Zhang Heng looked at the college student in front of him. The latter was akin to the proverbial inspirational protagonist from a soap opera who had overcome many difficulties, defeated mental illness, and finally regained a new life. All the gloominess that surrounded him seemed to have gone.

  He stood there, talking about how he overcame all the difficulties that he faced in his life, even mentioning how bad he felt for allowing his parents and friends to be worried sick of him. His emotions, actions, or expressions were flawless, and judging by the lady cashier’s response; it appeared that the prodigal son had now returned.

  Mental illness could be categorized as a disease itself. Only a minute fraction of people could heal themselves, and it usually took a very long time.

  The college student had been staying at home for so long, rarely leaving his bedroom. Zhang Heng, who had just met him yesterday afternoon and the night before, knew his condition showed no signs of improving. He still remembered that the student even took off his pants in front of him to play dumb. And with the sound of the key being inserted into the keyhole, the look of horror on the student’s face wasn’t something he could make up.

  In a span of less than a day, however, the student made a miraculous recovery. After a night’s disappearance, he abruptly reappeared, and he threw himself right into the public’s embrace again. No matter how one looked at it, something was not right. But before Zhang Heng confronted him, he pointed at the side of the student’s head, “Where did your hair go?” “Oh, I accidentally tripped and fell on the coffee table earlier. The doctor had to shave a bit of my hair before he stitched up the wound,” the student explained, moving aside the hair that covered the wound. Zhang Heng saw the stitches.

  “Oh, does it hurt?” The lady cashier girl said with concern. “I also heard that someone broke into your house. Was your injury from a fight with the thief?”


  “No, the thief had already left when we woke up,” replied the college student with a shake of the head. “I fell while tidying the house later on.”


  Zhang Heng knew that the college student was lying because he noticed that the hair had clearly been ripped-off violently. His hair, alongside some blood stains and scalp tissue, had been kept in a Ziploc bag inside Zhang Heng’s bag. And his family was not even at home last night.

  One thing left Zhang Heng wondering, though – how did the student change overnight from a person cowering in fear and begging for mercy into a man so good at making up stories. Even Zhang Heng, who had completed the Deductive Reasoning quest, saw no weaknesses in him.

  The college student had almost become a completely different person.

  Suddenly, Zhang Heng thought of something. He took an ice-cream from the freezer on the side and handed it to the lady cashier. At the same time, he said to the college student, “I don’t have enough change in my e-wallet. Can you pay for me first?”.

  “No problem,” the student chirped cheerily. “We are all neighbors in this small area. And I have caused you guys some trouble before,” he added while taking out his wallet.

  Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows and said nothing. Now, he was convinced that not only was the man in front of him telling the truth. The student had to be a completely different person since he didn’t couldn’t recall how Zhang Heng paid the one yuan when he bought a pack of cigarettes two days ago. When Zhang Heng asked him a favor, the student would have surely mentioned the incident.

  Was this a precursor to what he had to deal with throughout the duration of the quest?

  A creature that could morph into another person and replace the person.

  And others hardly noticed. Judging by the lady cashier’s reaction, she obviously was oblivious to the fact that this was a different person she was talking to.

  Hence, some things began to make some sense now. The college student must have been so afraid of his parents because they weren’t actually his parents. All his troubles had nothing to do with the so-called emotional entanglement. That had to be the real cause of his mental illness.

  No one was willing to believe him. After all, if he had not seen it with his own eyes, Zhang Heng himself would be having difficulties believing that something so bizarre could happen.

  It was unimaginable how the student could live with his fake parents after getting discharged from the mental hospital. Under the intense psychological pressure he had been subjected to, it was a miracle he didn’t go insane.

  Now, it seemed that whatever little luck he had would end here.

  Just last night, what happened to his parents finally happened to him. Despite the truth being out, Zhang Heng did not immediately act on it.

  He was faced with the same predicament the college student once struggled with. All of the above had been Zhang Heng’s speculation so far. He couldn’t prove that the college student was not the original one. There was simply no difference between the two, and Zhang Heng had no idea what sort of alien enemy he faced and what methods they used to replace the student. Was it some cloning technology, or were they parasitic, mind-controlling creatures?

  If he were to attack the student now, there were consequences he needed to consider. Although this quest had a shorter duration than his previous ones, he still had to be here for 140 days. This place wasn’t like the vast West of the 19th-century United States. He could not just go into hiding after killing someone.

  Zhang Heng was also oblivious to the number of enemies he faced. Other than the college student and his family, who else were under the control of these aliens? It appeared that the best course of action was for him to stay low for the time being. He needed to collect more evidence to carry on with the investigation.

  Of course, having to stay vigilant at all times was a given. Judging from the college student’s reaction, he did not seem to know what happened before. Desperate to live to the next day, Zhang Heng was unclear if the original student told his fake parents about him.

  In a worst-case scenario, his identity had been exposed. Many preparations had to be done in advance in the face of the most unfavorable outcome. Zhang Heng took his ice-cream from the lady cashier, thanked the college student, and left the convenience store with his schoolbag on his back.

  Although Zhang Heng did not look back, he was sure that the fake college student was watching him from behind.

  It was a bad feeling. And more importantly, after discovering that the student had been silently replaced, Zhang Heng suddenly realized that perhaps he could only rely on himself in this quest because he did not know who else he could trust.

  It had been a long time since he encountered a situation as such. As of now, he did not know who his enemies were, where they came from, and how many of them he was up against.

  Going against them wasn’t the scary part. The unknowns and suspicions were the most threatening factors Zhang Heng had to endure in this quest.

  When Zhang Heng opened the door and looked at grandpa practicing calligraphy on the table, he suddenly felt that the old man looked a little strange.