Nameless Monument

After negotiation, Li Luo's burial ceremony was scheduled for 5:30 a.m. the next day.

"Minister Lin, Mr. Shi, I'm leaving first." Li Nuo supported herself on the table with both hands and stood up somewhat weakly. "Thank you for coming to see my brother off for the last time." She really couldn't muster even a forced smile, so she bowed deeply to the two of them.

Shi Youchen also had complicated thoughts. He had witnessed many separations and deaths, but perhaps there were some confusions in his heart that had not been resolved, so he still sighed at the current situation of the Li brothers and sisters.

But now wasn't the time to be overly sad about someone's departure; there were more pressing matters at hand. As soon as Li Nuo left, Shi Youchen immediately contacted Yan Zhiyuan and learned that he was attending a joint meeting in District 1.

"The affairs of the District 8 Information Department will be temporarily taken over by another director. I'm not sure when I can go back." Somewhere in the District 1 Association base, Yan Zhiyuan said calmly to the person on the other end of the phone, while water droplets condensed on his fingertips and wrote an "S" on the desktop.

He was gesturing to the person opposite him.

Ying Yungui's hair had been cut into a pattern that resembled a rugged mountain path, but it didn't affect his handsome face in the slightest. Just ten minutes ago, he had rejected the twelfth love letter he had received since arriving in District 1.

The writer of the letter, a boy with a watermelon head speaking in poor District 8 dialect, mustered up the courage to call out to Ying Yungui in the corridor. However, before he could hand over the light purple love letter filled with his heart, the other party rejected it in fluent District 1 dialect.

"Sorry, I have someone I like." When saying this, Ying Yungui's expression was extremely serious.

Yan Zhiyuan, who had just arrived at the Area 1 base and happened to witness this scene, teased his long-lost former teammate, "It's been a while since we last met. Captain Ying, have you mastered a new language?" Ying Yungui replied wearily, "You speak the same sentence every day, and you're so fluent."

And now Ying Yungui was supporting his head with one side and looking at Yan Zhiyuan who was on the phone.

Of course he saw what the other person wrote on the table, and he naturally understood that it meant that as long as he took two steps forward and got closer, he would be able to hear the person's voice.

But he didn't move.

It was not until Yan Zhiyuan looked at him inquiringly that he closed his eyes and shook his head gently.

So until the end of the call, Shi Youchen didn't know that Ying Yungui, whom he hadn't contacted for a long time, was right next to Yan Zhiyuan.

The night in District 8 had fallen completely dark. In Lin Zhouze's office, Shi Youchen spoke, "When you sent me the message about Li Luo, Yan Zhiyuan also told me not to go near the northeastern part of City A, saying they had detected an unidentified energy source there."

Lin Zhouze swallowed a mouthful of food and said, "Well, although he is not here, he has always had access to information. He will be the first to know anything detected here."

Shi Youchen: "Before I came back, I met Li Ming and Mollier." He twisted his right index and middle fingers. "Li Ming is in that area." Lin Zhouze paused, somewhat incredulous. "How did you know he was there?"

"Before we separated, we were considered teammates, but he acted alone in the middle." After Shi Youchen finished speaking, he looked at the dark night sky outside the window, remembering the scene of finding the two of them in the park in the early morning.

Lin Zhouze breathed a sigh of relief. "That's fine. There's a training base northeast of City A, built and used jointly by those major families. The defense system there is probably comparable to the association's base." At this point, he asked Shi Youchen with interest, "Do you know why those families have such a high status in District 8?"

Shi Youchen looked at him, knowing he didn't need to answer. Sure enough, he listened to Lin Zhouze's eloquent speech: "I officially joined the association in 167. Before that, I only knew that, at least in today's society, people with special abilities and ordinary people were two different classes."

"But compared to the information I've been exposed to since joining the association, my previous understanding is really too superficial."

Lin Zhouze opened the laptop on his desk and quickly opened several files, then turned the screen around. "This is the number of registered esperians in each of the thirteen regions around the world, as well as the overall economic, political, social, and cultural levels of each region."

It is not difficult to find that, generally speaking, the more people with special abilities a place has, the higher the level of development in all aspects.

Lin Zhouze pointed to the data for District 8 and said, "The number of psychics in our district is only average among the thirteen districts, but we cannot deny that our world standing is among the best. We can even say that with the exception of Districts 1 and 13, our overall strength far exceeds that of other places."

The screen shifted to a new data chart. "This is the average level of esper users in each district, including general information such as level, attributes, and rarity." It was now more obvious that the data for Districts 1, 8, 12, and 13 was significantly higher than that of the other districts.

Lin Zhouze clicked the "S" in the rarity column next to Area 8 and said with some pride, "Although more specific data will not be released, based on this rarity level alone, Area 8 is the only one that is S-ranked."

"And this rarity level was raised from A to S through the collaborative cultivation of those families and the regional bases."

According to Shi Youchen's understanding, there's a specialized system for determining the rarity of superpowers. Truly rare superpowers, even low-level ones, are highly valued. For example, Ying Yungui's "telekinesis," with its spatial properties, is already considered rare, while his own "healing" is a basic one. While both are superpowers, they're worlds apart.

