Found Out

Due to the camera's limitations, only the newcomer's legs below the knees were visible.

The person was wearing a skirt, the hem of which could be vaguely seen.

The stranger kicked Karen Cinth's head.

She turned the back of her head toward the camera.

Unsatisfied with the position, the feet paused for a moment, then kicked it again.

Karen Cinth's head rolled into the grass, her eyes facing the camera lens once more.

The camera's entire field of view was blocked, and there was no way to see when the stranger left.

"Ran-jie, should we go look for the woman in heels from the video now?" Ding Naiqing asked from the side.

Tu Ran shook her head. "We won't be able to find her. Those shoes are the standard uniform for the maids on this farm—we can't pinpoint her based on footwear alone. And she's likely already switched to another body. Searching for her would just be a waste of time."

"Then what do we do next?" Ding Naiqing frowned.

These aberrations that could change skins at will were a real headache.

He must have been crazy to take this job.

At least in the Threshold, he could treat every creature except himself as an enemy—fight if he could win, run if he couldn't.

But now, he had to carefully discern who was human and who was possessed, and he couldn't kill the wrong one. For someone like him who didn't have much of a head for this, it was truly asking too much.

"Let's go visit Mrs. Igan first," Tu Ran said, unplugging the camera from her communicator and stowing it in her thigh pocket before heading toward the villa.

Since arriving at this farm to investigate, she hadn't yet met the lady of the house.

Given the current situation, there was a fifty-fifty chance the woman was already possessed.

This time, a butler dressed in a neat suit led the way.

"Ma'am, the investigation team sent by the Federal Center would like to see you," the butler said softly to the ornate door.

"Come in." A feeble female voice came from inside, and the door opened in response.

The woman was leaning against the bedside, covered with a quilt embroidered with beautiful patterns.

Seeing them, she gave a proper smile, her voice gentle but somewhat weak. "Please, have a seat."

Tu Ran immediately noticed the dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn't rested well for a long time.

"No need to sit. We're here to ask you a few questions," Tu Ran said.

"Of course, go ahead," the woman said, soft and cooperative.

Tu Ran glanced at Ding Naiqing, delegating the questioning to him.

Ding Naiqing was a bit taken aback. He had thought Tu Ran would handle the interrogation herself, since she was far more perceptive and more likely to spot inconsistencies and determine the truth.

But Tu Ran had no such intention. She remained suspicious that these aberrations inherited a portion of human memory, which was why they could hide so deeply.

Relying solely on verbal logic to determine whether someone was an aberration was nearly impossible.

For instance, yesterday she had interviewed a large number of people and only managed to root out one aberration—a paltry result.

She was here just to go through the motions.

Ding Naiqing had already begun the questioning, and Tu Ran leisurely circled the room, observing her surroundings.

The walls were adorned with many artistic paintings, each an original oil work. Tu Ran's nose twitched as she caught the scent of aged paper and pigments mingling—a smell of history.

Each of these paintings was worth a fortune.

Kenny Igan was a wealthy man.

Tu Ran wasn't entirely clear on how wealth was defined in this world, but she was certain Kenny Igan ranked among the rich.

Her gaze wandered over the paintings and settled on one whose colors were more subdued compared to the others.

In it, under a gloomy, rainy sky and a dim yellow backdrop, a little girl in a red dress held a rose-red umbrella, tilted slightly to the left, sharing its cover with a mechanical snake lying in a filthy gutter.

Her eyes fixed on the spot, as if she appreciated the painting, but in reality, all her attention was focused on her earpiece.

A faint current seemed to run through damaged wires, and then came murmurs like whispers from an ancient era—low and slow, high and strained, alternating in call and response. It was people conversing.

The source wasn't Ding Naiqing and Mrs. Igan, but Li Wu and Liang Feng, who had been taken away by Tubin.

When Tu Ran had arranged for the two of them to leave, she had patted their shoulders a few times as a gesture of instruction, and in that brief contact, she had planted two almost invisible listening devices on their shoulders.

She had gotten them this morning from the two pioneers Xie Xu had sent over.

Those two were generous, handing her four outright.

Two were used on Liang Feng and Li Wu, who had left yesterday to search for Karen Cinth and had been out of her sight since. The other two were intended to be secretly planted on the two guards who had used the thermal imager to spot the mastiff yesterday—also people who had gone out of her sight.

But as it turned out, she got lucky on the first try.

The sounds from the listening devices continued unabated.

But Tu Ran couldn't understand them.

It was probably a language specific to the aberrations?

She thought of Xie Xu.

As a senior member of the Research Institute, he had dealt with aberrations all along; he might be able to decipher the conversation.

Tu Ran forwarded the recording to Xie Xu.

Before long, Xie Xu sent back the decoded dialogue.

"Has she gotten suspicious?"

"No."

"What's her plan today?"

"Don't know."

"So what good are the two of you?"

"We're useless."

Tu Ran: That blunt?

The conversation continued.

"Why don't we just kill them all?"

"What's the point of killing them? The human base will just send more formidable people. We need to confuse them, make them believe the farm is completely clear of aberrations, so we can develop here long-term."

These aberrations even understood sustainable development; they were quite intelligent.

"If it weren't for a few idiots among you who can't keep your mouths shut, they would have taken care of Naya Rivera and left."

"So what do we do now? Should we take control of their leader?"

"That one's too cautious. It's hard to find an opening."

Tu Ran could hear the high regard they held for her in their conversation, and it brought her a momentary sense of satisfaction.

"What should we do next?"

Tu Ran focused her attention, wanting to hear their plan so she could counter it.

But after that sentence, there was a long pause from Xie Xu.

And no whisper-like sounds came from the listening device.

Just as Tu Ran was wondering what was going on, a message came from Xie Xu.

"It found them."

Tu Ran's heart skipped a beat.

Found them? The listening devices were so well hidden—how had they noticed so quickly?