Li Qinglian filled her teacup with hot water. As she walked through the corridor, she saw through the glass that the room was filled with white smoke, and her colleagues were frowning at the messy files and materials on the table.

Someone called her "Officer Li" on the way, and she casually nodded in response. She walked to her office, her mind filled with various thoughts, unable to settle down.

Until that person called again.

"Officer Li, are you listening?"

"Hmm?"

Li Qinglian looked up and saw two people standing in front of her.

The person in front was a familiar face in the police station, but the person behind seemed a bit unfamiliar.

He was a tall man in his thirties. He was wearing a beige windbreaker with a sweater underneath. His hair was permed, but not the flashy visual style popular among young people, but a slightly curled black hair. The man had a handsome face, a high nose bridge, and a friendly smile, looking energetic.

This appearance was quite eye-catching. If it wasn't their first meeting, she would have had an impression of him.

"Officer Li, do you know where Mr. Zhou, who manages the data room, is?"

The colleague in front asked.

"This gentleman has something to find him."

Li Qinglian had tried to find the old policeman who had temporarily partnered with her to go to the hospital a few times in the past few days, and had asked a few times.

Li Qinglian had noticed some unusual clues in the recent cases she had taken over, which did not belong to normal social cognition. She had her own thoughts on this matter and naturally wanted to hold onto this seemingly promising lead.

Whether the old policeman had accidentally revealed it or intentionally hinted at it, she didn't want to miss it.

Unfortunately, on one hand, Li Qinglian felt that she hadn't made up her mind, she hadn't been straightforward, and had left room for retreat in her words. On the other hand, Mr. Zhou always played Tai Chi, never giving a definite answer.

He could either admit it directly, or if he didn't want to say, he could just refuse. The current approach seemed more like suddenly having some concerns and not wanting to reveal the truth to herself...

"Hello, officer, my name is Meng Zheng."

The man in the windbreaker interrupted Li Qinglian's thoughts with a smile and reached out his hand to her.

"I know Mr. Zhou from before. Today, there is some work-related matter that needs to be discussed."

"...You mean Officer Zhou Xingjian, right? I'm not sure where he is now, but usually, he is on duty at his own post."

Li Qinglian snapped back to reality, shaking hands with him as a gesture of courtesy, and answered.

"How about I take you there?"

"No, no, there's no need. Just knowing where it is is enough. I took a look when I came in just now, the data room is on the basement floor, right? Thank you, Officer Li."

Meng Zheng nodded at Li Qinglian and walked past her, leading the way towards the end of the corridor; the colleague who had led him hurriedly followed.

"...Who is that person?"

Li Qinglian murmured as she watched the back of the man in the windbreaker.

Since he was allowed in, there shouldn't be any major issues with his identity, but she was still a bit curious.

Mainly because he didn't look for any other colleagues, but specifically asked for Zhou Xingjian.

Mr. Zhou had retired and returned to work in the past few years. He hadn't been on the front line for a long time and only occasionally filled in for his colleagues when the police station was particularly busy. He usually spent his time in the underground data room, drinking tea and watching surveillance videos, quite leisurely.

But Li Qinglian knew more than others. She understood that this old policeman's work and identity were not as simple as they seemed.

Including this outsider. Perhaps due to some kind of detective intuition, Li Qinglian immediately sensed something unusual from him.

"Oh, you mean that person? He came here in the morning, I heard Wang Ge mention it."

Someone happened to come out of the office next to them at this time, heard Li Qinglian's muttering to herself, glanced at the man's back, and casually answered.

"Did he mention this person's job title?"

"Um, I forgot the specific name." The colleague chuckled. He originally just wanted to chat with the team's beauty a bit more. "It seems like some kind of consultant..."

"Consultant?"

Li Qinglian's eyebrows slightly furrowed.

"In what field? Forensics? Is he a professor at some university?"

"I'm not sure about that. I heard that he's a returnee, although he's young, he has a lot of influence in his professional field and is well-known internationally..."

A returnee scholar? In a professional field?

Li Qinglian's eyebrows furrowed even tighter.

*

Meng Zheng stopped at the entrance of the data room, smiled and bid farewell to the police officer who had brought him here, then pushed the door open and entered.

As soon as he walked in, he saw rows of iron shelves almost reaching the ceiling, neatly filled with various files.

At the entrance was a desk, and an old man in a police uniform was sitting there with his legs crossed, wearing reading glasses, and engrossed in reading a newspaper.

A cup of hot tea on the table was quietly emitting white steam.

"Oh, the local supernatural response department of Jinjiang City is located here?"

Meng Zheng looked around and exclaimed.

"This place is a bit too small, and too quiet, with only an old man on duty."

The old policeman put down the newspaper, and in a tone that was neither salty nor light, replied.

"It's enough. Jinjiang City is not that big.""I guess it's because there's a shortage of manpower," Meng Zheng smiled, "I've looked at the files here. There are only four B-level or below spiritual mediums, plus over forty regular spiritual investigators and hundreds of civilian assistants. With a population of two million in this city, it's really not enough."

"It's not B-level, it's 'Special Professional Exam Rating B'; it's not 'spiritual mediums', we don't use that superstitious term here, it's 'Special Environment Investigators'."

Zhou Xingjian corrected the other person's words briefly.

"Alright, alright, I'll pay attention when I have the chance to make a report in the future," Meng Zheng waved his hand impatiently, "Didn't we use to call it that way before? I guess you all got used to calling yourselves that in private."

The old police officer didn't say anything, he just shook his head slightly and asked directly:

"Researcher Meng, why did you come all the way here? Just to mock us?"

