CH 136

Yin Ren rarely dreamed.

With his level, he could freely control the content of his dreams. In the past, to ensure the quality of his sleep, Yin Ren had turned off the “dreaming” function. The times had changed, and his daily life was rich and exciting enough that he didn’t need additional dreamscapes.

Tonight was an exception.

Perhaps his mind was more tired than he imagined—Yin Ren fell into a deep sleep in the hospital bed, immersed in the faint smell of medicine. But when he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar yet unfamiliar ceiling.

It was Zhong Chengshuo’s bedroom.

The clock on the bedside table pointed exactly at 6:58, and the light-blocking curtains blocked the sunlight, making the room still dark.

Yin Ren’s heart trembled. He instinctively touched the warm skin next to him.

Zhong Chengshuo was wearing his nightcap and sleeping soundly. Yin Ren had just patted Zhong Chengshuo’s shoulder, and the man only made a sound and then curled up under the covers.

It was an ordinary morning.

Yin Ren stared at the person next to him. Zhong Chengshuo’s face was rosy, and his skin had a healthy glow, full of vitality. His hair was clean and fluffy, with a refreshing minty scent, and not a single white hair was visible. Zhong Chengshuo slept quietly, and his breathing was lighter than a cat’s. However, the blanket on his body still rose and fell, outlining the contours of his breath.

Without hesitation, Yin Ren laid back on his pillow. He turned over, and his hair surged, pulling the other person into his arms.

He lowered his head, burying his nose in Zhong Chengshuo’s neck. The cotton pajamas were soaked with body temperature, emitting his familiar scent. Yin Ren couldn’t control himself. A part of his body instantly turned into a semi-transparent form and was scattered under the bed, covering the entire room, as if he wanted to completely wrap up this person.

Zhong Chengshuo was probably awakened by Yin Ren’s movements. He moved sleepily and put an arm around Yin Ren’s waist. “Hm?”

“Let me hug you for a while.” Yin Ren continued to bury his face in Zhong Chengshuo’s shoulder. “I had a nightmare.”

“Can an Evil Spirit also have nightmares?” Zhong Chengshuo’s eyes were still closed. He relaxed his body and let Yin Ren hold him, his voice still a little drowsy. “What did you dream about?”

“I dreamt that a sniper killed you in front of me.”

“Oh.” Zhong Chengshuo’s soft hair rubbed against him, and he didn’t say much. “What do you want to eat this morning? My parents’ stewed pork ribs are still in the fridge. I can make vegetable pork rib noodles.”

“If you hadn’t met me, you wouldn’t have encountered such a thing.”

Yin Ren didn’t answer Zhong Chengshuo’s question. He held his lover tightly and continued to speak in a daze. The emptiness of the loss was so real that he didn’t know whether he should be joyful or sad now.

This morning was so ordinary and beautiful. He should get up and go to the kitchen with that person, enjoying every moment. But he just couldn’t help but continue to say these words that had nowhere to go.

“If you hadn’t met me, you could have been a real C-level investigator in Shian. You wouldn’t have had to come into contact with Qi Xin for your execution mission, or be noticed by the sniper… You could have continued your research happily, and you could have lived a good life.”

Zhong Chengshuo just listened quietly.

Thump, thump, thump. Through the thin fabric, Zhong Chengshuo’s heartbeat was clearly audible in his ears.

Yin Ren closed his eyes.

He had thought that his liking for Zhong Chengshuo was just an ordinary level. He still couldn’t empathize with the exaggerated drama in those scripts and the screams of collapse in those interpretations.

But at this moment, he felt that he truly understood the concept of “like”.

When he was in a good mood, he could treat all humans gently. But when he was in a bad mood, that concern and goodwill could be taken away in an instant.

But the person he liked was like a whirlpool.

His attention, his goodwill, and the focus of his mind—even if that whirlpool went away, it still pulled them constantly, leaving a part of him forever in the distance, unable to retrieve it no matter how hard he tried.

If everything before was just a long and realistic nightmare, and the present was reality, how good that would be.

But Yin Ren had already passed the age of self-deception.

…This situation and scenery were just a dream, and the “Zhong Chengshuo” in front of him was just his impression of his lover. No matter how comforting the words this illusion said were, it was just his self-deception.

