Promoted Again?

The memory Li Fan obtained belonged to Jiang Hua, deputy captain of the Qingshan Archaeological Team.

It was a memory of Jiang Hua accompanying the Qingshan Archaeological Team into the depths of Cloud Mountain in search of an ancient tomb.

After discovering the first Ancient Dian King Tomb, the Qingshan Archaeological Team had made a major discovery and earned great acclaim.

During the process, they had found a bronze inscription in the tomb that read, "The king's spirit is in the river fields." It actually pointed to another Dian King Tomb.

This, combined with the many old rumors in the villages around Cloud Mountain,

all the clues indicated that another Dian King Tomb lay deep within Cloud Mountain.

As the advance team for the Qingshan Archaeological Team, their mission was to follow the clues and find traces of the Ancient Dian King Tomb, preferably locating it outright.

Once they found it, the existing information would allow them to completely reconstruct the ancient Dian Kingdom.

It would be one of the world's top ten archaeological discoveries.

One day, the advance team was making its way through the mountains when they reached a hollow and found a small jade figurine.

Its craftsmanship was unmistakably from the Ancient Dian Kingdom, and everyone was thrilled.

But then a thick fog suddenly rolled in.

All their communications equipment stopped working.

Fog banks like this were common in the mountains. They'd be fine once they got out of one.

They felt their way forward and came upon a black forest they had never seen before.

The trees there were bizarrely shaped, and from a distance they looked like a crowd of people dancing.

When they got closer, they discovered that the area was shrouded in mist, and a group of ethereal, otherworldly immortals were holding a banquet in the black forest!

Some kind of glow obscured the immortals' faces, making them impossible to see clearly, but their transcendent elegance was unmistakable.

Jiang Hua and the others first suspected they were hallucinating. Perhaps something in the mountain fog was refracting the light.

But then they realized that the immortals were real!

The moment they saw the newcomers, the immortals warmly invited them to join the banquet.

Then came exuberant dancing. Though their faces remained indistinct, the immortals' graceful figures were clear to see.

After that, Jiang Hua's memory abruptly ended.

Li Fan understood that Jiang Hua had already died by then.

When investigators from the Anomaly Bureau's Investigation Department found the archaeological advance team, all they saw was a strange forest.

The archaeological team members' corpses had fused with the forest's grotesquely twisted trees, smiles still on their faces.

Clearly, something was going on in Cloud Mountain.

There was something seriously wrong with that forest.

As for the immortals, Li Fan didn't believe in them at all.

Every anomaly could be explained by science. Ultimately, it was just a mutation caused by mental radiation.

Jiang Hua and the others had most likely been exposed to some kind of mental radiation and started hallucinating.

After getting this information, Li Fan pushed Jiang Hua's corpse back into the drawer and pulled open another morgue drawer.

As expected, he found another Human-Faced Snake mental entity.

By now, he was familiar with the process. He used the Tiger Pillar God to swallow it and stored the resulting mental energy in his subconscious.

The archaeological team members' memory fragments were similar, so this time Li Fan didn't take the memory fragment left behind by the victim. Instead, he continued searching for the next one.

The Human-Faced Snakes weren't always in the same part of the body. Some were in the torso, some in the limbs, and some in the head, making them rather difficult to find.

Fortunately, after a lot of effort, Li Fan absorbed almost all of the Human-Faced Snakes. Only one was left.

With the Tiger Pillar God's mental energy possessing him, Li Fan's behavior was subtly affected. He jumped onto a morgue bed and used his mental entity's power to examine the body from every angle. In the end, he pulled the last Human-Faced Snake from the corpse's chest and swallowed it on the spot.

"Cough, cough..." Just as Li Fan swallowed the last Human-Faced Snake, he heard a faint cough.

Li Fan was sprawled over the morgue bed. He turned toward the door and saw Zhang Hongbing standing there, smoking.

