#ch1p1

Li Yuting works for 西封杂志社 (xifeng zazhishe), which roughly translates to " West Mail Magazine Publisher ". It will be referred to as " Xifeng Magazine ".

Upon logging in, Li Yuting receives a message from Xifeng Magazine's editor-in-chief and also receives her work ID.

" 1. We need you to investigate the strange stories on the forum that were posted around the same time, and find out how they are connected. "

" 2. If there is something you want to find out, you can send a message to the moderator 'Shasha'. "

" 3. You can conduct an offline investigation if necessary, I've already helped you make all the relevant contacts, when the time comes just show (them) your ID. "

" 4. Don't reveal your identity to anyone unless you have to. "

" 5. If a criminal case is involved, please call the police. "

" 6. We are simply journalists, don't intervene, don't deal with, don't resolve, in addition don't get attached to any of the people involved in the situation, cause and effect is self inflicted. "

" 7. At the end of each case, please make a post to sort out the case. "

" 8. You are only an investigative journalist, please remember this, if there is anyone or any situation that involves you, you can contact headquarters to settle it. "

" If you have any questions, you can ask Sister* Qiu, she will answer you directly. "

Different forum threads will update and be posted as you look through the forums, so I'll try to summarise the story of each forum thread. I will refer to the forum original posters with "they" because we don't know their genders as of now.

[Asking For Help] The Family of Three That Lives Next Door Is A Little Strange... (1)

A user by the name of 铃铃铃 (" LingLingLing ", the sound of bells) remarks that their neighbour is unusual. The daughter would come out of the class at 12.57 am in the night.

Linglingling is the original poster for this thread, so I will refer to them as OP sometimes.

Linglingling says that they work the night shift, and since they live in a run down area, he can hear the creaking of the iron gate whenever she comes out.

The neighbour family often came to take care of/check up on Linglingling, and they gave him some cookies. But apparently, it tasted moist/damp, like it had been left out for a while. Linglingling ate a bit of it and threw the rest away because it didn't taste very good.

" In a moment I'll take a video for you guys to see, is there any experts on the forum that could take a look? Is this some form of evil, it looks like (she)* got possessed, this girl's family doesn't seem to care. "

In the video attached, Linglingling records a view of their front door slightly cracked open, in view of the staircase (assuming OP lives in an apartment).

They say there is a girl outside his door. There is a thump noise, as if the girl had bashed her head against OP's front door. She continued walking up and down the stairs. A baby's crying noise could be heard, which didn't seem to be coming from the girl. At the end of the video, the girl appeared in the crack of OP's door.

OP says that they are alright but didn't expect her to suddenly appear, luckily shutting the door.

OP comments on the thread next morning, saying they just woke up and don't know why, but they feel terribly tired, as if they had been beaten up by someone.

Forum thread ends here for now.

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Notes :

*In Chinese culture, it is common to refer to others as 'Big Sister', 'Big Brother', 'Little brother', 'Little sister' etc, even if you are strangers. It doesn't necessarily mean you are biologically related.

*I sometimes add pronouns when directly translating quotes, because Chinese sentence structure tends to not use pronouns as often as English does.

[CH. 1] - [Part 1] -[Next Part]

SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1996 : 𝙰𝙶𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝙻𝙾𝙽𝙳𝙾𝙽 has been missing for TWO WEEKS but the bureau's still scrambling to design and pursue the best course of action. the team attends another meeting where they're informed that the bureau's staff is still collecting data to fully estimate the effect of agent london's latest activity, who performed jumps to three locations connected to his past missions.

the level of london's tampering with the timeline and the general course of events still remains unknown to the agents and no agents have been designated to investigate yet, which causes some unrest. no other activity has been detected in SIX DAYS, which can either mean that london doesn't want to cause too much mess too fast or that he's gearing up for something bigger.

the agents attempt to strategize and figure out the fastest and easiest way to track down london and bring him back but never actually settle on anything — and they won't, not until the meeting transcripts make their way back to their superiors. even in all this chaos, the chain of command remains unbroken.

but their instructions have been clear from the very start : 𝙰𝙶𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝙻𝙾𝙽𝙳𝙾𝙽 comes back alive, no matter what.