Jiang Jianqing helped Chen Mobai into the lounge area beside the bar. Lin Chu hurried over with a cup of warm peppermint tea, adding two extra drops of the golden “stabilizer.”
Chen Mobai accepted the teacup with trembling hands. His impassioned speech just now seemed to have drained him of all his strength. He leaned against the back of the chair, breathing hard. His eyes still held that stubborn intensity, but the weakness in his body was impossible to miss.
“Professor Chen, calm down first and drink your tea.” Jiang Jianqing stood beside him, looking down at him from above. His voice was cool, yet carried a soothing strength. “You mentioned the ‘only way out,’ and that mysterious man… Tell us every detail you can remember.”
Chen Mobai took a sip of tea. The medicine took effect quickly, and his breathing gradually steadied. He closed his eyes and laboriously searched through the ashes of his memory for those scattered sparks of light.
“I… I can’t remember that person’s face.” Chen Mobai’s brow furrowed in pain. “I only remember that he was a man, very tall, wearing a long black overcoat. He found me in the shadows of the platform. At the time, Lin Hui was still standing by the train door, tugging on my sleeve and asking me to leave with her…”
His voice caught slightly. Even though the pain of forty years ago had been deliberately forgotten, now that it had resurfaced, it was still raw and bleeding.
“That person… He walked up beside me. His voice was very soft, like a whisper in my ear, but I heard every word clearly. He said, ‘Chen Mobai, look behind you, then look at Lin Hui. If you stay, at worst, you’ll be the only one who dies. But if Lin Hui doesn’t leave, you’ll drag her down with you until everyone forgets her and this era erases her.’”
Chen Mobai opened his eyes and looked at Jiang Jianqing. His gaze was filled with terror and regret. “I was too scared back then… I was afraid of dying, but I was even more afraid that Huihui would suffer because of me. That man shoved this ticket into my hand. He said, ‘This is a ticket for Ouroboros. It can take you to a safe place. The price of boarding is forgetting everything here. Push her onto the train, and she’ll live.’”
“I… I believed him.” Chen Mobai covered his face, tears seeping between his fingers. “I pushed her onto the train. I told her I didn’t love her anymore. I told her to get lost… I personally strangled the only connection between us. I thought I was protecting her…”
“But you remembered. That wasn’t an ordinary train.” Jiang Jianqing interrupted him, his tone detached but precise. “The Ouroboros Project. High-purity psychic energy transport… Professor Chen, have you ever wondered why that mysterious man gave you this ticket? And why did he want Ms. Lin Hui to forget everything?”
Chen Mobai froze. He stared at Jiang Jianqing, his eyes blank. “I… I don’t know. I only know that if Huihui boarded the train, she could live…”
“Boss.” Lin Chu walked over with the train ticket in hand. As she studied the steel stamp on it, she said to Jiang Jianqing, “If Professor Chen is telling the truth, that mysterious man was very likely one of the core figures in the Ouroboros Project. Sending Ms. Lin Hui onto that special train may not have been to protect her. It may have been to use her memory… or rather, her obsession.”
She turned to Chen Mobai, her tone growing more serious. “Professor Chen, did you and Ms. Lin Hui come into contact with anything unusual back then? Or was there some special obsession within the two of you?”
Chen Mobai struggled to remember, and his head began to throb violently from the strain. “Obsession… We… We were just students. We only wanted to be together…” He suddenly stopped, and his eyes flickered. “That’s right. Huihui… Huihui’s family owned an antiques shop. Before she left, she gave me a diary… She said it had been passed down through her family for generations and told me to take good care of it…”
“A diary?” Jiang Jianqing and Lin Chu asked in unison.
“Yes, a diary… The cover was black leather, and there was a strange symbol on it too…” Chen Mobai’s voice grew quieter and his eyes began to lose focus as the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease surged back. “The diary… Huihui… Where is the diary…?”
“Professor Chen!” Lin Chu called out anxiously, trying to rouse him.
Jiang Jianqing waved a hand, stopping her. “His mind has reached its limit. Questioning him any further will only accelerate the deterioration of his condition.” He raised a hand and lightly tapped Chen Mobai on the forehead. A streak of cool blue light sank into the old man’s brow. “Sleep, Professor Chen. We’ll find some of the truth for you.”
Chen Mobai’s eyes slowly closed, and he began to breathe steadily. He fell asleep, but even in his dreams, his brow remained tightly furrowed, as if he were still searching for that black diary.
