"I'll immediately arrange for people to go to Lop Nur. First, we need to find out whether Zhuanghe was telling the truth. No matter what, we have to find those eight bodies."
I gave a bitter smile when I heard Xie Yi say that. "So much time has passed. Can we still find them if we go now?"
"If the burial location he gave us is correct, we should be able to find them. The geography and soil there are particularly unusual as well. Although it's been a long time, the bodies probably won't have decomposed that quickly." Xie Yi seemed very familiar with the conditions at Lop Nur.
But his mention of the bodies reminded me of something else. "Tell me, they copied Zhuanghe and the others, then killed their original bodies. Why didn't they simply bury the corpses while they were at it? Why did they have to let Zhuanghe and the others find them?"
Xie Yi looked at me, and I could see his approval in his eyes.
He lightly patted my shoulder. "That's a good question. So, have you thought about why?"
Of course I had, but I couldn't come up with an answer. Still, I thought there was one possibility: for some reason, they had not had time to bury the bodies, or something unexpected had happened that forced them to abandon the corpses and leave.
Fatty, however, said, "They must have deliberately left those bodies behind. Their purpose was to let Zhuanghe's people see them."
"Why?" Xie Yi pressed.
Fatty scratched his head. In truth, there wasn't a single hair on it. He was bald, the kind of bald whose scalp shone brightly.
He really did look like a Buddha—Maitreya Buddha.
Especially since he always wore a smile on his face.
Clearly, he couldn't answer that question either.
Xu Qiuyan glanced at me. She seemed to have something to say, so I gave a slight nod before she spoke. "They did it to observe Zhuanghe and the others' reactions. I think they were conducting some kind of experiment. As for why they had already mastered the technology to create Mirror People yet still wanted to seize the Twin Fish Jade Pendant, I have some thoughts about that too. The principles behind their technology may have come from the Twin Fish Jade Pendant, but their method has many flaws. That's why they set their sights on it. They want to use the Twin Fish Jade Pendant to improve their Mirror Person technology. Or perhaps they want to become the only ones who possess that technology, which is why they want to claim the Twin Fish Jade Pendant for themselves. Whether it's an object or a technology, what is unique is the most valuable."
Xie Yi smiled. "You're right. Looks like I really did choose the right people."
"By the way, do you have any information on an Island Nation onmyoji?"
"Do you have a specific name?"
"Abe Ichinan. She should be a woman."
"Abe Ichinan?" Xie Yi looked somewhat surprised.
I didn't know why he reacted that way, but I nodded anyway.
Xie Yi's brows drew together. "Abe Ichinan was once the most promising onmyoji of the Abe Family. By the time she was twelve, she already ranked among the best onmyoji in the Island Nation. No one of the younger generation in the entire Abe Family could compare to her. But later, I heard that she suffered a backlash from her cultivation and then committed suicide."
Abe Ichinan was dead? And she had committed suicide years before I met her.
Then who was the one I had seen?
That onmyoji had personally told me that he was Abe Ichinan, and Yin Wuyu had also confirmed that Abe Ichinan was a woman.
"Do you have a photo of her?"
"Yes. I'll have someone send it over immediately."
Before long, his phone rang. He fiddled with it for a moment, then said to me, "I sent it to you."
I opened it and took a look. The Abe Ichinan in the photo was actually a little girl. She was very beautiful, with a touch of seductiveness in that beauty.
The photo had to be several years old, because the girl in it looked only twelve or thirteen.
"When was this photo taken?"
"Ten years ago, two months before her death. It happened to be around her birthday."
I had guessed right. This photo was indeed old.
"Since Abe Ichinan died long ago, the Abe Ichinan now is most likely a Mirror Person too."
"Find her. If possible, capture her. But you must be careful with something like this. If it causes any repercussions, Unit Nine will not admit that we were behind it."
As Xie Yi said this, his gaze was fixed on Fatty.
Fatty smiled and nodded. "I understand."
Xie Yi came quickly and left just as quickly. He told me that if they found the bodies Zhuanghe and the others had buried, he would notify me immediately.
