Chapter 107
Si Chen was dreaming again.
He doesn’t actually dream often, but every time he does, he can’t help but see White Dress in them.
White Dress was sitting on the ground, his limbs clamps with chains extending from the void.
He raised his head, his face very calm. “You’re here.”
Si Chen looked far into the distance and saw that the puzzle had spread out over a large area on the ground.
But White Dress’ puzzle seemed to be unending.
Si Chen leaned over and looked at the fragments in White Dress’ hand.
They weren’t strictly jigsaw puzzle-shaped. Instead, they were irregularly shaped. Like fragments of a broken mirror.
But somehow, these fragments always have shapes that fit together.
Si Chen tried hard to see clearly the pattern on the puzzle, but no matter how he looked, it all appeared as a blank.
White Dress, who’d been sitting on the ground, stood up and covered Si Chen’s eyes. There was a smile in his tone. “Don’t look at it. I don’t want you to get brain damaged.”
The contents of the puzzle were still too complicated for Si Chen now.
The darkness lasted only a moment.
White Dress quickly let go of his hand. “You’re on the Fifth Step. Congratulations.”
Si Chen sat next to him, hugged his knees, pondered for a moment and said, “If it were before, I might have been overjoyed. In our world, reaching the Fifth Step meant being promoted to a first-class citizen.”
“But I’ve suddenly found that compared to the goals I’ve set, I’m still too small. I’m afraid…I’m afraid that I won’t be to shoulder the responsibilities.”
White Dress rummaged through the pile and replied casually, “Then be afraid. Does being afraid mean you don’t have to do it? Fear of death, spurs the pursuit of immortality. Fear of elimination, spurs the pursuit of evolution. In fact, fear is the strongest driving force. Isn’t it?”
“You’re right.” Si Chen nodded and breathed a sigh of relief, “I was admitted to graduate school. It will take two years. My advisor is Song Bai. He seems to want to eat me but sometimes he’s really good to me. There’s another problem. He was the one who created this Eternal Life Abyss in my body. I’m afraid he might want to take it back one day.”
This thought had been completely inspired by Kuafu.
Kuafu had split into 13 parts and created the Children of God. In the end, the devoured them all back.
White Skirt turned his head and directed a measuring look at Si Chen. “If he wants to eat you, then he has good taste. But this piece of Eternal Life Abyss belongs to you. He can’t take it back, don’t worry.”
Si Chen: “I learned a new word from him. Dimensionality reduction. It’s what a high-dimensional creature undergoes when it goes to a low-dimensional world. He himself is the result of dimensionality reduction. He was divided into two parts, one part is a human being and the other part is the Eternal Life Abyss.”
“……Hm?”
Si Chen raised his head and asked, “Am I something you created through dimensionality reduction?”
His expression was a little confused.
There was questions that are inescapable in one’s life. Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?
Si Chen knows who he is and knows what his future goals are. The only thing he didn’t know was the middle questions. Where did he come from?
After all, he is an orphan.
White Skirt just looked at him quietly, with a gentle smile on his face. “You are very smart.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
He neither said yes, nor did he say no.
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…
…
When Si Chen woke up, he was met with the unfamiliar sight of a striped ceiling lamp above his head. He couldn’t help being somewhat dazed.
He must be at White King’s apartment.
His body felt sticky and uncomfortable.
Si Chen sat up, looked behind him and found his bodily fluids had soaked the sheets.
It was probably not sweat. It was blood mixed with something else.
Maybe sleeping for so long was making Si Chen dizzy. Or it could be because of that dream.
There was a printed note by the bedside.
I’m going out for morning tea.
It was signed ‘Song Bai’.
The bedside drawer opened and inside were clothes Song Bai had prepared for him. They seemed to be of good quality and yet unused.
Song Bai must have taken it from his closet.
Song Bai was half a head taller than him and his shoulders were wider so his clothes were a tad too big.
Si Chen went to take a shower and changed clothes. Looking in front of the mirror, he felt like Song Bai’s clothes made him look a bit like…
When he lived in that cramped apartment, the old man in charge of collecting rent also wore the same clothes — a white T-shirt and brown beach pants, with a long string of SID cards hanging around his waist.
Si Chen wiped his hair with a dry towel. He sat on the edge of the bed and turned on his mobile phone.
There were a few more friend applications on his social media app.
Si Chen opened it and took a look, deleting some that he didn’t recognize. He only approved Chen Zhizhou, Song Ziyu and White King.
Si Chen had woken up after a long sleep but the other two candidate had yet to make it back to their Safe Zones.
Song Bai sent a message.
-You’re awake?
Si Chen: En.
-How are you feeling?
Si Chen assessed carefully.
His body felt slightly sore, especially his back.
Apart from this slight discomfort, he felt better than ever.
Like a fully charged mobile phone, energy practically overflowing.
If only Song Bai had a virtual game console at home, he would have liked to log in to “High Dimensional Invasion” and try to climb the rankings.
He called out the Eternal Life Abyss. “Little Abyss.”
