I’d given Blackviper my questions. Like what Morgan said, she was dependable. Gathering everything I needed—camera footage, employee information, the security, whatever else—would take time, as she didn’t have access. What she did accomplish was finding some medicine so I could last the whole day without falling over myself. Found some “magic pills” and I popped them dry. They were actually magic. The soreness whittled down to a one on the pain scale. She said the effectiveness should last the whole day, but considering I was going to be “active like a nympho on stims,” I shouldn’t count on it. Whatever gets me through the day…


    With all this said, there was realistically only one (technically two) things to do.


    “Here it is, the Hall of Public Knowledge. Despite the corny-ass name, it’s just a public library for the visitors,” Blackviper said, imitating a tired tour guide. “But if you look straight ahead, you can find bloody murder. It’s one of our newest attractions. That’s why everyone left.”


    Bloody attempted murder, to be exact. He Zhilan had been attacked here last night—around eight hours ago—but “mauled” was the better word to describe it. Even after drying throughout the night, the blood had painted gravel, pavement, and grass a light crimson. Sparkling too, from dew and other particulates. Some spots in the gravel were deformed. Small craters, trenches, but they weren’t footprints in the sand. Couldn’t be relied on, I mean. While Jin Tianyou had immediately ordered everyone home—thus, giving no time for the staff to clean—they did discover the poor bastard in the first place. Their feet had stomped and pushed the gravel around.


    Hopefully, there should be enough evidence to paint a better picture of what happened.


    Kotone was holding her nose; the smell wasn’t that bad, but then again, I’d gotten used to the scent. Pretty much everyone but her had that in common. She asked, “That’s a lot of blood… How did he survive?”


    Blackviper lazily commented, “Eh. You’d be surprised how resilient the human body is. One time, I—”


    “Please do not talk about your previous life, assassin,” Chunhua spat. Still pissed at everyone and everything, but this was an improvement. She didn’t want to disembowel me or our helpful guide; only in her thoughts. She said, “Let’s not waste any time here, Alex. Tell us what we need to do.”


    “Alright, give me a second…” My eyes scanned the bloody mess then nearby structures. “Kotone, Chunhua, comb the rooftops and walls for any evidence. Take pictures, write notes, whatever—just try not to disturb them. We already have to pay for one door thanks to a certain someone.” (Chunhua pouted.)


    “Can’t believe all that training is paying off to this instead…” Kotone quietly complained to herself. “Alright, I’ll take, uh… East? Right?”


    “I’ll take the other side, then.” Chunhua performed the most famous technique of the Maolin Sect: [Thousand Leaf Transformation]. As the name implied, her entire body morphed into a blossom of vibrant green leaves. Without much ceremony, the whole damned thing got whisked upward.


    Kotone’s turn. She summoned six out of her twelve skinny, metallic [Psionic Pylons]—her signature, which I couldn''t explain today—and created a hexagon shape. Within the area, electricity bounced between the [Pylons] and generated a psionic field. Fearlessly, Kotone stepped on, her feet depressing the field like an insect walking on the surface tension of water, then her magic carpet took her away.


    BV whistled, watching the girls work.


    Last but not least was her: “BV, can I trust your eyes? They’re ‘netics, so you’ll see things I can’t.”


    Blackviper nodded. “Roger, but mine aren’t the best forensics.”


    “Better than mine. I wear glasses.”


    We entered the crime scene. According to Jin Tianyou’s original report, He Zhilan was found a few feet away from the pavement, laying on a bed of bloody gravel. Judging from a fairly large and dried pool of blood surrounded by wide stripes and dotting, I think we found the exact location. Using the blood splatter in the gravel and grass as reference, then, we could trace his last steps by working backwards.


    Went something like this: the wounded man, with his arm mauled and part of his scalp flapping, spontaneously hopped to his feet and danced frantically with an unknown partner. Grass to gravel then gravel to grass. Blood shot back into his body, stitched his veins and blood vessels back together and did the same for his head. Skin was reattached to skin. Soon, his mad feet clacked against solid pavement, and his feet slowed down into a steady walk. Nothing seemed to disturb him anymore, as all he wanted to do was get to his destination beyond the Hall of Public Knowledge.


