felt unhappy about him!”
He chattered on like a machine gun, afraid that Zhong Chengshuo would change his mind.
“Only now, I’m lost, so I can’t guarantee my own safety… This place is difficult to navigate. It’s not that I don’t want to show you the way…”
“I know where I woke up. It’s a place full of morgue cabinets. I don’t know if that’s useful to you?”
Very good. Zhong Chengshuo stiffly tugged the corners of his mouth.
He watched as Minister Zou’s complexion turned slightly pale, followed by a hint of redness and a slightly brighter expression in his eyes. The man tremblingly grabbed the bottle of distilled water, drank half, and spilled the other half, obviously to recover his strength.
Zhong Chengshuo knew what the other party was thinking—the location of the morgue cabinets was relatively fixed, so if he found the morgue cabinets, he could naturally deduce the way out.
The bait had been set. It was up to the other party to decide how to get rid of him.
……
There was a Corpse Cage in the abandoned waiting room.
In the dim first-floor waiting room, a Corpse Cage was placed in a coffin carved with several preservation spells. The red coffin was facing the gap that ran through the space. The coffin lid was open, and the Corpse Cage was completely exposed, with countless dry branches protruding from its seven orifices.
The sunlight from the window gap illuminated the floating and sinking dust. It was clearly daytime, but the atmosphere was extremely gloomy.
Yin Ren sat casually next to the coffin. His white shirt had many bloodstains, and his black hair fell like a waterfall on the fabric. The scene was beautiful, but the degree of gloominess in the underworld had increased.
Fu Tianyi was trembling while holding a steamed bun, neither eating nor not eating it.
What’s going on with the Haigu Branch?
Lu Xiahe had set up various equipment nearby, and Ge Tingting sat under the sunny window, frantically reviewing metaphysical calligraphy. Even Huang Jin, who was wearing a monitoring ankle bracelet, was frowning and carving tranquility talismans.
No, are their colleagues all abnormal like this? Is it okay?
Fu Tianyi suddenly missed his team’s foul-mouthed cat. Although it was sharp and ruthless, at least it knew how to write the word “danger” better than any human.
“This gap has been proven to lead to an irreversible parallel dimension… Well, according to the latest information, it must lead to the Other Side.” Lu Xiaohe excitedly talked to herself, eagerly absorbing those temporarily opened high-level knowledge like a sponge. “After that, it entered a period of decline, and the connection with the Other Side was probably cut off.”
Fu Tianyi looked at her bewilderedly.
This was once a gap that caused a disaster. Why is this woman so calm?
Are these people really only C-level? Shouldn’t at least an A-level team be involved in this kind of thing? Or is there something wrong with his understanding of the Shian C-level investigation teams?
Lu Xiaohe just looked at Yin Ren. “If the previous gap was like a wound cut into a blood vessel, then the gap here is just a scar. Yin Ren, Shian only has methods to seal the gap, not deepen it…”
“Tearing open old scars is easier,” Yin Ren said. “Now what I want to know is how to tear it open.”
“But I don’t quite understand.” Ge Tingting raised her book, her AI voice was very serious. “Even if we attract the target’s attention, what if the sniper still attacks from a distance? We can’t catch him.”
“Wait until the gap is widened, and I will personally lure him in and fight him. Once I enter the gap, if he really cares about the Other Side, he will come over.”
Yin Ren answered without hesitation, his long fingers rubbing the edge of the coffin.
“If he doesn’t come, I don’t mind continuing to destroy it.”
Ge Tingting made serious notes. “I understand!”
Huang Jin sighed softly, and the strength of the carving knife in his hand increased a few points again. “Be sure to protect yourselves…”
Fu Tianyi dropped the bun in his mouth on the ground.
Tear open the gap? Attract the sniper?… Are all the people in this team crazy?
…It’s really a good opportunity to “prove oneself” but isn’t this going way overboard?! He never thought of confronting the attacker head on—Shian had dispatched all their elites to investigate this case.
Fu Tianyi took a deep breath and stepped back, sweating like rain. However, before his feet landed, Yin Ren’s pair of crimson eyes turned to him. In the shadow of the waiting room, those red eyes made Fu Tianyi feel a chill on the soles of his feet.
“Now that everyone is here, the plan officially commences.” Yin Ren smiled at him.
The person was surrounded by a terrifying murderous intent, and Fu Tianyi froze on the spot.
He still remembered the handsome young man who was clinging to Zhong Chengshuo as they walked into the Fu residence. At this moment, that carefree young man seemed to have completely disappeared.
He didn’t recognize the “thing” in front of him.
The author has something to say:
Two-way travel (physics
Both of them are starring in horror movies, which is great!
In the early morning, Fu Tianyi woke up from his sickbed.
Influenced by the emotions in the Corpse Cage, coupled with the mental impact, he slept for a full day and night. When he woke up, everything around him felt unreal—he subconsciously took out his phone to see if Auntie Tao had conveyed any work-related messages, and then he remembered that his partner had already passed away.
Auntie Tao left in great pain; a bullet hit her shoulder, injuring her lungs. If she hadn’t realized the danger and immediately protected Fu Tianyi by her side, the bullet would have hit his heart directly.
Fu Tianyi stared blankly at the snow-white ceiling.
He had no partner anymore.
Fu Tianyi opened Auntie Tao’s WeChat, and her profile picture was a photo of her daughter when she was young. Her WeChat signature was just a simple line: “Life is like floating duckweed*”.
*(生如浮萍) Idiom referring to life is short, uncertain, and transient, like duckweed, which floats on the water’s surface and is easily swayed by the wind and currents. It’s often used to express the idea that one should cherish and make the most of their time in life.
Auntie Tao wasn’t young anymore. Her parents were dead, and her husband had long been a stranger. After losing her daughter to the gap, she put all her energy into getting rid of evil, as if it were the best anesthesia in the world.
Her last post was “My 45th” with a photo of an empty and overly tidy living room.
The date was less than two weeks ago.
…And as of today, Fu Tianyi had never looked carefully at her posts.
Auntie Tao wasn’t a master or doctoral graduate from a prestigious university; she was just an uninteresting, silent, and endlessly sad ordinary person. When dealing with various supernatural events before, she would only provide various cognitive assistance behind him.
Now she was dead.
…And he behaved like a piece of crap.
During the Corpse Cage competition, he was always beaten down by those white monsters. The prepared props took time to set up and had little effect. Later, when he saw his colleagues being attacked, Fu Xingchuan and Auntie Tao were the first to rush out to protect their companions, but he was too preoccupied with despair and didn’t react at all.
His previous tasks all went smoothly.
The police and investigation teams provided detailed information, and the rear command clearly defined all plans. Then all he had to do was execute them with all his strength—he had been here for so long and had never tasted defeat, winning every battle cleanly and beautifully.
Once, he was dissatisfied that he couldn’t be directly enrolled in an A-level investigation team like Fu Xingchuan, only feeling that this elder was lucky to have been born at a good time.
Now, Fu Tianyi couldn’t even muster the strength to recall the competition. The dull air enveloped him, making it almost impossible for Fu Tianyi to breathe smoothly.
The thought that “he was actually very bad” came to the fore, and it couldn’t be extinguished like wildfire.
Fu Tianyi tied his hair casually, not touching the wooden mask and red long gown on the bedside. The young man simply wore a hospital gown and slippers, stumbling out of the ward.
He urgently needed to find something to distract himself.
Next door to Fu Tianyi were two people from Linnan. The nurse had just changed their dressings, and Fu Tianyi glanced at them. The two girls had their eyes closed, unknown whether they were in a coma or simply asleep.
They were wrapped in bandages, and their eyebrows furrowed as if they weren’t sleeping very well.
Fu Tianyi lowered his eyes and continued walking forward.
The next ward should be the ward of the Haigu branch.
The door was closed, and this time he hesitated for a while and decided not to knock on the door—Yin Ren had lost his partner, and his mood wasn’t good, plus he had acted arrogantly towards Unit 9 before. No matter how he thought about it, he would not be welcomed.
As a result, before he could figure it out, the door creaked open, and five pairs of eyes looked straight at him.
“It’s okay. It’s not someone here to assign work.” The teenager who opened the door turned around and greeted him.
Fu Tianyi looked up and saw that he was indeed in the Haigu branch ward, but the personnel weren’t quite right.
The famous Hao Wenzhe was holding a laptop and shrinking in the farthest bed, surrounded by a nest-like wall of devices. There were playing cards scattered on the table in the middle of the ward, and two men and one woman sat at the table. With the addition of the teenager at the door, they just formed a table.
At this moment, all their eyes were locked on Fu Tianyi.
Fu Tianyi: “…Sorry to bother you.”
“You’re Fu Tianyi from Yandu’s C-level division. I remember you,” the teenager at the door said. “We are Shian Unit 7. Do you have something you need?”
“No.” Fu Tianyi pursed his lips. “Sorry, I just came to take a look.”
The teenager —Xiao Zhao from Unit 7—looked at him for a while. “My condolences… but you don’t have to be afraid. They specially assigned us to guard here. Look, even Hao Wenzhe is staying here. Nothing will happen again.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll definitely turn things around this time.” A person dressed as a delivery man waved the playing cards and spoke in a serious tone. “Look at this time. None of us in Haigu Unit 7 broke our legs, which means there’s still hope!”
The remaining man and woman rolled their eyes at the delivery man.
Xiao Zhao coughed dryly. “If you’re looking for your cat, it just went south in the corridor.”
“Thank you.” Fu Tianyi forced a smile.
He continued to move forward along the corridor and indeed found Dr. Cat sunbathing on a windowsill.
The morning sun sprinkled down, giving the black cat a golden border. It squinted its eyes and made a satisfied purring sound in its throat, as if all this chaos had nothing to do with it.
Fu Tianyi stopped next to it for a while. “Auntie Tao has passed away.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you have any thoughts about it?”
The black cat shook its fluffy tail. “Let me tell you. There was a clam that was supposed to live for a thousand years, but it died after only five hundred years. What would you think if that happened?”
Fu Tianyi: “……”
Fu Tianyi: “…Forget I ask.”
The cat tilted its head and looked at him for a while, licking its paw. “If you really can’t stand it, just wander around. Auntie Tao was a nurse at this hospital, right? Perhaps by looking around, you can commemorate your partner.”
……
A few minutes later, Fu Tianyi stopped in front of the abandoned building on the west side of the Municipal Hospital, as suggested by the cat. He didn’t want to listen to the cat’s suggestion, but he had nowhere else to go.
The flower beds outside were being taken care of, and the nearby road was also very clean. Although the building was old, its quality was quite sturdy, and its appearance didn’t reveal that it was an abandoned building.
This was the place where the “Municipal Hospital Major Gap Incident” occurred.
The building had only four floors, and the hospital had added fences to every window and locked all entrances and exits with iron chains. Now, the gap had been properly handled, and people only needed to wait for it to naturally decay and disappear.
This was where Auntie Tao’s daughter had died, and it was her motivation to become a science post… Wait a minute?
Fu Tianyi blinked.
The door of the abandoned building was open, and the iron chain was cut and piled up haphazardly next to the door.
Was it a thief?
Fu Tianyi quickly sent a message to the work group and then entered the building. Even though there was only the decaying gap inside, it was still dangerous for outsiders to come in contact with it!
He hurried to the first floor waiting room.
…Then he almost lost his mind.
The huge gap was like a wound, diagonally cutting through the spacious waiting room. It was already in the final stages of decay, with black cracks that had shrunk to the thickness of a pinky, rough and intermittent, but emitting an oppressive feeling that was hard to ignore.
Yin Ren from Haigu was standing in front of the gap.
The man had disheveled hair, was bare feet, and had changed into a slightly loose white shirt. He looked at Fu Tianyi expressionlessly, without even a disguised smile.
Judging from his posture, it seemed like he was going to throw himself into the gap in the next second.
Fu Tianyi didn’t feel any hostility or murderous intent, but for some reason, he instinctively felt a chill behind him.
“Wait, I… I can understand your pain!” he said loudly. “My relationship with my partner is average, but I was also sad when she died. We can talk about it. Calm down, don’t do anything stupid—!”
Yin Ren looked at him for a while, his tone somewhat flat. “You’re also sad?”
“Of course!” Fu Tianyi gritted his teeth. “We’ve been partners for several years, and I consider her my friend—”
[Life is like floating duckweed.]
Tao Lan’s signature once again hit his mind, and Fu Tianyi couldn’t continue speaking.
After finally diverting his attention back to this matter, he felt his eyes stinging and his throat bitter.
“I’m sorry to her. I’m not a good partner.” He changed his wording. “Yes, I’m very sad.”
“Very well,” Yin Ren said.
“I was still thinking about when to talk to you… Fu Tianyi, I can give you a chance for revenge, do you want it?”
“Revenge?”
Fu Tianyi was a little confused. The attacker was incredibly strong, and the leadership of Shian had too few clues. The focus was on strengthening defense. They were only at the C-level. How could they talk about revenge?
Yin Ren glanced lightly, smoothly changing his wording. “To be precise, I want to give you a chance to prove yourself and incidentally take revenge.”
Fu Tianyi looked at the person in front of the huge gap and was silent for more than ten seconds this time.
“What chance?”
“A chance that some members of the Fu family may not like.” Yin Ren slowly smiled. “I heard Fu Xingchuan say that you juniors can’t control the Corpse Cage, and it takes years of training… Unfortunately, I have urgent matters to attend to and can teach you on their behalf.”
“What are you talking about?”
In the dark and dilapidated waiting room, with the eerie huge gap and the non-human face of the person in front of him, Fu Tianyi was really getting goosebumps—the Corpse Cage was the Fu family’s treasure. How could they just give it away to someone like that?
Yin Ren didn’t answer him, but only stretched out his hand and pinched a spell.
In an instant, countless blood threads shot out from Yin Ren’s palm, enveloping the entire waiting room. Sensing something, the gap behind him twisted and emitted a buzzing sound like the friction of flesh and blood.
The fish-tank-like protective shield rose from the ground, and the surging evil qi swallowed Fu Tianyi in an instant. He retreated several steps and directly hit the wall behind him.
…How could there be such a monster in the C-level investigation group in the Haigu branch?
Fu Tianyi’s brain was blank for two seconds. Then he noticed the scars and fresh blood in Yin Ren’s hands.
Two blood threads brushed Fu Tianyi’s hair and pierced into the wall, emitting an awe-inspiring aura. Yin Ren moved his fingers, and the scars on his hand became even more hideous.
“Choose for yourself. Forget about all this or temporarily obey me.”
The blood threads twisted, and a memory spell slowly formed in front of Fu Tianyi.
“Your foundation is not bad, and what I can teach you is definitely more than what the Fu family can provide.”
Outside the protective shield, Lu Xiaohe pulled out a folding table while Ge Tingting and Huang Jin distributed buns among themselves on the second floor of the waiting room. The steaming beef and onion buns emitted a tempting fragrance. At this angle, they could see everything happening in the first floor waiting room.
Lu Xiaohe held the bun and took a big bite. The hot meat juice instantly filled her mouth, and she couldn’t help but gasp.
“Xiao Yin has changed a lot. I haven’t seen him eat much.”
She sighed with concern.
“And this plan to lure the culprit using the gap is too risky. If space distortion is so easy to replicate, someone would have published a paper… He seems very confident… Has he regained his memory? Is he actually a very powerful cultivator?”
Ge Tingting seriously nibbled on her bun. “He didn’t tell us, but he should be very powerful. Let’s save two buns for him.”
Huang Jin stared at the fat white buns and then at the frightened Fu Tianyi downstairs. He felt that Ge Tingting’s judgment had been biased. However, after the argument in Corpse Cage, she didn’t pay much attention to him anymore.
That evil named “Yin Ren” was about to go crazy, so it wasn’t really time to care about steamed buns.
Mr. Huang Jin, who knew only half the truth, felt helpless.
……
At the same time, in the darkness beneath their feet.
Comrade Xiao Zhong was also feeling helpless.
His guide’s movements were smooth, but unfortunately, they got lost. Zhong Chengshuo watched the person run around like a hot potato, passing the same place countless times, and getting more and more breathless.
He hadn’t touched the person again and just followed from a distance, not knowing what the person was so anxious about.
The underground corpse vault of Sunken Society had many layers, forming an inverted pyramid.
The upper levels were well equipped with various surveillance devices, and rows of metal doors were embedded in the light gray walls, with cameras flashing in the dark corners. Various rail gates cut the corridors into sections, and the scene was full of a sense of technology.
However, Minister Zou had no time to appreciate it.
He used his face to open the doors one by one and turned around in the cross-shaped corridor. The surrounding scenes were almost identical, seemingly endless, and dizzying.
