The Eldritch Files

”Hello, Mr. Han.”

Just as he was piecing together the man’s identity, the man had already stepped forward with a smile and extended his hand. ”I am Xu Jinping, assistant to Xu Ji’s father. Do you have a moment to chat?”

’Xu Ji isn’t here, but his father’s assistant is?’

Han Su wasn’t surprised. He had long known that, given the Xu Family’s style, someone was bound to contact him.

He simply turned, shook the man’s hand, and smiled. ”Where to?”

Special Assistant Xu invited Han Su into a car. As the vehicle slowly began to move, he spoke. ”Mr. Han, the young master is currently grounded and his phone has been confiscated, so he is unable to come see you. I’ve come today to thank you on his behalf.”

”That’s not necessary.”

Han Su said, ”No matter how many times you thank me, Xu Ji will still thank me again himself.”

”That’s fine. Besides him, I am also representing the Xu Family.”

Special Assistant Xu glanced back at the apartment building where Han Su lived. ”This apartment—if you enjoy living here, Mr. Han, I have the authority to transfer the title to your name.”

Han Su was taken aback. He looked up at him and said, ”That won’t be necessary. If you really want to be so generous, how about you go pay my property management fees?”

Special Assistant Xu was visibly stunned for a second, as if he couldn’t quite process the request, but he still smiled and nodded. ”I’ll have a word with the property management company later.”

Then, he took an envelope from his briefcase, presented it to Han Su with both hands, and said, ”Additionally, here is a card with six million on it. I hope you will accept it, Mr. Han.”

Han Su chuckled. ”If I take this money, does that mean I can’t see Xu Ji anymore?”

Special Assistant Xu smiled. ”The Xu Family isn’t that petty.”

”Besides, even if we made such a rule, the young master wouldn’t agree to it. If we really wanted to stop him from contacting you, we’d have to deal with him directly, not come here and make things difficult for you, Mr. Han. Isn’t that right?”

”Of course, while the young master is indeed grounded at the moment, his father has no other intentions. He sent me only to thank you for saving his life, Mr. Han.”

”As for right now, it is true that it’s not a good time for you two to meet, but this is only for both of your sakes.”

He paused, his expression growing slightly solemn. ”You didn’t undergo hypnosis, and the young master can’t possibly undergo hypnosis either. This means you are both deep-contact individuals with an anomaly, and if you continue to stay together, it will be very dangerous.”

”...”

Han Su was slightly stunned. ”What do you mean?”

Special Assistant Xu said slowly, ”The probability of a deep-contact individual being drawn to mysterious phenomena again, or attracting the attention of certain abnormal entities, is much higher than for an ordinary person.”

”This is also why it’s often said that once you come into contact with certain things, you can never get away from them.”

”And when two deep-contact individuals stay together, the probability of attracting an anomaly becomes dramatically higher.”

”So, grounding the young master right now is also a measure to reduce the risk for both of you. Moreover, as far as I know, the Ghost Truck that escaped its seal still hasn’t been found.”

”...”

”The Ghost Truck?”

Han Su thought of the anomaly he’d encountered on Highway 48 and felt a surge of extreme surprise. ”What the hell is the Disaster Management Bureau doing?”

Special Assistant Xu couldn’t help but glance at Han Su, thinking to himself, ’This young man seems to have little respect for the organization.’

”It’s a very tricky anomaly.”

He could only explain with a smile, ”Its threat Level isn’t high, nor is its secrecy Level, but it’s very cunning and tricky. Previously, it took an Independent Investigator, one several Levels higher than the task required, to finally seal it on that abandoned stretch of road.”

”But now, that Investigator has been transferred elsewhere. Among the active Investigators in Qinggang, there might not be anyone who specializes in dealing with its type.”

”...”

”Understood.”

Han Su nodded, showing he understood.

But watching this man—Brother Zhuzi, as Xu Ji called him—casually rattling off terms like ”anomaly,” ”deep contact,” and ”Ghost Truck,” Han Su felt a growing sense of strangeness.

After a moment of thought, he smiled and asked, ”Special Assistant Xu, you seem to be very knowledgeable about the existence of these things?”

”We are merely aware of them.”

Special Assistant Xu nodded. ”However, here in Qinggang, not many families, even the rich and powerful ones, are truly aware of and understand these things.”

Han Su’s focus sharpened. ”Then what’s the threshold?”

”Status!”

Special Assistant Xu’s answer was unusually direct. ”Qinggang City is too big, and there are too many rich people. Correspondingly, positions always need to be filled. So, when you talk about being rich and powerful, many people in Qinggang could be counted.”

