SIATOWITF Chapter 40
by Volare“Researcher… Aren’t you…”
“Yes, Mr. Ji. After noticing the strange snake appearing by your side, I immediately disguised my identity, using the name Little Mu, and stayed close to the stylist.” Tang Lin looked at the beautiful silver totem on the curtain beside him.
“Firstly, it was to verify the strange snake’s identity and origin. The details of that tattoo perfectly match the Star Moon totem fragments we repaired before. Completing the totem is a significant advancement in our research.”
“Secondly, it was to preliminarily determine the strange snake’s abilities. I tentatively said some things to you, and as expected, the strange snake controlled me the moment I opened my mouth, preventing me from saying anything else…”
“Wait…” Ji Mo An raised his hand to stop him. “Exactly how many people have you arranged around me?”
“You, Lin Mo, so that means…”
“The stylist, Ye Zi, is just an ordinary person, Mr. Ji. Please rest assured that Bai Yan has no connection to us.” Tang Lin answered with a smile.
“…” I’ll give Bai Yan a raise when I get back.
“Oltry was also someone you arranged.” Ji Mo An said a name, his tone extremely certain.
“…”
“Yes.” Tang Lin nodded. “But not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oltry was attacked by the strange snake a few days ago and has now returned to France and submitted a report to withdraw from the Star Moon Project. No one knows what the strange snake did to him.”
“He wasn’t entirely one of our people. That guy was forced in by a foreign government, and his actions weren’t completely under our control.” Lin Mo continued from where Tang Lin left off. He snorted and walked to the side to turn on the computer.
“The strange snake is definitely not alone; Star Moon is more powerful than we imagined.”
“Can you guys first tell me what exactly Star Moon is?” Ji Mo An rubbed his temples, suddenly regretting showing off earlier by saying he didn’t need a break.
“…” The people around him suddenly fell silent. They looked at each other before everyone’s gaze finally landed on Tang Lin.
“I don’t know.” Tang Lin coughed, his voice noticeably quieter.
“You don’t know?” Ji Mo An never expected that answer.
He had even mentally prepared himself for the possibility that Xuan Bai was a big bad guy.
“Star Moon… it should be an organization, but we know too little about it, not even the tip of the iceberg.”
“The Seventh Control Bureau has existed since the Republic of China era. At that time, we mainly dealt with supernatural events. Later, we discovered some members of Star Moon. They appeared all over the Earth, and abnormal events were more or less related to them.” Tang Lin sighed.
“We had a definite concept of it twelve years ago, with the birth of the Seer and the Reborn.”
A nonchalant male voice suddenly interjected from behind. What was seen even faster than the person was a long cane.
“No need to be so pessimistic. At least we’ve confirmed it really exists… Oh, Old Master Wei is here too. Want to buy a charm? A good luck charm, a peace charm… Oh, you definitely don’t need a wealth charm. Eighteen thousand eight hundred for two, take them all, definitely not ripping you off.”
The man who suddenly popped up was wearing a tattered leather jacket, with messy yellow paper charms stuffed in his pockets.
He swaggered over, tossed his cane at Tang Lin, and leaned back in the soft chair, crossing his legs.
“Yang Ji, why are you back so late?” Tang Lin tossed the cane back to him, dusting off his uniform as if there was dirt on it.
“Mind your own business where I go, you’re so nosy.” Yang Ji took off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of emerald green eyes.
“Kid, guess where people go after they die?” He turned to Ji Mo An and grinned.
Where do people go after they die?
Ji Mo An looked at the casual man, a sense of familiarity welling up within him.
It felt like he had seen him somewhere, but… he couldn’t remember.
But doesn’t a person just die when they die?
Just as he was about to answer, words Xuan Bai had said suddenly flashed in his mind.
[Maybe she’s still creating.]
[In another world.]
“…” Those two sentences, which he had dismissed as jokes, now firmly blocked his mouth.
Where do people go after they die…
“I don’t know.” Ji Mo An shook his head.
“Boring answer.” Yang Ji rolled his eyes. He grabbed his cane and slammed it hard on the ground.
A light blue powder instantly spread in the air, sparkling like beautiful stars.
The cane, covered in silver ornaments, gently stirred in the powder, and a human body gradually formed.
“A person.”
He stood up.
“The human body serves as a vessel, the will as the essence.” The cane slid out of the body, carrying out a shimmering blue mist.
“When a person’s physical body dies, the soul dissipates into the world, leaving only a core of the heart. The dissipated spiritual energy nourishes the world, while the heart core enters reincarnation, waiting for rebirth.”
