Chapter 88 Patience and Deterrence (2)
This handwritten manuscript of mythological poems records Achini, a god whose origin is fire and who can deliver offerings.
The red-haired man named "Achini" happens to possess a strange fire capable of teleportation.
How could there be such a coincidence?
But that man could never be a real god, because Shu Ningmiao is currently an atheist who has received higher education.
She couldn't find any more useful information in the book, but through repeated reflection, she vaguely grasped a clue to deal with Achini.
What has helped Achini escape all along is not his great strength, but the unique flexibility of his "teleportation" ability.
He could appear and disappear at any time, leaving behind a scene of devastation ravaged by fire, like an elusive ghost.
Once Achini's teleportation ability is restricted, everything becomes much simpler.
Meanwhile, with no progress in the missing persons case, the other students began to feel uneasy.
The latest restrictions and evacuation orders issued by Pines have raised many questions.
"It's unbelievable that terrorists could be this arrogant!"
As Shu Ningmiao hung from the protrusion on the outer wall of the medical facility, she heard familiar news broadcasts coming from the wards downstairs.
The impassioned voice completely drowned out the sound of her jumping, without alerting anyone.
Arsya looked out the window of the ward and saw that she had landed successfully, so she gave her a "perfect" gesture.
She avoided the surveillance cameras and walked back the way she came to the street, only to find that the once bustling Central Avenue was now deserted.
She hadn't brought a charger with her when she came to the medical center, and her device had already shut down automatically due to running out of power.
Shu Ningmiao passed by an electronic billboard on the street, where today's news was scrolling across the screen.
"The spontaneous combustion incidents at Pandora's Springs in the past two days... are suspected to be related to temperature."
She stood in front of the notice board for a short while, feeling that this matter must be related to Achini.
Pines tried his best to conceal the current situation, creating a strange balance, but the capital was still filled with an atmosphere of impending storm.
Shu Ningmiao had already figured out a way to confront Achini, but she wasn't in a hurry to go find him.
The information Pigne is currently providing is extremely vague; she doesn't yet know what Achini has done, so there's really no need for her to rush in and throw her life away.
Because of what Yu Lu said before leaving, she planned to take one last look at Yelü Qi.
She had a premonition that she had to see Yelü Qi as soon as possible.
Tomorrow is the final death date stipulated in the agreement that Yelü Qi had Zhao sign. If you don't ask these questions now, you'll never have the chance to ask them again.
She planned to see Yelüqi—it sounded like a complete fantasy.
Yelü Qi was under tight military protection and surveillance by researchers within the Pinneapolis Research Center, leaving no loopholes for him to sneak in.
She had already used up her pass to the Supernatural Ability Detection Center, so the method of stealing the Crimson Palace Stone obviously couldn't be used a second time.
But Shu Ningmiao always has a way.
When he received the call from the public terminal number, Gowande got goosebumps on his hands.
The dean of the School of Life Sciences, who has lost another piece of Crimson Palace Stone, has now completely lost his former ambition and fighting spirit, and is in constant anxiety, fearing that the matter will be exposed.
On the day Jiang Gongshi was stolen, he lost consciousness immediately after hanging up the phone.
Someone came to his office.
The man not only took the Crimson Palace Stone, but also searched through all his belongings.
Family photos, house keys, badges from the School of Life Sciences—everything was neatly arranged on the table, like a blatant threat.
What terrified him most was the extra thing on the table.
A terminal he had never seen before.
Unable to connect to the internet, all the information on the terminal was destroyed, and the terminal files contained only a recording.
The recording played on a loop of his conversation with Councilor Lin.
We're doomed.
Holding the terminal, his mind went blank. He didn't know who the other party was or what they wanted to do.
All Gawande knew was that if this recording were leaked, his life would be over.
The voice on the other end of the terminal was indiscernible in terms of gender and age, and it got straight to the point: "I set a timed release, and if it's not canceled within 24 hours, everyone will be able to hear your call recording online tomorrow."
Gawande's heart clenched. He gently locked the door, his voice so low it was as if he didn't want the ants on the ground to hear him: "What do you want me to do?"
“Open the back door of the School of Life Sciences and shut down the monitoring and security procedures for two hours.”
"Impossible," Gawande instinctively retorted, "I would be in big trouble for this."
"The machine malfunctioned, it needed repair, and when you stole the Crimson Palace Stone, didn't you have plenty of excuses?"
Shu Ningmiao leaned against the public terminal booth in the blind spot of the surveillance camera. Upon hearing this, she casually looked around to see if anyone was passing by: "It's up to you. Do as I say or wait for tomorrow's probation. The choice is yours."
"I...I'll do it." After a long silence, the other end finally managed to squeeze out a sentence through gritted teeth: "Then you must promise me that you will destroy what you have."
"Of course." Shu Ningmiao casually pressed the button on the terminal.
Because she didn't have the audio recording file in the first place.
She found two terminals on the two researchers she had knocked unconscious. Fearing that carrying both on her would be too conspicuous during a search, she left one in Gawande's office and gave the other to Weston, keeping no spare copies for herself.
