After saying this, Chi Lian complained, “I know humans tend to overthink things, but I didn’t realize their thoughts were so complicated. Communicating with them is so hard!”
When she first saw Chi Lian, the ex-wife thought he was a debt collector. It took a lot of explaining on Chi Lian’s part to calm her down.
“A debt collector?” Xing Tian looked Chi Lian up and down and couldn’t help but laugh.
“Hey!#”
Ye Yang also gave him a once-over. To hide his somewhat unusual appearance, Chi Lian was wearing a dark hoodie. The oversized hood covered the upper half of his face completely. Because the hoodie was so baggy, he had even tucked his crossbody bag inside the jacket, with one hand still inside the bag, looking like he could pull out a folding knife at any moment…
Yeah, no wonder she misunderstood.
Getting back to business, the place the gambler’s ex-wife had mentioned was a small church in an old district.
It was so run-down and tiny, and almost all the original residents had moved away, so few people ever went to the church. Even the street where the church was located was home to only a few elderly people left.
In a place like that, any new face would be noticed immediately. Yet, according to reports, Mutual Aid Society members had been gathering at the church seven or eight times a week. Chi Lian had gone there himself and asked around among the neighbors, but everyone unanimously said that no strangers had come in the past two months—or even in the past two years.
According to a scavenger who lived next door to the small church: “Really? That church is still open? I thought it had been abandoned for years. Look—the lock on the gate is all rusty.”
Chi Lian pressed further. The scavenger thought for a moment and recalled that the church had only one old priest—or bishop, he wasn’t sure—just one clergy member. But the last time he had seen that clergy member was two or three years ago.
Ye Yang immediately thought of a criminal investigation technique he had recently learned. “If people really are gathering there, someone would have seen them. Even if no one saw the people themselves, there would be other traces left behind.”
Chi Lian immediately said, “I asked all the living humans nearby. I also asked the stray cats, mice, and weasels. But their thoughts are too simple—they can’t form complete sentences, only convey basic ideas.”
Ye Yang: “…Impressive. So there are really no obvious loopholes. Could that woman have lied to us? But why would she?”
“Wait,” Chi Lian suddenly added, “I just remembered something. There was a group of mice that were especially terrified. At the time, I thought it was because they were afraid of me. But looking back now, they were afraid of the underground space beneath the small church!”
“At first, they were just huddled together trembling. But when I mentioned the small church, they immediately panicked and bolted wildly.”
“The small church definitely has issues. It seems that woman wasn’t lying. I knew it—she had no reason to lie.” Ye Yang nodded.
Xing Tian thought for a moment. “So far, there are three possibilities. Either the Mutual Aid Society’s activities are extremely well-hidden—for example, there’s an underground tunnel connecting to the church that bypasses the surrounding people. Or the people around the church are all in on it and lying. Or we’ve been deceived by that human woman.”
Chi Lian immediately ruled out the first possibility. “I went through all the sewers in the area and asked other animals. There’s definitely no underground passage.” Chi Lian was the expert on this—he loved burrowing underground. If he said there was nothing, there was nothing.
Xing Tian stroked his chin. “The last possibility also seems unlikely. It looks like we have to check out this church ourselves.”
·
A day later, Chi Lian and Ye Yang went to investigate again. This time, they used invisibility talismans to stay hidden. They spent an entire day carefully observing everything within one kilometer of the small church. Sure enough, they noticed something off.
Xing Tian’s guess was likely correct—these people were all suspicious!
At first glance, the humans around the small church all appeared to be going about their own business. But upon closer observation, they moved like NPCs in a video game—stuck in endless loops.
The scavenger closest to the church was the most obvious example. As someone who lived by collecting trash, he barely even sorted through the garbage. Instead, he just dragged his beat-up little cart around the church, returning to the spot next to it like clockwork every two hours.
Then there was a homeless man. He slept all day, but at night when no one was around, he would sit guard in an inconspicuous corner across from the church, staying awake all night.
There was an elderly woman who appeared to live in a small self-built building nearby. She spent three hours in the morning, three hours at noon, and three hours in the evening sitting on a lounger to the north of the church, sunbathing.
Nine hours a day—more regular than a full-time job. And the north side didn’t even get much sunlight. It would have been far sunnier downstairs from her own building. Highly suspicious.
There was also a woman who looked like a housewife—it was hard to tell her age. She carried a vegetable basket but never went shopping. She just walked back and forth on the street in front of the church. Four times a day. Every time she passed, the basket contained the same bunch of garland chrysanthemums—morning, noon, afternoon, and evening.
These were all very ordinary-looking people. Walking past them, you would never notice anything wrong. It was only through continuous observation that the abnormalities became apparent.
