Embers Ad Infinitum

"Da Siming" and "Little Siming" are both legendary gods somewhere in the old world. They are in charge of human life and death.

And that place is called "Chu".

For Jiang Baimian, this is not an important thing, it just adds a little new content to her folk culture library.

What she cares more about is seeing the word "Si Ming" here and now.

Jiang Baimian once again turned his attention to the administrative director named "Zhao Danlin" and to the body that had turned into bones.

She hesitated to search the body's pockets.

After a brief hesitation, she made up her mind and walked around the desk to the corpse.

What she was thinking was that she had come here anyway and had gone deep into this whirlpool-shaped building, so what else could she not dare to do?

Since it is extremely dangerous anyway, it means you can choose whatever you want.

Jiang Baimian dug through the corpse's pocket, but only found a neatly folded plain square towel.

She checked the drawers of her desk and the filing cabinets next to her, but found no valuable clues and just jotted down a bunch of names.

None of these were researchers, either administrative, finance-related, or affiliated with Security Director Brian Stanley.

Jiang Baimian did not confirm repeatedly because she knew that time was very tight.

She turned around and walked out of the office, heading towards the administrative area.

After walking around for a while, her eyes suddenly solidified.

An office with the same layout as before appeared in front of her again!

The sign in the room also says "Director's Office".

Jiang Baimian slowly came to the door of this room and looked at the skeleton sitting behind the desk.

The skeleton was wearing a white women's shirt and corresponding black business attire, and a metal nameplate on the right chest with the words "Administrative Director: Zhao Danlin" written on it.

Seeing this, Jiang Baimian's scalp felt numb.

Everything happened again.

The next second, Jiang Baimian considered another possibility.

After careful recall, she roughly understood what went wrong:

She is lost...

She walked back to the borough supervisor's office!

Huh, it's not a ghost hitting the wall, nor is it space reset or time loop... Jiang Baimian was obviously relieved.

In this place where the electromagnetic environment is extremely chaotic, the time displayed by her electronic watch and military exoskeleton device is not accurate enough to make judgments based on it.

After calming down, Jiang Baimian once again used the magic weapon of "passing slowly, thinking twice and thinking twice", and walked towards the area connecting the administrative districts.

…………

"Winster Garland..." Shang Jianyao stood at the door of the room with the dark red door and repeated the other person's name.

Winston Garland didn't pay attention to his behavior, and still sat on the sofa, eating bear biscuits piece by piece.

"I've never heard of this name..." Shang Jianyao thought for a while and shook his head.

He looked at Winston Garland again and asked doubtfully:

"This is the spiritual world of 'Zhuang Sheng'. Are you one of his personalities, or a character in a certain memory?"

Winston Garland maintained a slightly honest smile:

"It's the latter."

"But as a character in a certain memory, how could you interact with me and ask questions and answer questions?" Shang Jianyao was quite puzzled by this. "Could it be that 'Zhuang Sheng' has implanted an influence on everyone in the memory?" Entering into a different way of thinking, a whole set of thinking?”

Winston Garland smiled and said:

"The characters in my memories may not be the same as your understanding."

"Then you have to make it clear. Do you want me to understand it myself?" The honest Shang Jianyao expressed his dissatisfaction.

Suddenly, a picture flashed through his mind, and he raised his hand to rub his chin.

Shang Jianyao looked at Winston Garland and said thoughtfully:

"I seem to remember why I thought you looked familiar.

"I saw a group photo in Cornyn Meath at the home of the executive son named Brooklyn Garland. The middle-aged man in it looked very similar to you.

"Haha, you and the old man have the same last name, Garland..."

Speaking of this, Shang Jianyao suddenly paused.

His pupils suddenly dilated, reflecting the figure of Winster Garland.

The next second, he blurted out:

"Are you the 'Twisted Shadow'?

"Are you the 'twisted shadow' of April?

"Why are you here?"

Winston Garland sighed, put down the bag of bear biscuits in his hand, and stood up slowly:

“If you keep going, no matter what choice you make, it’s not what I want to see.

"'Si Ming' once used you to contact me, but I still want to maintain the status quo.

"So, here I am."

