In the bedroom, Lan Bo had just turned a reckless mercenary to ash. Meanwhile, the bathhouse pool somehow became electrified. Bai Chunian didn’t believe it was a coincidence. The note he found on the towel cabinet also warranted consideration.
The missing writer’s note mentioned: “Water is the only food in this house, fortunately not poisonous, so I can survive a few more hours.” This meant the writer drank from the pool but was still able to leave a note—he hadn’t been electrocuted, implying the water was not electrified at that time. 324 hadn’t yet encountered Lan Bo’s discharge ability.
Three years ago, 324 had fought a Storm Unit major, who remained injured. As a league agent, Bai Chunian had thoroughly investigated military forces and knew every commander’s differentiation abilities. The pbbw Storm Unit major—a mountain lion alpha—had j1 ability: gravity manipulation.
“You’re right,” Enke truthfully explained the details of File F.
Special Operations Weapon 324
- Codename: Chameleon Stalker
- Status: Mature Omega
- Appearance: Petite, 1.6 meters tall, long curled chameleon-like tail, large eyes capable of 360-degree rotation without blind spots
- Differentiation ability: “Mirror Man” – mimicry type; 324 can quickly copy any differentiation ability displayed before him, but at half power
- Research notes: Extremely self-centered, even obsessed with his own name. Created to select highly logical humans, but results fell short. He designs intricate rooms and puzzles; those who solve them earn his praise, while those who fail become his prey. Filtering efficiency is slow, and solving his puzzles often requires convoluted thinking, making him a largely impractical experimental subject for human society.
- Last observed location: Crematorium at Research Institute 109
“That’s it?” Bai Chunian asked.
“I only took those two files,” Enke replied.
“Escaped right before execution… no wonder I hadn’t seen him.” Bai Chunian muttered, picking up the wooden mop used to save the electrocuted mercenaries. It felt unusually heavy. On inspection, the material had transformed from wood into iron.
Enke sneered. “That’s your ability, isn’t it? He copied it. When you crushed my gun barrel, he already caught it. Looks like 324 is watching us in this room.”
Bai Chunian was unconcerned. “If my j1 ability is halved again, mimicry loses its meaning.”
“Hmph,” Enke sneered. “But mine doesn’t.”
Bai Chunian detected pheromones releasing from Enke’s nape. As Enke activated his j1 differentiation ability, a bullet pierced through the back of his head. Blood spurted, Enke’s eyes widened, his body stiffened, then collapsed lifeless.
Lan Bo retracted the submachine gun, blowing on the hot barrel.
Bai Chunian clapped his hands, remarking, “Tsk, this complicates things. His differentiation was triggered, even though interrupted.”
The copied documents, recovered from the mercenary corpses, included a rough list of Red Throats mercenaries, noting each person’s differentiation abilities.
The list identified Enke as a Gira Woodpecker alpha, j1 differentiation “Vibrational Pierce.” Though no detailed description was included, any invisibility-capable subject mimicking it would be disastrous.
It was unclear why the mercenaries carried such obviously leaked information; normally, only a traitor would steal a team roster. Bai Chunian had no chance to question the employer’s identity.
Nevertheless, acquiring the Red Throats member list was a significant gain.
Bai Chunian squatted, taking the last paper towel to cover Enke’s face, a faint smile revealing his canine teeth. “I really want to smash your head in.”
He calmly searched Enke’s body, replicating fingerprints into a sealed bag, wiped a green Submariner watch on his lapel, and noted its pristine condition. “Mercenaries wear such nice watches… jealous. Works fine—just like the wall clock, seven o’clock.”
He also pocketed several limited edition Cohiba cigars from Enke, one by one. Finally, he pried the sapphire ring from Enke’s thumb, checked it under the light, ensured everything was collected, then stood and kicked the corpse. “Next time, remember to bring cash.”
By the time Bai Chuanian finished searching, the mermaid had been sitting on the beast-head fountain for a while, tail dangling over the pool edge, long fins drifting in the water.
The mermaid bent forward, lightly tapping Bai Chuanian’s face with the loaded submachine gun, her voice smooth and low: “I… can’t get down.”
“Sit for a moment. This is for you.” Bai Chuanian knelt on one knee under her tail, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the sapphire ring he had just pried from the corpse. He threaded the transparent blue tip of her tail through the ring’s circular center, letting the ring rest on the lower two fins of her tail.
