ED | Chapter 6

The familiar feeling of weightlessness made Shi Jiu nauseous. This time, he had unprecedented luck. The place where he teleported to was Chen Ai’s office, and Chen Ai happened to be in the office too.

Lucky to the point of being over the top.

By the time Shi Jiu realized it, he was already standing beside Chen Ai. Chen Ai immediately sensed something was wrong and looked up sharply. He had not even ended the call yet, and his other hand was already reaching swiftly for his waist.

Shi Jiu reacted faster than ever before, but still not faster than Chen Ai. He had only just managed to say, “Wait,” when the tranquilizer gun Chen Ai had drawn already fired. Pain instantly sank into his arm.

Shi Jiu did not have time to speak. The next second, he collapsed.

What a coincidence, someone had escaped prison only to teleport right beside the man who came to arrest him. They both thought of that at the same time.

Chen Ai glanced at the person on the floor, leisurely readjusted the tranquilizer dosage, and put the gun away. He did not touch the person lying at his feet, and continued with the work in his hands.

Three hours later, Shi Jiu woke up. He was lying on the sofa, and in the office Chen Ai was still bent over his papers, reading each sheet carefully one by one. Sensing something, he looked up and asked coldly, “Awake?”

Before Shi Jiu could speak, Chen Ai cut him off. His voice was utterly indifferent. “You can’t teleport when you’re sedated. If you insist on refusing to tell me the truth, I can make sure you never leave.”

What an intimidating man.

Shi Jiu held his head and thought it over. From these few experiences, he had figured out several things. First: if he woke in reality, his behavior in the dream would simply vanish, like that time in the hospital restroom when he disappeared.

Second: after being hit by the tranquilizer, he could feel himself immediately sink into a deeper layer of the dream, where there was only blank unconsciousness. He could do nothing there, could not even wake up, so the tranquilizer completely suppressed him. He needed to be on guard.

Third: he could tell this was a dream, but he had no initiative or control in it. The only unusual thing about him was teleportation. He was merely a consciousness body, and that was his greatest advantage. As for everything else, the so-called abilities they talked about, he had none of them. Even the moment he woke up had been pure chance. He happened to dream of this, and happened to wake up, which meant his physical body could not die.

Fourth: whether he entered the dream while asleep or teleported somewhere else, he always appeared near Chen Ai. Though it had only happened a few times and needed further observation, this was clearly not good news. If teleportation could be used as a tool for escape, but its destination was centered on Chen Ai, then he would be unable to get away. After a few more attempts, he would have to reassess the risk of fleeing.

Advantages and disadvantages swept through his mind in a whirlwind, one after another. In the end, Shi Jiu reached a conclusion: he had to behave, or at least pretend to behave, then teleport away and run as fast as possible.

He raised both hands above his head. “I won’t run. I’ll tell you.”

Chen Ai set down the last document waiting for his signature, pushed all the papers aside, and unhurriedly poured himself a cup of tea. Then he took the tranquilizer gun from his waist and casually placed it on the desktop with a soft click. He sat down and crossed one leg over the other.

“What is your ability?” he asked directly.

All right, that was the first question he could not answer. Shi Jiu thought about how to explain it in a way that would make the truth easier to accept.

In the silence, Chen Ai’s fingers tapped lightly against the table in a slow rhythm.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

It was like a physical manifestation of time’s flow, like some kind of countdown, slowly and suffocatingly trickling and building in the quiet space, perfectly overlapping with the second hand of a clock.

Chen Ai did not urge him on. Shi Jiu also did not know how to fabricate an answer.

At last, Shi Jiu said, “I don’t know.”

The tapping on the table stopped, and so did the flow of time. A moment later, Chen Ai smiled, though there was no kindness in it.

“Shi Jiu.” Chen Ai enunciated his name clearly, then said, “I don’t think you understood what I just said.”

“I understand.” This time, he answered very quickly.

Chen Ai gave him a curious sideways glance and said softly, “Is that so?”

Shi Jiu let a faint smile appear. He said, “Actually, I’m just…”

Before the word “dream” could even leave his mouth, Shi Jiu had already lunged forward in a long stride and turned to smash himself into the wall. He did not know how far he could teleport. Even if the center was Chen Ai, the farther the better!

