Chapter 65: Hengsha World

The Wuling Hongguang passed through a tunnel, drove along a straight road, then crossed a checkpoint; Ning Zhe paid the toll in cash and returned the extra fifty yuan the attendant had mistakenly given him, then exited the highway and entered the northern district of Taoyuan City.

At dawn, Taoyuan City lacked the dazzling neon lights of a metropolis; only the central commercial and dining districts remained lit, while the outer districts lay in utter darkness, unlike those first-tier cities.

As they drove along the riverside road, Bai Zhi, who had been silent the whole way, suddenly spoke: “My mom replied to me.”

“Let me see.” Ning Zhe pulled over at a random parking spot, took her phone, and checked the chat.

The message content didn’t surprise Ning Zhe—just like Bai Zhi, Feng Yu had also been attacked by someone influenced by the ghost in the hospital.

“Have you read Three Body Problem?” Ning Zhe handed the phone back to Bai Zhi and asked.

“I haven’t read the novel, but I’ve listened to the live-action audioplay,” Bai Zhi looked at him curiously: “What about Three Body Problem?”

“In Three Body Problem, there’s something called a ‘Thought Stamp’—it forces a person to genuinely believe something.”

Ning Zhe rolled down the window and silently watched the Taoyang River shimmering under the moonlight: “About fifty thousand people in the story were stamped with the Thought Stamp, convinced that Earth would inevitably lose to the Trisolarans… But the most famous example of this concept is probably Bill Heins, one of the Wallfacers. His Thought Stamp was: ‘Water is poisonous.’”

Bai Zhi nodded: “I remember this plot.”

She recalled the audioplay’s details and said: “Heins was a highly educated intellectual and one of the inventors of the Thought Stamp technology. He knew water was essential to human life and that over seventy percent of the human body was water… Yet under the Thought Stamp’s influence, he still genuinely believed water was deadly poisonous.”

He knew water wasn’t poisonous, yet he firmly believed it was—so much so that he dared not drink it, and eventually drove himself mad.

“Exactly…” Ning Zhe nodded: “Based on current evidence, I suspect the ghost’s rule is very similar to a Thought Stamp.”

The gas station owner and staff were stamped with the Thought Stamp: “Must kill Bai Zhi.”

The hospital patients, doctors, and families were stamped with the Thought Stamp: “Must kill Feng Yu.”

From Feng Yu’s text message, other survivors—including Tian Chengyun and the estate attendants—had suffered the same fate; they were all killed by those influenced by the ghost.

“Let’s assume the ghost’s rule is indeed ‘forcing someone to believe something’—in other words, stamping a Thought Stamp—but the process of stamping must require a trigger condition, a ‘medium.’” Ning Zhe continued.

Just as Tai Yi’s identity theft requires ‘cognition’ as a medium, the Snake God’s influence on fortune requires violating specific taboos as a medium, and Te’s instant-death rule requires touching the target’s shadow…

The omnipresent, unseeable ghost must also require some medium to stamp the Thought Stamp.

“What’s its medium?” Bai Zhi asked.

“I don’t know,” Ning Zhe shook his head, gently pressing the accelerator to leave the parking spot: “The only clue we have is time—every evening, during sunset, the ghost begins influencing everyone exposed outdoors, stamping them with the Thought Stamp.”

As for the content of the Thought Stamp, it’s likely edited by the person controlling the ghost from behind the scenes. So imagine: when an innocent passerby triggers the rule, they’re stamped with ‘Must kill XX.’ But what if the next trigger is Bai Zhi or Feng Yu? What content would be stamped on them?

‘Water is poisonous’? ‘Air is poisonous’? Or—[I must kill myself immediately]? “We still have too few clues—we don’t even know what medium the ghost uses to influence people…” Bai Zhi sighed, shaking her head: “That person hides in the shadows, never showing his face. Breaking a ghost manipulated by human intelligence? It’s nearly impossible.”

“Is that so? I think these clues are already enough,” Ning Zhe smiled faintly, turning the steering wheel across the intersection: “You can’t expect the opponent to lay all their cards on the table with a user manual. To survive, you must grasp every possible trace.”

“You make it sound easy,” Bai Zhi puffed out her cheeks, gazing out the window: “This isn’t the way to the hospital—where are you taking me?”

“The zoo—or rather, the ecological park, the largest one in Taoyuan City,” Ning Zhe said: “Have you seen Cardcaptor Sakura? Before a direct confrontation, you should stock up on Clow Cards—better safe than sorry.”

“You’re so otaku—I never watch stuff like that,” Bai Zhi said, shocked by Ning Zhe’s anime taste.

“If you’ve never watched it, how do you know I’m otaku?”

“Ah, uh…” Bai Zhi lowered her head guiltily and didn’t press him on what he meant by “stocking up on cards.”

That would make her seem otaku too.

“By the way, you’re going to the ‘Hengsha Natural Science Museum’ in Taoyuan City’s west district, right?” Bai Zhi asked again: “I remember that ecological park shut down two years ago for poor management—there’s no such facility left in all of Taoyuan City now.”

“Yes, it closed two years ago…” Ning Zhe countered: “But didn’t you forget? It’s 2014.”

Right—it’s four years ago.

The road was nearly empty at this hour; only occasional taxis passed by, headlights blazing, but Ning Zhe was lucky—he drove smoothly the whole way.

The Hengsha Natural Science Museum was commonly called the Hengsha Ecological Park by locals; when he was a child, Ning Zhe had visited it with his classmates under his homeroom teacher’s supervision, and he still remembered it vividly.

It was his first time encountering a real-life “zoo” outside of textbooks.

Like the “observatory” or “youth palace” always mentioned in textbooks—as if these places were common and ordinary—the first impression rural students got was: What’s a youth palace? Isn’t an observatory where scientists do research? Ha, I’ve never even heard of them.

Ning Zhe followed his memory to park the car in a secluded corner near the Hengsha Ecological Park, then handed Bai Zhi his loaded shotgun: “I’m going in. Wait here. If anyone approaches, shoot immediately.”

With that, the boy’s tall figure transformed into a nimble bird, soaring over the glass facade.

(End of Chapter)