Having successfully brush-off Amelia, Lee Yunlong returned to a peaceful and untroubled existence. Though Amelia attached immense value to the Yin-Nourishing Decoction project, Lee Yunlong viewed it as a secondary concern. His main time and energy had to be funneled into researching real-time connections across time and space!
Research, unfortunately, was a notoriously unpredictable endeavor, whether on the scientific side or the realm of occultism. Things went smoothly enough at first. With physical samples in hand, replicating the process took very little effort, but the further he pushed, the more obstacles arose. From an occult perspective, the perpetrator of the unsolved mirror game cases had relied on a remarkably primitive method-merely exploiting a specific structural quirk of the local spatial environment to achieve his goal. To put it in plain terms, it was like taking a sealed cardboard box, poking a small hole in one side, and then poking another hole in the corresponding spot on the opposite side. Because the air inside the box could transmit sound, shouting into one hole allowed someone on the other side to hear it clearly.
It was crude to a fault. Such a simple method naturally yielded limited results and came with numerous drawbacks. For instance, the distance between the two small holes could not be too great. In the context of the unresolved mirror cases, the direct distance between the culprit and the victim at the moment of activation could not have exceeded two hundred meters. In fact, to achieve an optimal effect and avoid interference caused by excessive spatial distance, the killer would stay as close to the victim as possible-perhaps even lurking within the very same room!
Had that been the extent of it, the project would still possess immense research potential. The far greater problem was that as Lee Yunlong deepened his investigation, he realized this method was completely incapable of transmitting physical matter. It could carry information and it could transmit energy-suffering loss and distortion from spatial friction along the way, both of which Lee Yunlong could figure out how to mitigate eventually, if not now-yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not transport even a single drop of water or a thin sheet of paper through it. That proved to be a massive headache.
In the Marvel world, far too many individuals and factions possessed techniques like spatial leaps, teleportation, instantaneous movement, and spatiotemporal portals. If this research project could not achieve spatial transfer of physical matter, its value to Lee Yunlong plummeted drastically. Indeed, after remaining stuck at a bottleneck for some time, Lee Yunlong had already begun considering abandoning the project altogether.
Time always slipped away quickly during research. Before he knew it, September 15 had arrived, and Lee Yunlong finally made up his mind to halt the project. Still, the time spent had brought him significant benefits. Most notably, he had devised a technique to use his own power to weave threads that bridged extra-dimensional space-referred to simply as spatial threads!
Two people shouting to each other through the air were limited by distance, no matter how loud they yelled. But what if you provided them with a line specifically designed for voice transmission? Wired telephony was built on that very concept. Lee Yunlong's spatial threads were the product of that principle, capable of keeping loss and interference down to an acceptable level within a direct line of sight of one kilometer. With spatial threads at his disposal, the number of tricks Lee Yunlong could pull off increased exponentially! If he were willing to exert the effort, he could even construct a short-range, rudimentarily structured local network within a brief timeframe-the sheer utility of such a setup was exhilarating just to think about!
That day, Amelia came to visit Lee Yunlong once again. Likely out of a desire to strengthen their connection, she made a point of dropping by at least once a week. As a somewhat well-known media professional, Amelia possessed high emotional intelligence and her own system for managing network contacts; Lee Yunlong, at least, found her company quite pleasant. On that front, Lee Yunlong had reflected on himself as well-he really wasn't very good at maintaining personal relationships, which explained why he had so few friends. Look at Amelia: she gathered internal station news and emailed it to Lee Yunlong in daily digest packages. Much of this information came from tips submitted to the station by Los Angeles citizens. Because no reporter was willing to follow up, most were dismissed in a few lines. Occasionally, a reporter wished to pursue a lead, but the story was shelved for various reasons and denied broadcast. Amelia used her authority to pull those records. Packaging them into emails didn't take up much space, but the fact that she personally made the trip showed true attentiveness. There was a reason Amelia had managed to rise through the ranks at the station.
Having grown quite familiar with Lee Yunlong, Amelia spoke openly and freely, chatting about everything under the sun. As a broadcast journalist, she was well-traveled and knowledgeable, frequently hearing bizarre rumors that never appeared in the information packets she sent him. As their conversation flowed, she eventually brought up a strange incident that had occurred recently.
«A couple of days ago,» Amelia said, «I heard from colleagues on the night shift that they received a paranormal video about the Train to Paradise.»
«The Train to Paradise?» Lee Yunlong asked. «You don't mean that ghost train said to appear exclusively at midnight?»
Amelia nodded. «That's the one! The legendary Train to Paradise!»
«Who could be unlucky enough to run into something like that?»
«Oh?» Amelia looked at him with surprise. «Why do you say that? Don't tell me you know the secret behind the Train to Paradise?»
