"Are you certain?"
"Completely. If I'm lying to you, I'll swallow a thousand needles."
Swire asked the question almost reflexively. Chen Huijie nodded, then urged her to hurry.
The little tiger hesitated for only an instant before stomping a foot and spinning around to run toward the Guard Department.
Halfway there, though, she sensed something and looked back.
Chen Huijie was still standing where he was.
Puzzled, she tilted her head and waved vigorously at him.
You brat. Move it.
"Come on, officer," Chen Huijie said with a laugh, pointing at himself. "I'm just a law-abiding civilian. Leave the business of catching criminals to the police. I still need to go see a doctor. Don't forget to issue me a five-star citizen commendation afterward."
"You little—!"
Swire jabbed a finger at him in exasperation, then disappeared into the Guard Department.
Chen Huijie dusted off his clothes, slipped his hands into his pockets, and ambled toward his next destination.
See? This is what the Guard Department is for.
Let them handle the little messes. When it's time for the boss fight, then I step in.
That rhythm feels just right.
At that moment, his eyes turned sore and swollen again. It felt as though some kind of filter had suddenly been stripped away from his vision, leaving him slightly disoriented.
The reaction told him all he needed to know.
So Mystic Sight lasts three minutes.
Glancing at the time, he quietly committed the duration to memory.
And that skill really was not as shallow as he had first thought.
Back when he pulled Exusiai and Texas out of the jeep, he had noticed the sealed crate they were carrying and had instinctively grown curious about its contents.
Mystic Sight had then let him see straight through the outer casing.
Inside was a manufacturing manual for a synthesized material—Twist Alcohol.
Except its title was about how to manufacture failure.
That immediately brought a fake-drug case to mind.
Once liquefied, Twist Alcohol shared certain similarities with ordinary alcohol. Among its failed manufacturing byproducts, there was one variety that had decent pain-relieving properties but caused enormous damage to the central nervous system. Even short-term use could lead to irreversible, permanent harm.
And yet that exact failed product had been sold as medicine for nearly half a year before the Guard Department finally shut it down.
The key point was that the drug had been circulated in Lungmen's slums, and its primary customers had been Oripathy patients.
The social standing of the infected on Terra was an extraordinarily delicate matter.
Although Oripathy did not spread casually from person to person—human transmission generally required blood contact, mother-to-child transmission, and the like—the mere title of "a contagious terminal illness" was enough to make ordinary people recoil from the infected.
Added to that, when an infected person died, their body could undergo catastrophic crystallization and collapse, greatly increasing the risk of wider contagion.
That almost completely severed the possibility of infected and uninfected living together.
And it made it nearly impossible for the infected to win broad public sympathy.
So when a harmful failure-product like this was sold to Oripathy patients, there were almost no ordinary people willing to report it.
As for how the Guard Department had eventually discovered the fake drug and cracked the case—that involved another case entirely.
Penguin Logistics, however, had had nothing to do with manufacturing or distributing it.
That company had simply been handling the shipment.
Even so, Penguin Logistics was not to be underestimated.
Originally founded as an independent private courier company, it appeared on the surface to conduct normal logistics and transportation business.
In reality, it also dealt in intelligence brokerage, armed escort operations, covert transport, and other work in the underground gray zone.
As a hybrid of special logistics outfit and information merchant, Penguin Logistics played a major role in the movement of resources and in the delivery of sensitive intelligence.
That was why, despite the fact that many of its operations already flirted openly with the edges of legality in country after country, political powers generally maintained something very close to tacit approval toward it.
By now, it had become an underground logistics organization centered around Lungmen.
And as for the owner of that company—
In the other world, Chen Huijie had known him too.
A formidable figure, nicknamed the Emperor.
A penguin.
And the handful of people the Emperor stationed in Lungmen were all Chen Huijie's acquaintances.
Just like what had happened a moment ago—the kind of acquaintance you built by writing speeding tickets.
Unfortunately, by the very end, only one of them, Croissant, had remained in Lungmen.
Chen Huijie looked up at the dawn beginning to rise and then silently turned his gaze in the direction of Penguin Logistics headquarters.
Smiling faintly, he murmured,
"Long time no see."
Then he withdrew his eyes and took out his phone again.
Right. I nearly forgot about the affection system. Let's see what changed now.
The moment he opened the program, Exusiai's and Texas's portraits lit up.
Texas stood at 0.
Exusiai was 2.
A passing encounter really is just a passing encounter. All right. Let's draw.
[Skill: Firearm Compatibility +2]
[Apple pie!]
Ha. I thought it was going to give me "Apple Pie Cooking Experience."
He chuckled, then shifted his gaze to Swire's portrait.
Her affection had now risen to 11.
Remarkable. Truly remarkable.
First double-digit one. Later I should buy her dinner to celebrate.
Draw.
[Item: Lungmen Dollars +300,000]
[?Item: Dream of Memory?]
[?Bonus gift for reaching the first affection threshold?]
Hm?
Looking at the additional item, Chen Huijie felt the system becoming more interesting by the minute. So he used the item on the spot.
And then—
…Why don't I feel anything?
After carefully sensing around his own body and finding no immediate reaction at all, Chen Huijie raised an eyebrow and wondered whether the system had glitched and eaten the item.
But then he thought about it again.
Since the item contained the word dream, perhaps it only took effect while sleeping.
Fine. Then he would wait and see.
After checking the surrounding streets and confirming he was nearly at his destination, Chen Huijie stretched lazily and continued forward at an easy pace.
