Using the golden profile sigil as a medium, their minds linked up. This connection was pretty fragile and unstable—only lasting a few moments. But even a few moments were enough for Jill Young to rewind the events from a first-person perspective.
She saw Skell and his two cronies walk in, and start kicking and punching her. She noticed she barely reacted—no fighting back, no dodging, not even a flicker of emotion. But those punches and kicks were basically like a tickle. Even without the tough skin from Dragon Elephant Kung Fu, Jack Young's sleepwalking self still kept up a basic instinct for defense and counterattack.
Whenever those fists and feet landed, the skin and muscles would kick in—the force would get instantly dispersed and redirected, then bounced right back at them. So even though the three of them kept swinging for ages, they were really just beating themselves up. Skell ended up clutching his fist in frustration, mad that all his effort did nothing. That just made him angrier, and he tried to aim a kick straight at Jack Young’s crotch.
Even in the mental world, Jill Young couldn’t help but grit her teeth. I haven’t mastered Invincible Diamond Body yet, and Skell’s really got a death wish going for the family jewels like that! Too bad he’s already dead—otherwise, I’d kill him myself! Wait, can I even take that hit? What if it’s already broken?
Her anger made the scene blur for a second, so she quickly calmed herself and looked again. This time, one of Skell’s buddies yanked him back at the last second, so the kick never landed. The other two tried to calm him down, Skell cursed and grumbled, then pulled out a bottle of ice water and dumped it on Jack.
Getting splashed with ice water wouldn’t bother a regular person—unless you had a heart problem, maybe you’d just catch a cold at worst. But Jack Young wasn’t a regular person; he was a 'dummy.' Sure enough, even with freezing water poured over him, Jack didn’t react at all—didn’t dodge, didn’t change, just lay there in a pile of ice.
“Skell, you think if we keep this up, he’ll freeze to death?” one of the guys asked, sounding a bit worried.
Skell just waved him off, annoyed. “If he freezes, even better! Let’s go!”
With that, the three of them left the room and shut the door behind them. Meanwhile, Jack Young just kept lying there—totally fine. Zero-degree water couldn’t do a thing to him.
Watching this, Jill Young was puzzled again. Why did that blockhead even leave the room? Normally, if I didn’t give him an order, he wouldn’t even budge.
But at that moment, she felt something in Blockhead’s memory. It was one of those weird, hard-to-describe feelings—like when a regular person senses some nasty stare from behind them. Blockhead’s memory clearly recorded a vibe of 'disgust and malice.' Jill Young couldn’t really wrap her head around it, but it was definitely there. And Blockhead’s mental energy got drained fast, like he was suddenly using some high-level psychic skill.
Then she saw herself get up, open the door, and look toward where that creepy feeling was coming from.
She saw someone standing at the corner of the hallway—a hooded, masked figure, totally wrapped up so you couldn’t tell who they were. But that was definitely where the bad vibes came from, so Jack Young just walked straight toward them, slow and steady. The person’s eyes flashed with surprise and confusion, then panic. Even from dozens of meters away, Jack heard a low mutter: “How’d he get out? And he can see me? Well, that saves me some trouble…”
It was English, but the accent was all kinds of weird—definitely not standard. Then the figure ducked behind the corner and vanished, moving fast.
Jack Young didn’t stop chasing, though. His mind was totally blank—no thoughts, no feelings—but for some reason, he just wanted to keep going. He reached the spot where the figure had stood and caught a faint scent, then followed it. He wandered all over the base, getting all kinds of looks from people—just the usual prejudice a 'dummy' gets. But Jack didn’t care. He just kept tracking the scent, slow and steady, until he ended up at the bathroom.
Inside the bathroom, Jack opened a stall door. Skell was slumped over the toilet, looking like a pile of mush. The other two stalls had the other two guys—dead in seriously gruesome ways. Jack still didn’t react, just flared his nostrils and caught the lingering scent, then kept on tracking.
