Translator’s note: Sorry for the delay. I almost forgot I was suppose to release a chapter today.
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Chapter 31
The night was not over yet.
Within a residential building in the Space Fold Area in Pinglin District —
Although the housing prices here were low, all the apartments, just like in the Safe Zone, were small, barely a dozen square meters each.
In the corridor, the doors faced each other, resembling a college dormitory building.
A man’s voice came from the loudspeaker in the corner.
“Sorry, there was a little incident just now.”
“Now, let us continue with out late-night story. I am Doctor, your attending physician from the House of the Mind.”
His voice was still gentle but for some reason, listeners got the impression that he was bruised and swollen.
“What was I saying before? Ah yes, Yu Lian was fresh blood for the organization, an excellent fighter and an elegant gentleman.”
“Everyone who knows Yu Lian praises him as a good man with a strong sense of justice. This is a rare thing in a society where morality is low and money is paramount.”
“He swore from an early age to punish the evil and promote the good, to help the weak and the poor…After high school, he became a bank clerk. Quite a decent job.”
The man hiding in the room cursed in a low voice, “Fuck, why is he here again? There’s no end to it.”
Yu Lian was the man in the suit who kindly warned Si Chen before the High Dimensional Invasion began.
He was one of what was originally a team of two.
However, just after the High-Dimensional Invasion began, Yu Lian and his companion separated.
The reason being that his companion got a call. He answered the phone and then, in tears, said that he was going to “save his mother”. No matter how much Yu Lian tried to dissuade him, he wouldn’t come back.
Yu Lian had no choice but to go on on his own, following the directions given by the detector.
The detector can reveal the high-energy regions within a Space Fold.
To go ‘mining’ is industry speak for hunting for valuable high-dimensional items.
Even though Yu Lian didn’t know where something valuable might be in this ordinary residential building.
The voice over the loudspeaker continued, “So, when he found out that within the luggage of his online ride share passenger was a corpse, Yu Lian didn’t call the police immediately.”
Yu Lian, who was rummaging through the various boxes, suddenly raised his head when he heard these words, a startled expression on his face.
He hadn’t ever told anyone about this past!
How did this person who called himself “Doctor” know about this?
Doctor let out a low muffled laugh. “The woman told him that the person in the bag was her husband; a rapist, a domestic abuser. During another one of their fights, she accidentally killed her husband…”
She cried so pitifully that Yu Lian felt very distressed.
“And so, Yu Lian not only did not call the police but he helped her dispose of the body. They drove and dumped her husband’s body in the wilderness.”
“When they parted, the woman said to him, ‘Thank you, you’re a really good person’.”
“But the day after returning from the wilderness, Yu Lian saw the wanted notice on TV. The woman was a wanted criminal, an Evolutionary, with the ability to deceive people’s hearts. She had just killed a Security Bureau employee who’d gone to arrest her the day before.”
“Poor Yu Lian had became an accomplice. But he didn’t dare confess. He still needed this job. He needed to maintain a glamorous life, to maintain his image as ‘the success from their small town’. He was the pride of his parents and the envy of his peers. He can’t go to jail now, can he?”
Yu Lian’s face turned pale in an instant and his body went rigid.
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.
“But as they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Now, seventeen years have passed and the wronged soul has come to claim his life.”
“Ktlr alwf, tf’r atf bcf ktb’r mbwwlaafv atja wlrajxf. Qtja klii tf vb? Gbmabg lr jirb nfgs meglber.”
Yearlvf, lc atf mbgglvbg, ktlmt rtbeiv tjnf yffc jc fzagfwfis delfa qijmf, atfgf kjr revvfcis atf rbecv bo xcbmxlcu.
Bcbmx, xcbmx, xcbmx… atgff alwfr.
Yu Lian was an Evolutionary; with heightened hearing. Therefore, he could tell that the knocks came from the leftmost door in the corridor.
The knocking was on door 1. Yu Lian was at door 12 on the far right.
Because no one answered the door, after a brief pause, the knocking once again resounded, this time on door 2.
Again, it was three times.
The knock on the door was like a strange drumbeat, striking Yu Lian’s heart one after another.
Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. His heart filled with unprecedented guilt and panic.
“How the fuck…” He had the urge to bite his nails, “I never told anyone. It’s impossible for anyone to know.”
Many other people within the Space Fold asked the same question.
This wasn’t the first time Yu Lian has faced a supernatural disaster but he had to admit that this place was a lot more evil than the Space Folds he’d entered before.
