You're my wife, don't doubt it!

“Fine, you fake brother,” Xiao Yao said unhappily, “Yu Luying and I will stay and wait for her.”

"Okay, okay, I promise you." Daiyu noticed Xiao Yao's dissatisfaction: "I'll just cancel the club this once."

Xiao Yao gave a thumbs up: "He's a true brother."

"What clubs does your sister-in-law join?" Daiyu asked Xiao Yao.

"The street dance club," Xiao Yao replied.

"Oh my god," Ribbonfish clapped his hands and stomped his foot, "You should have said so earlier, what a waste of time."

"What's up?" Xiao Yao rolled his eyes. "You're in a street dance club too?"

"My brother Yao doesn't care about me at all." Daiyu looked hurt and immediately lay down on the classroom floor, crawling around on her elbows.

"Alright, alright, alright," Xiao Yao interrupted, "Let's leave it at that then, thanks."

--split line--

"Street dance?" Yu Bo raised his eyebrows. "What's so fun about street dance?"

“Exactly, I don’t understand either,” Xiao Yao agreed.

“Christians should be as elegant as kings,” Yu Bo said.

“Exactly,” Xiao Yao continued to agree.

"Sit down, sit down, you two sit down." Yu Bo sat down in front of his desk, strolled around leisurely for a moment, and then opened a drawer: "These are your and Xiao Shen's assistant cards. You can give them to her later."

Xiao Yao stood up, respectfully took the two cards with both hands, and then sat down to study the emblems on them.

The structure of this coat of arms is relatively simple. The top of the shield is a yellow background, forming a rectangle resembling a national flag, with a black eagle on top, its head facing west. Below the shield is a smoothly curved triangle with a light background of a color Xiao Yao couldn't identify, and three small scarlet dots arranged in an inverted triangle ∵, somewhat resembling the mathematical symbol "because".

"Brother Bo, what color is this?" Xiao Yao asked Yu Bo.

“Mr. Karlschderlin has already consulted his superiors,” Yu Bo replied, seemingly changing the subject. “Your task is to arrange a meeting with Zhang Zhengkai.”

"Huh??" Xiao Yao didn't react for a moment.

“Your task is to meet Zhang Zhengkai,” Yu Bo repeated. “Don’t be nervous. Once you meet him, just chat with him casually, telling him this and that, and so on.”

"So humble?" Xiao Yao said with dissatisfaction.

“You can come up with your own words, the main thing is to appease him,” Yu Bo told Xiao Yao. “Reduce his malice towards you and Xiao Shen, calm him down, and this is also for your safety.”

"I understand," Xiao Yao replied somewhat reluctantly.

“You don’t need to worry about security. The organization will arrange manpower,” Yu Bo told Xiao Yao. “You don’t need to know who it is, but there will definitely be someone. Firstly, to protect you and Yingying’s safety, and secondly, to buy us time so we can find out whether the person yesterday was Zhang Zhengkai’s shadow or not, and to determine whether he has a Hall of Fame or not.”

"Yes, I understand." Xiao Yao swallowed nervously.

Why would I be nervous? I've been through so many storms, why would I be afraid of a mere Zhang Zhengkai?

“This is your first task after becoming an assistant,” Yu Bo said seriously. “I hope you won’t let the organization down.”

"Guarantee, guarantee the mission will be completed?" Xiao Yao said.

"I guarantee I'll complete the mission!" Yu Luying stood at attention, her voice booming.

“Here’s a code word for the people in the organization,” Yu Bo instructed, “called ‘We will meet in a place without darkness.’”

“We will meet again in a place where there is no darkness,” Xiao Yao repeated.

“We will meet in a place where there is no darkness,” Yu Luying said.

“If someone says this to you,” Yu Bo said, “you should reply, ‘That’s right, that’s right.’ Note that you must say it twice, but don’t add any extra words. That way, others will know that you are the helpers.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” Xiao Yao repeated.

"The code must be kept secret. I don't need to tell you that. Oh, of course, you can tell Xiao Shen later," Yu Bo instructed. "But you must be extra careful not to use the code unless absolutely necessary. The fewer people you know in the organization, the better. Do you understand what I mean?"

“Understood.” “Understood,” Xiao Yao and Yu Luying said.

“Members have a different set of codes. I’ll tell Yingying about it when Xiao Yao goes out for a bit. You’d better not use the symbiotic eavesdropping method.” Yu Bo said, “You’d better not use the symbiotic eavesdropping method.”

"I...I understand." Xiao Yao asked Yu Bo, "What exactly happened with Zhao Xiaomei?"

“I thought you had already talked to her on the playground this afternoon?” Yu Bo said.

"How did you know?" Xiao Yao was shocked.

Yu Bo smiled without saying a word: "This, I can only tell you, no comment."

Xiao Yao immediately understood; there were organized informants even within the school.

Has this "Guardian of Mingye" already infiltrated every nook and cranny?

Not necessarily. After all, the school is close to Yu Bo's jurisdiction, so it's normal that it's easily affected.

"So," Xiao Yao asked eagerly, "is what she said true? About the amnesia? Or did you brainwash her?"

“The organization will not do anything that infringes on free will,” Yu Bo emphasized. “Zhao Xiaomei’s amnesia is less accurate than the fact that her shadow has awakened.”

