Chapter 39: Guard Him Alone? Me?

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Early morning, Other Shore Clinic.

Sunlight filtered through the half-drawn curtains, scattering across the white sheets. Li Guanqi lay on the hospital bed, his eyelids heavy, waves of stabbing pain pulsing through his mind.

A jumble of voices churned in his consciousness.

“From respiratory arrest to loss of consciousness: one minute.”

“After consciousness is lost, the heart can continue beating for up to three minutes.”

“My name is Twin Blossom. Don’t forget me...”

“We fought on the same battlefield. That makes us comrades...”

“Beautiful! We won!”

“Zero seven four eight! Zero seven four eight!”

“Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing frightening about death. Don’t let your sanity rate fall...”

“Bang!”

Li Guanqi’s eyes flew open. An unfamiliar ceiling filled his vision.

He gasped for breath, his chest heaving violently. Every breath felt as though it were scraping his lungs raw.

“Ugh... Where is this...?”

His voice came out with difficulty, his parched throat feeling as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper.

As his vision cleared, he realized that he was lying on a hospital bed, dressed in a patient’s gown, an intravenous tube inserted into his arm. Transparent fluid was slowly flowing into his body.

A bouquet of lilies sat on the bedside table, their petals already withered and carrying an air of decay.

Beneath the faint fragrance of flowers lingered the familiar scent of disinfectant—slightly sharp, yet strangely reassuring.

This... was a hospital?

Li Guanqi tried to recall what had happened before he lost consciousness, but his memories were shrouded in thick fog. Scattered fragments flashed through his mind, yet he could not piece them together.

All he could feel was the pain throbbing throughout his body.

Frowning tightly, he tried to sit up, but the pain in his head forced him to lie back down.

“Ah...”

Effort did not necessarily bring rewards, but lying down was certainly comfortable.

Crisp footsteps sounded outside the door, steady and forceful. As the handle turned, a female doctor pushed her way inside.

She was tall and slender, dressed in a well-tailored white coat. The collar and cuffs were immaculate, and beneath the coat, a pale-blue shirt could be glimpsed. There was a professional, intellectual elegance about her.

A name badge hung over her chest: Zhang Zhiyu.

“Where does it hurt?” Zhang Zhiyu asked, looking at Li Guanqi. Her voice was extremely cool, yet reassuring.

“Any discomfort? Dizziness, nausea, pain?”

As she spoke, she took out a tablet computer. With one hand concealed beneath it, she discreetly activated the recording, video, and defensive needle mechanisms. If the patient suddenly became violent, an anesthetic dart would shoot from the front of the tablet.

Li Guanqi paused before answering seriously, “I feel somewhat nauseated, and there’s a dull ache in my head.”

“My throat is dry, and my limbs are sore and weak...”

He gently pressed his lower abdomen and chest, frowning. “There’s also mild pain in my abdomen and chest...”

Then he pulled up his sleeve, revealing patches of red and purple bruising along his arm. He said mildly, “I was probably beaten.”

Zhang Zhiyu nodded and recorded his words on the tablet.

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“Have you ever suffered from chronic headaches?”

“No.” Li Guanqi shook his head.

Zhang Zhiyu tapped the tablet several times and was about to continue questioning him when the ward door was gently pushed open. Two men and a woman in white uniforms entered, all three radiating a cold, forbidding air.

“Investigation Team Two, Department Five.”

The man in front, Chu Chan, showed his credentials. Mickey, who wore a camera around his neck, smiled and nodded at Zhang Zhiyu.

Chu Chan stepped to the foot of Li Guanqi’s bed, produced a pair of handcuffs, and said coldly, “You are suspected of murder and smuggling uncanny cards. You’ll have to come with us.”

“He cannot be discharged yet,” Zhang Zhiyu said expressionlessly.

Understanding her meaning, Li Guanqi immediately cooperated, crying out theatrically, “Ah—my head hurts!”

“Ah... my stomach hurts too.”

He listed one pain after another. In any case, he had no intention of getting out of bed. The patient was king.

A body of steel.

A bed held together by magnets.

Zhang Zhiyu added, “I tested his sanity rate. It’s eighty-two percent. His symbiotic card shows signs of turning uncanny, but he slept peacefully through the night and displayed no abnormalities.”

