Chapter Eighteen: Ink and Wash Paintings

Time rewinds to a few minutes earlier.

While the hunter and the informant were deep in conversation, Gongsun Ce was sitting in the study on the second floor, staring blankly at the desk.

Three items lay on the desk: a note, a scroll, and a small box about the size of a palm.

The Esper picked up the note first. On the scrap of paper, hurriedly torn off, someone had scrawled wild cursive, the strokes lively and unruly.

[Draw it up with the syringe and inject it into your chest. Whether you use it or not is up to you.]

“…Do I really have a choice?”

Gongsun Ce opened the small box. Inside lay a syringe, identical to the ones found in any hospital.

He stared at the gleaming needle for a couple of seconds, then let the scroll rise into the air of its own accord and unfurl before him.

As the scroll unfurled and fell, it revealed an ink painting on rice paper. Unlike the grand, sweeping works people might expect, this one was delicate and intricate. There were no mountains, rivers, flowers, or animals—only the images of swords upon swords.

There were longswords and daggers, traditional single-handed swords, rapiers favored by aristocrats, the greatswords of warriors, and even the heavy blades wielded by knights he’d once seen… Each black sword was exquisitely rendered, every detail precise; taken separately, each image could be called a masterpiece. Yet scattered across the paper, they seemed placed at random, as if a talented painter, pressed for time, had dashed off a flurry of strokes in a rush to finish, leaving behind a beautiful but chaotic tapestry of blades.

Gongsun Ce stared intently at the syringe, then back at the sword painting, muttering through clenched teeth, “You can’t be serious…”

If the informant had been present, perhaps there would have been a witty retort. But the owner of the study was still downstairs with the hunter, and no such banter was possible.

He spent a second convincing himself, then pressed the needle’s tip dead center on the scroll.

The moment he did so, the swords on the painting began to stir.

The black weapons turned, charging like cavalry toward the needlepoint. Though the two-dimensional blades could never harm the three-dimensional syringe, they shattered upon impact—splintering into droplets of ink, large and small, which flowed up through the hollow needle and into the empty barrel.

In less than half a minute, the scroll was entirely drained of black, and the syringe in Gongsun Ce’s hand was full of ink.

“…Looking on the bright side, I’m just refilling the ink… into my heart, not my stomach.”

He took several deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves. Lifting his shirt, aiming for his heart, he plunged the needle in.

Before he could even press the plunger, the black ink—once swords—rushed into him of its own accord.

!

He staggered back a few steps, slid down against the wall, and with trembling hands withdrew the needle.

The next moment, Gongsun Ce’s heart stopped beating.

The sensation was not painful, but it was utterly indescribable.

That organ, always pulsing within him since birth, simply ceased.

The change in his body rippled through his mind: his thoughts contracted, sinking deep within, as if gravity inside him was pulling everything down to where his heart should be—a place, he realized, even more vital than the brain that housed his memories.

In his daze, Gongsun Ce recalled words he’d heard that day.

The heart is the core of an Esper.

But did that refer to the literal organ, or to a domain existing only in the mind?

If the latter—if humans truly possessed a heart—

Then what he was perceiving might be the depths of his own soul.

“This is… awful…”

Gongsun Ce’s eyes flew open; he tried to find something in the study to distract himself, but a groan escaped him.

He could hardly make out his surroundings.

An imagined gray mist clouded his vision, rendering everything indistinct—like a nightmare descending again.

He was forced to shut his eyes.

And so, the descent continued. He sensed himself slipping into a lightless void, a place that did not exist in reality. It was utterly dark; nothing could be seen clearly.

He lingered there, adapting for what felt like hours, before finally glimpsing something.

He saw countless silhouettes of swords.

Black blades melded with the darkness, flying forward, deeper still into the unseen.

At the bottom, beyond many layers, in a place darker than dark, something piercing and sharp resided.

It was the endpoint of the swords’ flight.

There, they vanished—disappearing the moment they were about to touch that thing. Only then did a sliver of light finally appear in his vision.

The glow from the vanishing swords illuminated part of that thing’s outline.

It was but a fragment of the whole. In that fleeting light, he glimpsed jagged lines, twisted black spikes—looking, to him, like a contorted cross…

Then, at last, the sensation of falling faded away. His confined thoughts scattered, and the impression of the lightless place ebbed from his mind.

