Chapter 39: 9?

An elderly woman stood there,

Zhou Yun could not determine her age, but she was clearly past the lifespan of the Lower Nest,

her silver-gray hair was meticulously coiled into a spiral, rising in a circle at the back of her head,

her eyes bore none of the usual cloudiness or dullness of old age, but instead held a shifting, living intelligence,

her figure was slightly stooped, yet skillfully concealed beneath a pale blue robe,

from beneath the robe extended hands clutching a cheap notebook with a black hardcover,

on the cover, in gray-white ink, were written nine complex digits: 387, 420, 489.

The digits were arranged in a spiral pattern on the cover, as if constantly rotating like a vortex,

yet Zhou Yun saw no pattern in them at all.

“Is this the calculator and mathematician you mentioned?” Zhou Yun asked Lei Na.

Lei Na’s gaze was distant,

she murmured, “Mrs. Nama is so old now. Her husband died early—I wonder how she’s managed living alone.”

Lei Na shook herself back to focus and turned to Zhou Yun:

“This is Mrs. Nama Karl. Her family has a long history, serving as calculators for a noble’s factory across generations.”

“She’s kind-hearted, warm, and amusing, and she enjoys studying mathematics as a pastime.”

“Her husband died young; she never remarried and had no children, but she adores children and often teaches math to her neighbors’ kids.”

“She’s a good person—her only flaw is that she often forgets to pray to the Emperor while immersed in mathematics.”

“My mother has scolded her many times for it.”

Lei Na’s voice bordered on a mutter, her eyes filled with unmistakable nostalgia.

“Is the source of that information… you yourself?” Zhou Yun raised an eyebrow.

Lei Na gave a slight nod.

She gazed at the neighborhood before her, unhidden longing in her eyes,

“I once lived here—in the Ninth District of the Upper Nest.”

“Our family lived next door to Mrs. Nama. We were devout followers of the Imperial Creed; my parents served a noble in interstellar trade.”

“Later, I awakened psychic potential—and just as the Black Ship was due to arrive at Axi, my mother set me free—from the Viceroy’s tenth-tax unit collecting psykers.”

Lei Na’s gaze grew even more complex.

After a moment of silence, she suddenly lifted her head and stared at Zhou Yun: “My mother was a devout follower of the Imperial Creed. She didn’t let me go out of rebellion.”

“She knew I had received the Emperor’s revelation. She knew my mission—she did it so I could fulfill the Emperor’s will.”

“Are you certain it wasn’t simply maternal love?” Zhou Yun fixed her with a steady gaze.

Lei Na froze, as if the question had never occurred to her.

“Can maternal love outweigh faith?” Lei Na stared back at Zhou Yun. “How could faith be bound by something so narrow—”

Her tone sharpened, as if Zhou Yun’s words were an insult to her and her mother.

“I don’t know.”

Zhou Yun shook his head.

“But can paternal love outweigh love for humanity?”

Lei Na blinked, seemingly confused by his words.

In Zhou Yun’s private vision, the winged figure within the white light sighed, almost bitterly.

“Does He love us? Does He love me and all my brothers?”

The winged figure’s voice carried a tinge of bitterness:

“Even if He does, He’s too busy loving humanity to have time for His own children.”

Zhou Yun glanced at him and sensed, in his words, a nearly shattered humanity,

but was this humanity truly that of an Archangel? Zhou Yun could not tell.

He turned away and looked at Lei Na, slightly angered: “So, what’s the plan?”

“I don’t want to harm Mrs. Nama, nor draw too much attention.”

Lei Na said to Zhou Yun:

“If she’s still in this neighborhood, she hasn’t moved.”

“For safety, we follow her to confirm, and observe her movements.”

Lei Na watched Mrs. Nama Karl walking toward a distant building.

“Wait until she’s away, then sneak into her home.”

“If my memory’s right, she has a safe—inside it’s the records we’re looking for.”

Lei Na turned to Zhou Yun, blinking. “You can handle that, right?”

“Easy,” Zhou Yun said casually.

Breaking into the home of a normal Nest-dweller and retrieving a record from a safe—this task was too simple.

Yet Zhou Yun’s caution still whispered to him:

“387, 420, 489.”

Zhou Yun muttered the digits on Mrs. Nama Karl’s notebook cover,

the numbers seemed truly patternless—could they require some complex mathematical formula to reveal meaning?

“What?” Lei Na blinked, then asked.

“These digits—the ones written on Mrs. Nama Karl’s notebook cover—what do they mean?” Zhou Yun glanced at her.

Lei Na frowned. “I didn’t even remember those numbers. You’ve got a good memory.”

Zhou Yun shrugged—he did have an excellent memory.

What truly troubled him was whether these digits carried some numerological significance.

They were nine digits long, ending in nine,

but there were countless nine-digit numbers, and far more ending in nine—could all of them be linked to the Changer of Ways?

Even if they couldn’t serve as proof, Zhou Yun’s instincts still prickled with unease.

“Are you certain this woman is harmless?” Zhou Yun asked Lei Na in a low voice.

If this woman truly was a follower of the Changer of Ways, Zhou Yun had no qualms about killing her on the street,

especially since he had an appointment with the Viceroy—killing was a trivial matter to him.

“My family were all devout believers. If Mrs. Nama had been tainted back then, we would have reported her.”

Lei Na shook her head firmly,

yet her tone shifted slightly:

“I just can’t be sure whether she’s been corrupted in the years since.”

“You’re not seriously thinking of killing Mrs. Nama just because of a string of numbers?”

Lei Na’s gaze toward Zhou Yun grew alarmed:

“You seem too extreme—you should at least find more reliable evidence.”

Lei Na’s words made sense, yet Zhou Yun’s inner alarm bells kept ringing—he felt something was deeply wrong,

but if he ignored the issue and walked away, he might walk straight into the Changer of Ways’ scheme.

He decided to observe the woman first, then meet the Viceroy before acting,

and if she was truly tainted, report her directly to Viceroy Augustus Flax,

who, though negligent in governance, would never tolerate a follower of Chaos living on his doorstep, threatening his safety.

In Zhou Yun’s memory, the Viceroy was a corrupt, rotten man,

yet he had never been tainted by Chaos.

“387, 420, 489,” Zhou Yun muttered the digits again, trying to find a pattern.

(End of Chapter)