143: There is only one truth

The clues for finding "Zhu Zicong" had completely gone cold. Standing on the silent street, Shen Mingyuan felt a cold sense of frustration intertwined with urgency.

Zhou Zihui's disappearance was like a drop of water merging into the ocean, while "Zhu Zicong" was like a ghostly smear of oil paint, brushed onto the surface of the truth yet impossible to grasp as a physical entity.

'The police must have already searched all the wilderness outposts he frequent. If he were there, he would have been found long ago.'

Shen Mingyuan thought rapidly, 'If he didn't go on his own, but was taken... taken by this mysterious Zhu Zicong... where would they go? A place where police and conventional methods are rendered useless...'

Outside the city? Deeper into the remote mountains? Abandoned facilities? But the range was too vast, no different from searching for a needle in a haystack. Zhu Zicong definitely had a purpose for approaching Zhou Zihui; this purpose might be hidden within the uniqueness of Zhou Zihui being a "Chimera," but what specifically? What do they need now?

His thoughts felt like they were sinking into a quagmire; the more he struggled, the deeper the fog ahead seemed. At this anxious moment, the phone in his pocket gave a specific vibration.

It was "The Forger."

Shen Mingyuan immediately took out his phone and tapped it open. Without any pleasantries, the other party directly sent a processed surveillance video clip and a set of coordinates.

The video was very short, the footage coming from a security camera near a suburban intersection. The timestamp was the early morning of the day after Zhou Zihui disappeared.

An old grey van with an unreadable license plate slowed down at the intersection, and the passenger window was rolled down halfway.

Although the image was blurry and the angle was poor, a profile shot was enough for Shen Mingyuan to recognize him—it was indeed Zhou Zihui! He looked somewhat listless, his head leaning against the car window, staring blankly outside, but at least he was alive.

The video then switched to another, more distant camera, capturing the van leaving the main road and turning onto a county highway leading toward the western mountains, where surveillance coverage ended.

The Forger: This is the last image of the target (Zhou Zihui) captured by public surveillance after his disappearance. The vehicle's final direction points toward the Wild Fox Ridge area in the west of the city. The terrain there is complex, with numerous abandoned mine shafts, forest farms, and natural caves, making conventional searches difficult. Signal sources (referring to electronic devices possibly carried by Zhou Zihui or the vehicle) also became untraceable after entering that area.

The Forger: High correlation with the "Zhu Zicong" you are investigating. Proceed with caution; a temporary "Abnormal Domain" may have formed in that area, or high-threat individuals may be present. Suggest full preparation.

The message was concise and to the point, yet like a lighthouse in the dark night, it instantly illuminated the direction.

Shen Mingyuan's spirits lifted, and his fingers quickly replied: Received, thanks. Moving out immediately.

He didn't choose to make a long-distance dash after transforming. He quickly used a mobile app to contact a car rental company that provided 24-hour service, briefly stating he needed a reliable SUV capable of handling unpaved roads, and specified the nearest handover point—a 24-hour gas station on the outskirts of the city.

In the interval while waiting for the vehicle to be delivered, Shen Mingyuan walked into the small supermarket attached to the gas station. High levels of mental activity and the upcoming unknown mission both required energy replenishment. He grabbed a few high-calorie chocolate bars, a bag of beef jerky, and two bottles of sports drinks, and quickly checked out.

Returning to the open space outside the gas station, he leaned against a lamppost, tore open the packaging, and ate unhurriedly, washing it down with the cold drinks.

He seemed relaxed, but his gaze frequently swept over the time on his phone and the navigation map, his brain still spinning rapidly, integrating all the clues.

About twenty minutes later, a black SUV drove into the gas station. The handover procedures were completed quickly. Shen Mingyuan placed a small tactical backpack containing the "twin stars" and necessary supplies on the passenger seat and set the navigation destination—a rendezvous point on the edge of the "Wild Fox Ridge" area.

The engine growled as the vehicle entered the highway leading to the west of the city. The night was thick, and vehicles on the road were scarce.

While driving, Shen Mingyuan integrated all the information in his mind: Zhou Zihui, the Chimera, the Blood Room, the fake Zhu Zicong, the van that last appeared, and the dark mountains ahead that had swallowed the signal.

Everything pointed toward an increasingly clear conclusion: this was not a simple kidnapping or escape; it likely involved the special "Chimera" nature within Zhou Zihui's body and some entity that knew its value and was attempting to exploit it.

"Zhu Zicong" was very likely the key.

The vehicle left the main road and entered a winding county highway. Streetlights gradually disappeared, and the mountain shadows on both sides grew thicker, like crouching behemoths. The navigation prompted that they were about to enter an area with unstable signals.

Shen Mingyuan stopped the car at a relatively open and hidden spot by the roadside. He needed to complete his preparations here.

He turned off the engine and got out. The cold mountain air hit his face, carrying the scent of vegetation and earth, as well as a faint, unsettling silence.

