Chapter 54: Then Why Don’t You Join the Lan Yi Party? [4K]
As night fell, at the Three Gorges Psychiatric Hospital, in the number three duty room.
The number one and two duty rooms at the Three Gorges Psychiatric Hospital are occupied by spiritual ability users and members of the Special Action Team stationed at the psychiatric hospital.
The number three duty room, however, is specifically prepared for operatives of the Shancheng Siye Society, and usually remains idle, only to be used when a special “patient” is admitted.
At this moment, inside the number three duty room.
Under the pale light, Lin Kule sat at her desk, idly fiddling with her phone.
Lin Kule arrived at the Three Gorges Psychiatric Hospital this evening, responsible for the second interrogation of Tan Qiuming.
Although Jiang Li and Zhong Hui had already interrogated Tan Qiuming once during the day without detecting anything unusual, that didn’t mean the matter was resolved.
In fact, many urban legends and spiritual ability users possess the ability to seal, erase, or alter memories.
A few years ago, in a psychiatric hospital in Shaanxi, there was a spiritual ability user who used spirit patterns to perfectly hide the memories of their crimes, deceiving the operative of the Siye Society stationed at that hospital, ultimately causing a riot within the psychiatric hospital and leading to a large number of urban legends escaping.
Thus, having Jiang Li, who can “determine the truth,” interrogate once is not safe enough; they needed Lin Kule, a prodigy with exceptional talents, to conduct a review for peace of mind.
After all, the truth can also be misleading.
The time for the second interrogation was scheduled for ten o’clock at night, which was still over two hours away. Before that, Lin Kule could only pass the time with the game of Gomoku on her phone.
Due to the existence of certain special network urban legends, since the beginning of the year, significant locations like the Three Gorges Psychiatric Hospital had completely blocked the internet. Gomoku was the only form of entertainment she could find.
After winning five consecutive games, she dejectedly put down her phone, slumping into her chair like a pile of mud, letting out a long sigh.
“Ah——! So boring! I should have downloaded some movies or comics to bring along.”
Although board games are considered a good way to pass time for most people, for a spiritual ability user with god-like intuition like her, almost all board games in this world are dull.
To win a game, she usually just needs to follow her intuition’s guidance.
Even in luck-based card games, relying on intuitiveness, her win rate can exceed seventy percent; that’s why Jiang Li wanted to recruit her to sweep through the Dream Come True Entertainment City together.
Unfortunately, she had no talent for gambling at all and couldn’t learn to play cards, so Jiang Li ultimately gave up.
Using her seventy percent win rate from intuition to play board games is truly risky when facing those professional gamblers in the Dream Come True Entertainment City; not only would her win rate decrease, but it would also be extremely unstable, possibly resulting in seven small wins and three big losses in ten games.
“Ah, Lei Jie…” Lin Kule thought of Jiang Li, sighing softly, her brows knitted together as she laid her head on the desk, her eyes flickering with contemplation.
For someone who had once fallen into the hands of an illegal spiritual ability organization, that experience was like a deep wound that could be felt deeply; some, like Jiang Li, could recover, leaving only a shallow scar, while others would feel a lingering pain whenever it rained under a gloomy sky.
Lin Kule was one of those who would feel a lingering pain.
Although a girl under ten years old was captured and held in a real “haunted house” for several years, and managed to maintain her sanity upon rescue, that experience still left her with a significant psychological shadow.
This psychological shadow made her feel extremely conflicted upon discovering that Jiang Li was mingling with a high-level urban legend.
It was like finding out that her own sister was entangled with a heinous criminal; she worried about her sister going down a path of crime yet also feared that if she revealed the truth to the police, her sister would get arrested.
What made her indecisive was that her intuition, this time, seemed to be ineffective; no matter how many times she activated her spirit patterns, there was no response.
The answer from the spirit patterns seemed resolute, as if no matter what was done, it would always be right. This situation had only occurred once in Lin Kule’s limited life—when she faced the decision of whether to become an operative of the Siye Society.
Becoming a Siye Society operative was the right choice since it allowed her to protect more people, unlike her who suffered from the harms of illegal spiritual ability organizations or urban legends.
After undergoing the society’s scrutiny, adopting a pseudonym to return to an ordinary life wasn’t wrong either.
“What are you thinking about?”
A pleasant voice interrupted Lin Kule’s pondering.