There was a room behind each door, and each room was filled with mutated corpses. Since joining forces with Mr. Qiu’s group, they had not hesitated to use the power of the Evil Force to conduct experiments.
Thinking of the keyword “Mr. Qiu”, Minister Zou’s brain felt like it was being pricked by needles.
Not long ago, Wei Huaqian specifically contacted him.
Mr. Qiu brought them a lot of trouble, but the results were quite significant. The Shian League was forcibly interrupted, Fu Xingchuan was kicked out, and the famous partners of Haigu dissolved. The Haigu branch of Shian was in chaos, which was convenient for their actions.
Wei Huaqian emphasized once again at this critical point; things must not go wrong on the Sunken Society headquarters side.
Which made things difficult.
Minister Zou almost lost his way while lost in thought. He broke out in a cold sweat and pressed his temple hard.
Finding people was important. He shouldn’t indulge in wild thoughts. This was the safest branch of Sunken Society, in a very special location that was impossible to be attacked by outsiders.
Unless Shian’s “Charon” returned to normal.
Thinking of this, Minister Zou adjusted his breathing for a while, and the sweat on his forehead decreased slightly.
It must have been Zhang Wei who had drunk too much last night and was confused, taking the wrong regulated route. He just needed to look around along the way. As long as the confirmation of Zhong Chengshuo’s body was normal, it didn’t matter if that guy was dead.
He opened one of the ordinary metal doors and stepped into the hidden elevator. After what seemed like a century, the elevator door slowly opened, and an almost identical scene appeared in front of Minister Zou again.
There were no electronic devices in the deeper layer, and the next path had to be walked on foot.
Minister Zou sighed deeply and stepped into the dark corridor. Without all kinds of machinery, it was silent here, with only the cold light in his surroundings.
In the silent darkness underground, even the sound of blood flowing through the head was particularly clear. The cross-shaped corridor was still an endless pattern, and all directions led to darkness.
If there really was hell on earth, it was probably this.
“Turn left out of the elevator, go straight at the first intersection, turn right at the second intersection, turn left at the third intersection… After ten intersections, the fourth door, go down the stairs…”
Minister Zou dared not take a deep breath and kept muttering as he proceeded to the deepest part of the underground corpse vault. The silence around him was unbearable, and his heartbeat was getting faster.
One floor, another floor, and another. He walked quickly through empty corridors, looking for the stairs hidden behind a door. After about an hour, Zhang Wei was still nowhere to be seen.
Finally, Minister Zou arrived at the deepest part of the building.
The corridor was low and oppressive, like a tomb passage. The good news was that it was incredibly quiet nearby, and there were no signs of any kind of magic being used—it was clear that no one had used any spells here recently.
Minister Zou breathed a sigh of relief, swallowed his saliva, and headed toward the morgue where Zhong Chengshuo’s corpse was located.
Clack, clack, clack.
Faint sounds suddenly pounded into his ears. From some distant corner, he heard a series of footsteps striking the floor with leather shoes.
That guy Zhang Wei couldn’t keep his clothes clean, but he loved to put on airs, wearing leather shoes every time he went down to the morgue. Moreover, a naked body or a fierce ghost couldn’t make such a sound.
As expected, he must have gotten lost. Minister Zou couldn’t help but stop in his tracks, feeling pleased.
“Zhang Wei?” He called out in a not-too-loud, not-too-soft voice.
The owner of the footsteps seemed to ignore him and walk farther away.
Clack, clack, clack.
“Hey kid, you’re looking for death?” Minister Zou’s teeth itched. “Zhang—”
In the middle of calling out his name, he suddenly shut his mouth, his scalp tingling.
Something wasn’t right.
It was a big mistake to wander around in the depths of the morgue. Even if Zhang Wei’s brain was addled from alcohol, he wouldn’t do something as suicidal as this. And…and that series of footsteps was too regular, not something Zhang Wei could make by accident.
Clack, clack, clack.
The footsteps lingered nearby—sometimes close, sometimes far away—and the rhythm was as precise as a clock’s hands.
Is that really Zhang Wei?
…What exactly is it?
Minister Zou’s back shuddered, and the sweat on his forehead reappeared. Communication was impossible in the depths of the morgue. Maybe… maybe he should retrace his steps and report the situation.
He didn’t want to know what was making the sound, nor did he dare confirm the condition of Zhong Chengshuo’s corpse. Those footsteps seemed to step on his brain nerves with every step, and Minister Zou didn’t want to stay here for even half a second longer.
Although he wasn’t a cultivator, he knew the danger of “curiosity” in the metaphysical world. Minister Zou trembled slightly and turned around stealthily, lifting his feet—
The nearby footsteps suddenly stopped, and everything around him became silent as a vacuum.
Minister Zou’s breath almost stopped. He froze in place, not daring to breathe, wishing he could stop his heartbeat too.
Clack, clack, clack!
Without warning, the footsteps rushed toward him rapidly. They maintained their terrifying rhythm, as fast as a midnight omen.
Minister Zou swallowed a frightened scream and scrambled toward the exit. The identical corridors were like a maze, and the high tension and panic almost made him vomit on the spot.
The overhead lights in the corridor flickered on and off, forming a blurred shadow in his blurry vision.
Clack, clack, clack! The footsteps were getting faster and closer. Minister Zou was about to cry. He rushed forward without hesitation, feeling like his organs were filled with ice.
Must run away. Must…
Wait, what intersection was he at now?
Minister Zou was gasping for air loudly, his brain in chaos. Seeing another corner ahead, he had to slow down.
If those strange footsteps caught up to him, he might die, but if he got lost in the depths of the underground corpse vault, he would definitely die. Minister Zou wiped off his sweat fiercely, gathered his courage, and slowly turned around.
Behind him was the corner he had just passed, and something white protruded at the corner where the walls met.
Minister Zou wiped the sweat off his face fiercely, squinted his eyes—
That wasn’t a “protrusion” at all.
Someone was hiding at the intersection of the corridor behind him, revealing only half of a pale face, with one eye fixedly looking at him. The familiar eyebrows and eyes were unmistakably those of the missing Zhang Wei.
But if that were Zhang Wei, he would have shouted for help long ago.
Minister Zou’s legs became weak, and he almost collapsed on the ground.
“Who… What are you?”
The face didn’t answer, not even blinking. The slightly scattered pupils slowly moved down and looked at Minister Zou from top to bottom. It’s just that this movement was a bit too forceful, the man’s head didn’t move, but his eyes rolled down, and a lot of whites were exposed from his pupils.
The next moment, it slowly retreated behind the wall.
Minister Zou stood still like a quail for a long time. But after five or six minutes, there was no sound from the corner of the corridor.
Ten minutes passed. With a strong spirit fearless of death, Minister Zou, with wet pants, moved toward the corner where he came from–
In the corridor corner, there was only a pair of discarded leather shoes.
That thing was now walking barefoot.
…That thing might appear anywhere now.
Minister Zou felt a buzzing in his ears, and he trembled with fear, muttering to himself as he stumbled back the way he came.
A few hundred meters away, Zhong Chengshuo listened carefully, hiding on top of the corridor, almost encouraging Minister Zou to move. He didn’t want this guide to run away on his own.
After a simple exploration, Zhong Chengshuo was very sure that he couldn’t leave this place entirely on his own.
After obtaining a head and walking out of the morgue, he chose a direction and carefully explored along the way.
At first, he took a conservative route and would always circle back to the familiar front of the morgue.
Then Zhong Chengshuo changed his strategy. He started to remember one path at a time through elimination. This strange “ghost hitting the wall*” process wasn’t long. Theoretically, he could find the correct path.
*Idiom referring to losing one’s way in a maze-like place and ending up back where one started (aka going in circles).
However, things didn’t go as planned.
Three or four hours later, Zhong Chengshuo stopped at the “end of the corridor.”
The corridor was cut like a knife, with its end facing a bottomless darkness without any railings or sealed windows at the edge. Zhong Chengshuo stood at the end of this dead end, turning his neck with difficulty.
He saw “infinity”.
On all sides of the square and steep cliff, countless corridor openings crowded together like an orderly honeycomb. Everything seemed endless, no matter if he looked up or down. Even worse, the layout of each corridor opening was completely identical, and even the cracks in the details were the same. The whole space seemed like it had been copied and pasted by a mad modeler thousands of times.
This wasn’t sorcery or the miracle of architecture.
…It was a more exaggerated and cruel spatial distortion than the Corpse Cage.
Sunken Society had established its base in a twisted space. No wonder they were able to survive for so long under Shian’s nose. If he tried to continue it in such a rigid way, he wouldn’t be able to figure it out even after he retired.
“Come on, hold on.”
Zhong Chengshuo watched Minister Zou’s trembling figure and encouraged him expressionlessly in the shadows.
“I have to leave here.”
……
“What did you say?” On the other end of the phone, Fu Xingchuan’s tone rose half an octave.
“I said I want a Corpse Cage.” Yin Ren leaned against the balcony, looking at the sparse stars in the morning. “I don’t have much that can be associated with ‘the Other Side’, but that is one of them.”
Fu Xingchuan: “No, that thing—”
“I won’t take it for nothing. When this is all over, my hair, flesh, eyes… Whatever you want, I can take it off for you to study.” Yin Ren fiddled with a small thread protruding from his linen shirt. “Don’t worry, I can still grow more.”
On the other end of the phone, Fu Xingchuan lay back on his pillow. He rubbed his face fiercely. “That’s not the problem. If you mention Zhong Yi’s name, the ancestor will send you a dozen Corpse Cages, but to stably control them, there must be a Fu family descendent present.”
“I really want to help, but now everyone’s energy is focused on pursuing the sniper, so I can’t help watch over the Corpse Cage.”
After all, when Fu Wuyi perfected the Corpse Cage technique, it was to shelter the Fu family bloodline. In an era when evil creatures frequently appeared, Fu Wuyi indeed left himself a way out.
Yin Ren remained silent.
“Speaking of which, why are you suddenly interested in the Corpse Cage?” Fu Xingchuan sat up and stretched his neck.
“Zhong Chengshuo had investigated the places that were most affected by the Divine Descent,” Yin Ren said. “I had someone pull up Auntie Tao’s information and look it over.”
Fu Xingchuan recalled it for two seconds.
Tao Lan was a former head nurse of Haigu Municipal Hospital.
Many years ago, a huge gap appeared in Haigu Municipal Hospital, and Tao Lan lost her only daughter due to the gap. She frantically investigated it herself and was subsequently recruited by Shian. After helping to solve the gap problem in the Municipal Hospital, she received the support of the Fu family and was transferred to the Yandu branch with Fu Tianyi.
A simple and sad life.
According to Lu Xiaohe, there were only two types of Shian’s science posts—either they were extremely eager for money and power, or they wanted to know the truth about the people around them who had died. Tao Lan was the latter.
“Hiss… According to what you said, the sniper is quite interested in the Other Side.” Fu Xingchuan quickly caught on.
“Yes, but I have to make it clear that this is just my personal speculation.”
As soon as he mentioned the sniper, Yin Ren’s voice became slightly chilly.
“I’m a little interested in the method of opening up space in the corpse cage… If I take the initiative to throw out bait, I might be able to catch something.”
“Isn’t the sniper just the right target for the bait?”
The author has something to say:
The science post has become the villain of a horror movie! Is this the distortion of human nature or the decline of morality!
————
By the way, I’d like to remind all cat owners.
If you’ve been using an open or semi-open litter box before, don’t suddenly switch to a litter box with a divider door.
You should let your cat adjust first by removing the divider door.
…Otherwise, you might end up like me, throwing away sheets, mattresses, and blankets that were hiding cat poop. Wuwuwu.
The two of them took an empty route and rushed to the airspace over Y City.
Y City also had purification protection around it, but the intensity was different from that near the command center. With Shu Jun’s suppression of the erosion in their bodies, they barely managed to make it through, but the risk of being discovered was a bit high. Fortunately, today’s security guards were focused on the Grand Theatre, and after observing the area from above the city for a while, Zhu Yanchen found a blind spot in the surveillance.
“I’ll go in and take a look first.” When they flew near the command center, Zhu Yanchen spoke again. “The ninth window from the left on the top floor. Throw me over there.”
Things happened suddenly, and this time the two of them didn’t have Dong Lao’s help outside the venue. Before Zhu Yanchen regained his permissions, they had to be careful of those alert systems.
Shu Jun didn’t hesitate, and the wind carried the two of them to the side of the building. He let go of his hand holding Zhu Yanchen. Zhu Yanchen opened the buffering device and landed gracefully on the edge of the roof, then climbed up and opened the window.
The command center was one of the few high-rise buildings in Y City, and its defense on the top floor was relatively weaker. Marshal Zhu’s invasion was extremely smooth.
Shu Jun, who was outside the barrier: “……” He couldn’t figure out how this person had become like this, even if he partially regained his memory.
Inside the command center, the marshals usually had a private room. Zhu Yanchen’s “resurrection” came too quickly, so the room should still be there, and his permissions had definitely been restored. Shu Jun patiently floated in the blind spot of the surveillance, staring at the black window.
Zhu Yanchen jumped into the room.
The furnishings in the room hadn’t changed much, and he had very few personal belongings. There were still many files on the desk, and apart from common office supplies, there was only a solitary photo frame that belonged to him.
Many people had come and gone in this room, but no one had ever cared about that simple photo frame. There was no figure in the frame, only a decorative picture that could be seen anywhere—a few fireworks bursting in the dark night sky; nothing else.
Zhu Yanchen reached out and touched the edge of the photo frame.
Then he turned on the office screen and immediately modified the content of the surveillance image. The password layers of the screen were supposed to be secure, but the security center probably didn’t expect the intruder to be Zhu Yanchen’s own “ghost”.
Zhu Yanchen opened the highest level of permissions and directly extracted the distribution of daily erosion substances from the entire building and imported it into his analysis program.
Sure enough.
There was a not-too-big and not-too-small “impurity” slowly wandering around in this huge building. It was hidden deep enough and usually quite dispersed. With the integration of several months of data, Zhu Yanchen could almost confirm that this thing was definitely conscious—at least when the researchers were cleaning erosion substance layer by layer, it knew how to avoid them.
It was time to give these people a big cleanup.
Zhu Yanchen closed the photo frame beside him and lowered the power of the purifiers closest to the erosion substance. After making sure there were no loopholes, he waved to Shu Jun in the distance and made a few gestures.
Since there was something fishy going on in the command center, Shu Jun could invade it openly without worrying, as some sinister Erosion Swamp would take the blame for it anyway.
With the weak spot, Shu Jun successfully broke through again. However, even though it was weakened, the defense system still detected an excessive amount of erosion substance, and the alarm was instantly triggered.
This was what Zhu Yanchen was waiting for.
He intercepted the feedback data from the defense system and overwrote the concentration characteristics of another Erosion Swamp.
“Did you really find an Erosion Swamp?” Seeing Zhu Yanchen calling him in, Shu Jun quickly guessed the reason.
“Mm.” Zhu Yanchen nodded. “I delayed the alarm trigger time. Anyway, let’s go find Luo Duan first.”
Luo Duan’s ward was empty. The white room was spotless, but let alone Shu Jun, even Monday was restless and protesting in the cloth strips.
“The erosion concentration here is not right.” Shu Jun frowned. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
However, the building was too large, and the target deliberately avoided detection. Shu Jun couldn’t sense the location of the other Erosion Swamp at all. But in these matters, the wild erosion swamp, Monday, always performed better than him.
“Can you find the other Erosion Swamp?” Shu Jun asked, releasing Monday from the cloth strip.
Monday grumbled dissatisfied. “I can.”
Then it pursed its mouth and paused every word, with a bit more mockery in its tone. “It. Smells.”
Time was limited, so Shu Jun resisted the urge to twist Monday as he gritted his teeth and said, “Lead. The. Way.”
He used it to hack two alpha-level Erosion Swamps, and it managed to get information and began to freely supplement its own brain. Maybe because it had not swallowed a synthetic human, its compatibility was limited. At this point, not only did Monday not have any human scent, but its strange ability had also grown a lot.
Monday: “Food!”
“Okay, okay, I won’t starve you. Hurry up.”
Without the cover of the cloth, the black sword was exposed halfway. The tip of the big sword trembled a few times, and four hippo-like nostrils popped out, inhaling and exhaling heavily.
Zhu Yanchen: “…”
Shu Jun took a few steps forward sorrowfully. “I know what you want to say. It’s disgusting.”
“…It’s quite unique.” Marshal Zhu looked at the four opening and closing nostrils as he responded seriously.
In his heart, Shu Jun wiped away a tear and followed Monday, who was sniffing frantically. Monday sniffed all the way along the corridor, leading the two straight to the underground.