A violent pain hit him, and the familiar dizziness made him almost retch. Even in this extreme sense of wrongness, his brain was still working at high speed: when he opened his eyes, he had to run!

However, when Shi Jiu opened his eyes, his face went white at once.

He had not left. He had teleported in place.

The office was very quiet. He could not hear the slightest sound from outside, only the still movement of the air.

His lips moved. When he looked up, he saw the person sitting in the chair.

Chen Ai was calmly wiping his gun. His movements were skilled and elegant. After a moment, he gave a light laugh, raised the gun, and pulled the trigger at Shi Jiu without hesitation.

With a flicker of motion, the figure collapsed.

Chen Ai called the Safety Management Center with unhurried composure and requested, “Is Ji Shuifeng at the Safety Management Center? I need to apply for a lie detector test.”

After hanging up, Chen Ai picked up the person who had fallen to the ground and opened the door, walking toward the Safety Management Center.

The Origin Laboratory was Chen Ai’s territory. No one questioned his behavior, so when the citizens once again saw him carrying a young man out, at most they muttered to themselves. No one thought too much of it.

Except for one.

Zhou Zhifu looked thoughtfully at Chen Ai’s back, his eyes narrowing. He had just sent off a batch of minors to the Reeducation Center and returned, only to run into such a strange scene. His expression showed he could not make sense of it.

He did not know how long Shi Jiu had been unconscious. He almost thought he would just sleep forever in this dream. He seemed to be floating in midair, with someone carrying him along, but that embrace was so firm and steady that he felt no discomfort at all.

Suddenly, the person holding him stopped. Faint noise came from beside his ear. Those voices felt like hearing people speak above the water while he was submerged beneath it.

A trembling old voice grew nearer and nearer. “Mr. Chen, Mr. Chen.”

Chen Ai said, “What is it?”

The sound shook Shi Jiu’s eardrums with a buzzing ring, and he realized his head was pressed against Chen Ai’s chest, so the other’s voice was transmitted directly to his ears in a low vibration.

The old man said, “Safety Management Center just called me. They suspected my grandson of driving into someone, so they held him in prison temporarily, but he just killed himself in prison.”

The voice fell silent for a moment. Chen Ai said, “I’m sorry.”

The old man’s voice grew more urgent than before, even carrying a trace of grief. “Mr. Chen, my grandson has been acting strangely lately. He keeps saying there are ghosts, keeps saying… something is coming.”

Chen Ai did not speak. Shi Jiu could only hear his heartbeat, slow and steady, each beat strong and forceful.

The old man’s tone rose, carrying a fear he did not dare voice too loudly. Slowly, he asked, “Mr. Chen, do you think the citizens of Endenuo still remember false suspicion disease?”

The moment he heard the words “false suspicion disease,” Shi Jiu felt a deafening shock, as if Chen Ai’s heart had violently skipped a beat. What followed was a long stretch of palpitations.

False suspicion disease was something no one in this civilization could forget.

Two hundred years ago, after a war, a plague swept across the world. The plague stripped people of reason and trust. What had begun as a war over resources ended in citizens slaughtering one another or killing themselves. After that plague, the world’s total population dropped sharply.

The name false suspicion disease was very literal: falsehood, suspicion. Many infectious diseases attack the human immune system, but false suspicion disease attacked the human brain.

Yet born from death, the citizens who survived that nightmare of a plague built the transparent civilization of today and named it Endenuo.

Meaning: vitality, eternity.

Chen Ai pressed his lips together and said in a low voice, “I remember.”

His heartbeat slowly steadied again after the palpitation.

The old man murmured to himself, “False suspicion disease, false suspicion disease. Are we never going to escape its prey?”

Shi Jiu’s head was spinning. When he heard voices again, the surroundings had already quieted down, leaving only a very gentle, somewhat androgynous female voice speaking nearby.

“Xiaoyan? Don’t cry, all right? Let’s talk properly.”

“Your father is very busy.”

“Yan Buen? You shouldn’t, ah, forget it. I’ll come get you from home later, but I still have something to do right now, so it has to be a little later, all right?”

“Goodbye.”

Not long after, another call came in, ringing so much that Shi Jiu found it irritating.

“Hello?”

“Yes, this is Ji Shuifeng.”