«I actually do know a little bit,» Lee Yunlong replied.
«Lee, tell me!» Amelia urged. «I really want to know what this Train to Paradise is actually about!»
Lee Yunlong shook his head with a slight smile. As a news reporter, her curiosity was truly insatiable. «You should know that railways originated around 1840-or 1804 if you count the earliest steam locomotives. It's been nearly two hundred years, and the joysticks, sorrows, partings, and reunions surrounding trains are simply too numerous to count. Ghost legends about trains exist in countries all over the world, making them a staple of urban folklore. Among them, stories of the Train to Paradise are quite common. Though details vary by region, they are largely similar-the consensus being that it's a train bound for the heavenly realm.»
«Lee, I know all of that,» Amelia said. «Tell me something I don't know!»
«Alright, Amelia,» Lee Yunlong said, his demeanor turning serious as he looked at her. «I'll tell you something you don't know. If paranormal phenomena like the Train to Paradise-or ghost train legends in general-are real, then in the realm of occultism, they constitute an extraordinarily powerful form of mystery.» He stared at her intently. «I am not joking. You must never, under any circumstances, meddle with something like this.»
«Lee, are you saying this mystery is extremely dangerous?»
«Precisely. Extremely dangerous.»
«But I heard from my colleague that the person who shot the video actually rode the Train to Paradise,» Amelia countered, «went to an unimaginable place, and returned completely unscathed.»
Faced with Amelia's rebuttal, Lee Yunlong did not feel contradicted in the slightest. «That is because you do not understand occultism! The occult obeys the conservation of energy too, though its definition of energy conservation is entirely different from the physical science version. You said it yourself: the person who filmed the video boarded the Train to Paradise, reached an incredible place, and then returned. Did you not stop to think? For a supernatural anomaly as powerful as the Train to Paradise, could a passenger possibly board the train, reach their destination, and return without paying a price? I can tell you with absolute certainty that not only must a price be paid, but it will be a heavy one-quite likely beyond your wildest imagination. At best, it's merely a matter of who actually pays it.»
Amelia caught the key point in his words. «Lee, are you saying the price can be paid by someone else?»
«Of course,» Lee Yunlong replied. «It's just like buying a train ticket-there's no rule saying you're the only one allowed to foot the bill.»
That ought to have concluded their casual chat about the Train to Paradise. Yet unexpectedly, on September 22, Amelia came looking for Lee Yunlong once more. Both her expression and her tone radiated intense excitement.
«Lee! Do you remember the video of the Train to Paradise I mentioned a few days ago?»
«I remember,» Lee Yunlong said. «What happened?»
Amelia's excitement grew even more palpable. «My night-shift colleague thought it was a fantastic story, so she went to investigate and cover it. Then she vanished! Her family reported it to the police, but nothing came of it. Then, just this morning, the station suddenly received a video sent back by her! The stuff filmed inside is simply mind-blowing!»
Lee Yunlong's expression darkened instantly. «Amelia, you didn't watch that video, did you?»
Startled by his reaction, Amelia blinked. «I did… Is there something wrong?»
«Don't move!» Lee Yunlong snapped.
He had indeed sensed something amiss about her-a trace so faint that had Amelia not brought up the subject, he wouldn't have been certain. But now that suspicion was planted, he couldn't let it pass. Lee Yunlong placed his palms against both sides of Amelia's temples and activated his sensory control ability. A few minutes later, he withdrew his hands, his face grim.
Setting everything else aside, Amelia asked anxiously, «Lee, what's wrong? Is there something wrong with me?»
Lee Yunlong sighed softly. «Amelia, I see a curse on you.»
Amelia knew Lee Yunlong possessed real abilities, and since they were business partners, he had no reason to deceive her. «How could that be! Who would place a curse on me?» Then realization struck her. «Lee, are you saying… it's because of that Train to Paradise video I watched?»
«I believe so, yes,» Lee Yunlong said.
Panic finally set in. «Lee, you have a way to help me, don't you?»
«I do have a way to help you,» Lee Yunlong replied, «but it depends on how much of a price you are willing to pay.»
«Lee, any amount of money is fine!» Amelia pleaded. «Please, just lift this curse from me right away!»
«Amelia, you misunderstand me,» Lee Yunlong said. «We are business partners-how could I charge you money? The price I spoke of refers to how much of yourself you are willing to sacrifice to break the curse.»
Amelia was thoroughly confused. «Lee, I don't quite understand. Aren't you the one lifting the curse? Why ask me how much of a price I'm willing to pay?»
«Because while this curse is limited in quantity, its quality from an occult standpoint is remarkably high!» Lee Yunlong explained. «To eradicate it completely from your body, simply erasing your memories won't be enough-it will require severing a piece of your soul! That is why you must decide for yourself just how great a price you are willing to bear.»