Chapter 108: Intelligence Compilation

“Nine Hut Mountain Police Station?” Qi Ran asked, slightly puzzled. “You went to Nine Hut Mountain? But why did only you come back?”

Nan Qiang lifted her long sleeve—a gesture that made Qi Ran pause for a moment, because it looked too much like something Jiang Zhique often did. She resisted the urge to glance at Jiang Zhique’s expression, simply watching as Nan Qiang rolled up her sleeve, revealing a thin, frail arm. The arm was covered in yellow and white patches, like vitiligo, but upon closer inspection, Qi Ran noticed something different from ordinary vitiligo: those pale patches of skin were subtly “swimming.”

Qi Ran discreetly shifted her gaze to the reactions of the others. The expressions on their faces were quite interesting—Xu Yan, Parrot, and Jiang Zhique looked at Nan Qiang’s arm with curiosity. But Dry Wood and Paper Cutter, who called their syndromes “talents” and “refused the stigmatization of syndromes,” instinctively averted their eyes when Nan Qiang revealed her arm. To them, the physical manifestation of a syndrome was still an unspeakable shame—they had experienced being stared at like rare animals before, so they wouldn’t gaze at Nan Qiang with such eyes. Looking away was a form of respect.

Hyena and Greasepaint didn’t look away, nor did they show any sign of curiosity. They just watched the arm silently, their expressions somewhat gloomy. Qi Ran guessed they were probably empathizing with Nan Qiang, reminded of their own pasts.

Tao Xiao sat quietly in her chair, her posture upright, hands resting on her knees. She didn’t seem to care about the people in the room. Qi Ran guessed she was spacing out, because although her gaze politely rested on Nan Qiang’s arm, it wasn’t focused—this reminded Qi Ran a little of Qi Xin. Qi Xin was often like that too, always presenting the appearance others expected of her.

“What do you think it looks like?” Nan Qiang asked in a low voice.

“A bit like… puzzle pieces?” Jiang Zhique guessed hesitantly, speaking from her heart. The concavities and convexities between the white patches seemed like they could connect, like a puzzle.

“Yes, puzzle pieces,” Nan Qiang nodded. “These puzzle pieces have been on me since birth, a lot like vitiligo, found all over my body. Each one can record a location… kind of like a save point. Have you ever played a video game?”

Jiang Zhique froze, then shook her head, hesitating before speaking: “So it’s like, you can record a location, and then make yourself return to that place?”

“You could understand it that way. I can make myself, or something I touch, return to the recorded location. But each puzzle piece can only be used once. To use it again, I have to re-record it,” Nan Qiang looked at Qi Ran. “That mirror back then—I used my ability to send it to the antique shop Xie Liusheng opened. Of course, I can’t send back living beings, so when the police intercepted us at the foot of Nine Hut Mountain, I was the only one who left first.”

She thought for a moment and added: “Xie Liusheng had originally planned to take advantage of this incident to go to Nine Hut Mountain, but it seems to be tightly sealed off. Without special means, there shouldn’t be a normal way to enter.”

“So, Nan Qiang’s intelligence is that over the past three days, Xie Liusheng’s group went to Ghost Mist Mountain, but it’s already tightly sealed off,” Qi Ran wrote on the whiteboard. “Paper Cutter, you and the others fought Yue Yunqiu. What were the manifestations of his syndrome?”

Hearing her question, Paper Cutter showed a rare look of embarrassment. Dry Wood answered the question on her behalf: “We didn’t see anything.”

“You didn’t see anything?” Qi Ran’s tone was puzzled.

“After we woke up, we confirmed with each other. We all passed out at the exact same moment,” Hyena said in a low voice. “His syndrome is fast, incredibly fast. If Parrot hadn’t told us it was the Leader of Execution Team One who did it, we wouldn’t even know what happened.”

He thought for a moment, then suddenly seemed to remember something and said in a low voice: “If I had to say, there is one point worth noting. Before we were attacked, we heard the sound of wind, like the sound of wind passing through a narrow gap. But unlike ordinary sounds, this sound was more… desolate. The sound was a bit like an erhu fiddle—I can’t find a more suitable adjective to describe it. Maybe it’s related to his syndrome.”

