After announcing the establishment of the special investigation team, Mu Xingrui's gaze swept across everyone present like a blade, lingering for a half-second longer on the faces of several researchers who had just joined the Investigation Bureau: "I know why some of you were temporarily transferred to the Investigation Bureau."
A slight creaking sound came from the corner of a chair. "But remember, the first victim, Wang, lost more than just his life..."
He paused deliberately, watching as several researchers unconsciously touched their cheeks, "... Wang is now divorced and penniless."
The conference room was deathly Silence, and the humming sound from the air conditioner vents suddenly became unusually clear.
Just then, the conference room door was suddenly pushed open with a thud.
Feng Qian leaned against the doorframe, his trouser legs splattered with mud, the watch on his wrist gleaming coldly. He casually glanced at his colleagues sitting upright in the room, grinning, "Wow, quite the show of force."
Mu Xingrui's sharp gaze immediately fixed on the Action Department leader, whose temperament had drastically changed. "Feng Qian, you are twenty-seven minutes late."
"I'm so sorry, I have a bit of post-traumatic stress disorder." Feng Qian found a seat and sat down.
"The doctor advised me to take it slow and adjust gradually. You know, today was supposed to be my day off. I haven't fully recovered yet. Is the Investigation Bureau so short-staffed that they have to send an injured person like me into the field?"
He deliberately made noise as he dragged the chair, which sounded particularly jarring in the tense silence of the crowd.
Mu Xingrui couldn't help but frown. "Xiao Feng, this situation is special..."
"Special?" Feng Qian raised an eyebrow, a forced smile on his face, and said sarcastically, "Don't worry, Director, I understand."
"The Investigation Bureau is ignoring those obviously high-risk anomalies and diverting personnel from other paranormal events to focus its efforts on investigating the Lucky Casino. It must be because the Lucky Casino poses a very serious potential threat, right?"
Since being rescued from the Mirror World, Feng Qian's personality has undergone a dramatic change.
Perhaps it was because he experienced a life-or-death ordeal while trapped in the Mirror World, and watched helplessly as the people around him died one by one, while he was the only one who survived by chance, that the intense stimulation caused his mental state to become abnormal.
The doctor said he had PTSD, but he felt he had simply let himself go and returned to his most primal state.
Anyway, the Supernatural Investigation Bureau values his "good luck," which means he'll be on the front lines for a long time and might die at any time. Since that's the case, he's too lazy to bother with those hypocritical formalities.
Life is short, and we never know whether tomorrow or an accident will come first. Feng Qian felt he should enjoy himself first and not live such a stifled life.
Mu Xingrui didn't say anything about Feng Qian's prickly and seemingly lazy attitude, but simply turned on the projector with a blank expression.
On the projected screen, Feng Qian's file seemed to be rapidly flipped through by an invisible hand, finally stopping at a page highlighted in red. "In the past, you participated in investigations of paranormal events, and your survival rate was as high as 100%."
The projection switched to a blurry surveillance video, showing Feng Qian emerging unharmed from the Mirror World during the "Anomalous Mirror Image" incident.
A smile appeared on Feng Qian's face, but his eyes turned cold.
Mu Xingrui stated frankly, "Feng Qian, you are the luckiest person in the Supernatural Investigation Bureau, which is why you were able to be promoted to the position of the Action Department commander despite not meeting the usual requirements."
Some people in the conference room widened their eyes in surprise. Not everyone knew about Feng Qian's special physique, and they didn't expect the director to point it out in public.
Feng Qian suddenly realized that everyone's eyes were focused on him, those eyes filled with a mixture of surprise, scrutiny, and... a kind of unsettling expectation.
He belatedly realized something and looked at Mu Xingrui: "Wait, you wouldn't be thinking of...?"
"The Lucky Casino task force needs pioneer testers." Mu Xingrui retrieved a safe from under the podium. "And you are the best candidate to handle this die."
Feng Qian's expression froze. He stared at the safe, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Chief... are you serious? Do you know I just survived a supernatural incident, and I'm traumatized both physically and mentally? My vacation was canceled, just so I could be sent to a suicide squad?!"
He turned to his colleagues in the conference room, "You all agree to let me participate in this suicide mission?"