He tightened his arms and hugged the warm and sturdy body.

“Well, I understand now.”

In the warm and soft blanket, Zhong Chengshuo patted Yin Ren’s back and absentmindedly touched the translucent wings that were flowing all over the bed.

“I am already dead and you’ve dreamed of me,” he honestly stated the fact. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have collapsed like this because of a ‘dream’.”

Yin Ren: “……”

Indeed, this was Zhong Chengshuo’s style. This development was too realistic, and he didn’t know who to take his anger out on.

Yin Ren: “Is there anything you want to say to me?”

“No matter what I say, it’s just an illusion created by your brain,” Zhong Chengshuo grumbled. “I am a science post, and I cannot enter dreams. And I have taken care of everything. You’re very smart, so I don’t have much to advise.”

Yin Ren smiled awkwardly.

“But I can give you a good morning kiss,” his dream lover said. “You know I will do that.”

Zhong Chengshuo leaned in seriously. His lips touched the corner of Yin Ren’s mouth. That was where Yin Ren had kissed him for the first time.

“Good morning, Yin Ren,” he said quietly.

“Wake up.”

……

Yin Ren opened his eyes again. The sunlight in the hospital room was a bit dazzling. He covered his eyes with his arm, and his phone kept vibrating beside his ear.

It was a voice call from Zhong Chengshuo’s mother, Cheng Xuehua.

“Xiao Yin, why can’t I reach Chengshuo’s phone?”

“His phone has some problems, so he went to buy a new one.” Yin Ren covered his eyes, and his voice sounded as cheerful as usual. “Auntie, do you have anything to tell me?”

“Nothing much. I just haven’t seen you two for a while. Lao Zhong’s friend got us a box of good lamb, and we can’t finish it ourselves. I thought about making some braised lamb, and you two can come home for dinner tonight.”

“We have to work overtime tonight,” Yin Ren said fluently.

“When he comes back, we’ll discuss it and let you know.”

“…Xiao Yin, did Chengshuo make you angry?” There was a pause in veteran detective Cheng Xuehua’s voice. “You sound a bit upset. You can tell auntie.”

“It’s nothing, just…” Yin Ren took a breath, not completely denying it. “Sometimes he doesn’t like to tell me when he’s doing things, and I occasionally can’t find him.”

“Hey, that brat still has that old problem. You two find time this week to come home for dinner, I’ll talk to him.”

“Okay, I’m counting on you.”

Lu Xiaohe sat by the bedside, looking at him with a complicated expression. She had never seen Yin Ren with such a twisted face, saying such relaxed words.

Two hours later, Lu Xiaohe’s expression became even more complicated.

At the request of the members of Unit 9, a large table was added to the empty ward. Various equipment needed by the rear commander was moved in, and the ward was transformed into a temporary office.

On the surface, it was said to facilitate the psychological treatment of Unit 9 members, but in reality, it gave them some space to “cross the line”—they could investigate more sensitive information without being monitored by the Shian.

Such as “The Other Side” and “Divine Descent”.

Fu Xingchuan didn’t linger on this matter. After transferring the permissions to Lu Xiaohe, he only left them with a few words.

“I’ll take care of Li Nian. I’ve given you the people and information you want,” Fu Xingchuan said. “As an exchange, in this case, you are not the Unit 9 investigator Yin Ren, but the Great Celestial Master Zhong Yi… You have to take responsibility for the lives of these people.”

At the moment, various numbers flickered quickly on the temporary screen wall, and the program was cracking the tracking method of the hamster pendant. The huge table was so covered with photos that even the color of the table couldn’t be seen.

Lu Xiaohe looked at the table full of photos in front of her and felt like her freshly stitched wound was about to burst. She had received too many shocks these past few days. For the first time in her life, her brain had a tendency to shut down.

“What is this?” she asked blankly.

Yin Ren replied, “It’s an investigation Zhong Chengshuo was working on that may be related to the killer.”

The hamster pendant was just one clue, and he had to seize every possibility.

To protect Zhong Chengshuo’s “King Yama” identity, Yin Ren didn’t plan to expose Zhong Chengshuo’s secret base. He just took some good photos of Zhong Chengshuo’s intelligence wall and took Zhong Chengshuo’s notebook with him.

