scélérat

Chapitre 25

Wherever Kou Yun went, these dogs followed him. Dogs are intelligent and they also hoped that Kou Yun would return to this place, so that they could have their old life again, and no longer have to endure the wind and rain and go hungry every day in the mountains. But even if dogs are intelligent, they cannot speak, much less tell us what exactly happened here.

For centuries, the Kou family had lived and thrived here, taking root in the land. There was no trace of external intrusion or major natural disaster. It's well known that Chinese people are deeply attached to their roots, and relocation has always been one of the most difficult things to do. Often, the government spends considerable effort to move farmers from their ancestral lands for certain projects, providing them with houses and land, yet most still secretly return to their hometowns after the storm has passed, time and time again, undeterred by the risk of death. This is true for ordinary Chinese farmers; the Kou family, bound by ancestral rules against contact with the outside world, disappeared from Koujia Village in this way, making it even more difficult to understand.

Judging from the village, the Kou family left calmly and without panic. I can almost see them one morning, coming out of their house, locking the door, carrying their belongings, walking in a long line along the country path, going upstream along the stream, and leaving quietly.

The setting sun cast a soft red glow everywhere. I stood before an open space, enclosed by several nearby houses. This area was large enough to accommodate all the villagers; judging from its location, it seemed to be the village's central square, and the ground had been leveled and compacted. Most important village matters or decisions were made here. In the center of this open space sat a stone.

This is a large, round stone weighing at least thirty or forty kilograms. Placed in the center of the open space, it seems somewhat out of place, making the space resemble a religious altar. Usually, if such a stone is deliberately placed here, it has symbolic meaning.

"Kou Yun, Kou Yun!" I shouted.

Kou Yun ran over in response, followed by several dogs.

"What is this?" I asked her, pointing to the stone.

“A rock, huh?” She frowned. “I don’t remember there being a rock this big here before…”

"Wasn't it here before?" I bent down to examine the stone more closely.

This is a stone that is both ordinary and strange. It's ordinary because it's simply a round stone, without any other patterns or mysteries. You can still see the marks of water erosion on its surface; all the original sharp edges have been smoothed out by the water over millions of years. It's strange precisely because we've stepped on countless stones like this while walking and wading through streams, but only in places where water flows constantly would we find stones of this shape. In a dry place like Koujia Village, stones dug out of the soil would definitely have sharp edges.

Playful children might be interested in doing this kind of moving work, but they don't have the strength; while adults might have the strength, but they wouldn't be interested in doing such trivial things.

If there were no stones on this square in Koujia Village before, then the appearance of this stone is rather strange.

The villagers of Koujia Village mysteriously disappeared, and the stone appeared in a bizarre way.

Nine times out of ten, when two bizarre events occur simultaneously in the same place, they are related.

Kou Yun and I examined the stone carefully for a while, then Kou Yun looked up and said to me, "This looks like a stone from the stream ahead."

"That's what I think too." I nodded.

We walked around the square but didn't find anything else unusual, so we went back to the stone and sat down on the ground.

"Have you found any other clues?" I asked.

Kou Yun shook his head.

Under what circumstances would your parents or elders pass away?

Kou Yun shook her head again: "There's no way they can leave." Her voice trailed off, because the facts were undeniable.

"Actually, it's not impossible," I said slowly, staring at the stone in front of me.

"Ah!" Kou Yun looked at me in shock.

“Some things are ingrained in your very being, so there’s a variable you’ve automatically overlooked. Fortunately, you mentioned it to me once before. You said that the ancestors of the Kou family set a rule that descendants of the Kou family cannot leave this land or have contact with the outside world, unless…”

“Unless someone can surpass us in the ability to manipulate objects remotely!” Kou Yun said, his eyes lighting up.

I slammed my hand on the rock: "This is it. How can I say I've beaten you? There will definitely be a contest. Look at this rock, can you move it?"

Kou Yun shook his head: "I'm afraid it's too heavy. My brother might be able to, some of the more capable uncles in the village might be able to, and my dad might be able to too. But none of them can move it very far."