At this moment, Shu Jun had no joking thoughts—when the two of them entered the elevator, Monday knocked the button to the lowest floor with the sword handle. That was their destination last time, and Shu Jun knew exactly what was there.
The two rushed to the door of the underground hall and looked through the window. There was no one in the hall. Monday sprayed a few drops of nasal mucus, and its nostrils retracted. “Here.”
Shu Jun thought for a moment, rewrapped it, and put it by the door.
“Luo Duan!” After hiding Monday, Shu Jun walked in first and took off his mask. “I know you’re here.”
There was a faint chuckle in the air.
“I didn’t expect it to be you.” The mist dissipated, and Luo Duan slowly appeared. “Since you dare to take off your mask… Did you take care of the surveillance system here?”
Facing Shu Jun’s unusual appearance, he didn’t react at all, giving off a terrifying numbness.
“Sort of, but we don’t have much time.” Shu Jun quickly replied, confirming that Luo Duan wasn’t using his ability. “Since you’re here—”
“Yes, I know.” Luo Duan’s voice was very gentle. “I know everything.”
Shu Jun had heard a lot about Luo Duan’s fiancée. He sighed slowly. “Captain Luo, I won’t beat around the bush… My friend and I are making medicine that can make everyone sober. Let’s go together. We also have doctors who can provide you with better treatment.”
Luo Duan just smiled and didn’t say anything.
“Think of the members of Groundwater.” Shu Jun’s tone became gentler. “Remember? Last time we went to the school to give a speech, there were so many children ‘over there’ who didn’t join the team. We need to leave them a way out even if we take revenge.”
Luo Duan’s smile faded slightly with a hint of bitterness. “Revenge?”
“Yes, I will make those who implement the system pay.” Even with Zhu Yanchen beside him, there was no hiding the bloodlust in Shu Jun’s voice.
“To be honest, I envy you.” After staring at Shu Jun for a while, Luo Duan said, “At this point, you can still dream.”
Shit.
Zhu Yanchen’s body stiffened, and Shu Jun recognized the movement—Marshal Zhu’s hand was already on the gun handle.
He took a deep breath and took another step forward. “I certainly won’t do these things alone. Anyway, you should calm down first, and we’ll talk slowly.”
Luo Duan was a smart person and wouldn’t be reckless enough to expose himself in the heart of the human base camp.
This place was too sensitive, and it was important to stabilize Luo Duan’s emotions first. The captain of Groundwater was always sharp and calm, like a sharp knife. Shu Jun had never seen him look so helpless—they had heard about Luo Duan’s love for Pei Shuyuan. Looking at Luo Duan like this, he always felt like something had been violently shattered in front of him.
Like a delicate knife that fell into the mud and water, slowly rusting.
Shu Jun reached out his hand. “Luo Duan.”
“During this time, I have been wanting to talk to someone about Xiao Yuan’s situation.” Luo Duan stared at that hand, unmoving. “I thought I could be the next Xu Kan, have a small family, and then take her wherever she wanted to go after retiring—anywhere.”
“Do you know? She used her ability to push me to a safe landing spot and fell into the Erosion Swamp herself, sinking in an instant. I watched her sink… Her right arm was always stretched outwards, and I thought she was saying goodbye.”
“If I had tried harder, I could have pulled her up at the time. But at that moment, I thought it wasn’t a bad thing. Even if I forcibly pulled her up, her body would be seriously eroded and was doomed to be lost. It was better for her to withdraw like this—she loved to play, and now she can finally rest for a while.”
“She struggled in front of me, begging me for help, until she took her last breath. Do you know how she felt at that time? I can’t imagine.”
“She really saved my life, and I couldn’t even say goodbye.”
Tears streamed down the left side of Luo Duan’s face. There seemed to be something wrong with his right eye; it showed no response. That slight smile seemed to be engraved on Luo Duan’s lips, adding a hint of madness to his calm expression.
“Captain Luo.”
Shu Jun didn’t retract his hand and repeated it again. He tried to make his voice steadier, with a hint of pleading beneath his words.
“No matter what the Erosion Swamp tells you, it only wants us and the humans to both suffer. Even if you don’t plan to cooperate with us, don’t act impulsively.”
After spitting out his grief and sorrow, Luo Duan seemed to have calmed down a bit. He closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing for a while. “Sorry, I lost my composure.”
Shu Jun secretly breathed a sigh of relief. “Come, let’s leave here first…”
Luo Duan shook his head lightly, his tone a bit empty. “I’m well aware that you would be a good collaborator. Maybe after I leave with you, I can really save my team members, and personally drown those who ‘manage’ us. Maybe those dreams will really come true…”
“If I’m still a ‘player’, that is.”
Shu Jun’s pupils suddenly shrank.
Luo Duan opened his eyes. The whites of his right eye had turned pitch black. The whites of his left eye had also been eroded by black blood vessels, slowly fading in front of Shu Jun. The Erosion Swamp broke out of Luo Duan’s clothes and coiled around his neck like an ominous snake.
Luo Duan’s left eye no longer shed tears, and the tiny Erosion Swamp was no longer hiding itself.
No, that statement wasn’t accurate. Shu Jun could feel the faint howling of the “Erosion Swamp”. It was inside Luo Duan’s body.
“Above Sweet Edge, below you,” Zhu Yanchen whispered in a low voice, warning him softly.
There couldn’t be an Alpha Erosion Swamp in the command center. So what he meant wasn’t physical strength.
It was fusion.
It seemed that all Erosion Swamps with a brain had a special ability, and this wasn’t limited by size—at least, Monday could spit and absorb water, changing its own hardness. Sweet Edge could also use the Erosion Swamp’s “Creation” ability, so Luo Duan must have received a little extra benefit as well.
But Luo Duan still looked quite clear-headed, and he had kept his human form. The Erosion Swamp he fused with wasn’t very large; at least since it didn’t cause his body to collapse, perhaps things could still be salvaged. After a quick and decisive moment of contemplation, Shu Jun used suppression.
Luo Duan bowed slightly to him; his withered eyes looked like black holes.
“Farewell.”
He said.
“It’s really a pity.”
He didn’t conceal the ability he obtained from the Erosion Swamp—the next moment, Luo Duan disintegrated in front of the two of them, turning into a puddle of water.
He turned into a not-so-large Erosion Swamp, quickly seeping into the ground and disappearing into the hall. Most of the erosion substance dissipated, and even though Shu Jun tried to suppress it, he still failed to stop Luo Duan’s escape.
Following his departure, the underground hall shook slightly. The ear-piercing siren suddenly sounded, almost piercing both their eardrums.
Not good.
Shu Jun and Zhu Yanchen looked at the center of the hall at the same time. The brains in the fluid column were no longer pink, but turned a dull grayish white, obviously severely eroded.
From the moment they entered until the moment Luo Duan left, he didn’t use any skills. So there was only one possibility—Luo Duan had already taken action before their arrival. He used water vapor to send the erosion substance in at first, and then used the power of the Erosion Swamp.
With Luo Duan’s water control ability, he didn’t need to be as careful as they were back then. The brain in the jar contained an astonishing amount of water, so as long as the erosion substance was sent into the jar, it could be sent to any corner.
Unlike them, the erosion substance didn’t carefully extract a small bottle but completely destroyed all the brain tissue. Now that the erosion substance had left with Luo Duan, only the shattered remains of the dead brain, which had been eroded, remained, triggering the alarm.
…It seemed that the Erosion Swamp and they had the same goal. It also wanted to implant features into the brain. In this way, the erosion substance could accurately destroy the remnants in the players’ brains, just like it did in his own brain.
In the piercing alarm, Shu Jun clenched his fist.
The theory was indeed similar, but there was one decisive difference.
He had a tolerance to the erosion substance that was different from ordinary people, and with the continuous drug treatment provided by Zhu Yanchen, he was able to withstand it—Zhu Yanchen really did want him to know the truth, and he also wanted him to live a better life.
But the Erosion Swamp didn’t care about the latter.
Kinky Thoughts:
Don’t give sentient AI feelings and emotions… Especially if you’re going to send them to their deaths.
After two days of travel, it was natural to spend a night on the road before returning.
Once again, Shu Jun dreamed of his strange self.
The dream became even more vivid, and he found himself back in his own home in the “real world”, not surrounded by darkness as before.
It was daytime in the dream. He had drunk most of the juice and left it on the small table, and the ice cubes in the glass pitcher had long since melted. Outside the window, the river that ran through the city sparkled like a warm pink ribbon. The wind was cool and refreshing but carried a strong smell of decay.
After joining the team, Shu Jun’s residence had moved from a small apartment to a large flat, and he had even installed a swimming pool on the balcony. But now, instead of clear water, the pool was filled with overflowing brownish-red blood. Shu Jun suppressed a wave of nausea and approached to take a closer look—the blood in the pool swayed gently, and chunks of flesh that looked like internal organs floated on the surface.
“His other self” was sitting by the side of the pool, still with his black hair and eyes. That thing was bare-chested, wearing familiar swimming trunks, and seemed to have been startled by Shu Jun’s footsteps as it slowly turned its head.
Its form was still fragmented, and many parts were still in a state of skin cracking. The face had recovered slightly, but the blood vessels under the skin were blackened, resembling a corpse that had been eroded to death.
But compared to the previous time when the whole body needed mosaic, this time it was barely acceptable.
…He wondered if it had anything to do with his recovered memories. Shu Jun narrowed his eyes.
The foul smell kept him glued to the spot, and the air became as thick as glue. The thing slowly sank into the blood pool in front of him, and the putrid blood flooded up to his chest. It moved toward Shu Jun step by step, causing ripples in the blood pool.
Shu Jun remained unmoved. “Just say what you want to say. Don’t give me an impromptu performance.”
“I remember now.” The thing’s voice was exactly the same as Shu Jun’s, but with some ethereal echo, as if it were coming from an empty shell. “Zhu Yanchen has been deceiving me since I was twelve years old. All humans are the same.”
The blood in the pool began to leave the influence of gravity, climbing up along the pool’s edge and wrapping around Shu Jun’s ankles.
Shu Jun frowned as countless negative emotions flooded into his mind. The world turned blood-red in an instant, and he was almost unable to think because of those emotions.
“We’ve been kept in the dark. Everything before was Zhu Yanchen’s ruse—he knew he was terminally ill and deliberately induced you to heal him. He was the one who held me back at the beginning, and he has a deep understanding of the Erosion Swamp. Maybe everything is under his control…”
“He has already gained immunity as he wished. Now he wants to use your ability to take the leadership position. Non-human beings will always have different intentions. When Zhu Yanchen snatches the position with the help of me and my brethren, will he really let us stay? Nurture tens of thousands of aliens who will quickly lose their labor capacity? He only needs to use his identity as a collaborator to stab us in the back…”
“I cannot forget those companions who died in confusion. I dare not forget them. Humans are fundamentally untrustworthy. In just half a year of memories, who knows if they are true or not…”
Shu Jun covered his throbbing head and waved dismissively. “Stop. Hold on a second. Let’s not act like we’re old friends. You are you, and I am me. As soon as you come up, you’re already starting off by talking about my identity. It’s really annoying.”
The monster in the pool was taken aback by this unexpected reaction, and it froze in the pool of blood and didn’t make a sound for a while. Even the blood crawling up his leg stopped for a moment.
“You can’t change who you are, and for humanity, you represent disaster. Even if you have a brain, how much drugs can that woman surnamed Ai make? It’s just some sweetness given to you by Zhu Yanchen. Once he uses you to obtain the drug, you must immediately kill all human witnesses. This is the most logical choice…”
“Yeah, yeah, keep addressing me as ‘you’. That makes me feel so much more comfortable.” Finally, Shu Jun suppressed his chaotic emotions and breathed a sigh of relief.
The monster flipped its remaining eye and stared coldly at him.
Shu Jun picked up the tablecloth on the small table and wiped the blood off his leg. “Stop staring. Do you have anything else to say?”
The monster in the blood pool: “…”
“I understand your grievances, and now you can get out.” Shu Jun twisted the blood-soaked tablecloth.
“You should feel the resentment and hatred of those departed—are you going to turn a blind eye to it?”
Familiar faces floated up from the blood pool. All of them were the Blackbirds members who had died on missions. They stared blankly with wide eyes, and their dull pupils faced towards the sky.
Shu Jun’s previously indifferent demeanor disappeared in an instant.
“Before, I only thought you were being chatty, but now I think you deserve a good beating.” His voice was filled with a hint of coldness. “Let me ask you a question. Can synthetic humans win according to your plan?”
The monster remained silent.
“Then what’s the point of all this nonsense? All I’ve heard from you is that you want me to kick Marshal Zhu out early and seek revenge on humanity.”
Shu Jun grabbed the handle of the glass jug on the table, and his veins were popping out from the back of his hand.
“Yes, revenge, and then what? Destroying them unilaterally won’t solve the fundamental problem. Even if an individual is powerful, the number of synthetic humans is too few, and their lifespan is limited. As long as humans give up development and disperse for a few years, when we weaken, they will retaliate.”
“And we don’t have any system-related knowledge, and even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to teach someone to use it proficiently in the short term. Not to mention the casualties in battles—who will treat the survivors who are on the brink of death? Who will maintain the operation of the ‘real world’? I understand that some people are willing to sacrifice everything and die like this. But what about the children who haven’t joined the team yet? Are they also going to be buried with us?”
“If my team members want to live… To let them live, I can give up not only my pride but also my revenge. Although I haven’t lost my most important person, it’s a bit painful to stand around talking about this—unfortunately, I happen to be the Blackbirds’ captain, and this is where I stand.”
The monster’s eroded body showed signs of movement as it considered its response.
“Don’t waste any more time. I’ve already thought about everything you’re thinking about.” Shu Jun stopped by the pool and poured the pale red juice on the monster’s head. “If you can’t come up with a constructive suggestion, then it’s best if you leave now.”
“You will be betrayed,” it said in a slow and deliberate tone a few minutes later, as if cursing. “You will definitely be betrayed.”
“Oh.” Shu Jun shook off the remaining juice from the pitcher. “Sorry, I’ve thought of that too.”
He wiped his hands, and his pupils, which had been raised, became a thin line. “If A’Yan betrays me, I will stand in front of him and let him watch me dig out his heart. After the battle, as the leader who made a major mistake, I will naturally atone with my death without bothering you.”
Shu Jun squatted down, ignoring the sea of negative emotions around him, and gave a cold smile to the thing.
“By the way, if he doesn’t betray me in the end, I might pursue him.”
Monster: “……”
Seeing the other party stunned, there was a bit of mockery in Shu Jun’s smile. He let go of his hand, and the empty pitcher slammed onto the monster’s head. The blood pool boiled violently, and the thing let out a mournful roar. It glared at Shu Jun with eyes full of lifelessness.
The dream shattered instantly.
Shu Jun opened his eyes calmly and couldn’t help but roll his eyes. It turned out he was facing Zhu Yanchen, who was changing his clothes—he was about to return to Y City. As the leader of the NPC team, Yu Jin went to meet Hu Yan early in the morning. Zhu Yanchen couldn’t reveal his face on ordinary occasions, so he even wore a simple mask to sleep. With great difficulty, he relaxed, changed back into his clothes, and showed Shu Jun a straight look.
Shu Jun wasn’t embarrassed but looked calm.
The scene in the dream was very clear. Half of his bold words that he would “pursue” were to anger the thing, but half were sincere. The emotions that had stirred him the day before had long since subsided, and now was a good time to verify them—as an adult, if he was as calm as water in this situation, his emotions might just be overwhelming his friendship.
Zhu Yanchen noticed Shu Jun’s gaze, and his movements slowed by a few fractions of a second for a moment. The pale skin was warmed by the soft light, with a hint of jade-like color. Although he had what Shu Jun had, he couldn’t help but feel his heart beating a little faster.
Indeed, he had really fallen.
“I dreamt of that thing again.” Shu Jun sighed and got straight to business.
Zhu Yanchen changed into a high-necked inner shirt and frowned at the words.
“Its demands are still the same—wanting to retaliate against humans. I suspect it’s from an Erosion Swamp, but I can’t figure out how it’s influencing me.” Shu Jun got up and put on his coat neatly. “The scene it appears in is becoming more and more specific, and I’m a little worried.”
“I understand.” Zhu Yanchen nodded calmly. “It’s already in the plan. When we return to Y City, I will look at your brain scan as soon as possible.”
“Not just this issue, A’Yan.”
Shu Jun smiled bitterly.
“I know myself. If we miss that day, I’m not sure if I’ll go crazy in the unknown despair. I can resist that thing’s provocation just because I’m lucky—I haven’t lost my loved ones, and I met you earlier.”
