Life allowed no assumptions, just as people could not know how they would live ten years later. Likewise, they could not know how they would be living now if some condition in the past had changed.
Therefore, regarding Zhu Shi's claim, I could only remain noncommittal. However, she had still misunderstood one thing. I had emphasized before that the object of my true obsession was not anything supernatural, but unpredictable adventures that transcended reality. It was simply that the supernatural world came closest to that answer. They seemed similar, but the difference was quite important to me.
"Since you brought up my superpower, there's something I'd like to ask you." I spoke solemnly. "This question has troubled me for years. It's very important to me."
Seeing how serious I was, she became serious as well. "Go ahead."
I asked the question that had been bothering me.
"What exactly is going on with my superpower?"
"Huh?" She looked confused. "You're asking me? Aren't you the person who knows best?"
"Well, it's like this..."
I told her the whole story of how I had awakened my superpower.
"Ah, no wonder you were always carrying candles around in middle school and occasionally taking them out to stare at..." After hearing everything, she suddenly understood. Then she added a cruel remark without meaning to. "I even wondered whether you'd really been possessed by some evil spirit, since you acted so strangely. It turns out the strange thing was your brain."
"Did you just say something?"
And why did she know about what had happened to me in middle school?
"Cough, cough!" Only then did she realize what she had said. She hurriedly coughed twice and finally became serious. "Um, I understand. In other words, you want to know how your superpower came into existence?"
"Right. Even in fictional worlds, the origins of superpowers are always explained clearly, aren't they? Maybe they come from some kind of superpower gene that scientists haven't discovered yet, or radiation from some special mineral, or perhaps humans have always been capable of awakening superpowers, but only a small percentage can do so..." I gave several examples.
"That's difficult for me to answer accurately." She looked me over from head to toe.
I didn't know whether she had used some special power at that moment, but I suddenly had the strange sensation that all my clothes had been stripped away and that someone was scrutinizing me completely naked.
The feeling soon disappeared. She withdrew her probing gaze and reached a conclusion. "There are many reasons why people develop superpowers. All the possibilities you mentioned have existed in real cases. As for you, I can only say that you probably don't have the bloodline of any demons or monsters mixed into yours. I can't draw any more specific conclusions. Perhaps only a detailed examination would reveal the truth."
Should I ask Luoshan to perform a detailed examination...? I weighed the idea repeatedly in my mind.
"But that's strange..." Zhu Shi suddenly remembered something. "Supernatural beings should, in theory, attract one another. Since you've been a superpower user for a long time, you're one of us. It makes even less sense that you've never encountered a supernatural incident."
"Supernatural beings attract one another? Why is that?" I asked curiously.
She gave an irresponsible answer. "I don't know. It's simply a universally acknowledged phenomenon."
"Isn't that answer a little too crude?" I complained.
"Besides, I investigated many of the places you looked into before." She then said something I found completely incomprehensible. "Many of those places really did contain supernatural phenomena. It shouldn't have been that difficult for you to find them. But you just never encountered any of them..."
Her words caused turbulent waves to surge through my heart. "Wait, I don't understand. What are you saying...?"
"I can't understand it either. It's as if you and supernatural incidents aren't attracted to each other, but repelled by each other instead." Her voice was filled with puzzlement.
Many of the supernatural incidents I had investigated in the past had been genuine? Supernatural incidents and I repelled each other?
This was the first time I had ever heard of such a thing!
But if what she had said before was true, then I should indeed have been more likely than ordinary people to encounter supernatural incidents. The fact that I had investigated them for years without finding anything truly made no sense.
I steadied my thoughts, then asked tentatively, "...Then, following this trend, assuming I joined Luoshan..."
"If the reason can't be determined, then even if you became a member of Luoshan, you'd probably still be destined to have no connection with supernatural incidents." She gave her conclusion first, then fell into thought. "Come to think of it, according to the usual pattern, you should have missed the cave in the Fifteenth Floor room this time as well... Did something special change that finally caused you to encounter a supernatural incident this time?"
At her words, I could think of only one decisive change: I had met Maza.
Earlier, I had thought that as long as I established a connection with Luoshan, I would no longer need Maza's "jinxed constitution." Now it seemed that had merely been wishful thinking.
I really couldn't let Maza leave!
She was still indispensable—in fact, she was even more important than before.
I had to keep her firmly in the palm of my hand. I absolutely could not let her leave me.
Luoshan seemed to be searching for Maza as well, but I didn't know what their purpose was. Could I learn something through Zhu Shi? I carefully considered how to phrase my questions. If I was even slightly careless, I might expose a flaw and let her discover that I knew where Maza was.