I nodded and said, “That’s right. You see, the slope we ran down is about two hundred meters long, and there are places with these kinds of stones in the stream. It’s even further away. The person who was competing must have found such a stone far enough away and moved it here in one fell swoop, crushing everyone in your village and breaking that ancestral precept.”

"You mean, that person is Lin Wen?"

"This is my guess. Many years ago, Lin Wen's abilities far surpassed yours. Even compared to your uncles, he should have been quite formidable, right?"

Kou Yun nodded.

"Chen Yuanze said that the source of this ability lies in spiritual energy. After conducting so many experiments, he has a better understanding of his abilities, is more confident, and his abilities will definitely improve. Moreover, we have already speculated that his research has made a major breakthrough and that he can now find a way to retrieve things from the moon. So, it is not surprising that he can win here."

Kou Yun nodded in agreement, but then suddenly shook his head and said, "That's not right. Even if Lin Wen used his strength to break our ancestral rules, it wouldn't cause everyone to move away. Many people would be eager to go outside and take a look, just like my brother and I, but it's impossible for everyone to leave."

"This is my second reason why I suspect the person who broke the ancestral precepts is Lin Wen." I ran my hand over the smooth surface of the stone, imagining how such a large object could be moved from hundreds of meters away in an instant. Such an ability, even in fantasy novels, would place someone with supernatural powers. Could such a mysterious miracle really be studied and its workings deciphered, and applied on a large scale? I've seen too many mysterious abilities, and the extraordinary people who possess these powers only know how, not why. If Lin Wen could truly incorporate such a miracle into the scientific system through scientific experiments, his achievement would probably be worthy of a Nobel Prize in Physics.

“Actually, if you think about it carefully, you’ll know why. Aren’t you my assistant? You should have some reasoning ability, right?” I said to Kou Yun.

Ostensibly, it was a test, but the real intention was to encourage her to use rational thinking to reason things out step by step, thereby calming her down completely. In fact, her current state is already much better than at the beginning.

Kou Yun rested his chin on his hand and stared at the stone, deep in thought.

This wasn't a difficult problem, and after a moment, a knowing smile appeared on Kou Yun's lips, which put my mind at ease.

“I understand,” she said.

11. Abnormal Events in Koujia Village (3)

"There may be more than just the Kou family and Lin Wen in this world who have this ability, but the existence of Kou Family Village is unknown to outsiders. And the number of people who know that the Kou family has such a strange ability is almost non-existent. So if an outsider comes here and challenges us, the first question will not be who this person is, but how did he find out?"

I smiled and nodded encouragingly to Kou Yun.

“Lin Wen is my brother’s good friend and has such abilities, so it’s not surprising that my brother told him about the Kou family. So, when Lin Wen came here, my brother probably came back with him as well.”

“That’s right.” I nodded, about to continue, but Kou Yun interrupted me.

"Brother, don't make a fuss, let me finish. My assistant needs to do his job well."

"Oh, okay." I smiled wryly and obediently shut up. It seemed the little girl had returned to normal.

"Where was I? It's all your fault, I forgot everything when we were arguing!" Kou Yun asked me, staring at me with wide eyes after a moment of stunned silence.

“You said your assistant should perform well… Oh dear… You meant when Lin Wen comes here, your brother Kou Feng will also be here.”

“Right, if a stranger came, the villagers might not even want to compete with him. It must have been my brother who instigated it. So, the fact that everyone in the village left must be related to my brother. Lin Wen couldn't possibly persuade them, but my brother is one of us. Whatever reason he gives, the effect will be different.” At this point, Kou Yun clapped his hands, gestured to me, and said, “Okay, your turn.”

"What do you mean it's my turn? You've already said everything, what else is there for me to say? You don't think I can guess what reason your brother used to get everyone here to go with him, do you? If that's the case, I might as well become a fortune teller. Anyway, I think even tigers don't eat their cubs, your brother wouldn't harm his parents and uncles, would he? Besides, it's not necessarily true that he won't come back after leaving, maybe he's just leaving temporarily."

