ED | Chapter 4

Half a month later, at the hospital.

After the doctor did a thorough round of physical examinations again, he said to Chen Ai very solemnly, “Mr. Chen, all of the patient’s bodily indicators are perfectly normal. I know that makes this very abnormal, but it was only because the dosage of anesthetic you used last time was too much, causing the patient to remain in a state of deep sleep.”

“Mm.” Chen Ai nodded lightly, his hand brushing the anesthetic gun at his waist.

Originally, he had thought that dose should have put the other person under for a day at most. So he had only left him in the office. He had even considered tying him up with double-layer graphene rope, then decided that might not be very effective and simply let him lie there.

By the second night, Chen Ai had realized something was off and sent him to the hospital, but every examination came back normal. So Shi Jiu stayed in the hospital for another half month.

At least this time, he hadn’t run away. Chen Ai had a thought.

The door to the ward made a sound, then was pushed open from outside. Quick footsteps approached from behind, along with a light, whistling tune.

“Hm? You’re here again? He still hasn’t woken up?” A very energetic male voice said. He leaned his head out from behind Chen Ai, glanced at the person lying on the bed with his eyes closed, and after pondering for a while said, “I thought you weren’t here, so I came over to take a look. Aren’t you busy? You keep running to the hospital.”

“Mm.” Chen Ai replied, then changed the subject. “Where’s your sister?”

The man sat down in the ward chair. His somewhat stout and solid body fit the chair exactly at its limit. He said, “Busy. Isn’t she catching some fugitive lately? I’ve never even seen a fugitive in my life.”

Lowering his voice as if telling a ghost story, he said, “I heard he stabbed a passerby on the street for no reason, then screamed and ran after stabbing him. Hey, tell me, isn’t that funny? So I originally wanted to follow along and watch the fun, but here I am, sent by you old folks to keep watch over this one.” When he finished, he still looked a bit disgruntled, as if he had missed something important, and let out a long sigh.

Chen Ai ignored his complaint and said calmly, “He’s very dangerous. My authority only allows me to use the anesthetic gun. If you’re here, you can shoot him dead if there’s a problem.”

The other man nodded thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “I heard it from my sister. Prison break, disappearing on the spot, that really is unheard of. But other than that, it seems like he didn’t do anything else? I heard he even went out onto the street, but he didn’t show any dangerous behavior. By the way, why did you lock him up in the first place? Does he have abilities?”

“Mm, we still don’t know exactly what, but he showed teleportation.” As he spoke, Chen Ai paused, then continued, “I didn’t plan to lock him up. I was only questioning him normally, then he suddenly fought me in the office. I only planned to detain him for one day as punishment, but he escaped.”

The other man was clearly in disbelief. There were two points he could not accept. First, that teleportation ability. Second, “Someone would actually fight you?” The emphasis fell on “you.”

“Mm.”

So that incredulous gaze moved from Chen Ai to the person lying on the bed. For a moment, even the air was a tangled ball of yarn with no beginning and no end.

Chen Ai’s family background was extraordinary. The citizens treated Chen Ai with respect and never disrespect. That was one reason.

Second, although they had ability systems, truly gifted people were rare, and those with real superpowers were even rarer. Among those people, those whose abilities had important uses were rarer still. Such people were mostly concentrated in the Civilization Center. If it was teleportation, that was already a high-level superpower. If he had ever used it, the Civilization Center could not possibly have failed to recruit him.

“Then, there wasn’t any forced consciousness communication?”

“Not yet an adult.” Chen Ai said flatly. He had indeed tried, but the person fainting on the bed before him had not even applied for a channel. Only minors would have no channel.

The person beside him gave an “ah” and looked utterly baffled.

Being a minor and not entering the Civilization Center was understandable enough, after all he still hadn’t gone to the Origin Laboratory for thought transparency evolution. The Origin Laboratory was the place responsible for citizens’ brain evolution, and one of its top administrators was Chen Ai.

“Right.” Chen Ai said. “Help me apply for an anesthetic neck ring.”

“No problem!”

They did not stay long. Chen Ai was not sure when the person on the bed would wake up, and he was about to return to the Origin Laboratory. Just after he turned around, he heard a painful groan coming from the hospital bed.

Shi Jiu woke at that moment. His brows were tightly furrowed. He raised a hand to rub his temple, then slowly opened his eyes.

Just now, had he been caught again in a dream? Had he seen that guy with blue eyes on the street? Then he had lost consciousness. Had he woken up? Everything before him was white, like the hospital’s usual decor. Hospital, wait. He still hadn’t woken up.

Shi Jiu suddenly sat up. His body still felt no discomfort, but the scene before him was a calamity.

Chen Ai stood with his back against the wall, arms folded over his chest, his gaze cold in a way that was almost blunt. Those deep blue pupils were staring at him without the slightest evasion. On the other side sat another sturdy, unfamiliar man.

Shi Jiu could not help making a frustrated sound.

After a moment, the unfamiliar man stood up from the chair. His strong, muscular body looked like a mountain when he stood there. He held up his work badge and said with a smile, “Hi, Safety Management Center, Ji Shanyue. You’re under my supervision now.”

Shi Jiu frowned. Safety Management Center sounded like the sort of place that would be a police station in his world.

Ji Shanyue stood by the bed, folding his arms over his chest just like Chen Ai, and asked, “Your name is Shi Jiu?”

