196: Chapter 196 Mirror Spirit, You Should Go Back

Bureau of Anomalous Affairs, Technical Division.

The sound of the Keyboard typing was like a dense downpour.

Chen Xiaobei's eyes were bloodshot.

He was shuttling between countless jumping windows.

All consumption records, communication base station trajectories, and private likes on social media.

These fragments were being forcibly pieced together by the computer.

Lin Xiu.

The moment this name popped up, it was accompanied by an extremely clean resume.

Forty-one years old, an Advanced art teacher at Donghai Third Middle School.

City-level excellent teacher, has published many papers on art education.

But half a year ago, this resume came to an abrupt end.

Her husband, Liang Wen, was smashed to pieces in a chain-reaction car accident on the cross-river bridge.

Not even a complete corpse was left behind.

Gu Changan leaned back in his chair, looking at Lin Xiu on the screen.

The woman in the photo smiled very gently.

But that was half a year ago.

Chen Xiaobei clicked on the latest surveillance snapshot.

It was a picture of Lin Xiu before she entered the antique shop in Nanluo Lane.

Her face was sunken, and her skin showed a sickly sallow color.

The sense of alienation from the whole world in her eyes could make one's back turn cold even through the screen.

"Have you tracked the flow of funds?"

Gu Changan's voice was low.

Chen Xiaobei pressed the Enter key heavily.

"Found it, Director Gu."

"Three months ago, she sold the marital home she shared with her husband in the city center."

"The day after receiving the payment for the house, she split the money into over thirty transactions and deposited them into different private accounts."

"Behind these accounts are all so-called ability research institutes and medium studios."

"There are even a few that are illegal metaphysics forum accounts specifically set up overseas."

A screenshot was enlarged.

That was the last large expenditure.

A full two million.

The recipient was a middleman called 'Ancient Book Seeker'.

The transaction note had only four words: Wish Granted.

Subsequently, Chen Xiaobei pulled an electronic document from the backend.

That was the content of the hand-copied ancient book that Lin Xiu purchased.

The pages were yellowed, and the handwriting was messy.

It was interspersed with a large number of incantations and human meridian diagrams.

The core content was only one paragraph:

Mirrors are the essence of Yin.

Use blood as a guide, use thoughts as a prison.

Call its spirit, reflect its shadow.

The dead can return; if the obsession does not dissipate, the illusion will not perish.

Gu Changan sneered.

This kind of deceptive trick, yet it can precisely hook those desperate people.

"Old Wei, take your team."

Gu Changan stood up and grabbed the service pistol on the table.

"Go to Lin Xiu's house."

Donghai City, Xingfuli Residential Area.

The name here completely contradicts the current atmosphere.

There was a musty smell in the hallway caused by a long period of no one walking through.

Lin Xiu lived on the sixth floor, the top floor.

Gu Changan stood in front of the door, not choosing to break it down violently.

He could feel an extremely oppressive negative energy slowly flowing behind the door.

He raised his hand and knocked three times on the old iron door.

Heavy.

Slow.

The door hinge made a sharp, grinding sound.

The door opened.

A strong smell of burning incense mixed with the scent of decay rushed towards them.

Lin Xiu stood in the shadows.

She was wearing a loose trench coat, her hair tied up casually with a rubber band.

Her eye sockets were severely red and swollen, but her expression was unusually calm.

That calmness was the numbness after a certain huge goal was about to be achieved.

She looked at Gu Changan, then at the armed Special Police behind him.

No screaming, no panic.

"You came too early."

Lin Xiu's voice was as hoarse as if it had been rubbed against sandpaper.

"He hasn't fully come out yet."

Gu Changan stepped aside and pushed the door open to enter.

All the curtains in the living room were drawn tightly.

The light was so dim that the floor underfoot could not be seen clearly.

Gu Changan scanned the room.

[Eye of True Appraisal] automatically activated.

In this fifty-square-meter living room, there were glaring red dots everywhere.

All the floor mirrors, fitting mirrors, and even the television screen were covered by thick red cloths.

Under these red cloths, the parasitic threads of the Mirror Spirit were dense like a spider web.

And on the coffee table in the center of the living room, there was a small wooden vanity mirror.

That was the only thing that hadn't been covered.

Lin Xiu walked to the vanity mirror, her eyes instantly becoming gentle, even a bit crazy.

She reached out her fingertips and gently stroked the mirror surface.

Gu Changan looked at the mirror.

The mirror reflected Lin Xiu's haggard face.

