Chapter 126: 124 The Possibility of Not Dying

Yu Lianyun drove toward the destination, her mind filtering through the conversation she had just had with Drake and Li Nuowei; she couldn't help but feel that something about it didn't make sense.

She had already looked into the young man named Li Nuowei; he was a local resident of Liuhua Port. His parents were originally outsiders who came to settle in Liuhua Port thirty years ago. It took them about ten years from meeting to falling in love, getting married, and having a child. Today, Li Nuowei is a university student at the local Liuhua Port Comprehensive University.

The twenty-year life story of this university student could be described as plain, and he had no prior experience with Abnormal events. Yet, this very young man had proactively waded into these muddy waters without any warning, and in his speech, he was not unfamiliar with Abnormal things, even occasionally revealing knowledge that she herself had barely heard of.

So, where did he get his understanding of these Abnormal things?

"Could it be that he is the same as me?" Yu Lianyun thought. As someone who had experienced the merging of her soul with that of an ancient person, she was not entirely unfamiliar with the phenomenon of gaining knowledge one had never encountered before for no apparent reason.

Therefore, Yu Lianyun felt that Li Nuowei might have also acquired this knowledge through a similar path.

Besides Li Nuowei, Drake was also a character who made Yu Lianyun feel deeply surprised.

Regarding Drake, this dispatched auxiliary personnel, Yu Lianyun had not actually held high expectations for him at the beginning.

This was not because Yu Lianyun looked down on others too much or held herself in too high regard, but because since the establishment of the Civil Investigation Bureau, the professional competence of the civilian Investigators dispatched over had truly been in need of improvement. She had seen too many posers who joined just because they thought the profession was novel. When those people witnessed Abnormal things capable of twisting human cognition, those unprepared Investigators would almost always make a fool of themselves. Making a fool of themselves was actually the better outcome; at least it was better than dying outright.

Therefore, all Yu Lianyun could do was let Drake handle peripheral tasks, keep him away from certain dangers, and let him come into contact with Abnormal things from the fringes; this could also help them grow a little.

It was just that she had not expected Drake to be so deeply entangled in this Abnormal event, so deep that his bloodline could be traced back to the mastermind behind this Mysterious Disappearance Case in Liuhua Port.

Although Yu Lianyun sympathized with Drake's plight, at this moment, she placed more importance on Drake's mutation.

The Jiaoren Disease was not as simple as a physiological mutation. When the mutation ended, the soul and consciousness of the transformed person would also seem to become distorted, and they might no longer be the same person at all. Drake might therefore transform from a human into a fish-person who only recognized the orders of the Anhai Divine Society's god.

Although both Drake and Li Nuowei said that something capable of "curing" the Jiaoren Disease might be hidden within the Air Raid Shelter under the tunnel near the End of the World, she remained skeptical.

If that thing did not exist, or if it existed but did not have such strong efficacy, then Drake might ultimately still become the "God's Child" in the prophecies of the Anhai Divine Society, and he would become a key link in that insane doomsday prophecy.

Yu Lianyun could not stand by and watch disaster descend, and the method she thought of to prevent the birth of the apocalypse was very simple.

Regardless of whether the prophecy was true or false, once Drake completed his transformation, he would be a fish-person harmful to humanity; she had to be prepared to execute him by gunfire at any time.

Killing the God's Child would terminate the prophecy; killing the transformed fish-person could reduce the harm fish-people posed to human society.

Either way, killing Drake was indeed the safest choice.

But Yu Lianyun was not such a brutal and unreasonable person; she at least had to confirm whether Drake could truly recover as before through the Green Light Gem. If it could be done, that would be best; she did not want to be a cold-blooded executioner.

When Yu Lianyun arrived near the tunnel, she got out of the car and looked with confusion at the several cars parked randomly on the side of the road. She was wondering who else would have come here besides herself and Drake. She walked to the entrance of the tunnel and soon noticed that, in addition to a large amount of water stains, there were also viscous, unidentified biological fluids dripping inside the tunnel.

Yu Lianyun put on gloves and touched it; even through the gloves, she could feel the biological warmth. She held it to her nose and sniffed gently, and the smell of fish and the ocean rushed into her nose.

"Fish-people?" Yu Lianyun's expression was grave. This meant that besides Li Nuowei and Drake, there were other creatures—most likely a group of fish-people—who had also followed Li Nuowei and Drake into the Air Raid Shelter.

"How was I supposed to get in again? Right, it's to pray to the dead and 'send' myself out?" Yu Lianyun thought.

Subsequently, Yu Lianyun pressed her palms together and began to focus her mind on the name "Li Yingqi."

If there was anyone who was the best guide on her path as a Mysterious Investigator, it was undoubtedly Li Yingqi. The other party was the best in every way—as her colleague, friend, and mentor. After Li Yingqi died on the Collapse Night, she had remained depressed for a long time because of it.

"Yingqi, I've come to see you." Yu Lianyun closed her eyes and muttered for a long while, then opened her eyes. Immediately, she couldn't help but pout, and she muttered to herself, somewhat speechless, "Was I lied to? Isn't this still the same place?"

But immediately after, Yu Lianyun thought of another possibility: "If praying to the dead and sending oneself out is the way to get into the Air Raid Shelter, then if this is true, but I didn't succeed, does that mean there was a mistake in some part of the process?"

"Is it possible that Li Yingqi didn't die?" Yu Lianyun couldn't help but think this.

But she was curious: if Li Yingqi hadn't truly died, where could she have gone?

Yu Lianyun thought of the Forest Cabin; after all, after Wei Jiang died, he had nowhere else to go, so he came to Lin Laoban's small shop to do odd jobs.

But soon, Yu Lianyun denied her own thought about Li Yingqi going to the Forest Cabin after death, because if Li Yingqi were truly alive in another way like him, Wei Jiang shouldn't still be feeling brief moments of sorrow over it.

However, Yu Lianyun still formed a few conjectures from this about the possibility that Li Yingqi might still be alive.

Yu Lianyun then tried to pray to her own deceased father to send herself out.

Urgh—

Just as this thought arose in Yu Lianyun's mind, amidst the flashes of lightning and thunder, inside the tunnel illuminated by the lightning, the shadow at Yu Lianyun's feet underwent a strange fluctuation. Immediately after, a middle-aged or elderly man crawled out from the fluctuating shadow, calling out to Yu Lianyun in a hoarse, low voice.

Hearing the sound, Yu Lianyun looked at the other party helplessly, "I wasn't calling you; I was calling my real father."

The Avatar of Blessing, transformed into the appearance of her father, seemed not to understand her words, let out a silly "hehehe" laugh, and even reached out to touch her hair.

Yu Lianyun sighed, but in the blink of an eye, space and time shifted. She suddenly felt her feet go empty, her balance wavered, and she almost fell into the darkness before her.

Yu Lianyun barely steadied herself, only to discover that she was no longer in the tunnel. Before her was only a dark underground staircase; she had finally successfully arrived at the Air Raid Shelter.