The Creatures That We Are

“Go on,” said Lithe Snake.

“According to your description, Rogue Cape is quite a large region.” Chen Ying sounded a little confused. “But seven years ago, when the Union sent surveyors to the place, it was fairly small.”

Lithe Snake answered, “I know. Six years ago, I went back to Rogue Cape to attend the funeral of the trafficked victim who saved me. I noticed then that the place had gotten a lot smaller.”

Officer Huang hissed in surprise. “Do you mean that the Mist World shrinks?”

“I don’t know about the other places, but there were many offshore islands around Rogue Cape. The merc group I belonged to went there and hid in the tropical woods whenever we got in trouble with the wrong people. When I went back for the funeral, though, many of the islands had become unreachable, blocked by the barrier of the Mist World.”

“Is that so?” Chen Ying was shocked. “Did you tell the Guild?”

“I told Black Tortoise, and he asked me to keep it a secret. I’m not sure if he had told Guildmaster Qilin.”

Gao Yang fell into thought. Is it that the Mist World at large has been shrinking, or only the area around Rogue Cape? Does it have something to do with the Mist World only having a hundred-year lifespan?

Both were questions not yet answered.

Gao Yang took out his phone. “I’ll tell Guildmaster that and what happened tonight.”

“I’ll report back too.” Officer Huang took out his phone and looked for War Tiger’s contact information.

“Same here.” Chen Ying followed suit.

Gao Yang smiled wryly. Ha, and this is where the rivalry between the three organizations comes into play. None is willing to be left behind in the information war.

“We’d have to trouble you, Chen Ying,” Gao Yang said politely. “Find out more through Dick’s watch with your Psychometry. The focus is on Hyena and the Godbearer Cult behind him.”

“Of course.” Chen Ying nodded. She had taken off Dick’s watch to do exactly that.

...

It only took a few minutes for them to brief their respective organizations. Meanwhile, Nainai voluntarily cleaned up the mess they left after eating.

Chen Ying took Dick’s watch to the bathroom, glancing at the others before closing the door. “I need ten minutes. Please try to keep it down.”

They nodded.

Chen Ying entered the bathroom and laid clean towels on the toilet lid before sitting down, putting Dick’s watch on.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, drawing the energy in her body to her wrist to examine and explore the watch.

Her Psychometry was now level 6, and she quickly got into the right state.

Her consciousness and willpower weaved through the turbulent flows of information, opening the door of time and space with the watch as the medium. She found herself in what seemed like a theater consisting of information and energy, able to make one relive an experience.

Countless snippets of memory from the watch’s point of view were presented to her, hovering before her like a slideshow. Each depicted a period of Dick’s life—his work, leisure time, meals, showers, sleeps, and more—tracing all the way back to twelve days ago.

In the form of consciousness and energy, Chen Ying quickly browsed through the snippets. Whenever one caught her attention, she would dive into it and experience the memory as Dick’s watch.

The first five days were uneventful.

Dick played his mundane identity well—a single man and an unknown lawyer with little ambition.

At night, he would go to a bar near the law firm with his colleagues to get a drink. If he hit it off with a woman he liked, he would take her to his place. Sometimes, he went for a lady of the night offering the right price.

Every Wednesday night, he made an encoded call to the HQ of the Hundred Rivers Union at Li City, spending about five minutes briefing the Union on his everyday work.

Eight days ago, Dick got an instruction from Chen Ying, telling him to collect information on the Godbearer Cult and conduct an investigation locally.

Thus, Dick decreased his workload during the day and started a secret investigation utilizing his job title.

In the next two days, he found about a dozen suspects and narrowed it down to three. Then he asked a friend in the intelligence agency out for a few drinks, asking him to look further into the suspects.

Of course, Dick couldn’t tell his friend that he was looking into the Godbearer Cult, so he made up a lie that their client was trying to unearth the skeletons in the closets of the three rival companies, planning to attack them with scandals. It was the most common trick in business competition.

His friend did what he was asked for with the right pay and didn’t ask much.

The next few days, while waiting for results, Dick went to the bar to get a drink and look for information through other channels. He also took a prostitute home. While enjoying her service, he tried to get intel out of her, too.

During the time, Dick called Chen Ying once to brief her on his progress.

Three days later, Dick got the information his friend found, confirming that the beverage company’s predecessor was linked to the Godbearer Cult.

He contacted Chen Ying again and waited for Team Heavenbreaker to come.

With limited time and energy while sifting through the turbulent memories in consciousness form, Chen Ying couldn’t possibly read every snippet in detail. Browsing through the memories quickly, she found nothing suspicious about his next few days.

That was until the memory of the watch reached the last day, ten hours before Dick went to the airport to pick them up. Chen Ying caught a strange, suspicious figure.

Without thinking much, Chen Ying dove into the memory.

It was one o’clock in the morning, at the studio flat Dick lived in.

As his watch, Chen Ying could see his arm and the two unfamiliar men towering over him.

One was an average-sized man in fine blue suits, an expensive white fountain pen in his breast pocket. Upon closer look, she realized that it was made of Black Gold.

He was wearing a white mask with no eyebrows, the mouth split into a strange, disingenuous smile.

The other man—or she believed them to be a man—was wearing a large, heavy white spacesuit and a translucent round orange helmet. The glare was too pronounced for the face to be made out. All she could see was the helmet getting fogged up by puffs of strange dark brown mist.

“Who...who are you... Ugh...” Dick held his chest and fell to his knees, throwing up.

Chen Ying saw from the watch’s point of view that he had vomited black blood clots that looked like rotten tofu.

While she was only a watch in the memory, she could sense an indescribable pressure and discomfort, as if an evil corruption was violently assaulting her.

“Mr. Dick,” said the man in the fake-smile mask, his voice smooth and shrewd, but phony. He bent down and took out a white handkerchief, handing it to Dick. “Here, wipe your mouth.”

Dick didn’t take it. He asked in a trembling voice, “Who...who are you...and what did you want from me...?”

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