Since I'd already played the card of suggesting Alice use Luo Shan's resources to investigate the apocalypse in front of her, further contact between her and Zhu Shi was unavoidable. That made it necessary to tell Zhu Shi about Alice's jinx-like constitution—so she'd understand the risks of staying close to her.

  Even if I didn't say anything, Alice would bring it up herself anyway. Hiding it wasn't an option.

  And once it was out in the open, Zhu Shi would be one step away from grasping my true motives.

  I summed up Alice's "bad-luck magnet" trait in just a few sentences. Sure enough, after hearing it, Zhu Shi paused for a long while. First came confusion, then realization, and finally the look of someone seeing through a fog of mysteries, as if many puzzle pieces had clicked into place.

  "So that's it... So that's how it is!" she exclaimed. "In the past, your overwhelming power repelled anything anomalous, but lately you've somehow been able to interact normally with supernatural events... I always thought there had to be a major reason behind that shift. It was because of contact with that soul-lost girl!"

  "Yes," I nodded.

  "And the reason you took her in, treated her so carefully, and even gave her the GPS bracelet... it's because she can help fulfill your wish!"

  "Exactly," I admitted.

  "Everything makes sense now..." She suddenly looked refreshed, then couldn't help adding with a wry tone, "Still, though... the GPS bracelet thing is a bit much..."

  I confessed sincerely, "I was wrong. Won't happen again."

  "Why not just tell her the truth?" She studied my expression before continuing. "Is it because you've lied so much already that you're worried about shattering the 'good guy' image you've built in her mind?"

  At this point, there was no use pretending anymore. I simply owned up to her guess. "Pretty much."

  Alice is a post-apocalyptic survivor with strong wariness toward her surroundings. During our interactions, I've often sensed her guardedness and defensiveness. Yet somehow, our relationship has progressed fairly smoothly. That's because she holds a stereotypical—and somewhat unrealistic—view of people living in peaceful times. I simply leaned into her preconceptions and played the part of the kind-hearted stranger.

  In other words, her trust and fondness for me are likely built on that fabricated persona.

  Sure, I once hid my supernatural abilities from her too, but that was defensible. In this era, people with powers generally keep them secret. Until she proved she had abilities first, it was reasonable for me to do the same.

  But concealing my real reason for taking her in is different. That would make her question my fundamental character.

  And the worst part? I know exactly what color my true nature is. If it were laid bare, not only Alice but probably Zhu Shi too would distance herself from me, and even Chang'an would be deeply disappointed.

  I'm hardly the benevolent person Alice imagines. I'm someone who puts personal desires first—an outright selfish villain.

  "To worry that revealing your real self might ruin the image you've carefully cultivated in the opposite sex's eyes... Senior Brother Zhuang, are you some lovesick maiden or what?" Zhu Shi looked stunned at first, then continued, "Honestly, I don't think you need to hide it. Just be upfront. If you're honest enough, she'll accept it.

  "More importantly, you can't hide fire in paper forever. The longer you spend time together, the more likely she'll hear from other sources about your obsession with anomalies and figure out your real purpose for approaching her."

  "I know. I'll find a way to explain it to her properly," I said. "So for the time being, I'd appreciate it if you could cooperate and not tell her the truth."

  She hesitated, thought it over for a long moment, then finally agreed. "Fine... You've been honest with me, so I can do this much for you."

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  "Now it's your turn to answer me..." I looked at her seriously. "Earlier, while talking with Alice, you secretly used 'Mount Buzhou,' right? From your perspective, is what she said about the apocalypse and time travel true or false?"

  She admitted outright, "Everything she said is the truth."

  "Do you believe her?" I asked.

  "...Honestly, it's hard to believe," she said after a brief pause. "Maybe she has a way to fool my eyes. Or maybe during her soul-loss period she had nightmares about the apocalypse and woke up convinced they were real. Or perhaps the condition itself causes mental confusion..."

  She paused again, then said with difficulty, "...But since she's completely convinced of her own story, I can't just dismiss it all as nonsense and laugh it off."

  From her standpoint, she probably wanted to treat Alice purely as a soul-loss patient who had awakened, hoping to find clues to curing the condition from her.

  Her own mother suffered from soul-loss syndrome, so personal feelings were inevitably involved.

