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…