“Boss, the diary.” Lin Chu looked at Jiang Jianqing, her eyes shining. “Professor Chen’s obsession is probably centered on that diary. And that diary may very well contain the truth about the Ouroboros Project—even the fate of Ms. Lin Hui.”
Jiang Jianqing looked at Chen Mobai sleeping. His eyes were as deep as the sea at midnight. “The black-market hunters wanted to destroy the ticket not only to prevent the memory from being redeemed, but also to sever every clue leading to the truth about the Ouroboros Project. That diary is an enormous threat to them as well.”
He rose and walked to the bar, picking up the train ticket from inside its sealed bag. The ghostly blue halo on its surface had dimmed, but its bone-chilling cold remained unmistakable.
“Lin Chu, get ready.” Jiang Jianqing picked up a small brass two-pan scale from the bar. This scale was far more delicate than the one on the counter, and a rusty old coin rested on its small pan. “We’re going to Professor Chen’s home. Since he said the diary was a family heirloom and that he kept it for forty years, it may still be in his house.”
Lin Chu sprang into action. She pulled a specially made black backpack from beneath the bar and stuffed it with investigative tools and self-defense equipment. “Okay, Boss. But Professor Chen…”
“Leave him here.” Jiang Jianqing glanced at the sleeping old man. “The black-market hunters came for him last night, which means they know Professor Chen exists. Since they want to destroy the ticket, they won’t spare him. If we leave him here, the scale’s barrier can at least protect him.”
He picked up the small brass scale and lightly nudged the weight with his fingertip.
“Besides, this little scale can sense the aura of Ouroboros. If that diary is still in Professor Chen’s house, it will guide us.”
After the rain stopped, the air in the Old Town District was thick with the damp scent of earth and the musty fragrance of decaying camphorwood. Jiang Jianqing and Lin Chu walked along the bluestone road, their footsteps echoing through the silent alleyways.
Chen Mobai’s home was in an old apartment building on the edge of the Old Town District. The building’s outer walls had peeled away, exposing dark red bricks. The stairwell was piled with clutter and filled with a mixture of mildew and cooked food.
“Boss, third floor, 302.” Lin Chu checked the map on her phone and stopped at the entrance to the stairwell. She cautiously scanned the area but found no sign of the black-market hunters. “Looks like they haven’t found this place yet.”
Jiang Jianqing nodded and went up the stairs first. The steps groaned dully, their sounds especially clear in the empty stairwell.
When they reached the door of 302, Jiang Jianqing did not break in immediately. He put on a pair of white gloves, placed his right hand on the doorknob, and slowly closed his eyes.
A faint ghostly blue halo seeped from his fingertips and spread along the doorknob to cover the entire door. Jiang Jianqing could sense the chaotic, bewildered, and despairing emotional aura filling the space beyond it—the traces left by someone with Alzheimer’s disease who had lived there for a long time.
Yet hidden among those chaotic auras was a faint but exceptionally pure obsession—an aura of protection and promises.
“This is it.” Jiang Jianqing opened his eyes, his gaze cool and clear. He applied slight pressure with his right hand. The lock gave a crisp click, and the door slowly swung open.
Chen Mobai’s home was even more cluttered than the office. Books and old newspapers were piled throughout the living room. Several battered suitcases sat in the corner, while expired medicine bottles and half a glass of moldy water rested on the bar. The air was saturated with the old scent of camphorwood and worn paper.
“Boss, this place looks like a recycling center for wastepaper.” Lin Chu stared at the scene in shock.
“Professor Chen’s memories are rapidly disappearing. Instinctively, he’s trying to hold on to anything that can prove he once lived.” Jiang Jianqing walked to the center of the living room and picked up the small brass scale. The rusty old coin on its pan began to swing violently, producing a crisp clicking sound.
“The scale is reacting.” Lin Chu hurried excitedly to his side.
“The aura of Ouroboros… is right here.” Jiang Jianqing looked at the small scale. The indicator pointed toward an old wooden bookcase against the wall.
The bookcase was crammed with books on classical literature and teaching notes. Many of the pages had yellowed and fallen loose, covered in dense annotations. Lin Chu immediately got to work, carefully picking up books and gently turning their pages as she searched for the black diary.
“Boss, there are way too many books here. If we check them page by page, when will we ever finish?” Lin Chu asked anxiously.
“We don’t need to check them page by page.” Jiang Jianqing closed his eyes and placed his right hand on the bookcase.