Startled, she flinched slightly and turned to see Jiang Li sitting beside her, having arrived without her noticing, her eyes flashing with a hint of panic.
“Li Jie, when did you come?”
“Just now. I came with Senior Zhong; he asked me to assist you with Tan Qiuming’s second interrogation,” Jiang Li smiled gently.
“Oh, oh.” Lin Kule responded absentmindedly, noticing Jiang Li was sizing her up, biting her lip and instinctively turning her face away, momentarily falling into silence.
The way Jiang Li assessed her made her feel flustered.
It was a gaze that seemed gentle and plain at first glance, yet also felt as if it could inadvertently uncover the deepest, dirtiest secrets within a person’s heart.
“Uh, since there’s still some time until the interrogation, Li Jie, you sit here for a bit; I need to use the restroom first.”
Sensing an awkward situation, Lin Kule stood up to make her escape.
However, just as she got up and hadn’t even reached the door, she heard Jiang Li’s soft voice behind her, “Lin Kule, you have something on your mind.”
“I don’t! I don’t have anything! Don’t say that!”
Immediately throwing out a “three-part denial” reflexively, Lin Kule’s expression twisted as if being ravaged by a powerful hand.
“If that’s the case, why have you been avoiding me since you woke up?” Jiang Li asked.
Lin Kule, “… ”
“Your thoughts are too easy to read.” Jiang Li shook her head. “It was like that during training in the Siye Society, and it’s still like that now.”
At this point, she paused, tidying her hair, sitting up straight and saying, “I guess you’re avoiding me because of the urban legend you were with last night, right?”
Upon hearing this, Lin Kule froze up, utterly unprepared for Jiang Li to bring this matter up so directly, let alone the subsequent developments.
m*rder to silence her, or perhaps a proactive confession?
“She is Calamity; yes, the Urban Legend King of Huacheng.” Before Lin Kule could process it, Jiang Li continued, “I know her reputation isn’t great, but I’ve known her before she became an urban legend, and I might bear primary responsibility for her becoming one.”
“Lin Kule, I know quite well what she is like; her nature isn’t bad. You saw it last night; she even assisted us in investigating Han Ye Studio!”
Listening to Jiang Li’s words, Lin Kule turned around, trying to force a smile as she asked stiffly, “Lei Jie, why are you telling me this?”
“Because, to me, you’re very important!” Jiang Li stood up, walked to Lin Kule, placed her hands on her shoulders, and smiled. “You, Ahua, and her are all important to me. I don’t want any misunderstandings between us.”
This was Jiang Li’s genuine feeling; since Lin Kule kept secret the incident of Lu Yibei appearing at Han Ye Studio last night, she didn’t want Lin Kule to have any further misunderstandings.
She wasn’t the type to hide things from those close to her.
Of course, she still wouldn’t let a third party know that Lu Yibei was Calamity.
“Her?” Lin Kule tilted her head, “Are you referring to Calamity?”
After hearing Jiang Li’s explanation, the awkward feelings in her heart seemed to melt away like ice under the blazing sun.
Jiang Li remained silent, merely smiling in agreement with Lin Kule’s conjecture.
“Oh my god, she, Jiang Li!
Am I hallucinating?
She’s actually smiling as if she’s in love?
After a few seconds of silence, Lin Kule sighed, “Ah! I really can’t take you anymore. You’re actually friends with an urban legend? Are you still the Jiang Li I knew, who despises evil?”
Hearing Lin Kule say this, Jiang Li understood she wouldn’t linger on the matter of Lu Yibei any longer, and she secretly breathed a sigh of relief, smiling once more, “She’s different.”
“Different?” Lin Kule rolled her eyes, “What’s so different? If it weren’t for the fact that she’s a female urban legend, I’d think you have feelings for her.”
“Is it that obvious?” Jiang Li frowned.
“Obvious, very obvious!” Lin Kule said seriously, “I’ve never seen you display this kind of smile before.”
Jiang Li pressed her lips together, avoiding Lin Kule’s gaze and changing the subject, “Thanks for yesterday; thank you for keeping our secret.”
“Hey, what are we to each other?” Lin Kule waved her hand. “Your matters are my matters too!”
“Actually, I wanted to ask you for a small favor today.”
“Just say it.” Lin Kule blurted out.
As soon as she finished speaking, Jiang Li seized the opportunity, saying, “During the interrogation with Tan Qiuming later, could you give me two minutes to ask him some more personal questions?”
