I bought the information "The Whereabouts of the Sheepskin Killer" from Adam in order to use the Sheepskin Killer as a living sacrifice, so it would be correct to say that I wanted to kill the Sheepskin Killer. But I never told Adam about my purpose, in other words, he just asked me "if I killed the sheepskin killer", which can be regarded as "using words to extract information from me".

I don't think he necessarily did it on purpose. It's like I've been in the black zone for a long time, and I don't consciously say tough things; Xu Shengxing has been a police officer for a long time, and he will unconsciously ask others as if he were interrogating a prisoner. As a businessman who buys and sells information, Adam has this unconscious "professional habit", and I can also give a certain degree of understanding.

But the question that followed him left me confused: Why didn't he want me to kill the Sheepskin Killer?

It's embarrassing that I've already killed people.

You can't tell me to spit people out.

"Regardless of my relationship with the Sheepskin Killer." I decided to start by asking, "Assuming I did kill the Sheepskin Killer, would it cause you any trouble?" ”

"I wanted to find the sheepskin killer and ask him something, which was very important to me." "So, if you've been buying intelligence to get revenge on him, then I'd like you to take a break." If you insist on seeking revenge against him afterwards, or decide to do another job, then I am willing to use my credit as a guarantee to provide you with a certain amount of free intelligence support as a gift for your concession. ”

"What are you going to ask him?"

"No comment."

I don't get angry when I hear that. For tipsters, there are so many things that you have nothing to say without money like mites on your pillow. Then I said to him, "Unfortunately, you called too late. ”

"What?" For the first time, there was a taste of shock in his usual indifferent tone, and there was even a movement on the other end of the phone to knock down something, "Did I hear it wrong?" I gave you information on where the Sheepskin Killer might be at about seven o'clock in the evening, but it's not even twelve o'clock before you've found him and killed him? ”

"If you call me before nine o'clock in the evening, you might still see him alive."

"This ...... Unbelievable. Seriously, who the hell are you? ”

"No comment."

I gave him this sentence back, and although I wasn't angry just now, I was inexplicably relieved now.

“…… All right. When he said these two words, his attitude was like accidentally hitting his head on the table, and he finally recovered, and after a while, he asked again, "If you can't ask him who is alive, he can't do anything, so you can only ask him who is dead." Where did you dump the body of the sheepskin killer? ”

Listening to this statement, it seems that he is a psychic medium, or knows a psychic medium, or wants to obtain some information that can be extracted using forensic techniques.

But I still can't meet his request.

"The body is gone."

"Did you use a chemical solution to decompose his body, or did you burn it to ashes? It's okay, just give me what's left, and don't tell me you're all in the river. ”

"No, I mean, it's all gone, there's nothing. You can understand that he was eaten by the air. ”

The truth is that the Sheepskin Killer has even thrown his soul and body out of this universe by me and has become a snack for the gods of the other universe, but I have no intention of stating the whole truth to Adam.

Adam was silent for a long time, and I guess it was hard to believe my words. After a while, he added, "Please wait a minute, I'll hang up first." ”

Three minutes later, he called again.

"I have a client who would like to meet you, do you have time tomorrow night?" After that, he added, "I'll be there too." ”

I didn't say yes right away, but said, "Tell me who your client is and what you're seeing me for." ”

"He's a guy investigating a local mysterious organization, and I don't know his true identity or the origin of that mysterious organization." "I'm also investigating the mysterious organization because of some stakes, and just half an hour ago, the client called me and told me that the Sheepskin Killer, the owner of an illegal garage who had neither significant psionic talent nor psionic training, would suddenly become a psyker one day, was probably related to the mysterious organization," he said. ”

"Can I understand that the mysterious organization has the means to turn ordinary people into psykers, and the sheepskin killers are psykers who have awakened through abnormal means?" I only picked out the parts I was interested in, and I remembered the anomaly of the gift of the Blood Sacrifice Ritual.

"You can understand it that way." He affirmed.

Whether it was the means of turning ordinary people into psykers, or the anomaly of the sheepskin killer as psykers, I couldn't take my eyes off, so I asked, "When and where?" ”

He let out a sigh of relief, then told the time and place.

I took out my daily phone, jotted it down in a memo, hung up, and glanced at the time.

It's late at this point, but I can't rest yet, and I have to re-examine the pages of the book that record the knowledge of the blood sacrifice ritual.

*

The next morning, I woke up from bed and groped my body for the first time.

Right eye, right arm, left foot...... All in perfect condition.

That's right, I've really regained my body, and what happened last night wasn't a dream, nor was it just a night's worst magic.

A year ago, I couldn't have imagined that just having normal vision and sound limbs would be so satisfying. Although the Blood Ritual didn't make me a psyker, even the result now makes me feel rewarded.

However, the good times were short-lived.

After a few hours, I finally determined that the blood sacrifice ritual had brought me not only the gift of repairing my disability, but also some sequelae on the level of consciousness.

From time to time, I still have hallucinations of "gestalt collapse", but when it comes to the strength of the symptoms, they are not as strong as they were during the ritual last night, at best, when I look at the chopsticks, I can't immediately recognize them as chopsticks, and when I pick up my underwear, I am at a loss for what this cloth is used for.

Perhaps it is difficult to visually understand what is going on just by telling it like this. For example, if a person with a poor score in English sees a common word, it takes a few seconds to remember the meaning of the word, but if a person with a good score in English sees a common word, the corresponding meaning will reflexively come to mind, with almost no in-between. In the past, when I saw a refrigerator, I knew it was a refrigerator, but now I only know that it is a large boxy container at some point, and it takes a moment to remember that it is a refrigerator.