At the same time, he took Gu Song away. Not only Gu Song—he also sent people to pick up Zhuanghe.
He said he would first place all the surviving members of that team under protection.
But deep down, I suspected he had another reason for doing so: they wanted to study the Mirror People, Zhuanghe and the others, like laboratory mice.
Our next task was to find that onmyoji, Abe Ichinan.
But with so many people in the world, where were we supposed to look?
After Gu Song left, I moved Fatty into the room Gu Song had been staying in and had him share it with Yin Wuyu. I also handed Yin Wuyu's care over to him.
Harbin's nights were colder than back home, so I turned on the air conditioning in the room.
We had come to Harbin to find Zhuanghe. Now that I had learned about their experience in Lop Nur from him, I wondered whether it was time to return to Lin City.
I called Half-Immortal Wu, intending to have him book our plane tickets back to Lin City for tomorrow.
But Half-Immortal Wu wasn't the one who answered. It was a woman.
"Hello, I'm looking for Wu Lun," I said. Though a woman had answered, she might have been Half-Immortal Wu's wife or girlfriend, and perhaps he was busy and unable to take the call.
"Who are you? What do you want with him?" the woman asked warily.
"I'm his friend. My name is Jiang Xiaobai. He knows me."
As I answered, doubts rose in my heart. It seemed things were not as I had assumed.
"Something happened to him. He's in the hospital now."
I froze slightly. "What happened to him?"
"I don't know. This afternoon, he said he wanted to take a nap, but he's been asleep ever since and hasn't woken up. No matter how I called him, he didn't respond. They took him to the hospital, and all his vital signs are normal. Even the doctors don't know what's wrong with him."
I asked who she was, and she said she was Half-Immortal Wu's girlfriend.
Just as I had thought.
We could have booked our own tickets and left, but now that I knew something had happened to Half-Immortal Wu, I felt too embarrassed to leave just like that.
Besides, from what the woman had said, Half-Immortal Wu's inability to wake up was very strange, and it stirred my curiosity.
"Which hospital are you at?"
"Harbin City Sixth Hospital, emergency ward."
We hurried to Harbin City Sixth Hospital and went straight to the ward.
I saw the woman. She looked about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. She wasn't especially beautiful, but her features were refined, the sort that grew more attractive the longer one looked.
She wore business attire and looked like a professional office worker.
"Mr. Jiang, my name is He Li. I'm Wu Lun's girlfriend and also his colleague."
"You're with Unit Nine too?" I asked.
He Li nodded. "If there's anything you need, Mr. Jiang, you can talk to me as well."
I gave an "Mm," then said, "You brought him to the hospital just because he wouldn't wake up from sleep?"
I asked because ordinary people would not make such a fuss over something like that. After all, it was normal not to wake easily when someone was exhausted.
He Li gave a bitter smile. "He's always a light sleeper, and he takes a nap every day. He keeps it to around thirty minutes, and he wakes naturally when the time comes. This has never happened to him before."
It seemed Wu Lun was someone who lived a very disciplined life.
"Besides, we work in a special department. Although we only handle logistical support, we've heard of and seen many strange things, so we're naturally more vigilant. And this nap was unusual in another way. He never talks in his sleep, not even at night, but during his nap today, he kept muttering."
I asked curiously, "What was he saying?"
He Li's expression became a little strange at my question. "He seemed to be dreaming about a woman..."
I narrowed my eyes, and He Li added, "Go take a look."
I walked several steps to Half-Immortal Wu's bed. Fatty, Xu Qiuyan, and Yin Wuyu were already standing there.
Fatty's expression was complicated. Xu Qiuyan looked calm, while Yin Wuyu still couldn't bear to put down his phone, though he did glance a few times at Wu Lun on the bed.
Wu Lun's lips were actually moving as if he were speaking. I bent down and brought my ear close to his mouth, trying to hear what he was saying.
But I couldn't make it out clearly. The only three words I truly heard were: "You're so beautiful!"
Before you continue