You in My Eyes

"Didn't you tell us to be careful of Gu Yunqing earlier?" Ye Miaozhu said with a cold face. "He's dead."

Zhang Yangxu looked around, and indeed, he did not see Gu Yunqing. "Did he also die by the river?"

Ye Miaozhu did not speak, only lowered her head.

"I understand." Zhang Yangxu turned his head to look at Ning Zhe. "Can you tell me the specific situation? The cause and effect of Gu Yunqing's death, and why you said their deaths have no direct connection to that river?"

Ning Zhe had no objections to this. "But first, I need to know what happened between you and that thing masquerading as Xie Sining after that phone call hung up. How did you get rid of it?"

Still very guarded, I see... Zhang Yangxu nodded slightly with self-awareness and continued.

"After the warning call from Feng Yushu was cut off, I tried to call back several times, but none of them went through. During the time I was trying to call back, Xie Sining didn't do anything; she just watched me quietly without saying a word. I didn't know at the time that she was already dead and had been replaced back at the river. All the clues I had were just that vague 'be careful of Xie Sining' from Feng Yushu."

"To be honest, Ning Zhe, I don't trust you, so I didn't fully believe the warning given in the call from Feng Yushu. I even seriously considered whether you were just playing tricks to sow discord between me and Sining. After all, you are all alone here."

"I feigned composure and continued toward the Ancestral Hall with Xie Sining, but the doubts in my heart did not dissipate. I decided to test her."

Speaking of this, Zhang Yangxu paused. "On the way back to the Ancestral Hall, I intentionally brought up the New World Group's real estate bidding project in Ancient Tablet Town. The conversation involved many relevant laws and regulations in that field, and her performance... was very strange."

Ning Zhe immediately became interested. "Finally, we're getting to the point. In what way was it strange?"

Involving trade secrets, Zhang Yangxu hesitated for a moment, but still said:

"Sining is a highly qualified professional lawyer with top-tier expertise recognized by her peers in the industry. I have some knowledge reserves in law, but I am still far inferior to her. Every time I make a decision, I often consult her on related issues, and I can basically get quick and clear answers. Sining has always been very reliable."

"But during this conversation, she didn't feel as 'reliable' to me."

"Some of the professional legal questions I raised regarding the real estate field, she could answer, and the speed of her response was extremely fast, giving answers exactly the same as what I had in mind. Other questions, she couldn't say a single word about, unable to provide an accurate answer. However, with Sining's ability, it was impossible for her not to be able to answer questions of this level, which made me feel very strange."

"I continued to ask about some other things with doubts, and as the exchange deepened, I slowly summarized a pattern:"

"For those questions she could answer, I mostly already knew the answers. And for those she couldn't answer, they were mostly ambiguous questions where I didn't know the answers."

"In other words, she only knew what I already knew, and didn't know what I didn't know."

Listening to Zhang Yangxu's description, Ning Zhe's brows furrowed. "You mean, that thing impersonating Xie Sining can perform Mind Reading, or read memories or something?"

Relying on reading the other person's memories to disguise itself as someone they know?

"No, I don't think so."

Zhang Yangxu continued: "Because in addition to professional legal questions, I also asked her some more private questions that only I knew, such as whether the passwords for my Bank Cards were the same, how much money I transferred to my mistress's card every month... and so on. She couldn't answer any of them."

If that imposter could really read minds, it would be impossible for it not to be able to answer these questions.

"Maybe it was faking it?" Ye Miaozhu said. Lying isn't difficult, if that thing could indeed read minds.

Ning Zhe waved his hand. "Let Director Zhang continue. Be detailed."

Zhang Yangxu nodded slightly and described the exchange process between himself and the fake Xie Sining in detail.

According to his narrative, Ning Zhe roughly sorted out a clear thread.

When Zhang Yangxu asked the fake Xie Sining a question, there were three situations:

1: Non-professional legal questions where Zhang Yangxu knew the answer and believed Xie Sining also knew it.

In this case, Xie Sining could accurately and quickly provide the correct answer.

2: Private questions like Bank Card passwords where Zhang Yangxu knew the answer but believed Xie Sining shouldn't know it.

In this case, Xie Sining would directly say she didn't know.

3: Highly professional legal questions where Zhang Yangxu didn't know the answer but believed Xie Sining should know it.

"This situation was the most peculiar. At first, Xie Sining would confidently state that she could answer it completely, but after saying 'I know,' she would stand completely still, not blinking, not breathing, not even having a heartbeat... The rustling sound from her throat was like a computer program encountering a bug and failing to run normally, repeatedly reporting errors. She kept repeating the last sentence she said before getting stuck."

Speaking of this, Zhang Yangxu's expression became strange. "It was just like... a game NPC whose script was triggered incorrectly."

"Or rather, a rule that got stuck by a bug and couldn't run normally."

Ning Zhe sighed and said, "He Family Village is a place that sticks to old rules. Everyone, everything, and every event we see here... even this entire world, operates according to certain established rules."

The so-called rules are rigid, absolute, and have no ambiguity or hypocrisy. 1 is 1, 0 is 0; there is no 0.5 that touches both sides. If you are forbidden from doing something, you cannot do it. If you violate the rules of the Snake God, you have violated them; there is no such thing as 'burying half a person today doesn't count as a burial.'

Knowing is knowing, not knowing is not knowing. The rules will remain silent, but they will not lie.

Zhang Yangxu nodded in deep agreement. "That thing wearing Sining's skin... every move she made was exactly the same as the Xie Sining in my memory, but it was the only thing that wasn't the real Xie Sining herself. It was her in my memory, not the real her. Do you understand what I mean?"

Was it not "Xie Sining" that was replaced by the ghost, but "the Xie Sining that Zhang Yangxu believed in"... is that it?

Ning Zhe's brows furrowed. He felt as if he had grasped some vital clues, but he couldn't clearly describe the specific appearance of that thread.

"After I confirmed from the bottom of my heart through various tests and inquiries that the 'ghost' in front of me was definitely not Xie Sining, it disappeared." Zhang Yangxu said. "Like a wisp of smoke, it completely vanished. That was how I got rid of it."

"So why did you tell us to be careful of Gu Yunqing?" Ning Zhe asked again.

"Because after getting rid of Xie Sining, I quickly returned to the Ancestral Hall. In the Ancestral Hall, I met someone."

Zhang Yangxu said, "I saw Gu Yunqing standing alone in front of the Lotus Platform, reaching out to flip the Almanac hanging on the Snake God statue, turning it to tomorrow."

And then he died.