Today, three days later, two things happened: the first happened in the morning, and my heart was full of confusion; The second incident happened in the afternoon, and it didn't seem like much of a problem, but when combined with the first thing, it released a cloud of doubt that was difficult to let go.

In chronological order, it may be useful to start with the first thing, but it is worth moving on to the second event first.

It was about half past three in the afternoon, I stayed at home, and Xu Shengxing was rarely not busy with official business, sitting idly on the sofa in the living room. It was raining outside the window, it was dark, and the rain was hitting the glass with an astonishing density and speed. Xu Shengxing held a cigarette in his left hand and a lighter in his right hand, but he didn't light it, just looked in the direction of the balcony like an out-of-body soul. Even the TV wasn't turned on, and the lights were turned off. The living room seemed to be flooded with rainstorms.

I'm checking the ingredients in the fridge. The ingredients are still enough for dinner, but they are just making do. The market should still be open, but it's raining too hard. Even though I knew there would be heavy rain today, I didn't expect it to be so heavy, and the feeling of going out shopping was like the sauce stain attached to the glass being washed away by a high-pressure water gun. But it's rare that he's at home, and I want to make it richer. So I turned around and told him that I was going to the market, and he didn't move as if he hadn't heard.

It took three seconds for him to raise his face as if the machine had finally started and said, "It's your grandfather's birthday." ”

"My grandfather?" I asked without a sense of reality. Xu Shengxing would hardly mention his parents, as if my brother and I had no grandparents at all. Even when asked, he is often avoided. But today he took the initiative to mention it, which made people feel as if he was mentioning a fictional character in some story.

He nodded, "Yes." His birthday. To be precise, it's 'birthday', today happens to be his 70th birthday. ”

"So?"

"He and his relatives celebrated their birthday at the Fugu Hotel, and it is estimated that there are a lot of delicious foods."

"You want to go?"

"I'm going to go once." He said, "If you're interested, you can go over there." ”

The tone in which he spoke of his grandfather's birthday was as if he were referring to something insignificant, and he didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with his attitude of not remembering something so important until this point. It's not so much a grandfather's birthday party as a dinner party with classmates who don't have a good relationship with me. In fact, his words were almost asserted, "Just enough for dinner." ”

"Then go ahead." I say.

A moment later, we went downstairs. He drove the car out of the parking lot, and I approached the car with an umbrella, and the touch of the rainstorm on the surface of the umbrella was as if there were a dozen or so invisible shower heads above it attacking with all their strength at the same time. After getting into the car, the car drove out of the community through the heavy rain curtain. I looked at the black wiper blades that swayed rapidly on the front window glass with a strange noise, and I recalled the "first thing" that happened in the morning.

*

This morning, in order to purchase the main materials specified in the formula of the withdrawal drug, I contacted the underground intelligence agent "drone".

There are three main materials for retortion drugs, and more than a dozen auxiliary materials. The latter are easily accessible materials, and some are simply objects that can be seen in everyday life. The former, on the other hand, are all rare, so rare that you can tell how difficult it is to obtain just by looking at the name. For example, the main ingredient of one of them is called "Earthworm Eyeball". Most people who read it will probably think that this name is some kind of metaphor, but in fact, it is something else, after all, earthworms do not have such an organ as an eyeball at all. It's like the dish "dragon liver and phoenix gall", it is not really for the chef to use the dragon's liver and phoenix's gall to cook. However, the problem is that the "earthworm eyeball" required in the recipe is the original earthworm eyeball.

This is also a corner of the bizarre nature of elixir. It is said that some elixirs would ask the medicine man to bring "men's amniotic fluid", "clouds as heavy as iron", "winged plates", ....... According to the Turin doctor, there was even such a thing as "silent screaming" on the formulas of the elixir she had in her hands.

As for how these bizarre materials can be obtained, this is not to mention. The drone quickly picked up my call. While he looked up all his current information according to my request, he chatted with me and said, "Recently, some people are simply in danger, but you are like a nobody." ”

"Someone?"

"Someone who is afraid of you. They all know you're back. "But you haven't made much of a move lately, and some people have doubted the authenticity of your comeback." ”

It's not so much "not much" as "not at all". I thought so, and at the same time added, "No wonder." ”

"Because the source of this information is me, people always call me and repeatedly ask me about the authenticity of the information, and some people think I am a liar who sells false information." He grumbled.

"It looks like they really don't want me to live." I say.

"If you're psykers, they're not so overwhelmed." He said, "Because then your strength is justified." But you're too confused. Maybe you don't have any magic in your own eyes, as if a magician wouldn't be as amazed at his magic as the audience. To others, however, your powers are simply incomprehensible, as are those weird that are simply incomprehensible. No one has ever treated you as a mere psionic person, and some people have even preferred to believe that your true identity is that of the undead. ”

In the end, he seemed to say in a deliberately light-hearted tone, "Even I sometimes worry about whether the person on the other side of this phone call is a human being." ”

I wasn't angry, it was originally the image I had deliberately created for myself.

