After receiving Guan Tong's call, Uenoshi rushed to the withdrawal center immediately.

When she arrived, Guan Tong and Shi Jingyi were in the monitoring room.

"Any findings?"

She asked Guan Tong, trying to keep her voice steady.

But inside she couldn't calm down.

Anyone who had a long conversation with someone yesterday and then learned today that person had committed suicide would be unable to accept it—some might even suspect their own involvement. Otherwise, why would everything be fine before, but the very next day after talking with them, that person would commit suicide?

"There was nothing obvious from the surveillance footage. Other than your visit, no one except the doctors and nurses entered Suzuki's room or had contact with her."

"……"

"Don't overthink it, I'm not accusing you." Guan Tong frowned. "But she couldn't have suddenly committed suicide for no reason. There must be a cause."

"What method did she use to kill herself?" Uenoshi asked. "There shouldn't be any—"

The doctor answered at that moment: "She hanged herself, but the rope was likely some kind of item she bought with Ascension Coins herself. Our withdrawal center has rules, we don't place dangerous objects in patients' rooms—even the walls are padded material."

After speaking, the doctor looked at Guan Tong. "Sir, pardon my bluntness, but Suzuki's case probably doesn't involve a conspiracy, nor murder. She most likely couldn't bear any more pain."

"Pain?"

"...You might not know, but when addiction to those alien spores flares up, it drives people into extreme agony, far worse than any ordinary addiction. Ordinary people can't withstand a few episodes; even Ascendants, who are physically much stronger, can't take it forever. Over time they collapse... Suzuki is far from the only person who chose to end their life."

"Then why could she hold on before, but after I met her, she suddenly couldn't?" Uenoshi pressed. "Yesterday she promised she'd wait for visits and for me to take her home to see friends. How could so much change in one day?"

The doctor answered helplessly, "We don't know either. But maybe Suzuki had already mentally collapsed, and your visit became the final straw—what I mean is, Suzuki was holding on because of the obsession with 'someone will come to see me.' Your arrival fulfilled that obsession, so..."

Uenoshi fell silent.

She remembered the stacks of manuscript paper and the profiling sketches covering the walls in Suzuki's room, those frantic contents that indeed revealed something of Suzuki's state of mind.

Could it really be that her visit caused this?

She looked at Guan Tong. He slightly shook his head. "Let's go to her room and take a look. Also, I need to copy these surveillance files."

"Copy? You can't do that!" The head of the withdrawal center in the room shook his head. "These data are private. Allowing you to view them is already against the rules. Taking backups away is absolutely not allowed!"

"You can talk to your superior. If your superior disagrees, have them contact their superior."

"Well..."

The head's face darkened as he pulled out his phone and walked outside the monitoring room to call.

Guan Tong manipulated a wisp of Shadow that slid out from his trouser leg and followed the head outside to eavesdrop. At the same time he pulled a backup device from his storage ring and wirelessly copied the video files.

When staff tried to stop him, they froze and withdrew their hands after meeting Guan Tong's cold stare, letting him make the copy.

Guan Tong was going to investigate thoroughly; he wouldn't miss a single detail. Just because he couldn't find a problem in the footage didn't mean there wasn't one, so he would have specialists take a look.

Meanwhile, the conversation between the head and his superior outside was clearly picked up by Guan Tong's eavesdropping.

"Minister, that person is trying to copy all the surveillance videos now."

"What? That's critical data from the withdrawal center, how can we let him copy it!"

"I told him that too, but he asked me to contact you. He even said... if you disagree, have you contact your superior."

"That brat is acting lawless just because of his connections with the Countermeasures Research Office!"

"Minister, are we going to let him copy them or not?"

"...Fine, don't argue with him for now. I'll find a way to handle this."

"Understood."

After hanging up, the head turned, and Guan Tong was standing right behind him.

"Ah!"

He hadn't heard even a step and jumped in surprise.

