Chapter 19
Team Leader An frowned. After he ended his phone conversation, he pulled out his chair and sat down. He crossed his arms and stared intently at Song Qingxiao, assessing her carefully.
He still remembered the new person that had only joined the team yesterday. She was a newly graduated student with an introverted personality and did not speak much. Most of the patrol guards in the security guard headquarters were muscular and tall. Hence, she made a strong impression on him as soon as she entered.
He did not know why, but she seemed to give him a different impression after being on the job for just one day.
“I don’t know why the superiors have summoned you.”
There were some things that Team Leader An did not understand, but he did not question them. He had initially summoned her intending to dismiss her. When she entered the security team, they did not carry out a thorough background check on her. He only discovered that her father had a criminal record yesterday. However, upon looking at Song Qingxiao, Team Leader An changed his mind.
“The security team does not tolerate idle people,” he added.
As he spoke, he took out a file from his drawer and tossed it towards Song Qingxiao.
“There’s been a new assignment. It’s to find a missing schoolgirl.”
The file landed on the desk with a smack. As soon as Song Qingxiao heard Team Leader An’s words, she pursed her lips tightly and could not help but remember the name she overheard in the changing room earlier—Gao Linlin.
It was the same name as the young girl that died in the test space. Hence, she was naturally curious about the assignment as well. Team Leader An giving her the assignment was precisely what she wanted. Her expression changed as she reached out her hand to retrieve the information file on the desk.
When Team Leader An saw her reaction, he turned away, looking like he could not bear her presence.
“There’s no one else on the team to spare on such a simple job. Have a go and see if you can solve this.”
He did not even try to disguise his scorn and immediately indicated that she should leave as soon as he had finished speaking.
The division of labor between the security team and the Investigation department regarding large cases was clear. Gao Linlin’s missing case must have yielded no results for the other team, so the security team had to get involved.
As soon she thought about it before opening the file, Song Qingxiao was pretty sure that the missing Gao Linlin was number one who had died in the test space. If someone went missing in a modern and advanced era, they would always leave behind some sort of trace. Unless something like the test space existed, which went beyond human understanding. Only then could someone disappear without a trace.
She carried the file with her as she left Team Leader An’s office and found a place to flip through the file. A photo fell out of the file, held between two documents. She bent down to pick it up, and a young girl’s smiling face appeared before Song Qingxiao. She subconsciously gripped the photo tightly between her fingers.
Gao Linlin had disappeared out of the blue three days ago. She studied at the Imperial City secondary school and disappeared right as she was on the phone with a classmate. The signal broke off, and by the time they went to find her, she was gone.
Her classmates felt like something was wrong and reported her disappearance to the police. After the police had examined the surveillance camera, she seemed to disappear from view mysteriously. However, she did not show up on any nearby surveillance cameras elsewhere. They were also unable to detect the location of her phone. It was as if she had disappeared from the face of the earth.
She was still a student, and her family was extremely well-to-do. Her lifestyle and family background was straightforward. They were not in any financial trouble and had no enemies. There was no reason that anyone would have reason to harm her.
All the information in the file had been shared with all the districts in Imperial City. After all, the more time passed since a person went missing, the greater the likelihood that they would encounter harm. In the end, the case was handed to the security team in the west district and ended up in Team Leader An’s hand.
As soon as Song Qingxiao had confirmed that the missing Gao Linlin was number one, she immediately kept the file. Number one had died in the test space. The case was unsolvable, and it would yield no result.
However, the case was a warning to Song Qingxiao. The test space was not an ordinary game. Once a person died within the space, they would be truly dead. Even their bodies would not be found. They would end up like number one—a missing person, a case file.
At the same time, it made her sure of one thing. Number one went missing three days ago. Song Qingxiao entered the test space last night. When they tried to calculate time in the space, number one said that Song Qingxiao had only entered the space about ten minutes after her.
It proved that the people that the space had chosen did not enter at the same time or from the same place. It appeared to be random. The game did not have set rules, and it meant that there was no way for her to fully prepare beforehand.
With that insight, Song Qingxiao was not more guarded and apprehensive towards the trial. Of course, she could not inform Team Leader An of the news that Gao Linlin was already dead. She would spend the next few days using the excuse that she was working on the case to train in the ‘Arrival’ word arts from the ‘Nine-Word Secret Order’.
At the same time, she cut down on the hours that she slept and went jogging every morning to strengthen her body in preparation for the subsequent trial.
A couple of weeks went by, and everything was peaceful, yet, Song Qingxiao did not let her guard down.
She did not find any new clues or make any headway in her investigations of Gao Linlin’s disappearance. Thankfully, Team Leader An did not seem to have any hopes of her success. It would only serve to justify his dismissal of Song Qingxiao at the end of her two-month probation period.
The wound on her neck had fully recovered. However, the scars were still there. She had figured out the rules on how to channel her psychic energy. After much practice, Song Qingxiao could clearly sense an improvement.
Her weak psychic energy had become much more tangible and solid. Its benefits were self-evident. The previous application of her psychic energy was a wispy as a reed before, but it had multiplied in strength.
The result of her practice meant that when Song Qingxiao formed a seal with her hands and channeled her psychic energy, it would not be like before, where it was barely perceptible. She felt incredibly proud of herself for achieving it in the short period of a few days.
After a month had passed, there were still no summons from the test space in her consciousness. It was as if everything that Song Qingxiao had worried about in the past was just her overthinking.
Despite that, peaceful days made Song Qingxiao feel more fearful. She began to sleep later each night because she intensified her training for her psychic energy. She bought two daggers and sewed a simple strap so that she could conceal them under her clothes.
As always, by the time she got off work and returned home, her mother—Tang Yun—was rarely found in a state where she was not drunk and unconscious. Song Qingxiao had prepared some food for her mother that would be easy on her digestion. She sat down in front of Tang Yun.
Tang Yun had lost most of her hair and looked much older than her age due to her many years of heavy drinking. Her hands were so unsteady that she could barely keep the chopsticks in her hands.
Tang Yun stared at Song Qingxiao for a long time. It seemed as though she could not recognize her own daughter. In Song Qingxiao’s memory, her mother was rarely ever as alert as she was then. Hence, the times when the mother and daughter duo could sit together were extremely few. She did not know what to say to her mother, and it even felt hard to call her ‘mom’.
They sat in silence for ages. Song Qingxiao was just about to open her mouth to speak when she heard the long-lost voice in her brain.
‘You are about to enter the Trial of God.’
The color drained out of Song Qingxiao’s face. The prompt about the trial came out of the blue. She could not care for her mother and rushed to her feet to head into the room. She did not have the time to observe Tang Yun’s reaction, nor did she have the time to explain.
As soon as Song Qingxiao took a step out, the view before her eyes changed. It was no longer the scene of her old, run-down house. The dim lamp in the room had disappeared. They were all replaced by the familiar cold feeling in her memory of the test space.
‘Welcome to the Trial of God’s test space!’
She blinked. She was in an empty space covered in thick fog. The black muzzle of a gun was pointed at her face, the cold barrel of the gun was against her forehead. The force of the gun against her head was so strong that she took several steps back.
The mocking voice of a man rang out.
“Welcome!”
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