Shang Jianyao didn't listen carefully to what Winster Garland was saying. When the other party uttered the first word, he had already twisted his body forcefully, stepped forward, and ran away.

This is called running away on the spot!

But every word Winster said shook the space, causing high-frequency tremors.

The light around Shang Jianyao dimmed instantly, as if he was covered by a huge shadow.

The airflow is visible to the naked eye, condensing into an invisible cage.

Not only that, the space near him was still curved, as if it was wrapping him up and reducing him to an egg.

Shang Jianyao used his abilities without reservation, trying to influence Winster Garland, but whether it was the "thought implant" he shouted out or the "hypocritical person" silently " was restricted by the curved space around his body and could not fall on Winster Garland.

When the space curved and the airflow condensed to a certain extent, Shang Jianyao's sensing range was compressed to the body surface.

Then he lost the existence of Winster Garland in his consciousness.

Bang bang bang! Zizzz!

Shang Jianyao alternately used the two basic abilities of "interference with matter" and "interference with electromagnetism", sometimes hitting the condensed airflow and curved space with a giant hammer, and sometimes creating electromagnetic storms.

——As an awakened person in the "Zhuang Sheng" field, after entering the "New World", his "electromagnetic interference" ability is getting closer and closer to "manipulating electromagnetism".

But whether it was the gathering of silver and white clouds, releasing thick lightning bolts one after another in the surroundings, or the forceful swing of the giant air hammer, they were like earthworms shaking a tree, unable to shake the approach of the airflow, and unable to stop the bending of space.

In a hurry, Shang Jianyao tried to directly interfere with the airflow and space, but compared with the "big wave" created by Winster Garland, the influence he exerted was like the spray from a water gun.

It took only two or three seconds for the condensed airflow to crush all Shang Jianyao's resistance and wrap up his body.

Shang Jianyao had no choice but to show his trump card and start shouting.

"Xiao Chong, save me!"

At this time, the curved space was about to turn into his coffin.

The Eighth Research Institute, at the end of the corridor, behind the iron-black gate.

In the tactical backpack next to Shang Jianyao's body, the "Angel of Life" necklace did not change at all, but the string of "Six Senses Beads" lit up with a faint turquoise light.

The faint light spread and enveloped Shang Jianyao's body.

In the spiritual world of "Zhuang Sheng".

Shang Jianyao, whose consciousness was collapsing, suddenly regained consciousness.

Then, he saw the turquoise light and the calmed air flow and space, and heard Winster Garland's cold voice:

"'Bodhi', are you also involved with 'Si Ming' and the others?"

The vicious Shang Jianyao didn't care to listen to the conversation. Before the others recovered, he ran towards the end of the aisle.

He must seize the time to put distance between himself and Winster Garland.

This is suspected to be the "twisted shadow" of April!

…………

Because the end of the administrative district was not too far away, Jiang Baimian did not get lost this time and reached his destination smoothly.

There are several conference rooms on both sides of the front aisle.

Jiang Baimian opened each room and found that there were only tables, chairs, whiteboards, projectors and other items inside, but not a single body.

"There were no meetings scheduled at that time that day?" Jiang Baimian scanned it and said silently to himself, "Then where are the researchers concentrated? In their own laboratory, or in the place downstairs guarded by security personnel?"

A place where signs of "unintentional illness" would appear whenever she tried to enter.

Jiang Baimian looked at the conference room next to him again, remembering the white walls, brown door, light white long table, a dozen matching chairs, hanging curtains and the row of windows opposite.

She kept going.

…………

Kick and kick, Shang Jianyao ran wildly in the "maze" until he was a little exhausted, and then he stopped. He held a vermilion door with his hand and panted to recover.

With a creak, the door he was holding was not closed properly and suddenly opened back, causing him to almost stumble and fall into the room.

After stabilizing his body, Shang Jianyao saw a bay window, and there was darkness outside the window.

At this time, a young woman sat cross-legged on the window sill. She had long black hair and was wearing a white dress. She had a beautiful face and a cold expression.

Shang Jianyao said doubtfully again:

"Have we met before? Why do I think you look familiar?

"Why do I feel familiar to everyone I meet? Are we really all brothers and sisters in the world?"

The beautiful woman raised her chin slightly and said:

"I am Jiang Xiaoyue."