“Are you going in?” Elvira asked.
“Yes,” Jiang Ming nodded. At this hour, the cafeteria was clearly serving late-night snacks for field personnel. After the fierce battle on the rooftop, his stomach was already empty.
Hearing this, Elvira handed over a card. It was made of a special material, simply printed with the two words “Jiang Ming.”
“Your temporary meal card. With this, you can eat in the internal cafeteria,” she said, pulling out an identical card for herself, the corners of her mouth curling slightly. “Thanks to you, the Director granted me temporary authorization as well.”
As they pushed the door open, the aroma of food and the cacophony of voices rushed toward them. The two of them selected their meals and found a seat near the edge of the room.
Jiang Ming ordered a roasted steak, a piece of pudding, and a glass of bubbling soda. Elvira ordered much more than him, her tray piled high with food.
“I’ve finished my story,” she said, cutting a piece of meat and looking up at Jiang Ming, her eyes carrying a faint hint of inquiry. “Now, it’s your turn. Like you said — Equivalent Exchange.”
In her heart, the mystery of the man before her was far more intriguing than the simple need for a decryption specialist. She was truly beginning to feel curious about this man’s past and present.
“Me?” Jiang Ming stabbed a piece of steak, pausing to reflect. “I was born in a small town on the very edge of the Holy Moon Empire. It’s a place so remote it might not even be marked on a map. I’m a… fallen descendant of a fallen noble family.”
“The town is called Crow Town. My ancestors once followed the Duke Protector Jiang Ming to fight in the rebellion wars and earned military merits, which is how we obtained a noble title.” He took a sip of soda and continued, “My parents had high hopes for me. They believed I could revitalize the family and even surpass our ancestor’s achievements. That’s why they named me ‘Jiang Ming’ — the same name as the Lord Protector. They believed that names have magic and can carry their expectations.”
“That’s a strange logic for naming someone,” Elvira remarked, poking her meat with a fork as she rested her chin on her hand, watching him with interest.
“Yeah, it’s a strange way,” Jiang Ming twitched the corner of his mouth. Even he hadn’t expected such a coincidence to exist in this world.
“Later, they waited and waited. They waited until they were bedridden with illness, yet they never saw me awaken a Soul Source. Still, they wouldn’t give up. They were convinced I would have extraordinary achievements in the future, so they sold all our family property to trade for a recommendation letter to the Dome of Knowledge.”
“Then, I ended up here,” Jiang Ming finished, putting a piece of pudding into his mouth.
“A simple life,” Elvira summarized softly.
At that moment, Jiang Ming saw Elvia’s Spirit Body floating behind her sister, staring longingly at the roasted meat on the table like a kitten waiting to be fed. He couldn’t help but smile and waved her over.
Elvira clearly sensed all of this through her sister. She didn’t stop her, but simply looked at Jiang Ming and said softly once more, “Thank you.”
Jiang Ming placed a perfectly roasted piece of steak into his mouth. Instantly, a surge of satisfaction spread through his body. It was a shared emotion from Elvia; she was very happy right now. He smiled and continued:
“To be honest, after coming to Opas, I’ve slightly forgotten what my past life was like.”
“Why?” Elvira asked.
“Because the stimuli I’ve experienced in these short 3 days are more intense than everything in the first half of my life combined.” Jiang Ming set down his fork, his gaze falling on the rising bubbles in his glass. “This kind of impact makes me even start to doubt… if those dull days in the past really existed. After all, back then, I was at most a leader of the local kids, wandering aimlessly around town all day.”
***
When the knock came at the Director’s office door, Rex was buried deep in a sea of documents.
“Come in,” he said, looking up from the mountain of reports, weary shadows under his eyes. Since becoming a Beyonder, he had never been this productive — if “productive” meant being completely drowned by the endless paperwork from the Decision Room.
“Do these people really think Beyonders are perpetual motion machines…?” he grumbled under his breath while rubbing his temples.
“Director, you are a member of the Decision Room yourself. Is it appropriate to curse your own people like that?” Canary leaned against the doorframe, her tone carrying its usual aloofness.
“Am I the same as those people who sit in high towers drinking tea and debating?” Rex threw his pen onto the desk. “I’m the one doing the actual work on the front lines! It is only natural for a laborer to curse his unrealistic superiors.”
Canary didn’t respond. She walked into the office, placing a cup of steaming black coffee and a thin folder in front of Rex. “The preliminary assessment from the Internal Affairs Personnel Department regarding Jiang Ming is out.”
“What do they say?” Rex picked up the coffee and took a large gulp without even looking. To a person of the God-Enlightened rank, the scalding liquid was no different from lukewarm water.
“They raised several points of suspicion.” Canary opened the folder, her voice steady and emotionless. “According to Elvira’s description of the scene, Jiang Ming’s combat techniques are exceptionally experienced, and his tactical choices are sharp and decisive. This doesn’t match the expected performance of a newcomer who grew up in a frontier town and just awakened his Soul Source.”
“And the Personnel Department’s conclusion?” Rex arched an eyebrow.
“It is possible he is a soul rising from the ashes” Canary looked up, clearly pronouncing the term. “A Dead Soul.”
In this world, there were always people obsessed with immortality. Some of them sought not the immortality of the flesh, but the indestructibility of the soul.
Thus, when facing death, they would strip away their own consciousness and forcibly seize the body of another to gain a new life.
These people were known as Dead Souls.
