Chapter 23: Cowherd, Barbarian, Sleeping Beauty
Huacheng, Changsheng Road, an old residential building, in a rented room on the top floor corner, the cheap wooden floor is stained red with bl**d, and the air is thick with the smell of bl**d.
A man looking to be in his early twenties lies in a pool of bl**d, his left hand and left foot have been chopped off, thrown into the corner of the room, and the gaping wound on his abdomen partially reveals his internal organs, with a sharpened pencil lodged in one of the eyes growing from his forehead.
Bai Kai squats on the ground after examining the corpse, shifting his gaze away from the kitchen kn*fe tightly gripped in the man’s right hand, he stands up, removes his gloves, adjusts his clothes, and turns to the members of the Special Action Team who have been waiting behind him.
“Brothers, the danger has been eliminated; the rest is up to you. Let me see that s*icide note we just found. I’ll go out for a smoke in the meantime.”
After saying that, he takes the bloody paper handed to him by a Special Action Team member and turns to leave the rented room.
Stepping into the hallway, Bai Kai leans against the window and starts reading the s*icide note left by the man in the sunlight.
[Perhaps I really am sick, but if I go to the hospital…]
The note only contains this clearly written sentence; the subsequent text descends into chaos, scribbled illegibly, like nonsensical graffiti, making it impossible to discern what the author intended to express.
However, the disordered lines and the bl**d stains splattered across the paper reveal the madness of the person who wrote this s*icide note in the final moments of life.
After reading the man’s s*icide note, he pulls a cigarette box from the inner pocket of his jacket, takes out a cigarette, lights it, and inhales deeply.
He has dealt with enough strange urban legend events and has seen many corpses in tragic states.
Although the Nightfall Syndrome patients who appeared in the past few days are not among the worst he has seen, they rank as one of the most heartbreaking deaths he has encountered.
When Bai Kai first arrived at the scene, he had asked the Special Action Team members to investigate the man’s information: twenty-one years old, not well-off, just graduated, found a meager-paying job, rented a cheap one-bedroom apartment, and had just settled down in Huacheng.
Like many people who are not well-off and are afraid to spend money, he seemed to have chosen to endure rather than go to the hospital after experiencing minor health issues.
However, the result was that he could not withstand the suffering brought by Nightfall Syndrome, eventually becoming mentally disturbed, chopping off his own limbs, slicing open his abdomen, and dying alone in the rented room.
Throughout the day, there were twenty-one Nightfall Syndrome patients visiting various hospitals in Huacheng.
But those were just the known patients; there might be even more, like the man who died in the rented room, who couldn’t afford a hospital, didn’t dare to go to the hospital, endured the pain alone, and waited for d*ath to arrive.
“d*mn it! That crazy woman… I shouldn’t have taken this job from the start, should’ve swapped with Li Xuan, chasing after that damned Solar Eclipse Society member with Xiao Yuan.”
Just thinking about how all this could have stemmed from Lu Yibei searching for Qin Nanzhu made Bai Kai unable to help but curse, then in a fit of frustration, he crumpled the s*icide note in his hand.
Just as he prepared to throw away the crumpled paper, a familiar yet irritating voice sounded behind him.
“Agent Bai Kai, wouldn’t this count as destroying evidence?”
Bai Kai turned around to see Qi Dong with a smirk on his lips, his expression darkening as he grabbed Qi Dong by the collar, speaking in a low voice, “You said you had a way to find Xiao Bei; it’s been two or three days since then, why is there still no news?”
Qi Dong rolled his eyes at Bai Kai, pushing his hand away, “I do know how, but we probably can’t go to that place; if we want to bring Lu Yibei back, we’ll need your help.”
“My help?” Bai Kai paused.
“Exactly.” Qi Dong nodded, “I know someone who came from that place.”
“Who?”
“Gu Xiliu.”
Bai Kai, “??? ”
What does that pigeon have to do with this?
Is it really okay to entrust her with such an important task?
——————
Late at night, Huacheng, Taigu Community, inside a residential home.
On the balcony, two middle-aged men have their arms crossed in front of their chests.
Their gazes penetrate through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, watching the chestnut-haired girl in a white dove onesie sleeping soundly in the room, her eyes slightly squinted and an ill-intentioned smile on her lips.
