Embers Ad Infinitum

Jiang Baimian looked at Long Yuehong and stared into his eyes. She didn’t answer immediately.

This made Long Yuehong a little nervous, wondering if he had acted too cowardly.

A few seconds later, Jiang Baimian laughed. “Actually, even without the Heartless disease outbreak, I would’ve considered getting one or two other locations in other zones or the more chaotic streets in the Green Olive Zone for residential purposes. As the saying goes, a wily rabbit has three burrows. Since we are in the business of secrets, we have to make more preparations.”

“That’s right.” Long Yuehong heaved a sigh of relief.

Jiang Baimian then said to Bai Chen, “We can dig up the backup choices we previously gave up on.”

“Alright.” Bai Chen didn’t think she could escape the Heartless infection.

When they were in the company, everyone had no choice. If a Heartless outbreak really happened, it was meaningless to hide since they would still be in the underground building no matter how much they tried.

In the entire Old Task Force, as a smart bot, Genava might be the only one who wasn’t worried about contracting the Heartless disease.

Shang Jianyao raised a question. “Will Zen Masters contract the Heartless disease?”

The Zen Masters he was referring to were the mechanical monks.

Jiang Baimian couldn’t answer.

“There are no relevant records. It might be something they keep internally to themselves.” Genava spoke using data.

Long Yuehong muttered, “Sometimes, they aren’t much different from Heartless.”

He would forever remember Jingfa’s madness from hearing a woman’s voice.

…

Taking advantage of the money they had, the Old Task Force rented a room both in the relatively messy streets of the Green Olive Zone and the Red Wolf Zone.

When they rented the room, they didn’t do it themselves. Instead, they randomly found someone on the way and stuffed him with some money to get him to handle the matters.

After busying themselves with this matter, they drove the gray SUV toward First City’s south exit.

When Shang Jianyao and Jiang Baimian observed the Zhao family manor’s surroundings yesterday, they had driven their original jeep. They naturally had to change to another jeep today to avoid being suspected.

On the way, Shang Jianyao—who was sitting in the backseat to the right—raised his hand and massaged his temples, allowing his consciousness to enter the Sea of Origins.

Having not discovered the fourth island of fear all this while made it imperative that he didn’t waste any free time.

In the shimmering sea, Shang Jianyao continued swimming toward the horizon that seemed like it would never end.

He tried blindfolding himself, stuffing his ears, and letting fate guide his way. He also tried to split into nine and have each of them explore a direction, but he ultimately failed to discover any traces of an island.

Just as he was about to be mentally exhausted, the nine Shang Jianyaos fused into one. They sat cross-legged atop the illusory ‘water waves’ and entered a contemplative mode.

After a while, he muttered to himself, “Do I no longer have any fears? That’s not right. I’m still afraid of losing my companions…”

As his thoughts raced, his voice echoed in the Sea of Origins.

Suddenly, a small island rose not far away, and a golden glow appeared in the middle of the island.

Shang Jianyao was thrilled. He made himself grow an additional eight pairs of hands and sixteen legs before paddling toward the island.

He soon arrived at his destination and jumped up. At the same time, he retracted his additional limbs.

As he scanned the area, he saw a golden elevator that seemed to lead underground situated in the middle of the small island.

The elevator door was tightly shut, and a figure sat cross-legged outside.

This figure wore a gray camouflage uniform. His back was straight, and his eyebrows were like swords. His brown eyes were bright, and his facial features were handsome—he was Shang Jianyao himself!

Shang Jianyao looked at him and politely said, “Good afternoon. You should be the last stage of the Sea of Origins, right?”

The corners of the other Shang Jianyao’s mouth curled up slightly as he spoke with a faint smile. “You still have fear; you’re still afraid of losing your companions. I’ll teach you a solution that can effectively resolve this problem.”

“What is it?” Shang Jianyao asked curiously.

The other Shang Jianyao smiled and replied, “Kill them all. Let them live in your memories, and let your split personalities become them. This way, you will never lose them again, and you will never feel that intense pain again.”

Shang Jianyao was just about to open his mouth when he suddenly felt the island shake. Waves appeared in the Sea of Origins.

The entire mind world quickly crumbled. Shang Jianyao opened his eyes and realized that Genava was shaking him.

“We’re at our destination,” said Jiang Baimian as she opened the car door.

Shang Jianyao instantly sobered up and alighted from the car. After stabilizing himself, he casually said, “I found the fourth island.”

“Huh?” Jiang Baimian almost didn’t hear him clearly. “The fourth island? What’s on it?”

When Long Yuehong and Bai Chen cast curious gazes at him, Shang Jianyao simply said, “Another me and an elevator.”

“Another you.” Jiang Baimian nodded before coming to a realization. “Doesn’t that mean you have found yourself? As long as you can accommodate him, you can enter the Mind Corridor!”

Shang Jianyao tersely acknowledged it. “I can’t accommodate him for the time being. I think there’s something wrong with him. Likewise, he also thinks there’s something wrong with me.”

“What’s wrong?” Long Yuehong blurted out a question.

Shang Jianyao glanced at him. “He has fused with a certain fear.”

