The three of us met up at the entrance to the pedestrian street in the new district.

  Alice and I lived right here in the new district; it took us less than twenty minutes to walk from home. Zhu Shi’s place was on the edge of the district, so she had to take a cab. By the time we arrived, she was already waiting.

  Alice was still wearing her cat-whisker mask. Even though she claimed not to mind being discovered by the Transcendentalists, she was still wanted for stealing firearms and ammunition. Hiding her face was probably just a precaution to avoid drawing that kind of trouble and interfering with our joint operation.

  The moment we met, Zhu Shi’s gaze went straight to Alice—more precisely, to the GPS bracelet still on her left wrist.

  Then she shot me a speechless look.

  Needless to say, Alice hadn’t taken the bracelet off yet. It wasn’t that I’d persuaded her to keep it on; she simply seemed to really like the first gift she’d received after crossing over, and I couldn’t find a good excuse to convince her to remove it.

  But Zhu Shi clearly didn’t see it that way. In her eyes, parading Alice around with the GPS bracelet still on probably looked like the behavior of some creep who’d given a clueless girl a “necklace” that was actually a tracking collar—then, even after being exposed, shamelessly continued flaunting the collared girl in public without a shred of remorse. Utterly brazen, utterly shameless, utterly depraved.

  I swear I had no such filthy intentions. I just hoped Zhu Shi could understand my predicament.

  This GPS bracelet was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. As Alice became more familiar with modern society, she’d inevitably realize that bright red band wasn’t just some ordinary accessory. When that moment came, how was I supposed to talk my way out of it? My past cleverness had turned into karma, and retribution could strike at any second.

  To keep Zhu Shi from saying anything awkward, I cut straight to business: “How’s Lu Chan’s divination going?”

  “Still a complete failure,” Zhu Shi replied. “We can only rely on whatever leads Alice manages to dig up.”

  Alice nodded. “I can take you to the place the anomaly frequents right now.”

  “Then let’s go,” Zhu Shi said. Almost immediately, her tone shifted with concern. “How’s your condition? The damage to your soul from that Great Demon shouldn’t heal so easily, right?”

  “I’ve been trying to use my blessing power to restore it, but injuries caused by a Great Demon are completely different from ordinary wounds. Physical—material—damage is easy enough to reset, but the soul level… that’s far more complicated.” Alice touched her chest lightly. “Still, it’s much better than it was a week ago. I can at least fight if I have to.”

  “Your restoration is time-reversal based, isn’t it? A Great Demon from the apocalypse can even affect time itself…” Zhu Shi thought for a moment. “Actually, there’s something I’ve been wondering about. If your spatial transfer works by sending you to places you’ve previously been, how were you able to teleport out of the hospital the moment you arrived in this era? You hadn’t been anywhere outside the hospital yet, had you?”

  “I don’t know,” Alice said, recalling. “At the time, all I could think about was saving my friend and getting back to the place where the Great Demon attacked us. But instead of sending me there, my blessing power dropped me onto the streets of this city… Maybe my power can’t send me to the future, so when it failed, it defaulted to a random teleport. Or maybe the original owner of this body had been on these streets before, and my power interpreted that as a valid destination.”

  “The original identity of your body really was a resident of Saltwater City,” Zhu Shi said, going along with her reasoning. “The hospital she was in is the same one my mother is in.”

  “Your mother?” Alice asked.

  Zhu Shi hesitated, then decided against mentioning right away that her own mother was also a soul-loss patient. Was she worried it would come across as emotional blackmail?

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  After a brief pause, she changed the subject. “Alice, the clothes you’re wearing today look almost the same as last night. Doesn’t Z have anything else you could change into at his place?”

  “I didn’t buy enough,” I said. “But you haven’t changed either.”

  Zhu Shi was still in her usual white blouse and black half-skirt, with the large black guitar case slung over her back. She probably did change clothes—just into identical outfits. Her wardrobe might be full of the same white blouses and black skirts.

  She seemed to genuinely like this simple style. But from what I knew of women, unless it was a uniform situation, most wouldn’t wear the exact same outfit every day even if they liked it. The “too lazy to think about what to wear, so just repeat the same thing” habit was far more common among men.

  The “soft and gentle Junior Sister Zhu” from my earlier impressions had clearly been an act. The real her was much closer to what I saw now: not a trembling girl hiding in the back during a crisis, but a warrior who would fearlessly behead her enemies.