The cane tapped the blue mist, and the mist suddenly dissipated, leaving a round ball radiating a soft white light.
“Kid, the stories left behind by our ancestors aren’t all made up, but most people only treat them as jokes.”
“But!” Yang Ji’s tone changed abruptly.
“With the continuous emergence of ability users, with the advancement of technology and the continuous increase of supernatural events, we have discovered that not all heart cores enter reincarnation. Some heart cores are taken by mysterious forces to unknown places.”
“We have currently tracked down individual supernatural creatures bearing the silver Star Moon totem, so we call that organization [Star Moon].” Lin Mo was still on the computer, his hands moving quickly across the keyboard, unlocking encrypted documents one by one.
“That’s right.” Yang Ji nodded. “Those lost heart cores have not re-entered reincarnation, which means that the people who should have been reincarnated are trapped in unknown places.”
“An An.” Mu Nanyuan gently patted Ji Mo An’s shoulder. “In our country alone, the number of people who die each year is ten million.”
“What we fear is not only Star Moon stealing the heart cores of the dead, but also the possibility that they kill people who shouldn’t die for the sake of the heart cores.”
“Yang Ji is a psychic. He once burned ten years of his life to glimpse a corner of those lost heart cores.”
“I once saw countless young heart cores captured by stars, and their causes of death were mostly accidents. Car accidents, drowning, fires… Young and vibrant lives passed away like this, leaving countless unsolved cases. Some coincidences may have been deliberate.” Yang Ji widened his eyes, and strange patterns appeared in his emerald green pupils.
“An An, young people are the pillars of the country, the future of the nation.” Ji Mo Lin turned around, gently wiping away the tears from the corners of his eyes.
“Six years ago, that car accident was definitely not accidental. My child was so outstanding; they targeted you, they wanted you. An An, if Grandpa hadn’t insisted on sending you for rescue, how would the medical staff have discovered the strange snake in your chest cavity.”
“We believe that Star Moon’s theft went wrong, which aroused the high attention of the Seventh Bureau, and we immediately established a task force.” Tang Lin also walked over. “Mr. Ji, and the injury on your forehead…”
Ji Mo An subconsciously touched his forehead.
“Your wound was not caused by the car accident, but formed during the treatment surgery two months after the accident.”
“We can be sure that you have been to Star Moon.”
“During the two months you were in a coma, you kept speaking languages we couldn’t understand. You fell into nightmares, your soul twisted into a knot inside your body, and began to wither again. So we had to perform surgery on you, cutting off a part of your soul. On the third day after the surgery, you woke up, and all indicators returned to normal… Lin Mo, are you done yet?”
“Almost.” Lin Mo’s hands were already a blur, “They added twelve locks to the audio, it’s very troublesome.”
“Actually, I set them.” Yang Ji yawned and suddenly raised his hand.
“Huh?” Lin Mo, whose forehead was covered in sweat, abruptly raised his head and stared at Yang Ji.
“How would I know it was you who was unlocking it? I thought Tang Lin was doing it. All he does all day is find things for me to do, so it’s normal for me to add some trouble for him.” Yang Ji said matter-of-factly.
“You’re sick.” Tang Lin’s gentle expression instantly collapsed for a moment.
“Unlock it for me!” Lin Mo walked over holding the computer, directly shoving the screen into Yang Ji’s face.
“This… this can’t be blamed on me, it’s purely your bad luck, this is Tang Little Mu’s computer.” Yang Ji muttered as he tapped the computer a few times, quickly entering the hidden passwords for the last few locks.
“Hey, Lin Mo, why don’t you buy one of my transfer charms, here, colleague price, eight hundred and eighty-eight to take it away.”
“You…” Lin Mo opened his mouth and let out a breath of air. He put the computer in Tang Lin’s hand and walked to the side, covering his face.
“Mr. Ji.” Tang Lin was still trying to maintain his smile. “Because you’ve only just started getting in contact, we can only play a short audio clip for you for the time being.”
Old Master Wei stood aside, shaking his head, quickly walking towards the door.
“Your grandfather can’t listen, he’ll start crying again if he does.” Mu Nanyuan watched him close the door before pressing the play arrow.
A discontinuous sound came from the computer. The syllables the sound uttered were very blurred, seemingly all squeezed out of the throat, carrying a strong sense of suppression and pain.
That was indeed his voice, Ji Mo An thought with a start.
But this voice… the languages he was speaking…
It was familiar, he had heard it from Xuan Bai.
