The spirit realm, after a full month of silence, stirred once again—precisely at midnight.
It wasn't a sound that could be captured by recorders—It was like a shattered bell in a distant valley,or a mother's voice calling softly in a forgotten dream.
And it trembled in every soul-bound agent's consciousness.
Lu Feng awoke in a cold sweat.
It was no dream.
From the deepest part of his soul-link,a faint reverberation had rippled forth—a frequency that only appeared when the Gate was about to reopen.
He dressed in silence and walked out, without any order.As if his body already knew where to go.
Elsewhere in the bureau, at the exact same time,Kaelin stood at her office window, staring at the tactical screen.
The mirror-realm monitor, which had remained blank for weeks,suddenly lit up with a crack of pale light.
A slit, barely the width of a blade.But disturbingly familiar.
"The Mirror Echo has returned."
That phrase—code-level classified—meant only one thing:
The mirrored spirit world was overlapping reality once more.
A dual reconstruction—of space and consciousness.
"Alert the Spirit Core Control Room," Kaelin ordered,just as a trembling voice buzzed through her earpiece:
"Vice Director Kaelin, we… we didn't open the gate—The South Sector mirror portal is activating on its own."
Her expression changed.
—
Meanwhile, Lu Feng had arrived at the Gate.
It no longer resembled the translucent water-like barrier of before.Instead, it had become a three-meter floating mirror—surrounded by gray-white mist,its surface pulsing faintly like breathing skin.
He didn't move closer.
He could feel it—someone or something—watching him from the other side.
Was it a spirit?An old memory?Or… the "other him" he once glimpsed at the edge of the mirror realm?
As he prepared to test the gate, a familiar presence appeared beside him.
Kaelin.
Her coat fluttered, face calm but tense, spiritual anchor in hand.
She took one look at the gate and frowned.
"We didn't open this."
Lu Feng nodded.
"It's not a gate. It's an invitation."
Their eyes met—no fear, only a kind of fated understanding.
"Are you scared?" she asked.
"Only if you don't come back," Lu Feng replied.
She smiled—didn't promise.
Their soul-links activated, light intertwined.
This time, there were no orders, no missions—only two people stepping forward by choice.
And in the instant they vanished into the gate,the spirit realm systems recorded a massive anomaly:
"Dual soul-entry · Unbound oath · Synchronization: 109.3%""Warning: Exceeds normal explanation range.""Designation: Variable pair detected · Mirror Realm reboot initialized."
—
The gate… had officially opened.
But what awaited inside—
Was not just a single spirit detective—
But two people who had already rewritten fate once before.