Given Zhong Cheng’s level of caution, there should be no evidence in his computer that could expose his identity. In this delicate aspect, he had confidence in Zhong Chengshuo.

… Although he wasn’t sure why he wanted to keep these little secrets for Zhong Chengshuo.

Lu Xiaohe quickly flipped through the photos, stunned.

She rushed to the bathroom, wiped her face with cold water and a towel, and limped back.

“He entered Shian with hidden strength. I know he has something he wants to investigate… but this is too exaggerated!” Lu Xiaohe pointed to one of the photos, her voice still sounding dazed.

“The magazine in this picture has been out of print for a long time. If you want to investigate, you can use the electronic version. But Zhong Chengshuo used the original pages after cutting them, and there’s more than just one… “

Lu Xiaohe grabbed a dozen or so photos on the desktop and pulled out a clean area, arranging the photos in a row.

“This one, this one, and this one… The clippings inside are all hard-to-find types. It’s completely unnecessary to find these physical materials afterwards.”

Yin Ren: “So…?”

Lu Xiaohe’s facial muscles twitched, and she pressed her hands on the table, looking at the printed photos all over the table. The morning sun shone on the desktop, casting a neat beam of light on the dark images.

“So.”

Lu Xiaohe pressed her temples hard, her tone terrified.

“Roughly estimating the time, this kid Zhong Chengshuo has been investigating these things since elementary school… Is this something a normal person can do?”

Kids of that age couldn’t even read properly—some didn’t even know how to wipe their own snot—but Zhong Chengshuo had already learned to flip through magazines and carefully collect the most gruesome murder cases, and he could do it without being discovered by his police parents.

Yin Ren imagined for a moment the scene of young Zhong Chengshuo cutting paper, and his mouth twitched.

“He once told me he was investigating ‘Divine Descent’.”

Yin Ren lowered his eyes.

“But since he started investigating these things so early, the ‘principle of Divine Descent’ is likely not his ultimate goal.”

Lu Xiaohe was still in shock from the impact of her “abnormal colleague” and reacted after half a minute, limping over to the computer and entering those cases.

“No wonder he wanted to use Shian’s power.” Her fingers didn’t stop moving for a moment. “The connection between these cases, if you try to find them outside the database, it will take forever… Got it!”

Just when there was a little joy in her tone, it suddenly became heavy again.

The origin of Zhong Chengshuo’s investigation was finally successfully deciphered by Shian’s most advanced AI. All the big and small vicious cases were related to a small disappearance case—

Yin Ren raised his head and looked at the stranger on the screen wall. She was a young woman with short hair. Her features weren’t exactly pretty, but she looked bright and cheerful, and her smile was full of confidence.

Zhong Chengfeng, a detective. She was the daughter of Zhong Youde and Cheng Xuehua, and the sister that Zhong Chengshuo said he had never met.

Twenty-eight years ago, Zhong Chengfeng went missing during the “Divine Descent” incident. Her body so far had never been found to this day, and she was deemed “dead”.

……

Zhong Chengshuo quietly waited for a night, trying to feel every subtle change in his body.

There was no thirst or hunger, and no signs of decay. His reaction was a bit slow, but his body was still usable. The only thing that was terrible was that he had been waiting patiently for so long, and there was still no sign of his heart or head growing back.

Only gradually thickening fear accompanied him.

Besides this, there was only the unknown in front of him, which was the situation that Zhong Chengshuo disliked the most.

Even if he escaped from here… his parents knew nothing about his situation, and Shian would only monitor him. There was only one person who could make him feel at ease in the world. Deducting all possibilities and ending all worries, his endpoint was only one place—

Return to Yin Ren’s side.

Zhong Chengshuo quickly formulated the ultimate goal of this operation.

Time passed in nothingness, and finally, the sound of footsteps rang again. Zhong Chengshuo once again pretended to be a corpse and was pulled out of the morgue. That person was making a recording for Sunken Society while taking care of the “corpse”.

The voice and footsteps habits were exactly the same as last time. It seemed that his body was being taken care of by the same person.

No shift changes. That’s good.

Just as the researcher from Sunken Society turned around to replenish the preservative fluid for the “corpse” behind him, the “corpse” silently raised itself up.

A pair of cold hands reached for the side of the person’s neck and suddenly tightened—

“Crack!”