Chapter 400: The Future of This Planet

Dawn.

The skyline just squeezed out the first bleak white light, and the Corridor of the Investigation Bureau headquarters still lingered with a strange mix of disinfectant and burnt odor.

The emergency lights stained the walls a dim yellow, and the floor bore several hastily wiped dark red streaks that vanished at the corner.

Jiang Yuan pushed open the Director's Office door.

No knock. No report. His shoulder slammed into the door panel, the hinges screeching sharply; he crossed the threshold almost dragging his feet.

His combat uniform, from collar to boot, was all blood—his own, the Fake Person's, dried together into a dark brown crust.

His left hand clenched a stack of paper.

A4 paper, softened along the fold by sweat and blood, its edges curled, with a dense list of names each marked by a red check—386 checks. Every stroke was so forceful it pierced through the paper's back.

He walked to the desk, ignored the person seated in the chair, and slapped the stack onto the tabletop.

The sound was faint, echoing dully in the spacious office.

"The Investigation Bureau's interior has already been cleared clean."

No rise, no emotion. His vocal cords had gone hoarse hours earlier, and the forced voice rasped like sandpaper on metal, dry and coarse.

Wei Gong did not immediately reach out to take it.

The tea cup before the gray‑haired elder had gone cold. His gaze shifted from Jiang Yuan's face to his uniform, then to the right hand still bleeding.

"Sit."

Jiang Yuan did not sit.

He stood there, legs locked straight, as if bending his knees would snap his body in half.

Wei Gong did not press him either. He picked up the stack, flipped two pages, lingered a few seconds on certain names, then set the paper down, neatly stacked at the desk corner.

"Have the wounds been treated?"

"Treated."

"What about the Shadow Ghost power inside you?"

"It's recovering."

Wei Gong tapped the tabletop twice with his fingers.

The elder fished a label‑less ointment jar from a drawer and pushed it across the desk.

"You've worked hard this time."

"Apply the medicine to the palm wound."

Jiang Yuan lowered his head to glance at his hand. The left thumb and index Nail were gone, the exposed nail beds clothed in a black‑brown scab. The right palm bore a curved puncture wound left by the metal clasp of Mo Shu's Hand Ring.

He did not take the ointment.

Silence stretched between them for a full half‑minute.

Wei Gong spoke first.

"Three hundred eighty‑six, in one night, none missed." The elder's finger ran from the top of the list to the bottom, pausing on the last name.

Mo Shu. Number 386.

"You have done what needed to be done." Wei Gong's tone was not gentle, let alone comforting; it was a plain statement, like reading a casualty report, "She also did it."

Jiang Yuan's lips moved, but nothing came out.

Wei Gong stood and walked around the desk.

"The interior is clean."

The elder faced away from Jiang Yuan, his voice low, each word spaced widely.

"Now, it's time to clear the weeds outside."

"Rewards and comfort are futile for you at this moment."

"Right now you need to discard distractions and keep moving forward."

Jiang Yuan did not look up, did not salute, offered no standard reply.

He simply took out a charred, deformed black Hand Ring.

Then he slipped it onto his left wrist.

The metal clasp was bent, unable to fasten; the ring hung loosely on the wrist bone, swinging with his arm. The screen had already shattered into a spider‑web pattern, showing no information.

But he fastened it carefully, clicking it twice before finding an angle that wouldn't slip.

Jiang Yuan turned and walked outward. When he reached the doorway, his steps faltered.

"Director."

"Hmm."

"Can her name... stay on the roster?"

Silence lasted three seconds.

"Can."

The door closed behind him.

In the Corridor, the disinfectant smell grew stronger. The logistics cleaning crew had begun work; someone was rinsing the floor with a high‑pressure water gun. The spray striking the tiles echoed repeatedly through the spacious passage.

Jiang Yuan leaned against the wall for a few steps, his left hand instinctively reaching for the Hand Ring on his wrist.

The clasp's edge dug into the wound, a dull ache.

But he did not release.

As if the laughing girl were still with him.

10 a. m. the next day.

All Investigation Bureau personnel gathered in Report Hall One.

The attendees were over three hundred fewer than yesterday. Everyone could count the number, as the vacant seats in the massive hall were glaringly obvious—front rows, back rows, both sides of the aisles, empty spaces filling the air.

No one dared to ask.

Until the big screen lit up, Lord Wei's face appeared at the center of the display.

The notice was brief. The wording had passed both legal and publicity reviews, rendering the phrase "Fake Person infiltration" into a version everyone could accept.

"...... The Investigation Bureau completed an internal Purification operation, code‑named 'Scavenger'. After inspection it was confirmed that across headquarters departments there were 386 non‑human entities—Fake Persons—replaced by the Weird. The operation is fully completed, the threat eliminated."

The briefing hall fell silent.

Someone instinctively turned to look at the colleague beside them— the colleague they had dined, chatted and played cards with just yesterday— and found the seat empty.

That lingering dread started at the back of the neck, then spread to the spine, and finally raced up to the scalp.