The Eternal Life Abyss didn’t seem to be completely awake yet. It responded quietly. “…Squeak.”
Si Chen wanted to take it out and examine it but after pulling for a long time, he only managed to pull out a short tentacle.
There were already ugly tumors and eyes on its tentacles.
Little Abyss is a little Eternal Life Abyss that loves only beauty.
Only three of its five tentacles were left, with only stubs remaining of its previous two. So ugly, so very un-symmetrical. I don’t want mom to see me like this.
Because he couldn’t pull it out, Si Chen had no choice but to give up.
He wiped the wet fluid from his fingertips with a tissue.
Si Chen: I feel pretty good.
Song Bai: There are gene medicines and evolutionary fluids on the dining room table in the living room. Remember to drink them.
Song Bai: Serpent Staff Gene has already asked after your condition. You can resign outright or you can keep your original position and take them up on their work-study program. It’s up to you.
Si Chen had signed an employment contract with Serpent Staff Gene, renewable every two years.
This new contract has only been in effect for half a year.
Si Chen: Okay. Teacher, since school starts in September, I want to go back to Jiangchuan first.
Si Chen’s social relationships are very simple. There was actually no need to go back at all.
But Si Chen still had some old things at home and no one else had a spare key.
And there was another reason that Si Chen didn’t want to say.
He felt that it was time to meet Ji Chuyao and doing that in Baidi City wouldn’t be convenient; the main reason being that he suspected Song Bai would follow secretly.
Song Bai: Alright, remember to transfer your household registration here.
Song Bai had never taught students. He’d picked up many children but they didn’t pay much attention to them.
Out of a paltry sense of responsibility, he added to their chat: Be careful of assassins on your way back. If you want to leave, I’ll arrange a car to take you.
…
…
Song Bai clicked on his phone.
Old Zhou across from him was a little annoyed. “Xiao Song, it’s your turn. What’s got you smiling so happily?”
Song Bai put down his phone and answered slowly, “My adopted child just woke up.”
As he spoke, he moved a piece on the chessboard.
“Oh, that was fast. Then, shouldn’t you be spending time with the child? He’s not your biological child, after all. If you don’t carefully cultivate your relationship, when you’re old, he’ll be eyeing his inheritance and hoping you die.”
Song Bai: “…Oh.”
Old Zhou: “I’m much older than you and many of my old friends have died. I have a wealth of experience. You have to listen to me on this matter. By the way, how old is the child you adopted? It won’t do if they’re too old and already have too many memories.”
“Twenty-two, I think.”
Song Bai couldn’t quite remember whether Si Chen was 22 or 23 years old. But that wasn’t important.
Old Zhou’s eyes suddenly grew wide. “That old already? They’re unsuitable.”
Song Bai thought for a while and replied, “He is suitable. This one is biological. He’s got good genes.”
He was referring to Si Abyss.
**
The gene medicine Song Bai left on the dining table smelled like Chinese medicine and tasted somewhat bitter.
Si Chen frowned but finished the drink anyway.
He didn’t know what level it was but after drinking it, he felt dizzy and wanted to sleep again.
He rubbed his brows. He pulled off the soiled sheets and carpeted and threw them into the washing machine.
An Eternal Life Abyss was now stuffed in the fourth cave in his body, an Eternal Life Abyss that looked a little different from what he usually saw.
This Eternal Life Abyss looked more like an octopus than a starfish. Its head was translucent and you could see the cerebellar flowers floating inside.
This brain flower even looked like a black walnut, thought it has slightly expanded due to water absorption. Numerous blood vessels extended out from it and onto the walls of the Eternal Life Abyss’ head.
Probably because the cave filling this time had come an Eternal Life Abyss, he didn’t gain any new characteristics.
While deep in thought, Si Chen snapped his fingers. Purple-red flames flickered on and off, jumping around his side.
“White King must have also relied on devouring to obtain other characteristics…”
The most obvious thing one being the wind that was at Song Bai’s beck and call.
It looked gentle and formless but it could crush everything in its way.
What Si Chen was thinking about was how he would escape if White King were to attack him one day.
He seemed to also have a special method that could directly open a Space Fold. However, it was unclear whether it was only for a certain Space Fold or for all Space Folds.
Si Chen remembered the piece that Song Bai had thrown that day, a piece like a puzzle.
His intuition told him that Song Bai’s puzzle piece was also related to White Skirt’s puzzle.
Si Chen couldn’t help but think how nice it would be if he had someone to discuss it with.
He actually already had a candidate discussion partner in mind. But this particular someone was still in a Space Fold.
The next second, a new message popped up on his social media chat.
Si Chen clicked on it and found that the person who sent the message was actually Ji Chuyao.
His profile picture was still that black background with white words. The message sent was also very brief.
Ji Chuyao: Can you help me?
Ji Chuyao: This is Turing.
Turing!!!!
nice cliff hanger
He’s jelly
Little Abyss 😭 it’s too cruel
turing asking for help? damn what happened
Whoa what’s up? This smells like either trouble or candy! I just hope there’s no hidden blades ba
Second gong
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