Free Web NovelAfter finishing the school registration and stepping out, standing at the school gate and looking at the vehicles coming and going, the name "Qinan Bamboo" suddenly flashed through Lu Yibei's mind again.
She frowned and thought for a moment, then took out her phone from her top pocket, dragged Bai Kai's number out of the blacklist, and called him.
The phone only rang twice before Bai Kai's excited, slightly tearful voice came through.
"Xiao Bei, you actually called me yourself? I'm so happy!"
Lu Yibei's brows furrowed into a knot, and she growled, "Stop with the nonsense, Shui Ge, I want to ask you something."
"Go ahead, I'll tell you everything I know!"
"Shui Ge..." Lu Yibei hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Do you know who Qinan Bamboo is?"
Lu Yibei hadn't intended to ask Bai Kai this question initially. If her Old Dad had deliberately concealed Qinan Bamboo's existence, Shui Ge, being his good brother with whom he had grown up, would likely help him conceal it as well, making the question pointless.
But now, even Void couldn't find any clues about Qinan Bamboo, so she could only try her luck with Shui Ge.
"..."
Bai Kai on the other end of the phone was clearly silent for a moment, then his voice rose a few octaves as he replied, "I don't know! Never heard of that name, why are you suddenly asking about it?"
"It's nothing," Lu Yibei pouted, "I just happened to come across the name recently, and it suddenly came to mind today."
"The name sounds like a woman's. Didn't you claim to know half of the beautiful women in Hua City, from eighty down to eighteen? I just thought I'd give you a call and ask."
"Oh," Bai Kai responded, "Then maybe this Qinan Bamboo is just one of the other half who slipped through the net?"
"Is that so? Then forget it," Lu Yibei said, "Shui Ge, something came up unexpectedly on my end, let's chat later."
After speaking, without waiting for Bai Kai to continue rambling, she skillfully hung up the phone and dragged his number back into the blacklist.
After doing all this, Lu Yibei held her phone and fell into thought.
That moment of hesitation when Shui Ge heard the name Qinan Bamboo shouldn't have been my imagination.
What did I say before? Shui Ge really was helping Old Dad conceal it, wasn't he?
It seems that for now, I can only go back to the old house, find the things Old Dad left behind, and study them carefully.
If a person truly existed in this world, they would definitely leave traces of their existence. Perhaps the long years would erode these traces, but judging from the content in Hu Yue's notebook, Qinan Bamboo was still alive at least twenty years ago.
----
In the evening, at the Jingyi Apartment Complex, in Lu Yibei's home.
After putting down the last box, Lu Yibei leaned against the sofa, slumped on the floor, looking at the three full boxes of Old Dad's belongings. She let out a long sigh, then recalled the scene she had seen at the old house earlier, mumbling with confusion.
"It's really strange. Even though no one has been there for so long, and nothing in the house has been moved, why is it so clean? It's like someone has been living there all this time, helping me clean."
As she spoke, her gaze swept over the cardboard boxes in front of her. She raised her hand and patted her cheek to perk herself up.
"Forget it, forget it. I'll deal with that later. Studying Old Dad's things is more important."
As she spoke, she leaned towards a cardboard box, tore open the seal with a "rip," and began to explore.
"'Dragon, Tiger, Leopard'? Uh, Old Dad, you've been single for so long, you must get lonely too. I can understand that."
"What is this stuff? Why do you have so many ticket stubs from Zhenwu Mountain Scenic Area?"
"'Is Writing Novels Really a Dead End?'... Old Dad, for you, it really was..."
As if having a conversation across time and space with her deceased Old Dad, Lu Yibei would mutter a few words to herself every time she took an item out of the cardboard box.
Several hours later, the sky had completely darkened.
Lu Yibei finally found a twenty-year-old black-and-white screen Nokia bar phone in a tin box.
After examining the phone carefully for a while, Lu Yibei plugged in the charger with a hopeful attitude. The moment the phone screen lit up, she couldn't help but praise internally, Nokia is awesome!
"Alright, looks like there's hope! Hehe, Old Dad, let me see if you have any unspeakable secrets!"
Lu Yibei muttered to herself, turned on the phone, and then fell silent as she saw the words "Please enter screen lock password" on the screen.
----
The next morning, in the dissection room underground ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ at the Huacheng Folk Culture Research Administration.
Under the bright shadowless lamp, on the silver metal dissection table, lay a corpse with a ferocious face. On its chest was a damaged black sun totem.
Its height was similar to that of an ordinary person, but its body was bloated and swollen. From the head to the torso, and then to the limbs, it was much larger than a normal person, and the total number of fingers and toes was 1.5 times more than normal.