That single sentence left the three agents of the Spirit Detention Bureau completely baffled.

It made no sense.

Normally, after a dual-shadow person suffered an episode and their symbiotic card began to turn uncanny, their sanity rate would plummet. Without suppressants, it was extremely difficult to recover afterward. Being able to restore oneself to fifty percent was already a blessing from heaven.

Eighty-two percent? It was as if he had never suffered an episode at all.

Chu Chan took half a step closer and asked coldly, “Between one and three in the morning, where were you, and what were you doing?”

“Between one and three...” Li Guanqi recalled. “Last night, I was riding back in the team vehicle when we were intercepted by a convoy. Then, around one o’clock, we got into a traffic accident...”

At that thought, he suddenly came to himself and asked anxiously, “What happened to Qin Dongzhu and the others?”

“They were resuscitated successfully and are out of danger,” Chu Chan said simply.

Li Guanqi let out a long breath of relief. “That’s good.”

Chu Chan’s brow furrowed as he pressed on. “What happened after the accident?”

There was something truly strange about this case.

They had received a distress signal at around half past midnight, but its exact location was unclear. They could only conduct a rough search, and by the time they reached the scene, it was already three in the morning.

According to Tang Xin’s statement, the accident should have occurred at around one. Qin Dongzhu and Lin Yu had both been shot.

That was where things became strange.

When they found the injured men at three in the morning, their bleeding appeared as though they had been shot only moments earlier—as if no more than a minute or two had passed.

The two hours in between seemed to have simply stopped existing.

When questioned, Tang Xin said she could remember nothing after that point.

Qin Dongzhu and Lin Yu were even worse off. They had yet to regain consciousness.

“After the accident...” Li Guanqi struggled to remember, a faint pain stirring in his head. “I think those black-car gang members beat me, and then...”

“I really don’t remember anything after that.”

Zhang Zhiyu cut in. “I found him at five in the morning. He was collapsed outside the clinic, and he had nothing on him.”

“Perhaps you should search his home.”

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“His home?” The female investigator named Le Tong stepped forward and asked softly, “Where is your home? Where are your accomplices... your friends?”

Li Guanqi’s expression darkened at once. “I have no home. Other than Qin Dongzhu and the other two, I have no friends.”

“What about your family?” Chu Chan asked.

“My father died a long time ago, of liver cancer,” Li Guanqi said quietly. “My mother suffered from depression for years before she passed away too.”

Even Chu Chan, whose face was as immovable as stone, could not help being affected by those words.

Le Tong leaned toward Chu Chan’s ear and whispered, “He isn’t a numbered citizen. What do we do?”

Numbered citizens had no such thing as fathers or mothers.

“Which part of the Satellite District are you from?” Chu Chan continued, still unwilling to give up.

Li Guanqi shook his head and remained silent.

“Did you kill the eighteen members of the black-car gang?”

“What was the murder weapon?”

“Where is the uncanny card hidden?”

“Who are you, really?”

He fired off question after question, his tone aggressive and relentless.

Li Guanqi could only keep shaking his head. He truly could not remember what had happened after that night.

Beside them, Mickey snapped picture after picture with his camera before suddenly asking, “How much attack power does Ubel have?”

“Zero,” Li Guanqi answered instantly.

“Discharge him!” Mickey shouted.

A vein bulged on Chu Chan’s forehead. He barked, “You go in there too!”

Vrrrrm—

A deep vibration interrupted the interrogation.

Chu Chan, Le Tong, and Mickey all turned toward the supercomputer ring. A message was displayed across it.

A person suffering an episode has been found on Sixteenth Street in the eastern district of the Main City.

Nearby investigators, proceed immediately and place the individual in custody.

Containing people suffering episodes was part of the Spirit Detention Bureau’s daily work. When necessary, agents could use shackle cards to activate a domain and begin a containment duel.

A sharp glint flashed through Chu Chan’s eyes. He instructed Mickey, “You. Guard him alone.”

Mickey pointed at himself, looking utterly bewildered. “Me?”

“This guy took out three opponents in a row during the league.”

“He’s suspected of tearing apart eighteen members of the black-car gang with his bare hands, and he’s also a Class-A suspect.”

He pointed at Li Guanqi, his eyes clear with confusion.

“I’m supposed to guard him alone?”