    It wasn’t accurate, but from the general vibe… He was attacked on the pavement then got pushed away from the hall, which meant the culprit likely ambushed him from…


    “Alex, I think I got something!” Kotone dropped down in front of me and BV, stumbling, but managed to catch herself. She showed a picture on her phone: the Hall of Public Knowledge''s roof, the section that was facing the scene. Sandwiching one of the spines was broken ceramic tiling. If the picture wasn’t deceptive, each of the damaged areas wasn''t any larger than two feet put together.


    Hurray, our first piece of useful evidence.


    I told her, “Text me the photo and keep searching.”


    “Yessir!” Kotone was off again.


    Blackviper scanned the scene with her cybernetics. “On that note, nothing screams killer. No hair, no teeth, only blood and a few bits here and there. Nothing belonging to the culprit, I oughta say.”


    I recalled the photo of He Zhilan and Huang Chunxi, remembering how they ended up. “They clawed your people apart.”


    “That’s my point exactly, Conq. Our guy is a fuckin’ psycho. Something or someone like that doesn’t care ‘bout wiping their trace. Your best bet is DNA, but you don’t have that luxury. Just gotta hope that the cameras caught something.”


    I glanced at one of the cameras. “Let’s walk around at least, see if our feet accidentally kick something.”


    Blackviper’s eyes weren’t lying; she really didn’t see anything. Nothing was hiding underneath the gravel, or in the grass, or even in the trees—I checked, she made fun of me. One time, I thought I struck gold but much to the detriment of my sanity, it was a small nugget of flesh. Human flesh. That wasn’t evidence, that was a biohazard. My “partner” found jack squat too, enough that she gave up on searching a couple minutes in and sat down on the pavement.


    Dammit all… I would’ve thought a sadist like our culprit left something but no.


    How the hell can I figure this shit out within—what?—fifteen or sixteen hours?


    “Alex, I couldn’t find anything odd in the vicinity,” Chunhua came back negative after some time.


    “Other than the thing on the roof, same here,” and so did Kotone.


    I’d suspected as much. Would Huang Chunxi have anything?


    ***


    Mostly, no. Her scene, which was outside the Bathhouse, was the opposite of her friend’s. The cleaning crew had washed away the blood (they seemed suspiciously good at it). Aside from a few scratches on the pavement, there wasn''t anything else on the ground—and that’s assuming the scratches were caused by our guy. Much like the Hall of Public Knowledge, though, we found some broken roof-tiling overlooking the scene.


    While there didn’t seem to be anything else, I ordered the girls to roam around and see if they stumbled into a million dollars.


    They didn’t, but I did. After some mindless searching, something bright and vibrant caught my eye: a royalty-red object hiding underneath a bush, tangled in some branches.


    “BV!” I called out to her. “Found something over here.”


    In a flash, she met up. She crouched beside me and flicked her cybernetics on. “Looks like someone’s pretty red dress got caught up in some branches. Don’t ask me whose. None of the uniforms sport this color.”


    “I can’t imagine our psycho-killer is wearing a cocktail dress while ripping a man''s scalp off…” I reached over and snatched the fabric. Immediately, something was off because this didn’t feel like silk. How do I describe it…? It was like the sensation after eating a pineapple but all over my palm instead of my tongue. “BV, hold this for a sec—“


    As soon as I flashed the fabric, I was holding air instead. The strange sensation faded. Just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy, I tapped my fingers together a few times. Yeah, my hand was fucking empty.


    Blackviper was staring at my empty hand too, a bit wide-eyed. That was the most confusion I’d seen from her today.


    “What’s going on? You guys find something?” Kotone, with Chunhua a few steps behind, peered around the corner and found two confused idiots kneeling in the grass.


    I truthfully answered, “Either we found something, or we’re both suffering from psychosis.”


    BV shook her head. “Don’t count your stars just yet, Conq. This sounds like bullshit, but we found a torn piece of red fabric. As soon as he picked it up, it disappeared.”


    Good, I wasn’t going crazy. I really did see and touch that thing.


