Chapter 67 Sea Without Light 67
“Are you ready?”
At nine o’clock in the evening, Night Cicada opened the teleportation portal and arrived at Kui Xin’s residence.
“I’ve been ready for a long time.” Kui Xin stood up from the sofa, “The sooner we go, the sooner we can come back and rest.”
As she put on her mask, Night Cicada observed her complexion. “Those dark circles under your eyes are really something.”
“During this critical period, my work is twenty-four hours without a break.” Kui Xin glanced at him, “It would be strange if I didn’t have dark circles.”
“You’re working hard.” Night Cicada opened his arms, inviting Kui Xin into the teleportation portal.
Silverface wanted to follow Kui Xin inside.
“You stay here and keep watch.” Night Cicada smiled as he put an arm around Silverface, “There’s no task tonight, Lady Fortune has to go back to headquarters to take care of something.”
“Oh… farewell.” Silverface waved at Kui Xin’s back.
Kui Xin passed through the portal and arrived in the silver-white corridor.
The spotless floor reflected the lights, and a blue beam scanned Kui Xin from head to toe.
“Identity confirmed, ‘Lady Fortune’, welcome back.” Eden said.
“Pfft.” Night Cicada laughed behind Kui Xin, “I always want to laugh when I see others call you Lady Fortune. Red probably calls you by your codename the most, right? How does he manage to call you ‘Lady Fortune’ with such a straight face?”
“Do you have any objections to my codename?” Kui Xin turned to look at him.
“Of course not.” Night Cicada grinned, “Let’s go, miss, I’ll take you to see the prisoner.”
Even though Night Cicada called Kui Xin “miss” every time, he never really treated her like one; he spoke to her very casually. In Night Cicada’s mind, those three words were just a teasing nickname, and Kui Xin’s position in the organization was not high enough to warrant absolute priority.
“Let’s go check out the appetizer first.” Night Cicada said. “Did the boss talk to you about the ‘players’?”
“She mentioned it a bit.” Kui Xin replied.
“Then let me explain it in detail.” Night Cicada crossed his arms and led her down the corridor, “The story starts with my mission in White Whale City.”
He didn’t elaborate on what mission he was on in White Whale City but instead went straight into the narrative.
“The first person to expose themselves was Doreen Sinclair, the female assistant at the biomechanical research institute. She is the so-called player, our first contact with a player. The player took over Ms. Sinclair’s body, disguised themselves as her, and lived her life, but it seems that the player doesn’t possess Ms. Sinclair’s memories; she could only forcibly disguise herself.”
“Without memories, it would be easy to notice something was off.” Kui Xin said.
Night Cicada nodded, “Exactly. She went to work, but when she reached the door, she couldn’t even remember the password to the duty room. How could a laboratory technician forget the duty password? Her abnormal behavior caught the attention of her colleagues, so they reported it, and we began to monitor Ms. Sinclair.”
“Ms. Sinclair is Reynir’s assistant?” Kui Xin asked.
“Yes. Pulling up a radish brings out the mud; soon, we discovered that Reynir was also exhibiting abnormal behavior.” Night Cicada said. “Reynir was not reckless in how he responded; he first took a few days off and locked himself in his room. I think he was researching how to live in this world… Anyway, after a few days, his break ended, and he had to return to work. During his leave, we didn’t notice any irregularities.”
Kui Xin curiously asked, “How did Reynir expose himself?”
“The elevator.” Night Cicada said lightly, “In White Whale City, the elevators are voice-activated. Reynir didn’t know that, and he stood there in the elevator, confused, trying to figure out if there was a floating touchscreen button or something. Eventually, he remembered to try talking… This scene was caught on the elevator’s surveillance camera. He was quite lucky; he happened to run into a colleague on the way and entered the lab together; otherwise, he would have been stuck at the door trying to guess the password.”
“But his behavior in the elevator had already attracted the organization’s attention.” Kui Xin said, “I assume you had more than just this piece of evidence to confirm his identity, right? Did he exhibit any other abnormal behaviors?”
“After we noticed Reynir’s irregularity, we also monitored him and set up mini-cameras in his residence.” Night Cicada chuckled, “Guess what? The cameras caught him studying a home projector… It was hilarious; he fiddled with it for several days without understanding how it worked. I think his experience in the elevator’s voice switch inspired him; he guessed that he could control these devices with his voice. But there was an unexpected twist: Dr. Reynir Brandonberg of the biomechanical research institute had set the power-on command for the smart appliance to the name of a cat he had as a child. Since the player inhabiting Reynir didn’t know the name of his cat, he never guessed the power-on command for the home projector.”
This fellow is simply too unlucky; the compatriots I’ve encountered are all exceptionally unfortunate.
Zejian landed in a mental hospital, Xi Liang was paralyzed after being hit by a rich second generation, and Reynir turned into someone involved in the Mechanized Dawn research.
“Wasn’t he behaving oddly enough in the lab? He’s possessed a researcher, isn’t it strange that there were no operational issues?” Kui Xin asked.
