Several hours later, on the highway.
“Quanshan County Health Center was established in the 1980s, near the county’s mountain region. Conditions there were extremely poor. Three years ago, late one night, an electrical fire broke out because of aging wiring, causing heavy casualties.” In the passenger seat, a woman in a white medical coat held the file and raised an eyebrow. “Afterward, the health center was completely abandoned, and for a while, there were ghost stories about it locally.”
To avoid drawing attention from the locals, they had switched to a smaller car after entering the county. In the back seat, Bai Sheng arrogantly stretched out his long legs and took up two seats. Shen Zhuo had been squeezed up against the window by him, arms folded, eyes closed in a fake doze as he pretended not to see anything.
“Shui Ronghua, medical examiner for the Shenhai City Supervision Office. She was three years ahead of me at school,” Chen Miao introduced eagerly while driving personally. Then he jerked a thumb toward the back seat. “Brother Bai.”
Bai Sheng rubbed his chin thoughtfully and looked the female medical examiner up and down. “I’m discovering that your Supervision Office has a serious nepotism problem. Supervisor Shen is your senior, the medical examiner is your senior alumna, the Second Operations Team Leader is your junior... Don’t tell me your civil-service positions are still running on academic hereditary succession?”
Shui Ronghua’s long curls were pinned up at the back of her head. She looked mature, alluring, and capable as she smiled. “Our Central Research Institute was originally in genetic engineering. When evolution happened five years ago, meteorites from across the country were all sent to our school, which caused a lot of students to undergo sudden evolution overnight. Even Yue Yang and Fu Chen were—”
Shen Zhuo shifted slightly.
Shui Ronghua’s voice stopped at once. After a moment, she smiled and continued, “...also fellow alumni from our institute. So when you add it all up, everyone is connected somehow. We recommend each other for jobs.”
Bai Sheng laughed and tipped his chin toward the metal collar around Shui Ronghua’s neck. “Beautiful, you’re Class A?”
“I’m not combat-type. Just a weak Class A.” Shui Ronghua blinked. “If we run into danger later, make sure you go first. I’ll transfer this fieldwork stipend to you afterward. How does that sound, handsome?”
Bai Sheng said modestly, “Oh, how could I accept? Outstanding students of the New Era Male Virtue Program like me would be dragged out and physically castrated if we hid behind a lady in danger. That reminds me, gorgeous, how about giving me an internal recommendation? I bet all Supervisor Shen is thinking right now is how to kick me out of this car. I’ve been jobless and mooching off my parents for ages...”
Just then, the car stopped. An officer ran down from the car ahead and knocked on the window. “Team Leader, we’re here!”
Ahead, the mountains and forest rose and fell. In the open wilderness stood a charred, ruined building. The upper two floors had burned down almost entirely to their concrete frame. Only half of the ground floor still had a recognizable shape, barely showing the county-town style of the 1980s.
Shen Zhuo straightened, opened the door, and got out. But he did not leave at once. Instead, he turned, braced one hand on the car door, and looked steadily at Bai Sheng.
“Our humble office’s hiring requirements state that permanent employees must have at least a master’s degree in science, engineering, literature, or history. Biochemistry, environmental sciences, and materials science are all acceptable, but philosophy majors are not. My apologies, Mr. Bai.”
The air went still.
Bai Sheng looked utterly incredulous, as if he could not believe his ears. After a long pause, he took a deep breath and said solemnly,
“‘Philosophy is the pursuit of knowledge in its broadest and most general form. Philosophy is the mother of all sciences’—Albert Einstein, 1905.”
Shen Zhuo replied politely, “Philosophy is dead. Stephen Hawking, 2010.”
“...”
Shen Zhuo said, “My condolences to your mother.” Then he slammed the car door and walked away.
Although it was said to be in the county, the place was actually on the outskirts, near the mountains. With population migration and farmland degradation, the surroundings looked even more desolate.
The charred walls stood exposed. The shattered old glass windows looked like hollow eyes, like a silent tomb beneath the vast sky.
The fire three years ago had reportedly started on the third floor, so the higher they went, the worse the destruction became. The wooden boards overhead had all curled and split open like huge dead fish scales. The cracked floor was piled with charcoal-black debris. On the wall of one second-floor corridor, messy black handprints covered the surface. They must have been left by people panicking and trying to escape.
“They didn’t get out.” Shui Ronghua motioned for Shen Zhuo to look at the bend in the staircase. At the end of the handprints, where they disappeared, there was a small, curled, carbonized black shadow imprinted in the corner.
