Divine Oracle [Transmigration] (ORACLE)
Fu Xi looked at her expressionlessly and asked naturally, without any prior context, "You don’t want to hear those things?"
Lu Ling’s despondency deepened.
Barefoot, she walked up to Fu Xi and slightly rising onto her toes as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her soft body pressed gently against his, with her head resting on his shoulder.
He didn’t return the embrace, and Lu Ling’s negative emotions intensified.
After a moment, she began to sob quietly.
Only then did Fu Xi extend a hand to hold the woman before him and murmuring soothingly, "Tell me, what are you afraid of?"
As he asked, Lu Ling’s mind clearly conjured many disturbing associations. Fu Xi’s body began to rot, his face melting away and chunks of flesh falling off, exposing his skull and an half of an eyeball dangling from the edge of its socket—
Song Si’s nerves were stretched to the limit. He didn’t know how to sever the connection—Fu Xi hadn’t taught him, only saying that when the time came, he would "naturally know what to do."
But he had a vague sense that Fu Xi was safe now.
Because the woman clinging to him remained completely unaware, lost in her own sobs. The horrifying skeletal figure that was Fu Xi patted her back with his left hand bones, calming her emotions.
Piece by piece, the flesh returned to Fu Xi’s body. In the blink of an eye, it was "Liu Cenning" standing there again, with his hair damp and clad in pajamas, as if the terrifying scene had never happened.
Lu Ling spoke, trembling: "You just said that was my last mission… Ning-ge, I know I shouldn’t ask, but I’m scared. Not for myself, but for you."
"You saved my life—you can take it back whenever you want. That person… is that person also… to you…?"
She lifted her head, cautiously yet stubbornly, to look at Fu Xi. Fu Xi remained silent, and Song Si could sense him attempting to probe the "Subconscious of Lu Ling’s Subconscious," just as he had once probed Song Si’s Twin Butterflies. Soon, without receiving an answer, Lu Ling grew unstable. She wiped away her tears, strode back to the sofa, put on her robe again, and turned her back to Fu Xi in anger, staring at the glass of water beside the TV.
Fu Xi, detecting the direction of her thoughts, said, "Yes."
She violently swept the glass to the floor, shattering it.
"Angry?" Fu Xi said. "Look, Lu Ling, he knows. He’s watching you get angry."
Two seconds of dead silence passed before Lu Ling suddenly screamed.
At the same time, the room began to rapidly disintegrate, disperse, and reassemble. In the blink of an eye, the surroundings transformed into a cold laboratory. Lu Ling stood before a computer on the experimental table, her hands tightly covering her face. On the screen was a meaningless curve that were now wildly fluctuating up and down, accompanied by crackling static.
And outside the laboratory stood a figure, their face obscured by a heavy blur and barely recognizable as a man.
Fu Xi said, "Look. He’s watching you."
Lu Ling shuddered violently, raising her head with trembling effort to gaze at the faceless man outside the lab.
The steel beams beneath their feet began to burn. The "electric lights" in the laboratory flickered incessantly, with dark shadows darting beneath them. A cacophony of maddening whispers started to echo in their ears.
Lu Ling's emotions were already showing signs of spiraling out of control.
With every step Fu Xi took, the flesh on his feet sizzled from the scorching heat. Yet he remained the figment of Lu Ling's imagination—wearing Liu Cenning's face, his eyes brimming with tenderness as he walked up to her and gently wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"He's watching you," Fu Xi murmured again. "Is it him? Why doesn't he have a face?" Just as Lu Ling was about to scream into his embrace once more, Fu Xi pressed a finger to her lips. "Shh, shh. Don't be afraid. He can't get in. Look closer—he's in another building, one floating in the sky with no stairs. See?"
Trembling, Lu Ling slowly turned her head. Guided by Fu Xi, the shadowy figure rapidly distanced itself from them. The illusion of another towering building materialized outside the window, and the faceless man stood atop its roof, still facing their direction.
The building began to burn.
Song Si suddenly remembered—Ninghai Pharmaceuticals had gone up in flames the night Liu Cenning was arrested.
Fu Xi stroked Lu Ling's cheek. "Good girl, you're safe now. I'm here."
Tears welled up in Lu Ling's eyes, and she began to sob again. The laboratory fell back into silence, save for the erratic curves still flickering wildly on the computer screen. Song Si studied the amplitude of those lines, an inexplicable sense of familiarity and unease creeping over him.
