Chapter 325 – Suspicious

Bureau of Anomaly Investigation, convalescent ward.

Ning Xu opened her eyes; through a hazy blur she saw Fu Jue sitting at the bedside, wholly absorbed in paring an apple with a small knife—quiet and diligent, the model student from high school all over again.

Fu Jue sensed she was awake, yet didn’t lift his gaze. In the tone of a verdict he said, “The investigators who stood with you at the elevator to stop Li are all dead. You alone survived. They want to interrogate you; I blocked it.”

All… dead?

Ning Xu felt she ought to grieve, but people only have so much sorrow; hers had been exhausted the instant she faced Li—who had taken over Chang Xu’s body—and was nearly killed by divine power. Now only an empty wind scraped the hollow inside her; no further feeling arose.

After a long silence she rasped, “I didn’t know. I thought I’d never wake up—never see any of you again.”

“I know,” Fu Jue said. “According to my probability model there are at least two likely reasons you survived: one, your link to the Anomaly Game is weak; two, Li had only just arrived in reality and his control of power was imprecise.

“But the irrational people at headquarters can’t stay calm; my next moves will meet serious resistance, and you’ll be the breach that takes the brunt. Once you’re healed I’ll assign you to field anomaly cases—keep you clear of direct interrogation.”

Ning Xu stayed silent.

She was clerical staff; all her experience with anomalies was theoretical. Going to a live site was like throwing a sheep among tigers—one mis-step and she’d be smashed to pieces.

But there was no better option. Once an interrogation began, guilty or not, she’d be locked in the sunless fifth underground level; dying outside would be preferable.

She even felt that being killed outright by Li would have been better… “I want to go to Qijia Village,” she said.

Fu Jue blinked, a flicker of puzzle vanishing behind his lenses.

He nodded. “It’s a newly arrived Class-B anomaly whose activity has dropped sharply; the danger is low.”

The real reason wasn’t that, but neither of them said another word.

In the silence Fu Jue finished peeling the apple, set it on the bedside table, and stood.

As he reached the door Ning Xu suddenly called, “Lin Jue.”

A name long unspoken, deliberately buried in the dust of history for certain considerations—unknown to most, displayed like an antique for a day or two of doomed commemoration.

“Wish me luck,” she said.

Fu Jue paused, turned, and curved a smile he hadn’t shown in years—awkward but genuine: “Good luck.”

…Xiangcheng outbound port. Dong Xiwen curled inside a huge wine crate on a cargo ship, holding his breath, listening to every movement outside.

Nian Fu had inexplicably dropped dead; White Crow, for some mad reason, accused him of ganging up with Qi Si to kill Nian Fu in the Colosseum instance.

The moment the bounty hit, Dong Xiwen was dumbstruck. Spraining an ankle and scraping half his skin off, he barely escaped the Balance Church base.

Now he could only rant silently: the “burn the bridge after crossing” script had arrived way too early, hadn’t it?

“Big bro, careful—they’re here,” came the faint voice of his younger brother Dong Ziwen from the bottom of his mind.

Dong Xiwen’s whole body tensed; his right hand instinctively gripped his pistol.

He’d first heard Ziwen’s voice an hour ago and thought grief had driven him insane.

Ziwen explained that, while dying, he’d spent every point and life-saving item to anchor his soul to a jade pendant.

Xiwen had a thousand questions, but this was no time for messy details. He had to admit that, when it came to fleeing and killing, his little brother knew far more than he did.

“This is the Nulvis family’s ship from Eagle County; they won’t dare go wild—nine chances out of ten they’ll just go through the motions,” Ziwen said.

Xiwen listened to the approaching footsteps, face bitter. “And the remaining ten percent? Besides… I didn’t check the almanac today—if luck’s against me they’ll give a casual look and find us, then what?”

“Then kill them,” Ziwen said. “Only three—simple.”

The next second Xiwen felt his body seized; his soul seemed flung out, floating to the cabin ceiling to watch from above.

He saw himself push open the crate and rise. The instant the three white-robed cultists turned, lightning-fast, he seized one’s neck and twisted—crack.

A corpse crumpled; the other two opened their mouths to scream.

Ziwen ghosted behind one, clamped a hand over his mouth, raised a silenced pistol to the other’s heart, and fired.

“Thud, thud…” Two fresh bodies toppled like meat on a butcher’s block.

Ziwen hummed while dragging the corpses to the rail and pitching them into the sea, one after another… Xiwen’s soul drifted nearby, watching, inexplicably cold.