That was the last trace left by an escapee.
“The health center burned down three years ago. Three years ago, after the Noda siblings were expelled from the Round Table, they came all the way here. Is there a connection?” Chen Miao rubbed his chin in thought. “Could they have set the fire?”
Shui Ronghua reminded him matter-of-factly, “But the fire happened one month before they were expelled from the Round Table.”
“That still doesn’t make sense. An abandoned health center with ghost stories about it—locals don’t even come here. How did she learn about this place? What here would interest an extremist evolutionist?” Chen Miao suddenly had an inspiration. He turned nervously to Shen Zhuo. “Senior, don’t tell me there’s some ultimate weapon hidden in this health center that can destroy humanity!”
Shen Zhuo slowly turned his head and stared at him, pupils motionless, face utterly expressionless.
Everyone was very familiar with this scene. Back at the institute, twenty-year-old Professor Shen had looked at a classroom full of Muggle students with the exact same eyes.
“...” Chen Miao said self-consciously, “Got it, Senior. I’ll think harder.”
Looking out through the window, they could see the four officers they had brought park the cars downstairs and begin swiftly searching the entire building, using instruments to carefully scan the surroundings for any minute ability fluctuations.
Bai Sheng sat sulking in the car, phone in hand, searching for something. One officer happened to pass by, glanced over, and was shocked. “Brother Bai, why are you searching for prayers for the dead?”
“To deliver my mother Philosophy’s soul to the afterlife.”
“...”
“And,” Bai Sheng said coldly, “I was originally planning to treat all of you to lobster at a three-Michelin-star restaurant tonight. Now you’ll have to suffer with me and eat plain boiled greens while I observe mourning.”
At the second-floor window, Shen Zhuo said nothing.
He pressed one hand to his forehead in silence. Just then, another subordinate took the stairs three at a time and hurried up. “Supervisor, Team Leader Chen, can you come downstairs and take a look?”
Chen Miao asked, “What is it?”
“We found a lot of unusual traces in the ward at the corner of the first floor.” The subordinate seemed extremely puzzled. “A lot of... footprints.”
At the far end of the first-floor corridor was a cramped, ruined ward. The four walls were mottled black and yellow. A wire bed stood to the east. Wind poured in through the gray, shattered glass window.
Large chunks of the burned and cracked floor had peeled away. Across it, dozens of shoeprints crisscrossed sharply.
“The sole pattern is similar to women’s flat shoes. Foot length is between 25.5 and 26 centimeters, ball width between 10.5 and 10.8 centimeters. Based on that, the person’s height should be...” Shen Zhuo stood up from the floor. “About 167 centimeters, matching Noda Yoko’s physical characteristics.”
Chen Miao, who was lowering his head to take notes beside him, immediately went, “Oh?” “So it really was her?”
“Judging by the clarity of the shoeprint edges, they should have been left within the past half month.” Shen Zhuo glanced at his watch. “To be precise, thirteen days and nineteen hours ago.”
Chen Miao was stunned. “You can tell that too?!”
Shen Zhuo did not answer.
“Senior, you’re incredible. That precise? How can you tell? Are you really sure you don’t have any ability at all? Senior, Senior!”
As if he had not heard, Shen Zhuo brushed past him. Behind him, Shui Ronghua sighed, pulled up the weather records from the past half month on her phone, and held them in front of the dumbstruck Chen Miao.
“Fourteen days ago at noon, Quanshan County had force-seven winds. The shoeprints couldn’t have been left before then, or the edge traces wouldn’t still be so clear. Around eleven that same night, there was a sudden shower, so the tread pattern near the window is covered by radiating raindrop marks. From the diameter of the droplets and their angle of impact, you can calculate the wind speed, wind direction, and exact rainfall at the time. Therefore, Noda Yoko’s arrival time at this health center is very certain: between four in the afternoon and eleven at night that day.”
Chen Miao: “...”
Shui Ronghua leaned closer and asked quietly, “Rumor has it that while Shen Zhuo was advising your master’s thesis, he took blood-pressure medication every day. Is that true?”
“...That is not true!” Chen Miao said, deeply wronged. Then he turned and shouted, “Senior! Tell her you didn’t take blood-pressure medication!”
Shen Zhuo ignored him entirely. He was crouched on one knee, observing something with a slight crease between his brows.
“Senior?”
Chen Miao leaned over curiously. After studying it for a moment with a frown, he finally noticed several faint, long marks on the floor leading toward the door. “Are those... tire tracks?”
