Investigator Kong first looked puzzled, then studied my expression carefully.

  “Why are you so interested in this?”

  Worried that probing for information related to Alice might arouse suspicion, I had my excuse ready: “I’m just drawn to anything strange and unusual. Besides, this might somehow connect to the fallen demon hunter incident.”

  “Hmm… is that so…” Investigator Kong thought for a moment before answering. “Actually, this isn’t exactly classified. The reason Zhu Shi didn’t tell you is probably because—from a Luo Shan insider’s perspective—the whole thing isn’t exactly flattering.”

  “You mean… Luo Shan did something wrong?” I asked tentatively.

  “I don’t know whether it qualifies as wrongdoing. I’m not high enough up the chain to have the full picture. Anyway, let me answer your original question: who exactly is that girl…” He continued, “As far as I know, she’s the only known case in the world of someone awakening from ‘Soul Loss Syndrome.’”

  “…Soul Loss Syndrome?” I repeated the unfamiliar term.

  Judging from the name alone, it sounded like some kind of “disease of a missing soul.”

  Forgive my ignorance—I’d never heard of anything like it unless it was just a fancy name for a persistent vegetative state.

  “It’s understandable you haven’t. In the mundane world, it’s only regarded as an unexplained coma-like condition. Only in our circles do we call it ‘Soul Loss Syndrome.’” Investigator Kong’s tone grew heavy. “It started spreading globally about four years ago. We still don’t know the source, the transmission method, or any cure… Luo Shan has mobilized countless experts and spent four years just to confirm two things:

  “First, it’s a condition caused by some unknown anomalous phenomenon. Second, while the victims’ bodies continue functioning normally, their souls have completely vanished.”

  “Soul vanished…” The words immediately sparked several thoughts in my mind.

  When I once asked Alice whether she had physically crossed over or only her soul had, her answer had been deliberately vague. It was clear she couldn’t confirm whether the body she was using now was truly her original one. If she really was a traveler from an apocalyptic future, the odds were high that she was a soul-transmigrator.

  And coincidentally, the body Alice was currently inhabiting had, in this timeline, already been an empty shell. It almost felt tailor-made for a soul-traveler to move in. I’d read plenty of crossover novels where the original owner’s soul scattered due to drowning, high fever, or some other cause, conveniently leaving the body vacant for the protagonist to take over.

  But fiction was fiction—I had to stay grounded in reality.

  For instance: where had the original soul of that empty shell gone? And did it have any connection to Alice’s supposed soul-crossing?

  My first wild guess was that maybe the original soul had somehow crossed into the apocalyptic era, lost all its memories for some reason, mistakenly believed itself to be a native of that ruined world, and then—by some twist—crossed back to the present.

  No, that theory had a glaring flaw: in the apocalyptic era, Alice should already have had a body capable of housing her soul. How could an entirely different era produce a body that looked almost identical to the current Alice?

  Considering that her original body was likely very similar to the one she now occupied, another hypothesis felt more plausible: she was Alice from a parallel world, and the apocalypse was a catastrophe that occurred in that other world’s future.

  In other words—the parallel-world theory.

  But… parallel universes were still just a hypothesis in science. Building an entire deduction on that felt way too far-fetched.

  Honestly, my mind was now flooded with terms like “transmigration” and “apocalypse”—concepts I’d only ever seen in novels and comics. Trying to reason seriously with them as building blocks was practically begging to spiral into nonsense.

  “I think I get the gist,” I said, forcing my thoughts back to the present. “In short, this girl is the world’s one and only documented case of awakening from Soul Loss Syndrome. Studying her body could potentially lead to a cure for all the other victims, right?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Exactly.” Investigator Kong gave a small nod and went on. “But the moment she woke up, she vanished from the hospital. Not just ran away—disappeared into thin air, like the atmosphere itself swallowed her.”

  “Spatial translocation?” I immediately recalled Alice mentioning her so-called “blessing power.”

  “Luo Shan suspects the same. The problem is that before contracting Soul Loss Syndrome, this girl named Alice was just an ordinary teenager. While in a vegetative state, she had zero opportunity to come into contact with supernatural forces.” Investigator Kong spoke slowly. “Yet the instant she awoke, she suddenly possessed the ability to teleport. Even more baffling is her subsequent behavior—she’s no ordinary runaway.

  “When she reappeared, she had already infiltrated the local public security bureau and stolen firearms and ammunition… actions completely out of character for who she used to be, and things she never should have been capable of.”

  The original owner of the body was also named Alice. That seemed to boost the credibility of the parallel-world hypothesis. At the same time, it could just as easily serve as evidence that Alice was lying and the whole apocalypse-transmigration story had been fabricated from the start.