Suddenly he realized the world seemed, somehow, no longer the one he’d believed it to be… Tianxiang Restaurant, second-floor private room: Qi Si and Jin Yusheng sat opposite each other, heads down over their food.

After studying the temple gate in vain, Qi Si went to the Sunset Ruins restaurant where Lin Chen waited eagerly; under the boy’s almost tearful gaze he took a few symbolic bites.

Only the Longjing shrimp was edible; after a couple of mouthfuls Qi Si parted ways with Lin Chen and returned to reality.

He took out two dusty notebooks—How Will Qi Si Die and A Miserable Death—and recorded the death he’d suffered in the Colosseum instance, plus the deaths of Chang Xu and Liu Yuhang.

At that moment he truly felt something called “ending,” and even thought that dying the next second would hold no regrets.

Of course he didn’t plan on dying; the thought that his death would solve a big headache for the Bureau of Anomaly Investigation disgusted him, so he resolved to stay alive and make this already rotten world even worse.

After idling a while he took out the phone stained with “god-blood” and called Jin Yusheng: “Come out, let’s have a meal together.”

“Old Qi, why the sudden invitation? I used to beg you for days and you wouldn’t leave the house—changed nature?” Jin Yusheng stirred the drunken shrimp in his cup, face full of gossip. “Don’t tell me it’s emotional, practical, or philosophical trouble…”

Qi Si set down his chopsticks. “Call Ning Xu; I need to speak to her.”

“That’s it? I could just forward her WeChat…” Jin Yusheng rambled, then jolted. “Hold on—you’re not suspecting she and I have something going on and want to clean house, are you?”

He flipped behind his chair for cover. “Let me state up front—pure coercion: she kicked the door, dragged me to the station, grilled me, but I defended your vital info to the death…”

“I know it’s not on you,” Qi Si said calmly. “We chatted last time and hit it off—agreed to continue next time.”

“Old Qi, don’t be fooled by her sweet face and voice—that woman’s a ruthless brawler who’ll beat you senseless without batting an eye…”

“Three… two… one…”

“Stop, stop, stop!” Jin Yusheng whipped out his phone, opened the contacts, and slid it across the glass lazy-Susan to Qi Si’s side. “Last time she told me, if you ever came looking for me and wanted to reach her, call this number.”

Qi Si picked up the phone and hit dial. Jin Yusheng kept mumbling, “I’ve got a hunch the outfit she belongs to isn’t small change; with the stash we’ve scraped together all these years, odds are we can’t outplay them… Don’t tell me she’s here to recruit you? Everything she does smells like dancing on knife-edges…”

The call connected; Jin Yusheng wisely shut up.

What came from the other end wasn’t Ning Xu’s voice, but a deep male baritone: “Hello, Contract, I’m Fu Jue.”

Fu Jue—current No. 1 on the Strange Game overall power list, once the spiritual banner of the Kyushu Guild, the player most suited to the Strange Game, the human closest to godhood… All the long-whispered secrets were now laid bare; even if Qi Si had guessed much, never before had everything felt so certain—

Fu Jue belonged to the Bureau of Anomalous Investigation; he was the man behind Ning Xu. Though he’d quit Kyushu, he and the guild’s official faction were still bound by an unbreakable thread.

Qi Si stepped out of the private room onto the empty viewing terrace and smiled. “Hello, Fu Jue, I’ve long admired your name. Chang Xu nearly killed me; I was just wondering how much emotional-damage compensation I should demand from Kyushu.”

He spoke in a joking tone, as though it had all been nothing more than a children’s make-believe game.

Fu Jue answered without pause, dead earnest: “The 500,000-point screen-rental package on Sunset Ruins was paid from my personal account. After that round of hype, the Unnamed Guild’s ranking jumped to 97th.”

“What does the Unnamed Guild have to do with me personally?”

“This operation was a cooperation between two guilds; it has nothing to do with individuals.”

The implication was clear: since public opinion had elevated Chang Xu’s move into a Kyushu-versus-Unnamed Guild affair, any compensation would go straight to the guild.

Qi Si smoothly skipped the unpleasant topic. “Ning Xu said you wanted to learn a few things and were willing to trade equal information. How much have you learned?”

“Everything I needed to know, I already do,” Fu Jue said. “You earlier sent Liu Yuhan into Kyushu to pry out how the team-ring is crafted. I can tell you: the key to piercing reality and the Strange Realm is divine contamination. Anything steeped in god-blood and entrusted with obsession can become a prop.”