He didn’t know if he was seeing things, but Zhu Yanchen’s expression didn’t change at all, his ears turned a little red.
“But if the target had lost a loved one or a partner, I suspect it would succeed.” Shu Jun rubbed his lower lip with his finger. “When people are desperate, they can do anything.”
“A’Yan, is there another solution to the brain shock? I suspect that ‘it’ is not only targeting me.”
Zhu Yanchen frowned. “Speaking of that, I have a guess…”
“Hey, didn’t you two go eat breakfast?” As Yu Jin entered the tent, Zhu Yanchen immediately put on his mask.
Shu Jun quickly changed the subject. “What’s up? Can’t we spend some time together in the morning? Have you finished your meeting?”
“Forgive me, ancestor.” Yu Jin grumbled. “There are enough troubles… We just received notice that Y City is now under lockdown with the highest level of alert. Didn’t that Zhu Yanchen guy come back? Those big shots are holding some kind of concert at the Grand Theatre, and almost everyone with a head and a face is going. Now we have to stay outside the city for another day, and I don’t know if they’ll pay us more.”
Shu Jun and Zhu Yanchen exchanged glances.
“I understand.” Zhu Yanchen spoke up, and he grabbed Shu Jun’s wrist. “Anyway, let’s go eat first.”
Yu Jin: “Hey, hey, hey, can you be more human? I haven’t finished complaining. Can you let me vent?”
“No.”
“Although we have an agreement, it doesn’t mean I don’t have a temper—”
“This trip has caused you a lot of trouble, and my share will go to you,” Zhu Yanchen quickly responded.
“…Alright, you two can go now.”
Outside the tent, Zhu Yanchen’s voice became lower. “We must find a way to get into Y City.”
“Related to the guess you just mentioned?”
“Well, there might be ‘something’ in the command center.”
Zhu Yanchen grabbed the inspiration that had flashed by that day—indeed, the command center could block large-scale Erosion Swamps and only allow a certain level of erosion substance to exist. But not all those who had brains were necessarily “large-scale Erosion Swamps”. Monday was a perfect example.
Even if they were unable to communicate with the outside world due to the threat of purification, a sole sentient Erosion Swamp in the command center could do a lot of things—such as waiting for suitable prey.
Weak Erosion Swamps may not be able to do much, but if they use the power of experienced players…
The malicious information in Shu Jun’s brain may well have been implanted by it. And at that time, there were definitely more experienced players than just Shu Jun in the command center. Zhu Yanchen secretly clenched his fist.
Today, the bigshots were gathering at the Grand Theatre, and the guards were sure to be partly withdrawn. If Shu Jun’s nightmare source was really in the command center, there could be trouble.
Zhu Yanchen adjusted his emotions and continued to explain quickly, “There are indeed other solutions to brain shock. Synthetic humans are physically unstable and will begin to collapse as they age. Eventually, the erosion substance will invade all parts of the body—including the brain.”
“As biological tissue, the artificially implanted brain fragments will also be eroded, and their suppressive ability will be weakened. If synthetic humans are lucky enough not to die in battle… when their bodies begin to deteriorate, they do have a possibility of ‘realizing the truth’. This is also one of the reasons why you have a fixed ‘retirement’ time.”
“Luo Duan.” Shu Jun’s pupils contracted as he murmured.
“That’s right.” Zhu Yanchen’s voice was dry. “In any case, we’d better confirm it.”
Shu Jun closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them. “I understand. I’ll take care of Hu Yan; you take care of Yu Jin—I’ll take you with me in five minutes.”
The escape route for the synths wasn’t ready yet. In any case, the flames of war couldn’t be ignited now.
Luo Duan walked alone to the lowest level of the command center.
The mist obscured his figure. As for the temperature detector and other equipment, there was someone “human” helping him. The cold Erosion Swamp surrounded his neck, slowly swaying, feeling like a noose and also like the embrace of a dead lover.
He played with Yi Ning’s access card between his fingers with a calm, unwavering gaze. Even when he saw the jar of brains in front of him, Luo Duan didn’t even twitch his eyelids.
“Is this the place?” He stopped at the deepest part of the command center and murmured softly.
The Erosion Swamp rubbed against his neck, giving a definite answer. “Use your ability… to send me in.”
A warm and familiar voice. Luo Duan knew it was fake, but there were too many lies in his life—one more didn’t matter.
“If we use water vapor… Well, it can be done. The problem is… Hmm, what’s wrong?” The erosion substance poked his shoulder, and he turned his head.
The next morning, before eight, Wang Chao came to report.
With the intention of scaring them, the teenager burst in without even knocking on the door.
But the scene inside wasn’t as bad as he had imagined.
As Wang Chao snuck in like a thief, Lin Chen was reading an uninteresting magazine with the bedside lamp on. He looked up at the quietly approaching youngster and saw him petrified in front of the sofa.
“What’s wrong?” Lin Chen asked softly.
The young man recovered from his shock and disappointedly pointed at the dismantled sofa bed.
On the sofa bed, Xing Conglian had covered himself with a thin blanket and slept with his clothes on. He was sleeping deeply and didn’t even wake up when Wang Chao pushed the door open.
Lin Chen explained, “He went back to the police station for overtime yesterday and didn’t return until five in the morning.”
Hearing this, Wang Chao snapped out of his shock.
The teenager sat down at the bedside table with a breakfast bag, feeling hesitant to speak. But the mischievous glint in his eyes gave him away. “A’Chen Gege, I didn’t mean it like that. The Boss actually slept on the sofa?”
Lin Chen put down the magazine and started to look into today’s breakfast delivery. He asked Wang Chao, “Is there a problem?”
Wang Chao whispered into his ear and looked at the sleeping gentleman on the bed, “A’Chen Gege, is there something wrong with Sister* Xing? You can quietly tell me.”
*The term he’s using is (大嫂) which is sister-in-law (Lin Chen’s wife).
Lin Chen calmly grabbed the disposable bamboo chopstick, opened the box of preserved egg and lean meat porridge from the best Xu Ji porridge shop nearby, and then replied, “I don’t think so.”
Wang Chao grinned and asked, “How do you know?”
Lin Chen didn’t know when this little comrade had become so gossipy. He took a sip of porridge and said leisurely, “Wang Chao…”
“Yeah!”
“Stop asking.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid it will shock you,” Lin Chen replied as he opened a bowl of porridge for Wang Chao and handed him a pair of chopsticks.
Wang Chao opened his mouth in surprise and looked disapproving. He had a confused expression on his face as if he was questioning life. In the end, he had no choice but to obediently start drinking the porridge.
The fragrance of breakfast porridge wafted over, and Lin Chen took a light sniff. He felt that something was off in the air. He looked at Wang Chao, only to realize that the young man was still wearing the same black punk burnout cotton T-shirt with a few patches from yesterday, and he had a faint smell of smoke all over him.
So Lin Chen asked suspiciously, “You didn’t go home last night?”
“No, I went to an internet café last night,” Wang Chao replied happily.
Lin Chen frowned. “Wasn’t anyone cleaning the house?”
“Probably, but I didn’t go back to check. The internet café serves food, has a place to sleep, and even has League of Legends. What’s not good about it?” Wang Chao said while taking out three portions of crispy beef cakes from the breakfast bag. “Besides, the internet café I went to even has a bathroom. Hehehe, it’s amazing.”
“Don’t sleep at the internet café in the future. At least get a hotel room…”
“Ah, A’chen Gege, don’t worry. I mainly went to the internet café to watch surveillance videos. I can open ten computers to watch simultaneously. It’s awesome,” he said excitedly, patting his thighs. “And A’Chen Gege, you were right. There really is such a mysterious man in a hoodie!”
Lin Chen looked up and asked, “What’s the story with the mysterious man in a hoodie?”
“During the incident, a suspicious-looking man in a hoodie lingered around the European Castle area of the Hongjing Amusement Park. Afterward, he went to the scene of the crime and quickly left!”
Wang Chao jumped out of bed, biting his chopsticks, saying one thing and doing another, and quickly connected the computer and TV again.
Lin Chen held his chopsticks and stared at the monitor.
Indeed, there appeared to be a strange figure sitting on a bench outside the European Castle of the Hongjing Amusement Park, seemingly playing with his phone. The person wore a hoodie and kept his head down, never looking up at anyone else. He seemed deeply absorbed in the content on his phone. At a certain point in time, the man suddenly stood up and left the bench without hesitation.
Lin Chen noticed the time displayed at the bottom of the screen, which was exactly 10:15, eight minutes after Tan Kang was stabbed to death.
It seemed that this was the appointed time. Lin Chen thought to himself.
But…how should he put it? Lin Chen looked at the figure of the man in the hoodie that Wang Chao had just mentioned and couldn’t explain the strange feeling in his heart.
Although the case did seem like Tan Kang had come to the park to secretly meet with someone, once they found the evidence to support the inference, the inference itself gave people a sense of inexplicable absurdity.
In modern society, there were countless ways to convey information. Why did Tan Kang choose the most primitive way of meeting?
Seeing that he had been silent for a long time, Wang Chao suddenly asked, “What’s wrong, A’chen Gege?”
Lin Chen held his bowl of porridge and said, “This is too simple.”
“Ah, where is it simple?” Wang Chao didn’t understand.
“Our process of finding this intermediary person is too simple,” Lin Chen said.
“But, but if it weren’t for your analysis of his falling motion, I might not have been able to find this ‘mysterious man in a hoodie’!”
Wang Chao was very persistent in giving the mysterious figure a nickname.
Lin Chen nodded and asked, “But have you ever thought about why they chose this mysterious spy-style means of meeting?”
“Because all of Tan Kang’s electronic communications were being monitored, whether it was his phone or computer, he had to meet this person in person?”
“But in any case, since they agreed to meet here, they must have had first contact with each other. How did he contact this person for the first time?” Lin Chen asked.
“Huh?” Wang Chao was speechless for a moment. “Makes sense.”
“Two possibilities: First, the intermediary person is an acquaintance of Tan Kang, and they had face-to-face conversations and agreed to meet here; second, he knew a middleman who conveyed the message and got in touch with this intermediary person through him; third…”
“What’s the third possibility?”
“The third possibility is that he called this person directly without going through anyone else and agreed to meet here.”
At this moment, Xing Conglian’s voice rang out. “The first possibility hardly exists. Hongjing Amusement Park has surveillance cameras and requires tickets. If acquaintances want to meet up, it’s not good to choose places without surveillance cameras, and it’s not as if they’re dating.”
Lin Chen turned around and saw Xing Conglian getting up from the sofa bed, rubbing his face in a daze.
Xing Conglian looked at the screen and beckoned to Wang Chao while speaking. Perhaps he had just spoken ill of Xing Conglian, so this time, Wang Chao very flatteringly served up the food.
“Why don’t you sleep a little longer?” Lin Chen asked.
“I have an appointment with Zhourui Pharmaceutical at 9:30,” Xing Conglian said.
Lin Chen was about to speak, but Xing Conglian added, “You have a full-body examination at 11 today, so behave and stay at the hospital.”
“It’s okay. I can do the full-body examination alone, so don’t rush back,” Lin Chen said.
Wang Chao interrupted them. “It might necessarily be about dating… After all, times are changing. Maybe the mysterious hoodie man is Dr. Tan Kang’s secret lover!”
Lin Chen helplessly glanced at the young man. “Didn’t you say that this mysterious hoodie man had been to the Tan Kang murder scene?”
“Yes!”
“Retrieve the crime scene video.”
Wang Chao nodded. When the person arrived at the scene, the police and amusement park security were already there, and the cordon had been raised, with most of the crowd on the periphery.
The mysterious hoodie man mentioned by Wang Chao had indeed been to the cordon, but he only stayed at the scene for a short period of time, confirmed the situation, and then left.
“What’s your feeling?” Lin Chen asked Wang Chao.
“Uh…I can’t say for sure,” Wang Chao replied.
“If it’s a lover, when one party dies, the other only pauses and is shocked for less than 10 seconds without the usual grieving gesture like covering their mouth with their hand. Is this reasonable?” Lin Chen counted the seconds the hoodie man had looked at Tan Kang’s body and continued, “And, moreover, the body language is not that of someone grieving.”
“Uh…” Wang Chao was confused again. “Is the person I found really the one Tan Kang wanted to meet? Why did Dr. Tan Kang have such an obsession until his death, while this person left so casually?”
“Congratulations, Comrade Xiao Wang. You have finally discovered the problem!” Xing Conglian laughed, “And the video you found not only shows that the person who made contact isn’t very concerned about Tan Kang’s life and death, but also that this contact person is not very professional.”
“Boss, what do you mean by not being professional?”
“It means that spying activities that can be captured by surveillance cameras are not professional.” Xing Conglian took a bite of beef pancake and asked, “Did you capture his face?”
“He kept his head down and his hoodie covered him, so we didn’t capture it. Isn’t that professional enough?”
Xing Conglian did not comment on this. “It’s probably because the amusement park’s surveillance is poor. Haven’t you encountered someone who can avoid surveillance cameras all the way?”
Wang Chao was speechless with the rebuttal. “Then why did Tan Kang come to the amusement park to meet this unprofessional person secretly and even die in the process?”
“Then we need to investigate based on the two or three possibilities suggested by your A’Chen Gege. First, filter through Tan Kang’s recent communication records and see if he made any calls that he had never made before. If there are no results, then expand the search area a bit and see if he has used any public phones or the like…”
“I understand!” Wang Chao’s blood was boiling as he shouted, then fell back down again. “But if he used a public phone, isn’t that like looking for a needle in a haystack? We would have to analyze Tan Kang’s daily activities to come to any conclusion.”
“So my point is that if there is no significant progress in this project, we can end it, because if Tan Kang was murdered, then which of the three possibilities do you think is the most likely?”
“The second one. There may be a middleman who leaked information, leading to Tan Kang being stabbed to death,” Wang Chao replied.
“What does Consultant Lin think?” Xing Conglian turned to him and asked.
“It’s not entirely accurate.”
“Oh?”
“Rather than there being a leaker, it’s possible that this was a loyalty test in and of itself,” Lin Chen said as he looked at the dim TV screen. “The killer was able to calculate Tan Kang’s movements yesterday, intercept him accurately, and be prepared enough to kill him with one blow and then escape smoothly. This couldn’t have been done without sufficient preparation. And that so-called middleman is likely just a lure. Someone dug a pit, put in some tempting bait, and Tan Kang jumped in without suspecting anything, only to be stabbed by the blade in the pit.”
Lin Chen’s voice grew colder and colder.
Wang Chao took a sharp breath.
Xing Conglian lightly ran his index finger across his throat, revealing a very cautious and vigilant expression.
The ward arranged by Xing Conglian was on the top floor of Hongjing Hospital. Other than that, there was nothing special.
After completing the admission procedures, Lin Chen had some blood drawn from his arm. He followed Xing Conglian through the long ward while holding the cotton ball on the inside of his arm.
The rooms on both sides of the corridor were mostly single rooms, occupied by elderly people. Some of them sat upright on the sofa with serious expressions, as if they were educating their dejected subordinates on the opposite side. Others relied on a series of tubes and ventilators to sustain their lives, while experienced nurses dozed off by their bedsides.
This should be the special care ward of Hongjing Hospital, where retired officials of a certain rank or people with special relationships live. But Xing Conglian’s suggestion for him to stay here should have nothing to do with privilege. It seemed that Captain Xing thought that the single rooms here met his requirements.
Xing Conglian pushed open the door. The sky outside the window was already completely dark. The hospital gown that he had to change into was folded on the bed, and there were a bunch of sunflowers on the bedside table.
Lin Chen took a whiff of the smell of disinfectant in the ward and obediently sat on the bed. He pulled down the tabletop by the bed and patted the empty space next to him, indicating for Xing Conglian to sit opposite him.
In the quiet ward, where one could hear a pin drop. The two of them sat facing each other under the bright lights.
After sitting face-to-face for about two minutes, Xing Conglian couldn’t help but laugh. “Is Consultant Lin trying to talk to me and hold a family meeting?”
Lin Chen looked at the table and asked Xing Conglian, “Do you notice what’s missing here?”
Xing Conglian looked around and said, “Black-suited bodyguards and beautiful female caregivers?”
Lin Chen knocked on the empty table and said, “Captain Xing, we are facing a very serious situation now. It’s already 6:30 in the evening, and our dinner hasn’t arrived yet. After learning about your identity, I think we need to celebrate a bit.”
Xing Conglian breathed a sigh of relief, looking like he was afraid of being scared to death. Then he took out his phone and asked, “What do you want to eat?”
“KFC,” Lin Chen said.
Xing Conglian paused his action of dialing the phone. “Consultant Lin, let me give you a chance to correct your answer.”