No one spoke. Zhou Yuan lowered her head and pretended to organize documents. Zhu Ci suddenly became very interested in the ceiling, and the others also looked away.
"I'm not discussing this with you, this is an order!" Mu Xingrui's voice was like ice. "These are special times; I hope you can understand the difficulties the Investigation Bureau faces."
Feng Qian's fists clenched so tightly they cracked, veins bulging at his temples. Then, he suddenly laughed, a smile playing on his lips, "Fine, I'll go."
He suddenly stood up and held out his hand. "Give me the dice."
Mu Xingrui frowned. Feng Qian's behavior seemed a bit off, but this task was indeed a perfect fit for Feng Qian.
If a tester is needed to understand the various mechanisms in a casino, Feng Qian is the perfect candidate.
In truth, Feng Qian wasn't sure either. He just wanted to gamble on his "good luck" one more time. If he could win this round in the Lucky Casino, he already knew what he needed.
I just hope I won't end up like the brave and valiant who "drowned in the water."
"No rush, let's get ready first before we hand you the dice," Mu Xingrui said.
Twelve hours later...
The safe containing the Human-Faced Die was opened, and although the surrounding temperature hadn't changed at all, it inexplicably felt a bit colder.
This was the first time Feng Qian had ever seen this six-sided die. It was an irregular dark red color, like a piece of congealed rotten flesh, with spiderweb-like blood vessels on its surface, resembling countless hair-thin blood vessels.
One side is carved with an infant's face, with swollen eyelids stuck together, and an open mouth forming a dot.
The second person was an old woman with a face wrinkled like tree bark, and a pair of large eyes staring out—those eyes were just two dots.
Sanmian was a middle-aged man. He had no mouth, and his nose had been cut off, leaving only a hole that formed three dots with his eyes.
The four sides are carved with twin girls, one above the other with two identical faces, their eyes forming four dots.
Wu Mian was an eyeless monk, with five dots branded on his smooth, pebble-like head.
With the land surface pressed down underneath, Feng Qian couldn't see the sixth side of the die. He boldly reached out and touched it, and immediately felt a cold sensation on his fingertips, as if an icicle was climbing up his fingertips.
"Enough! Don't make any rash moves!" Mu Xingrui stopped Feng Qian from taking any further action and turned to the technical team, "Equip Feng Qian with a full set of monitoring equipment."
In the following period, Feng Qian was armed to become a human monitoring station. Miniature cameras were sewn onto the buttons of his jacket, vital sign monitoring chips were implanted under his skin, and even tiny recording devices were installed in his teeth.
When the technical team finally put the special monitoring bracelet on him, Feng Qian couldn't help but complain, "Shouldn't you also nail a coffin for me while you're at it?"
"These are just the basics," Mu Xingrui said. "Remember, once you enter the Lucky Casino, your primary task is to observe the records, gather as much intelligence as possible, and try to avoid participating in the gambling."
Feng Qian scoffed, "Does it really take my say whether or not I participate in the gambling?"
Mu Xingrui's lips tightened into a straight line. He didn't say anything more, but patted Feng Qian on the shoulder, a rare hint of guilt showing in his eyes.
Trying to test the various mechanisms of Lucky Casino is truly risking human lives.
The underground laboratory on the third floor had been converted into a temporary Observation station. Fully armed, Feng Qian sat in a titanium alloy chair in the center of the room, surrounded by many monitoring devices. Behind the one-way glass, a professional team was making final adjustments.
"We can begin."
Feng Qian glanced at the time: 23:58.
He then took the die from the safe.
All the monitoring screens flickered simultaneously.
As the clock struck 00:00, the lights in the laboratory began to flicker, and with each shift from light to dark, the laboratory walls faded a little more in Feng Qian's view.
Perhaps because he had experienced so many supernatural phenomena, Feng Qian felt no fear or dread. He was now very curious about how the "Lucky Casino" would appear in this almost completely enclosed laboratory.
He soon discovered that the bulletproof glass seemed to have been replaced with old-fashioned stained glass, and the original blast-proof door of the laboratory had been transformed in the blink of an eye into a carved mahogany door with a skull holding a bone handle, and the "Lucky Casino" sign on the lintel dripping with blood-red paint.
Feng Qian gasped, never expecting the casino to disregard spatial limitations and appear before him in such an unbelievable way.