It was getting late, and it was impossible to return today. We ate the biscuits we had brought for dinner, and the sleeping problem was also solved. Kou Yun found a patch of loose soil in front of his house and dug out the key. Locking the door was meant to keep out animals, not thieves, and the old-fashioned brass key was long and heavy, quite inconvenient to carry. We later looked around at each house and found that every household did the same.

The wooden houses here are basically all the same style: round, two-story structures built with thick, sturdy logs, supported by stilts driven into the ground, suspending the main body of the house more than a foot off the ground to insulate it from moisture. Although this area is near a small lake, the overall climate isn't particularly humid. A wooden house like this could probably last for over a hundred years.

Inside, a kerosene lamp was used. As the sky outside gradually darkened, the lamplight flickered, and occasionally a few frogs croaked. The world was completely quiet. There was nothing to do here. We took a bath in the lake—one by one, of course—and went to bed early.

I lay on the wooden bed where Kou Feng slept and quickly fell asleep to the sounds of the mountain wind and frogs.

When I woke up the next day, Kou Yun had already collected the stream water for washing from under the toad beast's feet, but there was only a little bit of dry food left. After locking the door again, I patted my half-full stomach and set off with Kou Yun on the way back to Wangjiasha.

The return journey was much slower than the journey there. Firstly, Kou Yun didn't walk as fast, and secondly, we were getting hungrier and hungrier because we hadn't had lunch. Although we set off at eight in the morning, we didn't arrive until almost six o'clock.

The people from Koujia Village also take this road when they leave the mountains. With over a hundred people coming out at once, the villagers of Wangjiasha couldn't possibly not know. If we hadn't been in such a hurry to get going when we arrived, we would have already gotten some clues from the villagers.

It's only been six days since the Kou family left. Villagers who saw them said that among the people who came out of the mountains, two were dressed like city dwellers, completely different from the other people in Koujia Village. When asked, the ages of these two men matched those of Kou Fenglin and Wen.

Seeing the results of my speculation gradually confirmed brought a sense of satisfaction. However, not everything can be deduced through speculation. There were several crucial points where there were no clues at all, and no matter how hard I racked my brains, it was all in vain.

On the way back to Shanghai, I informed Guo Dong of the new situation. Since I couldn't find any leads myself, I desperately hoped that he could make a breakthrough.

The result was that there were new circumstances, but no new breakthroughs.

News from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center indicates that yesterday, during its latest image transmission back to Earth, the lunar rover, which had been silently monitored, was focusing on a different helium-3 ore boulder than the one previously shown (the size of a basketball). The rover had moved to a different location before activating its camera equipment, so it's unclear whether the original boulder remained in its original position or had disappeared. The boulder in the image is now much larger than the previous one. Its density is unknown, but based on the weight of typical terrestrial rocks, it would likely weigh between 100 and 200 kilograms. Of course, this is relative to Earth; the moon is much lighter, and the rover's robotic arm can still easily move such a large rock.

Furthermore, the investigation team never gave up on the Black Flag Group. As their understanding deepened, the investigators became increasingly inclined to believe that a powerful force lay behind the Black Flag Group, and that the Black Flag Group was merely a facade, or even just one aspect of that facade.

While Black Flag Group isn't among the top-ranked conglomerates, it still boasts assets worth billions. If this is merely the tip of the iceberg, what kind of behemoth lies hidden beneath the surface?

Actually, this conclusion didn't surprise me. Just by looking at the fact that Black Flag Group's apparent assets don't include a space control center, you can guess that there's more to it than meets the eye.

In this world, there are always some forces—whether families or organizations adhering to the same creed—that have branched out and grown stronger throughout history. The power these forces have accumulated over decades or centuries is far more unfathomable than the wealthiest conglomerates on the richest lists.

Intelligence agencies in various countries have some understanding of such forces, but the one behind the Black Flag Group is so mysterious that it's hard to figure out what's going on.

"Actually, it might not be a previously unknown hidden force. It's just that we can't link a certain force to the Black Clan Group yet. Maybe we'll find out after a while," Guo Dong told me on the phone.

"How's the thing I gave you last time?"