”But very few people in Qinggang have true status.”

Han Su suddenly seemed to understand something. He asked in a low voice, ”Then how big is the gap in Understanding that this status provides, compared to an ordinary person?”

Special Assistant Xu thought for a moment. ”Mr. Han, back when you and the young master encountered the Ghost Truck, did he tell you about its origins?”

”Yes.”

Han Su nodded. ”He said he heard it from a drunkard in a club.”

Special Assistant Xu said, ”Perhaps it wasn’t a drunkard. What if the family elders intentionally arranged for people who know the truth to leave an impression on them at the right time, but in a seemingly absurd way?”

”That way, if they ever truly encounter it by accident, they’ll at least have some information to reference.”

”And when the time comes that they must know these things, with that prior foundation, the burden won’t be too much to bear.”

”...”

Han Su sighed. ’Damn, it’s good to be rich...’

’Thinking back, Xu Ji always wanted to drag me down with him, but I was trying to find useful information, so I refused to go out and fool around. I just buried myself in the library.’

’If I had known, maybe I would have come into contact with these things sooner by going out to have fun with Xu Ji?’

’Of course, thinking about it, that’s not right either. I didn’t have the Spell from Song Chushi back then. If I had rashly made contact, I probably would have ended up dead.’

”There’s no need for regrets, Mr. Han.”

Special Assistant Xu said softly, ”Needing to know of the existence of these things is not necessarily a good thing.”

”Perhaps you’re aware that there are many enthusiasts of the supernatural in Qinggang?”

”They sense something strange, either from history or from certain minor details, and so they chase after these things. Some do it out of curiosity, others covet that reality-distorting power...”

”...”

Han Su nodded slowly. He had met one such person: the Doctor, an Executor from his own cohort, who had chased mysteries right into the Disaster Management Bureau.

Special Assistant Xu turned to look out the car window, let out a soft sigh, and said, ”The vast majority of them will never catch what they’re chasing. They exhaust every means but can never touch the true mystery.”

”But that, in itself, is a form of luck.”

”It is because the Disaster Management Bureau is doing its job that they are afforded this luck.”

”Mr. Han, all this time, it has not been humanity chasing mystery, but mystery chasing humanity...”

”That said, until the chase gets so close that their shadows are about to completely envelop humanity, there’s no need for ordinary people to even know.”

”...”

”Mystery... chasing humanity...”

Special Assistant Xu’s words unexpectedly reminded Han Su of how he felt each time he was kidnapped. His emotions suddenly went on a roller coaster ride.

He suddenly had some Understanding of why the Xu Family had only appeared before him nearly a week after he was released from the Disaster Management Bureau.

The Disaster Management Bureau had only been established for three years, but some things, he feared, had been around for who knows how many years.

It was just that you needed ”status” to know the truth.

Perhaps a polite person would have known that this was where the conversation should end.

But Han Su was not a polite person. He turned around and earnestly asked the question that concerned him most: ”So, Special Assistant Xu, as people with status who have long known about the existence of these things, what is your take on the kidnapping case I experienced all those years ago?”

Special Assistant Xu fell silent at once.

Han Su remembered that in the original timeline, Xu Ji was also one of the kidnapped children. This meant that, at the time, the Xu Family had also been a victim’s family.

But in his memory, he didn’t recall the Xu Family ever coming to find him.

Just as in the current timeline, not every victim’s family had appeared before him either.

”Mr. Han, you are an unfortunate man.”

Special Assistant Xu was silent for a good while before he slowly replied, ”To have encountered something like this... you have my sympathy.”

”Even I, who has long known that anomalies were stirring in the shadows of Qinggang City, found it impossible to believe this was real.”

Han Su frowned. ”What do you mean?”

”Because...”

Special Assistant Xu thought for a moment before finding a suitable answer. He said in a low voice, ”If this is true, then even for people like us, who have long known of the shadows’ existence and have dealt with them, this incident is simply too mysterious and difficult to comprehend.”

”...”

It was a long while before Han Su slowly raised his head and looked at him.

But Special Assistant Xu said no more, even deliberately lowering his head to avoid further questions from Han Su.

Not until the car came to a smooth stop and the driver in front tapped lightly on the partition window did he seem to recover his spirits. He smiled, pressed a button, and said, ”This is all I can discuss with you, Mr. Han. Let’s change the subject!”

The curtains covering the car windows drew apart to both sides. He looked outside and said softly, ”Mr. Han, look. Are you satisfied with this result?”