  As Investigator Kong continued, a possibility occurred to me from an outsider’s perspective: “Are you suggesting she didn’t actually awaken from Soul Loss Syndrome… but that an empty body was taken over by some malevolent spirit that appeared out of nowhere?”

  That explanation actually made a lot of sense.

  It would explain why Luo Shan was hunting Alice the way one hunts a criminal: because they weren’t after “the sole awakened patient,” but rather an evil ghost that had hijacked a teenage girl’s corpse.

  Even I didn’t have any solid evidence to rule that possibility out.

  Compared to “apocalyptic transmigrator,” though, “possessing evil spirit” felt disappointingly mundane. And if Luo Shan truly stood on the side of justice, why would both Zhu Shi and Investigator Kong consider their actions “not very flattering”?

  “I had the same suspicion at first, but the higher-ups don’t see it that way,” Investigator Kong said, shaking his head. “They genuinely believe she is the awakened Soul Loss patient. They launched a full-scale search on that premise—so urgently that they acted first and asked permission later. They first labeled her a serial killer, then pressured the public security system to make the accusation official. The other side kept refusing… If she were merely a minor possessing spirit, the higher-ups would never have resorted to such extreme measures.”

  “Maybe they’re not entirely sure themselves?” I offered, deliberately taking the more charitable interpretation as an outsider. “The girl could be either an awakened patient or a possessed vessel, so they prepared for the worst-case scenario.

  “For example: since she had already infiltrated the public security bureau and stolen guns and ammo, they couldn’t very well search for her under the guise of looking for a missing or abducted girl. And conveniently, our city recently had an unidentified serial killer on the loose, so they simply borrowed that label.”

  “With the means available to high-level demon hunters, detecting whether an evil spirit had invaded a hospital room would be child’s play. They must have been certain. Even though they can’t explain how the girl gained her powers or why her personality changed so drastically, they don’t treat her as a different entity.” He added, “Moreover, given her unknown spatial translocation ability, the higher-ups have now expanded the search nationwide.

  “I don’t need to detail the additional methods they’re employing. The aggressive accusations they’ve already used won’t be dropped either. Going to such lengths, employing such ruthless tactics… Z, do you understand what that implies?”

  A nationwide manhunt? No holds barred?

  I felt relieved that Alice wasn’t merely some possessing spirit, yet Investigator Kong’s words shook me deeply, and I fell into thought.

  Given the potential value Alice represented in Luo Shan’s eyes, a nationwide search made perfect sense. And her infiltration and theft of firearms was undeniably her wrongdoing. From a secular legal standpoint, it could even be classified as a major crime. Yet Luo Shan wasn’t part of the public security apparatus, and their behavior didn’t resemble the fair, official demeanor one would expect from legitimate authorities. Apart from the sheer scale—which was government-level—everything about their approach reeked of operating outside proper channels.

  The whole situation felt maddeningly murky!

  I could feel my blood circulating faster as I slowly voiced my impression of what he’d described: “As long as they can get their hands on that girl, her basic rights don’t matter… is that it?”

  Wait—didn’t that description apply to me as well?

  Investigator Kong nodded.

  “That’s all I know about the girl’s inside story. I shouldn’t have told you this much, but you seem like the type who’ll dig into strange rumors until you hit bedrock. Better I lay it out clearly than let you go poking around elsewhere and stir up trouble.” He added, “Of course, I hope you won’t misunderstand Luo Shan. Luo Shan isn’t a monolith—there are multiple factions. The ones behind this particular operation belong to one of the more extreme camps.”

  That last part felt suspiciously like it was aimed at me too… I glanced away and changed the subject: “Are you part of that faction?”

  The word “faction” left a bad taste in my mouth.

  “I’m just a low-level nobody. I wouldn’t dare claim to belong to any faction. I’m just getting kicked around like a ball, no choice in the matter.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh, then added, “By the way—Zhu Shi has absolutely no connection to the faction involved in this matter.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.” I glanced ahead. “Speaking of which… where exactly are we headed?”

  “Didn’t I mention earlier? I have to handle my regular ‘probe’ duties.” He stopped in front of me. “Urban legend investigation—something you’re already very familiar with. If you’re interested, you can tag along. Who knows? In some places, even a professional like me might not match your instincts.”

  By now we had reached an abandoned construction site near Xianshui University.

  Ahead lay a desolate, empty plot dominated by a bare, unfinished building. No one knew what it was originally meant to be or why it had been abandoned. From a distance, it looked like a crude gray tombstone thrust awkwardly into the cityscape, as if even the wind passing through here turned colder.

  This was the very place where I had first encountered Alice.