Chang’an had never been good at putting on airs, and as his friend, I believed I understood his personality better than most.

  He had a stubborn streak—or maybe it was more like contrariness. If you asked him directly to do something, he might actually do it. But if you tried to forbid him from doing something, he’d almost certainly rebel. He’d go out of his way to do exactly the prohibited thing, and he’d make sure it was loud and public so no one could miss it.

  That’s why I knew perfectly well: if I just started distancing myself without a word, or if I tried to break things off right here and now, he wouldn’t accept it. Far from it—he’d probably show up at my door every single day and pester me relentlessly. That was the last thing I wanted. I didn’t want to drag the disaster clinging to Alice—and now to me—onto him.

  Deep down, I already had a concrete plan for gradually cutting ties with Chang’an and other normal people. It wouldn’t be sudden; it would be slow, step by step.

  But even though I’d rehearsed what I was going to say, the moment I saw his face, the words evaporated. Everything I’d carefully prepared just… vanished.

  All I could do was try to pull myself back together.

  Maybe it was all just an excuse. Maybe I just wanted to talk with my best friend one last time. About anything at all.

  We sat together at one of the long tables in the fried chicken shop. Chang’an tugged at his collar to loosen it, grinning as he launched into what he’d been up to the past couple of days.

  “I’ve been stuck at the military hospital the whole time. The food there might be healthy, but it tastes like cardboard. And there’s no one to talk to. Mom can’t even speak.”

  I managed a dry reply. “How’s Auntie doing these days?”

  “Same as always. Just lying there, no response.” He shrugged.

  Chang’an and Zhu Shi’s mother was in a persistent vegetative state. According to him, one day she suddenly fell into a mysterious coma and never woke up again. Every medical test showed her body was perfectly healthy—except she wouldn’t regain consciousness. If not for the fact that her vital functions were still running, she might as well have been declared dead.

  Naturally, Chang’an had racked his brain trying to understand it, but of course he never could. Zhu Shi definitely knew the truth. And now, so did I.

  It was “Soul Loss Syndrome.”

  Unknown origin. Unknown transmission. Unknown cure. It didn’t even qualify as a disease in the normal medical sense—it was closer to a curse inflicted by an anomalous entity. Victims had simply lost their souls. It was a worldwide anomalous phenomenon.

  Alice was the only known case of full recovery. That was the real reason Luoshan was turning the country upside down to find her.

  If Alice truly was some kind of apocalyptic time-traveler, then logically her awakening had nothing to do with Soul Loss Syndrome. Studying her wouldn’t yield any useful insight, and there’d be no way to use her to cure Chang’an’s mother.

  But I had other theories. Why did she happen to transmigrate into the body of a Soul Loss victim—and one whose physical appearance matched her original body almost perfectly? Was her crossing really unrelated to the syndrome?

  From my perspective, if she ever refused to keep our relationship going, I’d have no choice but to confine her somewhere no one could ever reach. On the flip side—if I could guarantee we stayed connected, and if she herself was willing—then letting Luoshan study her in hopes of finding a cure for Soul Loss wasn’t out of the question. Chang’an would surely welcome that outcome.

  There was just one critical problem: the way certain factions in Luoshan had conducted the search for Alice showed a disturbing disregard for her basic rights. I could smell something off—something that didn’t follow proper channels. I wasn’t exactly in a position to lecture anyone about respecting human rights, but that didn’t stop me from feeling deep wariness toward people who acted that way.

  Chang’an kept venting. “My sister, though—she used to visit Mom all the time. The moment I show up, she disappears. Leaves me sitting there alone. Isn’t that weird?”

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  I knew Zhu Shi had been busy dealing with the fallen demon hunter incident at the time. That wasn’t something I could tell him, so I gave a half-hearted reply. “Maybe you’ve just been too much of a delinquent lately, and she’s fed up with you.”

  He ignored me and sighed. “She used to be such a cute little girl who loved music. Always carrying her guitar around, strumming away. Look at her now—she still hauls that guitar case everywhere. Probably joined some band or something. But ever since she changed her name a few years ago, she’s been so cold to me for no reason…”

  What Zhu Shi carried in that guitar case these days definitely wasn’t a guitar. It was most likely the same longsword she’d drawn in front of me last time.

  While thinking that, I caught an important detail in his words. “Changed her name?”

  He’d mentioned something similar before, but back then I hadn’t known Zhu Shi’s real identity and hadn’t been particularly interested, so I’d let the topic slide.

  “Yeah. She’s called ‘Zhu Shi’ now, right? Doesn’t that name sound kind of… not very girly to you?” he asked.

  “‘Zhu Shi’ does sound pretty neutral, but giving a gender-neutral name to a girl isn’t exactly unheard of.”

