Chapter 67

Chapter 67: The Sea Without Light Part 67

“Are you ready?”

At nine o’clock in the evening, Night Cicada opened a teleportation portal and arrived at Kui Xin’s residence.

“I’ve been ready for a while.” Kui Xin stood up from the sofa. “Go there and come back as soon as possible. I want to rest soon.”

While Kui Xin put on her mask, Night Cicada observed her face, “Your dark circles are really heavy.”

“In necessary times, my work requires me to be active 24/7.” Kui Xin glanced at him with a glance, “It would be strange if I didn’t have dark circles.”

“You must be tired.” Night Cicada stretched his arms, inviting Kui Xin to enter the teleportation portal.

Silverface wanted to follow when he saw Kui Xin entering.

“You stay here and keep watch.” Night Cicada chuckled and pulled Silverface close, “Tonight’s not a mission. Lady Fortune has to return to headquarters for something.”

“I see… Goodbye.” Silverface waved at Kui Xin’s back.

Kui Xin walked through the portal and emerged onto a silver-white corridor.

The spotless floor reflected the lights, and a blue beam scanned Kui Xin from head to toe.

“Identity confirmed, ‘Lady Fortune.’ Welcome back,” Eden said.

“Pfft.” Night Cicada laughed behind Kui Xin, “Every time I hear others call you ‘Lady Fortune,’ I can’t help but laugh. Red calls your code name the most; how does he manage to say it with such seriousness?”

“Do you have an objection to my code name?” Kui Xin turned to look at him.

“Of course not.” Night Cicada grinned, “Let’s go, Miss. I’ll take you to see the prisoner.”

Despite Night Cicada repeatedly calling Kui Xin “Miss,” he never really treated her like one, treating her casually. These three words were just a teasing nickname in Night Cicada’s heart; her status in the organization wasn’t high enough to warrant such prioritization.

“First, let’s check out the appetizers.” Night Cicada said, “Has the boss told you about ‘Player’ things?”

“A little bit.” Kui Xin answered.

“Then, allow me to explain in detail.” Night Cicada crossed his arms and walked ahead of Kui Xin, leading her down the corridor. “The story begins when I was executing a mission in White Whale City.”

He did not go into specifics about what mission was in White Whale City and started narrating directly.

“The first to show a sign of anomaly was Dorine Sinclair, the female assistant at the Bio-Mechanical Research Lab. She is the so-called player, our initial encounter with a player. Players take over people’s bodies and live impersonating them, but it seems the player does not possess Dorine’s memories, hence she can only pretend forcefully.”

“It’s naturally easier to detect abnormalities without those memories,” Kui Xin noted.

Night Cicada nodded, “Exactly. She went to work, but couldn’t recall the code for the monitoring room when standing at the door—how could an experimenter forget their duty password? This oddity drew her colleague’s attention, who then reported the incident to us. We began surveillance on Ms. Dorine.”

“Dorine was Reynir’s assistant?” Kui Xin asked.

“Yes. As the saying goes, pulling a radish takes dirt away. We soon noticed that Reynir’s behavior had become abnormal too.” Night Cicada explained, “Reynir didn’t act rashly. First, he took a few days off and stayed alone in his house. He was probably trying to figure out how to survive in this world… After some days, when vacation was over, he had no choice but to return to work. There were no signs of anomaly during his leave.”

Kui Xin asked curiously, “How did Reynir end up being exposed?”

“The elevator,” Night Cicada said calmly. “In White Whale City, elevators are voice-activated. Reynir didn’t know that, and when he entered the elevator and stood there dumbfounded, searching for touch controls. Eventually, he realized he should try speaking. This video was recorded by the elevator surveillance. He luckily met a colleague on the way, and together they entered the lab; otherwise, he would’ve continued guessing the password at the door.”

“But his actions in the elevator caught the organization’s attention,” Kui Xin said, “I suppose more than just this incident led to confirming his identity. What other unusual actions did he exhibit?”

“After noticing Reynir’s unusual behavior, we closely monitored and installed a small camera at his dwelling,” Night Cicada sneered. “Guess what? The camera captured him fiddling with a home projector… It’s hilarious. He worked on it for days but never understood how to use the device properly. Likely, the sound control switch in the elevator gave him a clue; he deduced devices could be controlled with voice commands. However, there was an unexpected twist. Dr. Raynel Brandonberg had programmed the smart appliance’s startup command to be the name of a cat he once had. The player impersonating Raynel didn’t know the cat’s name, thus failing to guess the projector’s startup command.”

This fellow had quite the unfortunate luck, as Kui Xin thought, meeting one hapless person after another since she arrived.

Zejian landed at an insane