Infiltrating the Superhuman Training Girls’ School of the Republic of China!

The iron bars of the prison were thick enough that I could pass through them if I used my ability. Zhou Lizhi knew this fact clearly but still confined me in such a room. In fact, since my ability allows me to transform my entire body into tape, unless they completely block off the walls or confine me in bulletproof glass, it would be difficult to prevent me from escaping.

There are two military policemen guarding the door, but if I couldn’t subdue them, I would have already lost my title as a CIA superhuman agent. Rather, since they have guns, they could be a good source of supply if I were to seize their weapons.

In conclusion, I had no intention of escaping from here by force.

“Isn’t the security here lax?”

About an hour after I was imprisoned. Zhou Lizhi, who seemed to have finished the initial investigation, returned to the prison to interrogate me. I shrugged.

“Considering my ability, I can’t say anything but that.”

“We’re just confining you to make it look plausible. Actually, it doesn’t matter whether we put you in the gym or throw you on the field. We just need to order you to stay put.”

“Because Huangpu is one big prison?”

“No, because even Huangpu can’t be a prison to contain ability users like you.”

“Huh?”

“It’s difficult to break the barrier from the outside. But it’s not hard to break out from the inside. Plus, China is vast. If you openly run away, we can’t stop you from escaping the school or hiding somewhere in China. But… you won’t do that anyway, right?”

“Yes, I have no intention of running away. Because it wasn’t my doing.”

“Aren’t you curious why you’re locked up alone?”

Zhou Lizhi asked. I shrugged.

“Because I’m the most likely suspect?”

“There’s no evidence that you’re the culprit. It’s true that you’re the most suspicious, but we only relied on the testimony of Hoang Thi Linh, who witnessed the corpse almost simultaneously. It wouldn’t be a problem to consider Hoang Thi Linh as a suspect either.”

“Hoang Thi Linh’s testimony is probably true. There’s a possibility that she committed the crime and left the scene, then came back when I returned, but…”

“It doesn’t seem that way, as the tape attached to the wound appears to have been applied while the victim was still alive.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Did she leave any words?”

“She said we need to recapture Nanjing and save China.”

Zhou Lizhi flinched at my words. It was something that anyone would flinch upon hearing. Those words sounded as if Nanjing was currently not in China’s hands but in someone else’s.

“Sounds like something a communist party member or a terrorist would say.”

“Terrorist? What kind of terrorist do you mean?”

“There are many. Have you heard of the restorationists?”

“…Qing restorationists? You mean those strange lunatics?”

Zhou Lizhi smirked at my words. She nodded while stroking the iron bars.

“It would be good if they were just lunatics. But sometimes there are superhumans mixed among them. Yes, I’m talking about that Qing restoration activist group called the descendants of Zhang Xun.”

Of course I know. How could an agent from the intelligence department not know about such a dangerous group?

“But I think… no, never mind.”

I was afraid that saying too much might make me more suspicious. Zhou tilted her head and said:

“Speak. If something comes to mind, you should say it.”

“If Chen Yayuan was a restorationist, I don’t think she would have said to recapture Nanjing. Wasn’t the capital of the Qing dynasty Beiping?”

“They would call it Beijing. If they were restorationists, that is.”

The major agreed with my words. In fact, at this point, Chen Yayuan’s true identity was just a mystery. It wasn’t the most urgent problem, nor was it something we could figure out by pondering.

“First, let me tell you why you’ve been identified as a more likely suspect than Hoang Thi Linh. Hoang Thi Linh reported to me about her meeting with Chen Yayuan beforehand. She came to me for help, saying a strange Chinese upperclassman approached her talking about China’s destruction and asked to meet, and she didn’t know what to do. She must have been scared. She would know well what could happen if she got involved with a reactionary in the middle of China.”

“Was that the meeting from yesterday?”

“Yes. That meeting when we had that minor emotional dispute. I told Hoang Thi Linh to meet Chen Yayuan first, and promised that I would protect her even if there were any consequences from that meeting. If there really was a second-year reactionary, we needed certainty that she was a reactionary, so I decided to use bait. Chen Yayuan was always a puzzling figure. Even my fellow faculty members say they don’t know how to handle her.”

