Chapter 84
Lin Jiali sounded like she’d seen a ghost.
Si Chen forgot all about the Eternal Life Abyss eating onion-flavored crisps. He put on his coat and walked out.
Upon seeing the big eyeball hanging high above his head, Si Chen was filled with horror. That feeling of being watched was so intense.
The rays of the early sun were not particularly strong and it gave very little warmth.
The light here has never been the dazzling sort.
Lin Jiali gulped down a sedative. “Will it wake up?”
Si Chen hoped not.
Upon waking that morning, he found that the fingerprints on his waist had faded.
A fortune among misfortunes, there was not a single ID missing from the containment bag.
Although it had already been light for more than two hours, everyone unanimously decided to delay a little longer to wash up, and have breakfast.
Given the environment that Lin Jiali and Chen Zhizhou grew up in, as well as they education they’ve been given, they couldn’t stand their own messiness.
While Si Chen simply loved being clean. This child has been fastidious despite his difficult circumstances and when he was young, it had gotten him quite a few beatings in the orphanage.
Since they were in a Space Fold, it was only to be expected that all their meals comprised of nutrient solutions and nutritional pastes of various flavors.
Fortunately, Chen Zhizhou had just shed his skin yesterday.
Chen Zhizhou put on his clothes and skillfully cut his snake slough into equal, small squares. He removed the contaminated part and then washed it in the sink before serving it.
Lin Jiali looked at the snake slough dish, saying nothing.
“It’s edible.” Chen Zhizhou explained, “The Chen Family has been feeding my snake sloughs to children and pregnant women since I can remember. It can improve genes and physical fitness. Only direct descendants of the family are given the privilege of eating it.”
And this time, outsiders were bestowed this great privilege simply because Chen Zhizhou couldn’t finish it all and it was inconvenient to take it away.
Lin Jiali raised her chopsticks, ate a piece and a pinched expression immediately appeared on her face. “Is it supposed to taste this fishy?! Are you sure people can eat this? What do you think, Si Chen?”
It was like raw fish skin from a saltwater fish; one that hadn’t gone through any processing to remove the fishy taste. Swallowing it down was torture.
Si Chen paused as he fed the Eternal Life Abyss. “…En, indeed.”
Click, click, click.
In the end, Si Chen finished off the generous serving of snake slough by himself.
Lin Jiali looked at him with sympathetic eyes, feeling that Si Chen must not have eaten anything good since he was a child.
Of course, she didn’t mean that the snake slough was not good. If it weren’t such a precious commodity, given the taste, she wouldn’t have taken even a single bite.
The human body was very inefficient when it came to absorbing the benefits from raw high-dimensional materials. The snake slough still wasn’t as good as a Level Four or Five gene medicine. What she pursues is the scientifically proved yet still elusive “talent enhancement”.
Si Chen felt that finishing it off himself would be too excessive. But the Eternal Life Abyss was too hungry. He had no choice but to execute the clean plate campaign despite the other two’s puzzled looks.
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.
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Chen Zhizhou’s expression was extremely cold. “That’s because you have too little. You shed tears of gratitude for what others simply let slip between their fingers. This is actually a kind of structural oppression.”
Lin Jiali nodded in agreement. “Yes, that’s right. That’s how I get- I mean… support poor male college students!”
Si Chen: “…”
Never mind. I can’t get through to them. I’m sorry, Ji Chuyao.
**
As usual, Chen Zhizhou rode with Si Chen.
This morning, the smell of durian wafting out on the street was even stronger.
Si Chen checked his equipment and made sure it was in good condition. As for the axe, he also took it out of the bag and tied it to the motorcycle, ready to be deployed at any time.
Lin Jiali had an eye for good things and she praised, “Your weapon’s not bad. Did you get it from a Space Fold yourself?”
“En.”
It was easy to tell whether it was something one found by oneself in a Space Fold. The equipment of those from the Great Families basically came in complete sets and were made to match each other.
But though Si Chen had everything he needed, it was obviously a wild growth, assorted but unrefined.
Of course, Lin Jiali didn’t know that Si Chen’s biggest supporter and backer was actually himself. And so, he hadn’t paid much attention to his equipment; what was important was that they were easy to use.
The Eternal Life Abyss was also a part of his body. Preserving sanity was just an accident.
They were the only two vehicles on the road and all was quiet. They could already see the enormous gate to the research complex.
As they were passing near a residential building, Si Chen felt an obvious sense of prying eyes. Add to that the sweet aroma of roasted durian.
Lin Jiali said, “I’ll do it.”
Among the three, Si Chen was a close range assassin with built-in healing. The lower his health bar, the higher his burst damage; Chen Zhizhou was a melee warrior with high attack, medium health and low agility; she was their only fragile long-range output.
She held Klein Blue and aimed at a certain spot on the sixth floor. The mechanical bow and the exoskeleton on her arm lit up with a dark blue halo, like a battery that was storing energy.
The moment the blue bar climbed to the top, a dark blue beam of light shot out.
Klein Blue had no string but Si Chen heard the sound of the arrow as it sliced through the air.
On the edge of the sixth floor, a flesh-colored Blood Flower exploded.
Si Chen immediately increased his speed and rushed to the other end of the road. Sure enough, a few seconds later, bits of fleshy substance fell down like rain.
