The elevator rose and stopped at 4F.
The moment Shang Lu stepped out, the entire Investigation Center was brightly lit and bustling. The Center had twenty-one investigation groups in total. Six were stationed outside Fog Harbor, while the remaining fifteen were permanently based here.
The office covered more than three hundred square meters and was an absolute mess, possessing none of the neatness one would expect from a government agency. Even robots working twenty-four hours a day couldn’t keep up with the traces of daily life left by more than seventy people constantly coming and going.
Inside was even stranger than outside. Every desk was piled high with files. Cushions and blankets seemed to have mysteriously sprouted from office chairs, while folding camp beds inexplicably appeared along the corridors. Clothes racks had quietly been erected beside the walls with changes of clothing hanging from them. Reptile enclosures, bird cages, and goldfish tanks occupied the counters, while cats and dogs darted everywhere. It was practically a zoo. The refreshment counter was stranger still, permanently buried under bowls, plates, and coffee cups. No matter what time of day it was, the entire space always smelled faintly of takeout.
People from every group were still working: some on the phone, some typing, some eating, some catching up on sleep. Shang Lu headed toward his team-leader office and casually stroked a passing cat along the way.
“Brother Lu.”
“Team Leader Shang.”
“Brother Lu, you’re back?”
Coworkers greeted him everywhere he passed.
“Mm.” Team Leader Shang, a scrape still visible on his cheek, gave them a cool nod.
A coworker from Investigation Action Group Six was eating bread. “Brother Lu, want some?”
Just like usual, he tossed it across the room as he asked.
Shang Lu caught it. “Thanks. I’m starving.” Then he asked, “Where’s my San Tiao? Someone carry him off again?”
The coworker nearly choked and hurriedly waved both hands. “Don’t ask me! I don’t know anything!”
Shang Lu immediately understood. His gaze swept across the tightly shut door of Investigation Action Group Three’s office, and he smiled politely.
The bread was fresh, soft, and fragrant, from the new bakery everyone had been ordering from lately. Shang Lu took several bites to fill his stomach and found himself regretting the hotpot meal that never happened.
He hadn’t eaten a proper meal at a restaurant in almost two months.
If only the kid had left a little later. He probably would’ve liked this bread.
No one was at the desks belonging to Investigation Action Group Seven. Shang Lu entered his own office, dropped into the black desk chair, propped both long legs on the desk, and allowed himself a rare moment of distraction.
When he handed Fang Huan Xing over to Director Chen and Dr. Xu earlier, perhaps because he had unconsciously compared the situation with his own childhood, Shang Lu had felt a long-forgotten ache in his chest.
How should he put it?
At least Shang Lu himself had remained beside his closest family growing up. Compared with that, having to live under someone else’s roof somehow seemed even more pitiful.
Fang Huan Xing, however, hadn’t shown much emotion or obvious resistance. That had relieved Shang Lu somewhat.
The group had only exchanged a few words before Fang Huan Xing followed them in another direction without looking back once. Shang Lu had merely watched the slender figure with the backpack disappear before leaving.
Either way, the mission was successfully completed.
Shang Lu pushed those thoughts aside and returned his attention to work. He took off the watch that had been soaked in water, logged into the computer system, and prepared to check his team’s investigation logs from the past few days. He also intended to bring Diva back online, have her retrieve today’s mission record, and use the little spare time he had to get his report written.
Just then, someone pushed open the door.
“Team Leader!”
Shang Lu lifted his eyelids. “What now?”
The person entering was the newest intern on his team, Zheng Xiao Yu, who had graduated from university the previous year. He was round-faced and somewhat guileless, absolutely determined to join the Anomalous Case Department. It had taken him three attempts at the written exam just to reach the interview stage.
Shang Lu hadn’t been free on the day team members were selected. No one else had chosen Zheng Xiao Yu, so he had automatically been assigned to Investigation Action Group Seven.
At present, he was the existence that made Shang Lu want to return him for a refund.
Zheng Xiao Yu had apparently spent the whole day running around outside too. He was still wearing the same clothes he had worn to work the day before, and his eyes were shining. “I have information to report!”
Shang Lu encouraged him. “Go ahead.”
“The fusion-disease case from last night’s cruise—I’ve been following it all day. I visited Li Bei Shan’s company and spoke with his family. It turns out he’d been away on business for a long time and only came back to Fog Harbor last week. Then there was a case in Xueping this morning. The foundation of a hotel construction site collapsed. Apparently, workers had already disappeared and one committed suicide there before. Guess what—”
Shang Lu kept typing without pausing. “Li Bei Shan was the water-supply and drainage design engineer for that site. An interference source appeared there, and the location has now been designated a suspected interference zone.”