“Wheelchair tracks,” Shen Zhuo said softly.
“—Huh?”
Chen Miao was completely caught off guard. He lowered his head for a closer look, his forehead almost brushing Shen Zhuo’s hand. But in the next instant, a tremendous force came from behind him and nearly lifted him into the air. Chen Miao flailed in panic and turned back. “B-Brother Bai!”
Bai Sheng had grabbed him by the back of the neck with one hand. Genially, he asked, “Do you know why Little Johnny’s grandpa lived to ninety-nine?”
“...” Chen Miao asked, “Because Little Johnny’s grandpa wasn’t curious about who left the wheelchair tracks on the floor?”
Bai Sheng said, “Because Little Johnny’s grandpa knew to keep a reasonable physical distance from his senior.”
Chen Miao looked as if he had been struck by lightning. He turned desperately to Shen Zhuo for help, only to discover that his senior was staring at the floor without a word, as if he had evolved some kind of superpower that blocked all of Bai Sheng’s abnormal words and behavior from his five senses.
Bai Sheng carried Chen Miao behind him like a chick, then turned back with a grin. “Supervisor Shen.”
“Mm.”
“Did you see the shadow on the bed?”
The wire bed had been burned black and leaned halfway against the corner. Unless one knelt beside the bed and examined it closely, it was difficult to see that on the gray-black wire springs, there was the shrunken, flat black shadow of a burned body. Head, torso, and limbs were all visible.
It was a person who had melted in the fire.
Shen Zhuo stood, silently exhaled, and said, “—‘Mr. Rong.’”
“Noda Yoko did not come here alone half a month ago. The true owner of the evolution source, Mr. Rong, left with her. Because this person’s legs are disabled, the wheelchair tracks were left on the floor.”
“There’s one thing we got wrong. Noda Yoko isn’t Liu Sanji’s accomplice. She’s Mr. Rong’s. Liu Sanji may have been caught stealing the evolution source, which is why Mr. Rong coerced him into doing certain things. That would explain why Liu Sanji dared risk life imprisonment or even execution to come intercept my car on the elevated bridge.”
Bai Sheng tipped his chin toward the wire bed. “Then what about this unlucky bastard?”
Shen Zhuo frowned. After a long moment, he said, “I have a suspicion... but it’s difficult to confirm unless we can see what happened at the time.”
“?”
Bai Sheng did not understand what he meant. Then Shen Zhuo raised a hand and beckoned.
Not far away, Shui Ronghua immediately understood and walked forward.
“Shui Ronghua’s ability is extremely special. She was once possessed by an unknown creature. But the other party was vicious by nature and once almost killed more than a hundred people in one go. It posed an extremely high danger to society. So I found a way to establish a contract with this unknown creature. Usually, it is sealed deep inside Shui Ronghua’s subconscious. When necessary, only I can release it.”
Bai Sheng was very curious. “Unknown creature?”
Shen Zhuo said, “Yes. A purely psychic being. The institute once believed it came from an extraterrestrial civilization.”
Bai Sheng held his chin, utterly baffled. Then Shui Ronghua opened her right palm to Shen Zhuo, but immediately hesitated. She turned to Bai Sheng and said sincerely,
“Perhaps Little Johnny’s grandpa occasionally needs to shake hands with a senior for work.”
Chen Miao spat out a mouthful of water. “Pfft!”
Bai Sheng: “Hahahaha—”
Little Johnny’s grandpa’s senior closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Chen Miao immediately hid behind Brother Bai.
But Shen Zhuo paid no further attention to either of them. He reached out with his right hand and covered Shui Ronghua’s palm from above. In a low voice, he called out the name of the summoned one.
“I release you, Witch of Italdo!”
An invisible, powerful ability spread from their joined palms.
Immediately afterward, the right half of Shui Ronghua’s face changed horribly. Her skin dissolved and filled with blood spots, exposing strange bones as though she had been corroded. The right half of her body mutated rapidly. Her muscles turned blood-red, and dense blood vessels covered her arm and right leg like metal chain mail.
At the same time, the intact left side of her face also changed distinctly, becoming bewitching, dazzling, and irresistibly beautiful. Curled red hair fell to her waist like thick seaweed in a sea of blood. Countless intricate patterns extended across the left half of her body like some ancient talisman, spreading to her left arm, left leg, and even the pupil of her left eye.
No one in the world could escape the deadly attraction of the witch’s left half. Yet at the same time, the right half of her body could chill anyone’s courage to the bone.