Yes, it had seventeen fingers and thirteen toes.
Wearing protective suits, gloves, and special gas masks, An Qing and Jiang Li, fully armed, stood beside the dissection table, looking at the completely dissected corpse.
"Such severe black night disease," Jiang Li couldn't help but exclaim, seemingly not very concerned about the presence of the Eclipse Society totem on the corpse.
An Qing smiled bitterly and shook her head, "If it wasn't severe, it wouldn't have been sent to me, would it?"
Under normal circumstances, patients who died from black night disease, after being identified by the Night Watch Special Operations Team stationed in hospitals, would be handled by the patient's family themselves.
However, this corpse today was too special. Not only was the condition extremely bizarre and severe, but it was also an Eclipse Society member.
Jiang Li didn't continue the conversation but silently opened the notebook in her hand, preparing to start recording and creating a file.
Seeing this, An Qing shrugged, turned on the smart speaker placed next to the dissection table, and as the stirring heavy metal rock music began to play, she took a The Lancet from inside her white coat and began the dissection.
However, as the tip of the The Lancet cut through the corpse's skin, An Qing frowned and let out a soft exclamation. Her rich dissection experience and the keen insight into flesh and blood granted by the Spirit Mark, comparable to a precision machine, made her detect an anomaly the moment she made the cut.
"Huh?"
Jiang Li looked at An Qing and asked softly, "Is something wrong?"
"Yes," An Qing nodded, "His skin is too strange."
"Normal human facial skin is thin and soft, and elastic, but this corpse's skin is very tough and extraordinarily thick, almost like cowhide."
Jiang Li glanced at the corpse on the dissection table and said seriously, "Looking at his condition, he was almost turning into a Strange Tale before he died. It seems understandable that his skin would become like cowhide, right?"
"No, no, this thickness of his skin is not normal thickness," An Qing said, leaning down and using the The Lancet to slightly enlarge the incision. Then she picked up a toothed forceps from the tray beside her and lifted the edge of the incision.
Under the slightly lifted skin, two layers of skin were seen adhered together by dense blood vessels and fascia.
Jiang Li froze for a moment, looked at An Qing, and said, "There are two layers?"
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"That's right, two layers, and they are relatively independent layers. This is quite interesting," An Qing said with a smile, "I have a bold guess, I don't know if it's correct. Just be quiet for a while, I'm going to do something a bit graphic next, and I'll tell you after I'm done."
Hearing this, Jiang Li nodded slightly and stepped aside.
This step of peeling the skin was not particularly difficult, and An Qing was an experienced veteran. Accompanied by rhythmic, slight tearing sounds, she quickly and perfectly peeled off the epidermis and placed it on a plate beside her.
After adjusting her state slightly, An Qing concentrated and continued the dissection. With the enhancement of her Spirit Mark ability, she quickly separated various tissues with just a The Lancet, leaving only a skeleton.
And then...
Looking at the dissected corpse, both of their expressions became solemn simultaneously.
Inside the opened corpse, they saw a terrifying sight: two complete sets of ribs overlapping one above the other, and the fascia, bones, and muscle tissue under the skin of the arms and legs were also double that of a normal person, twisted and overlapped, with the left leg and right hand being particularly severe.
The corpse's organs showed varying degrees of hyperplasia, and even though all the organs had necrotized, the tumor-like hyperplastic tissue on the heart was still faintly beating.
The entire corpse looked as if another person was trying to grow out of its body, from the inside out.
----
Concerned about the contents of Lu Ming's phone, Lu Yibei barely slept all night. She left early in the morning, ran across half of Hua City, and finally found a master who could unlock old mobile phone passwords in a nearly bankrupt second-hand phone market.
Unlocking the password would take a lot of time. After leaving the phone at the market, Lu Yibei received a call from Professor Ma urging her to submit her thesis and rushed to school.
Huacheng Institute of Technology.
In an ordinary office in the Liberal Arts and Science Building, through the clean glass window, one could see Sakura Avenue under the bright sunlight outside the window.
In early spring, the rain carried the breath of spring. On the cherry blossom trees washed by the fine rain last night, a hint of lovely light pink peeked through the new green leaves.
At this moment, in the office, Professor Ma sat sternly in the chair behind his desk, frowning at the thesis Lu Yibei had submitted. There was unconcealed excitement flickering in his eyes.
After a long while, he put down the thesis in his hand and let out a long sigh, his expression as satisfied as if slightly tipsy after drinking a pot of aged wine. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
"Lu Yibei, I didn't expect you to improve so quickly. This thesis is almost as good as my level when I was young. 'The Transition from Fertility Worship to Marriage Worship'? Hmm... from instinctive cognition to emotional cognition, from primitive totems to concrete deities, this entry point is very good!"