“I want to eat KFC,” Lin Chen said.
“That’s a bit of a capricious request.” Xing Conglian raised an eyebrow. “Your wound hasn’t fully healed. Can you eat something so greasy?”
“After surviving in the wild rainforest, I need some modern industrial food to help adjust my body and mind.”
Xing Conglian looked at him very puzzled. “What did you say?”
“I just want to eat it. If I had a phone that I could use in China, I would have made an excuse to go to the bathroom and secretly called Wang Chao for delivery.”
Xing Conglian laughed out loud. “Why call Wang Chao? Can’t you just order from a delivery service directly?”
“A thousand-mile dike can be destroyed by an ant-hole*. No matter how big your family business is, you still have to save money. You use mobile coupons, member points, and even save on delivery fees when you buy on-site.” Lin Chen replied.
*(千里之堤毁于蚁穴) Proverb referring to even a small problem or seemingly insignificant issue can lead to catastrophic consequences if it is ignored or left unaddressed for a long time.
Xing Conglian stared at him for a while, then lowered his head and dialed Wang Chao’s phone. Before the call was connected, he nodded and said to him, “Makes sense.”
……
When the dynasty arrived, Lin Chen and Xing Conglian were leaning against the sickbed watching <Boonie Bears>.
A young man pushed the door open, half-wet, carrying a big bag of fried chicken and a few hard drives in plastic bags.
Seeing their cuddling state, Wang Chao was very dissatisfied and threw the KFC takeout and hard drives on the coffee table before sitting down.
As if not stimulated enough, Xing Conglian lifted the bed table, tapped the tabletop, and said to Wang Chao, “Hand it over. Do I have to go and get it myself?”
“Boss, you’re too much!” Wang Chao shouted. “Leaving me alone in the amusement park is one thing, but why are you watching cartoons on the sickbed?”
“Well done with the emphasis sentence, not bad,” Xing Conglian half-seriously commented.
Wang Chao was again upset, but he still picked up the takeaway bag and put it on the bed table.
After looking at them for a while, Wang Chao finally found an attack point and said to Xing Conglian, “Big Boss, what’s wrong with you? You’re sharing a bed with A’Chen Gege, who is sick!”
Lin Chen was opening the paper bag of the finger-licking original flavor chicken. He couldn’t help but lower his head and laugh when he heard this question.
Sure enough, Xing Conglian answered with a chicken wing in his mouth. “Oh, you still don’t know? A’Chen and I are in love…” He finished and pretended to glance at Wang Chao casually and said, “Sorry, I forgot. You’ve never been in love… tsk, tsk…”
Hearing this, the teenager was so angry that he couldn’t find any words to refute, so he could only grind his teeth.
Seeing this, Lin Chen picked up the remote control and ended Bald Victor’s pursuit of Briar*, then said to Wang Chao, “Come and sit down and eat. Watching cartoons is meant to relax.”
*Clarity: Characters from Boonie Bears.
Wang Chao was the type who was easily coaxed. Three seconds later, the teenager took off his shoes and squatted in front of them, happily munching on the chicken nuggets.
Lin Chen got off the bed, went to the bathroom, and brought a towel, throwing it on Wang Chao. “Dry off first. Be careful not to catch a cold.”
Wang Chao was moved. “A’Chen Gege, you’re a good person. There is genuine affection in the world.”
“How’s the surveillance?” Lin Chen sat back on the bed, tore off a piece of meat, and asked.
Wang Chao almost choked on a piece of chicken. He looked at the chicken in front of him, then at Lin Chen’s face, and almost cried, “Why am I so unlucky…”
Teasing Wang Chao was really fun. Lin Chen rubbed the young man’s wet head with a clean hand and said, “Talk while you eat. I didn’t tell you to put down the food.”
But Wang Chao stopped very seriously. “Let me report briefly. First, the surveillance quality of Hongjing’s Amusement Park is too poor—the old black and white type. When we zoom in on the monitor, it’s hard to see anything. Second, I have taken out the hard drive. We can connect it to the TV in the ward and watch it, but the video footage of the incident is still very poor after being processed.”
Xing Conglian spat out a bone next to him, feeling depressed that his entire plan was falling apart. He said to Wang Chao, “Excuse me, sir, who allowed you to use the TV in the ward?”
“Oh, then should I use my computer? I’m afraid it’s not convenient for A’Chen Gege to watch. Shall I go get it now?” Wang Chao asked.
Xing Conglian was furious. “Comrade Xiao Wang, this is a place for A’Chen Gege to recuperate. Don’t fall for his tricks and get misled easily.”
“Boss, you’re right. I almost fell for it,” Wang Chao realized and said firmly.
Anyway, the three of them were often easily separated into two alliances, so Lin Chen looked slightly helpless as he saw the two of them now united against him. “I really think that Tan Kang may have come to the amusement park to meet someone, so the video footage of the scene where he was stabbed is important.”
Wang Chao asked, “A’Chen, do you think the person Tan Kang wanted to meet will be near the scene?”
“Not necessarily nearby, but if there is such a person, when they find out the person they are waiting for hasn’t come for a long time and a homicide has occurred in the park, they will come take a look,” Lin Chen said.
“A’Chen, you’re right. I’ll adjust the video for you,” Wang Chao said.
Wang Chao rolled off the bed and started tinkering with the TV and computer cables. Soon, the screen turned blue, and then a high gray-scale scene appeared.
As Comrade Zhang Xiaolong said at the beginning, the video was very blurry. When zoomed in on the 27-inch LCD TV in the hospital, there were countless noises. From the black and white images, only a vague chaos at the scene could be seen.
However, the image quality had already been processed by Wang Chao, and two arrows with different colors appeared above Tan Kang and the murderer’s heads, barely indicating their positions.
Tan Kang walked across the bridge and passed by a man wearing a duck-billed cap and holding a balloon. The man only slightly raised his arm, and there was no abnormality visible at the time until Tan Kang leaned against the sign and lay down.
“Repeat from 3 minutes and 10 seconds to 3 minutes and 30 seconds a few times,” Lin Chen said to Wang Chao after watching for a while.
The scene began to repeat, from Tan Kang holding his chest to being bumped into by someone and finally falling down next to the sign…
By the end, Wang Chao couldn’t eat anything in front of him anymore.
“A’Chen Gege…” the young man called out softly.
“Stop,” Lin Chen suddenly said.
Wang Chao didn’t react in time and pressed the pause button a little late. On the screen, Tan Kang had already fallen to the ground.
“A little further back,” Lin Chen said.
The TV screen finally paused at the moment when Tan Kang was about to fall and was suspended in mid-air.
Lin Chen and Xing Conglian exchanged a glance, understanding each other’s thoughts.
“What’s wrong with this screen?” Wang Chao asked tentatively.
“Don’t you think Tan Kang’s posture on the ground is very twisted?” Xing Conglian said.
“Huh?”
Xing Conglian said, “The murderer used a weapon about 2.5 cm wide to stab Tan Kang’s heart. The internal pressure of the heart was extremely high. When he pulled out the blade, the blood gushed out instantly. The oxygen content in his brain would immediately decrease, and he would lose consciousness in a very short period of time. There was basically no possibility of survival… “
Lin Chen nodded, “In other words, he used his remaining willpower to maintain this very twisted angle before dying. Of course, you can also say that this is because his pain caused his body to twist, but I still think that the reason why he fell in this way is because he subconsciously and persistently looked at a certain place in the amusement park before he died.”
“The location of the person he was meeting?” Wang Chao suddenly realized. He quickly brought up the map of the amusement park, and, according to Tan Kang’s perspective when he fell, he could basically determine that he was looking at the west side of the park.
“Um…” Wang Chao marked out a rough, fan-shaped area on the map. “The carousel, European Castle, Candyland…” The teenager sighed deeply. “This area covers several thousand square meters.”
“Are there any other angles to the recording?” Lin Chen asked. “When he entered the unfamiliar area and had to choose a route, he might have first looked for the target’s location and then made a choice.”
Wang Chao adjusted as instructed, and sure enough, Tan Kang had also looked up in the same direction before that.
“This angle…”
“He should be looking at something high?” Xing Conglian murmured.
Lin Chen thought of the moment when he stood at the same angle and suddenly realized. “The European castle.”
Wang Chao’s eyes lit up. “So, if I check if there was any suspicious person lingering around the castle when the incident occurred, we can determine that Tan Kang came here to meet someone, and we can find that person?”
“If this suspicious person didn’t participate in any amusement activities when he arrived and left in a hurry, or even went to the scene of the crime, it would further explain the problem,” Lin Chen said.
“Yes sir*!” Wang Chao exclaimed excitedly.
*Said in English.
Xing Conglian clapped his hands and suddenly interrupted their conversation.
“Understand what you need to do and take your crispy chicken sandwich and leave,” he said to Wang Chao. “Remember to continue working overtime at home, not only to confirm the contact person but also to confirm the routes of both the killer and Tan Kang himself.”
Wang Chao rubbed his ears, stared blankly at the TV screen, then turned to look at the pouring rain outside the window. Finally, he asked Xing Conglian, “Boss, where should I go?”
“Aren’t you going home today?”
Wang Chao was very surprised. “Boss, is this what you call burning bridges after crossing the river*?”
*(过河拆桥) Idiom referring to being ungrateful or turning against someone who has helped you in the past.
“Let me correct you, Comrade Xiao Wang. Asking you to go home is not called burning bridges, it’s called being merciful. After all, I still have the option of kicking you out of the door,” Xing Conglian said proudly.
“But no one has lived there for half a month!” Wang Chao looked horrified.
“It’s not like you don’t get paid every month, and you can live wherever you want if you think my house is dirty.”
“What about you?”
This question once again hit Xing Conglian right where it hurt.
Xing Conglian said proudly, “My boyfriend is in the hospital, and I have to stay with him.” Then, looking at Wang Chao vigilantly, he said, “Comrade Xiao Wang, I hope you’re not planning to stay here. You’re like a third wheel and an eyesore.”
Wang Chao stepped back and said to Xing Conglian, “Boss, did you leave your face on the plane? Should I go get it for you?”
“Whatever. As long as you leave the ward, you can do whatever you want.”
Wang Chao’s face was already red with anger. Seeing this, Lin Chen had to intervene and say, “This is really not good…”
Upon hearing this, Wang Chao looked up at Lin Chen with the innocent expression of a small pet, while Xing Conglian also turned his head.
Lin Chen said, “Find him a trustworthy housekeeping service to clean up the house so he can go back to live there.”
Xing Conglian laughed out loud and almost rolled on the bed. “Comrade Xiao Wang, I’ll arrange for the most capable auntie for you. You can go downstairs now, and I’ll call a taxi for you. Isn’t that thoughtful enough?”
Wang Chao was so angry that he stood up from the sofa and started packing his bag.
“What’s wrong?” Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian and asked.
Xing Conglian smiled and said, “Nothing, nothing! I just really like your style as master of the house right now.”
Wang Chao was picking what food he wanted to eat from the KFC bag when he heard this. He glared at Xing Conglian, didn’t take the sandwich on the table, and walked out of the ward in anger.
“Goodbye!” the teenager stood in the doorway against the light and said angrily to them.
“A single stab?” Lin Chen was surprised. It wasn’t easy to kill with just one stab, especially in a crowded area. It required considerable technical difficulty to find the target’s heart and avoid stabbing it into the hard ribs.
Zhang Xiaolong said seriously, “Only one stab.”
“Very clean and sharp.” After reading the forensic scene record, Xing Conglian flipped through the notes back and forth, frowned, and asked, “Was the murder weapon not found at the scene?”
“The murderer took it away,” Zhang Xiaolong said. “The forensics department has started rummaging through the garbage cans.”
“This experienced killer probably has 10,000 ways to dispose of the murder weapon. Don’t waste your time searching the garbage cans,” Xing Conglian said. He raised his umbrella, opened the cordon, and walked into the scene with Lin Chen.
“What do you think?” Xing Conglian asked.
“If there was only one stab, we can first rule out a crime of passion,” Lin Chen said, pausing and standing beside Xing Conglian. “Impulsive criminals won’t stop until they make a bloody mess of the body and the scene.”
“It’s not a robbery either.” Xing Conglian put his hands in his pockets. “The victim’s wallet and phone were still at the scene.”
Lin Chen looked up unconsciously, and Xing Conglian’s eyes were cold and mocking.
After thinking for a moment, he still asked, “Do you think there’s a good chance that Zhourui Pharmaceutical knew about the incident in Dana and killed the key witnesses in advance?”
Rain splashed on the umbrella surface, making a rustling sound. Their conversation was also limited to within the umbrella’s range.
“Consultant Lin, we’re all well aware of the probability,” Xing Conglian said. “But it’s a pity that we’ve experienced the darkness of the rainforest, the bloody drug factories, and the Gaomeng people who were used as illegal drug test subjects, but they haven’t. It’s even harder for ordinary people to imagine that, based on many reasons, what happened over there can only be temporarily sealed.” He turned his head and looked at the staring police officers, then continued, “Firstly, we have no evidence linking Zhourui Pharmaceutical to the illegal human experiments in the Dana Rainforest. Secondly, even if we find such evidence, it would still be very difficult to punish Zhourui Pharmaceutical within the international legal conventions for the crimes committed in the three unregulated regions. The lawyers of big pharmaceutical companies won’t take it lightly.”
“Yeah.” Lin Chen sighed. As they spoke, they had already reached the location where Dr. Tan Kang’s body had fallen. Looking at the markings on the ground for a long time, Lin Chen finally said, “But they panicked. Murder cases are always within our jurisdiction.” He looked up, and the spires of the European-style buildings in the distance were looming in the rain curtain. The scene from back then floated before his eyes. Tan Kang squeezed out of the corridor from the south to the north, and the crowd flowed mainly from north to the south. There were really a lot of people at the time, and most of the people were rushing to the water magic stage trying to seize a favorable spot, so Tan Kang was particularly annoying as he went against the flow. He struggled to get out of the crowd and resolutely walked towards his goal until he met the person and the knife that ended his life…
“The crime scene is intriguing. He chose to kill in crowded places, which is smart, but also risky,” Lin Chen said. “For the killer, he had to do it. If he missed the opportunity, it would be too late.”
“It’s indeed too risky.” Xing Conglian pursed his lips and continued, “And why did Tan Kang come here?”
“He came alone, without family or children. If it wasn’t for him suddenly wanting to relax, it could only mean he was here to meet someone.” Lin Chen spoke up.
“Meeting someone…” Xing Conglian said meaningfully. “So the killer had to take the risk of killing him.”
“That’s just a possibility,” Lin Chen said. “Of course, it’s based on the things we can’t talk about and our deduction.”
Xing Conglian nodded, half-sincerely and half-jokingly said, “It’s supposed to be a good crime drama, but we have to bring in spy routines. If he’s here to meet someone, his movements in the park must reveal something…”
Xing Conglian nodded and picked up a map of the park, which was placed outside a store in the corridor.
The layout of Hongjing Amusement Park was nothing special. Most amusement parks were divided into several areas. Lin Chen looked down, and Xing Conglian’s finger moved from the entrance to the location of the corridor, then he called out, “Xiaolong, come here.”
Comrade Zhang Xiaolong was talking to Wang Chao. Upon hearing this, the two of them ran over.
“Do we have on-site surveillance?”
“Report to Captain Xing, basically none.”
“What do you mean by ‘basically none’?”
Zhang Xiaolong looked apologetic. “This angle is not easy to set up. We only have a vague long shot.”
“So you can’t clearly see the scene at the time of the crime?”
“That’s right, and the park’s surveillance is too old. It’s black and white…” Zhang Xiaolong replied. “Just now, Lao Wang and the others have removed the surveillance, saying that the killer was still holding a bunch of balloons to block the view.”
“Balloons?”
“Yes, Captain Xing. Lao Wang has already started investigating the balloon seller, but the park said that there were about 5,000 people today, so…”
“So it’s unlikely that the seller can remember everyone who bought balloons. Do we have any eyewitnesses to make a portrait of the perpetrator?”
“We’ve looked for them, but no one really noticed what the attacker looked like.” Zhang Xiaolong pressed the ballpoint pen and looked helpless.
Xing Conglian nodded and looked at Wang Chao. “Wang Chao and Xiaolong, collect all the surveillance videos from the park from the opening to the closing today, and check Tan Kang’s movements in the park.” He thought for a moment and added, “Since the killer was holding a distinctive balloon, it should be relatively easy to track his movements, but still be careful of any tricks he may use with the balloons.”
“Okay, Captain Xing!” “Understood, Boss!” Zhang Xiaolong and Wang Chao said enthusiastically.
After speaking, the two young comrades ran off as if they were flying.