    Chunhua crossed her arms, skeptical and probably suspicious too. “‘Disappeared’? Evidence doesn''t simply ‘disappear’ without warning.”


    “Things disappear all the time. People, things, you name it. Sporting sensitive equipment you don’t want gettin’ out? Install a conceptual deletion timer. Everyone does it—”


    “How is this relevant, assassin?”


    BV rolled her eyes and stood, causing Kotone to back off and hide behind her best friend. “They almost always leave a mark, like ashes after a fire. Here? As you can see, there’s nothing. The fabric went poof! It was completely deleted out of existence.”


    Kotone, peeking over Chunhua’s shoulder, led, “You said something like this ‘almost always’ leave a mark…?”


    Blackviper said, “You can’t make generalizations in this economy, but lemme tell you: you need top-level skills to completely erase something without so much of a speck of dust.”This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    “So…” I dusted myself off and stood. “If our culprit has those kinds of skills, then why use them here? Why target two random rens and call it a day?”


    Chunhua bit her lip and looked toward the Bathhouse, spotting faint splotches of blood that survived the water and chemicals. “I’ve been struggling to answer that question myself. This…sadist infiltrated one of the most secure homes outside of Ordo, twice, just to hospitalize two servants? Are we sure we’re not missing anything?”


    I muttered dismissively, “If the culprit had hit anywhere else, we would know about it already.”


    Wait, that brings up an interesting thought…


    Jin Tianyou had said he didn’t investigate the attacks due to present obligations, but think about it. His home, which surely had cutting edge security, was broken into. Two of his employees were mauled. If I was him, I’d check my office to see if my secrets were safe. Considering nothing was (evidently) hit, I would still be concerned. As a familial member of the Martial Zenith Sect, any security breach would be catastrophic and potentially life-ending. For him to shrug it off so casually… Either he was incompetent or he knew something we didn’t. Knowing him, it was the latter.


    So what did he know? Could I confront him? Would I even get answers in the first place—? No, think about it. I had let the recent drama frame my perception of the case; in other words, I was so fixated on Alternates that I completely neglected the next likely possibility.


    Blackviper nudged my shoulder. “What’re you thinking about, Conq?”


    I exhaled to calm my heart. “Can you ask your boss something for me? Ask if this has anything to do with Jianghu politics. If it does, we’re leaving.”


    BV raised an eyebrow, gears turning inside her head, and eventually arrived at the same conclusion. Guess she was largely in the dark as well, because I doubt she would willingly involve herself in high-stakes politics. After a curt nod, she marched behind the Bathhouse and left me with the girls.


    While being glued to Chunhua''s arm, Kotone watched the assassin leave. “I thought we were here ‘cause of the breakthroughs.”


    I spotted Blackviper''s arm poking around the corner. “Me too, but there are actually two pretty good explanations for what we’ve seen. Something with the breakthroughs, as you mentioned, or we found ourselves in the middle of Jin Tianyou’s chessboard.”


    Chunhua’s skin turned several shades paler. “If the Marital Zenith’s enemies are involved and Jin Tianyou knows about it…”


    “Yeah,” I said, “we need to run far away.”


    Kotone gingerly asked, “Is it that serious?”


    Chunhua calmed her nerves enough to explain, “The Martial Zenith Sect is the ruling sect of the Jianghu.” (“Led by Shui Yuan?”) “That’s right. The Jins are but one branch family. While Jin Junjie has forever ruined their reputation, they are still an honored family. To be entangled in their affairs is, to put it lightly, a death sentence.”


    “Oh,” was all Kotone said. You know, I couldn’t believe she was applying to Martials Guild. Of all guilds in the city—hell, in the entire world—she picked one of the more volatile ones. Being associated with the Jianghu was no different than being associated with chaos, even if you were a middling grunt.


    I don’t mean to disrespect her, but I wasn’t sure if she could handle the culture there. Chunhua wouldn’t be around forever, after all.


    “Conqueror!” BV shouted as she regrouped with us. “Jin Tianyou confirmed: this does not have to do anything with ‘current conflicts.’ He didn’t elaborate, so do what you will with that information.”


