Reversing Falsehood and Preserving Truth: All Gods and Gods Are in My Hands

The old house's blue brick floor still retained a dampness, and Lu Yu held the half-burnt letter in his hand.

Chen Mo squatted in the corner, his fingertips slowly tracing a shallow mark on the ground. It was a mark left by the fighting between the cultists, now darkened by the damp air. A sharp line of insight flashed in his eyes as he tried to capture the remaining energy fluctuations.

Su Wan stood at the entrance of the auto repair shop next door, her spiritual silver light spreading out from her fingertips like a fine spider web, spreading over the rubble in the corner of the wall, the spider web on the eaves, and even seeping into the cracks in the blue bricks: "I tried to extend the range of my spiritual connection, but I can't sense Old Zhou's presence."

Zhao Lei paced back and forth at the courtyard gate, his sneakers screeching over the gravel. Suddenly, he stopped abruptly, his voice breaking the deathly silence: "Which side is 'over there'? Old Zhou definitely knows. Let's drag him out and get to the bottom of this! He was so good to us when we were kids, how come he's hiding so much from us now!"

Chen Mo stood up, turned to look at Lu Yu, his eyes calm: "The fact that we can't find him means he doesn't want to be found. The only breakthrough now is still the Shouzhen Bureau."

Lu Yu ran his fingers over the scorch marks on the edge of the letter, looked up at the three of them, and said with a determined look in his eyes, "Let's go find Shen Che."

On their way to Shouzhen Bureau, the group happened to pass by a school that was under reconstruction.

The playground's synthetic running track was half-laid, the orange-red material emitting the smell of new material. Workers wearing hard hats bustled about, the roar of the mixers breaking the surrounding tranquility. The school building, once destroyed in battle, now had a new steel frame erected, the setting sun casting a cold, hard sheen on the metal, a stark contrast to the ruins of memory.

A gentle breeze swept by, carrying a faint smell of disinfectant. Su Wan suddenly froze, and a silvery light shone from her fingertips: "Something's wrong!"

One of her feet was on a manhole cover outside the school wall, the edge of which was rusty. "I just vaguely felt... a suppressed restlessness... but it was gone in an instant."

Chen Mo strode over, carefully observed the surroundings, then squatted down and stared at the gaps in the manhole cover, observing the vertical lines flashing in his eyes: "No energy fluctuations were detected in this area."

"It might just be my imagination... Let's go to Shouzhen Bureau first," Su Wan said after thinking for a moment.

The patterns on the walls of Shouzhen Bureau gleamed with a soft golden light.

Director Qin Mu went into seclusion, and Shen Che, who had just been promoted to deputy director, was already acting director, yet he was still wearing that black outfit.

Shen Che had just finished processing a batch of documents, and the coffee cup on the table was still steaming. When he saw the four people come in, his slightly furrowed brows relaxed a little, but he could not hide the fatigue in his eyes.

"So what did you want to see me about?" Shen Che glanced at the four people, his gaze finally settling on Lu Yu.

Lu Yu spoke rapidly, but deliberately omitted the matter of tracing the source of the truth: "Director Shen, I want to check Grandma's file, her mission records, the people she was associated with, and... did she have any close old friends?"

A hint of seriousness flashed in Shen Che's eyes, then he shook his head frankly: "I don't have enough authority. Your grandmother's rank in the Shouzhen Bureau is much higher than mine. Her file is top secret, and only a few powerful figures at the Yanjing headquarters can access it. I've just been promoted to acting director, and my authority is only enough to handle routine affairs in the Zhongzhou region; I can't access core secrets."

"What should we do then?" Zhao Lei took half a step forward. "Lu Yu has been looking for his grandmother for two years. We can't just wait like this, can we?"

"Wait for the college entrance exam, don't mess around." Shen Che's tone suddenly became serious, his gaze sweeping over the four of them with an undeniable seriousness, "I believe that if Liu Jingruo were here, she would also want you to finish this part of your youth peacefully first, so that her sacrifices are not in vain."

He paused, his tone softening, "After the college entrance examination, you can formally submit your application to become Guardians of Truth. After passing the review, there will be three months of intensive training and assessment. Once you become official Guardians of Truth, your privileges will naturally be upgraded, and you may be able to find more clues."

These words struck them like a hammer blow. Grandma's entrustment and Liu Jing's sacrifice intertwined, allowing Lu Yu to temporarily suppress his anxiety.

For the next three days, the four of them explored almost every corner of the old town of Zhongzhou. In the demolition-affected neighborhoods, dust filled the air, and workers wielded shovels and shouted slogans, saying they had never seen an old man in oil-stained work clothes before. In the old streets and alleys around the old house, elderly women selling goods fanned themselves with palm-leaf fans, and old men collecting recyclables rode tricycles, all shaking their heads and saying, "It's been so long since I've seen Old Zhou." Even at the open-air teahouse he frequented, the owner only remembered "there used to be an old man who loved to drink strong tea," but didn't know where he was now.

"That old Zhou is such a good hider!" Zhao Lei sat on the stone steps by the roadside, taking a big gulp of mineral water, the bottle deformed from his grip. "Could he really have gone 'over there' to find Grandma Lu Yu? He should at least have left a message!"

Meanwhile, deep within the underground pipe network of Zhongzhou City, the damp air was filled with the strange odor of disinfectant and illusory energy. A brand-new laboratory had been built, more sophisticated than the one Shen Che had previously discovered. High-strength transparent chambers were neatly arranged, with fine energy patterns engraved on their walls.

Three members wearing radiation protection suits were carrying a specially made water tank, inside which a pale blue liquid shimmered with a faint golden light.

Three members wearing radiation protection suits were carrying a specially made water tank. The pale blue rainwater inside the tank shimmered with a faint golden light; it was the rainwater collected after the purification storm.

A member wearing gold-rimmed glasses operated a sophisticated instrument. A slender tube extended from the water tank to the transparent cabin, and pale blue water was slowly injected. The imprisoned ethereal spirit inside the cabin let out a low roar. The illusory aura on its body fluctuated violently under the soaking of the purifying rainwater, but was firmly suppressed by the patterns on the cabin wall.

"The compatibility between the purified rainwater and the J-type solution is as high as 78%. The energy of Sample 7 is stable within a controllable range, with the upper limit of energy suppressed to 21%." The member with glasses stared at the data jumping on the screen, his voice coming through the mask with barely suppressed excitement, "Prepare to inject the first stage of modification reagent."

Another member held a syringe, the dark green liquid inside gleaming eerily, and injected it through a pre-installed port on the hull. The ethereal creature inside suddenly struggled violently, its tentacles striking the hull walls with dull thuds, its body surface began to writhe irregularly, and fine bubbles rose from the pale blue rainwater as the purifying power and the modification reagents collided wildly within its body.

The laboratory indicator lights flickered, the data on the screen became chaotic, and the red alarm light began to flash.

The member with glasses' expression changed drastically, his fingers flying across the control panel: "Abnormal energy fluctuations! The purification power is unstable; activate the backup program immediately!"

In the shadows of the underground pipe network, unnoticed, a faint black shadow silently approached through the gaps in the pipes—it was the small, ethereal spirit that had escaped from the mall earlier. It moved slowly along the pipe wall, its dark eyes fixed on its kin inside the transparent pod, a complex light flashing in its gaze…