Zheng Zhi's great-grandmother had died many years ago. While she was still alive, he hadn't returned to his hometown very often, so he had only seen her a limited number of times—but after she died, the two of them began meeting much more frequently.
Sometimes, he could even see several of them at once, accompanied by relatives he knew or didn't know, as well as many strange things that words couldn't possibly describe.
This situation had become even more severe after he came into contact with the "Angel Umbilical Cord." At its worst, he would even "encounter evil" once every week.
Fortunately, the Special Operations Bureau's various training programs had been highly effective. At the very least, Zheng Zhi was much calmer than before when faced with such situations, and he had also mastered many ways to protect himself at the first possible moment.
The instant he realized that his surroundings had become distorted and that he might already have one foot in Otherworld, Zheng Zhi immediately activated his phone's emergency positioning, environmental collection, and recording functions. Then he stuffed the phone into his inner pocket, pulled a rationality blocker from another pocket, and injected it into his body.
Feeling a chill spread through him, while vague, low-pitched noise briefly surfaced beside his ears before quickly fading away, Zheng Zhi quietly let out a breath. He casually placed the plastic bag in his hand at his feet, then put one hand on the defensive handgun hidden beneath his clothes while the other reached into his pocket and touched a small, hard card.
When he pulled out the card, he saw that the seemingly ordinary white cardstock bore the inn's triangular emblem, drawn in dark-red "paint," along with several runes that looked impressive but incomprehensible (in fact, they were purely decorative).