"The security cameras glitched just now, so I figured I'd come down and check..."

Smoke swirled around Zhang Hongbing's face, obscuring his expression. He spoke somewhat indistinctly:

"Fan, if you're having any problems, just tell your uncle. There's no need to do this... How about I introduce you to someone? If that doesn't work, I have a friend who knows a massage therapist... You can't go on like this."

Zhang Hongbing's words left Li Fan bewildered. For a moment, he couldn't figure out what the man meant.

Then he turned his head and suddenly realized he was lying on top of a female corpse. He hurriedly jumped down and waved his hands.

"No, Engineer Zhang, you've got it wrong. I'm looking for anomalies. I couldn't see clearly from far away, so I got closer..."

Zhang Hongbing nodded slowly.

"I understand. It's like how some people like salty tofu pudding, some like sweet tofu pudding, and others like savory or spicy tofu pudding. They're all tofu pudding, just eaten different ways.

"But you're still young. Those really weird kinds of tofu pudding aren't suitable for you. Take it from your uncle: at the very least, it should be alive."

Li Fan's face darkened. He hurried to explain:

"Really, there's nothing going on! I'm working! I wanted to see if I'd missed any anomalies."

"Did you find anything?"

"N-no... I didn't find anything..."

"Oh."

Zhang Hongbing nodded and turned back toward the duty room.

Li Fan quickly pushed the morgue drawer back in and went upstairs with Zhang Hongbing.

"Engineer Zhang, it really wasn't what you thought."

"I understand."

When it became clear he couldn't explain himself, Li Fan said goodbye to Zhang Hongbing with a dejected look and left the Anomaly Bureau.

Fortunately, he'd gained a lot that night. He'd swallowed a pile of Human-Faced Snake mental entities and gained plenty of mental energy, and he'd also found a lead on the anomaly fusion incident.

The Unity Society was probably behind it. He'd have the Cleaning Association's people look into it when he got back.

I'm a big shot in the Cleaning Association, doing just fine undercover here. What business does a mere Unity Society have making trouble for me?

As he walked down the street and watched people coming and going, Li Fan couldn't help sighing.

He really didn't want to go back to that house, but there was no choice. Life was like a play, and he had to keep acting.

He hailed a cab and returned to the villa.

It was already past seven in the evening. From a distance, he could hear laughter and clinking glasses coming from the villa's garden, as if they were celebrating something.

Li Fan took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The laughter immediately died away.

His father, mother, Auntie Zhang, the gardener Old Sun, and the driver Old Chen all sprang to their feet, hardly daring to breathe as they watched Li Fan come home.

They quietly set their wineglasses back on the table.

Still, they didn't seem quite as afraid as before.

Li Fan immediately felt a stab of fear.

"You're... you're back..." his father said, still smiling.

"I have good news for you. Headquarters sent word that they detected the Lord of the Abyss's aura in the Shell Currency you turned in!"

His mother hurried to add:

"Just as expected of you, Collector! We're all so thrilled that we celebrated a little early. Please forgive us."

Auntie Zhang and the others nodded and smiled obsequiously.

They were clearly genuinely happy.

If the Collector had found an item bearing the Lord of the Abyss's aura, that meant he truly was the being closest to the Lord of the Abyss!

The one they followed might well be the Lord of the Abyss's emissary, walking among mortals.

He might even be closer to the Lord of the Abyss than the mysterious president of the Cleaning Association.

The Lord of the Abyss's aura? Could it have come from the Prison of Suppression? Or could that so-called Lord of the Abyss actually be imprisoned inside the Prison of Suppression!? These thoughts flashed through Li Fan's mind, leaving him stunned.

He kept his expression neutral and said:

"Understood."

His mother seemed accustomed to the Collector's taciturn nature. She continued:

"Headquarters sent word that, to recognize your achievements, they've appointed you Shepherd of the southwestern region of Central Province, in charge of all the Association's affairs in the area!"