"Repeat it for me one more time," Fu Xi said softly while still patting her rigid back. "What was the last task I gave you? Think carefully. Don't get it wrong, or else... he'll take a helicopter straight here and carry you away."
A helicopter. The unidentified helicopter from the night of the fire.
Lu Ling reacted immediately, curling into herself with a shudder. Haltingly, she stammered, "The last task... was to guard your computer. If it started sounding an alarm, I was to follow the direction indicated by the radio waves... and find someone. No matter the cost, I had to kill them... to protect... to protect that person."
Fu Xi smiled faintly, pinching her chin lightly in approval. "Very good. Perfect answer. As a reward for getting it right... didn't you want to know what that person meant to me?"
With that, he tightened his grip, forcing Lu Ling to look directly at the sea of flames outside—and the faceless man within it, his form growing clearer, his presence drawing nearer.
"Look at his face," Fu Xi whispered into her ear. "Now, I'm crossing the fire to save him. Because he once saved my life... and now I'm giving it back to him."
"No!!" Lu Ling let out a piercing scream as the flames surged into the laboratory. "No, no, it's not him!"
"It is him," Fu Xi said. "Lu Ling, you were a bad girl. You failed the last task I gave you. The target didn't die. I leaked his secret... I got him killed. Look into his eyes—he's here to take my life."
The gray mist shrouding the faceless man thinned and faint traces of blurred features gradually emerging.
Song Si's nerves stretched tauter by the second. He was losing control of his own consciousness, teetering on the edge of wakefulness like a mind adrift at dawn.
Fu Xi continued to press forward: "You say it wasn't him? You're still lying. You've clearly seen him, know his name, know his appearance—say it... Speak the name and I'll extinguish this fire, take not one step further."
Lu Ling's face was drenched in sweat, her throat trembling violently and pupils shaking uncontrollably as she slowly parted her lips. She silently formed a word with her mouth but couldn't utter a single syllable.
Just as Fu Xi was about to speak again, Lu Ling's eyes suddenly rolled back, and she collapsed to the ground without warning. Simultaneously, the flames outside transformed into a gigantic human face, its fiery tongues lashing out toward Fu Xi at a terrifying speed—
Song Si abruptly opened his eyes, gasping for breath in the darkness.
It seemed he'd had a nightmare and dreaming that at the critical moment, he woke up.
The next second, someone removed his helmet, and blinding light flooded his vision. Squinting uncomfortably, he pressed his fingers to his temples as a dry, warm hand pinched the back of his neck twice—firmly enough to make him shudder. "That hurts..."
The person crouched down to meet his eye level.
Song Si found himself staring into a pair of familiar eyes.
Chu Mingyi reached out again, patting both his cheeks lightly. "How are you? What happened? You all look terrible."
Someone nearby drawled, "They've all been implanted with safety words."
"They?"
"Right," Fu Xi said. "When Xiao Si interrogated Liu Cenning, it was the same. Most likely, he triggered a safety word—and probably even got him to say it out loud. That triggered an automatic attack, causing brain confusion, memory loss, and induced suicide."
"Plus, Xiao Si's location was transmitted to the killer. The killer—Lu Ling—then began executing the assassination mission. What happened next, we all know."
Chu Mingyi said, "Are you saying Song Si was targeted for assassination twice because he uncovered the real culprit during that interrogation?"
Fu Xi nodded cheerfully, smiling. "Chief Chu, this case can be closed. Later, let me check Xiao Si's subconscious to see what exactly he uncovered. Nine out of ten, it's the suspect."
Chu Mingyi immediately stood up, his brow furrowing as if struck by a realization.
Song Si: ...What the hell kind of development is this?
He asked, "Weren't there any monitors during my interrogation?"
Fu Xi chuckled. "Nope. You went rogue—told Chief Chu you were just going to peek into his subconscious, but secretly conducted a full interrogation."
That's not how it was written in the novel!
Chu Mingyi pressed a palm to Song Si's forehead, feeling the cold sweat. Thoughtfully, he said, "No rush. You all go eat something and rest first. Later, I'll call in the Fourth Division to document this interrogation."
Song Si asked, "Fu Xi is going to interrogate me?"
"Not an interrogation," Chu Mingyi paused, "Maybe just a look into your subconscious."
Having just witnessed Fu Xi's methods, Song Si's heart sank.
Was he about to get exposed right after transmigrating?
Would they interrogate him, discover the biggest villain was himself, slap on the handcuffs, and roll the credits?
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