“Haa…”

Gongsun Ce opened his eyes. The tangible world was unchanged.

No gray mist, no uncanny blackness—just a bespectacled young man leaning against the wall, checking to see if his heart was beating as usual.

The throb in his chest was steady as ever, as if everything before had been nothing more than illusion and dream.

“Yan Qi, you bastard. You forgot to mention how horrible this would feel afterward.”

In his mind, a roguish man laughed without restraint. He could almost hear the words the other would say.

Ha! What do I care about your feelings? As long as it works!

He wished he could punch that imaginary man a few times, but there was no one else in the world with a right to do so.

Gongsun Ce stood up, quickly tidied up the things on the desk, then went to the bathroom on the second floor to check his reflection.

Once he had confirmed he looked as usual, he headed downstairs—momentarily silent at the sight of the four metallic walls that had risen around him.

The Esper knocked on the heavy metal wall, as if knocking on a door. “Hey, you there?”

After waiting for over a minute, the soundproof walls finally receded. In the living room, the informant was saying with a smile, “…Miss Aidal, you’ve worked hard. As for the one in the middle, I’m still looking into the exact location. The person you mentioned earlier will arrive at the district’s sewage treatment plant in about fifteen minutes; you’ll make it if you leave now by pigeon.”

“Thank you for your help. Are you sure you don’t want any payment?”

The plump young man shook his head vigorously.

“Ah Ce referred you; how could I possibly charge you?”

The Esper adjusted his glasses. “Mr. Mo, you’re giving me too much face; it’s almost embarrassing. Next time, salad’s on me.”

“Please, no. I’d rather stay fat than eat grass. So, how’s the new painting I got?”

“If you want my honest opinion: a beautifully decorated piece of junk. The artist’s notes are a masterstroke, perfectly expressing his pompous arrogance.”

“So emotional—can’t you give a professional critique?”

“I’m no art expert; I barely know a thing about it. All I can offer is my own impression.”

Alice interjected curiously, “What kind of painting is it?”

“A sword illustration dashed off by some middle-aged amateur, trying to show off his meager talent to his students.”

“Ah…”

As the hunter drew out her sigh, Gongsun Ce bid his friend farewell.

The informant gave a thumbs-up, not bothering to rise from the sofa, simply watching as the two left his house.

Now, there was no one else left.

Mo Yuankai finished the last of his cola. He picked up the can, running his chubby fingers over its surface. The metal glinted in his palm.

The red-and-blue can shifted shape in the faint light, transforming from a cylinder into a rectangular block. Then, a small section of the rectangle protruded upward, dividing into several equally sized pieces. The paint on the can’s exterior faded to the side facing his palm, leaving only white markings—numbers—on the front blocks.

Halfway through, the glow in his hands faded, and the can’s transformation stalled, leaving an unfinished, old-fashioned cell phone in his palm.

He tried again, carefully, two or three more times, and at last, amid flickering light, completed the phone.

Mo Yuankai smacked his lips. “All that, just to make two phone calls.”

He aimed his homemade phone at the trash bin, hesitated, then decided to keep the creation instead of tossing it.

“Ah, pointless tinkering.”

The informant dialed a string of numbers. Miraculously, the screen on the phone—just moments ago a cola can—lit up.

He waited patiently. After the “the number you have dialed is not in service” message repeated several times, the call finally connected.

“Hello, Mr. Yan? It’s Mo Yuankai.”

“He got the package… His reaction? I wouldn’t call it delighted. What did you tell him?… Told him to go die? Honestly, Mr. Yan, if he cursed you out, it’s entirely justified.”

A burst of laughter came from the other end, sounding like a streetwise lout bantering with friends over a bottle.

“They’re headed to the sewage treatment plant. Do you know the way?… Got a local to help? Don’t drag ordinary students into this!… All right, I won’t ask. You’re the expert… I’ll leave it to you.”

With that, he gripped the phone tightly. When he opened his hand, it had reverted to a crushed soda can.

Mo Yuankai tossed the can aside and pressed a button on his remote.

The photos on the big screen vanished.

Reflected in the dark monitor was the image of the chubby young man.

“Killed one, halved another… It’s not over. Back so soon.”

The informant gazed at his own reflection in the screen, muttering to himself, lost in thought.

“Hang in there, Ah Ce. I believe in you. See this through to the end.”