“Which fear?” Jiang Baimian asked with great acumen.

Shang Jianyao laughed. “The fear of losing companions. He said that as long as I don’t have companions, I don’t have to be afraid of losing them.”

Shang Jianyao looked at Long Yuehong as he spoke, and his tone became a little sinister. “He said that the problem could be resolved by killing you all and making you into specimens.”

F*ck… Long Yuehong shivered. “Isn’t this too perverse?”

Shang Jianyao’s smile suddenly turned sunny. “He said that he learned this from you. Back then, you wanted to kill Qiao Chu and turn him into a specimen collection.”

“Uh…” Long Yuehong was momentarily speechless. He then defended himself after sensing Genava’s gaze. “That was because of your Inference Clowning.”

“Alright.” Jiang Baimian pressed her palm down. “We’ll discuss this at length in the future. There’s no rush.”

She still valued her and her team members’ lives and didn’t have the intention of committing suicide to fulfill the other Shang Jianyao’s wish.

She had yet to figure out the reason for the Old World’s destruction and the Heartless disease’s mechanism. How could she bear to die?

After ending the topic, she couldn’t help but sigh at Shang Jianyao. “You found yourself after only three islands. I wonder how many Awakened would be envious of you. Could this be the benefit of having mental problems and being fearless?”

Shang Jianyao thought for a moment and said, “Nothing is stopping them from getting a doctor’s certificate?”

Is that the point? Jiang Baimian swallowed the words she was about to blurt out and pointed at the forest beside her. “This is today’s surveillance spot.”

“But we can’t see the Zhao family manor here…” Long Yuehong was a little confused.

He had just heard his team leader give the introductions. The road outside the forest was the main road that led to the Zhao family manor’s main entrance.

Jiang Baimian smiled and explained, “It’s not like we haven’t interacted with Father before. We should know that he likes to hide in the dark and monitor everything. If we go to the few surveillance spots with the best field of view outside the Zhao family manor, it will be very easy for him to discover us. It’s better to observe the passersby here. Once we see the problematic ones according to Zhao Shouren’s memories, we will immediately take action and subdue them to confirm the situation…”

As she spoke, Jiang Baimian suddenly fell silent.

Long Yuehong didn’t know what had happened and was a little confused.

At this moment, Shang Jianyao smiled and said, “The Ruin Hunter team that did the prior surveillance was very impressive.”

That’s right. With Father’s intelligence, abilities, and style, he definitely wouldn’t ignore the surveillance spots around the Zhao family manor. Those people actually discovered a problem and confirmed that there were strangers… Long Yuehong came to a realization.

Jiang Baimian nodded solemnly. “Do you still remember the real Father’s performance during the assassination of Xu Liyan?”

Bai Chen replied in a deep voice, “He released the fake Father as bait and attracted everyone’s attention, allowing everyone to step into his trap.”

“Will it be the same this time? The Zhao family manor is actually bait—a trap?” Jiang Baimian answered her own question. “This can explain some of the anomalies. For example, they directly confiscated all the harvests that should be handed over and made Zhao Zhengqi discover the anomaly. For example, they didn’t deal with the surveillance spots around the manor…”

She previously believed that the Anti-intellectualism Church’s control of the Zhao family manor was short-term, so they didn’t care if the Zhao family’s patriarch sensed that something was amiss. But this explanation was very forced because no matter how short-term their actions were, they would still be worried that an accident would happen midway.

Now, everything made sense when combined with the true Father’s style of doing things.

Upon hearing this, Genava gave the results of his analysis. “Therefore, we should leave immediately?”

Jiang Baimian smiled at him. “No, no, no. As the ones supposed to be deceived, we should continue staying here and gathering clues to see what we can obtain in the end.”

“Deceive them in reverse?” Genava perfected his analysis mechanism.

Jiang Baimian’s plan had been one of his candidate plans, but the weightage of the plan couldn’t compare to one he eventually mentioned.

Shang Jianyao defended Jiang Baimian. “How can it be called deception? This is strategic deception!”

“What’s the difference?” Genava was rather honest.

Jiang Baimian didn’t give Shang Jianyao an opportunity to spout nonsense as she said, “If this really is a trap, who does the Anti-intellectualism Church want to deal with?”

“It’s definitely not us.” Long Yuehong voiced his thoughts.

It was filled with coincidences regarding when the Old Task Force left Pangu Biology and arrived in First City. The matter regarding the Zhao family manor had clearly been going on for a long time.

Bai Chen looked back in First City’s direction. “The Zhao family isn’t qualified… The Anti-intellectualism Church wants to use them to wipe out certain factions in the city?”

“Maybe,” Jiang Baimian replied simply and said to Shang Jianyao and the others, “Alright, hide the car and enter your designated spots to monitor the pedestrians on the road.”

In fact, Shang Jianyao was the only one in charge of recognizing people because he was the only one who had seen a few targets in Zhao Shouren’s memories. Long Yuehong and the others couldn’t recognize the portraits he had ‘drawn.’

The five Old Task Force members quickly hid in the forest, acting as though everything was normal.