The streets were bustling with pedestrians. After leaving Central Street, various wooden stalls began to appear on both sides. Since it was still midsummer, most of these stalls sold cold jelly noodles, iced mung bean soup, and the like.
Not only sweet, but also exceptionally thirst-quenching, specially designed to replenish fluids for menopausal older women tired from square dancing.
“Mung bean soup! Sweet and icy mung bean soup!”
“Buy some cold jelly noodles! Five bucks a bowl, refreshing cold jelly noodles!”
“Watermelons! Big and sweet watermelons! Come buy, come buy!”
The shouts around her stimulated a fragile part of Gu Lian’s mind. Her brain began to recall that sweet, sticky mung bean soup, and saliva unconsciously dripped from the corner of her mouth.
Gulp~
Swallowing the saliva in her mouth, Gu Lian raised her hand to wipe the corner of her lips and looked at the nearest stall. She patted her pocket, feeling its flatness. Her pockets were empty—she didn’t have a single cent on her.
She did have money in her card, but the stall probably didn’t support card payments.
“Boss, a bowl of mung bean soup!”
A kid clutching a five-yuan bill ran toward the stall. The boss took the money, smiled, and scooped out a bowl of iced mung bean soup from the cart.
Glancing at the kid beside the mung bean soup stall who was already drinking, Gu Lian suppressed the hunger in her stomach, withdrew her gaze, and trudged toward Uncle Xiong’s house.
Gurgle~
On the way home, her stomach started protesting to her brain, conspiring with her body’s instincts. Gu Lian took a deep breath, straightened her clothes. It was 8 PM now, and the sky was completely covered by dusk.
Instead, the number of pedestrians on the street began to increase. For some people, night was just the beginning of their daily lives.
Bacamaica…
The phone rang. Gu Lian, who was walking, pulled out her phone and saw the caller ID showed “Female Boss.” Her face twitched instantly. She immediately picked up and answered.
“Hello? Is that the boss?”
“It’s me~ Rod asked for leave tomorrow. I was wondering if you’d be interested in covering for him? Overtime pay is doubled~”
“…”
Double pay? And this good fortune?
But could this pie falling from the sky be poisoned?
She had just encountered a weird event today, and now someone called in sick. Could they have encountered this weird event too?
But that didn’t add up. Could a normal person survive something like that?
Besides, the Blood Letter recorded that the maximum duration of a weird event was only one day.
At this hour, it might be possible for Veronica to have encountered one. The timing could still be argued… Wait!
After a moment of thought, Gu Lian seemed to have found a blind spot. She finally spoke after a long pause: “What about Veronica? Did you ask her, boss? I remember those two seem pretty close.”
“I asked her, she said she didn’t want to—”
“Boss, sorry, but I’m not feeling well either. This illness might last a long time, so I want to resign from this job.”
“???”
The female boss on the other end of the line was visibly stunned. She really hadn’t expected someone to refuse double pay.
“You—”
Beep—beep—!
Pressing the hang-up button with her thumb, Gu Lian silently blocked and deleted the female boss’s number. She had just encountered a weird event, and then the boss called her to work overtime tomorrow.
This was way too suspicious. After Rod’s shift came Veronica, and after Veronica’s shift…
And then overtime was her turn.
Logically, the boss should have asked Veronica first. When Gu Lian had chatted with Veronica before, she learned that Veronica was really short on cash. Someone who was already desperate for money—how could she refuse the temptation of double pay?
If she refused, it meant Veronica had encountered a weird event. And since weird events lasted at most about a day, by the time it was her turn, the event should have reached its limit.
So, why did Rod ask for leave?
That exceeded both Veronica’s and her own time limits for encountering weird events. Theoretically, if Rod encountered a weird event, and Veronica encountered one too, then she had a very high chance of not encountering one.
One day—that was what the Blood Letter recorded from a total of 10,000 experiments.
Besides, weird events themselves were extremely dangerous. How could two ordinary people like Veronica and Rod survive something like that?
Double pay was just a gimmick. There was no free lunch in this world. The price of this job was probably her life.
If nothing unexpected happened, Veronica and Rod were probably already dead, maybe not even ashes left.
Beep—beep—beep—!
But just in case, Gu Lian dialed Veronica’s number on her way home. After a minute of busy tone, the call indicated the other party was offline; please try again later.
After hanging up on Veronica, Gu Lian dialed Rod’s number. This time, it was even more direct—the call indicated the phone was turned off.
Holy crap. If nothing had happened, she absolutely wouldn’t believe it!
What era was this? How could a phone be turned off?!
Should she report this to the Hunter Unit… No, to the Execution Agency?
But she herself was a Weiyi. Would reporting this end up getting her caught up in it too?
Hesitating for a moment, Gu Lian tried calling Veronica’s home landline with a “let’s see” attitude. This time, it didn’t take long for the call to connect.
Beep—beep—click
“Who is it?”
Accompanied by the sound of a TV playing, a somewhat aged voice came from the other end.
“I’m a friend of Veronica’s. I wanted to ask if she’s home? I didn’t see her today.”
Gu Lian asked, adopting a tentative attitude.
“Veronica? She’s been home all day today. Hold on, let me go get her for you… BEEP—“
The call was cut off. A cool wind blew through the street, fallen leaves drifting with the wind and being swept up in the breeze. Gu Lian dialed Veronica’s phone again, and the result was the same as before—the person was offline.
Gu Lian tried five times in a row. Without exception, no one answered. The fact that Veronica was dead was basically confirmed.
Then who was at Veronica’s parents’ house?!
The night wind blew her gray hair. The midsummer night breeze was supposed to be warm, but for some reason, when it hit her, Gu Lian felt it was bone-chillingly cold.
Not only was her body cold, but her heart was also ice-cold. At some point, her back had been soaked in cold sweat.
If she made a hypothesis—this wasn’t just a weird event, but the behavior of a large Weiyi.
If this large Weiyi had the ability to replace others without anyone knowing, then Veronica had probably been switched out without her even realizing it.
But then the question was: all Weiyi actions produced Cryptic Energy. Logically, TFV’s drones should have detected it by now. So why was that Weiyi still running rampant?!
Keep in mind, those drones had even detected the fluctuations when she was first born. There was no way they couldn’t detect the fluctuations of a large Weiyi.
So could it be that the members of the Execution Agency stationed in Linjiao Town had all been replaced?!
And that wasn’t even the scariest part. Thinking back to those seemingly unrelated ads plastered in the alleys…
Gu Lian had a very terrifying thought: this large Weiyi might be capable of splitting, and it had more than one base.
Even some ordinary people on the street could be its split entities!
Thinking about split entities, Uncle Xiong’s figure flashed through Gu Lian’s mind. Beads of cold sweat dripped from her forehead.
There was no kindness without reason in this world—only evil bred by greed.
For some reason, she also remembered Yao Yao fighting to protect Yi Yi against those monsters spawned by Cryptic Energy. An unavoidable phrase surfaced in her mind: There is competition among Weiyi… or rather, mutual devouring!
Gulp—
Swallowing the saliva in her mouth, Gu Lian’s heart sank like it had fallen into an ice cellar. Her pink tongue licked her dry lips, and bloodshot veins appeared in her eyes. The more she thought about it, the more terrifying it became. Yi Yi might be exposed to danger.
If something happened to Yi Yi, how would she explain it to Yao Yao?!