Chapter 592

A six-story Tongzi Lou was sandwiched between two half-demolished derelict buildings, its exterior tiles mostly fallen off, and the hallway lights had long been out.

The door wasn't locked. When Su Ming pushed it open, the hinges emitted a piercing screech, and rust flakes fell from the joints.

The smell inside was strong. Cheap liquor, moldy wall plaster, and a hint of despair that had seeped into the concrete. This rental unit had been sealed by the Investigation Bureau after Zhang Yuanqing's death three months ago, and no one had touched anything inside.

On the low table sat a half-bottle of Niulanshan, beside it scattered were a few crumpled photocopies of a forensic examiner's certificate.

Su Ming glanced at it, then withdrew his gaze.

"Close the door."

Liang Wen pulled the door shut with a backhand, unusually refraining from idle chatter. He took off the fingerless gloves etched with patterns, slipped them into his windcoat pocket, and the habitual smile in his peach-blossom eyes vanished completely.

Su Ming took out a black metal box from the inner side of his combat vest. The box was small, palm-sized, its surface etched with intricate runic arrays. He pressed the lid with one hand, his fingertips trembling slightly.

It wasn't because of nervousness.

It was the Time Marrow Worm being agitated.

The time-system Weird parasite inside him sensed the residual high-dimensional energy fluctuations in the box, excited like a shark smelling blood, and frenziedly slammed against his consciousness barrier.

Su Ming closed his eyes.

The veins in his brow throbbed three times.

He clenched his molars and, with pure will, pressed the Time Marrow Worm back.

It was suppressed.

Su Ming opened his eyes, his pupil color two shades darker than usual, and said, "Let's begin."

Liang Wen walked to the center of the room and knelt on one knee. His palm pressed against the floor, and faint golden lines seeped from between his fingers—a sign that his Rewind ability was activating.

"Is the frequency connected?" Liang Wen asked without lifting his head.

The communicator behind Su Ming's ear flashed once. L's voice came out, flat with no inflection: "The secure channel has been established. Headquarters' main screen is synchronizing in real time. Signal delay is zero point zero three seconds."

"Received."

Su Ming opened the box.

Inside lay a small, crystal-clear fragment, irregular in shape, with a faint blue light flowing within. Eye of Truth. This tiny piece, peeled off from what Lu Yu brought back from the North American Weird Domain, is enough for one use.

He took out the fragment and cradled it in his palm. Its temperature was low, like holding a chunk of unfrozen ice.

"The rules are simple." Su Ming's voice dropped low, "I use the Time Marrow Worm to anchor the temporal coordinate, and the Eye of Truth penetrates the high-dimensional shroud. Forced rewind."

"What's the cost?"

"I'll bear it."

Liang Wen lifted his head and glanced at him. He didn't respond, just gave a nod.

Golden lines spread from Liang Wen's palm outward, covering the entire floor. Simultaneously, Su Ming released the power of the Time Marrow Worm; silvery-white time threads flowed from his fingertips, wrapping around the Eye of Truth fragment.

At the moment the two forces converged, the fragment burst into blue light.

The air inside the entire rental unit began to warp.

The mold spots on the walls receded, the dust on the table dissipated, and the liquid level in the half-bottle of Niulanshan slowly rose.

Time in this cramped space began to rewind.

Federal Weird Investigation Bureau headquarters, B2 level command center.

The massive circular screen lit up.

At first the screen showed only snow and random specks, like an old broken TV. Wei Gong sat dead center at the command desk, his hands folded on the surface, motionless.

Jiang Yuan stood to the left of the screen, his card bag hanging at his waist, eyes fixed on the display.

Qin Zhixia stood beside him.

Her mechanical prosthetic arm hung at her side, its metal fingertips rhythmically tapping the outside of her thigh. She herself didn't notice, but those nearby did.

What happened half an hour ago still lingered. Chu Che's line "Wait until we defeat the gods" kept turning in her mind. She couldn't name the feeling; it was merely that the temperature in that debugging room hadn't fully dissipated yet.

