Escort

With his questions answered, Xia Shou immediately felt much better. He was the sort of person who simply couldn't leave an intriguing puzzle alone.

"But to think the Containment Bureau uses the term anti-meme too."

Anti-memes had existed in Xia Shou's original world as well, as a highly popular concept in speculative fiction.

An anti-meme was a concept with self-concealing properties, one whose very nature prevented or hindered others from spreading it.

Ordinary anti-memes also existed in reality, though they lacked the property of "absolute concealment." Bank passwords, embarrassing pasts, and murderers' experiences of committing murder, for example, were all information the people involved were unwilling to share, which also satisfied the definition of preventing dissemination.

Under the supernatural definition, however, anti-memes generally had a more absolute nature. It wasn't that people subjectively didn't want to spread them, but that they were objectively unable to do so.

And Su Weiyu's ability clearly couldn't be encompassed by the definition of an anti-meme alone.

Xia Shou had already noticed that, despite the two of them sitting on the grass and openly chatting in front of everyone, no one so much as glanced their way, let alone found anything amiss.

"This goes beyond being an anti-meme. They can't even perceive your existence themselves. You could say information about you is blocked at the source," Xia Shou analyzed.

"Yeah, but it doesn't work on you! Anyway, are you living at the Containment Bureau now?" Su Weiyu asked, sounding a little excited.

"Yeah, I'm staying in the staff dorms," Xia Shou answered distractedly, his mind focused entirely on his future survival strategy at the Containment Bureau.

Beside him, Su Weiyu looked relieved and pleased, as though she'd made up her mind about something.

Before long, the Containment Bureau's backup convoy arrived. Doors opened one after another, and medical, investigation, and custody teams emerged from more than a dozen vehicles.

The medical team immediately began stitching up the seriously wounded Execution Squad members. This was Xia Shou's first time seeing how the Containment Bureau administered first aid.

A woman in a white coat stepped out with a cigarette between her lips, brought over a stool, and sat in the middle of the clearing. A large teddy bear-like contracted spirit slowly materialized behind her. Hundreds of pairs of eyes crowded its head, resembling a spider's compound eyes.

Upon seeing the injured Execution Squad members, it spread its mouth in an exaggerated grin, then floated over to them. The zipper on its back opened by itself, and dozens of slender, jointed, spider-like arms extended from inside the teddy bear. They picked up the severed arms from the ground and began stitching them back onto the wounds.

Doctor Bear performed extraordinarily precise disinfection procedures while suturing the wounds.

The female doctor sat on her stool, dark circles under her eyes, and gave the wounded men a puzzled look. "Hey, how'd you end up in such bad shape? Who cut your arms off? Was it that kid?"

She pointed her cigarette at Xia Shou, who was sitting nearby.

The Execution Squad captain shook his head. "Not him. They just came off."

"What kind of answer is that? I'm asking how they came off."

"No, how else am I supposed to explain something like that? They just came off. What do you want me to say?"

The Execution Squad captain looked at the doctor in bewilderment, as though she'd asked an impossibly demanding question like, "Why does one plus one equal two?"

After hearing his answer, the doctor didn't press him further. As though she'd understood something, she took a small notebook from her breast pocket and casually jotted something down.

While she took notes, Doctor Bear continued dutifully treating the wounded.

Its suturing efficiency surpassed any human doctor's countless times over. Xia Shou couldn't follow its movements with his naked eye at all. All he could see were dozens of arms flickering like afterimages, needles and thread darting through the wounds like a sewing machine. Before he knew it, the severed arms had been perfectly reattached.

Once the suturing was complete, the Execution Squad members stood and casually stretched their arms. They even swung them in full circles and began making vigorous movements.

"That's seriously badass!" Xia Shou exclaimed.

"You've never seen it before? This treatment is only for Transcendents, though, because those sutures are formed from curse power. The patient needs their own curse power to maintain the sutures' existence, so ordinary people can't undergo this kind of surgery.

"But treating ordinary people with regular medical equipment is also possible. It can't achieve this level of precision, but it's definitely still far better than even the best human surgeons," Su Weiyu explained patiently.

While the doctor treated the wounded, the investigation team had already sent people into the Blood Demon House with instruments.

The previously quiet woodland immediately grew noisy, filled with the chatter of radios and the constant readouts of detectors.

"The anomalous properties of the Blood Demon House itself have begun dissipating. Requesting further instructions," a voice came over Zhang Zhengde's radio.

Zhang Zhengde considered briefly. "Search as much of the Blood Demon House as possible without compromising safety. Your target is Edward!"

"Yes, sir!"

While the investigation team continued its work, the custody team approached Xia Shou. One man spoke up. "Specialist Xia Shou, are you willing to cooperate with me in my work?"

"Uh... yes." Xia Shou turned to ask Su Weiyu, "Is the Containment Bureau always this polite when arresting people?"

Su Weiyu shook her head. "No. Some abilities have activation conditions similar to contracts and require the other party's consent. Don't worry. I'm here."

Then the man took out a marker and wrote a number on the back of Xia Shou's hand. Once he finished, he recited as though reading from a script, "Your status is that of a person pending investigation. During the escort, you may not move away from your escort without permission. You may not..."

The man rattled off a long list before adding, "In the event of an unexpected emergency, you may act freely, provided you comply with the Containment Bureau's regulations.

"During the escort, I will also do everything in my power to ensure your safety. Do you understand?"

"Understood."

"Good. Please come aboard. You probably haven't had dinner yet, have you? We've prepared a late-night meal for you in the vehicle."

A late-night meal too?

Was this really how they treated a suspect?

He boarded the largest transport truck. There was enough room inside for him to stand upright, and it contained a narrow bed with a guardrail and a small table and chair, with an insulated food container on the table.

Farther inside, there was even a shower room!

"Move in a little. I'm coming aboard too." Su Weiyu hopped into the custody vehicle right behind Xia Shou.

"Does the Containment Bureau treat its prisoners this well too?"

"Of course not. Right now, you're first and foremost an employee who completed his assignment, and only secondarily a suspect who poses a potential risk. Naturally, your treatment wouldn't

"be bad." As she finished speaking, Su Weiyu's stomach growled.

She lowered her head and scratched it nonchalantly, saying breezily, "Looks like I'm hungry! I'll just find some five-star restaurant for a late-night bite when we get back. Nope, I won't have to pay."

"Why don't you eat first?" Xia Shou opened the insulated container, took out a hamburger, and offered it to Su Weiyu.

Su Weiyu stared at the hamburger, her expression growing excited again. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't get a word out for a long while.

This was a stark contrast to how lively she'd been during their earlier conversation.

"You're... really giving it to me?" Su Weiyu sounded as though she were about to receive an unimaginably great kindness.

Seriously? Was she that easy to move?

Xia Shou hadn't expected to actually meet a beautiful girl who could be satisfied with a single hamburger. This was even more ridiculous than those cheesy novel scenes where a roast goose won a girl's heart.

At least those roast geese were handmade with special spice blends. His hamburger was nothing but fast-food takeout... and it was just a staff meal provided by the organization, at that.

Looking at the family bucket of chicken wings still inside the insulated container, Xia Shou said quite naturally, "Uh... the higher-ups are pretty thoughtful, preparing this much food. I'd burst if I ate it all."

At those words, Su Weiyu reached out again with the hand she'd quietly withdrawn and accepted the hamburger.

"You're the first," Su Weiyu murmured.

"Huh? What?"

"No, nothing."