Besides these, there were many other people milling about the area, ensuring that at any given moment, three to four people had the small church within their field of vision.
“The security here is incredibly tight,” Chi Lian frowned. Their own company only had Brother Hui as a security guard, and he was always wandering around the flower bed downstairs—on duty for less than an hour a day.
Ye Yang had considered knocking out the guards and sneaking into the church, but he wasn’t confident he could take down three people at once without them realizing something was wrong upon waking. More likely, he would just tip off the enemy and lose this hard-won lead.
For the next three days straight, Chi Lian stayed stationed near the small church alone. But the church showed no signs of activity. Just then, Ye Yang found a new lead on his end.
Following the gambler’s trail, he had tracked down another person—a man named Zhu Kai. He was the gambler’s friend and also a gambling addict. It was Zhu Kai who had introduced the gambler to the Mutual Aid Society.
Zhu Kai was cautious, but not cautious enough. Ye Yang found surveillance footage from a coffee shop showing a conversation between him and the gambler, revealing the method for joining the Mutual Aid Society.
The method was simple: you just needed an internal member to vouch for you. New members didn’t even need their sponsor to accompany them to their first meeting—just stating the sponsor’s name was enough.
Chi Lian was skeptical. “That sounds very casual and loose. Is there something else going on that we don’t know about?”
“If the Mutual Aid Society really is a cult, then it makes perfect sense.” Ye Yang had been studying cult cases recently and had identified some patterns. “Cults need more followers. For some of the more ruthless and extreme cults, the simpler the recruitment method, the better. Once they get people inside, they have ways to control them.”
“And I’ve looked into this Zhu Kai. He just made some money and is flying to Tai Island tomorrow for vacation. He won’t be back for at least half a month. We can use his name to get in.”
Once Zhu Kai left China, they could use the great formation of China to completely cut off his communication with anyone inside the country. Even if someone tried to verify with him, they wouldn’t be able to reach him.
“If worst comes to worst, we can just run. Everyone we’ve been investigating is human. There’s no way we can’t get away.”
Xing Tian also thought Ye Yang’s reasoning was sound. Besides, they had already gathered plenty of intelligence. So they decided that as soon as they learned the specific date of the next meeting, they would go in—no more waiting.
…
Chi Lian spent another day staking out the church. Finally, the people nearby showed some unusual activity. Chi Lian managed to overhear from someone that there would be a gathering on Wednesday.
On Wednesday night, Ye Yang and Xing Tian disguised themselves as new members and headed to the small church to investigate.
The small church, usually deserted, was crowded that night.
The front door was still locked, but the back door had somehow been opened. A man and a woman stood at the entrance, with a long line of people in front of them.
The line consisted of men and women of all ages—from a white-haired elderly man in a wheelchair to a college student carrying a backpack. Roughly estimating, there were several hundred people, and more were still arriving in the distance.
Despite the large crowd, and nearly everyone’s face showing excitement or even fanaticism—some people could barely contain themselves, their hands and feet trembling—the scene was eerily quiet. The only sounds were footsteps and the voice of the man and woman at the back door verifying identities.
Most of the streetlights in the old district were broken, leaving the area very dimly lit. Ye Yang and Xing Tian blended into the crowd under the cover of darkness.
They couldn’t figure out exactly how the identity verification worked. The man and woman had no tools. For each person who passed, the man would stare intently at the next person’s face, while the woman would call out that person’s name in a soft, slightly eerie tone. That was it—then they moved on to the next.
The atmosphere was extremely strange. Ye Yang and Xing Tian each used their own methods to detect anything unusual, but they sensed no spiritual power or demonic aura whatsoever.
Soon, it was their turn.
The man’s gaze was piercing as he stared directly at them. The woman’s usually flat voice suddenly rose in pitch. “Newcomers?”
Ye Yang was so startled his hair stood on end. Fortunately, Xing Tian pressed a hand on his shoulder from behind. He calmed down and recited the lines they had prepared. “Yes. Zhu Kai sent us.”
The woman immediately returned to her calm demeanor. “Your name?” she asked.
“Ye Yang.”
“Alright. I’ve noted it down. Welcome. Since it’s your first time, please follow closely behind the person in front of you.”
That was it? That was pretty easy. This person seemed polite and reasonable. Ye Yang breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then, Xing Tian leaned his head in from behind. “Me too. My name is Xing Tian.”
The woman’s usually composed expression suddenly changed. A flush of red rose to her cheeks. Both she and the man stared sharply at them. Her shrill voice pierced the night sky: “You came together?!” Their eyes were wide open, almost bulging out of their sockets, the dense red veins visible on their eyeballs.
At the same time, every other cult member present stopped what they were doing and turned to look straight at them.
In an instant, Ye Yang felt as if needles were pricking his back.
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