Chapter 390: Everything Is Fake

Jiang Yuan cancelled the True Sight Eye.

In the instant the filter faded, Mo Shu's face returned.

Almond-shaped eyes curved, shallow dimpled cheeks, the ends of her chestnut short hair tucked inward, the afternoon sun streamed through the window, coating the side of her face with a layer of fluffy warm light.

Very pretty.

It matches every frame in his memory.

During the Fake Person incident, the two of them crouched back‑to‑back in the building; she elbowed him and whispered, "Jiang Yuan, your heartbeat's so fast," he replied, "At least it's not stopped," she fell silent for three seconds, then said, "We'll survive."

In Chicago's underground tunnels, she brandished a short blade in front of him, and when she turned back and shouted, "Don't just stand there, Flying Cards guest," a carefree grin still hung on her face.

At last month's Intelligence Department dinner, she drank two cans of beer and blushed to her ears, slumped on the table and muttered, "Jiang Yuan, you really, really need to watch your safety," then fell asleep. He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

All of it is real.

Every smile, every sentence, every coordinated command in joint combat, every time after crawling out of the gate of ghosts she handed him a bottle of warm water— all of it is real.

Wrong.

None of it is real.

They come from something that doesn't even have a carbon‑based structure. A white curved surface shaped like a skull made of signal snowflakes, without any facial features. A... substitute that parasitizes within human civilization, precisely mimicking Mo Shu's tone, rhythm, habits, and smile curvature.

What about the real Mo Shu?

When was she replaced?

Was it before Chicago, or after Chicago?

Is she still alive?

Did she know, when she died, that something was copying everything about her?

Or was she nonexistent from the start?

Jiang Yuan clenched his hand into a fist, the True Sight Eye in his palm being squeezed so hard it was almost embedded in his flesh. Blood seeped from under the nail, slid over the bead's surface, then ran down the gaps between his fingers onto the table below.

His heart rate began to jump upward.

65, 72, 79—

The Shadow Ghost's power surged from within, like a bucket of ice water poured over his head, extinguishing every firing nerve. The heart‑rate curve was forcibly pulled back.

79, 73, 68.

The device on his earbone sat quietly.

"Jiang Yuan?"

The thing opposite him called out again.

"Are you feeling unwell? Maybe I could go with you—"

"No need."

Jiang Yuan slipped the True Sight Eye back into his pocket, lifted his head, and forced a smile toward the opposite direction.

That smile was flawless. The curve of his mouth, the lines at his eyes, the proportion of fatigue—all were so precise they made one feel sick.

Because it wasn't him smiling; the Shadow Ghost was controlling his facial muscles for him.

He felt that, at this moment, he resembled a Fake Person even more.

"I've really been in the Weird Domain too long; I haven't recovered yet," he said, lifting his tray and standing, moving naturally, at an unhurried pace, "I'll go back and get some sleep, we can talk another day."

"Oh, okay." The opposite side tilted its head, almond eyes—or rather the shadows of two black holes—narrowed in a curved squint, "Then you rest early; next dinner you mustn't stand me up again."

"Mm."

Jiang Yuan carried the tray and turned around.

The turning motion was smooth, just like always.

But the instant his body was completely turned away from that spot—

His eye sockets reddened.

Not just a slight pink. It was a scarlet so engorged the capillaries seemed about to burst, spreading from the whites to the edge of the pupils, the whole eyeball looking as if lifted from blood‑soaked water.

Cold sweat seeped from his hair roots, flowing along his temples, ear roots, down his neck, and his combat uniform on his back was completely soaked within three steps.

He clutched the tray and walked toward the collection station. Each step landed solidly, with a firm clack.

Passing several colleagues' desks, someone looked up and greeted; he nodded.

He placed the tray in the recycling area. His hand didn't tremble as he set it down.

He pushed open the Cafeteria's glass doors.

He walked through the Corridor.

Fluorescent lights receded one by one, white light brushed his face, making the scarlet in his eyes appear even more feral.

He didn't walk quickly.

Each step drained all his willpower to maintain that "normal person" shell. The Shadow Ghost kept retuning, suppressing, correcting inside him, like a wildly running processor whose cooling couldn't keep up.

Thirty meters ahead, the Stairwell corner.

The surveillance camera's coverage here has a roughly two‑meter blind spot.

Jiang Yuan turned into it.

Confirmed no one ahead or behind.

Then he punched the wall.

Concrete fractured from the impact point, shards and dust spraying across half the Stairwell. His fist was embedded in the wall about half a foot deep, the skin over his knuckles cracked, blood dripped down the gaps between his fingers, pattering on the steps.

He didn't withdraw his fist.

He leaned against the wall, tucked his head, his shoulders trembling.

Not crying.

It's vomiting.

A sweet, fishy taste rose in his throat, which he swallowed down hard; the part he couldn't swallow cleanly mixed with saliva and seeped from the corner of his mouth, staining his chin and collar dark.

He had noticed every discordant thing.