  Yet she was still forcing herself to analyze it calmly.

  "Will you report her to the higher-ups?" I asked.

  "Of course. We can't be sure yet whether she's purely a soul-transmigrator, or if there's some connection between her soul travel and soul-loss syndrome." She reasoned, "It's possible other awakened soul-loss patients will also believe they lived in an apocalyptic world beforehand."

  "Verifying that hypothesis is simple," I suggested. "She had a friend in the apocalypse era. If Luo Shan pulls out all the photo records of soul-loss patients and has her identify them, finding someone matching her friend's description would mean other patients' souls likely crossed into the apocalyptic world she described."

  "You're right!" She perked up, then frowned in confusion. "Wait—didn't you already mention her friend to her earlier? And since you gave her the GPS bracelet and she never noticed, does that mean you've always known her location?"

  "I'm not at liberty to explain how I met her friend right now," I said. "As for the GPS bracelet... for some reason, it stopped transmitting signals after she left me. I'm just as puzzled as you are..."

  She didn't press further about my encounter with Alice's friend. When I got to the end, she mused thoughtfully, "It might be related to her ability..."

  "What exactly is her ability?" I was extremely curious. "You mentioned 'Power of Return' earlier—is that the name?"

  "Yes," she explained. "Her ability is 'Return,' or 'Reset' might be easier to understand.

  "She can reset her own state in time or her position in space. So even if she's injured, she can instantly recover, or teleport herself back along routes she's previously traveled.

  "It probably works on objects she's touched too, including clothes or accessories. If I'm right, the reason the GPS bracelet isn't sending signals now is that she reset it to a state before it was paired with your device.

  "Her superhuman agility is likely achieved through a more complex application of the same ability. Most of my attention was on the anomaly at the time, so I didn't catch exactly how she did it."

  Hearing that, the cloud of doubt hanging over me instantly cleared.

  If the GPS bracelet was reset in that way, then the thermal signature mark I left inside her body was probably erased by the same principle.

  Which meant that if Alice ever wanted to escape me, I wouldn't be able to stop her by force or leave any meaningful tracking method behind.

  Using No. 2 as bait to hook her really had been the right move.

  As for why she reset the GPS bracelet right after leaving me three days ago, I could only think of one explanation for now... Not because she discovered its true function, but because I'd dragged her around on that "date" to so many places. Maybe she got sweaty, maybe she was hungry, maybe she just wanted to refresh her stamina—so she reset her entire body at once.

  Last night, that anomaly with the "damage transfer" ability said it once escaped Alice's pursuit. The reason she didn't use spatial transfer back then was probably because it fled in a direction she hadn't set foot in before.

  A lot of tangled mysteries, once unraveled, turn out to be surprisingly simple.

  Zhu Shi dispelled the sound-blocking barrier, and we returned to Alice together.

  "Finished talking?" Alice looked at us. "So... what are you planning to do with me next?"

  "From now on, we'll work together," Zhu Shi said gently. "We need to deal with the anomaly incidents, and you need evidence of the approaching apocalypse gathered through anomalies. It's mutually beneficial. Also, regarding soul-loss syndrome, we'll need your cooperation for investigation later. Is that okay?"

  Alice seemed to have anticipated this and nodded without much hesitation. "Sure."

  "Then, no time to waste—can you share any leads?" Zhu Shi asked. "About the anomaly that escaped earlier, we're short on information related to it. You were chasing it, which means you must have had some clue to track it down, right?"

  "No, I didn't have any leads," Alice shook her head. "I was just wandering around outside and happened to run into it."

  "Wandering... happened to..." Zhu Shi was stunned, then couldn't help asking, "Is that how you've been investigating the apocalypse?"

  "Yeah," Alice replied matter-of-factly. "I have a constitution that attracts anomalies. As long as I walk around outside, they'll come to me sooner or later. What's wrong with that?"

  "Uh..." Zhu Shi looked helplessly at me.

  I'd wondered before how Alice planned to investigate the apocalypse. I assumed that as a time-traveler, she must have some unknown clues that gave her the confidence to go solo. I never imagined her method would be so straightforward and brutal.

  "I have a question for you too," Alice said, turning to Zhu Shi. "You said you can see through other people's abilities. So about that escaping industry demon—or anomaly—do you know how it managed to get away?"