Ke Meng did not return to his temporary residence in the special field. Instead, he took a leisurely stroll back to his real home.
"I'm home." Ke Meng's face was full of emotion. From a distance, he could barely recognize his own house, but as he drew closer, recognition came, and familiarity washed over him.
It was a four-story house. No one had lived there in the years since he moved out. The building stood empty, its walls and upstairs windows covered in dust.
Ke Meng stood in front of the convenience store downstairs. Its silver roller shutter was locked tight, and a thick layer of dust coated its ridged surface.
He gently wiped it with a finger, scraping away black dust three millimeters thick.
Mother Chen and her daughter had once run this convenience store. Since their disappearance, it had never opened again.
Ke Meng had not cleared out the store's contents, either. At the time, he had merely cooperated with the Investigation Bureau by opening the door so they could take photographs and perform Synesthesia inside. He had not taken anything away.
Ke Meng felt in his pocket. On the way back, he had taken the keys out of his Storage Scarf and put them there. Now, reaching inside, he pulled out a key ring with several keys on it.
Each key corresponded to a door. Following his powerful intuition, Ke Meng instinctively touched the first key. It happened to be the key to the convenience store's roller shutter.
As he looked at the key in his hand, scenes from the past flashed before his eyes.
In those scenes, his family had hired someone to install the silver roller shutter and had several keys made. Whenever a new tenant took over the shop downstairs, they would hand over