Just as Lun kept wondering about the stunning view outside the window, the mysterious woman sitting by the wall suddenly clapped her hands, trying to get his attention.
That sudden sound instantly worked as Lun seemed to be interrupted and came back to his senses.
"All right. Look, after we finish the Q&A stuff, I may help you with your questions, if you do have some questions, like where exactly are we?"
The woman picked up a folder from the table beside her and placed it on her lap.
Then she opened the folder, took out a photo from it and showed it to Lun.
"You must have seen this person before, and you may try to recall where and when you met her. By the way, her name is Masami Uesugi and she is one of our colleagues."
Lun was slightly stunned at first, and then his expression changed rapidly.
He did recognize the girl in the ID photo which was none other than the pink-haired little evil he had met at his birthday night...
Lun cleared his throat twice, trying to avoid eye contact with the ponytail woman.
After a brief pause, he said:
"Yes, I saw her."
"Where did you meet her first?" The woman asked immediately.
Lun lowered his head and thought carefully for a moment, then said:
"It should be somewhere around the seventh alley of Jiefang Road, next to the 7/24 shop...I forget the name of the shop...”
The woman listened and remained silent.
In fact, she knew exactly where it was. She and her investigation team had searched all the CCTV around the community. She saw Masami and Lun in cameras when they ran out of the backstreet at a different time. Masami appeared a little bit earlier. Then it was Lun who rode a scooter and rode really fast.
The reason for asking something she already knew was to see if Lun would tell the truth.
After all, this guy had crossed paths with Masami, and the place where they met happened to be a blind spot without CCTV. So she had no idea about what was going on in the first place and could only make some guesses.
Whether there was any communication between the two or did Masami say something to him, things like that remained a mystery.
"Do you know her?" the woman continued to ask.
Lun shook his head and explained:
"I don't know her at all, and I had no idea what she was talking about. She is Japanese, you know."
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
"So Masami did talk to you, but you didn't understand because she spoke Japanese."
"Yeah, there you go." Lun nodded.
The woman thought for a moment and then asked:
"Did she give you anything?"
Lun was a little bit confused.
He simply raised his left hand, showing the mystical bangle on his wrist.
"Here it is. She put it on me without asking for permission. I have no idea why she did that. Before I could figure out what was going on, she just ran away."
The woman listened carefully and pondered for a moment. While quickly going over every single word that Lun had just said in her mind, she wanted to make sure there was not any logical flaw in his words.
A moment later, she seemed to notice nothing unusual and continued to ask:
"Do you mean that she left this bangle to you and then ran away? Is that what you're saying?"
Lun raised his hand and corrected:
"Hold on...let me make this clear. She didn't leave this thing to me, alright? When I was trying to communicate with her because she suddenly showed up and grabbed my arm, she played tricks on me! She put this thing on my wrist before I could realize it! I had no idea what she had done to me! Before I could ask, she just ran away! That's it!"
"And then?" the woman asked, totally ignoring the anger and losing patience in Lun's voice.
Lun said without noticing the indifferent tone in her attitude:
"Then I got on my scooter and tried to catch up with her. But I missed it. As soon as I got out of the alley, I couldn't find her anymore."
The woman thought for a moment and said:
"And then?"
Finally Lun felt offended and really wanted to mock her.
"What's going on here? I am clearly the victim, but you keep asking me questions as if I were the criminal. Where the hell is this place, by the way? Are you a police officer? Can I get a lawyer?"
The woman was looking down at the folder on her lap, trying to go over all the information collected one more time.
After a moment, she raised her head, staring right into Lun's eyes and said:
"I told you. Just consider this place as a hospital. When we found you, you were in a coma. So we brought you here and did some medical exams for your health.
Fortunately, there's nothing seriously wrong with your body."
Nothing seriously wrong?
Upon hearing this, Lun felt confused and his eyes were full of doubts.
At least in his memory pieces, his left hand and the bangle was gone and he was bleeding severely.
Though for the time being, he saw his left hand and the bangle back again and everything looked just fine.
Moreover, judging from the woman's words, it seemed that when she found Lun, he was just in a coma. She didn't mention a word about the missing left hand, which perhaps meant that his left hand wasn't gone at all.
Lun was getting really confused and lost in thought for a while.
The mysterious woman over there, seeing that he had not given any response for a long time, had to interrupt him:
"Are you with me? What's going on there?"
Lun came to his senses. First, he looked at her for a second, and then his eyes shifted to the window on her left.
He pointed at the window, meaning the blue planet outside and said:
"You call this room in space a hospital?"
The woman turned her head and looked at where Lun pointed, smiling but saying nothing.
Then she turned back, using her fingers to quickly adjust the bangs on her forehead and said:
"All right, then. If telling you something can make you feel better and help you to lower your guard...Actually, this is a room inside the Grand Hotel. If you want to know what the Grand Hotel is, like I said before, when I'm done with the process of Q&A stuff, and if I have time, I can explain this to you."
Grand Hotel?
When Lun heard this name, he couldn't help but frown.
Meanwhile, the woman tried to explain again:
"Grand Hotel is just a disguise and a metaphor for what we do in our business. The real name is Administration. So far that's all I can tell you."
This time, it seemed quite easy for Lun to accept what the woman said.
When thinking of those dark figures that hunted him to death, it was not that hard to believe that there was supposed to be a special organization or department which was responsible for dealing with supernatural incidents like this.
But upon thinking of this, Lun came up with more doubts and questions:
"Well, technically, since you guys are some officers from the Administration, I believe that you have the authority to get any evidence you need, like accessing the CCTV systems along the streets. But...”
Lun hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to describe it.
The woman was truly insightful and she soon realized that there was something more than him or Masami.
She asked with an alert:
"But what?"
Lun took a deep breath and said carefully:
"Have you seen those dark figures that chased me down all the way through the streets?"
Meanwhile, he focused on the woman's face to see how she would react.
But the woman's expression didn't change at all, showing neither shock nor confusion.
Seeing Lun keeping an eye on her, the woman seemed to realize what was on his mind, and thus explained:
"Those dark figures you mentioned didn't show up in the cameras. Or perhaps, even if they did show up, they would just not be recorded by the cameras. So we have no idea what those dark figures were and what they looked like.
So could you be more specific? Help us to describe those dark figures, what kind of figures were they?"
Upon hearing this, Lun felt frustrated and kind of speechless.
Anyway, the next moment, he began to recall and then described:
"They were like some shadows of a humanoid without any facial features, not eyes, nose or ears. When they were getting close, the lights around you would start to flicker as if they were...you know, some sort of electricity problem."
The woman frowned and made a guess in her mind.