The master of this Space Fold digs out the past that you least want to recall. In the name of healing, it forces people to face that pain again.
Yu Lian came to the window and looked down. This was the 22nd floor. He couldn’t see the bottom. Logically, he could escape through the window but it was too risky.
Low-level Evolutionaries are only a little stronger than ordinary people. Falling from this height would still result in death.
Yu Lian took out the Teru Teru Bozu from his pocket and held it in his hand.
The knocking on the door was getting closer and closer. The slow knocks on the doors had become irritable and hurried, like the panting of an angry beast.
As the knocking approached, the Teru Teru Bozu’s smile slowly disappeared, the corners of its mouth slowly turned downwards.
Yu Lian followed the evolution path of biological transformation and at the Second Step, his level wasn’t low for this Space Fold.
But for some reason, he inexplicably lost the courage to resist. Instead, there was this feeling of “finally”.
As the doctor said, Yu Lian has been living with self-blame all these years; the kind of self-blame that made him unable to sleep at night.
He’d gone to see the tombstone of that Safety Management Bureau employee. He’d only been 37 years old when he died. His life had just begun.
He should have called the police when he saw that wanted notice.
But as they were burying the body, Yu Lian had seen the bag move with his very own eyes.
The woman was so frightened that she burst into tears. She was beautiful and her tears made her even more moving.
And so, Yu Lian was bewitched and he shot the body bag.
…
…
Yu Lian took out a knife and held it firmly in his hand. The image of the blood-stained body bag kept replaying in his mind.
His back was pressed against the door panel and the temperature slowly dropped. The biting coldness made his limbs ache.
The knocking on the door had reached the door beside his.
Soon, in just a few seconds, it’ll be here.
Yu Lian stared wide-eyed, waiting silently for judgment to come.
***
Si Chen felt that if he wanted to defeat the final boss, he’ll need to recruit a few strong laborers.
Just like when he was in the lab.
Although he could complete those experiments alone, with the assistance of the lab dogs, his efficiency significantly improved.
But though this Space Fold was small, with a hundred or so people spread out across a ten kilometer radius, it would still take a little luck to find them.
Yu Lian was the first Evolutionary to appear within Si Chen’s scanning range.
But what Si Chen didn’t know was that he was able to locate Yu Lian not because his prosthetic eye was advanced enough; rather, it was because Yu Lian was equipped with a powered suit from the Machine Core Group and Si Chen had been granted a powerful access to Machine Core systems.
Ji Chuyao had given him a child account to his own mother account. Si Chen’s permission level was almost equivalent to that of an executive of the Machine Core Group.
One of the functions available to him was to locate “users” within the detection range of his mechanical prosthetic eye.
This is a violation of the privacy of citizens and in the early years, some people had resisted. But by now, everyone’s privacy has been violated into a sieve and ordinary people no longer paid it much mind.
Moreover, the Machine Core Group later launched a service that allowed users to automatically close the location function at the cost of 100 credits per month. Then even less people resisted.
The Machine Core Group makes a net profit of more than a billion a month just from this service.
On the bright side, the Group now says your location can no longer be detected.
But in fact, what can be seen can still be seen. And not just that, the positioning is very accurate and remains functional even in the Space Fold.
Si Chen walked into the residential building and moved to where the Evolutionary’s location was marked by a dot of light.
According to the data, the survivor was on the 22nd floor.
Si Chen had intended to take the elevator.
But when Si Chen walked into the elevator and pressed the 22nd floor, the elevator door opened and closed, but it simply wouldn’t go up. It was being very rebellious.
The incandescent lamp above his head even flickered as though in silent mockery.
And so, with a sneer, Si Chen, before leaving, cut the wires of the elevator in revenge.
He still carried the iron chain. The iron chain didn’t look long but it was extremely heavy and Si Chen’s back hurt from the weight.
When finally managed to climb up to the 22nd floor, he was out of breath. What met him was the sight of a plush doll in uniform knocking on the door of Room 12.
This doll was a curly haired bear with a Safety Bureau employee number stitched on its uniform.
It looked cute if not for a large bloody hole in its abdomen. From inside, pink intestines made of felt, spilled and dragged on the ground, leaving a trail of blood on the floor.
The moment it saw Si Chen, the plush doll shuddered. It picked up its large intestine and ran to the other end of the corridor.
Si Chen’s thought had yet to register when his body already gave chase.
If it weren’t guilty, then why the hell was this thing running?
