Chapter Sixty-Three: The Divide Between the Extraordinary and the Mundane

“They were probably already recorded by surveillance while reading,” Chen Qing sighed, then looked up at the observation room with a hint of hesitation in his gaze.

“Is this… what you call offspring?” he asked Bu Zhaozhao quietly, worry evident in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“But she’s clearly forgotten everything related to the offspring.”

“Hm?” Bu Zhaozhao was puzzled. She walked over to the document, her fingertip lightly brushing its cover, causing it to float a few centimeters above the table.

“It wasn’t brought out by her?” After pondering for a moment, Bu Zhaozhao shook her head. “No… Tell me, what do you mean by forgetting memories related to the offspring?”

He took a deep breath, pointed at the document, and asked her, “Did you notice the description of the earthen building in the Yellow Sands is missing?”

Her expression grew grave. She nodded after flipping through the pages.

Meanwhile, in the observation room, the faces of those present grew noticeably gloomier.

“Look at that! I told you we shouldn’t let so-called folk experts interfere!” one jeered with a mocking laugh. “They don’t even realize their memories have been altered!”

Before he could finish his sentence, Jiang Wan’s face turned even colder. She snapped back sharply, “If losing my memories leads to consequences like this, then when I have my full memories—how many people do you want dead?”

Jie Hongbo’s expression changed, but he could only turn his head away, stammering, unable to retort.

She rubbed her brow… When exactly… did she lose her memories…

Was Chen Qing still hiding something from her?

She fell silent, her gaze fixed on the document.

“You must be carrying some intangible heritage item with you,” Bu Zhaozhao’s voice sounded in Chen Qing’s ear from the interrogation room.

“I am.”

“This document is useless now,” she said, shaking her head with a hint of regret. “You can seal it with Desiccated Blood Glass. Just prick it.”

Chen Qing paused, then casually concealed the wooden awl in his hand from his waist.

He shifted his posture, finding an angle hidden from the observation room, and gently tapped the document with the wooden spike.

“And then?”

“Check the last two pages.”

“Can they see?”

Bu Zhaozhao chuckled softly, “Let them. If they do, it’ll just be a nightmare.”

He nodded, opening the final two pages in front of everyone. On the paper in his hands, what should have been blocky characters now appeared impossibly rounded, their strokes swirling into spirals.

They moved in concentric circles across the page, endlessly spinning.

On the last sheet, the written text occupied only two or three lines. Below the words, there was a massive void, a hole so vivid it seemed to pierce the flat paper like a three-dimensional illusion—though you knew it was flat, at first glance it looked as if a hole had opened up.

“What is…”

“Empty?” Bu Zhaozhao smiled, her expression becoming more solemn. “That means it’s already escaped. Isn’t that thrilling?”

…

Half an hour later, in the conference room, Jiang Wan massaged her brow and asked Chen Qing, “When did you… alter my memory?”

“Do you remember us using the Dawn of Yin and Yang?”

Jiang Wan frowned, “I know… but… shouldn’t all my memories have returned?”

“That’s the subtlety. Do you think… the memories you’ve forgotten in your mind would be consciously separated by you?” Chen Qing looked at her and smiled. “I noticed your contamination issue in the back room and planned to erase that part of your memory with Dawn of Yin and Yang. What I didn’t expect was that even after losing your memories, you were still infected.”

“So… at that time, you, upon realizing everything, should have helped the person on the bed—the version of me with the memories of using Dawn of Yin and Yang—restore her memories.”

“But because that version of you held the contaminated memories, I chose to abandon her.”

Jiang Wan listened, her face growing more grave and uncertain. “But… according to the rules of Dawn of Yin and Yang…”

“You should have been reduced to a simpleton.” Chen Qing laughed, then added, “But I ‘recorded’ in the back room that everything under my influence would revert to its original state.”

Jiang Wan fell silent, shaking her head slightly. “Perhaps that’s why… that entity escaped.”

“No,” Chen Qing denied outright, his tone much more serious. “It can no longer be called an entity…”

Hearing his words, Jiang Wan was momentarily stunned, surprised. Before she could ask, a summons for the two sounded from outside.

They walked together to the adjacent conference room. At the main table, Jie Hongbo and Jiang Hongyun were locked in a heated argument, their faces flushed, unwilling even to make eye contact.

Upon seeing Chen Qing and Jiang Wan enter, the atmosphere in the room seemed to ease considerably. The emotions on their faces settled, and all eyes turned to focus on the two.