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Shi Youchen followed 01 and wandered to many places.
They have been to small towns built with thousand-year-old trees at the foot of the mountains, to villages in dormant craters, to towering towers and to ancient kingdoms sleeping beneath the endless desert.
This time they arrived at an archipelago covered with mushrooms.
Shi Youchen's throat has recovered, but his voice has become a little hoarse since then, and if he speaks a little louder, a sound like metal friction will be heard.
So he now speaks in a much softer voice.
"It's been almost a year." Shi Youchen looked at the giant red and purple mushrooms around him and felt some instinctive disgust. "You took me to places that are rarely visited by people."
"01, what are you looking for?"
01 reached out and touched the top of the half-human-high mushroom, then looked toward the reddish-brown slope ahead and said, "This is the last stop. After I finish my last story, I'll take you back."
Wherever he went, he would tell Shi Youchen a story, some of which were absurd, while others were very realistic.
Sometimes you can't tell what is true and what is false.
01 said, "The history of the old calendar hasn't appeared in the New World system for a long time." He suddenly turned around and asked Shi Youchen, "Do you understand the old calendar?"
Shi Youchen was startled for a moment, then after careful consideration, replied, "I don't understand. Before I awakened, I only learned about history after the New Era. After becoming a psychic, most of what I came into contact with was about the development of psychic abilities in the last few decades."
When I think about it this way, it seems that no one has ever mentioned the old calendar.
01 sighed lightly, his eyes looking a little lonely.
"That's true. Maybe not many people remember what happened in the past."
He picked a tall and thin mushroom, sat down against the pole, and looked into the distance.
"This was my hometown a long time ago. Back then, the land here was red, and the sky was often pale pink. Sounds dreamy, right?"
Shi Youchen seemed to have a premonition of something, nodded nervously, and then sat down opposite him.
01 continued, "There aren't many of us in this clan, and we all live on these islands. There are five of us in my family, including my parents and brothers, and I'm the eldest."
"One day, my mother accidentally fell and broke her leg, so she asked me to go to the north hill to dig herbs for her."
“It rained that day, which was rare, so I remember the smell of the mountains very clearly.”
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, as if savoring the smell in his memory.
Shi Youchen looked towards the north and found that there was no grass growing there, and all he could see was red soil.
"I was having fun and wandered around in the mountains for a long time. When it started raining, I got stuck, so I ran to the shade of the mountain to take shelter."
"When I returned home with the herbs, all I saw was a ruin." 01's tone was relaxed, as if the "I" in the story was not himself.
"My entire family was buried under the rubble. Not only my family, but all the families nearby were buried under the rubble. Many people were crushed under the rubble. My two younger brothers and sisters also died in it."
"I thought it was an earthquake, or maybe the heavy rain that collapsed the house." 01 stretched out his hand toward the sky. "So I kept digging. I couldn't find any tools, so I just used my hands."
"I pulled my mother out from underneath and found she was dead."
"She was holding a stiff piece of clothing in her stiff hands. It didn't belong to Daddy, nor to any of us five children."
01 reached out and drew a few strokes on the ground, drawing a strange shape that looked like the head of an animal.
"That piece of clothing has this pattern on it. I've seen it before when I was playing on the beach. From time to time, small iron shells and fragments with this pattern engraved on them would appear there."
01 sighed again and said, "I got caught in the rain and was freezing, so I grabbed that piece of clothing and put it on. Then I put the bodies we'd dug up together and realized my father and one of my brothers were missing."
"My hands are really weak, so I don't know if there are any survivors under the other ruins. I can only go to the beach first based on the pattern."
01 narrowed his eyes...
...
The boy huddled up and walked with his head down towards the coast where he had found the iron shells and fragments before.
As I was walking, a black shadow appeared in front of me.
The boy looked up and saw several tall men, each of them three times his size.
Those people were wearing the same clothes as him, with that strange pattern on their chests.
They stared down at the boy, opened their mouths and spoke a bunch of words. The boy was stunned because he didn't understand anything.
——These people are from outside, and they might even be responsible for the ruins of their home. He suddenly realized this and turned to run.
But how could a skinny boy possibly outrun a strong adult man? So naturally, he was pinned to the ground before he could take three or two steps.
The group of people surrounded him noisily, with malicious intent evident in their eyes.
...
"When they realized I wasn't one of them, they tried to strip the clothes off me," 01 said, pointing to his head. "At the time, I thought, 'Don't kill me first. At least tell me what happened so I can die with a clear conscience.'"
“In the end, they really stopped.”
Shi Youchen's eyebrows twitched, and he asked, "Superpower?"
01 Xiaoxiao said: "Yes, I gained supernatural powers that day. According to the association's classification, it should be what you call the 'hypnosis' ability."
Shi Youchen thought: Hypnosis...but the hypnosis he was familiar with seemed to be different from what 01 said.