"How could that be? I came back to contribute to the motherland, I didn't expect my first stop after returning to be someone I knew from before. I'm really happy now."

Meng Zheng took off his coat and placed it on the chair next to him, then sat down confidently in front of Zhou Xingjian. Then, he opened his mouth and started talking non-stop.

"Speaking of which, when was the last time I met with Chief Zhou? Was it during the international conference on supernatural phenomena in Tianhai City to solve the 'Nest Mother' incident? It's been almost ten years, I was still a young rookie back then. And now I hear that you've been retired for several years... Oh, do you have any water? Can I have a cup?"

As he was speaking, a young girl suddenly appeared from somewhere.

She wasn't wearing a police uniform, but rather casual clothes, looking like a college student. Her expression seemed a bit nervous as she brought a few paper cups and a thermos, walking up to the two of them.

While pouring hot water into the cups, the girl secretly glanced at the sudden "consultant" from the corner of her eye.

They had already learned from Zhou Xingjian that a new colleague would be coming today, and they heard that this colleague was an A-level spiritual medium, equivalent to the top-tier experts in the field in China.

In the world of spiritual investigators, this was considered the elite among elites, capable of single-handedly eliminating ordinary haunted houses in the city. They couldn't help but pay attention.

Meng Zheng blinked his eyes.

It was only at this moment that he noticed, behind Zhou Xingjian was not the empty space or tall bookshelves he had imagined, but several desks arranged to form a temporary office.

In addition, there were dozens of operating monitors, with seven or eight people sitting or standing inside, all casting curious and attentive gazes at him.

Some of the gazes were sharp and guarded, as if they were assessing whether there was something hidden behind or nearby him.

Normally, Meng Zheng should have noticed them the moment he entered. However, he only paid attention to the tall bookshelves next to him and the desk in front of Zhou Xingjian. This indicated that this place was obviously not ordinary.

"Is it an illusion?"

Meng Zheng showed a very interested smile.

"It's a technique developed based on the 'haunted house phenomenon' research?"

"By utilizing the natural barrier between the real world and the 'Far Realm', it can't be called a technique, let alone replicating the 'haunted house phenomenon'. It's just a small application of its principles. I don't think this is your first time seeing it."

Zhou Xingjian replied.

"I did see something similar in a laboratory before, but it feels different from here. Hmm, 'Far Realm', 'Far Realm'... that's the official name you use for 'that world'."

Meng Zheng pondered.

...

In this era, there are already quite a few people who know that there is another similar yet different and extremely special "other world" outside the real world.

In human history, there have actually been numerous speculations about another world beyond the human realm, from classical times to the religious era, similar ideas have emerged endlessly. However, they have never been confirmed, and in the modern era of scientific advancement, they have been directly swept into the realm of mysticism and pseudoscience.

Search "pawread.com" for the original.

Until the emergence of the "haunted house phenomenon".

Since the mid-20th century, there have been records of people witnessing supernatural phenomena in various parts of the world, such as seeing the deceased wandering and activities in certain specific locations, and even strange and bizarre creatures that cannot be observed by ordinary people with the naked eye... Their activities are often limited to a certain area, most of the time even just a single building.

This is the reason why a series of supernatural events are collectively referred to as the "haunted house phenomenon".

If there were only one or two occurrences of such phenomena, they would be dismissed as absurd rumors. However, the large-scale occurrences worldwide have forced governments to secretly conduct major research projects in order to maintain social stability.

The various strange phenomena inside haunted houses are still a huge mystery to this day. But with the deepening of research, people have at least realized one thing: the root cause behind the "haunted house phenomenon" is the process of overlap and convergence between two worlds.

As for the name of this world, due to different religious and cultural customs in different countries and regions, it has various names such as spirit realm, underworld, alternate world, alternate space... a wide variety.He and Zhou Xingjian had previously attended an international conference with the Chinese prefix "异空间", and the English name was AnotherWorld - meaning "another world", which was very simple and easy to understand.

Ten years later, although the academic world has long passed the initial stage of verbosity, the result is the development of several theoretical schools that are at odds with each other on a series of viewpoints. Each hypothesis has a large number of supporters, and there is no unified consensus.

Looking at the current situation, the hypothesis adopted domestically is the "Far Realm Theory". Although Meng Zheng has been living abroad for a long time, he can guess some of the reasons: on the one hand, the proposer of the "Far Realm Theory" is a domestic scholar; on the other hand, this hypothesis is indeed the most convincing so far.

However, the discovery and progress of the history of science are always based on doubt, especially in such a nearly new field of knowledge, so no one can say for sure what the future will be like.

Moreover, it's hard to say whether this thing can be considered science in the traditional sense in some people's eyes... At least when he was abroad, most of the people he met would only tremble in fear when they encountered a haunted house phenomenon, they wouldn't think of studying it like a scientist, but would turn to praying to gods and Buddha.

Thanks to this, the originally weakened religious forces have been revitalized, and various emerging religions, combined with the most popular doomsday theories of the past two years, are emerging one after another.

At present, it seems that only the domestic environment can be considered stable on a global scale.

"Anyway, since you've been assigned here, you should get down to business, right?"

Zhou Xingjian took a sip of hot tea to moisten his throat.

"Of course."

Meng Zheng laughed heartily.

"Good."

The old policeman directly took out a map.

"Jinjiang City is divided into three old urban areas and one new urban area. There are currently four confirmed haunted houses, and the threat levels are all written on it. Do you want to pick one at random?"

Meng Zheng glanced casually, but didn't pick up the conversation. He just put his hands on his knees and leaned back lazily in his chair.

"——Mr. Zhou, compared to the relatively stable 'haunted houses', I guess there are more tense situations here, right?"