He walked to the back of the car, opened the backpack, and confirmed the status of the "twin stars" once more. Then, he looked up at the pitch-black silhouette of the mountains, where there were no lights, only deep darkness.

It was time.

He walked into the shadow of the car's body and raised his left arm.

With a press of his fingertips, darkness covered his entire body like flowing mercury. The dark red goggles lit up in the night, colder and sharper than starlight.

The "shadow" merged into the mountain shadows, silently leaving the road and heading toward the direction last indicated by the navigation—the "Abnormal Domain" warned of by The Forger—to begin his true investigation and tracking.

Relying on the active sonar and enhanced hearing integrated into the "shadow" helmet, Shen Mingyuan felt as if he had another set of eyes and ears in the darkness. Sound waves outlined the rugged terrain, dense forests, and even the movement tracks of some small animals. He avoided several locations that might have artificial traces (such as abandoned shacks) but no life heat sources, moving through the forest like the most patient hunter.

Finally, deep in Wild Fox Ridge on the edge of a leeward valley, the sonar feedback captured a clear, curled-up humanoid heat source. Simultaneously, his enhanced hearing caught intermittent murmurs filled with pain and fear.

Shen Mingyuan approached silently and finally saw the figure behind the shadow of a massive rock—it was indeed the missing Zhou Zihui. He was curled on the ground, head in his hands, his body trembling uncontrollably as he repeatedly muttered: "It wasn't me... it really wasn't me... how could this happen... I didn't want this... why..."

His voice was filled with the purest fear and breakdown of a teenager.

Shen Mingyuan stepped out from the shadows, his black armor and dark red goggles silhouetted in the faint moonlight. He spoke calmly with the armor's characteristic electronic-textured voice:

"Zhou Zihui."

The boy on the ground jolted violently, looking up like a startled rabbit, his face a mixture of tear stains and dirt, written with horror. "Who?! You... who are you?!"

"Someone who is investigating your classmate's death and believes you might not be the true killer." The electronic voice sounded steady, without obvious emotional fluctuations, yet carrying a strange penetrating power.

Shen Mingyuan simultaneously observed every subtle reaction of the other party. "But you are currently the number one suspect because you made a death threat in public and then disappeared."

"I didn't! I didn't kill him! I was just... I was just very angry and said some heated words! I really didn't kill him!" Zhou Zihui argued excitedly, tears welling up again.

"I know." The electronic voice remained steady. "The level of cruelty at the scene, that near-ritualistic arrangement—its calmness and... 'professionalism'—are completely inconsistent with your usual personality and abilities. That doesn't look like something an angry teenager could do."

Zhou Zihui froze, seemingly not expecting anyone to say that.

"But," the voice lowered slightly, the electronic texture making the words seem even colder and more certain, "this leads to another question. If the killer wasn't you, then who was it? Who has the ability and the motive to create such a scene and make you the perfect scapegoat?

Or... more directly, who can use your body to do things you absolutely could not and would never want to do?"

Zhou Zihui's eyes began to waver violently, as if he had a premonition of something utterly terrifying.

Shen Mingyuan did not stop; his voice transmitted through the armor with an indisputable, absolute logic belonging to a Detective:

"Eliminate all impossibilities, and whatever remains, no matter how unbelievable, must be the truth."

He paused, letting this sentence settle in the silent valley.

"And surrounding you, Zhou Zihui, all 'impossibilities' point to an overlooked fact—you are a Chimera. At the very beginning of life, a brother or sister of yours who failed to be born independently merged with you."

"No... this... this is impossible... that's just a medical..." Zhou Zihui's face was as pale as paper, and he shook his head violently. "Even so, there... there couldn't be another consciousness! Such a case has never existed in medicine!"

"Precisely because it doesn't exist in medicine, it is the 'remaining' 'unbelievable' one!" Shen Mingyuan's voice suddenly grew heavier, the electronic tone stirring a slight echo in the valley. "A conventional Chimera might just be a mixture of genes.

But you, Zhou Zihui, are an exception among exceptions. What merged within your body might not just be a portion of cells, but also... a portion of consciousness that never dissipated, or rather, a fragment of a Soul.

The 'talking to yourself' your father heard and those irrationally skillful actions of yours are the evidence!"

Zhou Zihui froze completely, even his breathing seemed to stop. He could only stare wide-eyed, listening as those words, like a sentence being passed, continued to ring out.

"When you issued that 'Death Declaration' out of anger, what you truly awakened might not have been your own killing intent, but this entity hidden deep in your body—an existence that shares everything with you yet possesses independent perception and an extreme survival instinct—the 'sibling' you have never met, yet have never been separated from."

The night wind blew through the valley, its wailing sounding like a mournful cry.

Shen Mingyuan's final words were clear and cold, like a final freeze-frame: "So, there is only one truth: the one who killed was not 'Zhou Zihui,' but 'him' using your body.

That room smeared with blood was not your anger, but 'his' ritual. It was 'him' using your hands to issue the most cruel declaration to you, and to this world."