"Later, I used this special ability to sneak onto their ship and leave the island with them." 01 glanced at Shi Youchen, knowing he had questions, and said, "At the time, I didn't know their identities and couldn't speak their language. After discovering my special ability to hypnotize, the captain of that ship treated me well."
"Perhaps because of his orders, those people fed and clothed me, and even accompanied me to see the scenery and go fishing."
"A few days later we reached the mainland. On the evening of our arrival, I stood on the deck and watched them bring dozens of people out from the hold, their hands and feet tied, and drive them into the large trucks parked on the shore."
01's lips faded. "My father and brother are in there. Those dozens of people are all from our clan."
Shi Youchen could imagine what expression 01 would have on the deck at that time.
01's face showed no emotion. "Later, I learned that they came to our archipelago and captured some relatively healthy people to send them to some base for experiments."
"As for the weak and sick like my mother, we can just deal with them on the island or let them fend for themselves."
"After that, I moved from one team to another, watching them snatch people from everywhere. Island after island, city after city, there were ruins everywhere."
"There were also a few people who were brought back like me, mostly young children."
"I guess it's because the adults are hard to control, so we might as well just get rid of them together." 01 tilted his head and rested it under the mushroom umbrella, with a shadow on the upper half of his face.
Shi Youchen thought for a moment and said, "As far as I know, there hasn't been any unrest like the one you describe in the past hundred years."
Unexpectedly, 01 waved at him and said, "Come here, next to me."
Shi Youchen moved over suspiciously, and when he got closer, he found that 01's lips had turned pale.
"I didn't say these things happened in the past hundred years." 01 tilted his head and said to Shi Youchen with a smile.
Shi Youchen broke out in a cold sweat on his back. Just as he was about to move away from him, he was grabbed by the wrist.
"God's will, obey."
01 only let go of his hand with peace of mind after using up his ability. Looking at Shi Youchen, whose eyes were filled with reluctance and some fear, he said, "Don't be afraid. I just want to tell you a story, but I haven't finished it yet."
After that, Youchen didn't say another word under Tianming's control, and 01 slowly finished the whole story.
"I was just like you back then. I was curious about everything, but I also always felt inexplicably unwilling to accept my fate. Unwilling to accept my fate, I ended up joining a more advanced group."
"After being in that group for a long time, I finally understood the ins and outs of everything."
"One year, a plague broke out around the world, killing over 50% of the human population. Among the remaining survivors, a group of people with special abilities emerged. Some could control nature, while others could see through people's minds."
"At first, these people were feared and excluded, but the plague continued to spread. The reconstruction of human civilization required the supernatural powers of these people. Gradually, they were accepted and began to become the core group of humanity."
"Back then, the different regions inhabited by different races were called 'countries.' During the disaster, nations fought each other for limited resources, causing their special abilities to fight each other. As a result, the natural environment was destroyed, and the population has been slow to recover."
"Then the leader of one country took the lead and proposed a plan: to invade small places like our archipelago and bring back resources and population to enrich themselves."
"This plan was quickly imitated. The disaster that the plague did not bring to us was brought to us by our fellow race."
01's legs were numb, and he felt like time was running out, so he spoke faster. "The struggle lasted a long time, and it finally ended when I was forty. We founded an organization called the 'Psychic Management Association' and reached agreements with various countries. We belong to no one 'country,' but we belong to every 'country.'"
"Our purpose is freedom, not to be anyone's weapon."
Shi Youchen's pupils gradually dilated.
"But no desire is limitless. As long as there are people, desire will always exist." 01's smile was a little forced. "I was too naive, and they ended up plotting against me. Although I escaped in a very embarrassing way, I was lucky to save my life."
"I began to wander around incognito, wanting to visit every corner of the world and see what the disaster had changed the world into."
"Later, the association developed into the 'Global Management Association'. Under the power of the superpowers, not only ordinary humans, but even a 'country' could not compete."
"So they all disappeared, and the world was redivided into 13 regions for the association to manage."
Shi Youchen was completely stunned. If he still couldn't figure out 01's identity at this point, then he was quite stupid.
01's waist had lost sensation. He raised his hand with difficulty and touched Shi Youchen's eyebrows with his fingertips.
"Superpowers are things that shouldn't exist. They deprive other beings of their energy."
"I've been to too many places and unknowingly deprived myself of too much energy. I've lived long enough, so at least in the end, I want to return to my hometown. Thank you for accompanying me on this journey."
"It's a pity that I'm still curious. What will become of this world where there are powers that shouldn't exist?"
"I leave everything I have to you. You can go back with peace of mind. Don't worry, no one can stop you from now on."
01's internal organs began to lose sensation.
"I hope you can see the end of this world in my place."
"Please."
01After saying the last sentence, his fingertips instantly turned cold and drooped.
When Shi Youchen came to his senses, he found that he was already in tears. He gently lowered his head and rested his forehead against 01 who had his eyes closed.
"Okay, the president's order, I dare not disobey."
Shen Min, the original founder of the Global Management Association of Superpowers, died at the age of 221.
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