October 9th, Imperial Calendar—the 282nd day of the year.
Zhou Yun wore the Psykana Cap and stood outside Nama Carl's home.
He focused his power on his eyes, and the objects before him gradually became transparent.
Through the walls, he could clearly see the inside of Nama Carl's home.
No one. At least, there was indeed no one visible through X-ray Vision.
But there were too many ways to fool the human eye. What he saw with his eyes was not reliable.
Zhou Yun closed his eyes and rubbed the space between his brows, easing the slight fatigue that had risen within him.
X-raying the entire house drained him considerably.
Of his three psychic abilities, X-ray Vision had always been the one he was least skilled at.
"Did you find anything?" Lena asked, standing beside Zhou Yun.
"On the second floor, in the study on the left, there's a safe."
Zhou Yun opened his eyes and looked at Lena.
"The route records we're looking for should be inside."
As he spoke, Zhou Yun took the Ring of Passage from his pocket and placed it against the wall. A tunnel leading into Nama Carl's home appeared.
"Where do you get all these strange things?" Lena asked, staring at the Ring of Passage in surprise.
Zhou Yun glanced at her, a smile curling across his lips. "Didn't you claim to be blessed by The Emperor?"
"I don't claim it—I am!" Lena shot Zhou Yun a glare, her tone unwavering.
"Then what a coincidence. I'm blessed by the Machine God," Zhou Yun joked.
"You're lying. You've got far too much flesh on you. One look tells me you're not with the Adeptus Mechanicus," Lena snarked.
The two of them crawled through the tunnel created by the Ring of Passage and entered Nama Carl's home.
By the hazy light filtering in through the windows, they vaguely made out the house shrouded in darkness.
It was a standard two-story Upper Hive apartment. The living room was downstairs, while the upper floor held two bedrooms.
Nama Carl had converted one of the bedrooms into a study. That was where the item Zhou Yun and Lena sought was located.
The first-floor living room was utterly ordinary, clean and neatly arranged. Zhou Yun saw nothing unusual at first glance.
Only along the wall to the left stood several small tables, with paper and pens tidily arranged atop them.
Zhou Yun walked over to the tables and opened the notebooks on them.
The pages were filled with dense mathematical formulas.
But unlike the formulas in Nama Carl's own notebooks, the formulas in these books were relatively simpler.
The hardest material only reached definite integrals, relatively basic content from university advanced mathematics.
Zhou Yun, an expired college student, could barely still understand it.
"This is where Mrs. Nama taught the neighborhood children mathematics." Lena leaned over, looking at the notebooks on the tables with a hint of nostalgia.
The neighborhood children?
During the two days Zhou Yun and Lena had spent following Nama Carl, they had seen those children who came here to study.
The oldest were only eleven or twelve, yet they had already begun learning advanced mathematics?
Mrs. Nama's teaching ability was a little too impressive, wasn't it?
Zhou Yun flipped through the other notebooks on the tables.
Though their level was not quite this outrageous, they were generally far ahead of what children their age ought to be studying.
Besides, was there really any need for the children of Upper Hive residents to study so deeply?
Zhou Yun furrowed his brow, as though he had noticed something.
He opened all the notebooks and began searching among them.
387,420,489.
Zhou Yun saw this string of numbers in several notebooks.
Different children had written down the string in different places, using different handwriting.
Zhou Yun faintly felt his mind becoming more active, as though he had detected the pattern behind those numbers.
"Zhou Yun?" Lena patted Zhou Yun on the shoulder, interrupting his train of thought.
"Did you find something?" Lena asked.
Zhou Yun glanced at the numbers in the notebook and shook his head.
Only a vague feeling had surfaced in his heart.
Zhou Yun and Lena went up the stairs to the second floor. After carefully looking around and confirming that no one was there, they entered the study.
The study was messier than the rest of the house. Papers lay scattered across the floor and desk, covered in complicated mathematical formulas.
And on the desk sat a small safe.
It was not large, even smaller than the Ring of Passage.
Zhou Yun had no way to use the Ring of Passage to take out what was inside.
Fortunately, it was just a fairly ordinary safe and was not difficult to open.
Zhou Yun looked at Lena.
Lena stepped forward and gently extended a finger toward the safe.
The surrounding air suddenly grew colder.
This was the reaction that occurred when a psyker channeled psychic power.
Lena took a deep breath, then softly uttered a single word, using her voice to help channel her psychic power.
"Thunder!"
Crackle!
A bolt of lightning shot out, melting through the safe's metal casing and exposing the route record book inside.
Watching Lena's performance, Zhou Yun recalled the methods used aboard the Black Ships to suppress psykers.
Suppressing most untrained psykers was extremely simple. All one needed to do was put a gag on them and seal their mouths.
That was because most untrained psykers needed sound to assist them in channeling psychic power.
Lena was clearly one of them.
Zhou Yun considered that if his partnership with Lena ever fell apart and they came to blows, he could try covering her mouth directly.
Lena had no idea what Zhou Yun was thinking. She merely flipped through the notebook in her hands with delight.
"It's route records from more than ten thousand years ago! This is it!"
Overjoyed, Lena stuffed the notebook into her pocket.
"It really went this smoothly." Zhou Yun frowned.
It had gone too smoothly—so smoothly that Zhou Yun found it increasingly strange.
"You really are... cautious." Lena could not help shaking her head.
"Didn't we already confirm it? Mrs. Nama's only issue is that she prays to The Emperor a little too rarely."
As she spoke, Lena and the frowning Zhou Yun walked out of Mrs. Nama's study.
"Though not often, Mrs. Nama still goes to church every few days to pray devoutly."
"If she had truly been corrupted, why would she go to church and pray to The Emperor in front of an Ecclesiarchy priest?"
Listening to Lena, Zhou Yun nodded lightly.
Indeed.
Wait—she went to church every few days to pray.
Zhou Yun froze for a moment.
The file Augustus Flax had given him stated that Nama Carl's last prayer had been seven days ago.
Another two days had now passed.
Nama Carl had last gone to church nine days ago.
Over four years, Nama Carl had prayed a total of one hundred and fifty-three times.
Today was the 282nd day of the year. Add in the previous three years.
That meant that over the past 1,377 days, Nama Carl had prayed 153 times—once every nine days.
Zhou Yun stood frozen in place, feeling his mind race faster and faster.
The number nine became increasingly clear in his thoughts.
6,561 Blood Coins. 6,561 was nine to the fourth power. That was Nama Carl's donation to the church, a sequence representing Changer of Ways.
In other words, a small part of that church of The Emperor belonged to Changer of Ways!
Zhou Yun suddenly understood.
She prayed once every nine days, not to pray to The Emperor.
She was praying to Changer of Ways—to the Lord of Change!
387,420,489.
Zhou Yun remembered that string of numbers, delight appearing in his eyes.
Wonderful! He was gradually understanding everything!
It was so simple. That nine-digit number was nine to the ninth power, the number most strongly representing Changer of Ways!
Praise Changer of Ways!
Join the group! Join the group! We'll raffle off a Tyranid miniature!
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