“Mm, find more teachers with experience. It doesn’t matter if they cost more. If there’s any shortfall, I’ll make up for it. Take good care of those children.”

…

A tenderness almost like a mother’s.

Shi Jiu suddenly sat up, and the movement was too fast, making him lose his breath and cough repeatedly.

Ji Shuifeng’s gaze swept over immediately, her sharp look nailing itself straight onto Shi Jiu.

There was no sense of pain, and no sense of malice. She was the complete opposite of Chen Ai. Chen Ai never seemed openly aggressive either, but even a faint glance from him made one feel no kindness at all. They were two entirely opposite people.

When he recovered, Ji Shuifeng set a cup of water in front of him and sat down as well.

It was a very small interrogation room, white walls on all sides. Unlike the prison before, this place was visibly far more secure. There was no door in sight, and the sealed-in atmosphere made it feel as if he had claustrophobia. Shi Jiu saw the badge on her chest: Safety Management Center.

He had been handed over to the highest security authority.

Ji Shuifeng sat properly, her whole state extremely relaxed. She idly played with her hair and said gently, “I heard about your situation from Chen Ai. Don’t worry, we won’t harm innocent citizens. I just want to ask you a few questions, and then I’ll let you go.”

Shi Jiu pressed his lips together and looked at her without speaking.

Ji Shuifeng reached out and lightly patted his shoulder. “Do you still remember the last person you saw before you passed out?”

If he did not cooperate, would he just keep looping endlessly between proving himself and being arrested?

The longer he stayed in this dream, the stranger it became. He could act normally and with quite a bit of logic, and the people in the dream did not seem like hollow souls either. They seemed like real people, completely possessing the behavior and understanding of the real world. Dreams were not supposed to be like this.

Shi Jiu’s gaze swept over the room and the woman in front of him once more. Then he leaned back and rested against the chair. “That blue-eyed guy.”

Hearing this answer, Ji Shuifeng looked a little surprised, but she quickly continued, “What’s your impression of him?”

“He’s sick.”

“Anything else?”

“Suspicious, bad temper, cold, no empathy at all. Pretty strong, I guess, and very oppressive, but it doesn’t work on me.” Shi Jiu rolled his eyes slightly upward, but in Ji Shuifeng’s eyes, that expression carried a very clear meaning: disdain.

“You’ve met Ji Shanyue too, right? What do you think of him?”

Shi Jiu tilted his head and thought for a moment. “You mean that big guy? He’s probably even sicker than the blue-eyed one, right?” After saying it, Shi Jiu felt that maybe it was not quite appropriate. Ji Shanyue and Ji Shuifeng clearly had some kind of relationship, yet he was badmouthing one of them right in front of the other.

Ji Shuifeng’s gaze landed on his face like one that could see through everything. She made no comment, and instead continued, “You saw a little girl carrying stones in the city, didn’t you? What did you talk about?”

Shi Jiu recalled, “I knocked her over and helped her pick up the stones.”

Ji Shuifeng’s voice was gentle. “Is your ability teleportation?”

“I don’t know!” He pressed his lips together lightly, and the muscles on one side of his face tightened for a moment.

“How old are you this year?”

Shi Jiu had originally wanted to answer honestly, but he would not make the same mistake a third time. He made one up. “Nineteen.”

Ji Shuifeng’s eyes lowered slightly.

She asked, “I heard you didn’t know about evolution registration?”

Shi Jiu said softly, “I know.”

Ji Shuifeng frowned, stood up, and gestured toward the outside.

In an instant, the glass on all four walls turned dark, then became transparent again, revealing what it had really been all along: a one-way glass surveillance wall! Outside, Chen Ai and Ji Shanyue were sitting there.

Shi Jiu: “…” It felt like being caught bad-mouthing someone behind their back by the very person involved.

Ji Shanyue’s face turned green. Seeing the one-way glass finally lower, he immediately cursed for quite a while, and in the end even added, “Hah, so it really is true. A little bastard rushing to mourn his own son. The bastard’s dead.”

Chen Ai showed no expression. There was no ripple of emotion at all at Shi Jiu’s remark; he just looked inside.

Ji Shuifeng gave a helpless shrug. Her voice was very gentle, but what she said made Shi Jiu’s scalp tingle.

“He’s lying.”