Chapter 27: It’s Not a Big Deal!
Huacheng, Infectious Disease Hospital, outside a certain isolation room.
Looking at the unconscious and swollen Silver Horn, who resembled a ball, Gold Horn couldn’t help but sigh.
“Hey—!”
Although he often bickered with Silver Horn and complained about his low emotional intelligence, after working together for two or three years, he had long regarded Silver Horn as a brother.
Now, seeing his brother suffer and being unable to help, Gold Horn couldn’t help but feel melancholic.
Shanhaiguan has always been filled with numerous urban legend tales and housed a large number of Siye Society operatives.
Given the seriousness of the situation, dozens of Siye Society operatives acted together, and in just half a day, they had investigated leads on the bionic monster, ruling out the possibility of it being the source of the Nightfall Syndrome in Huacheng.
The scope of the source was suddenly narrowed down to just the Inheritance Beast, but they had hit a stalemate.
Although the Nightfall Syndrome outbreak in Huacheng had been well controlled with the help of the alchemical potion developed by Silver Horn, and Beres had been imprisoned, making the situation seem very good.
However, this was just temporary.
According to the intelligence held by the Siye Society, the power of the Inheritance Beast would change and strengthen as it copied abilities.
Once it copied a powerful urban legend ability, its power would increase, and there was a risk that the Nightfall Syndrome outbreak in Huacheng could reignite.
They couldn’t always let Silver Horn risk his life to test the poison and develop suppressive potions, could they?
Although this was a solution when there were no other options, it ultimately wasn’t a long-term plan, and…
He really couldn’t stand Silver Horn’s current state… Gold Horn thought, glancing at Silver Horn who was unconscious in the isolation room, sighing silently.
“Tap, tap, tap—!”
The sound of boots colliding with the ground rang out.
A member of the Special Action Team hurried down the corridor and stopped in front of Gold Horn, “Mr. Secretary, that prisoner…”
The Special Action Team member’s words were cut off by Gold Horn’s gesture for silence.
“This isn’t the place to report, let’s go over there and talk.”
Gold Horn looked around, quickly walking towards the safe passage at the end of the corridor, then waved for the Special Action Team member to follow.
As the member approached, he whispered a spell and cast a simple sound-isolating spell, stating seriously, “Let’s hear it, what’s the situation? Has he confessed anything?”
“N-no…”
“If he hasn’t, why did you come to find me?”
“W-well…” the Special Action Team member stammered, “I came to report that B2016 not only hasn’t confessed but has been continuously attempting to escape; in just half a day, he has already tried over twenty times, nearly bleeding himself dry.”
“If this continues…”
“You’re afraid he’ll end up killing himself?” Gold Horn asked.
“Yes.”
“Hmph!” Gold Horn snorted coldly. “If he wants to court d*ath, let him. I’ll go over later and transfer him to the lowest-level cell!”
“All right, thank you for the trouble, we’ll leave it at that for now?”
“Yes!” The Special Action Team member replied, turning to leave.
————
In the evening, Amber Hall.
Amid the vast red clouds, the old courtyard revealed a sense of decay.
Inside the eerie and quiet building, at the end of the corridor on the top floor, a dark wooden door was slightly ajar, crimson sunset casting a sliver of light through the gap, illuminating a thin beam on the wooden floor.
Inside the room, Jiang Li stood in front of the full-length mirror in the wardrobe, wrapped in a bath towel, her damp long hair coiled up and emitting a bit of steam, with a few glistening droplets of water on her pale and slightly thin shoulders.
With no one around, she picked up a hidden silver lotus pendant from the bedside table, returned to the mirror, gently unwound the bath towel, turned around, and using the soft light of the bedside lamp, illuminated the smooth expanse of her back, revealing the dark sun totem.
Suddenly recalling something, she furrowed her brows, a cold glint flashing in her eyes. Grasping the pendant, she lightly twisted her wrist, and silver light sparkled from her fingertips.
She parted her pink lips, softly chanting a Sanskrit spell, accompanied by what resembled an ancient hymn. The silver light from her fingertips grew even more brilliant, transforming into dazzling gold in an instant, and amid the golden glow, lotus petals seemed to dance around.
Under her spirit energy’s guidance, the silver pendant flew into the air, spiraling toward the ceiling.
Outside, the sunset gradually sank below the horizon; the room grew darker, yet the golden light emanating from the pendant intensified.
With a thought from Jiang Li, the pendant surrounded by golden light suddenly plummeted toward the black tattoo on her back, tracing an arc of golden light in midair, like a shooting star.
