Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

Sure enough, Xia Xue had asked that very question. But Yang Ce had already prepared his explanation: "I know this road well—I've driven it more than once or twice, so I know exactly what is and isn't on it. For instance, this road leads to the shantytown; it's the only main road in all of Songjiang that goes there. So would anyone possibly wall it off? Besides, I passed through here just yesterday—how could a wall go up overnight? At the time I thought it was my own eyes playing tricks, so I drove on without a second thought."

"No way. That actually works?" Xia Xue patted her chest, still shaken. "If your memory had been wrong, wouldn't the two of us be dead meat right now? Wait, that's not right either—I warned you we were about to hit a wall, so how could you still be so sure? Weren't you even a little hesitant?"

Yang Ce silently groaned. Xia Xue was a criminal investigator for good reason—she didn't let a single hole in his story go. True enough, Xia Xue had warned him at the time. How was he supposed to explain that?

To be continued.

906. Memories of Lan Ling

906 Memories of Lan Ling. But before Yang Ce could open his mouth to explain, Xia Xue said, "You really are stubborn, sticking to your guns like that—but it's precisely because of that stubbornness that the two of us survived."

Yang Ce gave a dry laugh. He thought to himself that they had indeed escaped a calamity. But the "calamity" the two of them were talking about was, of course, not the same thing at all.

Still, at this moment Yang Jiyan had no mind to argue anything further with Xia Xue. What had just happened was simply too bizarre. If only one person had hallucinated, that would be one thing—but the problem now was that two people had hallucinated at the same time. What kind of force could make two people hallucinate simultaneously? Naturally, things like mirages could be ruled out. Songjiang was a coastal city, but it was the middle of the night and they were right in the middle of the city—there was no way a mirage could appear, and there was no precedent for it anyway.

In the materials Fang Tian had given him, Yang Ce had come across some knowledge about inducing hallucinations. Certain drugged substances could make a person hallucinate—but Yang Ce and Xia Xue were sitting inside a car, and there was no way anyone could slip them a drug through the vehicle.

That left only one possibility: witchcraft. Witchcraft was really an umbrella term for a range of unknown and eerie arts; broken down, gu magic, head-dropping, and the like could all be counted within it.

Whether head-dropping truly existed, Yang Ce had no idea—but gu magic was something he had experienced firsthand. Wait—could it be that just now, he and Xia Xue had been hit with a gu?

Back when he used to fool around with Lan Ling in bed, she had once cast a gu on him that worked like an illusion, so that he couldn't catch her in bed. Afterward Lan Ling had told him it was a very simple illusion spell; many people of her clan could use it, and it took no great effort to make someone hallucinate. But then why hadn't he been bewitched by the illusion just now? Yang Ce remembered clearly how Lan Ling had run him ragged in bed, unable to find his bearings... Wait—Yang Ce suddenly thought of something very important.

After he had been afflicted with the heart gu by Lan Ling's mother, Lan Ling seemed to have mentioned once, offhandedly, that this heart gu of his had its benefits and its drawbacks. The benefit was that, apart from Lan Ling herself and her grandmother, no one else could cast a gu on Yang Ce anymore. But at the time Yang Shuoxuan hadn't paid it much mind, so he couldn't quite remember exactly how Lan Ling had put it. After all, being struck by a gu once in a lifetime was already rare enough—who ever got hit twice?

And now, thinking back on it—could it be that just now, he and Xia Xue really had been hit with a gu? He himself had been immune to it because of the heart gu, while Xia Xue had no such fortune, and so had been bewitched by the illusion.

At this thought, Yang Ce hurriedly used his ability to probe whether anyone was hiding nearby. Unfortunately, on this street, apart from his own large truck, there was no one else at all.

Probing any farther was pointless. Both sides of the street were residential areas, so there were bound to be people there—more than one, in fact—and Yang Yongjin could hardly go verify each one of them individually.

Earlier, Yang Shuoxuan had never bothered to learn just how far this kind of illusion could reach, so now there was no way to investigate further. Yang Ce felt a twinge of regret that he hadn't studied more carefully with Lan Ling while they were together.

"So you're saying the two of us both hallucinated just now?" Xia Xue was still mired in the terror of the moment and hadn't noticed that Yang Juehuan's expression had shifted several times.

"Yes. Doesn't it strike you that what just happened seemed... familiar?" Yang Ce was far calmer than Xia Xue. Though he had connected it to an even more complicated possibility, that was still better than having no lead at all.

"You mean the haunting case?" Xia Xue had already vaguely sensed that something was off about the whole thing, and Yang Cen's reminder immediately brought the haunting case to mind. Indeed, according to the account of the survivors of one of those crashes, they too had turned because there was no road ahead—and ended up crashing into a wall. If their speed hadn't been low, those people would almost all have lost their lives.

Yang Yuting nodded. "It seems we've just stumbled into a haunting case."

"Ah!" Xia Xue cried out. She shoved the car door open, jumped out, and went flying back toward the spot where she had seen that wall.

"Xia Xue!" Yang Ce called after her, but it was plainly no use. He understood what she was feeling—they had finally found a lead, so how could she let it slip away so easily?

Still, Yang Ce had already probed the area with his ability, and there had been no suspicious figure at all. Yet, afraid something might happen to Xia Xue, he got out of the car and ran after her as fast as he could.

Xia Xue was now crouched carefully near where she had seen the wall, her small black pistol gripped tight in her hand, alert and watching for any movement around her.

To be absolutely certain, Yang Ce scanned the surroundings again with his ability, and again came up with nothing.

"How did they do it? Could it have been some kind of 3D projection?" Xia Xue had watched for a long while and found nothing suspicious. She had assumed the culprit was using some high-tech 3D film projection to create the illusion, but she had found no suspicious electronic equipment nearby.

"3D film?" Yang Puqi was taken aback, then shook his head. That was impossible. If his hallucination from before had not faded, then maybe it could have been a 3D film—but his hallucination had lasted only an instant, which meant what he had seen just now was a hallucination, not an illusion.

"It shouldn't be any 3D film. A 3D film could never look that real," Yang Yanzhou said. "If it were a 3D film, the headlights sweeping over it would have given the trick away."

Yang Ce could only analyze the matter from a scientific angle; he could not say too much to Xia Xue. No matter how close the two of them were, Yang Shuoxuan did not trust Xia Xue completely. Unless one day Xia Xue truly became his woman, only then might Yang Ce tell her his secret.

Hearing Yang Juehuan's words, Xia Xue calmed down as well. Indeed, she had been too eager for quick results just now and had not thought things through, imagining the problem to be simpler than it was.

"You're right. It shouldn't be any 3D film. But then how did the suspect pull it off?" Xia Xue knitted her brows. "Before, I was still somewhat doubtful about what those crash survivors said, but now, after experiencing it myself, I know the matter really is that bizarre."