But beside that face, the shadows were twisting violently.

The silhouette of a man was slowly taking shape.

It was a man in a suit, his face blurred, like an unfinished sketch.

But the aura brought out by that silhouette was extremely eerie.

"Is this the result you wanted?"

Gu Changan walked up to her, his tone stiff.

Lin Xiu didn't look up, she stared foolishly at the phantom in the mirror.

"He said he is very cold inside."

"That book said that as long as I look enough times and my thoughts are deep enough, he can return to this side of the mirror."

"Even if it's just a shadow, I still want to see him again."

Lin Xiu suddenly turned her head and stared fixedly at Gu Changan.

"Why do you have to interfere?"

"I spent my money, I locked myself in my own home, I didn't harm anyone!"

Gu Changan pulled a document out of his briefcase.

On it was a copy of a medical record from Donghai City Central Hospital.

He slapped the document heavily in front of Lin Xiu.

"You didn't harm anyone?"

"The owner of that antique shop in Nanluo Lane has now forgotten even his own surname."

"Twenty-three victims across the city are now tied up in isolation wards, giggling at the Void Realm."

"There is a sixteen-year-old child among them."

"Because he looked at that bronze mirror, he doesn't know which one is the real himself anymore."

"He shoved his hand into broken glass just to verify if the one in the mirror would bleed."

Gu Changan's voice resonated in the narrow living room.

"Your obsession is turning Donghai City into a concentration camp for lunatics."

"Do you think if your husband were truly alive, he would want to see you become this kind of poisoner?"

Lin Xiu's hand trembled violently.

Her gaze fell on the photo of the sixteen-year-old child.

In the photo, the boy's blood-stained hands and desperate eyes pierced her pupils like needles.

That was an instinct as a teacher.

A violent rebound after conscience had been covered by paranoia.

Her tears finally couldn't be controlled and hit the tabletop.

"I don't know..."

"The book didn't say it would be like this, he said it would only affect me..."

Lin Xiu covered her face, her shoulders shaking violently.

Gu Changan looked at her without a shred of sympathy.

There are many tragedies in this world, but this is not an excuse to reach out to forbidden power.

"Who sold you the ancient book?"

Gu Changan's voice returned to being steady, like a cold interrogation.

Lin Xiu raised her head, her face covered in tear stains.

"A man."

"He has no name, he said he is called 'Book Seller'."

"He waited for me at the cemetery entrance that day, and he said he could help me."

"That book... he dug it out from the black market, he said it was the most powerful one in his hands."

Gu Changan kept this name in his mind.

Book Seller.

Is this another Luck predator hiding in the shadows?

"You need to cooperate with me now."

Gu Changan picked up the small vanity mirror and handed it to Lin Xiu.

"The Mirror Spirit now treats you as its core energy source."

"It is consuming your vital Qi and converting it into illusions to deceive you."

"The man you want to see is not him at all; it's just a remnant electrical signal in your cerebral cortex that has been forcibly amplified."

"Look clearly, it is smiling at you, but that is mockery."

Gu Changan swiped his finger, brushing aside the messy hair blocking Lin Xiu's forehead.

Due to the long-term entanglement of obsession, Lin Xiu's forehead was already dark and bluish.

"Cover it with the red cloth."

Gu Changan's voice carried an unquestionable sense of command.

"Cover it with your own hands and cut off its signal."

"This is the debt you owe those twenty-three people."

Lin Xiu tremblingly took the red cloth.

She looked at the blurred silhouette in the mirror.

That silhouette seemed to feel threatened and suddenly began to shake violently.

A sharp scream came from the mirror, which only Lin Xiu could hear.

The voice was calling her name, with a shrill plea.

Lin Xiu's movements froze.

"Don't listen."

Gu Changan's hand pressed on her shoulder, and a warm spiritual power instantly stabilized her mind.

"That is not him."

Lin Xiu gritted her teeth, let out a suppressed sob, and suddenly covered the mirror surface with the red cloth.

At that moment, the whole room seemed to become lighter.

The flow of the sticky air accelerated.

Lin Xiu collapsed to the ground as if drained of all strength.

Gu Changan pushed an investigation cooperation form in front of her.

"Sign it."

"The rest of the matters will be handled by the state."

He turned his head to look at Old Wei.

"Take away the main body of the bronze mirror, we need to perform the final Seal."

He walked out of Lin Xiu's house.

The night wind outside blew on his face.

But this case was far from over.

That 'Book Seller' was the real source of the poison.