Qi Si gave a soft snort. “You’re late with that tidbit; I already got it from some evil god. What I’m curious about is: if god-blood is the key ingredient, then to something higher up the chain a god’s nothing but a consumable—so how come they’re not extinct yet?”

Fu Jue said, “When the old gods depart, new ones take their seats. They are the wine-cups that hold the rules’ blood, the dinner-plates that feast on flesh. Once they’re chipped, the rules will pick new tableware.”

This, presumably, was the real intel Fu Jue intended to offer—yet not purely out of kindness.

Qi Si sneered. “Sounds like becoming a god is no blessing. Keep this up and I reckon nobody will want the job.” He paused. “So don’t tell me that, to fill the vacancy, you gallantly volunteered to park yourself on the divine throne?”

“That would be the ideal scenario,” Fu Jue replied calmly. “Humanity doesn’t need a god. What I intend is to smash every last piece of the rules’ tableware and end this bloody farce. If I’m chosen, I only need to kill myself.”

“Whoever becomes a god, you kill—am I getting this right?”

“Correct. Any extant deity is merely the lingering calamity of the past; even if they’re not weak, they can be killed.”

Qi Si burst into laughter, so hard he could barely breathe, like an opera singer hamming every chuckle for effect.

After a while, bent double, he gasped, “A grand, wild ambition. What I don’t get is why you’re telling me.”

Fu Jue said, “You control the Colosseum; that gives you capital to negotiate. Nothing more.”

The trump card was now face-up; nothing more needed spelling out—both sides understood.

Qi Si nodded appreciatively. “Good—saves me a trip to the Bureau of Anomalous Investigation to inform you. Don’t tell me that’s all you wanted to say?”

Fu Jue said flatly, “Second piece: on 5 May 2034 reality-time, the final instance opens. Location—Babylon Tower in Sunset Ruins. Anyone holding an Identity Plate who enters Sunset Ruins will be automatically drawn into the tower and matched to a dungeon.”

“Oh? So you call the tower beyond Yggdrasil ‘Babylon Tower’?”

Fu Jue acted as if he hadn’t heard the sarcasm and continued, “Third: Li used Chang Xu’s body to reach reality. I left a back-door on Chang Xu; He can’t return. Extraneous factors have been removed as agreed—I look forward to the answer sheet you’ll hand in.”

“I don’t recall ever talking to you before today.” Qi Si narrowed his eyes. “May I ask who you made this agreement with?”

The other side fell silent for a moment, then enunciated each syllable: “Contract—meaning you, Si Qi.”

The call was cut from the other end. Qi Si dialed back; this time it didn’t connect.

“The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.”

“The number you have dialed is not in service…”

The cold tone repeated, an eerie, uncanny-valley horror, as if the conversation had been nothing more than a madman’s hallucination.

The night wind was chilly, flipping the hem of his white shirt, cold air sneaking down his collar and stripping away body heat.

Qi Si stood a while longer, then strolled back into the private room and returned the phone to Jin Yusheng.

When Jin Yusheng asked with a mischievous grin, “So what did you two talk about?” Qi Si looked straight into his eyes and smiled: “What exactly is your relationship with Ning Xu?”

Cold sweat beaded on Jin Yusheng’s forehead. “Old Qi, don’t aim your paranoia at me—we’ve braved knives and fires together for six years… Fine, the first time I saw her I did feel something, but after she pressed a gun to my head that feeling vanished.”

Qi Si studied his face. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Jin Yusheng swore to heaven. “Besides, she doesn’t fancy me. This isn’t some romance novel or a Sakura-film cop-and-robber love story…”

Qi Si gave a slight nod, accepting his explanation.

The mess kept growing; the latest knot had barely loosened before an even vaster tangle swept over him before he could catch his breath.

The final instance was imminent… the Bureau of Anomalous Investigation had long since tracked his every move… some pact between Contract and Fu Jue had been struck… Li had been removed from the board… the Scales Church kept making small moves, liable to slip his control any moment… the Sariel Guild, after a brief flare of activity, had gone quiet again, brewing God-knew-what… In his Mind Palace the red-leafed tree swayed without wind, strands of human and monster souls tangled together, impossible to tell apart.

Qi Si knew these were the only assets he could still fully trust.

He had to dive into the next instance as fast as possible—like a gambler striding a knife-edge, desperate to flip the next card and pray it upends the whole table.