Jiang Li knew this action could be considered inappropriate, but she couldn’t shake off her reluctance after not being able to get information about her mother’s whereabouts from Tan Qiuming during the day.
Lin Kule looked at Jiang Li, her expression growing gloomy, “Lei Jie, I feel like everything you just said was just a setup for me!”
“You’ve learned badly from that urban legend, really!”
“He might know about my mother’s whereabouts,” Jiang Li explained.
Lin Kule was taken aback, her eyes widening, “Auntie isn’t already…”
“Okay, I get it. I’ll find a way to divert their attention later, but you need to ask quickly,” Jiang Li said.
“Mm, thank you.” Jiang Li said gently——
As night deepened, in Shancheng, at Qutang Gorge.
This is the western entrance of the Three Gorges, where the gorge is as narrow as a corridor, cliffs on both sides steep as city walls, while the downstream is turbulent, just as the poem states, “Even the Yellow Crane cannot surpass, and the monkey is worried to scale the cliffs.”
The mountains towering on both sides of Qutang Gorge, on the southern side is Baiyan Mountain, and on the northern side is Chijia Mountain, which from a distance appears as a giant and broken stone gate standing above the river surface, giving Qutang Gorge another name——Kuimen.
“Kuimen,” a divine creature, similar to a dragon but with one foot.
The “Classic of Mountains and Seas: Eastern Records of the Great Wilderness” states: “In the East China Sea, there’s a mountain named Flowing Wave Mountain, which extends seven thousand miles into the sea. On it, there’s a beast that looks like a cow, blue in color and hornless, with one foot. Whenever it comes or goes, there must be wind and rain, its light like the sun and moon, and its sound like thunder. Its name is Kuijiao.”
There are rumors that the reason Qutang Gorge is also called Kuimen is that an ancient Kuijiao once fell here, its flesh and bl**d becoming Chijia Mountain, while its bones transformed into Baiyan Mountain.
The Three Gorges Psychiatric Hospital is built on the northern side of Kuijiao, deep in Chijia Mountain.
“I think this legend holds some degree of credibility; the bl**d and flesh of urban legends contain large amounts of iron, and their bones contain large amounts of calcium. It’s reasonable to assume that they turned into minerals upon d*ath.” Lu Yibei said seriously, patting the shoulder of the girl next to her. “What do you think?”
“I…” The girl opened her mouth, grimacing, pleading, “Please let me off? I’m just a minor character.”
Having started from the downtown area and traveled by vehicle to the vicinity of Kuimen, once they boarded the ship, another member of the small team, due to anxiety from the spirit pattern powers, became seasick and fainted, having long since lost consciousness. The two big shots who had taken her captive were now discussing increasingly terrifying matters.
Not to mention, they didn’t conceal their calling out the names of divine beings at all during the conversation, which most spiritual ability users and urban legends wouldn’t dare to do.
For them to be able to do this, there could only be two possibilities: either they were the closest dependents of the divine being, or they were completely unafraid of it.
Falling into the hands of such terrifying beings, the girl felt that her life was but a flickering flame in the wind.
“Hey—! That’s where you’re wrong.” Lu Yibei interrupted the girl expressionlessly, “I’m asking you if my guess is reasonable; how can you divert the topic?”
Saying this, she subtly elbowed the nearby Jumeng.
Jumeng rolled her eyes at Lu Yibei, looking impatient, and played the support role. “That’s right; if you say that, we’re going to get angry!”
The girl,
It is said that those who can become big shots often have a somewhat twisted mindset; now it seems this statement is absolutely correct.
What kind of sin have I committed?
How could I encounter such a situation?
The girl thought and suppressed the impulse to cry, weakly replied, “Reasonable.”
After saying this, she barely lasted two seconds before pleading once again.
“I’m done answering your questions; you, uh, can you let me go? I’m willing to do anything to be let go!”
“Don’t be like that; we didn’t plan on forcing you to do anything.” Lu Yibei frowned. “We’re not that kind of people; we just want to chat with you.”
“I…” The girl opened her mouth, then gritted her teeth, “I’m willing! You can say what you want me to do!”
“That’s what you said!” Lu Yibei’s eyes lit up. “Then why don’t you join the Lan Yi Party?”
See! She joined willingly; I didn’t force her.
Member plus one!
The girl “…”