"What the hell?" Xiao Yao said, "The Zhao Xiaomei we're seeing now is actually Zhao Xiaomei's shadow?"

“Not entirely,” Yu Bo leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps the Zhao Xiaomei you knew before was actually Zhao Xiaomei’s shadow?”

"What the hell?" Xiao Yao and Yu Luying exclaimed in unison.

"Do you know anything about split personality?" Yu Bo asked leisurely. "Does Yingying know anything about it?"

Xiao Yao and Yu Luying exchanged a glance: "I've seen some movies like 'Identity,' '24 Billy,' and 'A Beautiful Mind.' So, Zhao Xiaomei has a split personality?"

“If you put it that way, I think it’s not entirely accurate, but it’s not wrong either,” Yu Bo told them. “Lucia killed Salome, and in doing so, he also killed the persona that Zhao Xiaomei had developed over the years.”

“And the real Zhao Xiaomei’s personality became the inner personality,” Xiao Yao suddenly recalled the story that Xu Wuchen, the man with the pompadour, had told him when he was distributing food to the homeless in People’s Square: “It slowly became Zhao Xiaomei’s shadow?”

"Smart," Yu Bo praised.

“So, Zhao Xiaomei was killed in the shadow time,” Yu Luying continued, “and became a vegetable, but soon woke up again. The person who took control of her body was the personality that had been suppressed since the second year of junior high school.”

"For now, that's a reasonable way to understand it," Yu Bo nodded.

“So here’s the question,” Xiao Yao said.

"How can you be sure she's not faking it to deceive you?" Xiao Yao and Yu Luying asked in unison, without uttering a single mistake.

Chapter 362 Meeting with Zhang Zhengkai

2023-10-26

“So here’s the question,” Xiao Yao said.

"How can you be sure she's not faking it to deceive you?" Xiao Yao and Yu Luying asked in unison, without uttering a single mistake.

Yu Bo shrugged and said, "I can't be 100% sure about that."

"So you're going to release her?" Xiao Yao laughed.

Yu Bo hesitated for a moment: "Actually, Zhao Xiaomei woke up about a week after the beach attack."

Xiao Yao: "..."

“At first, we also thought she was… playing us for fools,” Yu Bo continued. “So for the rest of the time, we were… interrogating her. I might as well tell you that we also had assistants within GA. We invited veteran interrogators with decades of experience… It’s difficult for a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl, even with special training, not to slip up in front of them.”

Xiao Yao imagined the scene and felt a chill run down his spine.

"Did you torture her to extract a confession?" he asked coldly.

“We also invited doctors who are psychiatrists and professional psychology doctors, including experts in dissociative identity disorder. These are all our assistants and even members,” Yu Bo ignored Xiao Yao’s question and continued, “What I can tell you is that all the professionals’ conclusions tend to be consistent. Zhao Xiaomei is not lying, nor does she show any signs of having received any relevant training.”

“In ‘24 Billys,’ Billy successfully deceived everyone and escaped criminal responsibility,” Xiao Yao pointed out. “Moreover, Zhao Xiaomei may have Freemasonry backing her. The fact that she could do this much at the seaside summer camp is enough to show that she is not an ordinary person. Don’t underestimate her age; she is entirely capable of doing it—”

“I know,” Yu Bo said crisply, “which is why I just told you that I couldn’t be 100% sure.”

"..." Xiao Yao paused for a moment before saying, "Okay, I understand."

"Otherwise, what do you want the organization to do?" Yu Bo pressed on, "Arrange her death in a reasonable way, or imprison her until the end of time?"

“That’s not what I meant,” Xiao Yao said gruffly.

“I’m telling you, we don’t have the technical and social conditions for the latter in this country,” Yu Bo said. “We can do the former, but that’s just the organization’s last resort to punish traitors, not a substitute for trial.”

"If someone commits murder and arson, can amnesia erase the whole thing?" This time, the question was posed by Yu Luying: "Is she truly innocent?"

“Of course not, but this isn’t just about losing her memory,” Yu Bo said, spreading his hands. “What if… what if this personality of hers is truly innocent? The personality that was the criminal is dead, and the sealed, kind soul has awakened, so should we—”

"Anyway, mentally ill people don't have to bear criminal responsibility, right?" Yu Luying said sullenly.

So, Zhao Xiaomei, whom he knew, was probably indeed dead—Xiao Yao thought somewhat sullenly.

Zhao Xiaomei, who passionately pursued herself.

Zhao Xiaomei, who jumped into the river on the spot because she casually said she wanted to eat fish.

However, compared to this...

“I’ve been thinking about something,” Xiao Yao asked Yu Bo. “You just mentioned that the main personality and the shadow can transform into each other. No one is necessarily the main personality and no one is necessarily the shadow, right?”

Yu Bo remained silent.

"It's like, I don't know if Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly," Yu Luying continued, "or if the butterfly dreamed it was Zhuangzi?"

"Will we be devoured by our own mental fortresses?" Xiao Yao asked the question: "I was Don Quixote, Yu Luying was Cinderella, Shen Jie was Mary, and you were Amakusa Shiro..."

“Generally speaking, only a tamed shadow can become a mental fortress,” Yu Bo said. “A person who can possess a fortress has a good ability to control their own subconscious.”