    While Chunhua sighed in relief, I didn’t feel much better about our current situation. This fucker was holding vital information from us, but fine. I wasn’t in a position to dictate the terms. If he was to be trusted—a big ask—then all the evidence was pointing toward the supernatural. It honestly wasn’t much better than the alternative. With the Jianghu, we could somewhat predict trouble. With Alts? Shit, they could be anything.


    I said, grumbling, “Alright, but my position still stands. If I think this investigation is involved with his politicking, we’re done.”


    “He said he’ll honor your decision in that case, which sounds like complete bullshit but I’m just the messenger. As your messenger, I also have something else to report: camera footage and security logs.”


    ***


    It was a little after ten o’clock, fourteen hours until reckoning. We huddled inside the conference room as the sorriest detectives you’d ever see. Our agenda was written on the whiteboard thanks to yours truly, and the projector was set up. Our job for today? Seeing what truly happened during those two nights.


    Blackviper had hooked up a laptop to the projector, in-charge of the technology. “I’m pulling up Huang Chunxi’s first.”


    After fiddling with the program, we were bombarded with eighteen different cameras. Most of them were actively tracking moving objects, framing them inside a red or green box. It took a hot minute for me to parse through the visual information, but from what I gathered, most were stationed on the Manor’s perimeter. The rest focused on the interior, specifically observing the area around the Bathhouse itself.


    The footage was absolute chaos, though. The cameras were picking up everything: workers slaving through the night, animals scurrying across the courtyard, and a bunch of false-positives popping in and out. BV worked her magic, and only one green box shone from the rest. It surrounded a middle-aged woman wearing a plain and muted uniform—nothing like the red fabric we’d found earlier. Huang Chunxi.


    “This is around fifteen minutes before the attack,” she said. “I’ll speed up the video a little bit.”


    That she did, and we watched, tracking her progress.


    Huang Chunxi entertained a conversation with a colleague, then she took a relaxing walk around the Manor. For minutes, nothing happened. No one was doing anything particularly of note. The perimeter was calm. None of the squirrels were planning anything nefarious. Literally, we were all engrossed in complete silence, trying to catch any small details. Anything.


    As the timestamp ticked onward toward the fateful moment, my heart started thumping. I was anticipating it, like a jumpscare in a movie. The culprit had to show themselves somehow. Huang Chunxi was at the Bathhouse at this point in time but there weren''t any signs of life from our psycho-killer. Any moment, though, we’d see something.


    Then, our victim stopped and looked around. Her eyes briefly made contact with the camera, and—!


    “Jesus!” I shouted, jumping back in my chair.


    We were all startled.


    Every single camera flashbanged us with seizing pixels, red and blue and green, flashing so violently that I was afraid of getting a seizure despite not having epilepsy. The speakers blared with painful static, and BV slammed the mute button then turned down the brightness. Single-handedly saved our hearing and vision.


    We stared at each other, with much of the same confusion me and Blackviper had with the disappearing fabric. Pretty fucking lucky that the cameras went out just as the attack happened. Well, that wasn’t accurate. The cameras were still running, but the live feed was corrupted. I imagine if the cameras got knocked out, it would set off an immediate alarm.


    Kotone had a hand over her beating heart. “That scared me…”


    Chunhua pointed at the screen. “Can we fix the footage? Maybe make the sound clearer?”


    BV shrugged. “It’s plausible, but you’d need experts to de-fuck it.”


    “That’s gonna take more than a day,” said Kotone. “I mean, even if we find someone on short notice, they’ll prolly be done around midnight.”


    If it was possible in the first place. If the culprit was an Alternate, then this wasn’t a problem that you could easily patch up. Like what Kotone implied, we’d only waste time trying to look for an expert. Fucking Jin Tianyou, imposing a time limit on us. If we had more than a day…


    I sighed and tapped the table impatiently. “Fast-forward to the end.”


    “On it,” said BV.


    When the footage was cleared, Huang Chunxi was lying face-down covered in her own blood. Within a couple minutes, her colleagues and friends rushed to her side. We didn’t spot anyone else, the cameras didn’t spot anything either. The perimeter seemed stable, there wasn’t any obvious disturbances or damage. Only the scene of the crime and the faint screaming rattling the night.