“At that time, you were in a lot of pain. But your grandfather and I were helpless. We didn’t know what you were going through, we only knew that Star Moon was making you so miserable.” Mu Nanyuan clenched his fist, his voice also stained with a bit of pain.
“So, no matter what the cost, we can’t let you be captured by Star Moon again!”
“Child, they’re getting more and more rampant. You’re the first victim in the family, but not the last.”
“We’ve already lost one child, we can’t lose you again.”
“Grandpa… what does this mean?” Ji Mo An looked in disbelief at the old man facing him.
“Your Cousin Xuan’s younger brother, also my youngest grandson, Mu Chen. You’re not familiar with him, but Xin Xin liked him a lot when she was little, always pestering him to play with her.”
“That day on the cruise ship, Cousin Mu Xuan told me…”
“Yes, Grandpa knows.” Mu Nanyuan nodded. “That child has been on the border since he joined the army and rarely comes back. But Grandpa is also a soldier, and it’s easy to know his whereabouts.”
“Three years ago, he had an accident during a mission and disappeared with a child surnamed Ning. Grandpa didn’t dare tell anyone and used all means to find his trace. But there was nothing… disappeared, not even a piece of clothing could be found.”
“That year, Yang Ji spied on the heart cores, and I begged him to also take a look at whether my child had been reincarnated.”
“The answer was no, his heart core was missing, just like those other young people.” Yang Ji rubbed his eyes and put his sunglasses back on.
“Yes, we have almost confirmed that he was taken away by Star Moon. So Grandpa paid more attention to your protection.”
“But later, he suddenly came back. He called your uncle, saying that he had a holiday for the Lunar New Year, wanted to go home, and even wanted to bring another person back.”
“I immediately contacted the military, but everyone said that he had always been there. Even those who helped me investigate his disappearance said that he had never disappeared. Except for me and the Seventh Bureau, no one knew that he had disappeared.”
“An An, Grandpa’s first reaction wasn’t doubt or joy, but…”
The elderly man lowered his eyes, his hands covered with thick calluses trembling uncontrollably.
“Grandpa was afraid, afraid that the child who came back was no longer my child, afraid that Star Moon would come in his body and take you away again.”
“He… so Cousin Xuan told me that he felt that the person who wasn’t a human…” Ji Mo An was a little uneasy.
“He is definitely a member of Star Moon.” Tang Lin flipped through a photo.
The photo showed a young man with black hair and black eyes. He was wrapped in a thick scarf, half of his face hidden in the shadow of the down jacket.
“Mr. Mu Xuan’s intuition is very accurate. Although he looks no different from a normal human, he reveals a non-human feeling everywhere.”
“We also stepped up our care for you from that day on. Oltry sent you roses for three consecutive months, also to take the opportunity to confirm whether you were safe.”
“Hmm, those roses were all coated with gold powder I personally made, although it’s not very useful, it can at least be used for identification. But that kid Oltry really took a fancy to you, and took advantage of his position to become more and more excessive. Your Grandpa directly had him roll back to France, hahaha.” Yang Ji collapsed in the chair and burst out laughing.
“Our care continued until the appearance of the strange snake, so we were able to do all the preparatory work in the first time.” Tang Lin nodded. He walked back into the house and came out with a tray after a while.
On the tray was a piece of clothing, a blue suit jacket.
“This is Xuan Bai’s clothes.” Ji Mo An recognized it at a glance.
“We carried out the operation to capture the strange snake on the cruise ship. Grandpa and your grandfather originally planned to take you and Xin Xin to the Seventh Bureau for protection after the capture was over, but an accident happened in the middle.”
“Someone intercepted and snatched the strange snake away.”
“Snatching away?” Ji Mo An immediately thought of Xuan Bai saying that he was taken away by a bird.
“I saw a person with wings flying in the sky at the fireworks show.”
“It’s a Winged Person from the NHE Association.” Tang Lin said immediately.
“They intercepted the strange snake and took him back to their base. The only good news now is that the strange snake was already in a coma before seeing us, and even if he wakes up, he may think that the NHE Association caught him.”
“…” Ji Mo An pursed his lips, but Xuan Bai ran away from the birdman and is now in his room.
And before he left, he sealed him in a wooden box wrapped in several layers of plastic wrap.
Should he tell Grandpa… Ji Mo An clenched his fist, his nails digging deeply into his flesh.
But he promised to give Xuan Bai a chance to explain…
If it was him, Xuan Bai would most like to lean on him, be taken to various places, without even needing to design a capture.
But…
Is Xuan Bai really trying to harm him?
“…”
“Grandpa, I… have something to say.”