The girl in the photo was instantly, painfully familiar—Alice, the one who had haunted my every thought.

  The shot was clearly taken at night; the sky was pure black. Alice walked along an empty street, no pedestrians in sight, all the shops shuttered. I recognized the place—it was the pedestrian street in the neighboring district. Normally bustling, but dead quiet here, which meant this had to be the early hours of the morning.

  Her face was hidden behind the mask, expression unreadable. Her gaze seemed to scan the surroundings, body language tense and alert. Strangely, she didn’t appear to notice whoever took the photo.

  Why was Alice in these photos Zhu Shi was showing me? Weren’t we talking about fallen demon hunters?

  Was Luoshan searching for Alice too? Was Zhu Shi on that assignment? Was this some kind of test?

  But Agent Kong had said Zhu Shi wasn’t part of the faction using extreme methods to find Alice… Wait. Maybe she wasn’t part of that specific group, but there could be multiple factions looking for her. And with Kong dead, perhaps his mission had been reassigned to her…

  Or maybe I was overthinking it. The fallen demon hunter case and Alice weren’t entirely unrelated. Before she left, Alice had taken Agent Kong’s charred finger from my place—and Kong had been the previous fallen demon hunter…

  “Z? What’s wrong?” Zhu Shi’s voice cut through suddenly. “Is there something off about this photo?”

  I jolted, mind still reeling, but my mouth was already moving on autopilot. “Nothing. It’s just… this one looks different from the others. Who is the girl in it? Does she have something to do with the fallen demon hunters?”

  “Didn’t you ask me before who the girl was that Agent Kong pretended to be a cop to search for? Even with the mask, our analysis suggests she’s the same one.” She didn’t seem to notice I was acting.

  “I see. So she’s the amnesiac girl Kong mentioned to me before he died…” That part wasn’t a lie—Kong really had told me.

  “Since you already know, I won’t explain further.” Zhu Shi nodded. “This girl appeared suddenly while we were chasing leads on new fallen demon hunters. That said, none of our people have directly sighted her.”

  “No direct sighting?” I asked, puzzled. “But you have a photo.”

  “Z, this looks like a surveillance still, right? But there is no camera at that exact spot on the pedestrian street.” She explained, “This was produced by one of Luoshan’s divination and reconnaissance specialists. They read the land’s memory along a route the fallen demon hunter might have passed, then used psychography to manifest the image.

  “They were trying to divine clues about the fallen demon hunter. Instead, this girl appeared in the resulting photo.”

  No wonder Alice hadn’t noticed the “photographer.” It wasn’t a real-time shot—it was a reconstruction of the past.

  I asked carefully, “Does Luoshan think this girl is a fallen demon hunter?”

  “Most of the time the fallen demon hunters have been active, she was lying comatose in a hospital bed… but yes, we can’t rule out the possibility.” To my shock, Zhu Shi actually said it. “Because there is clearly more than one fallen demon hunter, and their power source and motives are unknown. This amnesiac girl also has ‘power of unknown origin.’ Her reasons for escaping the hospital and stealing firearms are also unclear…”

  As she spoke, she lowered her head, clearly starting to think hard.

  Damn it. Had I just accidentally planted a terrible idea in her mind?

  I could understand why divining fallen demon hunters would pull up Alice. Whatever Luoshan’s divination method was, Alice literally carried Kong’s charred finger on her.

  What I felt most relieved about right now was one simple fact: Alice was still in Xianshui City.

  For the past two days I’d searched everywhere and found nothing. My biggest fear had been that she’d already teleported to another city. I’d even considered asking Luoshan for help finding her—but I wasn’t officially a member yet, and I had no legitimate reason to request it. In the end, the clue came through Zhu Shi anyway.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  From my perspective, it looked like Alice might be hunting fallen demon hunters herself.

  Her motive was still unclear, but in a city this size, for her to appear on a “route possibly used by a fallen demon hunter”—and carrying the charred finger of one—it was hard to believe her current objective had nothing to do with them.

  Of course, there was another possibility: her jinx constitution was simply drawing the fallen demon hunter incident toward her.

  Either way didn’t matter. The crucial point was that the two goals—“find the fallen demon hunter threatening Chang’an” and “find Alice”—had suddenly merged into one.

  If I tracked down the former, I might draw out the latter.

  Truly—when it seems there’s no path through the mountains and rivers, another village appears just beyond the willows.

  Suddenly I noticed something off. “Zhu Shi, why are you showing me these photos? Are you hoping I’ll work with you on this from now on?”

  “Yes.” She nodded without hesitation.

  “Has my application to become an Outer Path Wuchang been approved?”