His consciousness instantly transformed into countless tiny points of light that pierced through the books. He could sense the emotional Echo behind each one: Chen Mobai’s love of classical literature, his hopes for his students, and his fear of disease.
But amid all that tangled information, he did not sense the distinctive aura of the diary, marked by the steel stamp of a ring-shaped snake.
“It’s not here.” Jiang Jianqing opened his eyes, his gaze deepening. “The scale isn’t wrong. The aura of Ouroboros does come from this bookcase, but not from the diary itself.”
He walked up to the bookcase, his eyes locking onto a dark-yellow wooden drawer at the very bottom. The drawer handle was rusted and coated in dust, as if it had not been opened in many years.
“Lin Chu, open it.”
Lin Chu took out a small pry bar and carefully pried at the rusted drawer handle. The drawer slid open slowly with a dull scrape.
There was no black diary inside, only a battered notebook whose cover had been worn down until its writing was impossible to make out.
“This… This isn’t the diary.” Lin Chu picked up the notebook, disappointed.
Jiang Jianqing took it from her and lightly touched the cover with his fingertips.
Hummm—
A piercing ringing instantly tore through Jiang Jianqing’s senses. A blurred image appeared in the sea of his consciousness: a young Chen Mobai sitting before the bar, struggling to write something in the notebook. His expression was pained and bewildered, and he kept muttering, “The diary… Huihui… Where is the diary…? I can’t forget…”
Jiang Jianqing opened his eyes, his gaze cool. “This is Professor Chen’s medical record and memory log. He was afraid he would forget where the diary was kept, so he wrote it down here.”
He opened the notebook to the first page, which was covered in Chen Mobai’s disordered handwriting. Most of it had already blurred beyond recognition. Only a few repeated phrases could be made out: “Don’t forget the diary,” “In the shadows of the platform,” “The black diary…”
Jiang Jianqing continued turning the pages. Several pages in the middle of the notebook had been torn out, leaving behind rough tears. His eyes settled on the second-to-last page.
In the center of the page, four large characters had been painstakingly written in faded red ink: “The Diary Within.”
Beneath those four words was a tiny string of symbols, as if carved with a fingernail: a ring-shaped snake with the Roman numeral “VII” set into its center.
“The Diary Within… the symbol of Ouroboros.” Lin Chu leaned closer, her expression startled. “What does this mean? Did he hide the diary inside himself? How could that be possible?”
Jiang Jianqing stared at the ring-shaped snake symbol, his eyes as deep as the sea at midnight.
“No. Professor Chen’s obsession centers on that diary, but he was afraid someone would take it, so he…” Jiang Jianqing drew a deep breath. A trace of icy chill showed in his eyes. “He gave the diary physical form as part of his heart. As long as his heart keeps beating, his obsession will not fade, and the diary will not disappear.”
The discovery left Lin Chu rigid. She looked at Jiang Jianqing, her eyes filled with awe and fear. “That means… to get the diary, we have to… we have to…”
“We have to take his life.” Jiang Jianqing’s voice was cold, utterly devoid of warmth. “This is one of the truths behind the Ouroboros Project: turning people with powerful obsessions into vessels for those obsessions. As long as the vessel lives, the obsession can live forever. Once the vessel dies, the obsession will disappear—or be transferred to the next vessel.”
Just then, a sudden burst of frantic braking sounded outside the window, followed by several piercing psychic shrieks.
“Oh no, it’s the black-market hunters!” Lin Chu rushed to the window and looked down at the wet street. Several black sedans had stopped beneath the apartment building, and more than a dozen figures in hooded sweatshirts were rapidly charging inside.
“They found us.” Lin Chu grabbed her baton, her eyes alert. “Boss, we’re surrounded.”
Jiang Jianqing stuffed the notebook into his bag. His face remained pale, but that lucid, brutally clear light had returned to his eyes.
“They’re not here to take the diary.” Jiang Jianqing’s voice was ice. “They’re here to kill Professor Chen. Once Professor Chen dies, the truth carried by that diary will vanish forever.”
He picked up the small brass scale and lightly nudged the weight with his fingertip, producing a crisp click.
“Lin Chu, get ready to break through. No matter what, we cannot let them get near Professor Chen.”
The sound of rain rose again outside, as if heralding an even more violent storm. Deep in the alleys of the Old Town District, the doorbell of the Echo Office suddenly rang out with a clear chime. It was Chen Mobai’s final declaration of war in his dream—and the starting point of the irreversible path Jiang Jianqing and Lin Chu were about to walk.