Coincidences happened too frequently, to the point where they lost their serendipity.
Tao Zijin’s misfortune even trended on hot searches. After netizens summarized her day, they complained that it seemed as if she was cursed.
However, Shen Zhifei didn’t think she was cursed. Considering Zhao Xiaokui’s experiences throughout the day, it seemed more like she was facing some backlash.
Whenever Zhao Xiaokui escaped a crisis, something relatively significant would happen on Tao Zijin’s side. The relationship between the two seemed like a matter of life and death.
After staying up all night and cross-referencing the information she found, she sent the timeline comparison to Zhao Xiaokui.
After waking up early, Zhao Xiaokui pondered upon seeing this vivid comparison chart.
Even an outsider like Shen Zhifei could clearly see the situation. There was no reason for her not to see it. But being in the midst of the situation and influenced by the interference of the previous evil god, she hadn’t connected the two incidents before.
“I love you.”
Sending a kiss emoji to Shen Zhifei, Zhao Xiaokui turned and sent the comparison chart to the Nightwalker.
On the other side, the Nightwalker’s surveillance of Tao Zijin also captured something quite interesting.
As the person involved, Zhao Xiaokui was invited to the conference room.
In the meeting room, someone was fiddling with the projector when she arrived. Upon hearing movement and realizing it was her, the person manipulating the equipment looked up and smiled at her. They raised their hand and gave a thumbs-up, “You really did it. Thanks to you, we followed up, and that female celebrity is really problematic.”
Zhao Xiaokui found a place to sit and asked, “What did you discover?”
The projector displayed several video clips.
Some were captured by surveillance, while others were taken from a distance with equipment. Without exception, all the videos featured Tao Zijin.
The Nightwalker, who was in charge of the videos, remained silent. Instead of speaking, they played several video clips from the beginning. When they reached the second playback, Zhang Hongyi shouted, “Stop.”
“Go back, go back to two minutes and thirty seconds.” He pointed at Tao Zijin’s eyes in the video with the laser pointer, confidently saying, “She heard something.”
However, apart from Tao Zijin, there was no one else around.
No one doubted Zhang Hongyi’s words. Although Tao Zijin’s movements were subtle, everyone present was astute, especially with several of them being experts in microexpressions. Tao Zijin’s acting might fool ordinary people, but in the eyes of this group, there were loopholes everywhere.
“Is her voice recorded?” he turned to the person in charge of tracking.
“No, she’s very cautious. Although Xiaokui attached a listening device, we still haven’t heard the contents of the conversation by the pool. However,” the surveillance personnel smiled, moving the video to around four minutes, “pay attention to her lip movements.”
The video had no sound, and there was no one near Tao Zijin. However, her lips kept moving incessantly, as if she were talking to someone.
Zhang Hongyi stared at her lip movements and recounted, “When will it end… why didn’t Zhao Xiaokui die…”
“Do you know Tao Zijin from before?” Hearing Zhao Xiaokui’s name, Zhang Hongyi’s brows furrowed deeply.
Zhao Xiaokui shook her head, claiming not to know her. However, at the same time, she added, “But I might guess the reason she’s targeting me.”
“What reason?”
“I have a suspicion,” Zhao Xiaokui said, “she used my body before.”
Zhang Hongyi found this statement somewhat difficult to comprehend, and not just him—others in the room also didn’t quite understand. Someone repeated the statement, still puzzled.
“She used your body?”
“Tao Zijin, Zhao Zijin…” Someone put the two names together and pronounced them, sensing the subtleties.
Zhang Hongyi suddenly asked, “Is Tao Zijin a stage name?”
“No,” someone quickly retrieved Tao Zijin’s information, “her original name is Tao Yingying. She changed it to Tao Zijin when she participated in a talent show. Oh, and she changed her name midway.”
Zhang Hongyi’s fingers rapidly tapped on the table.
After a moment, he looked at Zhao Xiaokui and said, “Tell me the entire process of your memory loss again.”
Zhao Xiaokui complied.
As she spoke, the Nightwalker from the Information Technology Department searched for Zhao Zijin’s past videos online.
Although every transcendent individual undergoes a thorough investigation when joining the Nightwalkers, examining personal experiences in such detail wasn’t something anyone thought to do.
If it weren’t for Zhao Xiaokui bringing it up voluntarily, everyone would probably think her memory loss was just a stress response during her transcendent awakening.
Who could have imagined that there were two individuals residing inside one body?
“Hiss.” The investigator made a sharp inhale.
After all, Zhao Zijin was a public figure, and there were many instances of her exposure. There were numerous videos of her online.
Back then, she might not have been as cautious. Perhaps because she hadn’t experienced being expelled from the body by the original owner. Many things, as long as observed closely by someone with insight, weren’t difficult to spot.
“Oh my god…”
Observant individuals noticed that both Zhao Xiaokui and Zhang Hongyi had expressions so heavy it seemed like they could drip water.
It was also Zhao Xiaokui’s first time seeing these videos.
Uncontrollable anger surged in her chest, suppressed forcefully by her. However, the slightly deepened color of her eyes vaguely revealed her emotions at the moment.
She couldn’t help but be furious.
If Tao Zijin could indeed, as she suspected, utilize the power of the evil god, then transferring between different bodies when she initially crossed into the mermaid world might not have done so voluntarily. Instead, she might have been expelled from a body by the evil god. It just so happened that she stumbled into a rift in space-time and fortuitously possessed the body of a recently deceased mermaid.
What if she hadn’t been so lucky?
Would it be just as Tao Zijin herself claimed—that she was supposed to die?
Why, and on what grounds?