  “Not yet.” She shook her head.

  That didn’t add up. I desperately wanted in on this case, but given how cautious Zhu Shi always was with anomalous matters, she shouldn’t be dragging an outsider like me into it. Just because I was “capable” didn’t mean she’d automatically think “he should do more.” That wasn’t her style.

  “The real reason I’m involving you is because it’s tied to your upcoming status as an Outer Path Wuchang…” Zhu Shi seemed to be searching for the right angle. “Did Agent Kong ever mention that he was the field agent responsible for the area around Xianshui University? Now that he’s gone, someone new naturally has to take over the region.”

  I caught the implication. “My becoming an Outer Path Wuchang is connected to whoever’s replacing him?”

  “Exactly. But the one taking over our area right now isn’t a field agent. It’s a ‘Wandering Inspector.’”

  “Wandering Inspector?” The term immediately rang a bell. “The same as ‘Day/Night Wandering Gods’?”

  “Precisely.” She nodded.

  In Chinese folk belief, the Day Wandering God and Night Wandering God were subordinates of the King of Hell and the City God, tasked with patrolling the mortal world and observing good and evil.

  They were also called Day/Night Wandering Inspectors.

  “In Luoshan, demon hunters who handle anomalies in combat are called ‘Wuchang.’ Those who specialize in reconnaissance are called ‘Wandering Inspectors,’” Zhu Shi explained.

  “What about ‘Probes’ then?” I asked. “Aren’t field agents also doing reconnaissance?”

  She thought for a moment, then asked me a question first. “Z, haven’t you ever felt that terms like ‘Probe’ and ‘Agent’ sound unusually modern compared to Wuchang and Wandering Inspector?”

  “Yeah, I have,” I admitted.

  “In ancient times, agents were called Yin Messengers or Ghost Soldiers. Because they were ordinary humans, Luoshan never treated them as true members—only as private forces belonging to the Wandering Inspectors.” She continued, “Wandering Inspectors have always been few in number. Monitoring anomalous activity across an entire jurisdiction was nearly impossible alone, so they had to cultivate their own networks among the people. That’s where agents originated.

  “Only in modern times were agents formally incorporated into Luoshan. And since they were the most ‘civilian-facing’ part of the organization, it didn’t look good to keep calling them Yin Messengers or Ghost Soldiers in public. So they adopted more contemporary-sounding titles.”

  “I see…”

  Honestly, I wasn’t entirely convinced by the explanation. They changed the name because “Yin Messenger” and “Ghost Soldier” sounded bad in public—so they went with something as blatantly dehumanizing as “Probe”? It felt like Luoshan harbored a quiet disdain for ordinary people.

  “So you’re saying a Wandering Inspector is basically the superior of the agents?”

  As soon as I said it, a connection clicked.

  Agent Kong had told me he only pretended to be a cop to search for Alice because it was an order from above.

  Could it be…

  “The Wandering Inspector now in charge of our university district—was Agent Kong’s superior?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Zhu Shi confirmed. “At the same time, one of a Wandering Inspector’s duties is to monitor the activities of civilian demon hunters. And if a civilian hunter shows potential to become an Outer Path Wuchang, the Inspector has the authority to assess them.

  “I originally hoped to use family connections to bypass the formal process for you. But after the Inspector learned you defeated Agent Kong, he insisted on using this fallen demon hunter case as your evaluation—testing the level of your power.”

  I thought it over, then asked, “Were that Inspector and Agent Kong close?”

  “Very.” She nodded. “The Inspector only transferred to the Wandering role last year. Before that he was an exceptionally skilled Wuchang.

  “Twenty years ago, before Agent Kong even joined Luoshan, he was caught in an anomalous incident—nearly starved to death inside an evil spirit’s ghost wall. The one who saved him was the man who was then still a Wuchang… now the current Inspector.

  “I suspect he might hold some grudge against you and is deliberately making things difficult…”

  Before she could finish, a voice cut in from the side. “It’s not very nice to badmouth me behind my back, Zhu Shi.”

  “Lu Chan?” Zhu Shi frowned.

  I followed her gaze. A young-looking man was crossing the road toward us. His deep blue outfit blended modern style with subtle ancient elements.

  “I saw you suddenly leave in the middle of analyzing the case and didn’t come back for a long time, so I came looking myself.” He spoke first to Zhu Shi, then turned to me with a mild, friendly smile. “You must be Z. Nice to meet you. I’m Lu Chan, Luoshan Wandering Inspector.”

  He extended his hand.

  I studied him carefully as I took it.

  This was the man who had ordered Agent Kong to search for Alice.