Chapter 39: Tracking

Chapter 39: Tracking

I returned to the office, where a small sleeping room had been set aside for me.

Lying on the bed, I turned things over in my mind.

What would happen if I activated the parasitic-host receiver?

I slowly opened it a crack, just to see.

As soon as I did, I found I could actually hear conversations passing between Soul Hunter consciousnesses. The crack was too narrow, though — I couldn’t make out the words clearly.

I eased it open a little wider and listened in.

“Ren Jingze, you’re heading back already?”

“I should go first. Something this big happened over there — if I don’t return, I’ll be too easy to expose.”

“Fine. You go first. Tang Tingsheng, you head back too. Ran Weiping and Luo Shu are enough here.”

“Understood.”

Ren Jingze was the very person Gu Qiutang had pointed out to me when he showed me the note.

So they were the ones behind it, just as I’d suspected.

I shut the receiver down, afraid that holding it open too long would give me away. Then I found Gu Kunling as quickly as I could and told her what I’d just picked up.

She was visibly stunned that I could intercept the Soul Hunters’ mental communications. Apparently, none of them had ever attempted this before.

Gu Kunling immediately dispatched people to watch the names I’d given her.

I had only caught four names, but I could already infer the fifth. After all, the list I had given Gu Kunling contained five names.

Back in the rest room, I couldn’t resist cracking the receiver open again.

Through the static, I could faintly make out the sound of someone being interrogated.

My guess was that Gu Qiutang was still alive. The Soul Hunters had chosen this moment to strike, and it was probably connected to our taking out the Zhu Zhaojie node. Gu Qiutang likely hadn’t just been exposed — capturing him now was probably meant to force out who had eliminated Zhu Zhaojie, or to squeeze him for information about the broader resistance.

When I faced Zhu Zhaojie, I had been a card played face up. Sending her after me had been aimed squarely at that exposed card.

But Gu Kunling, invisible as she was — the Soul Hunters almost certainly didn’t know who she was. So closing the net meant two things: capturing me, in the hope of catching whoever was helping me, and capturing Gu Qiutang, who had probably been under suspicion of belonging to the resistance for some time. Perhaps it all traced back to how unconditionally he had taken me in.

Ever since I walked out of Liutan Town — no, perhaps ever since I cheated on that exam — I had been destined to live on the run.

From the Sweepers to the Soul Hunters, each escalation was a test of what I was made of.

I drifted through the night half-asleep.

The first thing I did the next morning was carefully open the parasitic receiver, hoping to catch something new.

At first, nothing. Only a wash of static.

It wasn’t until nearly noon that I faintly made out a bus stop announcement buried somewhere in the noise. My hearing had been enhanced, and layered with perception, I could filter a faint sound out of the surrounding din with reasonable accuracy.

This might have had something to do with Xuanhong’s background as a systems architect. Systems architects are good at categorizing and breaking things down — at finding structure inside complexity.

Suojin Bridge.

The name the bus announced was an old stone bridge over Pingdu City’s moat, northwest of Zhongguan Village — not far from our company.

Could the Soul Hunters’ stronghold be somewhere near there?

I found Gu Kunling and told her what I’d picked up.

She wanted to send people to scout it out, but I felt it was better to go myself. My abilities were strong enough for that.

Gu Kunling thought it over and decided to come with me.

We had to move fast. A signal like this wouldn’t stay useful for long.

I called for one of the company cars, and the two of us headed straight for Suojin Bridge.

The area was on the urban fringe — sparse buildings, nothing tall, a scattering of old village houses that had never been torn down.

Starting from the Suojin Bridge bus stop, I told the driver to slow down. I sat in the back seat with the parasitic receiver half-open, feeling out the strength of the signal as we moved. Distance mattered.

Then the signal started weakening. I told the driver to turn around immediately and search the opposite direction.

Sure enough, the signal strengthened.

After about ten-odd li, I spotted someone on a bicycle. The signal surged. I snapped the receiver shut and pulled my head back below the rear window.

The car slid past her.

Her name was Lu Qingyue. A woman.

She was the fifth person.

Xuanhong had known her, though only in passing.

Her work unit was the Data Integration Services Department under the Du Group. Xuanhong had dealt with her a few times on business matters. She held a low position and kept an extremely low profile, so he had never given her much thought. All he knew was that she appeared to be married, with a daughter. Nothing about her would have suggested she was a Soul Hunter.

Gu Kunling and I got out of the car about a kilometer ahead and went invisible. I stationed her as backup and had her keep some distance behind me.

I was worried she couldn’t shield the micro-electrical waves in her brain — that would make her easy to detect.

Soul Hunters, like me, all possessed same-frequency sensing. Invisibility was no protection against that.

I waited until Lu Qingyue had cycled past before following her in silence.

She was in no hurry. She stopped at a market to pick up a few groceries before riding slowly home.

Her building was an old public rental block — possibly leased through her husband’s work unit — only four stories high. Her family’s apartment was on the top floor.

I stayed close behind her, watching her unlock the door and go inside. But I didn’t follow her in. If I were discovered in there, getting out would be difficult, and I still didn’t know what I’d be walking into.

Soul Hunters would have safeguards. That much was certain.

Instead, I scratched at the door of the apartment next to hers.