Sister Li's seat was empty. She had delivered mung bean soup to the action team yesterday afternoon.

Qi Hao's seat was empty. He had just helped a new intern in the Intelligence Department set up an encrypted channel last week.

Those people had exchanged greetings in the Corridor, shared tables in the Cafeteria, and pulled all‑nighters together in the duty room.

But they were not human.

Never were.

A few young agents' hands began to tremble.

At the wall‑adjacent spot at the back of the crowd, Jiang Yuan carried a black satchel and had already changed into a clean combat uniform. A shabby Hand Ring hung on his left wrist, incongruous with the rest of his gear.

He did not walk into the briefing hall.

When the notice ended and the crowd dispersed, someone recognized him.

"Hey, Jiang Team, where are you going?"

He did not look back.

He slipped sideways out of the flow of people and entered the elevator.

In the final second the elevator doors closed, someone saw his right hand pressing the Hand Ring on his left wrist, his head bowed, lips drawn tight into a line.

Fourteen minutes later, an unmarked black off‑road vehicle drove out of the Investigation Bureau Underground Parking Garage and merged into the morning traffic.

Its destination was the next Weird Domain.

He could not stop.

That thought had stuck to his mind ever since he left the office last night, impossible to shake. He could not stop. He could not idle. He could not let himself sit in a quiet corner and stare blankly for more than ten seconds.

Because once he stopped, those gray‑white fragments, that voice saying "I'm sorry", that blood‑tear‑streaked laugh— they would crawl in through the fissures of his memory, inch by inch hollowing him out from within.

The Hand Ring on his left wrist swung back and forth with the steering wheel's turn.

Light as death.

And heavy as death.

The scene cuts to several thousand kilometers away.

Jiang Hai City.

In a luxuriously decorated room, every corner was impeccably tidy. A desk, a monitor, a row of neatly stacked medical journals. The air carried the crisp, bitter aroma of steeped tea leaves.

Chu Che sat in a swivel chair.

The monitor before him was black. To be precise, the monitor was merely a prop— he didn't need it at all.

A translucent panel hovered directly in his line of sight, the Weird Editor's monitoring interface streaming internal footage of the Investigation Bureau headquarters. From the moment Jiang Yuan pushed open the Director's Office to the final off‑road vehicle exiting the garage, not a single frame was omitted.

His right hand held a cup of white‑hair silver needle tea steeped for exactly three minutes fifteen seconds; his left index and middle fingers were together, lightly resting on the edge of the frame, nudging it upward.

The gold‑thread‑rimmed glasses slid to the exact center of his nose bridge and clicked into place.

The eyes behind the lenses were as calm as a wind‑stilled pool that had not been disturbed overnight.

A very subtle curve appeared at Chu Che's mouth.

It was not mockery. Not pity. Nor the typical villain's sly grin.

It was appreciation.

Visitors in a museum, when confronted with a work that exceeds expectations, display that expression.

"Metamorphosis, and the tragic song of humanity."

"Truly, once again I get to appreciate... an exquisite piece of art."

He set down the teacup, his ten long, fair fingers gesturing over the panel, pulling up another data set. The global Weird Domain expansion rate, the awakening curve of the Enigmatic Ones, and a heat map of Gospel Church follower distribution— three charts floated side by side in the air, each swept over by his gaze.

"This side as well, not the slightest disappointment."

At the same moment.

North American Union, Washington D. C. Special District.

President's Office.

The North American United President, the figure who never flinched even when opponents threw shoes at him on the campaign debate stage.

At this moment his back was pressed against the chair back, the rear of his shirt soaked through, cold sweat streaming down his temples.

The figure opposite the desk sat with legs crossed.

A dark‑red shirt, a retro black suit, cut with flawless precision, cuffs adjusted to just expose the wrist bones. A gray Mask covered the entire face, leaving only two black eye holes through which nothing could be seen.

A black cane leaned diagonally against the chair armrest, its tip set with an eyeball that rotated slowly and autonomously, its pupil fixed on the President.

The eyeball on the cane stared at the President's face, its pupil reflecting the image of a middle‑aged man drenched in cold sweat, his complexion pallid.

The President's right hand felt the emergency call button beneath the desk. His thumb rested on it, the pad of his finger pressing down a millimeter.

Sai Men tilted his head. The Mask showed no expression, but those two black eye holes—

They were smiling.

"Shh—"

A chuckling, breathy sound came from behind the gray Mask.

"I'd advise you not to press it."

The voice remained so light and airy.

Otherwise, the Presidential Palace can only regretfully become the next Weird Domain to be purged by the Investigation Bureau.

The temperature in the office dropped seven degrees.

The President's thumb retracted.

Sai Men leaned back against the chair, satisfied, shifting his crossed legs. He tapped his cane lightly twice on the floor, his eyeballs trembling with the rhythm.

Then——

The smile leaking from behind the mask was so thick you could almost smell it.

Let's chat, Mr. President. About——

He paused deliberately, leaving a long enough silence for fear to ferment.

——The future of this planet.