"Is there anything else you want to know?" Zhu Shi seemed to notice the question I was holding back. "It's fine. Today, we've gotten to know each other all over again. I learned quite a lot from you earlier, so ask whatever you want. I'll answer as much as I can."
"It's about the Fallen Demon Hunter." I finally settled on my wording. "Didn't you say before that the Fallen Demon Hunter was the culprit behind the murder case eight months ago? I previously met a police officer who said that the culprit from eight months ago was the same person as the Serial Killer who appeared recently."
She thought for a moment. "The police officer you mentioned was Agent Kong, right? I asked him to investigate the Fifteenth Floor room for me."
"That police officer was also from Luoshan?" I pretended not to know.
"Yes, but his actual position is as a frontline investigator for Luoshan. He only pretended to be a police officer because the mission required it. He isn't a real police officer."
"I see..." I continued. "Anyway, Agent Kong told me that the culprit and the Serial Killer were the same person, and that the killer was a girl of thirteen or fourteen. Could it be that the Fallen Demon Hunter had been a girl before transforming?"
"Ah, you mean that..." An awkward expression appeared on her face. "No, that's not it. Don't worry. You didn't burn a girl that young."
"In other words, Agent Kong lied to me at the time, deliberately accusing someone who had never killed anyone of being a murderer?" I pressed. "Why? Who was the girl he was looking for?"
"That matter is related to the mission Agent Kong is carrying out. It isn't very convenient for me to disclose anything..."
Judging from her expression, she also seemed to feel that Luoshan's accusation of Maza as the Serial Killer had been unconscionable. But I was an outsider to Luoshan, and in her eyes, I had nothing to do with the matter. If I pursued it too deeply, I might arouse suspicion. I could only think of another direction in which to probe.
Just then, Zhu Shi's phone rang.
She glanced down at the caller ID. Her expression turned official and businesslike, and she answered the call.
I silently moved my right hand behind my back and quietly lit up Firefly, using its special perception to eavesdrop on the conversation. The person on the other end seemed to be one of the gray-uniformed personnel who had retrieved the Fallen Demon Hunter's corpse earlier. Their tone was somewhat strange. They said that the preliminary results of the corpse examination were ready and hoped Zhu Shi would come over to take a look as well.
What could possibly require Zhu Shi, a frontline operative, to return and inspect it?
After agreeing, Zhu Shi hung up and gave me an apologetic look. "Sorry for the trouble, but I have to go back first. It's work-related."
"Is it related to the Fallen Demon Hunter? Before he died, he said he had seen me two years ago and had some kind of grudge against me, but I don't remember him at all."
I had mentioned this in passing earlier when describing the battle to her.
"I'll investigate it." She nodded first, then said, "Actually, I think there's another very strange aspect to the Fallen Demon Hunter's death."
"What is it?" I asked.
"He had another skill: he could use shadows as passageways to travel between different spaces." She continued, "Yet according to your description, he never used that skill while fleeing, even though it was extremely suitable for escaping. Perhaps I'm just overthinking it... This incident may not be over yet."
I wasn't completely unfamiliar with the skill she mentioned.
When the Fallen Demon Hunter had first appeared before me, he had emerged from the shadows.
Since he could come out of the shadows, he should certainly have been able to enter them.
Yet while fleeing in panic, he had never escaped into the shadows, not even before his death. Was it because the flames burning on his body dispersed all shadows wherever he went? But when he had tried to manipulate the shadows to extinguish the flames on his body, the firelight hadn't affected them. The shadows he controlled then had simply been burned away by the flames, rather than dispersed by the firelight.
Perhaps this incident really wasn't over yet. I couldn't help reaching the same conclusion.
After Zhu Shi said goodbye, she hurriedly turned around, and I was preparing to return home as well.
Actually, if circumstances had allowed, I had originally wanted to take out the black jade I had obtained from the basement and ask Zhu Shi to identify it for me. But judging from her wariness toward supernatural objects and her sense of duty as a Luoshan Demon Hunter, there was a chance that I wouldn't get the black jade back after handing it over. I had no choice but to abandon the idea for now.
Suddenly, I noticed that after walking several steps away, Zhu Shi turned around and looked back at me. Her eyes seemed hesitant.
I didn't know what she wanted to say, so I stopped where I was and waited for her to speak.
After a moment, she finally exhaled. Her expression gradually softened, and her voice returned to its everyday tone as she smiled faintly at me.
"See you tomorrow, Senior Brother Zhuang."
She spoke with a smile while waving goodbye.
Before you continue