"Ha, that little bit of stuff is enough to power an aircraft carrier battle group to circle the Earth several times. Giving it to the New Hope is a bit of a waste. But we really don't know how to use it right now. We're currently using the best instruments to analyze its composition and compare it with the lunar soil the US sent us. Actually, that's all nonsense. It's already purified helium-3, so what impurities could we possibly find? To be honest, this little bit of helium-3 is like a white elephant right now. It seems to have a lot of energy, but if we build a release device like the New Hope, where would we use it? It's all relative. Compared to our country's total energy consumption, it's too little. So we can only do composition analysis and thermonuclear experiments. Actually, there's no technical difficulty in using this stuff, so doing experiments is a bit of a waste."

11. Abnormal Events in Koujia Village (4)

"Sigh, if I wait any longer, how long will it take before I can go back to a normal life? I want to restore my reputation as soon as possible!" I shouted to him, half-jokingly.

Guo Dong could only manage a few forced laughs, offer a couple of meaningless words of comfort, and then hang up.

If you can't rely on others, it seems that self-help is the only way.

But how can I save myself? Where else can I turn for help?

On the plane back to Shanghai, I kept thinking about this question.

The flight attendants handed out free newspapers to everyone. Unable to be a reporter, I could only read other people's articles. Flipping through them casually, the headline "Hypnotic Demon Caught" caught my eye.

The content reveals that a depraved man, under the guise of psychotherapy and hypnosis, raped many patients. What's even more outrageous is that he preyed on men, women, young and old—this is truly appalling and chilling. And the fact that he committed so many crimes before being caught suggests he must be quite skilled in hypnosis, even though the news didn't mention it.

After reading this report, I couldn't help but think of Ou Mingde, a great hypnotherapist I know, and from Ou Mingde, I thought of Lu Yun, who is far superior to Ou Mingde in the art of hypnosis and whose skills are almost supernatural.

That time, I received a death omen in Cao Cao's tomb. Ou Mingde was helpless. I went through great lengths to Nepal and found Lu Yun, who was attending a dark world gathering. That's how I saved my life.

Recalling that experience, I suddenly realized that perhaps we could find another way to track Lin Wen's whereabouts.

There is a term for people like Lin Wenkouyun: non-human.

I've wondered where this term came from. Decades ago, a Chinese fantasy novelist used it extensively in his works to refer to people with supernatural abilities. This author's novels had a tremendous impact, reaching throughout the entire Chinese-speaking world. So, it's possible that this term arose in recent decades solely because of his novels.

More likely, the title has a much longer history, and that writer, like me, got involved in some events, learned about this group of people, and then used it in his own novel.

Of course, there's another possibility: coincidence. I personally don't really believe in coincidences.

People with supernatural abilities are called non-humans, distinct from normal humans. The activities of these people, and the world they create, are unknown to ordinary people, and this world is also known as the "dark world."

The gathering that Lu Yun attended was a regular non-human gathering hosted by D, a figure with considerable influence in Asia's underworld. D had some knowledge of outstanding non-humans across Asia and had made every effort to invite them to his gatherings.

Lin Wen is certainly not human, so could we try to find him through underworld channels?

I met D once, and he gave me his contact information, but we didn't really have much of a relationship. If I wanted to find Lin Wen through D, it would probably be more appropriate to ask Lu Yun instead.

"Hello, who is this?" A lazy voice drifted into my ears from the receiver, making my entire ear canal itch. I rubbed it, but the tingling itch had already crept into my heart and wouldn't go away. This Lu Yun is getting more and more terrifying; now, his voice alone has such a powerful effect?

If she worked as a telephone operator, her business would be booming. I thought to myself with a wicked glint in my eye.

"It's me, there are so many." I replied, adjusting my attitude.

"It's been a long time since we last kept in touch. How have you been lately?"

"Uh...not too good."

"I knew it. You wouldn't have thought of coming to me unless you were in trouble. Sigh." Lu Yun sighed softly, a sigh that was truly poignant. Any other man would probably feel like he had committed a terrible crime and wish he could stab himself in the back to vent his anger. I was always on high alert when dealing with Lu Yun, which was how I managed to withstand the pressure.