"What would you think if you were asked to pit yourself against yourself?" He asked.

Hearing this, I remembered the doppelganger Xu Fu, but this is obviously not the same thing. I asked rhetorically, "For example?" ”

"That is to say, if another person with the same level of martial arts as you suddenly appears in front of you and wants to kill you, what will you do?"

"It's nothing more than a counterattack." I replied, imagining the scene at the same time, but I couldn't think of anything, "What are you asking this for?" ”

"That's right. Even if you assume that, you won't feel like we are that your opponent is unknown......" he seemed to shake his head, "just if I didn't ask...... Well, wait, I got it. ”

He was talking about the whereabouts of the earthworm's eyeballs. I asked, "Where?" ”

"Ant colony." He replied.

"Is that the gangster?" I reacted immediately.

In Beaver City, a city with a high crime rate, it is no surprise that there are quite a few gangs inhabited. Among them, what impressed me the most was the evil organization "Dark Beaver", which once ruled the black zone of Beaver City and was known as the underground kingdom of Beaver City, and its leader was a powerful super-grade psyker. For me at the time, "Super Psyker" was simply synonymous with invincibility, the final boss-like enemy in the game. And the super-psionic saw me as a thorn in the flesh and saw me in the dead end. But after a series of hard fights, I finally defeated him with the support of my former partner.

After the Dark Beaver broke up with the death of its leader, the second most powerful "ant colony" became the largest gang in Beaver City.

The biggest difference between an ant colony and a dark beaver is that its leader is not a super-psyker, not even a psyker, just an ordinary person.

No one knows his true face, and he is almost completely invisible even within the organization, only passing his orders to the organization through his cronies. And if someone tracks down his true identity, he will be met with a brutal backlash.

"Ant colonies have been around Beaver City for more than eighty years, and when it comes to doorways, there are more ways to get there than the dark beavers that flourished at one time." "They've really spent a lot of money lately to get some earthworm eyeballs...... This strange material really exists. But I don't know where they are in the organization, and I have limited information. However, according to my speculation, such items as this kind of storage location is unknown, and it is quite expensive, it is impossible to send it to their leader, the 'Ant Lord'. ”

"It makes sense." I said, "So, can you help me find the Ant Lord?" ”

"Let me refuse, it's too dangerous." He said, "And, like this, I'm going to ask you to buy it, right?" ”

I didn't immediately understand what he meant, "Why?" ”

"Don't you know where the Lord of the Ants is?"

"How could I possibly know?"

He asked rhetorically, "If you don't know, how did you attack the Ant Lord the day before yesterday?" ”

*

Based on the information available to the drone, I, the Faceling, tracked down the location of the Ant Lord, who no one could trace, the day before yesterday, and launched a deadly assassination on him.

However, the Lord of the Ants is a very cautious figure. As a complete ordinary person, he was almost alive under the premise of being assassinated by the "Facelings", as if God helped him escape from the pursuit of the "Facelings". Later, he summoned his cronies, who secretly organized a team to track down the true identity of the Facelings in the Black Zone.

Of course, for me, it's a common thing to have my true identity backtracked. My true identity is never so easy to trace. The problem is this "Faceling".

I have no memory of myself assassinating the Lord of Ants the day before yesterday.

And I don't have any signs of amnesia, I remember exactly what I was doing the day before yesterday. This "Faceling" is definitely a fake. But even if it's a fake, this "Faceling" is at least a martial artist of a similar level to me.

It's not easy to impersonate me. I'm often changing my appearance as a Faceling, so I don't have a face that I can impersonate. Anything like a short-beaked beak mask can be worn by anyone, and it can't be used as proof of identity. The only thing that can be used as proof of identity is the corresponding martial arts performance. Only then can the Lord of the Ants be sure that it was the Facelings who assassinated him.

But not that I brag. Even though I always call myself a normal person, that's just to say that I don't have psionic powers. I also understand that a martial artist like myself is not something that can appear casually.

In other words, this piece of information is actually a rumor deliberately fabricated by the ant colony?

However, according to the drone, news of the Ant Lord's assassination by the Facelings has not officially spread. This piece of information was verified from the side by him in combination with other information by extreme chance. That being said, it has a pretty high level of credibility. If even rumors have to be kept secret to such an extent, then what's the point of spreading rumors?

Time comes back to the present. I sat in the passenger seat of the car, broke free from my inexplicable thoughts, turned to Xu Shengxing and asked, "Can you tell me about my grandfather?" ”

"There's nothing to say, it's just an old man who doesn't have many years to live." He said excitedly, "He was already seriously ill, and he was attacked the day before yesterday, and it seems that his good luck has come to an end." ”