Lan Bo flicked her tail, glancing at the new adornment. “Cheap thing.”
“Next time I’ll get you something more expensive, little princess.”
The miniature communicator they had picked up on the stairs started buzzing. Static and crackling ran through the earpiece before clearing up, and He Suowei’s voice came through:
“Received, please respond. Received, please respond.”
Bai Chuanian: “Got it, got it. Captain He, your voice in the earpiece sounds… peculiar, kind of a handsome uncle vibe, doesn’t match your face.”
He Suowei: “Damn it, if your girlfriend didn’t fail to understand me, I wouldn’t even bother saying a word to you.”
Bai Chuanian: “Where are you guys?”
He Suowei: “Just entered the dining hall. Damn, when you were in the bedroom, we went up the stairs to check if the door was still there. It was, but as soon as we stepped through, it started narrowing fast, and we couldn’t go back. I quickly threw a communicator to you guys, and then the door shut completely.”
Bai Chuanian: “You should be wearing a watch. What time is it now?”
There was a brief silence in the communicator. “Our watches stopped working the moment we entered, always showing two p.m.”
Bai Chuanian squatted, examining the green Submariner watch in his hand. “All three of your watches show two p.m.?”
He Suowei: “Yeah… actually, when we came in it was only early morning. Has so much time really passed without us realizing?”
Bai Chuanian: “When I first saw you, you said it took half an hour to go down the stairs. How did you know it was half an hour?”
He Suowei: “Because when we entered, there was a clock on the wall. I saw the minute hand move halfway around.”
Bai Chuanian: “? Wasn’t that a painting—a chameleon?”
He Suowei: “? No, a clock. The dial had twenty-eight markers, from 1 o’clock to 28 o’clock. I’ve never seen such an alien design before.”
Bai Chuanian: “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
He Suowei: “It’s a huge clock, right opposite the door. You couldn’t see it. Should I point it out?”
Bai Chuanian: “Why so aggressive?”
He Suowei took a breath, while the He brothers massaged his acupressure points on either side.
“Alright, here’s my deduction,” Bai Chuanian said. “One: every room is the same dimensions. The room I’m in is a perfect cube. I measured it with Lan Bo’s tail, and by eye, the rooms I’ve passed through are the same.”
“Two: the rooms can move quickly, but we feel no weight change because 324’s mimicked gravity-manipulation ability is affecting us. From your account and the mercenaries we encountered, the bedroom we were in just shifted, which is why you got trapped in the dining room. The other bedroom door aligned with the mercenaries’ meeting room door, letting them come in.”
He Suowei: “You encountered mercenaries?”
Bai Chuanian: “Three: different rooms have different wallpaper colors. Dining room and bedroom are red, bathroom and meeting room are blue.”
He Suowei: “I’ve only seen red so far.”
Bai Chuanian: “Four: the time on the watches adjusts automatically depending on which room you’re in. Right now in the bathroom, all the watches—including the wall digital clock and the mercenaries’ watches—show seven a.m. In the previous bedroom, it showed eight p.m. or twenty o’clock.”
“The mercenary leader said the clock in the meeting room showed six a.m.”
He Suowei glanced at his wristwatch. “In the dining hall, mine showed two p.m.—so fourteen o’clock.”
“Mm.”
He Suowei thought a moment. “So the rooms are cubes, can move around, and have colors… basically a Rubik’s cube. Twist it, a room rotates.”
Bai Chuanian: “I know that’s what you’re thinking, and everyone would. But three problems: first, a normal 3×3 Rubik’s cube requires a spherical space larger than the cube to rotate. Red Maple Mountain’s area, soil, and terrain don’t allow an underground sphere of that size.
Second, any rotation needs an axis, so the doors you see must first become fan-shaped or irregular, then shrink into a gap. If it just slowly narrows, that’s translation, not rotation.
Third, if each room corresponds to a clock’s dial number, why does the clock you saw have twenty-eight markers? A 3×3 cube stack only has twenty-seven blocks.”
He Suowei: “One extra block doesn’t matter, I’ll take it. So what conclusion do you draw from all this?”
Bai Chuanian: “324’s brain cannot be understood normally. He’s definitely a bit broken.”
He Suowei: “Thanks, I wouldn’t have known otherwise.”