Even more terrifying, his body stood up on its own, moving toward the door.
"Feng Qian! What are you doing?" Mu Xingrui's anxious voice came from the speaker above.
Outside the laboratory, none of the Observation saw anything unusual. They only saw that after the lights flickered a few times, Feng Qian stood up and walked blankly toward the laboratory door.
During this process, Feng Qian seemed to lose all five senses and could not hear Mu Xingrui's voice at all.
"Comrade Feng Qian seems to have fallen into a supernatural state. What he is seeing and hearing now may be other scenes, but we have no way of Observation," a researcher said cautiously.
Mu Xingrui stopped calling to Feng Qian and could only watch helplessly as Feng Qian walked to the laboratory door.
With a creaking sound as the door hinges turned, Feng Qian's figure vanished before everyone's eyes.
"Did you see that?" Mu Xingrui asked.
The researcher beside him nodded. "Just now, Feng Qian walked to the door in the lab and made a gesture as if to open it. Obviously, he didn't open the lab door, but rather 'another door' that outsiders couldn't see."
"That door should lead to the Lucky Casino, but although we can't see the door, we can hear the sound of hinges turning. Lab doors don't make that kind of sound."
Mu Xingrui pinched the bridge of his nose hard. "Technical team, are you able to contact Feng Qian now?"
The technical team member shook his head. "Bad news, all the real-time monitoring devices installed on Feng Qian have failed. Now we can only hope that the miniature video and audio recording equipment on him will still work."
Mu Xingrui sighed, "So, if all the electronic devices malfunction, all the information and intelligence that Feng Qian gathers after entering the casino will have to be up to him alone?"
No one answered.
Everyone present understood what Mu Xingrui meant.
Feng Qian was not very willing to participate in this mission. If there was no audio or video recording, and they could only rely on his verbal intelligence, what if he harbored resentment and deliberately omitted some crucial information?
Because Feng Qian was forcibly invited into the Lucky Casino, and the monitoring equipment he was carrying malfunctioned, the Supernatural Investigation Bureau lost contact with him and could only wait anxiously.
At 8:00 AM the next day, in the underground laboratory of the Supernatural Investigation Bureau.
Mu Xingrui pressed his fingertips against his temples, his knuckles turning white from the pressure.
Eight hours had passed, and the monitoring screen remained a lifeless expanse of gray and white noise, without any signal fluctuations. It was as if Feng Qian had been completely erased from the real world by some indescribable force, leaving not even a trace behind.
"Check the monitoring equipment again." Mu Xingrui's voice was hoarse and dry.
Fine beads of sweat appeared on the foreheads of the technical team members, their fingers clattering across the keyboard. "Director, all the equipment is showing no abnormalities, but we just can't detect any signal from Feng Qian..."
The air in the laboratory seemed to solidify, making it hard to breathe.
Mu Xingrui stared at the screen, his eyes bloodshot. He recalled Feng Qian's last expression before he was forcibly dragged into the casino.
If Feng Qian, that lucky fellow, dies in the Lucky Casino, who should be sent next to continue this obviously suicidal mission?
Thinking of this, Mu Xingrui felt a headache coming on.
Suddenly, the chair of the technical staff member slid back half a meter and crashed into the instrument rack with a loud "bang".
"Chief! Look!"
Mu Xingrui looked up abruptly and saw that the green dot representing Feng Qian's signal on the central monitoring screen flickered briefly, as faintly as a candle in the wind.
But the next second--
"Bang!"
With a muffled thud, a figure appeared out of thin air on the titanium alloy chair in the center of the laboratory.
Feng Qian sat there lazily, his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees, as if he had never left and had only taken a short nap.
The air in the laboratory seemed to have been sucked out.
Feng Qian's clothes were completely intact, even the mud stains on his trouser legs were exactly the same as before he disappeared. But when the light shone on his face, everyone gasped—
His eyes changed.
His originally dark brown pupils now shimmered with a faint gold, as if coated with a thin layer of metal. The gold was not static, but rather flowed slowly like liquid, refracting a strange luster under the light.
"Good morning, everyone." Feng Qian grinned, his voice still carrying his usual carefree and nonchalant tone, but the last syllable was strangely drawn out by half a beat, as if someone was repeating his words in sync.