“Didn’t you say you knew her well? Didn’t you carefully review her dossier before coming? Why didn’t you know she locks all doors and windows when she sleeps at night?” Bai Kai said, somewhat regretfully.
Qi Dong shot Bai Kai a glance, replying flatly, “I’ve only observed her secretly before; I didn’t plan to intrude into her house. Not knowing this is quite normal, isn’t it?”
Bai Kai pursed his lips, then silently took the suona from his waist and began preparing to provide an enthusiastic midnight wake-up service for Gu Xiliu.
“d*mn!?” Qi Dong caught a glimpse of the suona in Bai Kai’s hand, his mouth twitching. “You seem quite experienced in this matter? Just how many times have you done this?”
“Just blew it seven or eight times at Amber Hall…”
Bai Kai replied nonchalantly, adjusting the reed, raising the suona to his lips, and just as he was about to blow, Qi Dong suddenly raised his hand, interrupting the “spell.”
“Wait.”
“What? If you’re not blowing that thing, are you going to smash the window?” Bai Kai asked in confusion.
“No.” Qi Dong looked at the girl in the room and said seriously, “Earlier when I told you this Gu agent came from that place, you didn’t believe me, did you?”
“Now that she’s sound asleep, just watch! The show is about to begin.”
A show? What kind of show? Bai Kai frowned, and just then, a strange and secretive spirit energy fluctuation suddenly spread out from Gu Xiliu’s bedroom.
Bai Kai had interacted with Gu Xiliu before, and he knew that this could not be her spirit energy fluctuation.
Surprised, he sharply turned to look and was met with an astonishing sight.
In the bedroom, accompanied by the sound of steady breathing, the light and shadow warped, the walls stretched and shrank irregularly.
Non-existent pillows, tables, chairs, and ornaments suddenly appeared out of nowhere, only to disappear in the blink of an eye; the teddy bear in the corner seemed to be tugged by some force, curling into a whirlpool, and fleeting, half-formed figures flickered in and out, rushing past, only to fade into the darkness after just a few steps.
In an instant, the whole bedroom seemed to be experiencing a kind of indescribable spatial distortion centered around Gu Xiliu, breaking the laws of logic.
“Is she always like this when she sleeps?” Bai Kai exclaimed, “This can’t be right. If she was always like this, she would have long been captured by those who covet Qin Nanzhu’s power and devoured alive, even if…”
He once witnessed Gu Xiliu fainting after listening to Li Xuan speak for just three sentences at a meeting of the Siye Society, the scene had been awkward to the extreme.
However, there hadn’t been any anomalies at that time.
“You mean, even if she isn’t captured by the forces of evil, she should have been taken to be observed by those lunatics in the headquarters’ research institute, right?” Qi Dong said, glancing at Bai Kai.
Bai Kai remained silent, but his expression silently confirmed the answer.
“You actually have a point.” Qi Dong shrugged, “If she really were like this all the time, she wouldn’t even have the chance to become a Siye operative.”
Spirit users with unstable spirit patterns or spiritual abilities cannot only not become Siye operatives but also need to be controlled and observed.
“However, her situation wasn’t this severe before; she only occasionally had slightly extended sleep times that caused minor, nearly undetectable distortions.”
“Like, suddenly a pen disappears, the unfinished chips seem to be gone, or a phone or keys go missing… at this level, if someone notices, they’ll only think someone picked it up and took it or that they forgot it somewhere.”
“……”
d*mn it! I’ve often found my signature pens, toothpicks, lighters mysteriously disappearing after a while in the office, like urban legends. So it was her causing all the trouble?
Muttering to himself, Bai Kai turned to Qi Dong, “I understand what you mean now; your point is that her situation has gradually intensified with the recent strange events happening in Huacheng?”
“Exactly.” Qi Dong nodded. “It’s precisely because of this that my suspicion that she came from that place has turned into certainty.”
“Got it.” Bai Kai nodded, raising the suona to his lips.
Their piercing and harsh sound, akin to the scraping of metal, filled the Taigu Community…
——————
That night, in Huacheng’s Taigu Community.