“But I…”

“You didn’t report to me. No, you never told anyone about your contact with Chen Yayuan. So from the investigation agency’s perspective, they can’t tell whether you’re an innocent exchange student who was called by Chen Yayuan, or if you’re claiming you were just called after approaching with the intention to kill Chen Yayuan.”

“…That’s not evidence for an investigation.”

“Did I say investigation, Shin Eun-young?”

Zhou Lizhi suddenly burst into loud laughter. She looked at me with sharp, flashing eyes and said:

“In an era without superhumans, an English novelist created a very famous great detective. That detective might have been able to solve any case in that era, but times have changed. Holmes said: How do you find the truth? Imagine all possibilities, then eliminate all impossibilities, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

“Sherlock Holmes said that.”

“We’re in a den of superhumans!”

As I heard Zhou Lizhi’s words, I felt my head ring.

“Where are all the possibilities? We don’t even know the exact limits of the abilities of the ability users in this school. Think about it, Eun-young. I’m a Weapon Master. I can exert dominant influence over weapons. But is that pen over there a weapon? No, it doesn’t seem so. Even if I reach out, I don’t feel like I can control it. Then was Briar Churchill’s baton a weapon? It was. Because I could momentarily control that tool at will.”

“That’s an ambiguous standard. To the point where nothing would be surprising no matter what happens.”

“I become doubtful even about my own ability, and I can’t think through all the possibilities to the end. If we organize all possibilities, how do we know which ones are impossible? No, we can’t even eliminate all the impossible possibilities. Evidence might be everything in investigations and trials, but not here. Here, everything is possible. Any method of crime we couldn’t imagine is all possible. Especially in simple cases like this.”

“…So you’re saying I can’t get out of this by saying there’s no evidence.”

“Conversely, we can’t say someone is the culprit just because there’s evidence. Then, how should I judge?”

“…Just based on circumstances and suspicion?”

“Wrong. It’s not for me to decide.”

“Then who decides?”

“Nanjing decides. Whether a culprit is needed for this case or not. Nanjing decides. If Nanjing demands that we create a culprit, we just need to grab anyone who’s most suspicious. If Nanjing says a culprit isn’t needed, we bury it as an unsolved case. It’s better than catching an innocent person, so many cases are handled that way.”

…Is it because all the superhumans here are important national assets? Especially if they’re foreigners… because it would be arbitrarily destroying another country’s important weapon in China.

…Being treated as something other than human could be both a disadvantage and an advantage.

“A report about the incident has already been sent to Nanjing. But the Generalissimo’s office hasn’t given a definitive answer.”

It was right at that moment.

Suddenly, with a ringing in my head, a woman’s voice that shouldn’t be heard started to sound.

Rebecca’s voice.

The German’s voice, as if whispering directly into my brain, started to thump along my cerebral blood vessels.

“Say Churchill’s name.”

Rebecca said.

“Tell Zhou Lizhi that you told Churchill about the meeting with Chen Yayuan in advance.”

I grabbed my head tightly, staggered, and leaned against the bars. Zhou Lizhi twitched her eyebrows and asked:

“Are you alright? Is something wrong?”

“I remembered one thing, but I’m not sure if it will be of much help.”

“What is it?”

“I didn’t tell you, Instructor, but actually, it’s not true that I didn’t tell anyone about Chen Yayuan. I told Briar Churchill. When I consulted her, she said it sounded interesting and I should just go meet her, and asked me to tell her about it after I came back. So I didn’t think about reporting to you, Major. Does that… at least put me on the same level as Hoang Thi Linh?”

“Hmm.”

Zhou nodded with a thoughtful expression.

“I’ll go check on that. In the meantime, I’ll let Rebecca Katerfeld in to interrogate you. She’s also a suspect, but her ability is at least useful.”

“What do you mean her ability is useful…”

“She’s a spiritualist, isn’t she? Originally, she was able to come study abroad in China because of her reputation for lie detection. I only found out during this interview, but apparently the reason she was sent here is related to that. It seems she embarrassed her father’s fellow politicians at a private gathering by exposing all their lies.”

That’s information I’m hearing for the first time too.

“That must have been… troublesome.”

“Yes. But isn’t it the most useful ability in cases like this? I’ll go hear what Churchill has to say, so you chat with Ms. Katerfeld for a while.”

Honestly, now that I know more details about her ability… I really don’t want to face her…