Shi Jiu only felt a headache coming on. “Mm.”

“How old are you?”

“27, 8, 9, maybe.” Shi Jiu’s voice was hoarse. He said the numbers casually, only to realize right after that he had said it wrong. His head still wasn’t quite clear.

As expected, Ji Shanyue said, “Huh?”

Then Ji Shanyue sucked in a breath, looked Shi Jiu up and down, and finally let out a deep, strange laugh. “Well now, your answer’s got this little turtle of mine so baffled it can’t even stay in school.”

Not giving Shi Jiu time to react, Ji Shanyue went on with obvious sarcasm, “You didn’t go register your evolution at this age? Are you trying to fool your big brother here? One sentence and you’ve got me all turned around.”

What Ji Shanyue meant was the application and information entry before evolution, so that each person’s evolution schedule could be determined. But Shi Jiu misunderstood and thought it was some other rule.

Shi Jiu pondered it and asked, “What evolution registration?” So after the age of twenty, when you evolve into consciousness communication, you still have to register?

Hearing that question, Ji Shanyue’s cheerful mood slowly stopped being cheerful. He looked Shi Jiu over again, this time very seriously. In the end, he asked solemnly, “You don’t know about evolution registration?”

Shi Jiu: “…”

Should he know?

Ji Shanyue thought for a moment, then turned to Chen Ai and said, “All right, the situation has changed. Should I take him back and hand him over to my sister?”

“As you wish.” Chen Ai replied indifferently.

“Fine.” Mentioning his sister, Ji Shanyue quickly returned to his easygoing mood. He said briskly to Shi Jiu, “Since you’re awake too, please come back with me to the Safety Management Center now.”

Shi Jiu licked his somewhat chapped lips. After a long moment, he smiled and said in a low voice, “Sure. But I want to go to the bathroom first.”

Chen Ai straightened slightly, just about to speak, when Ji Shanyue already answered, “Five minutes.”

Shi Jiu swung his legs out of bed. His movements were nothing like someone who had lain motionless in bed for half a month. He walked toward the bathroom, clearly feeling two fierce gazes fixed on his back. Then he turned his head and met Chen Ai’s eyes, giving him a false smile.

Chen Ai looked away.

A long time passed, so long that Ji Shanyue had already started pacing back and forth while whistling, visibly impatient. Chen Ai let out a soft sigh and nodded toward the bathroom, saying in a low voice, “He should already be gone.”

“Ah?” Ji Shanyue suddenly stopped, then quickly strode to the bathroom and yanked the door open hard, saying as he pulled, “Impossible. The bathroom doesn’t have a window, and it doesn’t have…”

The words got stuck in his throat, and Ji Shanyue clicked his tongue.

The bathroom before him was completely empty.

Ji Shanyue stood in the doorway, his expression one of utter shock. It took him quite a while to recover, and he muttered to himself like a curse, “Damn, it really is teleportation? There really are people with this kind of ability? That little turtle checked out and couldn’t stay in the dorm.”

Chen Ai: “…”

Ji Shanyue punched the wall, frowned, thought it over several times, then relaxed his brow and immediately shook his head. In the end, he said helplessly, “No, that’s not right. How could anyone not know to register evolution at twenty? The way he said that was like someone starving to death at the dining table, and when someone asked his soul why he wasn’t eating, he said, oh, so you need to eat? Huh? Huh?”

“Isn’t that absurd?!”

He had known this would happen. Chen Ai frowned.

Ji Shanyue paced anxiously back and forth. “What do we do now? How do you catch teleportation? What if he disappears again? How am I supposed to catch him?”

Chen Ai shook his head lightly, then seemed to think of something and said, “Maybe he’ll come back on his own.”

“Next time you catch him, bring him to my sister!”

“Mm.”

Catching someone with teleportation ability was not easy, but Chen Ai was not worried. His hand reached back, his fingers finding the anesthetic gun at his waist, his expression unreadable.

One shot of anesthetic, unconscious for half a month and unable to move. So that was why he was afraid of anesthetic.

So Chen Ai had only been speaking casually at first, but he had not expected his words to come true.

Shi Jiu came back on his own, when he sank back into sleep and entered another dream.

When Shi Jiu opened his eyes again, he found himself in the office where he had once sent the desk flying. The files on the desk were neatly and orderly arranged, and in the frame on the desk were a string of English letters he could not understand.

This time that person was not here, and the desk was also new, though he did not know whether it had always been new or whether that guy had brought in another one.

That guy? Wait!

Shi Jiu’s expression shifted in a way that was almost unbelievable. First blank, then dazed, then his mouth parted slightly, and finally shock. His expression was very strange at that moment.

The third time. This was not quite right.

At that moment, the door handle turned. Shi Jiu spun around abruptly, but the instant he saw the newcomer, the muzzle of a gun was already pressed to the center of his forehead. The cold touch made him flinch.

Pure dreaming would not be this real. What exactly was this, a dream or not? If it really was a dream, did that mean he would only dream of this place every night from now on, dream of this person? If that was the case…

Shi Jiu raised both hands in surrender.

Chen Ai pressed a little harder, using the gun against Shi Jiu’s forehead to slowly push him backward, step by step, until he was forced against the wall and Shi Jiu’s back was pressed flat to it.

Undercurrents surged, poised to break at the slightest touch.