Lin Chen thought he had escaped unscathed, but apparently not.
Lin Chen raised his head, and Xing Conglian shook his head in the direction of the exit. “I’ve seen the scene. Can we go, Consultant Lin?”
……
Lin Chen thought he could escape, but obviously he didn’t.
Xing Conglian only kept him at the scene for about ten minutes before rushing him to Hongjing Hospital.
Because of the rain and the sky was dark, the streetlights on both sides of the road had already lit up, enveloping the entire city in a misty rain. Lin Chen leaned back in his seat while Xing Conglian was driving intently. The soothing melody of a violin flowed out from the stereo, making him feel drowsy.
“Feeling sleepy?”
At a red light, Xing Conglian stopped the car and patted Lin Chen’s head.
Lin Chen responded with a faint “Mm,” continuing to look down at the map of the amusement park in his hand, but he still felt sleepy, so he half-opened his eyes.
Xing Conglian stared at him for a while and said, “Consultant Lin, I noticed you spent more time looking at that map than at me.”
“That’s to make you aware of the potential danger,”
Xing Conglian said, “But still, don’t sleep in the car. We’re almost there.”
Lin Chen sat up straight reluctantly and said, “Captain Xing means that I’m going to be in the hospital bed for a few days, and I shouldn’t sleep now.”
Xing Conglian chuckled. “Consultant Lin, are you throwing a tantrum?”
Lin Chen shook his hand, then let go of it. “Just focus on driving. I won’t sleep.”
“What I meant was, can you not be completely absorbed in the case?”
“I’m not completely absorbed. Just now, I thought you looked really handsome while driving, so I stole a glance for a while.”
“Lin Chen…” Xing Conglian sounded very helpless, as if he had guessed his thoughts. He continued, “This is a common trick. I won’t be fooled multiple times.”
“Can you ask Wang Chao to send me a copy of the crime scene video? I want to see it.” Lin Chen decided to confess and thought his next request might be a bit too much. “I want to watch the full surveillance video during that time period.”
Xing Conglian spoke up. “Consultant Lin, where are we going now?”
“To the hospital.”
“Why are we going to the hospital?”
“Because I almost died of sepsis in Dana, and although I am gradually recovering and out of danger, I still need a full-body checkup and proper rest.”
“It seems you know it well.”
“But you see, Captain Xing, proper rest and watching surveillance videos are not contradictory. You can control my daily viewing time. As a public servant, I still hope to contribute what I can to solving the case.”
“Tell the truth…” Xing Conglian interrupted him.
Lin Chen felt that since he had kissed Xing Conglian, the latter seemed to have picked up some of his bad habits, such as speaking too sharply.
“I think this case is very strange. Although from the perspective of a simple case, the killer’s methods are simple and straightforward. At first glance, it seems that a large corporation killed to cover up its crimes in the process of drug research and development. But do you remember why I got involved in this case?”
“You killed a Zhourui Pharmaceutical employee who pretended to be mentally ill and wanted to kill Jiang Chao’s wife.”
“Yes, that’s also why Duan Yang found me. Let’s not talk about what happened later, but let’s look back at this. The new drug, Nordren, has already been approved for market release while Vice Captain Jiang’s wife is still alive. So, I don’t understand why they took the risk of killing her. ” Lin Chen lowered his eyes.
“Are you afraid that they will kill innocent people indiscriminately?” Xing Conglian frowned. “Why do you suddenly have this idea?”
“I’m not a person who doubts myself. I’m sure that my judgment at that time was correct. But you see, just saying so is not enough. This is too subjective. I need sufficient real evidence to prove this.”
“With Tan Kang stabbed to death suddenly, could this mean that Zhourui Pharmaceutical may have resorted to extreme measures, including murder, to ensure the smooth launch of the new drug?”
“Yes, if a company is a collective, then Zhourui Pharmaceutical as a whole gives me the feeling that they are already too crazy. They can calmly retreat from Dana, and even dare to play tricks on Zaratul. Why are they doing things so recklessly now? Although Duan Yang explained to me the problem of the entire drug industry chain, including R&D investment and the necessary cost recovery in the later period, I still feel that they could have slowed down and sought other ways out. Why must they push for the launch of the drug at all costs like they are doing now?”
“Good question, Consultant Lin.”
“Based on the above considerations, I believe that we must quickly solve the case of Tan Kang’s murder and find the core breakthrough of the whole case.”
Xing Conglian thought carefully for a long time and turned the car onto the street of Hongjing Hospital before finally saying, “I understand, but you still have to be hospitalized and follow the doctor’s orders.”
Hearing this, Lin Chen stopped speaking.
As they were about to enter the hospital area, Xing Conglian slowed down the car and finally said slowly, “To be honest, for me, those trivial matters of Zhourui Pharmaceutical may not be as important as your pinky. It may sound a bit cheesy, but this is my true feeling. I don’t want to see you waste your energy on these things during your recuperation.”
Lin Chen wanted to speak, but Xing Conglian held his hand to stop him.
“I am very serious about wanting to be in a relationship with you, appreciating your achievements in the professional field, and respecting your independent personality. But in fact, I also know very well that in the process of our relationship, we are transitioning from one relationship to another. We need to be good colleagues and good lovers at the same time. I am not as broad-minded as you think. My current thoughts are to keep you in a private sanatorium with strict 24-hour care, but of course, this is not possible. This is not respectful enough to you and ignores your original intentions. I understand all of these, so choosing Hongjing Hospital is almost my last bottom line after psychological adjustment. I admit that there are reasons behind this, but after you were kidnapped, I need to do some psychological construction before I can let you go out again. Please give me some time to adjust my mindset.”
Xing Conglian parked the car in the parking space and ended the conversation.
The twilight outside the window was hazy, and the whole hospital looked less cold in the slanting wind and rain and the gradually brightening lights.
“Sorry, I should be more understanding of your feelings.” Lin Chen was silent for a long time before finally saying this.
Xing Conglian reached out his hand to him. “So, happy cooperation, Consultant Lin?”
Lin Chen put his hand on it. “Happy cooperation, Captain Xing.”
Xing Conglian seemed to have received some kind of guarantee and had a relieved expression. “So, if I have something else to tell you, you will be understanding, right?”
The turning point came too quickly. Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian suspiciously. He saw Xing Conglian open his umbrella, get out of the car, walk over, open his car door, and politely invite him out.
“Except for you telling me that you’re already married, I can try to understand everything else as much as possible.”
Seeing Xing Conglian’s hesitant tone, Lin Chen hugged him and could only half-jokingly respond like so.
“Of course not!” Xing Conglian said seriously. “It’s some things that I wanted to tell you a long time ago. Although you haven’t asked, I have to explain clearly.”
Xing Conglian took him to the back of the Jeep, took out the key, and gently pressed the trunk unlock button.
The trunk door slowly opened. Although Lin Chen had seen this scene many times before, he still had to say that the trunk of Xing Conglian’s Jeep was really messy.
Drinking water, snacks thrown around by Wang Chao, various electronic equipment accessories, piles of cleaning rags, scattered paper materials, and of course, the toolbox lying upside down.
Xing Conglian leaned over and opened the toolbox, then dragged it out a bit to make it clearer for Lin Chen to see. “My mother said that according to Chinese tradition, when a man has money, he becomes bad. I don’t know where she got her fallacies, but anyway, you can consider it my secret money… uh, is there such a thing as secret money?”
Listening to Xing Conglian’s explanation, Lin Chen looked at the toolbox that he had just opened, which still continued the style of Xing Conglian’s trunk.
There were scattered repair tools, wrenches or screws, and all kinds of colorful VIP cards pressed on a stack of papers. These VIP cards were the ones that Xing Conglian took out last time. In short, there were no gold bars or diamonds inside. Lin Chen breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Why are you so cute, letting me confiscate your toolbox?”
But just as he relaxed and turned to look at Xing Conglian, he suddenly heard the other party say in a rare solemn voice, “I need to reintroduce myself…” Xing Conglian paused, slightly bowing to him, “Consultant Lin, my surname is Xing1.”
“I know your surname is Xing1…” he hadn’t finished speaking yet when he suddenly looked at the other party.
1Clarity: Xing (邢) the elite family of China vs his current identity Xing (刑).
Xing Conglian’s eyebrows and eyes were somewhat blurred in the twilight, but his back was straight, and his demeanor was stern. The noble aura emanating from him couldn’t be concealed by the vague night.
Lin Chen felt a loud noise in his ears for a moment, but Xing Conglian’s voice was still very clear and powerful.
He said, “It’s not Xing using the radical from sword but from beside the right ear*. My father’s name is Xing Liyuan, and my mother is from the Zhou family in southern Anhui. In order to respond to the one-child policy, they only gave birth to me.”
*Clarity: The Xing he’s currently using used the radical from sword (剑) while the other Xing used the radical (阝) which is commonly known as “beside the right ear” as the radical looks like a human ear (but has nothing to do with ears).
Lin Chen’s heart trembled, and he couldn’t speak for a while.
The two names that Xing Conglian mentioned were really shocking.
Although some clues before vaguely gave him the feeling that Xing Conglian might be related to the Xing family, he always felt that Xing Conglian might be some distant relative who just got a small share of the family business. When it came to inheriting the family, he didn’t think there was any connection at all with his lover, who liked to eat crayfish by the roadside.
During the five minutes or even longer, Lin Chen had all kinds of thoughts in his mind. He felt like he had found a gold mine, so he should be laughing, but he couldn’t really laugh out loud. Xing Conglian was now glowing all over, but this was really troublesome. Why was the Xing family so self-willed to send their eldest grandson to be a police officer? From Xing Conglian’s appearance, he didn’t seem to have a falling out with his family. How did Boss Xing feel about his only son having a boyfriend…?
In the end, Lin Chen could only look at the other person and ask seriously in the same tone, “Do we have to have this important conversation about your identity in front of your car trunk?”
Not only in front of the trunk but also in the corner of the hospital parking lot, which was a bit too casual.
Xing Conglian smiled lightly with a genuine sense of joy.
Lin Chen felt the other person put his hand on his waist and pull him into his arms, saying slowly, “I want you to know these things, not because they are particularly important, but essentially, these things are not a big deal to me. And I am very aware that these things are not a big deal to you either. They will not affect your view of me or change our relationship in any way. The reason why I want to tell you is that I don’t want to appear to be deliberately hiding anything from you over something that is not a big deal. I just want you to know, that’s all.”
The main idea of Xing Conglian’s words was that the content wasn’t a big deal, and the important thing was the attitude of him reporting it. This was what he wanted Lin Chen to see.
Lin Chen leaned on Xing Conglian’s shoulder, looking at the streetlights in the distance gradually lighting up, coloring the rainy night with a gentle hue. Perhaps it was really quiet around them, that his heartbeat, which had just sped up due to Xing Conglian’s words, quickly calmed down.
As Xing Conglian said, the fact that his family was very wealthy didn’t seem to be a big deal either. Although he thought so, he still had to emphasize, “You think too highly of me. It will definitely affect my view of you.”
“Such as?” Xing Conglian held the umbrella, covering both of them.
Lin Chen felt the low laughter coming from the other side, “Such as…” he thought for a moment but couldn’t come up with any extravagant ideas because he was poor. In order to save face, he could only reluctantly say, “Such as I don’t want to eat hospital dinner tonight.”
“What do you want to eat, from which country. I will notify them to airlift the chef and ingredients over.”
Lin Chen shuddered. “Sorry, just forget what I said.”
“Well, airlifting takes too long. It’s not appropriate if you go hungry. For dinner tonight, there is only one three-star Michelin restaurant in Hongjing. Shall I notify them to close and let us go there?”
“No, I’ll eat the hospital’s nutritious meal properly. Can we talk about something else?”
“What do you want to chat about? Is there anything else you want to know?”
Lin Chen couldn’t contain his curiosity and asked, “What exactly is in the toolbox?”
After some thought, Xing Conglian reported, “All kinds of bank cards, checks… not the kind bought on Taobao, some land deeds, and possibly some company stock contracts. I didn’t look at them closely…”
Lin Chen suddenly looked up, moved away from Xing Conglian, and tried to calm himself down. “Why don’t you keep these things in a bank vault?”
“It’s just loose change. I’m too lazy to put them away. It’s fine just keeping them close…” Xing Conglian said naturally.
Lin Chen couldn’t bear to hear any more and interrupted Xing Conglian, “I have a headache. Let’s go to the hospital for a check-up.”
He tried to pull Xing Conglian towards the hospital, hoping to get away from the Jeep as far as possible, but Xing Conglian remained in place and did not move.
“What’s wrong?” Lin Chen turned around and asked.
“You forgot something,” Xing Conglian said.
“What?” Lin Chen was afraid that the other party would bring up the toolbox again and was very alert.
Before he could finish speaking, Xing Conglian turned his head, leaned in close to his lips, and whispered, “Sir, this is where we should kiss.”
His hot breath sprayed on Lin Chen’s face, and before he could answer, Xing Conglian’s lips had already covered his.
Lin Chen closed his eyes.
In the darkening sky, with the sound of rain falling quietly, everything was just right.
A sensation of a neck bone breaking was felt in his hand.
Zhong Chengshuo hesitated to catch the body in his hand. He stood barefoot on the ground, always vigilant for possible alarm vibrations.
The small room was filled with pale light, and a headless male corpse had stuck its arm into a Sunken Society employee wearing a white coat. The two were motionless in the center of the room like sculptures; this picture could be used directly as a promotional image for a horror movie.
Zhong Chengshuo patiently waited, even though he already had an answer in his heart.
Most of the corpses stored by the Sunken Society had strong evil qi, and sophisticated electronic devices were highly likely to be affected. There were probably no instruments such as surveillance cameras arranged here, only layers of monitoring spells.
After all, compared to invaders, the transformation of corpses under unknown spells required precautions.
The designer at the time probably couldn’t imagine that there was such a corpse that had not been revived by any spells, and even the attacks used for the attack were purely physical—fast, accurate, and deadly, leaving no reaction time for the victim.
Two minutes passed.
Confirming that the alarm hadn’t been triggered, Zhong Chengshuo quickly stripped the Sunken Society staff member. He lifted the naked corpse onto the mortuary cabinet where he was located, pushed the part below the person’s shoulders into the freezer, and only left the head outside.
Under the low temperature, the body quickly became cold and stiff.
Zhong Chengshuo nodded his neck with satisfaction. He swayed forward and groped around the dissecting table until he found a bone saw he was wishing for. The sharp edge pressed against the neck of the corpse, and Zhong Chengshuo pulled his arm without hesitation.
The sound of metal rubbing against bone was chilling.
In addition to biology, King Yama also knew anatomy very well. It didn’t take long for Zhong Chengshuo to saw off the person’s head. The remaining part of the neck was just right and could be smoothly connected to his damaged spine.
A fresh and intact head… an integrated “sensory device” with five senses.
Zhong Chengshuo suppressed his aversion and pressed the dead man’s head hard against his neck.
When the broken and cold cut surface touched the fresh flesh, it produced a crushing sound that made people’s teeth ache. Blood slowly slid down Zhong Chengshuo’s collarbone, feeling like a thin snake passing by.
Zhong Chengshuo held the head with both hands, waiting anxiously.
Will it fail?
If it failed, this dead man wouldn’t be able to go back by himself, and Sunken Society would definitely find out that something was amiss. They would move him away from here, and his situation would become quite passive.
Don’t fail.
Absolutely don’t fail.
Zhong Chengshuo tightened his hard-earned head with his ten fingers, repeating the words in his mind. He had been in tense and dangerous situations before but had never experienced such a range of emotions.
This feeling was incredibly strange.
If the previous 28 years were spent submerged in water, then he had finally emerged to the surface. Nervous, restless, anxious. Fear spawned countless emotions, each one new and overwhelming.
He had no head or heart, but his thoughts rolled endlessly, and his chest was filled with worry. Fortunately, they weren’t strong enough—more like new shoots growing after the rain—not enough to immobilize him.
At the moment, Zhong Chengshuo could only hold his head with both hands, waiting for his body’s instincts to take effect, as if a second had stretched into infinity.
Finally, when Zhong Chengshuo was so nervous that his neck hurt, the feeling feedback appeared.
A faint, rusty-sweet smell.
Zhong Chengshuo tasted blood.
In the void, a faint light gradually appeared, and the new view was tinged with a pale blood red.
Zhong Chengshuo blinked hard. The eyeballs of the dead man’s head weren’t very useful. It was like he was looking at the world through a lens full of dust. In his new ears, there was only the sound of dripping blood, and the sound quality was as bad as a pair of 5 yuan headphones from a street vendor.
He saw his surroundings for the first time.
