The last thing Middendorffi helped Eli with was a tracksuit and a work uniform.
But it is not Middendorffi himself, but the two in a cheap sportswear shop. Middendorffi pointed to the door window in the two models' wear, letting Eli try. The shop assistant picked up the sizes of the clothes by sight, and luckily, the fittings were all great.
It wasn't that the clothes were great - after all, they were some of the most mundane ensembles on the street - but Eli's face held up to everything he wore. When he wore the robed power suit, it didn't emphasize his face as much as it should have; when he changed into these relatively ordinary clothes, his face value became more apparent. And that sense of distinction was preserved with his long black ponytail still in place.
In addition, Eli was tall, with long arms and legs, so naturally, he wasn't picky about the cut of his clothes.
Middendorffi was so impressed that she decided to buy it. Anyway, from the underwear to the running shoes, the two sets only cost a little over $1,000, which isn't too expensive.
Seeing Middendorffi's decision, Eli asked, "Do you like this kind of clothes?"
Middendorffi was noncommittal, saying, "Almost all of mine are like this too; I don't know about anything else."
"The same as yours?" Eli looked like he was asking a question, but there was no need for an answer, and in any case, no more questions were raised.
Ultimately, he left the shop in his cut-up labeled workwear set.
His original clothes, those other clothes, and even the sword that had originally been buckled around his waist were all in a large paper bag. The blade's hilt was still exposed, which at first glance looked oddly funny. Middendorffi didn't laugh but reminded Eli, "This sword might not make it to the underground."
"You can usually put it away, and you don't have to carry it." Eli said, "It'll protect you without the sword."
"..." Middendorffi gave him a look that didn't comment on the forceful self-description and silently led him toward the car park.
Eli took a long leg and walked alongside him.
It wasn't long before Eli asked again, "Why is someone still snapping pictures of me when I've changed my clothes?"
Middendorffi inclined his head at him, "Your long hair catches the eye."
"Long hair?" Eli said, "So, cut it?"
Middendorffi, usually unperturbed by visions, showed some rare surprise at Eli's words, "You're going to cut your long hair?"
Eli said, "It might be nice to have it cut like yours."
"It doesn't have to be. Plenty of men in the world have long hair, and it's not an anomaly." Middendorffi remembered the extensive string of rhetoric the clerk had just used and added, "Besides, they like the way you look, and they'll probably shoot you even if you cut your hair."
"They like my looks?" Eli asked, "I'm not sure about the aesthetics in the world today. What do you think?"
Middendorffi sniffed and looked him over again, as seriously as if he were meeting him for the first time, and Eli gave him a frank look and locked eyes with him as if he could stare at him for as long as he wanted.
But after a few seconds, Middendorffi popped out only one sentence: "I ... don't know."
Eli said, "Do you not know if I'm good-looking, or just don't want to say 'not good-looking' outright?"
"I don't understand the highs and lows of looks either." Middendorffi said, "As far as I'm concerned, people have two eyes, one nose, and one mouth, so there's not much difference."
Eli asked, "So, I am no different from others in your eyes?"
"Of course not." Middendorffi returned, "I can tell what everyone looks like and see how you are different from the others. But if you ask me what looks best, I can't answer."
Eli walked beside him and said slowly, "When I ask the so-called 'good looking,' I don't mean the 'good looking' recognized by the whole world and everyone, but your feelings. What you find pleasing to your eyes, what you are willing to look at more often, what you feel happy to see, is what you consider 'good-looking.' 'Looking good' is subjective; you can think it looks good even if no one else does."
If Henri and the other "collectors" were here, they would be surprised that Eli, who had been so concise in talking about his contractual terms and conditions, was now telling Middendorffi about the concept of "good looks" to explain to him. To illustrate the idea of "good looks," Eli directly spoke to Middendorffi in such a long paragraph, far from his previous behavior.
Moreover, even if Middendorffi has lost his memory, his concept of logic is still standard nowadays; who would think of explaining the concept of "good-looking" to him?
But Middendorffi didn't seem to notice this "peculiarity"; he didn't even seem to listen to Eli's words; he just gave a faint "hmmm ..." and then pointed to the front of the car. He just gave a soft "hmm, "then pointed to the car park entrance before him and said, "Go this way."
After a pause, he shook his mobile phone again and explained, "It's Zhang who just sent me the location, and the phone can guide one to the target."
"I knew you could find him." Eli seemed to be smiling, but upon closer inspection, he couldn't tell that the corners of his mouth were upturned, "I'll go with you."
***
In the underground car park, after Middendorffi and Eli got into the car, Henry didn't drive straight away; instead, he first sharply commented on the online meeting he'd just had.
"Damn, the A's screwed us!" He turned back to the two men, "That video that led to the kid's disappearance was a setup with the Fake Man!"
Middendorffi didn't get it for a second, "What does ... mean?"
"The specific information film is still being translated and produced, so let me summarise the general idea for you."
Henry said, "That strange video is also a vision, which Country A has named the 'Intruder.' It often appears in areas where pseudo-humans are active but only attacks homes with babies or young children. It attacks by interjecting itself on electronic devices that play video and audio, and the broadcast is generally divided into two parts.
