Could their first meeting be called pleasant?

"Thank you, Boss Zhao." Shoichi Kano gave a slight nod.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman shifted her gaze, letting it settle gently on him. "What is it?"

"Mom, we need to get back to our mission, too."

"Oh?" A moment's thought reminded the Slit-Mouthed Woman why they had come here. They were not here to sightsee, but to retrieve a particular Cursed Tool. "Any news about that Cursed Tool?"

"Yes. Bai Guangzhi is back."

Shoko Ieiri noticed the looks passing between Kano and the Slit-Mouthed Woman. "Are you... leaving?"

Shoichi Kano made no attempt to hide it. "We have a mission, too."

"Is it like ours?"

"More or less."

Suguru Geto was still staring blankly at the clouds drifting across the sky, but his words were clearly meant for Kano and his companion. "Then I wish you both the best of luck. And... perhaps we'll meet again someday."

"There's no need to rush us off just yet," Kano said with a smile. "We can still spend some time together. We probably won't part ways until evening."

They spent another stretch of time sightseeing on foot. After getting drunk and spending a while looking at the lush green grasslands, blue sky, and white clouds, Suguru Geto seemed to be in slightly better spirits. The damp gloom hanging over him had thinned a little, which could only be a good thing.

Mr. Yoshihara drove them back to the hotel in the Crown car, then returned the keys to Shoichi Kano.

Kano and the Slit-Mouthed Woman had only been resting at the hotel for half an hour when Zhao Qingshan came looking for them.

Naturally, Kano returned the car to its owner-but Zhao Qingshan could not help sighing when he discovered that the fuel tank was nearly empty.

He vaguely remembered filling the tank on the very evening he first drove into Hailar.

Clearly, Kano had been using the car quite heavily lately. Otherwise, the fuel would not have run out so quickly.

"Let's not waste any time." Exhaustion showed on Boss Zhao's face after days of running back and forth between the local power brokers, the authorities, and Boss Bai. All he wanted now was to finish this business as quickly as possible, then go home and rest for ten days or a fortnight. "We should get going."

"Bai Guangzhi only agreed to meet you," Zhao Qingshan said with a sigh. "As for whether you can get what you're after, I can't say."

"Let's get there first," the Slit-Mouthed Woman muttered.

Soon, they returned to the little shop in Fendou Town, only to find the atmosphere inside oppressive. Bai Ning, the owner, mechanically wiped the dusty merchandise on the shelves with a rag. Not far behind him, a man around thirty who bore some resemblance to him sat in front of the television, smoking morosely.

A small mountain of cigarette butts had even piled up beside the man's leather shoes.

He only looked up when the Slit-Mouthed Woman's heeled sandals made the doorframe creak. "You two are the ones looking for me, right?"

Before Kano or the Slit-Mouthed Woman could explain, he said, "I know you're here for that thing, so I'll get straight to the point."

"If you can help me use it to achieve my goal, I'll gladly hand that treasure over when we're done. Otherwise, there's nothing to discuss."

Old Bai Ning could not take it anymore. "Guangzhi, let it go. Don't you realize you've become obsessed?"

"As the old saying goes, time flows like this river, never stopping, day or night!" Bai Ning slapped his rag onto the counter. "Time only moves forward. How could it ever flow backward?"

"Doing this... only makes you suffer, and makes them... suffer, too."

"What the hell do you know, you old bastard!" Bai Guangzhi burst out, cursing his father. "I've figured it out! That treasure can absolutely slow time down, and that's only its most basic use! That's already enough to interfere with time!"

"As long as I find the right way to use it, I can definitely go back to that moment and save them!"

Bai Ning merely sighed and shook his head, saying nothing more.

"Please come with me." Bai Guangzhi immediately changed his tone when he addressed Shoichi Kano and his companion. "As long as you two help me figure this thing out, I'll gladly hand the treasure over as payment once we're done."

"Sorry for the trouble, Mr. Bai. Please lead the way."

Bai Ning, the shopkeeper, seemed to have aged another ten years in an instant. He could not even summon the will to get up and see them out, simply slumping dejectedly in the chair behind the counter without a word.

"Why don't you come along too, Boss Zhao?" Kano suggested.

Zhao Qingshan understood perfectly well that taking someone's pay meant doing their bidding. If Kano told him to go east, he would never go west. "All right."

Bai Guangzhi said nothing about the extra person, merely walking ahead in silence to lead the way.

"Do we need to drive?" Zhao Qingshan asked.

Bai Guangzhi shook his head. "It's not far. Let's walk."

As they walked, the Slit-Mouthed Woman held her right hand like a blade and drew it across her neck a few times, then raised her eyebrows at Shoichi Kano.

Kano shook his head, rejecting that plan.

The four of them crossed the sidewalk, turned right into a narrow alley, then stopped in front of an old apartment building.

After rummaging in his pocket for some time, Bai Guangzhi took out his keys and opened the entrance door. "Fourth floor. Apartment 403."

The moment Bai Guangzhi pushed open his apartment door, the scene inside was laid bare before them.

To be honest, "messy" no longer sufficed to describe the place. It was a work of chaotic art that defied all reason. The moment they stepped through the doorway, a violent visual assault greeted them-every kind of object lay scattered across the floor: books, assorted plastic bags filled with unidentified contents, clothes, electronic components, and even battered remote controls from who knew where. Everything mingled together like some ecosystem gone out of control.

"Sorry, I don't get visitors very often. It's a bit messy, and I haven't tidied up. Please excuse it." The sight inside embarrassed Bai Guangzhi as well, leaving him to offer a few apologetic words.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman lifted one leg, then hesitated for ages without setting it down. Her heeled sandals needed a relatively flat spot to land on, or she might twist an ankle.

Only after Bai Guangzhi pushed some of the piled-up clutter aside with his foot and cleared a little space could the others enter.

"Where's the clock we're after?" Shoichi Kano asked.

"In the back room." After searching for ages without finding anything suitable to serve his guests, Bai Guangzhi discovered only a few unopened bottles of mineral water in the fridge. "Would any of you like something to drink?"

"No, thank you," Shoichi Kano said, declining his offer. "Let's get this over with quickly."

Bai Guangzhi's back room-or rather, his bedroom-was nowhere near as messy as the outer room. In fact, it was so tidy that it felt almost empty.

As soon as they entered, they saw the Western Clock sitting on the floor. Layers of nested red runes had been drawn around it in cinnabar. Centered on the Western Clock and arranged in the pattern of the Taiji Bagua, the runes spread outward to form an elaborate system.

The bedroom doorway where they stood, for example, corresponded to the Gate of Life.

"The formation I'm using," Bai Guangzhi explained briefly, "takes the form of the Taiji Bagua. I mark out several points in time that are important to me, then use the interactions between the trigrams to reverse space and time."

"That clock is the formation core of the entire array. Everything I've designed revolves around it."

"The problem I've run into now is that the formation seems to be missing something. It won't activate at all."

When Bai Guangzhi looked at Zhao Qingshan, he gave an awkward smile and immediately backed away a few steps. "Don't look at me. I'm just a dabbler."

But when Shoichi Kano translated Bai Guangzhi's explanation for the Slit-Mouthed Woman, a thoughtful look actually appeared in her eyes.