The room wasn’t big, and the four walls were covered with metal-shining mortuary cabinets. Each cabinet door was labeled with a number and a rough description. Except for Zhong Chengshuo, who was a science post, all the other bodies were dangerous items treated with special spells.
According to the description, two of the bodies had been stored for over three hundred years.
The mortuary cabinets were tightly sealed and level, and only his mortuary compartment was half exposed, with the Sunken Society employee he had killed lying in it with the blood from the broken neck flowing slowly down the metal.
Zhong Chengshuo carefully maintained contact with his head and neck and turned around.
In the middle of the room was a dissecting table, and the activity table next to it was filled with a variety of medical instruments. The nursing solution brought by the person was open on the table, emitting an unpleasant smell.
Zhong Chengshuo moved his head to the edge of the table, freeing up one hand to laboriously rummage through the toolbox. His luck was good, as the sewing needles and thread were all there.
He carefully sewed the dead head onto his neck, wound two rounds of bandages around it, and finally, his hands were freed.
The stitching was a bit painful, and the disinfection procedure wasn’t very thorough. But given his current condition, it didn’t seem like he needed to worry about infections.
The metal surface of the mortuary cabinet illuminated Zhong Chengshuo’s current appearance.
In the blurry image, Zhong Chengshuo’s limbs were as strong and slender as ever. His body had been tidied up by the Sunken Society employee, but his chest had been blown to pieces—the once-smooth chest line was now unsightly.
After hesitating for a moment, Zhong Chengshuo wound a few more rounds of bandages to hold the broken ribs in place.
His new head hung slightly, and moving it was still a bit stiff.
The head appeared to be around thirty years old, with ordinary features and slightly chubby cheeks. The eyes bulged out, and the person’s face still bore the shock and fear of death.
There were no signs of fusion between the flesh and blood around the neck and his body. It was completely separated and could not become a part of his body.
Could it be rejection? Zhong Chengshuo pondered uncertainly.
The head only provided him with the most basic five senses, and controlling the facial muscles was extremely difficult. Zhong Chengshuo felt like he was operating an outdated computer, and all the reactions from the head were slow.
What was worse, he couldn’t use the dead person’s brain. He didn’t know the person’s name, what his job was at Sunken Society, or their usual habits.
All he had was a simple work badge.
“Technical Department 2-B2219-070: Zhang Wei.”
Perhaps for security reasons, Zhang Wei didn’t even have a phone on him.
Zhong Chengshuo slowly put on the person’s clothes, which had a strong smell of sweat and hair oil. They were a bit too big for him and clung to his body like pickled vegetables. But with the white coat covering him, he looked somewhat presentable.
Zhong Chengshuo adjusted his collar to cover the gauze around his neck. As long as he hid his hands, which were thin and pale, and maintained the expression on the dead person’s face, he looked… like a person.
“Ah… Ahem…” The voice was still his own, with a wheezing sound.
Zhong Chengshuo rubbed his face with his hands, but the head remained icy cold, and his facial features were stiff. The worst part was that the head would gradually decay, and he was running out of time.
Zhong Chengshuo put on an “expressionless” face and quickly cleaned up the blood on the ground and pushed Zhang Wei’s headless body into the morgue drawer.
Before leaving, Zhong Chengshuo put his hands in his pockets and looked at “himself” in the morgue drawer again. After a few seconds, he finally realized what was wrong—
He tried to move his chest to fake a normal breathing rate.
Half a minute later, the heavy metal door slowly opened without a sound.
Zhong Chengshuo poked out the head he had just obtained and turned it stiffly from side to side.
He was standing in the middle of a long corridor. The corridor had no windows, and both sides disappeared into the deep darkness, with no end in sight.
An unknown location, dull senses, and a throat that couldn’t speak casually. Plus, with this unfamiliar face and ill-fitting clothes…
His mission to “return to Yin Ren’s side” began somewhat awkwardly.
……
Haigu Municipal Hospital.
Huang Jin purchased half a cabinet of wood and leather and made a delicate leather case for his carving knife, which he hung on his body at all times.
He couldn’t afford better jade and animal bones, so he had to go with a large quantity of mediocre supplies.
Huang Jin copied all the tranquility talismans he could find on the market and lined them up on the wall. The stack of calculation paper next to him was piled high, and as the carving knife tapped gently on the wood, his brow furrowed.
He thought about several ways to improve the tranquility mantra, but with little success.
The situation was not optimistic.
The C-level investigation team was attacked, and the B-level investigation team had to call it a day. The national competition wasn’t canceled, but it wasn’t clear when it would resume. In the past twenty years, Shian had never experienced such a big incident.
Two other experts from out of town were still staying in Haigu, and they were unlikely to leave before the truth of this incident was revealed.
But all of this was like a fight between gods and had nothing to do with a small fry like him.
Huang Jin put down his carving knife and wood pieces, rubbed his sore eyes, and turned his head.
Ding Lizi had completely shaken off the influence of the original case, and the unlucky guitar was completely separated from her body. After her body stabilized, she was transferred to the Haigu Municipal Hospital for recuperation.
Just now, she was holding a guitar and humming softly. When she heard the sound of the carving knife hitting the table, the melody stopped immediately.
“What’s wrong?” she curiously asked, her carefree thoughts still swirling around her.
“It’s nothing,” Huang Jin replied vaguely.
“Something happened, but someone is taking care of it.” He thought for a moment and added sincerely.
Ding Lizi scratched her head. “Um… If it’s really dangerous, why don’t you quit?”
Huang Jin stood up and stroked the sharp blade of the carving knife. “There are some things that, once you know them, you can’t just quit, even if you want to.”
Since joining the unlucky Unit 9, he had written at least a dozen transfer applications. Every time he was beaten down by reality, writing his transfer application had almost become a daily habit for Huang Jin. After the Zhong Chengshuo’s incident, Huang Jin instinctively wanted to write another one, but this time, he couldn’t write a single word.
He didn’t like Sunken Society, didn’t like the Nightwalkers, and couldn’t say that he liked Shian.
But now…
He looked at Ding Lizi, who knew nothing about the tragedy.
The transformation of Yin Ren’s state was still vivid in his mind. That evil was very good at handling emotions, and his relationship with Zhong Chengshuo wasn’t that long. Based on Huang Jin’s understanding of evil creatures, Yin Ren might have just wanted to try “falling in love with a human” and would come out of this relationship in a couple of days.
But Yin Ren didn’t come out of it.
If Yin Ren was previously a lazy candle flame, now his aura was as intense as a raging fire, so vivid that it was frightening. Even Huang Jin, who was not that close to him, could feel the suppressed pain from the burning flames.
Huang Jin sighed quietly. “I’m going to work.”
“So late?”
“Yeah, it’ll be over soon.”
He dusted off the wood chips on his clothes and walked towards the group’s collective ward. When he arrived at the door, Huang Jin took a deep breath, opened the door, and…
Crash! A pile of paper documents fell from the side and hit Huang Jin’s temple hard. The quality of the stack of documents seemed quite good, as Huang Jin felt his face had been severely punched..
Huang Jin: “……” Fuck this job. Whoever wants to do it, can do it. I really don’t want to do it anymore!
Despite this, he still hung his head and struggled to cross the mountain of documents on the ground.
Yin Ren sat in the center of the document mountain.
Before this, Yin Ren was always the most eager to go home. As long as he didn’t have a task, he would sprint home as soon as it was time to leave work. As for now, Huang Jin didn’t know how long it had been since he had gone home. Yin Ren’s luggage was all placed at the head of the hospital bed, as if he were going to root himself here.
He barely ate, and there was no trace of food near the table.
Huang Jin made his way through the document mountain and tried to soften his tone as he asked, “How’s the progress?”
Ge Tingting buried herself in a pile of paper documents, with only her head showing and her gaze looking dull. When she saw Huang Jin come in, she grunted and grabbed another piece of paper to read.
One of the papers floated down to Huang Jin’s feet. It seemed to be a record of early expenses, all paid by Zhong Chengshuo.
Lu Xiaohe’s voice sounded confused. “It’s hard to say about the progress.”
She had never investigated a case like this before.
The “Sniper” incident had the top elites of Shian actively investigating. They were more inclined to research the remnants at the scene, and the deaths of Zhong Chengshuo and Auntie Tao weren’t the first focus of the experts’ investigation.
Unit 9 was conducting an extended investigation to contribute to their fallen colleagues… That was how she was originally prepared.
She could accept that Zhong Chengshuo had hidden motives. After all, wanting to join Shian’s as a science post would have personal reasons to some extent.
She could also reluctantly understand how Yin Ren had special connections that allowed Shian to open up advanced permissions for her. After all, Yin Ren had lost his memory when he first joined, and there might be some background to that.
…But the current direction of the investigation was a bit far-fetched.
Lu Xiaohe couldn’t help but move her gaze to Yin Ren.
“Progress? We can now confirm that Zhong Chengshuo’s original motive was indeed to ‘fully investigate the death of Zhong Chengfeng’.”
Yin Ren didn’t lift his head and was holding a thick stack of police documents.
“Zhong Chengfeng had nothing to do with the metaphysical world, but she was unfortunate enough to be affected by the Divine Descent 28 years ago…”
Yin Ren was still wearing Zhong Chengshuo’s white thread shirt, and his hair flowed down the table. Next to him, a huge screen showed a national map. Every place Zhong Chengshuo had been was marked with a red line. Another screen was constantly scrolling with code, and the location of Zhong Chengshuo’s hamster tracker had just been cracked at 61%.
“I understand,” said Huang Jin.
It was pretty easy to understand. Yin Ren wanted to fully investigate everything about his deceased lover. It was human nature, and this way he could also provide information to Shian.
“No, you don’t understand,” said Lu Xiaohe.
Huang Jin pulled over a chair and sat down, looking confused.
“I’m looking for a way to capture the sniper alive,” Yin Ren said.
Huang Jin’s butt made a thud as he fell off the chair. He ignored the pain and stared at Yin Ren. “You, what?”
Wasn’t the plan to find Zhong Chengshuo’s body?
Yin Ren finally lifted his head, and a hint of frightening focus was in his eyes.
“Zhong Chengshuo is related to Wei Huaqian, who is associated with Sunken Society, and they have been developing in Haigu for many years. Despite this, Shian hasn’t been able to make any moves on them, which means their base must be difficult to find.”
As if he had seen through Huang Jin’s thoughts, he responded calmly.
“The sniper personally took Zhong Chengshuo, so he knows where his body is. The easiest way is just to ask him.”
Yin Ren glanced at Huang Jin and turned over another page of information.
“Besides, as long as I can be the first to catch him, I can… well, do a lot of things.”
Huang Jin scanned the information on Zhong Chengshuo spread out all over the room, and finally stopped on Yin Ren. He sat in the middle of the white papers, his pale shirt blending in with his surroundings, but he himself was like a burning flame.
“So you’re investigating Zhong Chengshuo…” Huang Jin swallowed nervously.
Yin Ren smiled at him and threw a pile of police records at him. “I just want to know why the sniper chose him.”
……
The people by the table went from four to three. The young Ge Tingting was the first to fall asleep. With Yin Ren’s persuasion, she returned to her hospital bed. The clock ticked away in the quiet room, and soon only one person was left.
It was almost four in the morning, and all his human companions were asleep. Yin Ren turned off all the lights in the room, leaving only the dim glow of the screen. Even Yellow Millet on his phone charm was sleeping while whistling lightly and was as soft as a puddle.
Yin Ren lowered his head and continued to flip through the pages, one by one. He had not slept since he dreamed of Zhong Chengshuo.
The printed black letters flowed into his eyes line by line, and the silence around him was terrifying, leaving only the sound of him flipping through the pages.
Fwish, fwish.
Suddenly, Yin Ren stopped and lifted his left hand forward. The darkness opposite the table surged, and a familiar figure lifted his head and looked at him silently.
The phantom of Zhong Chengshuo sat quietly opposite Yin Ren, holding an illusory page.
At first glance, it seemed as if they were investigating the same case, just like before.
Yin Ren looked at the person’s face for a while before lowering his head and continuing to review the information. These words were the most potent anesthetic, able to help him hold his breath and focus solely on moving forward.
“Your hamster signal is too weak. Shian needs more time to analyze it,” Yin Ren casually remarked. “Your quality control is not up to par, Zhong Ge.”
The phantom looked at him intently, eyes unblinking.
“Don’t think I won’t hold you accountable for your little secrets. Once we catch the sniper and bring you back, I’ll dig up your past, and then I can…”
Yin Ren didn’t finish his sentence and instead pursed his lips.
“How boring,” he murmured. “It’s all your fault. I can’t concentrate on anything now… If it were you, where would you start the investigation?”
Yin Ren raised his head again, looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar black eyes of Zhong Chengshuo’s phantom.
The phantom of Zhong Chengshuo gradually changed form, and a slightly scary cartoon rabbit mask appeared next to his head, with his shirt turning into a loose, casual outfit.
The phantom held the Evil Fruit in his left hand, and his right hand simulated a gun gesture. The faint light shimmered on the Evil Fruit and a string of colorful bubbles emerged from the muzzle of the simulated gun. Illusory bubbles drifted toward the dark ceiling, disappearing before they popped.
That was the outfit Zhong Chengshuo wore during their first encounter with a sniper.
At that time, the sniper had killed Bai Yongji, who was only a half-step away from becoming a Charon, with a single shot. He had only fired two shots at them to intimidate them, like a well-fed cat toying with a mouse.
At that point, the sniper probably noticed them for the first time.
Yin Ren put down the boring data on his hands and looked across with a piercing gaze.
“Very good,” Yin Ren murmured. “Then came the second time…”
The rabbit mask, the Evil Fruit, and the bubble gun disappeared at the same time, and Zhong Chengshuo’s loose casual clothes turned into a suit that highlighted his figure. He held an unopened bag of chocolate chips in his hand, and the smiling face on the package was a little dazzling.
The Archive.
Yin Ren had read through the reports of Unit 7. At that time, he himself had gone crazy in the ghost fetus and almost turned into an Evil Spirit. Zhong Chengshuo had returned to the ghost fetus alone and brought him out.
During his most out-of-control period, the report indicated that there was an obvious feeling of being peeped at by the gray-black vortex in the sky.
If that was also the sniper’s line of sight. Were they being watched at that time?
Zhong Chengshuo nodded gently across from him, and the phantom stretched out its hand as if to hand over the chocolate chips.
It was just a projection of his subconscious, and Yin Ren looked away.
The phantom’s movement froze in mid-air, and the brightly colored packaging in its hand evaporated in an instant, replaced by dust and dirt. Zhong Chengshuo’s clothes were torn apart, revealing many abrasions.
Gengsheng Town.
Qi Xin warned them to be careful of “Mr. Qiu.” They had analyzed before that Mr. Qiu was very likely the sniper.
Qi Xin, whose origin was unknown, was obviously acquainted with Mr. Qiu. If they had contact with Qi Xin, the sniper… Mr. Qiu might also know. After all, “Qi Xin” appeared in Shian’s report so it wasn’t difficult to investigate.
“But why didn’t he attack me?”
Yin Ren looked at the phantom covered in wounds, and his hands slowly clenched.
“You were just investigating your sister’s death, and your purpose was very simple. The mysteries around me are obviously greater, and attacking me would easily cause chaos…”
Was the sniper really just randomly killing people?
Yin Ren repeatedly chewed on the information he had obtained.
Bai Yongji, a scumbag who seemed to be at odds with Sunken Society. The guy had not been in contact with the core of the metaphysical world for long and didn’t have anything special besides the ability of the “Charon” branch.
But the ability of the “Charon” branch could allow him to touch “the Other Side”.
Wait, “the Other Side”…
The Archive was also… It was full of weird artifacts that were closely related to “the Other Side”, and it may have a certain degree of connection with “the Other Side”. If he really became an Evil Spirit in the Archive, it was hard to say whether he could come into contact with “the Other Side”.
The three-part league of Shian used metaphysical entities as test questions. Fu Wuya himself was an ancient Charon, similar to Bai Yongji’s situation, and also closely related to the Other Side.
“The sniper is very interested in ‘the Other Side’,” Yin Ren pondered.
“This is a breakthrough point. Wait until Lu Xiahe and the others wake up…”
Before he could finish speaking, the phantom of Zhong Chengshuo changed again.
This time, it was a figure that Yin Ren wasn’t familiar with, only appearing in a photo he had seen before—
A young Zhong Chengshuo sat at the table, his arms neatly folded together. He was wearing a clean, plain T-shirt with soft hair hanging down. He looked like he was still in elementary school. He wasn’t wearing glasses back then, and his features were gentle and delicate. His eyes looked much older than his age, still deep and dark.
He stared at Yin Ren, tilting his head slightly.
