Investigation Report of the Gods

Chapter 71: Information Search

It felt like a person had entered a kaleidoscope.

In all directions, there were dazzling, colorful fragments.

Each fragment held different experiences, different realizations, or secrets buried deep in the heart, hidden from the world.

Han Su directly saw the Crystal Skull—or rather, the secrets of this bizarre corpse’s life before death.

It was like suddenly opening his sealed hard drive.

This dead man had originally been a warehouse keeper in the neighboring Haidi City, living a happy life from nine to ten with his wife and son, until he saw a certain unearthed artifact in the newspaper. Its strange beauty deeply captivated him.

It was an artwork shaped like a Crystal Skull, possessing breathtaking beauty.

He took leave without hesitation to visit the art exhibition. Staring closely at the translucent skull, he felt as if it shone into the depths of his spirit.

However, the admiration was soon shattered—robbers stormed into the exhibition hall. They fired their guns recklessly, killing who knew how many, and yet when they saw him, they seemed to notice the glimmer of crystal in his eyes.

A robber reached out to him with a smile and said, "One of us."

He didn’t hesitate to abandon everything and followed the robbers. From then on, he became a member of the Crystal Skull Organization.

They worshipped the Crystal Skull day and night, kneeling before it for entire nights. The leader of the organization told them to be devout, to be sincere. The Crystal Skull could speak—it was a divine decree from the gods to their believers, a key to unlocking a new level of life.

And he truly believed.

So he worshipped fervently, until one day, he actually heard the voice of the Crystal Skull.

He felt grace coming from beyond the real world. His body began to undergo mysterious changes. He gained extraordinary strength, and even injuries healed rapidly. He even felt that he had truly come “alive.”

From then on, his position in the organization rose steadily. He quickly went from being a peripheral worshipper to an official believer, and from a believer to a preacher.

…

‘Who cares about this crap?’

Han Su frowned slightly, feeling somewhat irritated.

Although Miss Crow had warned that memory reading was a very dangerous act, he could now be almost certain.

He was actually a natural-born master of memory reading.

With each flicker, he would go through this process of experiencing countless new memories.

Like a doctor who had long practiced various surgical techniques on himself.

Coupled with his “parallel-style” Spiritual World, not to mention reading the memory of a dead man—even reading far more wouldn’t result in the annihilation of “self.”

But one person’s memory was too vast. Passively reading these memories only revealed the most vivid and profound parts of them. So what he was seeing now was merely the memory of this dead man’s initial contamination—or rather, “penetration”—by the Crystal Skull. To the man, it was the most important phase of his life, replayed over and over again with emotion.

But in Han Su’s eyes, it was nothing more than a lunatic who abandoned his wife and child.

He only wanted to quickly find clues related to that woman or more valuable information about the Crystal Skull Organization.

“Bzzzz…”

A fine, complex buzzing sound rang out. Countless memory fragments flashed before his eyes like a film played at three hundred times the speed.

Han Su’s “reading” still lacked any method—he simply relied on instinct to capture the fragments.

With a quick glance, he would discard them to the side.

Insights about hearing divine grace, joy at cutting off a comrade’s head to extract another Crystal Skull, displaying miracles in the wilderness to recruit followers—

All of it, discarded.

He could feel the massive Spiritual Fragments of this dead man rapidly dissipating. This was because the man’s will had already collapsed, his vitality gone, and the fragments had begun to self-annihilate. All the more urgent, he tried to grab as many fragments as possible before they disappeared.

Suddenly, he saw a peculiar scene: a woman wearing a black qipao, looking down at “him” from above, speaking:

“Mr. Peng, this mission is extremely important. We need you to personally handle it.”

“No matter what, we must find the Mechanical Fragment hidden in Qinggang City.”

“After discussion among the Elders, we’ve decided to use Spiritual Search. We need someone to become the Hand of Our Lord, enter Qinggang City, release the Plague, and then collect the memories of those people—using this method to locate the whereabouts of that Mechanical Fragment.”

“Are you willing to shoulder this responsibility?”

“……”

The final image that lingered in view was a photograph. On it lay a damaged Mechanical Fragment, etched with bizarre patterns and vein-like circuitry resembling those of a living human.

"Is it him?"

The instant Han Su saw that woman, his heart suddenly contracted, as if some long-buried memory was surging awake.