She suppressed that out-of-place emotion and focused on the screen.

Lin Fan and Ling Xinyu stood in the corner, silent. Ji Bai leaned against the door, the old black umbrella upright beside his feet. Chen Shao sat farthest away, arms crossed, his Demon Eye wrapped in cloth, only his normal eye exposed.

Lu Yu didn't come. He was still recovering.

The snow gradually faded.

The image finally became clear.

The interior of that rental unit appeared on the big screen, but not as it is now. The timeline had rewound to the night several months ago.

In the picture, a dim light bulb swayed overhead.

A man knelt on the floor.

Zhang Yuanqing.

Once the Federal Bureau's top forensic examiner, once an upright law enforcer. Now he reeked of alcohol, his hair disheveled and stuck to his forehead, his knees resting in shards of glass, having knelt for a long time, his trousers soaked with blood.

He was crying.

The kind of loud, sobbing cries. He muttered something indistinctly, his voice breaking up from the screen. The command center's audio equipment filtered out the noise, reconstructing his words:

"...... judged...... not guilty released...... I personally examined the corpse...... it was a fourteen-year-old girl...... they said the evidence chain was incomplete……"

"...... a miscarriage of justice...... my wrongful case can't be overturned...... the files are sealed...... sealed……"

"...... this world...... is utterly rotten……"

No one spoke in the command center.

The image continued.

Zhang Yuanqing cried, then suddenly stopped.

He lifted his head.

Because someone had appeared in the corner of the room at some point.

That person stepped out of the shadow. Their steps were light and steady. Their soles pressed on the broken glass, yet made no sound.

He was wearing a doctor's lab coat.

The atmosphere in the command center subtly tightened. Jiang Yuan's gaze sharpened a fraction. Doctor's lab coats aren't rare in the Investigation Bureau system—many researchers and medical staff wear them. But at this time, in this place, a person wearing a doctor's lab coat appeared—

In the image, that person stood before Zhang Yuanqing.

Backlit. The light bulb behind him swayed, casting his face entirely into shadow, only his outline visible. His figure was slender, his shoulders straight.

He bent down.

He reached out his hand to Zhang Yuanqing, who was kneeling on the ground.

His fingers were long and slender, joints distinct, unnaturally pale.

Zhang Yuanqing lifted his head to look at that hand; the despair and confusion in his eyes seemed to be seized by something in an instant. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

That person spoke.

The voice was transmitted back to headquarters via a secure channel. Clear. Clean. Gentle. Carrying an inexplicably reassuring professionalism.

In the command center, someone's breathing suddenly grew heavy—no one knew whose.

That voice was too familiar.

Damn, it was too familiar.

Jiang Yuan's hand had already pressed onto the card bag.

L inserted a real-time order into the comms channel: "The Eye of Truth's energy is about to break through the high-dimensional shielding layer. Three, two, one—"

The screen image jolted violently.

It was as if an invisible film had been torn open. The layer of shadow, blur, and obscurity shrouding the man's face—all the high-dimensional interference obstructing recognition—shattered into dust under the impact of the Eye of Truth's residual power.

The camera didn't push in. It didn't need to.

Because the image was already clear enough.

That face was fully, unreservedly exposed on the big screen.

His features were handsome. His lines were soft. His skin was cold white. His black short hair was immaculate.

Gold-thread-rimmed glasses.

The corners of his mouth bore a warm, just-right smile.

Chu Che.

Qiu Ce Yuan school doctor.

Thirty minutes earlier, he had just been in the B3-level debugging room, personally calibrating Qin Zhixia's prosthetic arm.

Thirty minutes earlier, in front of everyone, he had spoken in that gentle voice: "Once we defeat the gods, I'll give you a sincere answer."

Now he appeared in footage from several months ago, smiling as he reached out his hand to a desperate medical examiner.

He was being granted anomalous power sufficient to destroy a city.

The command center died.

It wasn't quiet. It was dead.

Even the air-conditioning's hum vanished. L's keyboard clicks stopped. All breathing ceased.

On the big screen, the image froze on the frame of Chu Che smiling.