What he did not know was this—
At the very moment he used Dream of Memory, Swire, who was currently riding in a Guard Department action vehicle, felt a sudden wave of dizziness wash over her.
Half asleep, half awake, it seemed to her that she had returned to childhood.
Returned to the time she had been kidnapped.
Only—
This was not quite the same as the memory she had known.
The person who came to save her was not a Guard Department officer.
Instead, it was a figure descending from the heavens.
That person shielded her and wielded Chi Xiao, cutting down all the kidnappers. Then, in bright spring sunlight, he turned and smiled back at her, flashed a thumbs-up, and departed in one carefree, dashing sweep.
And that person's appearance—
Dragon horns. Dragon tail. Blue hair. Red eyes.
He looked very much like Chen Huijie.
But he was not Chen Huijie.
He was…
"Chen Huijie!"
"Why are you yelling my name?!"
Chen Huijie snapped her head toward Swire, her eyes full of disbelief.
They had known each other for years, but never—not once—had she heard Swire say her name in such a strange, complicated tone.
It left her completely stunned.
"I… fell asleep?"
Swire pressed a hand to her wildly pounding chest and looked dazedly at Chen Huijie.
"How long was I out?"
"About ten minutes," Chen Huijie replied.
"With me here, you can sleep a little longer if you want. Hoshiguma's keeping watch on the other side too."
Noticing Swire's unsettled state, Chen Huijie's voice softened.
"You've been working too hard lately. Getting some rest isn't a bad thing."
"I… I'm fine. I'm awake now. What's the situation?"
Swire shook her head, trying to wake herself fully.
That dream just now had been far too real.
So real it felt less like a dream and more like something she had personally lived through.
Even now, fully awake, she could still recall every detail with vivid precision.
It was irrational. Completely irrational.
But no matter what, they were currently on an operation. She could not allow personal confusion to interfere with the mission. So Swire forcibly pushed down the strange flutter in her heart and moved the topic to work.
"At the moment, nothing's obviously wrong yet. The relevant teams are still gathering and sorting the intel."
After answering, Chen Huijie looked at her curiously.
"Just how many undercover agents have you developed lately…? No, all right, that's probably not the most appropriate question. Is your informant reliable?"
"Of course he is! He's absolutely reliable!"
Chen Huijie: ?!
Wait.
That was a completely normal question. A perfectly normal question.
Why are you getting heated over it?
Don't tell me menopause came early, you叉烧猫?!
If Chen Huijie had not already been tired herself, she would have started a real fight over that one.
And after eating a hard white-eyed glare from her, Swire also realized her reaction had been far too intense.
But…
She had no idea why it had suddenly happened.
Ugh. Was that really just a dream? Don't tell me I've been possessed.
"Ahem. Anyway—what did you dream about?"
This time Chen Huijie主动搭起了话. Anger was anger, concern was concern. They had known each other for far too long to simply ignore a friend who was obviously off just because her tone had turned strange once.
"Nothing. I don't want to talk about that dream right now. Let's discuss something else instead. Like why you still can't draw Chi Xiao."
"You—叉烧猫, I swear…"
And just like that, the pair of bickering enemies resumed being exactly what they always were.
Meanwhile, Chen Huijie had already reached the foot of an office building.
This was the home of Lee's Detective Agency.
Lee's Detective Agency was a private detective firm based in Lungmen, handling special civilian matters. On the surface, it accepted detective work. In practice, it accepted almost anything—one of the gray-zone "all-purpose shops" of the city.
Chen Huijie had come here for one particular member of that agency:
Aak.
Though still young, Aak was an exceptionally skilled physician.
In the future, he would become a famous underground doctor in Lungmen's gray zone—and later, even a specially appointed medical expert for the Guard Department.
More importantly, Aak kept a very tight mouth.
No matter what his examination uncovered later, aside from possibly informing the agency's boss, Mr. Lee, there was basically no danger of the matter spreading further.
And as for Mr. Lee…
That old fox knew exactly what should and should not be said.
With that in mind, Chen Huijie raised a hand and knocked on the agency door.
Three knocks.
Then he stopped.
A beast-headed middle-aged man wearing a sleeping cap and sporting dyed streaks in his hair opened the door, sleepy-eyed.
He blinked, seemed to think of something, then snapped fully awake and gave Chen Huijie a rapid second inspection from head to toe before smiling and greeting him.
"My, my. Early riser, aren't you, guest?"
"My apologies for the disturbance, Mr. Lee."
Chen Huijie returned the smile.
He could already guess why Mr. Lee's reaction had been so dramatic. Most likely, the man thought he had been half asleep and mistaken Chen Huijie for a male version of someone else.
"May I ask whether Mr. Aak is awake? I have a matter I'd like to trouble him with."
"He is!"
Before Lee could respond, a youthful voice rang out from inside. A Feline youth in an eye mask, curled up on the sofa only moments before, sprang over, shouldered Lee aside, patted his own chest, and declared in a tone far too old for his face:
"Mr. Aak is right here. I am Mr. Aak. So then—what do you want from me?"
With a smile, Chen Huijie pointed to his chest.
"This hurts. I'd like to chest.
"This hurts. I'd like to trouble Mr. Aak with an examination. And whatever results you find—please keep them confidential."
"Confidentiality's not a problem. It's just…"
Aak crossed his arms and carefully scrutinized Chen Huijie's complexion.
Then, in a grave tone, he asked:
"Did you die once already?"
-------
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