This caused some trouble in my daily life, and this morning, when I went to the vegetable market to buy ingredients, I wanted the stall owner to cut the "carcass of an avian animal" and sell it to me, but I didn't know how to express it for a while. Fortunately, the stall owner was very understanding, and when he saw me pointing with his finger, he asked me if I wanted to buy it, and asked if I needed to cut it.

Later, I used this method to buy some "yellow plant rhizomes", "dark brown umbrella-shaped ingredients", and "white flower-shaped ingredients", and when I walked out of the vegetable market, I finally remembered that they were old hens, ginger, shiitake mushrooms, and white fungus.

Although this symptom does not appear frequently, as soon as it appears, it makes people feel like they are stuck in their throats. It's like planning to do something, but suddenly you forget what you want to do, and you want to remember it, but you can't remember it. Maybe even if I put an egg and beef burger in front of me now, I will have to spend two or three hundred words in twists and turns to describe what it is, and the people who listen to my description may not understand it, and they will blame me in turn: Isn't it just a hamburger, why is it so scary?

I had to choose to adapt to this after-effect first, hoping that it was only a temporary symptom that would fade over time.

Well, that's the end of the gossip, the aftermath of the above, in the final analysis, is nothing more than a laughable vignette, and although it may sound bad for me, it is not bad enough to make me lose my judgment at a critical moment.

Here's what really matters:

Last night, before going to bed, I re-examined the pages and found that the knowledge recorded on them, compared to the knowledge I remembered, was not at all a complete knowledge of the blood sacrifice ritual, and it seemed incomplete and fragmented.

That is to say, I thought that I had obtained a 100,000-word "Divine Skill Secret Book", and according to the secret book, I successfully "cultivated" and became a strong "skill", but when I picked up the "Divine Skill Secret Book" again to review, I found that this was not a "Divine Skill Secret Book" at all, and the length was not 100,000 words at all, at best, it was only a "martial arts novel" of only two or three thousand words.

But this is obviously contrary to the facts, since the ritual knowledge on the page is incomplete and patchworked, then why do I remember that I got the complete ritual knowledge from it, and even arranged the blood sacrifice ritual with real effect according to the ritual knowledge?

This is really ridiculous!

This feeling is simply that when I was reading these contents, the neural block in my brain that is mainly responsible for "associative power" was suddenly hijacked by some grotesque thing.

Then, when I see "fiery red", I automatically think of "warmth", "flame", "chili", "sunset", ...... Like other things, while reading these scattered contents, I gradually associated with a complete knowledge of rituals while checking and filling in the gaps through association.

In the end, from beginning to end, I didn't realize it, and I thought it was the content of a book.

What's even more ridiculous is that these contents are not only real, but also have a strange effect that poisons my consciousness, making me skip the process of verifying authenticity and safety, and directly take the psionic person to the blood sacrifice Hasta, which almost made me fall into madness, and even dragged into the abstract universe!

Suddenly, I think back to the time when I tried to explore forbidden knowledge in pursuit of psionic powers, and even though I couldn't find anything in the end, my ex partner solemnly admonished me: If general knowledge is beneficial and human beings must actively spend time and energy to pursue, then forbidden knowledge is harmful, and will not wait for you to chase him, but will actively pursue you on its own initiative - and eventually drag you into a situation where life is worse than death.

Now I have to admit that he was right.

*

At a quarter past four in the afternoon, I called Xu Shengxing as usual and asked him if he was coming home for dinner.

"I'm sorry, I can't take a break lately, maybe I'll have to sleep in the game." He said, "Are you okay with yourself?" ”

"No problem." I say.

"I should be able to go home on time in a while." He assured.

"I've been so busy lately, are you investigating the case of that sheepskin killer? I saw it on the homepage of the Public Security Bureau, and it seems to be a vicious criminal. "I'll try to inquire.

"That case was investigated by another team, and I was investigating something else."

"Something else?"

"Hmm...... Don't ask, it's my job. "He kept his mouth shut, and I didn't want to ask any more questions, just know that he wouldn't come home for dinner.

Thinking that I would have to meet Adam later, I decided to do my homework first, and called the drone to ask him to buy information related to Adam as a person.

The drone hissed like a toothache, "You want me to sell the intelligence of my peers......"

"Isn't it convenient? Then you don't have to give. ”

"Don't! Don't be angry! ”

"I'm not angry."

"You're angry!"

"I'm not angry."

"But that's how angry you are!" He shouted.

But I really didn't get angry, but when I talk to people in the black zone, I always pay attention to my tone, and make sure not to let myself appear emotionally fluctuating, so as not to expose the fact that I am easily afraid.

Next, I asked him about what Adam called the "mysterious organization."

Haven't heard of this organization. He said so.

Although it is a pity, it is not surprising that the huge beaver city naturally has blind spots that even an intelligence agent like him cannot grasp. But just in case, I'll keep an eye on it.

Soon, the drone sorted out Adam's information and sent it to my mailbox. After I made the payment, I flipped through the information, and when I had questions, I called him and asked him.

At about half-past six, I went out to the park, two and a half kilometres from home, where I had finished my disguise work, and this time I didn't have to wear colored contact lenses or a black metal cane, which I was a little embarrassed to carry with me when I wasn't disabled, as if I wanted to play a classical gentleman.

Then I went to Adam's designated meeting place, in front of a popular fast-food restaurant.

It wasn't long before Adam called me when I arrived.

"Have you arrived?"

"Here we are." I say.

"I'm in the store."

I turned my head to see a man sitting behind a floor-to-ceiling window, holding his phone, and shaking his hand at me.