"First, there is a plausible piece of early childhood education that looks like something a parenting expert would say, but that's when the parents start to be warned about the ease of being near their child when they are crying. Then, when the parents do leave, the intruder plays that foreign language song. Oh yes, that song is an ancient nursery rhyme from country A. It used to be used a lot to put children to sleep.
"When it plays that song, it also releases the sound of the child's crying to attract the parents. Once the parent checks on the child, the child will disappear 100 percent of the time."
Upon hearing this, Middendorffi interjected and asked, "So if you don't go and check, the child won't disappear?"
"There's a small chance that it won't disappear. But most children should have disappeared when the parents left." Henry returned, "There's also a minimal probability that a disappeared child will be found elsewhere. But what those probabilities are, the A side is not sure. This is because the recovered missing children were only checked on the family genes, and their biological parents were found when they grew up and participated in the gene tracing program. The place where they were found back then could be very close to their original families or a hundred thousand miles away. If these children didn't know they were adopted or didn't want to find their birth parents, they would never be heard from for the rest of their lives."
Middendorffi asked, "Why would an intruder take a child?"
"It's unclear, and it has no entity to communicate with. What about the same place that the gouramis hide after taking a child? The vast majority of children taken by invaders are never heard from again on this earth." Henry said, "But the A's say that the invaders probably don't get along with the pseudo-people."
"Didn't you just say they were 'a set'?"
"I meant they 'appear in sets.'" Henry said, "The children who were gotten away from the invaders, if they still grow up back in human society, are likely to encounter pseudo-humans. However, they would recognize the pseudo-humans more quickly than usual, would not be seduced by their spirit, and would rise in violent resistance. It has been documented that a child whom the invaders had taken was adopted and grew up, during which time he encountered pseudo-humans twice. The first time, when he was a child, he was spared, presumably because the pseudo-person preferred adults; the second time, when he was older, he tried desperately to resist but failed and then committed suicide. All of this was backed up by video footage and autopsy reports.
"Oh, and A's side says there's a chance it wasn't a suicide, either. Because they suspect Pseudo-Man has a 'transformation' ability that allows him to replicate the wounds that the mimic target inflicted on himself, one for one, onto the mimic target, it's possible that the Pseudo-Man killed the mimic target and created the wound."
Middendorffi thought momentarily, "So both the Pseudo Man and the Intruder can affect human consciousness, but they are opposed to each other."
"Indeed." Henry said, "Also, wasn't it also said earlier that the False Men might imitate messengers in religions to entrap humans? Supposedly, the invaders would spread the word among the crowd that the False Man was not the 'true god' so that people wouldn't believe it. Of course, there's a religious element to this part of A. Not sure if it's a message they've processed."
Middendorffi remembered one more thing: "And the parent suicide, was that caused by the intruder, too?"
"That's still true. I forgot to tell that part." Henry returned, "Parents can also be disturbed and seek to commit suicide if they view and listen to videos for long periods."
"So, if you don't watch the video, you won't be tempted to commit suicide. If you don't leave your child alone, your child won't go missing." Middendorffi concludes, "Intruders are better than pseudo-humans."
Eli finally speaks up and asks, "What's a pseudo-human?"
"An entity ... you can think of it as a demon that will mimic a person exactly, kill the other person, replace them, and then attack the next one. I'll get back to you with a mobile phone and send you the information film to look at." Henry paused, then added, "Pseudo-men can't be killed with normal small firearms, so I was going to say don't take it lightly if you run into one. But since you can split the red moon with a sword, maybe I don't need to worry much."
Eli asked again, "The pseudo-men can be fought, but how about the intruders?"
Henry says, "That's the hard part; it's just a piece of 'ghost' lurking in the network that can't be caught."
Middendorffi asked, "What technical means can't be used ..."
"If it could, A would have captured it long ago. Aren't their computers better than ours?" Henry said, "Right now, the 'Collectors' are still deciding to use public opinion to alert parents not to show videos when they give their kids alone time. It sounds a bit wimpy, but it works."
"What about the ones that have already gone missing?"
"The police side definitely can't tell the truth to the parents, so they can only let some people keep looking. Over time, the police force will naturally share out, and public opinion will shift, so that's how it must be." Henry returned, "By the way, I want to disclose this with you guys. The police side said that among these parents who reported their children missing, a pair of them sold their children."
"Sold?"
"No? They feared that people would ask about it, so they took the initiative to call the police and made up a story based on an online post. It turns out the police checked the surveillance of them taking the kid out themselves and coming back out without it, and the two of them were still talking and laughing. Don't you think that's ridiculous?"
Middendorffi said lightly, "Humans try to cover up their sins with monsters."
"Ha, you say that like you're on the side of the monsters." Henry turned back to the front as he spoke and started the vehicle, thus missing Middendorffi's momentarily unnatural expression, "But how many disappearances and deaths throughout the ages have not been buttoned up with rumors? The island's so-called 'Shen Yin' ... snort."
Eli swept Middendorffi lightly and asked, "So, how's the Red Moon thing going?"
"That was just about to take you guys back to a meeting to analyze it; the office just stripped out the valid parts from a whole bunch of surveillance." Eli paused for a moment, and suddenly, the conversation took a turn, "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention a moment ago that Mr Jones' new suit is quite nice."
It was a social compliment, but Eli answered it.
"Yeah, Bear picked it out."