The corpse still lay on the morgue slab, no different from a frozen cut of pork. In fact, it had been frozen and had not been thawed.
Baron Hanklis, meanwhile, looked decidedly unwell.
"I really never imagined... that something like this could happen..."
"Here is the deceased's wallet. It contains his identity card, some loose change, and a ticket."
Li Wei picked up the document envelope beside him.
"We've already checked the ID number on his identity card. It matches yours."
"But aren't identity card numbers unique to each person?"
Baron Hanklis asked in confusion. An identity card's ID number was like a modern national identification number, except that, rather than following a particular pattern, it was randomly generated by a Difference Engine. In theory, there was no way it could generate the same number twice.
Of course, strictly speaking, a coincidence was not entirely impossible.
But a man who looked exactly like Baron Hanklis, carrying an identity card exactly like Baron Hanklis's, with the very same ID number? That was far too much of a coincidence. It was practically impossible.
"That's why we'd already started the paperwork. If we hadn't found you, the death report would have reached the Royal Palace by now."
"Uh..."
Hanklis was a baron, a nobleman. If he really died, the Royal Family would have to be notified, and an obituary published in the newspapers. Fortunately, Li Wei had made the trip. Otherwise, Baron Hanklis might well have read his own obituary in a newspaper a few days later.
That would have been even more terrifying.
"So what are we supposed to do now, Sir Li Wei? Who exactly is this man? Could he really be me? But how could there possibly be two of me?"
Baron Hanklis was utterly bewildered by now, his mind