  In some ways, she was even more “manly” than I was. She tried to shoulder as much of the anomalous incident responsibility as possible—even suggesting I stay out of this mission entirely while she handled it alone. When we were trapped in that labyrinth space, even knowing my power far outstripped hers, she constantly monitored my mood, trying to keep me from panicking and promising to get me out safely.

  Just like her gender-ambiguous title “Demon Hunter Zhu Shi,” beneath that ink-painting-like beauty seemed to hide sharp, indefinable edges. I couldn’t see her purely as a woman, yet at the same time, there was something strangely captivating about it.

  We kept talking as we walked. Alice led the way, guiding us toward the anomaly’s regular haunt.

  “Z, before you came here, did anyone from Luo Shan show up at your place or call you?” Zhu Shi asked.

  “No,” I replied, already guessing why she was asking. “Did you already report Alice to the higher-ups?”

  “Yeah. Normally, my faction would send someone to talk to you about soul-loss syndrome—ask when Alice could come in to help research a cure, that sort of thing…” She sounded puzzled. “It wouldn’t be strange if they showed up before dawn or at least called first. Why hasn’t anyone come?”

  Now that she mentioned it, it did feel odd. Surely her faction wasn’t bogged down in the same kind of internal red tape as the Transcendentalists, stalling every actual move?

  Thinking of the Transcendentalists reminded me of Alice’s decision last night to operate openly. I told Zhu Shi about it. After listening, she turned to Alice ahead of us and asked if that was really her plan. Alice nodded firmly. Zhu Shi frowned deeply for a moment, then relaxed.

  “…Alice’s reasoning makes sense. And even if something goes wrong, we could always try using your name as a shield,” she said to me.

  “My name?” I hadn’t expected that.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “You probably don’t fully grasp what someone of your level means in Luo Shan. Let me put it bluntly: as long as you’re willing to reveal your true power to the various factions, the only ones who could possibly outrank you in prestige are the Great Impermanences themselves.”

  “Even though I’m just one person?”

  “In Luo Shan, it’s not the strong who attach to factions—it’s the factions that attach to the strong,” she said gravely. “A true powerhouse is an army of one. Even alone, they constitute a faction in their own right. So Z, stop thinking of yourself as someone lying in wait. Start thinking of yourself as a powerful faction lying in wait.

  “I didn’t want to tell you this before because I hoped you’d eventually walk away from the anomalous world. But things are different now. From here on, you need to forge enough bonds in the demon hunter world, and I’ll help you with everything I’ve got. Having Alice fly your banner might actually serve as a proper debut—and it could protect her too. Plus, you need her to stay by your side anyway…”

  Alice, walking ahead, suddenly turned back, curious. “Z needs me to stay by his side? Why?”

  Zhu Shi realized she’d almost slipped up and coughed loudly to cover it. I jumped in immediately. “Because the past few days you were out there alone, I was worried sick. I couldn’t eat or sleep properly. Now that I’ve found you, I can finally eat and rest again.”

  “Exactly!” Zhu Shi chimed in, backing me up.

  “To worry that much about someone you’ve only known for a few days…” Alice seemed a little embarrassed and turned her face away. “You really are an incurable softie.”

  She actually didn’t suspect anything… though to be fair, I wasn’t lying. When I couldn’t find her, I really hadn’t been eating or sleeping well.

  “You don’t have to go so far for me,” Alice said. “If I ever become a burden, I’ll leave on my own.”

  “At this point, don’t talk like we’re strangers,” I said seriously. “We’re partners investigating the apocalypse together, aren’t we? Or are you still convinced I don’t believe in the end times? Or that even if I did, I’d just sit around waiting to die?”

  I possessed a divine seal fragment directly tied to the apocalypse and had made contact with No. 2—Little Bowl—in the apocalyptic era. From Alice’s perspective, aside from herself, I was probably the person who most believed in the coming end. She could no longer doubt my conviction.

  Sure enough, she was moved. “That’s…”

  “Let’s save the world together,” I said solemnly.

  She turned back again, studying my face with great seriousness.

  After a moment, she gave a small nod. “…Okay.”

  Perhaps only at this moment did she finally stop seeing me as someone she’d dragged into this mess—and start seeing me, at least tentatively, as a true comrade.

  Zhu Shi, clearly not understanding what had just happened, whispered to me, “Senior Brother Zhuang, you’re going to get divine retribution one of these days…”

  Don’t act like you’re innocent, Junior Sister Zhu—you’re in on it now too.

  I kept my eyes straight ahead.

  Some time later, we reached our destination.