Lin Jiali’s scanner finally identified the figure of this mutated monster.
She said, “It’s High-dimensional Creature 607… You must have memorized the Illustrated Encyclopedia of High Dimensional Creatures, right?”
This was a required question in the postgraduate entrance examination. Several High-dimensional organisms will be randomly selected and the examinee will be asked to identify them. It was worth 15 points.
Not only because it was certain to be a question on the exam but also because it could save their lives, most people taking the postgraduate entrance examination have memorized the entire encyclopedia. There were more than two thousand entries in total.
[High-dimensional creature 607, a specialty of chaotic civilizations.]
[It appears as a mass of polyps, constantly replicating and proliferating. Possesses a low-level consciousness and is characterized by infinite growth and slow movement speed. It has low attack power and is basically harmless. It is recommended that one stay clear of the creature as it will attempt to subsume entities to become part of its body.]
607’s body had almost filled the entire room. Pink, sticky fluid was flowing out like melted cheese from the broken window.
Si Chen’s expression appeared somewhat wrong.
Cross this street and walk a little further and you would reach the research complex.
Si Chen parked the car in front of the entrance to the complex and suddenly asked, “Do you know any advanced mathematics problems? Write me one of the Shimura variety.”
Although she thought Si Chen’s request was a bit strange, Lin Jiali still wrote out a math problem and handed it to him.
Si Chen looked at the question and his mind went blank for a minute or two before he came up with ideas to tackle the problem.
He didn’t answer the problem but said, sounding pained, “I know…what’s wrong with me.”
Lin Jiali was overeating; Chen Zhizhou was lethargic.
Intelligence is a general term for people’s thinking ability, learning ability, memory, etc.
Normally, Si Chen was confident that he would be able to start writing out a solution just by looking at the title. He wouldn’t be stuck with his mind going blank like just now.
Just now, Lin Jiali mentioned the “Illustrated Encyclopedia of High-Dimensional Creatures”. It took Si Chen dozens of seconds to react before he recalled what 607 was.
“My debuff is mental degradation.”
He was becoming stupid.
Because his base stat was too high, there wasn’t any obvious impact in the early stage. By as time goes by, it would become more and more pronounced.
This realization made Si Chen feel uneasy.
Lin Jiali was stunned. “It-it’s fine. You’ll be fine after we leave the Space Fold.”
Si Chen took a deep breath to calm down.
There was danger everywhere here and he can’t let negative emotions affect him for too long.
He got off the motorcycle, carrying Chen Zhizhou on his back.
Si Chen felt like he was always carrying others.
The last time was Ji Chuyao who fell into a coma after Turing took over.
And now, Chen Zhizhou, like Ji Chuyao, was sleeping, completely oblivious, on his back.
Lin Jiali, on the other hand, seemed ready for battle. Her metal prosthesis and exoskeleton armor gave her a very dependable aura.
Sure enough, men were unreliable.
**
The research complex was similarly walled off with an iron wall but access through this gate was much stricter.
Si Chen looked at the airtight metal gate in front of him. Next to it was an electronic time clock.
Si Chen waved his hand in front of the time clock and a female mechanical voice spoke, “Welcome back, please verify your identity.”
After all these years, there was still power in the research complex.
Si Chen shook Chen Zhizhou awake. “Wake up. Swipe your ID card.”
Chen Zhizhou took out his white work ID card and swiped it on the time clock.
In the backend, invisible to Si Chen and others, a string of data appeared.
[Work permit verification in progress]
[Verification successful]
[Gene database matching]
[Matching failed]
[Do you wish to activate the defense system?]
[Automatically canceled]
The mechanical voice said, “K9-114, identity verification successful. Please pass.”
The access control was only for one person. Each of them needed to swipe their own IDs to pass through.
No one has been to this research complex for who knows how long. The ground was full of weeds.
Inside were work buildings, containment buildings, treatment plants and most importantly, laboratories.
In the pursuit of efficiency, these buildings all have plain appearances. Some even have no enclosures, like the incineration plants and waste treatment plants; some of the machines were directly exposed to the elements.
And yet, surprisingly, in this place where everything was made in pursuit of efficiency and convenience, there were actually many bronze statues.
However, due to long exposure to the wind and rain, the faces on the bronze statues had become blurry, turning almost green.
They could barely make out a few words: “In memory of…the great…Kuafu.”
These bronze statues were all built taller than ordinary people, about two or three meters tall, looking every bit like the ideal leader.
Lin Jiali: “How narcissistic. He must have still been alive at that time. Going to work like this every day would have fed his ego.”
Si Chen gave no answer. He took a few steps forward to the door of a laboratory.
The sign hanging above it was crooked. Fortunately, the words painted on it were still clear.
[Mutant Creatures Edibility Transformation Research Laboratory]
Si Chen was momentarily silent and then said, “Be careful, there may be a zoo nearby.”
Oh dear… Thanks for the update…😳🤣❤️🤣❤️
I really hope the giant eye is just there for decoration
+1
Zoo is really funny word for this situation
Thank you for your translation ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Translator-san, could you please avoid using the R word? It’s an offensive word used to hurt people with intellectual disabilities or neurodivergent people and their families. Earlier it was only used for Little Abyss so it only bothered me a little but here it refers to people (-.-!)
done =)
Thank you!💖