“Yeah, if you were here, you would definitely think one step further.”
Yin Ren clumsily operated the complicated machinery, enduring the throbbing pain in his head, trying to connect the overwhelming amount of information.
Under the manipulation of magic, the paper files automatically floated in mid-air. They were suspended by red threads, similar to the intelligence wall in Zhong Chengshuo’s basement.
“The reason why the sniper chose to attack you instead of me…”
Zhong Chengshuo used school research as an excuse for his hunting of evil spirits, but perhaps this wasn’t his main purpose and was just incidental. He had been studying the “Divine Descent” and had indeed been to several places that were related to the Divine Descent.
Such as the nearby city of Luotian, which was close to Gengsheng Town, where he had solved the underground corpse nest as “King Yama”.
Another example was the western suburbs, where the Municipal Hospital was located, where Zhong Chengshuo had also dealt with the hundred-year-old ghost there.
All these places had one thing in common—a large amount of remaining Evil Force, with an abnormally high index of evil qi, directly related to the “Divine Descent.”
…And the “Divine Descent” was exactly tied to “the Other Side.”
Through the connection of the red threads, Yin Ren seemed to have caught something.
The sniper, rather than “being very interested in the Other Side”, was more like maintaining it. From his actions, it seemed that the guy was monitoring and eliminating all humans who might approach the Other Side.
Yin Ren twirled his hair and fell into deep thought.
“The difference between you and me… We have both been in contact with the Other Side. But you took the initiative to investigate the Divine Descent. You might have already been on the sniper’s watch list.”
Young Zhong Chengshuo’s eyes curved a bit, as if he were smiling.
“But these are all speculations. I still need to verify Auntie Tao’s information.” Yin Ren stood up, his hand stopping at the phantom’s head. The phantom looked up at Yin Ren’s hand curiously.
Yin Ren remained silent for a long time before slowly retracting his hand.
“Wait until dawn. I will go find someone to check the information. Will you wait for me?” he said.
The phantom remained silent.
……
Haigu Branch Sunken Society, underground corpse vault.
Minister Zou from Technical Department 2 stood at the entrance of the underground corpse vault, wiping the sweat off his forehead. It was almost dawn, but he dared not leave work yet.
His subordinate, Zhang Wei, was supposed to maintain Zhong Chengshuo’s body, but he hadn’t returned yet. The rules and regulations of that ghostly place were strict, and Zhang Wei’s phone was outside, with no way to contact him. Fortunately, there had been no alarms from the advanced vault at the deepest level, so the situation shouldn’t be too serious.
“We saw him go in, but he hasn’t come out since.” The human guard wiped his nose. “Last time, he also took a long time to maintain it. That place is at the very bottom. Maybe he just got lost.”
“Can you go in and look for him?” Director Zou gritted his teeth. “If something happens, I can’t bear the responsibility.”
“You can’t bear it? If we go in and the defense is lax and someone who shouldn’t be let in breaks in, won’t the blame fall on our heads?” the zombie guard shouted loudly. “Besides, you know this place. The morgue loses two or three people every year—if they’re lost, they’re lost. Just don’t lose the valuable corpses.”
Then he muttered a string of complaints mixed with profanity.
“Who would break into this ghost of a place?!” Minister Zou had a headache.
Sunken Society wasn’t an ordinary organization. If something went wrong, it wasn’t as simple as deducting your year-end bonus. Everyone here was involved in transactions with the high-level executives of Sunken Society—some even more than one—and if something went wrong, “death” would be the easiest outcome.
After all, when Minister Zou first came here, the zombie guard wasn’t even a zombie yet.
Some things were confidential, and he couldn’t be too clear with the guards.
For example, the body of Zhong Chengshuo wasn’t just precious materials, but a hot potato that was thrown over directly by “Mr. Qiu” after being provocatively identified by Shian. While Zhong Chengshuo was a small character, it was uncertain if Shian would try to trace the corpse.
Everything related to that unlucky body made Minister Zou extremely nervous.
What if Zhang Wei was Shian’s spy? What if he made a mistake? The more Minister Zou thought about it, the more he got a headache. He wiped his face and said, “Forget it. I’ll go in and find him myself, okay?”
The two guards looked at each other and shrugged.
“It’s not impossible,” the human guard said seriously.
“But you know the rules.” The zombie chuckled. “You can’t make mistakes in time, route, and way of walking. It’s especially strict down there. If you make a mistake, you will be responsible for the consequences.”
With his level, he could freely control the content of his dreams. In the past, to ensure the quality of his sleep, Yin Ren had turned off the “dreaming” function. The times had changed, and his daily life was rich and exciting enough that he didn’t need additional dreamscapes.
Tonight was an exception.
Perhaps his mind was more tired than he imagined—Yin Ren fell into a deep sleep in the hospital bed, immersed in the faint smell of medicine. But when he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar yet unfamiliar ceiling.
It was Zhong Chengshuo’s bedroom.
The clock on the bedside table pointed exactly at 6:58, and the light-blocking curtains blocked the sunlight, making the room still dark.
Yin Ren’s heart trembled. He instinctively touched the warm skin next to him.
Zhong Chengshuo was wearing his nightcap and sleeping soundly. Yin Ren had just patted Zhong Chengshuo’s shoulder, and the man only made a sound and then curled up under the covers.
It was an ordinary morning.
Yin Ren stared at the person next to him. Zhong Chengshuo’s face was rosy, and his skin had a healthy glow, full of vitality. His hair was clean and fluffy, with a refreshing minty scent, and not a single white hair was visible. Zhong Chengshuo slept quietly, and his breathing was lighter than a cat’s. However, the blanket on his body still rose and fell, outlining the contours of his breath.
Without hesitation, Yin Ren laid back on his pillow. He turned over, and his hair surged, pulling the other person into his arms.
He lowered his head, burying his nose in Zhong Chengshuo’s neck. The cotton pajamas were soaked with body temperature, emitting his familiar scent. Yin Ren couldn’t control himself. A part of his body instantly turned into a semi-transparent form and was scattered under the bed, covering the entire room, as if he wanted to completely wrap up this person.
Zhong Chengshuo was probably awakened by Yin Ren’s movements. He moved sleepily and put an arm around Yin Ren’s waist. “Hm?”
“Let me hug you for a while.” Yin Ren continued to bury his face in Zhong Chengshuo’s shoulder. “I had a nightmare.”
“Can an Evil Spirit also have nightmares?” Zhong Chengshuo’s eyes were still closed. He relaxed his body and let Yin Ren hold him, his voice still a little drowsy. “What did you dream about?”
“I dreamt that a sniper killed you in front of me.”
“Oh.” Zhong Chengshuo’s soft hair rubbed against him, and he didn’t say much. “What do you want to eat this morning? My parents’ stewed pork ribs are still in the fridge. I can make vegetable pork rib noodles.”
“If you hadn’t met me, you wouldn’t have encountered such a thing.”
Yin Ren didn’t answer Zhong Chengshuo’s question. He held his lover tightly and continued to speak in a daze. The emptiness of the loss was so real that he didn’t know whether he should be joyful or sad now.
This morning was so ordinary and beautiful. He should get up and go to the kitchen with that person, enjoying every moment. But he just couldn’t help but continue to say these words that had nowhere to go.
“If you hadn’t met me, you could have been a real C-level investigator in Shian. You wouldn’t have had to come into contact with Qi Xin for your execution mission, or be noticed by the sniper… You could have continued your research happily, and you could have lived a good life.”
Zhong Chengshuo just listened quietly.
Thump, thump, thump. Through the thin fabric, Zhong Chengshuo’s heartbeat was clearly audible in his ears.
Yin Ren closed his eyes.
He had thought that his liking for Zhong Chengshuo was just an ordinary level. He still couldn’t empathize with the exaggerated drama in those scripts and the screams of collapse in those interpretations.
But at this moment, he felt that he truly understood the concept of “like”.
When he was in a good mood, he could treat all humans gently. But when he was in a bad mood, that concern and goodwill could be taken away in an instant.
But the person he liked was like a whirlpool.
His attention, his goodwill, and the focus of his mind—even if that whirlpool went away, it still pulled them constantly, leaving a part of him forever in the distance, unable to retrieve it no matter how hard he tried.
If everything before was just a long and realistic nightmare, and the present was reality, how good that would be.
But Yin Ren had already passed the age of self-deception.
…This situation and scenery were just a dream, and the “Zhong Chengshuo” in front of him was just his impression of his lover. No matter how comforting the words this illusion said were, it was just his self-deception.
He tightened his arms and hugged the warm and sturdy body.
“Well, I understand now.”
In the warm and soft blanket, Zhong Chengshuo patted Yin Ren’s back and absentmindedly touched the translucent wings that were flowing all over the bed.
“I am already dead and you’ve dreamed of me,” he honestly stated the fact. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have collapsed like this because of a ‘dream’.”
Yin Ren: “……”
Indeed, this was Zhong Chengshuo’s style. This development was too realistic, and he didn’t know who to take his anger out on.
Yin Ren: “Is there anything you want to say to me?”
“No matter what I say, it’s just an illusion created by your brain,” Zhong Chengshuo grumbled. “I am a science post, and I cannot enter dreams. And I have taken care of everything. You’re very smart, so I don’t have much to advise.”
Yin Ren smiled awkwardly.
“But I can give you a good morning kiss,” his dream lover said. “You know I will do that.”
Zhong Chengshuo leaned in seriously. His lips touched the corner of Yin Ren’s mouth. That was where Yin Ren had kissed him for the first time.
“Good morning, Yin Ren,” he said quietly.
“Wake up.”
……
Yin Ren opened his eyes again. The sunlight in the hospital room was a bit dazzling. He covered his eyes with his arm, and his phone kept vibrating beside his ear.
It was a voice call from Zhong Chengshuo’s mother, Cheng Xuehua.
“Xiao Yin, why can’t I reach Chengshuo’s phone?”
“His phone has some problems, so he went to buy a new one.” Yin Ren covered his eyes, and his voice sounded as cheerful as usual. “Auntie, do you have anything to tell me?”
“Nothing much. I just haven’t seen you two for a while. Lao Zhong’s friend got us a box of good lamb, and we can’t finish it ourselves. I thought about making some braised lamb, and you two can come home for dinner tonight.”
“We have to work overtime tonight,” Yin Ren said fluently.
“When he comes back, we’ll discuss it and let you know.”
“…Xiao Yin, did Chengshuo make you angry?” There was a pause in veteran detective Cheng Xuehua’s voice. “You sound a bit upset. You can tell auntie.”
“It’s nothing, just…” Yin Ren took a breath, not completely denying it. “Sometimes he doesn’t like to tell me when he’s doing things, and I occasionally can’t find him.”
“Hey, that brat still has that old problem. You two find time this week to come home for dinner, I’ll talk to him.”
“Okay, I’m counting on you.”
Lu Xiaohe sat by the bedside, looking at him with a complicated expression. She had never seen Yin Ren with such a twisted face, saying such relaxed words.
Two hours later, Lu Xiaohe’s expression became even more complicated.
At the request of the members of Unit 9, a large table was added to the empty ward. Various equipment needed by the rear commander was moved in, and the ward was transformed into a temporary office.
On the surface, it was said to facilitate the psychological treatment of Unit 9 members, but in reality, it gave them some space to “cross the line”—they could investigate more sensitive information without being monitored by the Shian.
Such as “The Other Side” and “Divine Descent”.
Fu Xingchuan didn’t linger on this matter. After transferring the permissions to Lu Xiaohe, he only left them with a few words.
“I’ll take care of Li Nian. I’ve given you the people and information you want,” Fu Xingchuan said. “As an exchange, in this case, you are not the Unit 9 investigator Yin Ren, but the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi… You have to take responsibility for the lives of these people.”
At the moment, various numbers flickered quickly on the temporary screen wall, and the program was cracking the tracking method of the hamster pendant. The huge table was so covered with photos that even the color of the table couldn’t be seen.
Lu Xiaohe looked at the table full of photos in front of her and felt like her freshly stitched wound was about to burst. She had received too many shocks these past few days. For the first time in her life, her brain had a tendency to shut down.
“What is this?” she asked blankly.
Yin Ren replied, “It’s an investigation Zhong Chengshuo was working on that may be related to the killer.”
The hamster pendant was just one clue, and he had to seize every possibility.
To protect Zhong Chengshuo’s “King Yama” identity, Yin Ren didn’t plan to expose Zhong Chengshuo’s secret base. He just took some good photos of Zhong Chengshuo’s intelligence wall and took Zhong Chengshuo’s notebook with him.
Given Zhong Cheng’s level of caution, there should be no evidence in his computer that could expose his identity. In this delicate aspect, he had confidence in Zhong Chengshuo.
… Although he wasn’t sure why he wanted to keep these little secrets for Zhong Chengshuo.
Lu Xiaohe quickly flipped through the photos, stunned.
She rushed to the bathroom, wiped her face with cold water and a towel, and limped back.
“He entered Shian with hidden strength. I know he has something he wants to investigate… but this is too exaggerated!” Lu Xiaohe pointed to one of the photos, her voice still sounding dazed.
“The magazine in this picture has been out of print for a long time. If you want to investigate, you can use the electronic version. But Zhong Chengshuo used the original pages after cutting them, and there’s more than just one… “
Lu Xiaohe grabbed a dozen or so photos on the desktop and pulled out a clean area, arranging the photos in a row.
“This one, this one, and this one… The clippings inside are all hard-to-find types. It’s completely unnecessary to find these physical materials afterwards.”
Yin Ren: “So…?”
Lu Xiaohe’s facial muscles twitched, and she pressed her hands on the table, looking at the printed photos all over the table. The morning sun shone on the desktop, casting a neat beam of light on the dark images.
“So.”
Lu Xiaohe pressed her temples hard, her tone terrified.
“Roughly estimating the time, this kid Zhong Chengshuo has been investigating these things since elementary school… Is this something a normal person can do?”
Kids of that age couldn’t even read properly—some didn’t even know how to wipe their own snot—but Zhong Chengshuo had already learned to flip through magazines and carefully collect the most gruesome murder cases, and he could do it without being discovered by his police parents.
Yin Ren imagined for a moment the scene of young Zhong Chengshuo cutting paper, and his mouth twitched.
“He once told me he was investigating ‘Divine Descent’.”
Yin Ren lowered his eyes.
“But since he started investigating these things so early, the ‘principle of Divine Descent’ is likely not his ultimate goal.”
Lu Xiaohe was still in shock from the impact of her “abnormal colleague” and reacted after half a minute, limping over to the computer and entering those cases.
“No wonder he wanted to use Shian’s power.” Her fingers didn’t stop moving for a moment. “The connection between these cases, if you try to find them outside the database, it will take forever… Got it!”
Just when there was a little joy in her tone, it suddenly became heavy again.
The origin of Zhong Chengshuo’s investigation was finally successfully deciphered by Shian’s most advanced AI. All the big and small vicious cases were related to a small disappearance case—
Yin Ren raised his head and looked at the stranger on the screen wall. She was a young woman with short hair. Her features weren’t exactly pretty, but she looked bright and cheerful, and her smile was full of confidence.
Zhong Chengfeng, a detective. She was the daughter of Zhong Youde and Cheng Xuehua, and the sister that Zhong Chengshuo said he had never met.
Twenty-eight years ago, Zhong Chengfeng went missing during the “Divine Descent” incident. Her body so far had never been found to this day, and she was deemed “dead”.
……
Zhong Chengshuo quietly waited for a night, trying to feel every subtle change in his body.
There was no thirst or hunger, and no signs of decay. His reaction was a bit slow, but his body was still usable. The only thing that was terrible was that he had been waiting patiently for so long, and there was still no sign of his heart or head growing back.
Only gradually thickening fear accompanied him.
Besides this, there was only the unknown in front of him, which was the situation that Zhong Chengshuo disliked the most.
Even if he escaped from here… his parents knew nothing about his situation, and Shian would only monitor him. There was only one person who could make him feel at ease in the world. Deducting all possibilities and ending all worries, his endpoint was only one place—
Return to Yin Ren’s side.
Zhong Chengshuo quickly formulated the ultimate goal of this operation.
Time passed in nothingness, and finally, the sound of footsteps rang again. Zhong Chengshuo once again pretended to be a corpse and was pulled out of the morgue. That person was making a recording for Sunken Society while taking care of the “corpse”.
The voice and footsteps habits were exactly the same as last time. It seemed that his body was being taken care of by the same person.
No shift changes. That’s good.
Just as the researcher from Sunken Society turned around to replenish the preservative fluid for the “corpse” behind him, the “corpse” silently raised itself up.
A pair of cold hands reached for the side of the person’s neck and suddenly tightened—
Kinky Translations 