Zheng Xiao Yu froze, his face rapidly turning red. “How did you know?!”
He had spent the entire day running around, trying to accomplish something useful and bring back worthwhile information so he could survive his internship and earn a permanent position.
In the end, the information he had worked so hard to uncover was useless again.
His team leader already knew everything.
Shang Lu felt somewhat at a loss for words. He handed him a cup. “Could you get me some water? Thanks.”
Zheng Xiao Yu immediately obeyed and handed it back to him nicely. “I also bought instant noodles and snacks. Want some?”
Pretty generous.
After comparing him with a certain someone, Shang Lu suddenly found Zheng Xiao Yu a little more likable.
“Not right now. Tell me what else you found. How long was Li Bei Shan at the Xueping construction site? Did he show any symptoms after returning?”
“His girlfriend said he went to Xueping on the second of last month and stayed there for around twenty days, all of it at Xianlu Hot Spring Hotel. Later, construction at the hotel was suspended, but according to his girlfriend, she heard him mention that something seemed to be wrong with the pipes, so he stayed there for a while longer. His coworkers don’t know whether he went back into the site after construction stopped. As for symptoms—sleepwalking, blurred vision, and losing teeth.”
Shang Lu nodded thoughtfully.
Tooth loss.
Lin Rui had shown the same symptom.
The course of their illnesses had been similar, but the rate of progression was completely different. Unlike Lin Rui, Li Bei Shan had not survived long enough to reach stage three of fusion disease.
Zheng Xiao Yu continued, “The police have compiled the cruise ship surveillance footage from the time of the incident, along with Li Bei Shan’s travel history and contact records. Everything’s been uploaded. Oh, and Sister Ying still hasn’t come back today. Could I apply to go help her?”
Zhou Jia Ying was the other member of Investigation Action Group Seven. She had been working under Shang Lu ever since he first joined the Anomalous Case Department. The two had spoken that afternoon, and she was still following another case.
Before Shang Lu could answer, Zheng Xiao Yu gathered his courage and continued, “Team Leader, you keep making the two of us rest, but you barely sleep at all, do you? Sister Ying and I talked about it. Go home and sleep tonight. Get some proper rest. We’ll work hard and definitely won’t cause any trouble for you.”
Shang Lu felt genuinely comforted and curved his lips into a smile. “All right. I’ll go home, clean up, and rest. You go help her. Once you’re mostly finished, both of you should go home and rest too.”
“Got it!”
Zheng Xiao Yu had just turned to leave when Shang Lu stopped him again.
“If you have time, do me one more favor.”
Ever the eager little lackey, Zheng Xiao Yu nodded vigorously.
Shang Lu opened a drawer and rummaged through the mess inside until he found the bank card linked to his salary account, then handed it over. “Buy a few sets of men’s clothes for me. He’s young, a few centimeters taller than you and thinner, and his shoe size is about the same. Estimate the sizes yourself. There’s still some money in there. If it isn’t enough, tell me.”
After sending Zheng Xiao Yu away, Shang Lu remained in the office for another half hour.
Not because he wasn’t tired.
Not because he loved working.
He was waiting for something.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Director Chen called and told him to come upstairs. Shang Lu had been waiting for exactly that summons. He stood, took the jacket that had been hanging over the back of his chair for several days, and headed to the seventh floor.
“Xiao Shang, you’re still here?” Director Chen gestured for him to sit. “I knew you wouldn’t have left yet.”
Shang Lu sat across the desk. “Because you knew I had questions.”
Director Chen got up and brewed himself some tea. He looked sleep-deprived too, with heavy bags beneath his eyes. “The situation was urgent. I only received the information at the last minute yesterday, which is why I had Da Xin tell you to go pick him up. But our internal network isn’t truly top secret. The information I could give you there was limited.”
“Dr. Fang Lan only gave the Anomalous Case Department Fang Huan Xing’s location. When I arrived, I ran into another group. I’m not sure what faction they belonged to, but they were all foreigners and spoke Russian.”
Director Chen nodded. “We didn’t anticipate that either. We suspect someone else at the Earthcore Research Institute who knew the situation leaked the information. Fortunately, everything worked out in the end. The child delivered what he was carrying and is safe now. We also won’t allow suspicious individuals to enter the country in the near future. Most importantly, you’re all right. Otherwise, I genuinely wouldn’t know how to explain it to your grandmother.”