That woman!

The woman who had taken care of him before he was ten!

It was her!

Even though in this memory she wore a qipao completely different from what Han Su remembered, that lofty, indifferent, and mysterious aura was something utterly absent from his own memories—yet Han Su was certain it was her.

She was actually part of the Crystal Skull Organization?

"Bzzzz..."

Just as Han Su's emotions surged, he felt a tremor as though something had shattered. All remaining Spiritual Fragments in the air had begun to annihilate.

Han Su could not stop the process. He could only focus, and before all this "information" faded, forcibly imprint that photograph into his memory.

'So, it was that woman who pushed all this forward?'

'So these waves of the Spiritual Plague were indeed released by the Crystal Skull Organization, and their goal was to search for this Mechanical Fragment?'

'This Mechanical Fragment… why do I… why do I feel...'

'...'

He stood there blankly, thoughts surging like a tide as he quietly pondered.

There was nothing novel about the Crystal Skull or the dead man’s memories—nothing more than a tale of one beguiled by Mysterious Power, ultimately turned into a corpse, thrown into Qinggang City to spread the Spiritual Plague.

Worshipping something one did not understand—perhaps this was the natural outcome.

No wonder this time the Plague was so shallow and undetectable. It was never meant for contamination in the first place.

They were using the method of releasing the Plague to delve into more people's minds and search for a "secret."

Then, what exactly was this so-called mechanical object the Crystal Skull Organization—or that woman—was searching for?

As he thought carefully about that photograph, a strange sense of familiarity emerged. Vaguely, he felt that he had seen it somewhere before...

Not only seen it, but even spoken to someone about it...

He was already at the edge of it, but perhaps due to the extended Spiritual Penetration and reading, his brain was momentarily blank—he just couldn't recall...

...

...

At the same time, in a manor not far from Qinggang City, inside a sealed room, a slender woman draped in a black veil looked on in shock at the Crystal Skull before her.

It was a thing like a work of art, translucent and clear, occasionally flickering with a certain living, enchanting glow.

But this piece of art was now beginning to crack open—one heart-wrenching fissure slowly spreading across it.

She stared at the crack in disbelief. After a long while, she extended her palm again, channeling Spiritual Power into it. Before her eyes emerged a vision she could see ten thousand times and still feel awe and reverence—a pyramid so vast it seemed to encompass the entire universe.

A pyramid built from countless Crystal Skulls, all supporting the one at its apex—that was their faith, the core of their devotion.

Precisely because she could see this vast and mysterious entity, she would obey “Its” command no matter what—even if it meant death. She would remain unwavering.

Because she knew that those countless Crystal Skulls represented countless shared beliefs.

One with another—indestructible.

But now, to her disbelief, she saw that the very base of this enormous pyramid—one minuscule, almost imperceptible spot—had dimmed. A part of the grand pyramid had been erased from the system.

And most critically…

She considered the possibility, and a chill of terror spread throughout her body: ‘Could the directive directly issued by the Priestess have already been glimpsed by outsiders?’

...

...

Crack... crack... crack...

At the same time, just as Han Su was still in shock, digesting the information captured from the Crystal Skull’s will, before he could figure anything out, a sound like the shattering of glass echoed by his ears.

His heart jolted slightly. Looking up, he saw that above him, layers of dust-like material were shaking loose.

It was as if the space he was in had become unstable, the force constructing it beginning to collapse.

‘Is it because the Crystal Skull has been destroyed, making the world inside the Gate unstable?’

And the Mysterious Symbol that had covered the walls and floor around him was also quickly fading, causing everything around him to grow increasingly real.

Han Su saw that the ground beneath his feet was becoming wooden floorboards.

He saw long counters appearing around him, and within them, rows of small cakes were displayed. Behind the counter stood a staff member, mouth agape, staring ahead in horror.

Following the staff member’s gaze, Han Su saw Song Chu‑shi—and across from Song Chu‑shi, Mr. Strange Bird had drawn his gun and was aiming at him.

In that very moment, he even saw Mr. Strange Bird already pulling the trigger. A flash burst from the muzzle, and a bullet was flying straight from the barrel—directly toward Song Chu‑shi’s forehead.

And shockingly, he was still foolishly turning his head to smile at him?