After Wen Jin was knocked unconscious by her third uncle, her memories were a complete blank. When they woke up, they were already in a sanatorium in Golmud. Hearing this, I was already quite confused. This was too bizarre; it was clear that someone had kidnapped them while they were unconscious and locked them up there.

Based on Wen Jin’s account, I speculated that after her third uncle knocked them out, he would wake Wen Jin up, explain things, and discuss a strategy. However, Wen Jin did not wake up, which clearly indicated that something unexpected occurred after they lost consciousness.

“Wu Sanxing isn’t among you?”

Wen Jin shook her head, and I said, “That’s strange. Who kidnapped you?”

“It was ‘it,'” she said softly.

I had always been puzzled by this, so I asked Wen Jin, “What exactly is ‘it’?”

Wen Jin spoke more, took a sip of water, and slowly shook her head, saying, “I can’t describe it. This is something we discovered while researching the entire matter. How should I put it? It’s a kind of ‘power.'”

“‘Power’?” I frowned.

“After we survived, we speculated on the whole situation in that dark room from start to finish, but there were many connections we couldn’t piece together. In the end, we realized that throughout this entire matter, in many places, one person was missing.” Wen Jin tucked her hair behind her ear. “In other words, for this event to happen, just a few people definitely wouldn’t be enough. Yet, it did happen, as if there were an invisible person filling in those gaps. Moreover, the more we researched, the more we discovered that this person definitely exists, but so far, he has not shown any signs at all, almost as if he has no shape; he exists only in logic.”

She said seriously, “We refer to this person as ‘it.’ This indicates that besides Qiu Dekao, Xie Lianhuan, and us, there is another force intervening in this matter. This force is buried the deepest, hardly ever revealing itself, but its power is undeniably driving the course of events, which sends chills down my spine.”

Listening to her made me feel a bit uneasy, so I asked, “Can you give an example?”

Wen Jin responded, “Was the decoding method of the Warring States silk manuscripts really uncovered by Qiu Dekao? Is it possible for a foreigner to solve something so complex? And how did he know about the existence of the underwater ancient tomb? If no one had informed him of this information, he wouldn’t have come to China, wouldn’t have bribed your third uncle, and wouldn’t still be fixated on a goal that no one knows about. This is the first logical gap. And—”

Wen Jin straightened her back, puffed out her chest, and gathered her hair, allowing me to see her oval face. “It seems like all of us have lost the ability to age. All these years, we haven’t aged at all.” That pose was so beautiful that I was almost mesmerized, but she immediately let it down and shook her head, saying, “After we fell unconscious, someone must have done something to our bodies.”

I said, “Well, that’s a good thing. Many people dream of such occurrences!”

Wen Jin shook her head bleakly, “Dream? Do you still remember that thing you encountered in the basement in Golmud?”

I thought to myself, how could I possibly forget? I nodded.

“That’s what we ultimately become,” Wen Jin said. “The one you saw, that’s Huo Ling.”

I was taken aback. “What? That monster is Huo Ling?” I suddenly felt a wave of nausea.

Wen Jin continued, “After she returned from Tamuto, she started to change, turning into a monster.”

“This…”

“This effect of maintaining youth has side effects,” she said, looking at me and extending her hand for me to smell. I immediately caught a faint, very familiar fragrance—the scent of the old witch. “At a certain point, we will start to change, and within me, that change has already begun. Soon, I will become just like the monster you saw.”