Night Cicada said, “He seems to have some foundational knowledge; while in the lab, his dissection skills were quite professional. I suspect his identity in their world was a doctor… or a soldier.”
“This gets interesting.” Kui Xin mused, “Didn’t Reynir and Doreen meet? Did they connect lines?”
“Well, you’ve hit on a key issue. Players don’t seem to be aware of each other’s identities. Initially, there was no overlap between Doreen and Reynir until Reynir overheard Doreen quietly insulting a male colleague, only then did they confirm each other’s identities. I guess Doreen’s insults were probably slang unique to their world…”
Kui Xin asked, “What slang?”
“Um… It seems to be something like ‘Donald Trump wouldn’t dare say something this outrageous.'” Night Cicada frowned, stroking his chin, “Who is Donald Trump?”
Kui Xin: “…”
Suddenly wanting to laugh.
“So what happened next? Did they become friends after confirming their identities?” Kui Xin probed.
“Yeah, pretty much. The important research personnel were replaced by individuals of unknown identity using bizarre methods. This is a significant issue, and it’s not an isolated incident; two people have already been replaced, and surely many similar matters are happening in places beyond our reach. The boss is concerned that if these two meet, they might conspire to do something detrimental to the organization, so we were ordered to catch them quickly. Thus, we continued monitoring them for a few days, and after confirming they had no special abilities, we proceeded with the arrest.”
“And during the arrest, Doreen died?” Kui Xin asked.
“Exactly. It’s a pity, we lost an important source of intelligence.” Night Cicada said, “The arresting personnel were a bit too rough; her head hit the ground, causing a brain hemorrhage that killed her. As for Reynir… that guy is tough; we couldn’t extract any useful information from interrogation.”
“Why did the players suddenly appear in our lives?” Kui Xin asked. “This sounds like a story only a third-rate screenwriter would write, throwing players from another world into another world…”
“But it indeed happened, and since it did, we need to find a way to deal with it.” Night Cicada said, “We still don’t know the intentions of those players arriving in our world, nor do we even know how many of them there are.”
“Tsk, more and more troublesome matters are piling up.” Kui Xin said, “Dealing with the Investigation Bureau is already annoying enough, and now a bunch of inexplicable people have emerged.”
Night Cicada said, “You need to keep an eye on the Investigation Bureau; who knows, you might be sent to capture players as well.”
“I will be cautious.” Kui Xin replied, “By the way, isn’t there a third player?”
“Yes.” Night Cicada said, “The manager of the Rick Technology branch company is Zhao Hansheng; he has a son named Zhao Wenyao. Zhao Hansheng and his wife discovered that their son Zhao Wenyao seemed to have transformed entirely; not only had he lost all his memories, but his habits had changed too. Zhao Hansheng felt that his son… was no longer his original son. Afterwards, Zhao Hansheng began to limit Zhao Wenyao’s outings. Zhao Wenyao noticed the change in his parents’ attitudes and tried to sneak away…”
“That sounds terrifying; a family member you live with every day suddenly has a different soul.” Kui Xin commented blandly. “But sneaking away? This player seems rather foolish.”
“He didn’t manage to run away,” Night Cicada shrugged, “Mr. Zhao reported this matter, and I went to capture Zhao Wenyao.”
“The appetizer you mentioned to me wouldn’t be Zhao Wenyao, would it?” Kui Xin asked.
Night Cicada smiled, “That’s him. This kid is locked in the isolation room; we haven’t given him food, just a little water, and his willpower is far weaker than Reynir. After just a few missed meals, he broke down, crying loudly in the room…”
“I thought players were supposed to be strong…” Kui Xin pretended to ponder.
“It’s clear that Zhao Wenyao is not strong; he’s an ordinary person—an ordinary person with weak willpower.” Night Cicada said, “We haven’t had time to interrogate him yet, so you can be the first one to interrogate him.”
“Okay.” Kui Xin nodded without hesitation.
They arrived at the tightly shut door; after scanning it, a gap opened in the center of the door and slid apart.
Inside was a spacious room, divided in half by a layer of transparent glass, with the isolation room, that is, the cell, on the side behind the glass.
On the floor of the cell lay a young man who looked about eighteen or nineteen years old, with an unremarkable appearance. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot, indicating he had been crying for a long time.
When Zhao Wenyao saw Kui Xin and Night Cicada enter, he pushed back a few steps with his legs and cried out, “Why are you locking me up here? Where are my dad and mom? I want to see them!” Tears streamed down Zhao Wenyao’s face as he shivered in fear, “I want to find a lawyer and sue you; this is illegal detention!”
Kui Xin silently looked at Night Cicada. “Maybe you should interrogate him… I just want to hit him when I see him crying like that…”
“I’ll handle the interrogation; if I need to hit him, I’ll let you take over.” Night Cicada proposed.
“Fine by me.” Kui Xin agreed.
“Then you can hit him now.” Night Cicada said, “Give him a beating first, so he knows what’s what.”
He snapped his fingers, and the isolation glass lowered automatically. Zhao Wenyao watched them in terror, pressing his body against the wall.
“Just don’t kill him.” Night Cicada kindly reminded.