Why her? On what basis was it her?
Should she die just because the evil god and Tao Zijin took an interest in her body? Should she let others live her life using her body and identity?
Zhang Hongyi’s anger was different from Zhao Xiaokui’s.
His anger lay in the possibility of not only Zhao Zijin and Tao Zijin but also potentially Li Zijin, Zhang Zijin, and others.
These spokespersons of the evil gods hid among the crowd, more concealed than ordinary cultists, with more sophisticated means. From Tao Zijin’s performance, it was evident that she had access to more of the power belonging to the evil gods. Even if she would suffer some backlash after using it, this unprecedented existence, never discovered by any transcendent force before, was like an ant nest on a riverbank. It might seem inconspicuous, but when the flood came, it often collapsed first at this very spot.
Nightwalkers had been resisting against cult forces for many years. Although they always knew of the existence of the evil gods, they had never truly treated this unseen and intangible existence as an enemy. After all, even the cultists themselves might not know exactly what kind of entity their so-called evil god was. Communication was difficult, and they could only exchange power through sacrifices. In Huaxia, with strict governance, attempting any illegal superstitious activities would result in immediate crackdowns.
Just like the evil god Zhao Xiaokui had discovered earlier—its lair had been raided, and the followers were only capable of doing something as crude as splashing sulfuric acid. In the end, the so-called followers turned out to be an unorganized group, with only a couple of slightly more capable individuals daring to use the evil god to seek personal gains, never really intending to truly embrace the faith.
But Tao Zijin’s situation was different.
Zhang Hongyi couldn’t help but consider whether someone in the ranks of the Nightwalkers, or even among the high-ranking officials of the country, might have been possessed by the evil god. On the surface, they might appear unchanged, but inside, they could be an entirely different person.
He scanned the crowd around him, feeling that every person looked suspicious as if each one had a system operating inside their minds.
All he could do now was pray that among the people sitting here today, no one had their minds taken over by the evil god. Otherwise, he didn’t know how to turn the situation around for humanity with an opportunity lost.
⌈It’s not that serious; the situation hasn’t deteriorated to that extent yet…⌋
Having self-convincingly pondered for a while, Zhang Hongyi turned to Zhao Xiaokui and asked, “You mentioned that you can hear the conversation between that system and Tao Zijin, right?”
Zhao Xiaokui nodded.
Zhang Hongyi analyzed, “If Tao Zijin thinks you should be dead, it indicates that when she occupies a body, the original owner’s spiritual or soul entity is expelled by her. For some reason, you might have escaped that fate. Perhaps even due to the awakening of your transcendent powers, it drove out both the evil god and Tao Zijin from your body. However, in this process, your soul has also been contaminated by the evil god, undergoing some unpredictable changes that enable you to hear the conversations between the two.”
Zhang Hongyi believed that since Zhao Xiaokui could hear the conversation between Tao Zijin and the system, she might also be able to hear the voices of other evil gods.
He asked Zhao Xiaokui to wait for a moment, then stepped out of the room. With a click, the meeting room was locked from the outside. Inside, the people exchanged glances. Someone slumped into a chair, covering their face, and sighed deeply.
They all understood the importance of keeping this matter confidential. However, just like Zhang Hongyi, each person felt a profound heaviness in their hearts upon realizing the implications of what they had just investigated.
Someone self-mockingly said, “I used to enjoy reading online novels, dreaming every day of getting a system and becoming powerful, reaching the pinnacle of life. But as soon as I think that there’s really an intelligent life dwelling in my brain, I feel like I’m in a nightmare even in broad daylight.”
“None of us are possessed by the evil gods, right?”
“I’m not.”
“Neither am I.”
Someone asked Zhao Xiaokui, “Uh, Xiaokui, can you hear the voice of the system now?”
Zhao Xiaokui hesitated, then rolled her eyes at the disheartened group. “Did you guys exaggerate the evil god too much? If it were really that formidable, it would have just killed me directly. Why bother with so many coincidences? It’s not like it’s a movie. It must have significant limitations, and with the country being so powerful, our interference devices can even break through the illusion created by an evil god. It’s just a system disguised as an evil god, nothing to be afraid of.”
The mood of the group eased at her words.
Before long, Zhang Hongyi returned, accompanied by Yu Youmin.
After they entered, Yu Youmin nodded at Zhao Xiaokui and said, “Xiaokui, come with me for a moment.”
Without asking where they were going, the two walked deep into the facility. After several turns, they arrived at a place Zhao Xiaokui had never been before. Yu Youmin pressed a few times on a blank wall, and a crack appeared in the middle, revealing an elevator.
Unlike other elevators, as soon as this one opened, Zhao Xiaokui felt a sacred aura rushing toward her. Closing her eyes, she almost thought that she wasn’t entering an elevator, but rather the gates of the divine realm.
“This is the passage for transporting items related to evil gods,” Yu Youmin suddenly spoke, “Many items associated with evil gods, which cannot be destroyed, or rather, should not be destroyed, are sealed by professionals. They are then sent through this elevator to the Bright Prison.”
Bright Prison.
There was no doubt that this was a new department, a place Zhao Xiaokui had never heard of.
She could roughly guess the reason behind choosing this name.
Evil gods mostly represented chaos and disorder. Using the power of the divine realm could indeed exert a certain level of suppression on them.
Thinking this way in her mind, but when the elevator opened, Zhao Xiaokui was still startled.
Because right in front of the elevator was a statue of an angel.
No, it wasn’t a statue.
Feeling the transcendent aura emanating from the statue, Zhao Xiaokui’s heart raced.
It was unmistakably the corpse of a real angel after death.