  “Let me tell you something. That ‘Shi’ isn’t the ‘shi’ meaning ‘to pick up.’ It’s the formal written form of the number ‘ten.’” Chang’an gave me an unexpected piece of the puzzle. “Our Zhu family has this weird tradition. For some reason, we always give descendants names based on numbers. My mom’s name is ‘Zhu Jiu.’ Going back further, there’s ‘Zhu Ba,’ ‘Zhu Qi,’ ‘Zhu Liu’…”

  That was certainly an enigmatic family custom.

  The Zhu family was one of the invisible wealthy clans in the area. I’d never connected them to anything anomalous before.

  I used to think Zhu Shi was hiding her identity as a demon hunter from her family—that she was operating alone. But now… could the Zhu family itself have some hidden secrets that even Chang’an didn’t know about?

  “What about other siblings?” I asked.

  “Usually they give all the kids normal non-number names first. Then, after selecting an heir, they change only that heir’s name to a number.” He explained, “My sister used to be called ‘Zhu Jiu Xing.’ After middle school, she became ‘Zhu Shi.’”

  “Chang’an and Jiu Xing—those do sound like sibling names,” I remarked.

  “Even though we’re not blood-related,” he said with a touch of melancholy. “You know how it is. I’m just the illegitimate son my deadbeat dad had with some other woman. The woman lying in that hospital bed isn’t my biological mother. In my heart, though, she’s my real mom—she treated me incredibly well, but still…”

  “Is that why you’ve been avoiding visiting her?”

  “I know I’m just being childish about it, but… do you think the reason Zhu Shi’s been distant with me is because of this too…?” His voice sounded hollow. “And my dad—he never comes to see me. Is it because of that as well…?”

  He always acted so carefree and thick-skinned in front of others. But here, alone with me, he let his vulnerable side show.

  Because he was my friend, I’d looked into his background before. His father was a high-ranking official in the government—had been missing from public view for years.

  Not because he’d met with some accident. It seemed he was involved in secret operations that couldn’t be made public. Perhaps tied to some classified government project. His official position was still on the books; he just wasn’t physically present. And apparently, he still kept tabs on Chang’an from the shadows—whenever Chang’an got into serious trouble that needed cleaning up, someone would quietly show up to handle it.

  He was an outsider who had married into the Zhu family, so his position was never particularly secure. As his illegitimate son, Chang’an naturally never felt the warmth of a normal family in the Zhu household. I’d once suspected that part of the reason Chang’an kept causing trouble outside was to vent his frustrations—and maybe, deep down, to get his father’s attention.

  “He’s probably looking out for you in his own way,” I said gently. “He just can’t show his face because of work.”

  “I hope so.” Chang’an brushed the topic aside quickly and shifted focus. “By the way, A-Cheng—about that cavern… the one in the fifteenth-floor room. You remember it, right?”

  “Of course I won’t forget.”

  “I actually… regret it. I’ve been interested in anomalies for a long time—even before I met you. I always wanted to prove they existed. But… when I stood in front of that cavern, I ran away. I didn’t even dare go inside.” He gritted his teeth. “These past two days I’ve been having nightmares. I dream that a giant hand reaches out from inside the cavern, grabs me, and drags me down into the pitch-black depths. Then the entrance vanishes, and no matter how hard I search, I can’t find a way out… I feel like instead of living in constant fear like this, maybe I should just…”

  His voice trailed off. Then he laughed bitterly at himself. “Sorry… what am I even saying? Just forget I said any of that. It’s way too crazy no matter how you look at it…”

  “Sorry,” I said. “You might be disappointed to hear this, but that cavern you’re talking about—it’s not going to appear again.”

  “…Huh?” His eyes widened. “What?!”

  “That’s actually why I asked you to meet today. To tell you this.” I steeled myself. “I already went in and explored that cavern. For reasons I can’t explain in detail, it’s completely gone now.”

  “Wait—don’t gloss over it! What do you mean ‘reasons you can’t explain in detail’?” he demanded.

  I took a deep breath, gathered my resolve again, and began to weave the lie.

  “The problem isn’t what happened there. It’s what came after.”

  He stared at me. “After?”

  “I might have been cursed by that cavern. The reason I can’t tell you everything is because I don’t know whether the information itself could harm you if I speak it aloud. You know how it works, right? Sometimes just knowing about an anomaly can be dangerous.”

  “Ah… yeah, some of the newer creepypasta stories have that kind of setup—like memetic hazards or whatever…” He nodded half-understandingly, then his eyes went wide. “Wait—so you got hit by something like that?!”

  “Yes. Telling you over the phone might not feel real enough, so I wanted to say it to your face.” I spoke gravely. “For the foreseeable future… it’s better if we don’t see each other anymore.”