    He Zhilan was exactly the same. No activity leading up to the attempted murder, complete fucking static and pixels during the act, then chaos afterwards. Once again, the culprit left a near-perfect crime scene.


    Trying to explain this rationally was going to drive me insane.


    Kotone was rubbing her face, looking away from the gore. “What the heck are we dealing with? Did you check the security logs? Because, like, someone who tears apart innocent people prolly doesn''t care ‘bout cleaning after themselves.”


    BV nodded toward me. “I made the same point to Conq earlier. I checked our logs and guess what? Besides from the manual alarms Jin Tianyou had triggered, they’re all green. Our security detected jack-shit. The tech-guy even confirmed that the logs themselves weren’t tampered, so as far as we know, they’re genuine.”


    “That makes no sense!” Kotone threw her hands in the air. “You guys got a top-notch security barrier, right? What about their readings?”


    “Internal, external, everything’s clean,” said BV.


    Seriously? These security barriers were top-of-the-line when it came to, well, security. You''d find the same tech in places like government buildings and critical infrastructure. They had the technology to monitor all traffic inside the protected area. Any anomalies would easily be exposed. In today’s day and age, these checks occur multiple times per second, twenty-four-seven, without fail. To bypass this, you need: intimate knowledge of the security barrier and its exploits, and a presence concealment [Skill] or really good tech. Usually both. Or if you were Kotone, just blow everything up and walk in through the front-door.


    For the Jins, they had the funds to purchase a cutting-edge security barrier. Most likely, the tech also originated from the Jianghu. Not a lot of people could flawlessly sneak through.


    I let out a loud breath, breaking between a crude laugh and a sigh. “To summarize, the culprit managed to infiltrate the Manor without setting off the alarms. Once inside, they perfectly concealed their presence, obscured the cameras’ feeds, attacked Huang Chunxi and He Zhilan, then left without leaving a trace.” (“Twice,” reminded BV.) “Yeah, twice. They did this twice.”


    BV put her elbows on the table. “Speaking as an assassin—” (eyeing Chunhua) “—it’s possible to have this perfect of an infiltration.”


    I commented, "Only you and Kotone can infiltrate the Manor."


    "Yeah—this chick?" ("Psionics.") "Right, of course. Espers are weird."


    Chunhua smacked her lips together. “But we’re rounding back to the conversation we had earlier. Someone with intimate knowledge of your security systems and high-level [Skills] wouldn’t waste their talents on two random servants. Not when there’s a bigger prize.”


    I spoke up, “Let’s also cross another possibility off the list: that the culprit is one of the servants. You think it’s possible?”


    Blackviper hummed in the negative, “Don’t think so. I don’t have the full roster yet, but your average maid and butler can’t pull this off. Too many constraints and variables. Could they be accomplices? Again, we’re circlin’ back to the same question.”


    “So it can’t be done by a person, right?” Kotone asked the table. “Logic and actions don’t match. If it’s like that, then I have my own theory. It’s, uh, it’s kinda crazy though.”


    “Say it, esper,” Blackviper told her. “We’re not working with a lot.”


    “Hear me out, it’s ghosts but wait!” Kotone raised her hand, preventing anyone from speaking over her. “I know it’s crazy, but everything lines up. A ghost doesn’t need to infiltrate the manor or maintain concealment, because it doesn’t operate by our rules to begin with! I mean, look! The culprit appeared at midnight, attacked innocent people for no real reason, then vanished without a trace. That has ‘paranormal’ written all over it.”


    I looked at the other girls first. They weren’t immediately brushing her theory aside. Neither was I, because I came into the investigation with a similar perception.


    Blackviper could only chuckle and lean back in her chair. “A ghost… Somehow, that makes the most sense.”


    Chunhua nodded, and even she cracked a smile. “I honestly concur. Using her logic, we can handwave most of our questions with the paranormal, which leads us to the core of the issue.”


    At that moment, all three girls were looking at me.


    Yeah.


    If this was a “ghost,” then our haunted spirit was most certainly an Alternate. That meant our investigation was the third publically-known breakthrough, having two casualties already.


    Well, shit.