This teddy bear looked small but it ran very fast. Like a rabbit, it could jump three feet high.
Almost in the blink of an eye, the teddy bear had already reached the edge of the window sill.
It turned its head, made a face at Si Chen who was a few meters away and then jumped down without hesitation.
It had run away.
Si Chen held on to the railing and looked down.
The tall building seems to be covered with fog, black and dense.
Obviously, that teddy bear had also been a High-Dimensional Creature. In the field of the supernatural, it was haunted.
He originally thought that the dolls on the road were just a special case. Unexpectedly, it seemed it was not.
That Doctor, who claimed to be a psychiatrist, seemed to enjoy manipulating dolls behind the scenes.
Maybe he could try his luck at some place that sells toys within the Space Fold.
Si Chen asked, “Can that be eaten?”
The Eternal Life Abyss thought for a moment and for the first time, hesitated as it said, “… Eat. Yuck, eat.”
“Next time, we’ll catch it and I’ll barbeque it for you.”
The Eternal Life Abyss cheered: “Mom~! Yum yum~”
Si Chen turned back and knocked on the door of room 12. Very polite. “Knock knock knock”. He knocked three times.
There was no movement in the room,
Si Chen cleared his throat. “Is anyone there?”
The room was very silent, no sound could be heard.
Si Chen: “Stop hiding, I know you’re there.”
After a while, a trembling voice came from the room, asking, “…Who the hell are you?”
“A person. Si Chen.”
Yu Lian looked through the peephole at the door and saw Si Chen’s face.
Although the light was very dim, Yu Lian still recognized him. After all, those beautiful heterochromatic eyes would be difficult to forget in such a short time.
He opened the door cautiously. After confirming that he wasn’t going to be killed, he was so completely relieved that he collapsed to the ground.
“What about that thing outside?”
“It jumped off the building and ran away.” Si Chen hesitated, “You’re also an Evolutionary…”
Due to excessive mental pressure, Yu Lian felt a sense of decompression after being stretched to the extreme.
He asked with a wry smile. “Did you hear everything?”
“I heard it.”
It was playing on every floor. It would have been difficult not to have heard it.
“I didn’t mean to kill him but I am an accessory.”
Si Chen: “En.”
Yu Lian waited for a long time but heard nothing forthcoming from Si Chen.
He asked: “…You don’t have anything to say?”
Si Chen’s tone was very calm, “Punishing you is a matter for the law, not mine. If you really feel sorry then turn yourself in after you get out.”
Yu Lian pursed his lips and said nothing. “My name is Yu Lian. I am a biologically transformed Evolutionary, Second Step. My special ability is Rubber Man.”
Yu Lian knew that Si Chen wouldn’t have come to him for no reason. That being the case, he decided it better to prove his worth.
He stretched out a hand and twisted his arm into a pretzel in front of Si Chen. “Look. The elasticity and softness are very good and I can even flatten myself and squeeze through the crack under the door. It just takes some time for me to recover. Also, I’m kind of weak against sharp objects.”
“If I stretch within the normal range of my ability, I can contract at will.” As he spoke, Yu Lian’s neck continued to grow longer and longer, until his head reached the ceiling, “Look, like this.”
The Eternal Life Abyss then said, sounding out of place at this time, “Mom, hungry.”
Si Chen looked at Yu Lian’s neck, which was now at least 1.5 meters long and said expressionlessly, “You don’t need to show me. Thank you.”
After all, in a supernatural civilization, seeing something like this was a bit too stimulating.
What was the name of the yokai with the long neck… eh.
Also, in this f-ed up society, so what if he was bewitched and killed someone? That could literally happen to anyone! Feeling bad about it just shows that his morals are still kinda there, at least more than other people’s.
Thanks for the chapter!
Are you thinking of the Japanese vampire? Nukekubi?
https://yokai.com/nukekubi/
Yes, that’s it! Thanks 💛
Thanks for the chapter!!
Training? No, checking menu for dinner
Thank you for your translation 💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝
🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter 🌹
luffy?!
+1 🤣
I also immediately thought of Luffy!😂
Even baby found something he wouldn’t just stick in his mouth and eat! Hahaha! BBQ? Yay! Hungry, Mom, hungry! Omg! Thanks for the update 🤣❤️🤣❤️🤣
I wonder though, it seems like what the Doctor said are people’s real pasts. So who stopped it from talking about SC’s forgotten background??
Someone/something whooped it’s ass 😭