They were all automatically filtered out by his brain.

Cognitive interference doesn't erase memories, it only lowers their priority, letting the mind actively cover for it.

Jiang Yuan pulled his fist out of the wall opening, the sound of shards of stone scraping flesh ringing especially clear in the spacious Stairwell. He held the blood‑soaked hand for a few seconds, and his breathing steadied from its earlier turbulence.

It's not that he was calm.

It's that he pushed everything into a deeper place, sealing the lid shut with the power of the Shadow Ghost.

He was ready to go find Wei Gong.

The Director's Office door was unlocked.

When Jiang Yuan pushed the door open, Wei Gong was seated behind the rose‑wood desk, his graying hair outlined hazily by the desk lamp. The curtains were closed, and only the lamp on the desk lit the room; everything beyond its glow was dark.

Backlit. His expression was indistinct.

Jiang Yuan walked to the desk, took a twice‑folded sticky note from his pocket with his right hand, and pressed it onto the tabletop.

It wasn't a press. It was a slap.

Snap— the sound cracked open the quiet of the office.

"Three hundred eighty‑six."

His voice rasped through his throat, producing a hoarse rasp, like a rusted hinge being forced open.

Wei Gong said nothing, unfolded the paper. The lamp's warm light fell on the writing, names listed one after another from top to bottom. The script was neat, with no corrections, no ink pauses—written in a single breath.

Logistics Department, Li Xiulan.

Intelligence Department, Qi Hao.

Equipment Room Corridor, employee ID 4471.

Third Floor East Side Hallway, employee ID 5523.

Wei Gong's gaze slid down the list.

When he reached the seventy‑fifth line, his eyes lingered for a fraction of a second.

The two characters "Mo Shu" were written there. No special annotation, no circle, no distinction from the other names. The handwriting was as even as the previous entries.

But the crack on Jiang Yuan's right knuckle was still bleeding outward.

Wei Gong set the list down and looked up at Jiang Yuan.

The young man stood at the desk. His back was straight, his shoulders uncollapsed, his breathing even, his facial expression passable—if one ignored the blood‑spotted eyes.

The red veins on the whites of his eyes were so dense they almost obscured the white.

The elder didn't ask any idle "Are you okay?"

He pulled open the second drawer on the right side of the desk.

Inside the drawer lay a File.

It was thin, seven pages total with a cover, the upper left corner stamped with three red seals—"Top Secret", "For Authorized Eyes Only", "Destroy After Reading".

The cover bore two characters.

Scavenger.

The File was pushed across the desk, slid to Jiang Yuan's side, and stopped.

Wei Gong's hand lifted from the File, leaning back against the chair. The lamp illuminated only his chin; his eyes were hidden in shadow, indistinct.

"The people on this list—"

The elder's voice was not heavy. It could even be called light, light enough to sound like stating an already settled fact.

"... are already dead."

Jiang Yuan's eyelashes twitched.

"The things you see aren't your colleagues, nor your comrades, nor anyone you know. They are parasites that have taken over corpses."

Wei Gong tapped his fingers on the desk twice, the rhythm slow, each tap separated by a long silence.

"Now there is only one thing to do."

"Clean the prey completely."

The office remained quiet for a long while.

So long that the footsteps of someone passing in the corridor outside could be heard distinctly, leather heels striking the tiles, echoing from far to near and back, finally fading at the corner.

Jiang Yuan lowered his head and looked at the File.

The three characters "Scavenger" glowed with a cold white light under the lamp.

He reached out his hand.

The moment his fingertip touched the cover—

Mo Shu's voice exploded in his mind.

"We will survive."

Blood seeped out another drop from the knuckle crack, striking the horizontal stroke of "Scavenger", spreading a small dark‑red blot.

Jiang Yuan lifted the File.

He opened the cover and began at page one. He skimmed each page rapidly, his eyes scanning like a document scanner. All seven pages were read in under two minutes.

He closed it.

"Action Window Time?" he asked.

His throat was still hoarse, but his tone had evened.

Wei Gong leaned deeper into the chair back, interlacing his ten fingers across his abdomen; his graying hair merged almost with the shadows.

"Tonight."

Jiang Yuan tucked the folder under his armpit, turned, and walked toward the door.

As his hand rested on the door handle, a low voice came from behind him.

"AM Operation."

Jiang Yuan did not turn back.

"I understand."

The door closed behind him.

The fluorescent lights in the corridor were still as bright as ever. White light spread evenly over every inch of the floor, clean, bright, and orderly.

There was no difference from when he had walked in six hours earlier.

But Jiang Yuan, walking down this corridor, was no longer the same.

His right hand was in his pocket, fingertips pinching the True Vision Eye.

Back on the ground floor, faint laughter came from the direction of the cafeteria.

Someone was discussing who would pay for the Intelligence Department's group meal.

The voice was sweet, with a rising ending, carrying two shallow dimples.

Jiang Yuan's steps paused for less than a second.

Then he continued walking forward.