Just as the pendant was about to touch the black tattoo, it suddenly collided with an invisible wall, emitting a muffled sound, and golden arcs of electricity spread outwards.
“Boom—!”
The pendant hovered just a finger’s breadth away from Jiang Li’s skin, spinning rapidly, creating even more dazzling light.
In that instant, Jiang Li’s body twitched as if electrocuted, her complexion paled. A wave of intense pain felt as though it was trying to strip her soul away, but she bit her lip and didn’t make the slightest sound.
A wisp of black mist slithered from the black tattoo on her back and infused into the silver pendant.
Before long, the pendant ceased its spinning, as if it had exhausted all its energy, falling onto the wooden floor with a light “thud!”
“Gurgle… gurgle…” The pendant that fell began to sway from side to side on the ground.
The swirling golden light and bright silver surface dimmed at a visible speed, and within a few breaths, the silver lotus transformed into pure black.
Then…
“Crack!” It shattered.
Hearing the sound of the pendant breaking, Jiang Li paused for a moment, coming back to her senses, her pupils constricting, her face changing to a shade of green and white, and she quickly looked down.
On the ground, the black lotus petals lay in disarray, scattered everywhere.
Looking at the completely damaged pendant, her gaze turned colder.
In that instant, she suddenly felt that when she was in front of the cold storage door, she should have risked being disciplined for a year and killed Beres with a kn*fe.
Since meeting Beres earlier, the Solar Eclipse Society totem on her back had become active, forcing her to take out this pendant to suppress it, unexpectedly resulting in its damage.
While there were many other spirit energy items that could replace this pendant to continue suppressing the Solar Eclipse Society totem.
But…
“Squeak!”
The room’s door opened, and Ahua entered, holding clean clothes. Upon seeing the broken pendant on the ground, her eyes widened in shock.
“Oh no! How could the pendant given by the benefactor…”
As she spoke, Ahua looked at Jiang Li’s gloomy face, smiled widely, and quickly changed her tone to comfort, “Miss, don’t be sad. Even though the pendant from the benefactor is broken, you’ve found Luxianbei now, right? Just ask him to send you an identical one later, and it’ll be fine, right?”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Li’s expression softened slightly, and she playfully chided Ahua, “Ahua, have you become more gossipy lately? Almost catching up to Li Xuan.”
After speaking, she looked at Ahua, who was sticking out her tongue and acting coy, gently shook her head, bent down to pick up the pendant pieces, and carefully placed them in the jewelry box.
Luxianbei, where on earth did he go?
Not even his dependents or the Urban Legends Chat Group knows… Jiang Li thought.
————
In the early morning, Huacheng, the faculty courtyard of the Polytechnic University, at Luxianbei’s home.
While enduring excruciating pain from within, Luxianbei fainted, realizing he might have crossed the line into self-destruction.
In that moment when the nerves “snapped,” and consciousness plunged into silence, everything before her rapidly fragmented, spreading like formless gas and shattered crystal, slowly merging into darkness.
She didn’t know how long it had been, probably only a few hours, yet it felt like several years had passed.
A wave of hot wind blew by, carrying dust and small debris that brushed against Luxianbei’s face, causing a tingling sensation.
“Ugh…”
Accompanied by a soft murmur, she opened her eyes.
Thus, the illusory bubbles shattered, darkness slowly unfolded like a giant curtain, revealing the scene hidden behind it.
Amid intense dizziness and pain, she saw a deserted and dilapidated residential area.
Those buildings made of red bricks were square, resembling architecture from the 70s and 80s, most rooms were pitch black, and several broken metal pipes hung down from the walls.
The windows were shattered, and the gray curtains were unrecognizable, fluttering like ghosts against the bare red brick walls.
Moss climbed the surrounding walls, wild grass grew rampantly in the open spaces, and in the distance, the charred chimneys stood tall, as if reaching the ends of the sky, lonely and desolate.
It seemed to be a factory.
In the sky, the sunlight appeared distorted by some force, casting dim, gray rays.
Beneath the sky, everything was silent; the entire factory seemed long dead, reduced to a “corpse,” transformed into ruins.
The fierce wind blowing in the air was soundless, carrying a scorching sensation that slapped against one’s face.
The wind carried black dust generated by raging fires, fluttering before her like swarms of butterflies, mocking maliciously.
Where… is this place? Luxianbei wondered.
“Wuwu… wuwuwu…”
Suddenly, a child’s cry shattered the intense silence.
The cry was repressed, as if desperately trying to refrain from making any sound.
Following the direction from which the sound came, vague shadows emerged from the factory entrance.
They were clustered together, dozens of them lined up in a long queue, murmuring something continuously.