As Jack left the bathroom, he bumped into someone else heading in. That person gave him a weird look, then went in. Right after, a huge scream echoed down the hallway: “Murder! Somebody help, the dummy killed someone!”
Jack kept following the scent trail. But after turning a corner, it just vanished into thin air. He stood there for a bit, couldn’t pick up anything, so he headed back to his room. People ran around in a panic, some tried to block him—maybe even tackle him—but none of them succeeded. Jack didn’t dodge or fight back, but nobody could stop him. He just calmly walked back, shut the door, and sat down in his chair.
Some people came in, but only looked around—they didn’t try anything else, so Jack ignored them. He just sat there, all the way until now—
"Whew..." Jill Young let out a breath and opened her eyes. That trick was seriously exhausting—just a few moments and she felt mentally wiped out. Still, now that Blockhead had leveled up to the fifth stage of Prajna, Jill’s own mental strength had shot up too. After a quick break, she was feeling a lot better. She patted Blockhead’s shoulder and laughed, “Heh, who knew your life was so tough? Getting discriminated against sucks, and now you’ve got a whole bucket of dirty water dumped on you. Don’t worry, no matter how deep that guy hides, I’ll drag him out and chop him up.”
If you want to catch the real culprit, you’ve gotta lock down the suspects first. Blockhead gets treated like a dummy—sure, he’s discriminated against, but on the flip side, even if he’s called a suspect, nobody’s actually going to convict him. If those people want to keep watch, let them. It actually keeps Blockhead safer.
"If that person shows up again, take them down fast—break all their limbs if you have to, just don’t kill them." With that, Jill Young turned and headed out. Time to check the bodies and see how those three really died.
At the same time, in the morgue, two people were poking around. None other than Jasper Xiao and Li Yuncong.
“Boss, the whole base is on edge right now. If anyone catches us snooping around the morgue, it’s gonna look real bad.” Li Yuncong glanced nervously outside, keeping watch, and whispered, “And don’t you usually hate that Teacher guy? Why are you so keen to clear his name?”
“Yeah, I can’t stand him, but that doesn’t mean he should get blamed for something he didn’t do.” Jasper Xiao pulled open the freezer door and grabbed a body bag. “Besides, I didn’t know he had, uh, sleepwalking issues. Just because we don’t get along doesn’t mean I’ll let the real killer frame him.”
With that, he yanked open the body bag, revealing Skell inside. Thanks to being frozen at minus twenty-one degrees, Skell actually kept some shape.
Skell’s body was getting into 'freak show' territory. If a normal person’s a popsicle, Skell was a melted one refrozen—kids, don’t picture it if you’re squeamish. Li Yuncong took one look and almost puked, quickly turning back to watch the door. Jasper Xiao didn’t care; he’d seen way worse in two war-torn worlds. This was nothing.
“These wounds…” Jasper Xiao checked Skell’s body all over, looking serious. “Bones are shattered, but the skin’s barely damaged. What could even do that? And looking at the other two in the bathroom, it’s hard to imagine one person did it. No signs of fighting, no resistance—super weird.” Clearly, he’d already checked out the crime scene.
Jasper Xiao rubbed his chin, thinking out loud. “I bet the bathroom wasn’t the real crime scene. The murders happened somewhere else, and the bodies were moved afterward.”
Li Yuncong forced down his nausea and turned back, stammering, “Boss, aren’t you gonna try out your new special move?”
“Just what I was thinking.” Jasper Xiao pressed his right hand to Cost’s head, closed his eyes, and white Holy Light started glowing. It was way brighter than when Jill Young first saw him, quickly outshining the lights and flooding the whole morgue with white. Even the usual morgue gloom got wiped out. Li Yuncong forgot about guarding the door, just stared in awe, totally jealous.
A moment later, the Holy Light faded, Jasper Xiao opened his eyes, looking solemn. “No doubt about it—it was a group attack.”
Just then, the morgue door swung open. The two whipped around, tense, but it was just Jill Young walking in. They started to explain, but Jill raised a hand and looked at Jasper Xiao. “How’d you know it was a group attack?”