“The sound of wind, Yue Yunqiu,” Qi Ran nodded, recording the information on the whiteboard piece by piece. “So after that comes the information from my side. First, let me confirm your information. Yue Yunqiu personally told me that his syndrome is related to speed, and he was confident he could kill Li Yuan within ten seconds… and similarly, if Li Yuan didn’t die within those ten seconds, no matter how severe her injuries, she could regenerate and recover within a few breaths.”

She paused slightly, then added: “Second, Sublevel Three looked different from the other floors. It was decorated extravagantly, steel everywhere the eye could see. It wasn’t so much a police station as it was like the exaggerated military bases in some movies. Many of the doors were sealed shut. Yue Yunqiu and I originally planned to intercept the intruder in the middle of the corridor, but we failed, utterly and completely failed.”

Hyena paused for a moment, his expression somewhat incredulous. As someone who had fought Yue Yunqiu—or rather, been unilaterally subdued by him—he found that almost indefensible speed to be truly unreasonable. He simply couldn’t imagine that such a person would experience what Qi Ran described as “utter and complete failure.”

Liu Xu seemed to think of something and asked in a low voice: “Was it the Ghost Birth Infant?”

All eyes in the room involuntarily gathered on Tao Xiao, who was sitting in her chair. She remained motionless, though this time her gaze was a bit unsure of where to look, so she could only look at Qi Ran, silent and unmoving, like a helpless puppet.

“Her situation is a bit special,” Qi Ran tapped the whiteboard with her knuckles, pulling everyone’s attention back to it. “I don’t know much more than you do. Let’s return to Yue Yunqiu first—Liu Xu guessed correctly. The intruder was the Ghost Birth Infant. She didn’t say what she came for. When Yue Yunqiu made his move, he didn’t use his syndrome—perhaps he couldn’t use his syndrome. When he got close to the Ghost Birth Infant, a massive gravity crushed him, preventing him from advancing further. The gravity surrounded the Ghost Birth Infant. Shooting was useless; the bullets would fall downward once they entered the range of that gravity.”

“How did they fall downward?” Xu Yan suddenly spoke. “I mean, did they continue forward with inertia, or did they drop straight down? What was the speed of the fall?”

“Straight down, not fast, like a natural free fall,” Qi Ran answered. “It was as if the bullets, upon approaching her, were momentarily frozen in mid-air, and then fell downward.”

“That sounds like she made the kinetic energy of the bullets disappear,” Liu Xu said in a low voice. “This range—let’s call it a barrier for now—does the Ghost Birth Infant control this barrier of hers?”

Qi Ran nodded: “She didn’t intend to attack Yue Yunqiu or me. After seeing that Yue Yunqiu and I had no further ability to act, she simply walked past us. After that, Yue Yunqiu gave me a button, telling me to destroy Sublevel Three. I didn’t press that button. Instead, I took it and walked deeper into Sublevel Three—and a very strange thing happened. I don’t know if it’s something wrong with me.”

She looked at Jiang Zhique and said: “Remember the previous two times we entered the shop? I think it wasn’t a problem with the place itself, but a problem with me—”

“Like what that person named Xie Liusheng said, you’re a key?” Jiang Zhique said thoughtfully, not intending to hide the fact that she had been listening to the bug on Qi Ran.

“Yes, a key. I’m able to bring people around me into special places,” Qi Ran’s tone was frank. “Remember the first time we entered the shop? That time, three victims were dragged into the shop with us. The second time, there were none—because it was the dead of night at the Welfare Institute, and everyone was asleep, so no one was dragged in. The third time was the same. I went alone into the deepest part of Sublevel Three, and there, the door I pushed open was a door to a research room of the Tao Family—the Tao Family of 1964.”

“Wait a moment, what do you mean the second time at the Welfare Institute was the dead of night?”

Greasepaint suddenly froze. She had just realized that something wasn’t right in Qi Ran’s words.