“Who’s there?”

A voice from inside.

It was lunchtime. The neighbor opened their door, looked left and right, found no one, muttered “Crazy,” and shut it again.

By then I had already slipped inside. I crept to the balcony and, from there, vaulted over to Lu Qingyue’s.

There was no need to open the receiver here. I could hear everything in her apartment with my bare ears.

“Mom, why are you so late?”

A girl’s voice.

“Mom had things to do. Xiaoli, did Grandma drop you off? Didn’t we say not to come over here unless you had to?”

The little girl shrugged it off. “It’s fun over here. I like teasing the inferior people. Yesterday I saw one of them talking on his phone like it was perfectly normal, so I snatched it away. He searched everywhere and couldn’t find it. He was almost in tears. Hee-hee-hee-hee. So fun.”

“Stop making trouble over here. You don’t want to run into the resistance and get yourself killed.”

Lu Qingyue’s voice faded toward the kitchen.

“What’s the situation?”

A man’s voice this time.

Her husband?

“Let me cook first. We’ll talk.”

It sounded like any ordinary family at lunch. No one would ever guess that the woman at the stove had killed without blinking.

It wasn’t strange that Lu Qingyue had a husband. What was interesting was that she talked openly about the resistance in front of him — which meant he was no ordinary person. Yet he hadn’t appeared on my list. I didn’t know whether that made him a Soul Hunter I’d missed.

Then the girl spoke again: “Mom, when can you all go back? It’s so much work on this side. Grandma said the spacetime gate is going to be moved. After that, coming here won’t be easy anymore.”

Spacetime gate?

Spacetime boundary?

A memory surfaced — the invisible people I’d encountered at Tansong Temple. Among the voices there had been an older woman’s and a little girl’s. That little girl had been called Xiaoli.

It couldn’t be this much of a coincidence.

Moving the spacetime gate — that had been my request. Their spacetime boundary had been set up inside Tansong Temple, disrupting the monks’ practice.

And the “grandma” she mentioned — could that be the elder who had spoken with me across the void?

Lu Qingyue’s husband asked, “Has the man talked?”

“No. He’s keeping his mouth shut. We searched his brain and used AI mirror-image analysis, but all we got were fragments. Nothing of value. I think they had precautions in place — when we moved on him, these resistance members may have triggered some kind of self-destruct mechanism to wipe their organizational ties from memory. Otherwise, there’s no way his brain would be this clean. We ran the analysis several times. Nothing but business dealings. And now we’ve stirred the grass and startled the snake. I gave Ran Weiping a dressing-down today. He moved too early.”

Her husband said, “And Gu Beichen? What’s the plan there?”

“Gu Beichen is full of secrets. Last time I used Zhu Zhaojie to take him, and he still slipped through. But based on everything we’ve analyzed, he doesn’t appear to have joined the resistance. We’ve tried to kill him several times, and not once did he run or show any sign of warning. His own abilities are the only reason he’s still alive. So I’ve advised Ran Weiping to leave him alone for now. One man is manageable. The priority is taking down the resistance organization itself.”

“And the person who pulled Gu Beichen out in the end? Any leads?”

“Ren Jingze has always suspected Gu Qiutang. When I made my move, Ren Jingze went straight to his office — and he wasn’t there. That’s why Ran Weiping decided to bring him in. But I was the one who fought that person, and something doesn’t sit right.”

So it was this group that had tried to kill me in the detention center.

Believe me, I could activate the immobilizing spell right now and smash your skull.

Lu Qingyue and her husband talked freely, not even bothering to lower their voices in front of the child.

No wonder the girl had been born so contemptuous. In their world, ordinary people weren’t people at all. They were lesser animals.

Like children at a zoo, watching chimpanzees. You don’t empathize with chimpanzees.

I held on until the family settled in for their midday rest before losing interest and pulling back from the window.

I had barely reached the ground floor when I sensed Gu Kunling approaching. She hadn’t been able to stay put.

I drew her away to a quiet spot and walked her through everything I’d heard.

Knowing that her father wasn’t in immediate danger lifted some of the weight from her face.

As for the elite people’s indifference toward ordinary lives — she wasn’t remotely surprised. It was exactly why they had chosen to resist.

It was only then that it truly settled on me: elite people and ordinary people were diverging into two separate species. If I, as a human, infiltrated a troop of chimpanzees — would I too stop caring whether they lived or died?

We were still talking when a mist-shaped figure swept past at no great distance, moving toward Lu Qingyue’s building.

An invisible elite person.

I pulled Gu Kunling out of the way on instinct.

Fortunately, we were both invisible. The figure was moving with purpose and never noticed us.

Gu Kunling couldn’t see the invisible person, but she could sense something — otherwise she would never have been able to hold her own against Zhu Zhaojie. Only after I pointed it out did she catch it.

“I’ll go back up and take another look,” I said. “Wait here.”

Gu Kunling told me to be careful. If a fight started, she’d be right there.

I had no intention of fighting. If I did, any chance of finding Gu Qiutang would be gone.

Like a ghost, I followed the invisible figure through the building entrance, staying close behind him. He didn’t drop his invisibility until he was inside Lu Qingyue’s apartment.

And as he stepped in, I slipped in with him.