Luxianbei couldn’t hear what they were whispering, but she could feel the power embedded in their words: blasphemy, rebellion, and hope.
Under the distorted sunlight, their figures appeared ghostly, their outlines blurred…
Except for one little girl.
At the front of the long line, the leading figure cradled a little girl, who looked about five or six years old, with a round face, mushroom haircut, and strands of deep chestnut hair.
Luxianbei furrowed her brows, “…” Doesn’t she resemble Gu Qiqi a bit?
The little girl was snuggling against the leading figure’s chest, her small hands tightly clutching the clothing, softly sobbing, her eyes, reminiscent of fine agate, were clouded with tears.
Watching those ghost-like figures lead the little girl away, Luxianbei abruptly came to her senses and shouted at them.
“What do you want to do with her? Where are you taking her!?”
However, no one seemed to hear her; they gradually moved away.
Luxianbei’s voice echoed in the factory ruins. Above, it seemed something had been awakened by her voice, opening its eyes and casting her an indifferent glance.
In that gaze, she didn’t feel any overt malice, but a sense of inexplicable fear rose from deep within her.
That feeling was akin to the time in her childhood when she made drunken crabs for her father, only to be discovered later that the cooking used her grandfather’s 1971 Kweichow Moutai. The way he looked at her…
That day, although she wasn’t beaten to d*ath, she spent most of that summer vacation bedridden.
Suddenly, the space began to shake violently.
“Hmph—!”
A soft, lazy yet somewhat domineering nasal voice seemed to cross countless voids, coming from far away. The dim gray sunlight in the sky was instantly ignited, pouring astonishing heat down to the earth.
In an instant, the sunlight became fierce and extraordinarily venomous.
Bathing in this sunlight, the painful sensation like a potent poison rampaged within Luxianbei’s consciousness.
“Squeak—zzz—crackle—!”
It sounded as if sharp objects were scraping against a blackboard, wires short-circuiting and igniting sparks, and a large number of papers being shredded… a cacophony of maddening noises mixed with incomprehensible murmurs rang in her ears.
Increasingly more, increasingly stronger, increasingly chaotic.
In this noise, her dream began to turn illusory and hazy; everything faded away and shattered…
————
In the sudden violent turbulence, Luxianbei abruptly broke free from the dream, trembling as she awakened from it, the chaotic thoughts in her mind creeping slowly like worms, then settling down into silence.
Opening her eyes, sunlight streamed through the curtain’s gaps.
For a moment, before her consciousness fully detached from the dream, as soon as she felt the sunlight, a flicker of fear unexpectedly surged within her, and instinctively, she recoiled into the corner.
“Hu… hu…”
Crouched in the corner of her bed against the wall, she took a few breaths, looked around, and realized she was back in her own bedroom, letting out a sigh of relief.
What on earth is going on?
A couple of days ago, she had only dreamt of things related to herself, yet this time she dreamt about someone else’s affairs… Could it be related to the notebook discovered at Banshan Apartment?
Was the scene I dreamed of an event experienced by the notebook’s owner?
Luxianbei thought, rubbing her head, her fingers threading through her silvery long hair, the silky sensation at her fingertips making her pause slightly, but soon her furrowed brow relaxed, a hint of enlightenment appearing in her eyes.
“…”
Wasn’t it like this the night before last too?
Just an illusion, at most only Gu Qiqi and I could see it.
It’s not a big deal!
Luxianbei thought, still hesitating as she got off the bed, planning to go to the bathroom to wash up briefly and check her stunning beauty.
Fair skin, beautiful looks, and long legs—who wouldn’t love the white-haired special agent from Z Country?
Even if it’s just seeing my reflection in the mirror, being able to look at it every morning wouldn’t be a delightful thing to energize me for the entire day.
Then…
As soon as she got out of bed, her pants slid effortlessly to the floor, a chill brushing against her skin; she instantly froze, petrified at the spot.
“Gulp—!”
Luxianbei swallowed hard, her gaze slowly shifting downward, past her flat and fair abdomen, and onto her flawless legs reminiscent of jade pillars.
“…”
Who just said there was no problem?
This time, there’s a huge problem!
No, no, this is an illusion!
She tentatively moved her feet.
In her view, those delicate, pink toes wiggled as if they were cutely saying, “Aren’t we cute? We’re definitely your toes! Your second brother is indeed dead!”
In that instant, her pupils constricted, breathing quickened, heart rate escalated, and bl**d pressure fluctuated like a fund graph.
Luxianbei, “!!!”
(,#ﾟДﾟ)
Impossible, my second brother is invincible!