Lin Zhouze: "This cooperative training is the training base I told you about." His round eyes rolled, "The association provides the equipment and facilities, and they provide the personnel."

Shi Youchen asked doubtfully, "They sent people? Shouldn't the association arrange for them?"

Lin Zhouze then smiled mysteriously, "That's the key point. You know the different situations in which superpowers awaken, right? Generally, there are those who are inherited through blood, those who are born with special abilities, and then there are those who awaken later in life like you. The vast majority are of the bloodline type, but bloodline inheritance isn't absolute; that's common sense."

"However, there are a few family groups whose family members have a 100% awakening rate of superpowers."

"In other words, it's not just one generation or three generations that are psychics. All of their ancestors for the hundred or eighty generations before them were psychics."

After hearing this, Shi Youchen finally understood the truly terrifying point - the so-called family has developed to this day, and it is by no means as simple as a few or a dozen people of this generation. All the direct and collateral people who have a little blood relationship add up, just like the branches of a tree that continue to branch out, and eventually return to the same root.

The existence of one such family is shocking enough, let alone the fact that there is more than one in District 8.

"..." Shi Youchen turned his eyes away, "So they will receive special attention." That's why Li Ming and Morrill are just low-level psychics but they can be so fearless.

Lin Zhouze nodded, "Hmm, hmm." "Those two people who were in the same class as you are considered to be from the same family, but they must have other cousins and so on. Everyone in that training base is more or less related to them by blood."

When the two chatted here, they realized that the food was completely cold and it was already late. Shi Youchen stood up and said, "Then I'll go back first. You should also get some rest early. See you tomorrow morning." He said goodbye to Lin Zhouze and left.

Elsewhere, in the Li siblings' dormitory, Li Nuo was packing. She took the clothes Li Luo wore most often from her closet and neatly folded them into a box nearby. She also put the unfinished books on the desk, closed them with bookmarks, and put them into the box.

Then she looked at the brown leather notebook on the edge of the desk. It was Li Luo's work diary. Her fingers touched the rough cover, stroking it a few times with nostalgia, but she didn't open it in the end.

She eventually put the notebook into the box, beneath some small miscellaneous items. The box and its contents, by the window, under the cold moon, accompanied Li Nuo through the entire night.

...

The association base was very quiet in the early morning. Shi Youchen woke up five minutes earlier than the alarm clock that had been set in advance, then quietly washed and changed clothes, quietly went out, and quietly walked on the road filled with morning mist. Outside the farewell hall, he met the quiet Li Nuo and Lin Zhouze.

While waiting for Li Luo's ashes to be delivered, Lin Zhouze pulled a few candies from his pocket and placed them in the palms of Li Nuo and Shi Youchen. Apart from that, he said nothing and did nothing else. It wasn't until a staff member came over and told Li Nuo he could go and collect them that Shi Youchen heard a soft sob.

Shi Youchen held up a black umbrella and covered Li Nuo, who was holding the urn. Lin Zhouze followed behind with another wooden box containing the certificate of subscription for the cemetery plot, which he was going to take to the cemetery administrator.

The three of them walked in silence all the way, and they all felt that the road to the Northwest Cemetery was so long.

After arriving at the cemetery and completing all paperwork, the administrator, armed with tools, walked with the three of them to the plot of land Li Luo had purchased. The tombstone hadn't yet been inscribed; Li Luo had left in such a hurry that he hadn't had any time to prepare. So, they could only place him there first and then complete the work step by step.

The administrator, wearing black gloves, opened the cover and was about to ask the three people to put their things in when he exclaimed in confusion, "Why is there something in here already?"

Everyone was startled. When Li Nuo looked down and saw the small box inside, his wrists went limp, and he almost dropped the sandalwood box. After a few seconds of stalemate, Shi Youchen handed the black umbrella to Lin Zhouze behind him, then bent down and took out the box.

"Eh?" Lin Zhouze was about to stop him when he saw Shi Youchen actually opened the box.

"It's his work badge." Shi Youchen said to a few people after closing it, "It's okay, put it there." So Li Nuo knelt gently on the ground and put the sandalwood box in. He didn't get up for a long time until the administrator reminded him to close the lid, then he stood up tremblingly.

After settling Li Luo, Lin Zhouze put away the black umbrella and winked at Shi Youchen. Then the two of them retreated together with the administrator who had completed his work, leaving space for Li Nuo.

The two stood under the pine and cypress trees at the front of the row. Shi Youchen looked around and said, "There are quite a lot of inscriptionless steles here." Lin Zhouze replied, "Buying one is not cheap, and the purchase conditions are very strict. Veteran employees like Li Luo have already spent all the points they have accumulated over the years."

"Yeah." Shi Youchen said uncharacteristically, "He's very attentive."

Lin Zhouze couldn't help but feel a little puzzled: "What do you mean by intention?"

Shi Youchen glanced at him and then looked up at the slightly bright sky: "He is really attentive to Chen Bushen."

“The ID number in that box just now was 062.

That's not Li Luo's work number, it's Chen Bushen's."