Ye Qin slowly opened his eyes. Xie Yixuan was nowhere to be seen, and everything had returned to normal.
Ye Qin had not been completely unaware of what was happening outside just now.
It was just that he had already entered deep meditation. If he had chosen to wake up, it would have affected his state of mind during cultivation.
Whether in cultivation or anything else, everything depended on striking while the iron was hot.
As the saying went, after the first drumbeat came the second, weaker one, and by the third, all the strength was spent.
Ye Qin had not sensed any danger. Besides, that human had not lingered nearby for long before leaving, so he had simply let him be.
"Judging from what happened just now, that man seems to have fallen into some kind of illusion."
Ye Qin guessed that his cultivation might have affected the magnetic field around him. The white bones he had been visualizing had manifested as an illusion and been reflected into reality.
As it happened, Xie Yixuan had arrived and accidentally fallen into the illusion. The woman he saw was what the white bones had looked like when they were alive.
That had led to the series of events that followed.
In truth, Ye Qin had never left. Xie Yixuan had already been affected by the illusion and mistakenly thought he had vanished, much like the feeling of "a leaf blocking one's view."
Meanwhile, the police on the other side had been busy for most of the day. As the sky gradually darkened, they still had not found the woman Xie Yixuan had described, so Sun Zhenbang and the others had no choice but to return down the mountain empty-handed.
"I think you were hallucinating! A woman dressed in ancient clothing? That makes no sense at all. The temperature on the mountain is so low that if someone really dressed like that, she would have frozen to death long before you ever saw her!"
They had originally come to catch a criminal, but after Xie Yixuan's clowning around, not only had they failed to catch the culprit, they had wasted a great deal of time.
Xie Yixuan also felt terribly wronged. He had clearly seen her and had even followed the woman for a while. "But I really did see her."
Sun Zhenbang gave a cold laugh. "You saw her? Then where is she? With this many grown men here, are you saying we can't find a single woman? It's not as if we're blind."
"And there's this place, too. There are only your footprints. There aren't any footprints belonging to a woman at all."
The more Sun Zhenbang thought about it, the more something seemed wrong. Furious, he dug up the old issue. "Tell me honestly. Why did you suddenly veer away from the search area for no reason?"
"I saw lightning striking that area repeatedly and was worried it might start a mountain fire, so I went over to take a look. Then I saw a snake, and after that I saw a woman. Then the snake and the woman both inexplicably disappeared."
After hearing his account, Sun Zhenbang's face darkened so much it seemed water might drip from it. But when he remembered that Xie Yixuan had acted out of concern about a mountain fire, he could not bring himself to say anything more.
Winter was indeed the season when mountain fires occurred most often. Combined with the thunder earlier, there really had been such a risk.
"Captain Sun, calm down. Getting worked up is bad for your health. I promise I won't do it again."
Sun Zhenbang said irritably, "I think you're deliberately trying to anger me to death."
He glared at Xie Yixuan. "You young people simply can't settle down. Everyone wasted so much time because of you. Do you admit it?"
They had already lost quite a bit of time looking for Xie Yixuan, and then had wasted more searching for the woman he claimed to have seen.
After hearing Xie Yixuan's full account of what had happened, Sun Zhenbang could be certain that Xie Yixuan had absolutely been hallucinating.
Xie Yixuan lowered his head, looking somewhat guilty. Knowing that he had caused everyone a great deal of inconvenience, he became much more obedient. "I admit it."
"Good. Go back and write a thousand-word self-criticism. Hand it to me tomorrow. Also, all those novels and things of yours are confiscated!"
At those words, Xie Yixuan felt as if five peals of thunder had exploded over his head. "What?! Captain Sun, those are my spiritual sustenance! What am I supposed to do without them?"
Sun Zhenbang felt both angry and amused when he heard that.
"You've read too many of those assorted books, which is why you went and made such a ridiculous mess. When you have time in the future, read more relevant books and make up for your professional knowledge."
Seeing that Xie Yixuan still wanted to say something, he added, "Try bargaining again, and I'll have you write ten thousand words."
Xie Yixuan immediately fell silent.
For the subsequent search of the mountain, Sun Zhenbang did not let Xie Yixuan participate again, merely telling him to go back and reflect properly.
Unfortunately, after searching the mountain for several days in a row, they still failed to find the culprit. It was as though the man had vanished from the face of the earth, giving everyone the feeling that the culprit had never existed at all.
The police tried every possible method, but still found no leads.
Meanwhile, Xie Yixuan was transferred back to Fog City. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he went to the Mist City Library to replenish his spiritual sustenance.
After all, Sun Zhenbang had confiscated every one of his novels last time.
In this information age, most people chose e-books for convenience. Xie Yixuan was different, however. He always felt that paper novels had more flavor when read in physical form.
With every turn of the page, he felt as if he were turning to another kind of life. There were not many people like him left anymore.
Other colleagues had come with Xie Yixuan as well, intending to borrow books from the library. The kind they borrowed were professional texts, since the information online was incomplete and they wanted to see what the library had.
There were not many people inside, just a sparse handful. After searching for quite some time, Xie Yixuan finally found the type of novels he liked.
A colleague also came over with a book in his arms. Seeing the book in Xie Yixuan's hands, he asked curiously, "'Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'? Since when did you start liking this sort of book? Didn't you used to prefer cultivation novels and the like?"
Xie Yixuan shook his head, his expression filled with mystery. "My tastes have changed recently. Besides, I keep feeling that the snake I encountered last time and that strange woman were somehow connected."
Over the past few days, Xie Yixuan had thought it over. First, the snake he had seen disappeared, and then that woman dressed like an ancient scholar appeared.
Afterward, the woman disappeared just like the snake. He could not shake the feeling that the two were somehow connected.
His companion could not help shaking his head when he heard this. "You're still talking about that? If Captain Sun hears you, watch out or he'll beat you up again. We already told you it was a hallucination. Why won't you believe us?"
"Besides, it was broad daylight. How could that snake and woman you mentioned suddenly disappear without a trace? So you must have seen wrong."
Had it really been a hallucination?
Xie Yixuan could not help falling into doubt. "If it really was a hallucination, then everything was far too real. I even followed that strange woman for a while."
"But then again, why were there only my footprints at the scene, with none of hers?"
His companion dismissed it entirely and said with absolute certainty, "That's exactly why it was a hallucination. Stop talking about this, or next time you'll be writing ten thousand words."
"I don't think so. Then how do you explain why the lightning struck only that patch of ground?"
The two of them discussed it heatedly.
"Bang—"
A book fell to the floor from the bookshelf opposite them.
Xie Yixuan thought he had accidentally bumped it, so he hurriedly picked it up to put it back. But through the gap, he saw a pair of eyes!