“We’re getting off topic,” Shang Lu said politely. “You taught me yourself that we don’t discuss personal matters at the Anomalous Case Department.”
“Fine. No personal matters.” Director Chen waved a hand. “What exactly happened at the hotel construction site?”
Shang Lu gave him the full account. “Based on my preliminary investigation, I believe the interference source at Xianlu Hotel originated from the pump assemblies in the equipment room, with the overlapping piping continuously carrying that interference outward. Li Bei Shan, the fusion-disease victim from the cruise ship, was the hotel’s water-supply and drainage design engineer. He worked there for a prolonged period, far beyond the eight-hour safety limit, so his exposure risk was extremely high. The missing worker Xu Fan fused with the building through positional overlap. The missing night security guard fused with several overlapping organisms and had already formed a giant fusion entity—the Reaper described in the files.”
After a pause, he continued.
“Because the interference at the site wasn’t detected in time and access wasn’t properly controlled, two content creators from a video platform entered the area. One was probably consumed by the Reaper. The other progressed rapidly to stage three of fusion disease within two days. I’ve already had Diva compile the relevant details into the investigation log.”
At the mention of a Reaper and another new fusion-disease patient, even Director Chen lost interest in his tea. He fell into thought. “The situation is more serious than expected. Next, we’ll need to conduct interference-source detection centered on Xianlu Hotel… It may become Hua’s thirteenth official interference zone.”
In recent years, mirages had not only become more frequent; interference phenomena had also increased.
Many cases looked perfectly ordinary on the surface while concealing interference beneath them. Often, they were only reported to the Anomalous Case Department after the anomalous event fully exposed itself.
Interference zones could at least be sealed off.
There was very little anyone could do for people who developed fusion disease.
Even the Containment Center could offer fusion-disease patients little more than humanitarian care. There was no genuine treatment available.
Shang Lu did not beat around the bush. He directly stated the reason he had been waiting to be summoned. “My target for this assignment, Dr. Fang Lan’s son Fang Huan Xing… I think I can more or less guess why you’re protecting him.”
Director Chen’s expression shifted. The lid of his teacup trembled slightly.
“What do you know?”
“I saw what I saw. I’m not sure which parts I should say out loud, or how much you already know.”
Director Chen thought for a while, then said, “Close the door. Lock it.”
Shang Lu did as instructed, then returned to his seat and sat upright.
He had already formed several theories of his own and had even questioned Fang Huan Xing about them.
Gray-area research at the Earthcore Research Institute.
Illegal research.
Human experimentation.
He had considered every dark possibility he could think of.
But there was still one thing he had not been able to understand.
If all of that were true, why would Fang Lan have agreed to use her own child in such an experiment?
“The terrorist attack on the Earthcore Research Institute was connected to a research project they had spent many years pursuing,” Director Chen said. “If the research were completed, then when different realities began to overlap and different versions of a human body started competing for the same physical position, it could effectively stop that overlap. Conversely, it could also rapidly force the overlap to occur.”
Every word Director Chen spoke landed like thunder.
It was enough to turn the entire world upside down.
Put in plain language, the research could allow a fusion-disease patient to resist another-reality version of themselves and prevent the fusion from happening.
Or it could force them to fuse rapidly, completely becoming the version of themselves from another reality and allowing that version to replace the original.
The research could potentially help people resist fusion disease.
Its reverse application, however, was horrifying.
Shang Lu remained silent.
He could more or less guess what Director Chen was about to say next.
He remembered the backpack Fang Huan Xing had protected with his life.
“They call it the ‘Stabilizer,’” Director Chen said. “But the research was never fully completed. What Fang Lan left behind was only an unfinished prototype. No one expected there to be a backup outside the laboratory. The sealed apparatus, experimental module, and data carrier were all preserved intact.”
Just as he had thought.
Shang Lu considered this for a moment. “Then Fang Huan Xing…”
“All I know is that he’s Fang Lan’s adopted son and was the first test subject involved in the research,” Director Chen recalled. “I met him once many years ago, when he was still very young. Come to think of it, for someone his age, he looks unusually young.”
The Anomalous Case Department and the Earthcore Research Institute were full of secrets layered upon secrets. The deeper one went, the higher the clearance required.
And even Chen Ting Zhao did not necessarily possess the highest level of access.
His knowledge of Fang Huan Xing was limited. He apparently knew nothing at all about Fang Huan Xing’s ability and could only sigh. “That child must have suffered a great deal. Thanks to him protecting it with his life, the surviving research was finally delivered safely back to the Anomalous Case Department.”
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