Guan Tong stared at him for a few seconds, then, together with Shi Jingyi, Uenoshi, and the doctor and nurse responsible for Suzuki, went to Suzuki's former room.

Pushing the door open, Guan Tong saw at once the profiling sketches covering the floor and walls, and manuscript paper scattered everywhere.

"Miss Suzuki liked to draw. We thought it was a way for her to decompress, so we didn't intervene," the doctor said.

"Look, Guan Tong." Shi Jingyi surprisedly picked up a sheet and handed it to Guan Tong.

On it was a dense cluster of black lines, all radiating outward from a single black human-shaped shadow.

"Isn't this drawing—"

Shi Jingyi didn't finish, but she knew exactly: the figure in the drawing was Guan Tong's ability "Shadow."

Guan Tong took the drawing and looked at it; he was not unfamiliar with it. Earlier, when Suzuki had helped Yuzawa Jun look for him, she used Profiling to sketch his silhouette and ability.

But Suzuki later met him and learned Yuzawa Jun's true nature. Why would she still draw like this now?

No one could sense any kindness in those drawings. Anyone seeing them would instantly take the black shadow as a chaotic, evil monster.

Uenoshi realized this too. "Suzuki couldn't have drawn... someone like that on purpose. Could her mind really be... or are her memories messed up? But when I visited her, she was perfectly normal."

Shi Jingyi asked the doctor, "When a spore addict flares up, do they experience memory loss or mental disorder?"

The doctor nodded. "Some patients are indeed driven insane by the pain."

"Suzuki wasn't insane," Uenoshi said firmly.

"...Anyway, you all understand the situation. We also don't want this to happen. But please believe, as medical staff we have no reason or motive to harm our patients."

The doctor and nurse exchanged a glance. "We'll step out now. You can stay a while by yourselves."

Guan Tong ignored them and flipped through the profiling sketches. Many referenced his own image, and they all looked sinister.

He found it puzzling; he didn't think he occupied that kind of image in Suzuki's mind, so why did she portray him that way?

"Troupe Leader, do you have any ideas?"

"...This is odd. If these weren't my own sketches, maybe I wouldn't think so strongly."

"I think so too."

"Should we go see the body?" Shi Jingyi suggested.

Guan Tong thought for a moment. "Of course we should, but only Uenoshi and I need to go."

Shi Jingyi didn't know Suzuki and didn't need to be dragged into this without cause. If there was a conspiracy, Guan Tong didn't want to involve Shi Jingyi before he had leads.

"All right. I'll go back and wait for your news."

"Okay."

After Shi Jingyi left, Guan Tong and Uenoshi also departed the withdrawal center.

Before leaving, Guan Tong collected all the scattered manuscript sheets into his storage ring. They were Suzuki's belongings and could be clues to her suicide; they couldn't be left to the center's discretion.

He left a Shadow behind to secretly watch the head, doctor, and nurse; if anyone acted suspiciously, he would know at once.

On the way to the medical department, Guan Tong and Uenoshi rode in silence.

Neither knew what to say, nor had the mood to talk.

When they arrived, someone greeted and led them—clearly Zhang Minglu had arranged things.

At the mortuary, staff took a body out of the freezer.

Seeing Suzuki's pale, lifeless face made both Guan Tong and Uenoshi feel a heavy drop in their chests.

When you haven't seen the body, you can still harbor some hope. Seeing it with your own eyes collapses that hope into certainty, leaving no escape.

Uenoshi examined the body carefully and found no external wounds—only clear ligature marks on the neck, confirming hanging as the cause of death.

After leaving the room, Uenoshi said, "I want to take her body back to Sakura Prayer Country and hold a funeral, have her colleagues from the Police Department attend and pay their respects... She told me when alive she wanted to see her former coworkers one last time... Now she's gone, but I still want to fulfill that wish."

Guan Tong nodded. "Do it."