The ultimate fusion of beauty and terror.
The Witch of Italdo.
“Ah...” The witch let out a seductive moan of relief.
Shen Zhuo immediately tried to release their joined hands, but she gripped him hard. Then, like a gorgeous venomous snake, she leaned close and lightly lifted Shen Zhuo’s chin with her fingertips.
“Did you miss me, Supervisor Shen?”
Then she bent down and pressed close, her alluring cheek almost touching Shen Zhuo’s face. Her smile was provocative and full of suggestion. “If you let me be free, perhaps we could go somewhere no one else is around. I could make you feel so very much pleasure, and—”
Her voice froze.
A small silver controller appeared before her eyes. Shen Zhuo said coldly, “And so very much high-voltage electricity.”
With a clang, the Witch of Italdo retreated swiftly, nearly knocking over the table and chairs.
“Human!!” She gnashed her teeth and clawed at the metal collar around her neck, but no matter what she did, she could not tear it off. She could only glare bitterly at Shen Zhuo, undisguised malice flashing in her blood-red eyes. “One day, I’ll make this collar lock around your own neck. One day—”
Shen Zhuo gave a faint sneer. “There are countless evolutionists outside who want to put this collar around my neck. So what? They can only think about it.”
“...”
“Recreate the scene in this room from three years ago. Don’t make me say it twice.”
Bai Sheng turned and quietly asked Chen Miao, “Have you ever been shocked?”
Chen Miao clutched his collar, shocked. “How could that happen? I’m so docile and obedient!”
“...”
The Witch of Italdo glared hatefully at Shen Zhuo, then pressed her strange blood-red left hand against the wire bed and rasped something under her breath.
The pronunciation was extremely obscure, like some ancient lost incantation, or a language that had never appeared on Earth.
Then the image of time reversing roared in like a flood.
The charred walls restored themselves. Cracked floor tiles sealed back together. The shattered glass window miraculously closed on its own. Everything before them returned to the state it had been in three years ago, before the fire. The room was dim, filled with the smell of cheap disinfectant.
On the wire hospital bed, a figure appeared silently.
It was an extremely emaciated man. He seemed still young, but years of coma had stripped him of his former appearance. His face was dry, cracked, and withered, and death lingered around his nose and mouth.
It was already impossible to tell what he had originally looked like.
Bai Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly. “Could he be...”
“Mr. Rong,” Shen Zhuo said softly.
Following Shen Zhuo’s gaze, they saw a bedside card clipped to the rail of the wire bed. In the name field, written sloppily in ballpoint pen, were two characters’ worth of name:
Rong Qi.
Bai Sheng casually draped one hand over Shen Zhuo’s shoulder and bent down to examine the bedside card. “...This guy had it pretty rough. Treatment conditions at a rural health center weren’t great, were they? What did he have? Vegetative state? Don’t tell me he was brain-dead.”
Shen Zhuo was just about to speak when, behind them, an unfamiliar voice sounded with a bright, smiling tone.
“Guess what they said this unlucky bastard had, Fu Chen?”
—Fu Chen.
Like a silent thunderclap, Shen Zhuo’s pupils abruptly dilated.
His pupils were so dark they seemed cold. Bai Sheng clearly felt the thin, sharp shoulder beneath his palm tense in an instant. After a moment, Shen Zhuo slowly turned back. Fu Chen from three years ago was standing in the ward doorway, crossing life, death, and time to appear before everyone.
The room was dead silent. Everyone was stunned.
Bai Sheng frowned and pressed Shen Zhuo’s shoulder, his voice near Shen Zhuo’s ear carrying both comfort and warning. “Supervisor Shen.”
Fu Chen from three years ago stood with his back to the daylight outside the door, but his features were still clearly handsome—the kind of face that would draw plenty of attention walking through a campus. Around his neck was a metal collar marked S.
“Not interested.” He folded his arms, studied the hospital bed for a moment, and looked away. “Let’s go, Su Jiqiao. I’m meeting Shen Zhuo at the airport at nine tonight. If we’re any later, we’ll be late.”
A slender figure stepped out from behind Fu Chen. It was a beautiful young man, his voice soft and pleasant. As if only just realizing something, he gave an apologetic little “Ah.”
“What should we do, Brother Fu? If Senior Shen finds out the two of us came out alone, he won’t be angry with you, will he?”
Author’s Note:
Hawking did not mean it that way, hahaha.
The one burned to ash on the hospital bed is Rong. It’s not that complicated—just an infinite revival ability that starts from residual cells.