Rex didn’t respond immediately. He slowly leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping lightly on the desk as his gaze fell on the eternally simulated night sky outside the Order Bureau.
Then, he smiled.
The smile was faint, but it carried a meaning that Canary couldn’t decipher.
He pulled a card from his drawer — a card that looked ordinary but was embossed with complex runes in a special hidden pattern — and tossed it toward Canary.
The card traced an arc through the air.
The moment Canary caught it, her gaze fell on its surface. A second later, her pupils suddenly constricted, and her breath hitched for an imperceptible moment. For the first time, a visible tremor appeared on that usually calm and composed face.
“Aila,” Rex’s voice was very soft, “go and ask her.”
The office fell silent. Canary gripped the card, her knuckles turning slightly white.
She looked up, meeting Rex’s eyes for a moment, and finally nodded.
“Understood.”
Canary’s steps as she left the office were fast, carrying a rare sense of urgency. The edge of the card pressed against her fingertip; it could only lead to one place: Sub-level 3 of the Order Bureau.
She stepped into the empty elevator, and the metal doors closed silently behind her. The moment she inserted the card into the reader, a faint mechanical clicking sound echoed from within.
She took a deep breath and reached out to press every floor button on the panel in sequence.
*Beep, beep, beep — *
With the final soft chime, the original array of buttons dimmed, and a brand-new, dark gray button slowly rose from beneath the panel.
“-3”
She pressed it without hesitation.
The elevator began to descend, but to Aila, it felt more like falling into some sort of viscous medium. Even the usual sensation of weightlessness was dampened, replaced by a deep, continuous humming vibrating through the walls. The light dimmed by a degree, and the overhead lamps took on a cold blue-white tint.
After an unknown amount of time — perhaps only dozens of seconds, perhaps longer — the elevator stopped.
The doors slid open.
What met her eyes was a curved screen that occupied nearly the entire wall. Complex waterfalls of data and constantly shifting geometric models flowed across the screen, and a ghostly blue glow filled the room. In front of the screen, a high-back chair turned around.
A girl sat in the chair.
She looked about 14 or 15 years old, her frame so slender it was almost fragile, curled up in the oversized chair like a nesting cat. Her shoulder-length hair was a soft moss-green, draped loosely over her shoulders with slightly curled tips. When she turned her face, the cold light of the screen illuminated her amber eyes. The color was like melted honey or aged resin — transparent, yet lacking warmth.
She held a controller in her hands, her fingers dancing nimbly over the buttons as the models on the screen were dismantled and reorganized. It wasn’t until Aila had sat in the chair beside her and waited for nearly 1 minute that the girl finally seemed to notice someone was there and slowly turned her head.
The moment their eyes met, she blinked, her face expressionless.
Aila skipped the pleasantries and took a photo from her coat, handing it to the girl. In the photo, Jiang Ming’s face appeared clear and calm under the cold light of the Order Bureau’s standard portrait setting.
“Alice,” Aila’s voice was very soft, as if afraid of disturbing something.
The girl, Alice, set down the controller and took the photo. she looked down at it, her moss-green hair sliding off her shoulder and covering half of her face. The amber pupils reflected the portrait on the paper.
The only sound in the room was the extremely faint hum of the data flowing across the screens.
After a long time, she finally looked up and handed the photo back.
“He’s very familiar,” she said, her voice light and soft. “I like him very much.”
She paused for a moment and then added, her gaze remaining on the photo as if looking at something else through the paper:
“A very clean soul. I like it very much.”
Aila didn’t ask where the familiarity came from, nor did she ask what she meant by like. She simply took back the photo and watched as Alice turned back toward the screens, her slender fingers resting on the controller once more.
“I see.” Aila stood up.
The elevator doors slowly slid shut. In the last sliver of vision through the metal gap, Alice’s curled-up figure in the chair gradually narrowed. The ghostly blue glow of the screens enveloped her, and her moss-green hair shimmered weakly in the darkness like a patch of silent moss growing deep underwater.
The doors closed completely, sealing off that world of blue and green.
The elevator began to rise, and a slight sense of weightlessness returned. Inside the room, it fell back into an absolute silence broken only by the low hum of data.
The models on the screen continued to rotate and combine silently.
Alice didn’t move. She continued to stare at the screen, her amber pupils reflecting the flowing code and geometric shapes. Those points of light flickered on and off, but they never truly reached the depths of her eyes.
After a long while, she tilted her head ever so slightly.
In those eyes that always lacked warmth, like amber frozen in time, a tiny ripple stirred, barely perceptible.
Her lips moved almost invisibly.
“Liar.”
The voice was so soft it almost merged with the hum of the screens — soft, yet carrying a certain childish stubbornness.
“You promised… you’d come to see me next month.”
“But how many years has it been now?”
As the last syllable fell, the room was once again left with only the sound of flowing data. She slowly curled up even tighter, her chin resting on her knees and her arms wrapping around her shins as she sank into the wide chair.
Drowsiness rose like a quiet tide. Her eyelids grew heavy, and the dancing spots of light on the screen gradually blurred and smeared, turning into a hazy wash of color.
She no longer resisted, letting her consciousness sink.
Before the last bit of clarity vanished, she remained in that curled-up position, like a small animal seeking security in its nest. In this room filled with cold blue light, she quietly fell asleep.
Her breathing was light and slow, her green hair resting softly against her cheek. The light from the screen flowed silently over her sleeping profile, flickering on and off.
In her dream, the man from the photo reached out his hand, just like the day they first met.