The gold-thread glasses reflected the dim yellow light of the rented apartment; his eyes were gentle to an uncanny degree.

Qin Zhixia stood where she was.

Her hand still held the posture from half a minute ago—metal fingertips hovering beside her thigh, the rhythm of her light tapping suspended in midair.

Her tactical terminal slipped from her left hand.

"Pa."

The plastic casing hit the floor tiles, cracking a corner of the screen.

No one looked at that terminal. Everyone's gazes unconsciously avoided Qin Zhixia's direction.

Her face showed no expression.

But her eye sockets were engorged. Not from crying—it was a physiological reaction of capillaries rupturing under extreme emotional impact. Her eyes were red enough to almost bleed.

Her lips pressed together, forming a line.

The mechanical prosthetic arm drooped, its metal joints emitting a faint click. She wasn't moving; it was the arm's overload protection mechanism automatically resetting—because she had unconsciously clenched her fist just moments before, the force had triggered the metal frame's deformation alarm.

She didn't speak.

Not a word.

Jiang Yuan's back pressed against the cold wall.

Chill rose from his tailbone, creeping up his spine vertebra by vertebra. He had faced a quasi-S-grade anomaly, blocked Ouyang Feng's Bone City, and survived the Blood Moon game's hellish battlefield.

Never before had any moment made him feel this cold.

That person.

The person who was forever gentle and courteous in the infirmary. Even after the mobilization meeting ended, he still ran into him in the corridor, nodding and smiling, saying "You've worked hard."

He was the creator of all anomalies.

He was the behind-the-scenes mastermind they had been chasing for nearly two years.

He was the "god."

He had always been among them.

Jiang Yuan's Adam's apple twitched, his fingers tightening on the card bag.

On the other side.

Lin Fan and Ling Xinyu exchanged a glance, their expressions a mix of astonishment and disbelief.

Never would have guessed that the Chu doctor who had once lent them aid was actually the mastermind behind the scenes.

Lin Fan's right eye—that azure anomalous pupil—contracted violently despite no external stimulus.

Ji Bai had no extra reaction.

He just slowly lowered his gaze, looking at the old black umbrella beside his feet.

The fierce ghosts at the ferry port had died in such numbers.

The Dragon‑Rearing Project, the living rations of the containment zone.

Those layouts.

All of this was that person.

Silence continued for about seven seconds.

The bodily sensation felt like seven years.

Then Lord Wei moved.

This white‑haired old man rose from his chair. His motion was not fast, but every inch was steady. His hands lifted from the tabletop, his knuckles without any tremor.

He looked at the gentle face on the screen, staring for a full two seconds.

Those eyes, usually half‑closed and seeming murky, opened completely.

Inside there was no shock, no anger, not even any killing intent.

Only one thing—

Judgment.

He had already made the judgment.

"L."

"Present."

"Chu Che's current location."

"Qiu Ce Yuan Building Three, infirmary."

Lord Wei glanced at everyone's status in the command center.

One second.

He opened his mouth.

"All personnel, level‑one combat readiness."

His voice wasn't loud, but everyone's spine in the command center straightened. Including those who had just been immersed in the huge impact and nearly lost their ability to think.

Lord Wei's voice had no hesitation or pause. Each word was short, hard, and precise:

"Target, Qiu Ce Yuan infirmary."

"Regardless of life or death."

"Execute immediately—"

His last four words fell like a knife chopping on a cutting board.

"Absolute suppression."

——

And at this moment.

Qiu Ce Yuan Building Three, infirmary.

Chu Che sat behind his desk.

On the desk lay a pre‑operative evaluation form for tomorrow's casualties, his doctor's lab coat draped over the chair back, and his gold‑thread glasses sat properly on the bridge of his nose.

He was looking out the window.

His profile reflected in the floor‑to‑ceiling glass, lines soft, demeanor calm.

The teacup beside him steamed, freshly brewed Longjing.

He lifted the cup and took a sip.

Then he set it down.

He raised a hand to push his glasses up.

"Well... let the final act begin."