"Professor, you flatter me. I was able to write it thanks to the help of Old Mr. Liu and his granddaughter," Lu Yibei said modestly.
Instead of a thesis, it was more like a memoir, a memoir recounting the process of Ju Meng's birth from Turtle Elder's perspective... Lu Yibei added in her heart.
"Very good. How about I revise it for you first, just like last time, and then send it for publication?"
"No problem!" Lu Yibei replied.
Nowadays, she was no longer the same Lu Yibei as before. The history of her skin thickness growth could be described with a book title - "How the Steel Was Tempered."
Therefore, even if she published the thesis she had cobbled together to deal with Professor Ma, she wouldn't feel even the slightest bit of shame.
It's just that...
"It's just that, publication is fine, I just beg you, please don't pull me in as an assistant again or join any strange project research groups."
I still want to live for a couple more years... Lu Yibei secretly added in her heart.
Survival instinct maxed out.gif freewebnøvel.com
The first time she researched bamboo slips, she created a Great Serpent God. The second time she researched East Yi culture, she encountered the Taoyuan turmoil. Each time was more dangerous than the last.
Lu Yibei always felt that if this pattern continued, something major would likely happen next time.
If it involved a Calamity level Strange Tale like Smelly Girl, who could still be reasoned with and talked to, it would be fine.
But if it attracted some evil god who wasn't quite right in the head, then nobody would know how they died.
"Don't worry, don't worry!" Professor Ma said with a smile, waving his hand, "After I came back, I told your teacher's wife about my experience in Tang City this time. She has now forbidden me from participating in projects outside the city. I have recently shifted my research focus to existing literature."
"That's good," Lu Yibei breathed a sigh of relief.
Although Professor Ma had incredibly good luck, he couldn't withstand repeatedly wandering on the edge of death! What if he slipped one day? Lu Yibei still hoped that her Teacher would live well.
"Look, this is an ancient special script stone tablet that I'm currently researching," Professor Ma said, bringing up the stone tablet's rubbing on the laptop in front of him and turning the screen towards Lu Yibei.
"This was picked up by a hiker near Qinghai Lake not long ago."
Lu Yibei glanced at the image of the rubbing displayed on the screen. Her eyes instantly felt a faint burning sensation, and a strange humming sound, like giant rocks continuously falling into a valley, appeared in her ears. In a trance, she felt a pair of eyes, devoid of any emotion, peeking at her from a distant direction.
"Bang!"
Seeing that she was about to be locked onto by those eyes, Lu Yibei closed the laptop without thinking.
"..."
My goodness, what kind of ghost stone tablet is this?
Just looking at the image of the rubbing through the computer screen triggered a danger warning?
Lu Yibei thought, then looked at Professor Ma, directly into his eyes, and said solemnly, "Professor, have you considered changing your research topic, oh no, changing your job?"
"Have you ever wondered why you always manage to come up with such terrifying things?"
"..."
That shouldn't be the case. I clearly tossed the copper coins, and the result showed no life danger! Professor Ma thought.
----
By the time Lu Yibei came out of Professor Ma's office, it was already mealtime.
She left the Liberal Arts and Science Building and went to the cafeteria, bought three side dishes that looked decent, devoured them, and just found a corner seat to sit down when her phone vibrated, receiving a message from Jiang Li.
Jiang Li: "Lu Yibei, come to the Huacheng Folk Culture Bureau before 1:30 PM. Sister Qing dissected the corpse of a black night disease patient this morning and found something strange. Everyone needs to have a short meeting."
Since getting the opportunity to go to the Si Ye Hui Headquarters for Spirit Mark advancement, Jiang Li had been intentionally or unintentionally guiding Lu Yibei to participate in various Night Watch activities.
Even she herself was unsure when the Headquarters would fully collect the materials for Spirit Mark advancement. It could be several years from now, or it could be tomorrow.
To prevent her work from stagnating if she suddenly left Hua City, it was necessary to find someone trustworthy to take over.
If she could keep Lu Yibei busy handling the Hua City Si Ye Hui archives during the day and busy handling the King of Weird Tales's work at night, he wouldn't have time to cause trouble and could obediently wait for her return in Hua City.
This was Jiang Li's truest thought.
Lu Yibei: "Got it, I'll head over after eating."
After replying to Jiang Li's message, Lu Yibei finished her lunch like a whirlwind, left the Huacheng Institute of Technology, and rushed towards Peony Street.
