Reflection

"They don't look like members of the survey team... No, they don't even look like normal people." Yang Qi frowned. "Night Fiend, can you sense any signs of life from them?"

"I can't. If I block out my vision, they don't exist in my perception at all." Wang Xiyi shook her head.

"Tch, they're not even energy entities..." Yang Qi's frown deepened.

"Could they be ghosts?" 0401 sucked in a cold breath. "Well, this is really haunted..."

"If the 'ghosts' you mentioned really existed, they should be classified as Category Xin anomalies, commonly known as Spirit Type or Energy Type... But there isn't even an energy signature on these silhouettes..." Yang Qi gently shook her head. "That means... they really might be... nothing more than 'shadows.'"

"Let's get closer and take a look," Wang Xiyi said.

"N-No, let's not..." 0401 said with a cowardly expression. "How about we observe from a distance first?"

"I agree." Sun Hang nodded.

"Exactly, getting close right away is too dangerous—"

Before 0401 could finish, Sun Hang cut him off. "I meant I agree with Night Fiend's suggestion."

"Huh?" 0401 froze and shrank back into the rear seat.

"Are you afraid of ghosts?" Wang Xiyi glanced at him and asked.

"I-It's not that I'm afraid. It's just that these shadows... looking at them makes me feel... creeped out," 0401 replied.

"Shadows themselves aren't frightening," Sun Hang said.

Sun Hang realized that he seemed to possess an ability to detect anomalies or infected individuals as well—his appetite.

Those mutated wild wolves affected by the Blood Moon earlier had been, to Sun Hang, merely "edible, but not tasty."

If Bloody Rose was a delicious dessert that made one's mouth water, then Wang Xiyi was an unparalleled feast prepared with the finest ingredients... As for those wild wolves, at most, they were the tiny bit of meat on a mosquito's leg.

As for the shadows in the distance, Sun Hang's first impression was that they were "inedible."

According to the institute, every anomaly possessed something called a "meme," or rather, a concept. The reason the Anomalization Virus could infect other things was because it copied the "memes" from anomalies and transmitted them to other things.

And the anomaly with the serial number "Bing Nine," Taotie, fed on those memes.

Sun Hang could not detect the existence of memes on these shadows.

Therefore, they were not anomalies, nor had they been infected by the Anomalization Virus.

"If you're scared, you can stay in the car." Wang Xiyi opened the door and was the first to jump out.

Sun Hang and Yang Qi got out as well.

"Wait, wait for me!" Seeing all three of them leave the car, 0401 hurriedly scrambled down after them.

"Weren't you afraid of those shadows?" Yang Qi glanced at him and asked curiously.

"Being alone in the car is even scarier, okay..." 0401 muttered. "Don't you know that in horror movies, the character left alone is always the first one to die...?"

"That actually makes some sense." Surprisingly, Yang Qi did not refute him. "At least if you follow us, we won't just watch you get swallowed by an anomaly."

Wang Xiyi did not pause after getting out of the car and walked straight toward the silhouettes.

When she was only a few steps away from the swaying figures, she stopped.

"They really do seem to be shadows." Wang Xiyi picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it at them.

The pebble passed through the silhouettes without obstruction, landed on the ground, then bounced forward a short distance.

Sun Hang walked over as well.

He discovered that these silhouettes were merely humanoid shadows floating above the ground, slightly darker than their surroundings. They swayed faintly, as though there were an unobservable surface of water in the air, perpendicular to the ground, and these shadows were reflections cast upon that vertical surface.

As the water rippled, the reflections moved with it.

"Prepare for a direct contact test." Wang Xiyi glanced back at Yang Qi. "Record everything."

"Be as careful as possible... Huh?" Yang Qi switched on the camera she carried with her, then let out a soft sound of surprise.

"These shadows can't be filmed?" Sun Hang had already more or less guessed the answer. He leaned over to look, and sure enough, the camera screen showed only Wang Xiyi standing there. The silhouettes right beside her did not appear at all.

"Just like those 'nonexistent' images you saw on the television." Yang Qi nodded slightly. "They can only be observed with the naked eye and cannot be recorded by optical imaging devices."

"Not bad luck. Maybe this is the key to breaking the deadlock." Sun Hang nodded.

Wang Xiyi took two syringes from the small pouch strapped to her leg. One contained Enhancement Serum taken from Sun Hang, while the other contained Beast Transformation Inhibitor that gave off a strong "stink of cilantro."

She held the two syringes between the fingers of her right hand, then slowly reached her left hand toward the silhouette before her.

Yang Qi and 0401 were already holding their breath, staring intently at Wang Xiyi's movements.

Just like the pebble, Wang Xiyi's left hand passed directly through the silhouette. Nothing happened.

"I can't feel anything," Wang Xiyi said.

"Try stirring it," Yang Qi said after letting out a long breath.

Wang Xiyi gently stirred her right hand, but the shadow did not change in response. Even the frequency of its swaying remained unchanged.

She withdrew her hand and shook her head at Yang Qi.

"I'll do it." Sun Hang stepped forward. "Since these shadows resemble the images on the television, maybe they'll react to me too."

"That makes sense. After all, you're the one who resonated with them." Yang Qi nodded.

Sun Hang took a deep breath and copied Wang Xiyi's posture, pressing his fingers together into a hand blade before thrusting it into the chest of one silhouette.

The instant his fingertips touched the silhouette, Sun Hang seemed to feel time come to a brief halt.

Then, he saw the light and shadows around him rapidly change at a speed impossible for human perception to grasp. Light and darkness kept alternating, as if a long shot recording tens of thousands of days and nights had been compressed into only a few seconds.

Sun Hang suddenly discovered that the silhouette he had touched was vaguely revealing human features—in those few seconds of rapidly shifting light and dark, it swiftly changed from a young man into a potbellied middle-aged man, then into a white-haired old man... until it became a stark white skeleton.