"You weren't warning us to watch out for Gu Yunqing before?" Ye Miaozhu said coldly. "He's dead."
Zhang Yangxu looked around; indeed, Gu Yunqing was nowhere to be seen. "Did he die by the river, too?"
Ye Miaozhu said nothing, only lowering her head.
"I understand," Zhang Yangxu said, turning his head to Ning Zhe. "Can you tell me exactly what happened—what led to Gu Yunqing's death and why you say the deaths of those two have no direct connection to that river?"
Ning Zhe had no objection. "But first I need to know what happened between you and that thing impersonating Xie Sining after the call was cut off, and how you got rid of it."
Still very guarded… Zhang Yangxu nodded slightly, aware of himself, and continued.
"After Feng Yushu's warning call was cut off, I tried calling back several times but couldn't get through. During the time I was redialing, Xie Sining did nothing but watch me in silence. I didn't know she was already dead—swapped out back by the river. All I had was Feng Yushu's half-finished warning: 'Beware Xie Sining.'"
"To be honest, Ning Zhe, I didn't trust you, so I didn't fully believe Feng Yushu's call or the warning. I even seriously wondered if you were playing tricks to drive a wedge between Sining and me. After all, here you're alone."
"I put on a calm front and pressed on toward the ancestral hall with Xie Sining, but my doubts wouldn't go away, so I decided to test her."
"At that point I paused. 'On the way back to the hall, I deliberately brought up Longxin Group's real-estate bid in Gubei Town, discussing many related laws and regulations. Her reaction… was very strange.'"
Ning Zhe immediately leaned forward. "Now we're getting to the point—what was so strange?"
Since it involved business secrets, Zhang Yangxu hesitated, then said, "Sining is a seasoned professional lawyer, recognized for her top-tier expertise. I have some legal knowledge, but nowhere near hers. Before making decisions, I often consulted her and always got quick, clear answers. She'd always been reliable."
"But this time, during that conversation, she didn't feel 'reliable'."
"The legal questions I asked—some she answered instantly, giving answers identical to what I had in mind. But on others, she couldn't utter a single word—no accurate answer. Yet given her abilities, she shouldn't have that problem. It struck me as very odd."
"I probed with some other questions. As we talked, I noticed a pattern:"
"When she could answer, it was a question I already knew the answer to, and she answered accurately. When she couldn't, they were ambiguous questions I didn't know the answers to."
"In other words, she only knew what I already knew, and didn't know what I didn't."
Hearing Zhang Yangxu's description, Ning Zhe frowned. "Are you saying that the thing impersonating Xie Sining could read minds or memories?"
"Not exactly," Zhang Yangxu continued. "Because besides the legal questions, I also asked her very private things only I would know—like whether my several bank-card PINs were the same, how much I transferred monthly to my lover's card… things like that. She couldn't answer any of those."
If it truly read minds, it couldn't have failed those.
"Maybe it was pretending?" Ye Miaozhu said. Lying isn't hard if it really could read minds.
But Ning Zhe waved her off. "Let Mr. Zhang finish—give more detail."
Zhang Yangxu nodded slightly and thoroughly described his exchange with the fake Xie Sining.
Based on his account, Ning Zhe drew a clear outline.
When Zhang Yangxu asked the impostor a question, three cases arose:
Non-specialized legal questions whose answers Zhang Yangxu already knew and believed Sining also knew
In these cases, Sining answered swiftly and correctly.
Private questions—bank PINs, etc.—whose answers Zhang Yangxu knew but believed Sining didn't
There, Sining simply said she didn't know.
Highly specialized legal questions whose answers Zhang Yangxu didn't know but believed Sining did
"This case was most peculiar. At first, Sining would confidently say she could answer, but after saying 'I know,' she froze—no blinking, no breathing, no heartbeat… only a raspy sound in her throat, like a bugged game NPC stuck repeating its last line."
At this, Zhang Yangxu's expression grew odd. "It was like… an NPC in a scripted sequence triggered in error."
"Or a rule stuck in a bug, unable to run."
Ning Zhe sighed. "Hejiacun is a rule-bound place. Everyone, everything—even this world—operates under fixed rules."
Rules are rigid and absolute; there's no ambiguity. One is one, zero is zero; no halfway 0.5. Forbidden acts are forbidden under the Snake God's rules—no half-measures.
To know is to know; not to know is not to know. Rules stay silent but never lie.
Zhang Yangxu nodded in agreement. "That thing in Sining's guise moved exactly as I remembered her but wasn't the real Sining. It was my memory of her, not her in person. Do you see what I mean?"
Not the 'Sining' but the 'Sining Zhang Yangxu thought'…is that it?
Ning Zhe furrowed his brow, sensing a vital clue yet unable to grasp its shape.
"After various tests, when I was certain that this 'ghost' was absolutely not Sining, it vanished," Zhang Yangxu said. "Like drifting smoke, gone entirely. That's how I got rid of it."
"So why did you warn us to beware Gu Yunqing?" Ning Zhe asked again.
"Because after escaping the Sining impostor, I hurried back to the hall. There I encountered someone."
Zhang Yangxu said, "I saw Gu Yunqing standing alone before the lotus pedestal, flipping the yellow calendar hung on the Snake God statue to tomorrow's date."
Then he died.
Chapters in advance there: patreon.com/Thaniel_a_goodchild