On a soft pink mattress, the girl in the white dove onesie sleeps soundly with her eyes tightly closed, her body curve pleasing to the eye, her face damp like a freshly ripe peach, giving an impulse to touch her.
Gu Xiliu has always slept more than her peers.
In a twenty-four-hour day, she spends at least half of her time asleep.
Every time she falls asleep, she vaguely sees the outline of a city in her dreams, a city that constantly calls out to her without sound.
That call, full of plaintive yearning, carries a hint of indescribable warmth, like a mother calling out to her child, making one unable to resist wanting to throw themselves into her arms.
And every time Gu Xiliu can’t help but response to that tender call, she instantly falls into a deep slumber.
Later on, after joining the Siye Society and drawing the spirit pattern【Heroic Spirit: Zhuangzi’s Butterfly】, this condition worsened, causing her to sleep for fifteen or sixteen hours a day.
Thus, she often collapses on the street, at home, in conference rooms, and any place imaginable… uncontrollably falling asleep.
Recently, she doesn’t know why, but the frequency of that city calling to her has increased, and the scenes she sees in her dreams have become clearer.
She dreams of entering that city, wandering through unfamiliar streets, searching for someone, going days without eating a bite.
The intense sourness in her stomach from hunger feels particularly real, lingering even after waking, leading to bouts of overeating.
In just a week, she gained five pounds!
In her most recent dream, she even fantasized about being kidnapped by a terrifying woman, subjected to barbaric torture, with a humidifier violently stuffed into her mouth…
……
Tonight, Gu Xiliu ate a lot of food in advance, drank a bit of warm milk, took a hot shower, and went to bed early, falling asleep not long after.
She slept so beautifully and sweetly, like the Sleeping Beauty in a fairy tale.
But tonight, instead of the witch casting a curse upon the sleeping beauty, two nonchalant, monstrous uncles showed up.
“Woooo—!”
The sound carried a weak fluctuation of spirit energy, like a call from the underworld, almost deafening.
Gu Xiliu jolted awake in an instant; the chaotic phenomena in the room dissipated, and everything returned to normal.
Rubbing her eyes, she sat up and looked out the window, seeing the two “strange uncles” with unhappy smiles on the balcony, tilted her head, and quietly pulled out her phone from under the pillow, dialing the police.
“Hello, is it the police? There’s a thief in my house!”
Still in a blur, Gu Xiliu, not fully awake, spotted Bai Kai and Qi Dong, her first instinct was to call the police.
“Uh-huh! I will protect myself!”
Bai Kai and Qi Dong, “??? ”
————
In Huacheng, New District Police Station, holding cell, with two men inside.
One is a gigolo exuding an air of “you’re here every time there’s a crackdown on prostitution.”
The other looks like he could punch through someone’s skull with just a “What are you looking at?” glare.
Bai Kai eyed Qi Dong for a long time, finally unable to hold back the silence, “This is your so-called plan? I didn’t think Gu Xiliu would call the police!”
As he spoke, he raised his hand and quietly cast a simple spell formula that isolated their conversation.
After Gu Xiliu finished her call to the police, she ran to the adjacent room, locked the door, and continued to bury her head in sleep, not seeing Bai Kai and Qi Dong’s faces. Coupled with the earlier terrifying suona sound, made Gu Xiliu’s neighbors particularly “enthusiastic.” Therefore, the two were happily sent away by the police after their arrival.
Although the Siye Society has maintained a long-term cooperative relationship with the police, they weren’t truly detained as criminals, but being law-abiding citizens, they still had to go through the standard process.
“If only you had followed my advice, we should have gone through the proper procedures and brought Gu Xiliu in to assist us in handling the incident.”
Qi Dong turned to glare hard at Bai Kai, his eyes gleaming as if wanting to carve a piece of flesh from him.
“Shut the hell up!”
“You don’t remember when Nan Zhu just passed away, all the factions scrambled for her legacy and turned Huacheng into a mess? You want to see that tragedy replay itself?”
Hearing Qi Dong mention past events, Bai Kai immediately closed his mouth. In the silence, he stared deeply at the corner of the holding cell, his thoughts gradually drifting back to Huacheng, shrouded in shadows, intertwined with bl**d and fire…