They went to handle the paperwork, but staff opposed them when they learned they wanted to take the body.

"That is a spore addict's corpse intended for brain autopsy and spore research. It has high scientific value. You are not her relatives, right? You can't take the body."

"In this world, having relatives is already a luxury; having friends is lucky," Guan Tong said. "We are her friends. We won't let her be dissected. Didn't anyone tell you we have the right to decide what happens to the body?"

"This... above only said you may view the body, not take it."

"Then go ask them again."

The staff hesitated, confirmed, and quickly received a reply.

"Fine, you may take the body away, but you must register it according to regulations."

As the staff took out the registry, Guan Tong suddenly snatched it.

"Hey? What are you doing?"

"Has anyone previously registered to view this body?" Guan Tong pointed to an entry with the signature "Wei Huo."

The staff nodded. "A woman did come to view it."

"Do you know who she is?"

"No."

Guan Tong thought a moment and said to Uenoshi, "You take Suzuki's body to Sakura Prayer Country. I'll follow the lead on this 'Wei Huo.' We'll keep in touch by phone."

"...All right."

After finishing formalities, Uenoshi left with the body.

Guan Tong requested the surveillance footage and found the woman who signed as "Wei Huo."

In the video she had a short ponytail, ordinary-looking; Guan Tong had never seen her before.

But he could tell she wasn't ordinary. This special medical department isn't public. Whoever knew about it and had permission to view corpses couldn't be a run-of-the-mill person.

Guan Tong copied the video, left, and contacted Zhang Minglu to help check the woman's identity.

He then contacted the hacker Mask and sent a commission to analyze the withdrawal center and medical department surveillance footage with professional tools, checking for edits or forgeries.

After running around, the sky had grown dim.

Guan Tong walked out of the shelter and looked up at the thick, heavy clouds overhead.

Suzuki's dark-style profiling drawings... the woman who registered as "Wei Huo" to view the body... even the center head's guilty demeanor... these suspicious points together gave him ninety percent certainty that Suzuki's death wasn't a simple suicide—that something was hidden.

"If I had intervened earlier, maybe..."

Guan Tong frowned. He knew such regrets were pointless; what mattered now was investigating and acting on the results.

"Don't worry, Suzuki. I will give you an explanation. If you were indeed murdered, I will avenge you."

...

That night, somewhere in Pinglu.

The short-ponytailed woman sat in a car, opened her storage box, and selected a Communication Scroll to use.

After picking a target from her friends list, she immediately established an ideational link with that person.

The short-ponytailed woman spoke in the mental channel, "That woman is dead. It's a pity; with more time we might have gotten more intelligence from her."

"Did you kill her?" A surprised male voice sounded in her mind.

"I had to act before Shadow came to her. If I didn't move fast, I might be exposed. I couldn't let that monster focus on me. I disguised it as suicide; it should be fine."

The man's voice fell silent for a moment, then came again. "Idiot... You killed her and that's exactly why Shadow will target you. Your disguise won't fool him."

"If I'm an idiot, then what about you? You can't even move freely and can only communicate with the outside world using a Communication Scroll. What are you, useless?" The short-ponytailed woman sneered. "Hmph. Even if he figures something out, what can he do? Everything about me is fake; he can't trace me."

"You..." The man's voice was speechless. "You underestimate the resources a top-tier Ascendant can mobilize."

"Don't lecture me. Understand this: you are not my superior!"

"I'm just telling you to be smarter, so you don't expose yourself before I even get out. Before you underestimate Shadow, think about the kind of Ascendant who dares go against an entire country. For someone like that, no rule can stop them from doing what they want."

Hearing that, the short-ponytailed woman grew nervous, starting to doubt whether she had indeed been reckless.

"Leave Pinglu right now." The man's voice continued. "Go to some uninhabited area and lay low. Don't contact anyone for the time being."

"What? What about my mission!"

"Only the living can complete a mission." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"......"