The recording was originally intended to intimidate Gawande and make him behave, but I never expected it would come in handy now.
No one would have thought that she would get the recording without keeping a backup, so even if Gawande had suspicions, he had no way to verify it.
Having only met a few times, Shu Ningmiao had already seen through her and realized that this was someone who would never joke about his career and future.
Shu Ningmiao went back to her house, changed into the white lab coat she wore during her preparatory lab classes, wrapped herself up tightly, and put the ID card she had taken from the two researchers into her pocket.
By using shoulder pads and height-enhancing techniques to alter her figure, Shu Ningmiao tried her best to recreate the appearance of the researcher she remembered. Finally, she removed her disposable headscarf, mask, and gloves to completely cover her skin.
She had memorized the route she had taken last time. At the agreed time, it was still late at night, and a two-hour machine malfunction wouldn't attract too much attention from the research center.
Perhaps with divine intervention, an unusually thick fog descended that night, shrouding the research center's entrance until visibility was zero.
Shu Ningmiao skillfully avoided the patrol routes and followed her memory to reach the door of Yeluqi, where she took out her ID card and swiped it to open the electronic door.
Perhaps because it was the middle of the night, there were no researchers monitoring Yeluqi's room, and Shu Ningmiao, who had been prepared to finish the job quickly, breathed a sigh of relief.
The next second, she realized she was wrong.
The man's cold, unforgiving voice echoed in the room: "Didn't I say? I don't want to see anyone."
Shu Ningmiao pressed her back against the door, quickly locked it with her hands behind her back, and took off her mask.
Yelü Qi's tone suddenly changed at the end: "You..."
"Teacher." Shu Ningmiao quickly walked to his side, letting him see her face.
"You really are—" Yelü Qi couldn't think of an adjective for a moment, and after a long pause, he said, "Bold."
It was utterly unbridled. Yelü Qi had no idea how this child had gotten through the research center's heavy security. When he saw Shu Ningmiao, his heart stopped for a moment.
Shu Ningmiao quickly glanced at Yelü Qi. His face was ashen, but he appeared unusually energetic, reminding her of the phrase "a final burst of energy before death."
She dared not look too long, and turned her head to glance at the various tubes wrapped around Yelüqi's arm, the needles already inserted into the veins, carefully treated.
“This is an anesthetic.” Yelüqi pointed to the tubes on her arm and explained to her, “This is a clotting agent and [unclear - possibly a drug or medication].
[The following text appears to be a list of unrelated items: □□ can cause heart failure, clotting agents can block veins, and under the hypnotic effect of anesthetics, a person can die unconscious within seconds.]
“They’re waiting for me to make my own decision.” Yelüqi stared at the buttons on the machine by the bed, then began to drift off into a daze. “I’m proud, and I want to leave alone.”
Shu Ningmiao stared down at her shoes, like a child who had done something wrong.
"How did you end up here?" Yelü Qi casually brushed aside the previous question.
"Yu Lu said you want to see me."
Although it was said in a veiled way, Shu Ningmiao knew that Yu Lu wouldn't say such a thing to her without reason; it must have been Yelü Qi who mentioned it.
“This person is really honest.” Yelü Qi touched his head in surprise. His hair had been shaved off, and it looked like a swollen walnut. “I was just mentioning it casually. I think I remembered something about that thing you asked me about last time.”
"It's alright." Shu Ningmiao shook her head, indicating that he didn't need to say anything more. One piece of the Crimson Palace Stone had been completely shattered, and the other piece was now inside her body.
The room fell silent for a few seconds before Yelü Qi, lying on the bed, finally spoke: "Your time is running out, isn't it?"
She sneaked in, so she must have had limited time.
"My time is running out," he said, as if joking.
Shu Ningmiao's gaze involuntarily drifted to the instruments beside her. It was hard to imagine that someone like Yelü Qi would die quietly on his own on this night.
Shouldn't a man like him, a former hero, be reluctantly leaving this world surrounded by his family, comrades, and seniors?
Shu Ningmiao couldn't help but ask, "Um... what about Zhao? Are there other people?"
“I told them not to come.” Yelü Qi calmly looked away. “I’m a man of pride.”
After a long silence, Yelü Qi spoke again, his voice hoarse: "Zhao asked me who else I wanted to see, and I said I wanted to see my wife and my daughter, but these are the most impossible things to do. Isn't that ridiculous? So I think... it doesn't matter who is by my side."
No matter how many people surrounded him as he died, there was no one he truly wanted to see.
"Don't look at me like that." Yelü Qi laughed. "I'm nothing to pity. Ordinary people without superpowers are the ones who are truly suffering. When I'm giving myself painkillers, I'm thinking about how ordinary people get through it."
He touched the IV in his arm: "I really have to despise myself. When things come to this, I still feel it's good to have someone show up, to talk to someone, to not be so quiet."
Yelü Qi raised his head. Although his eyes were now filled with black blood vessels, his former calm and sharpness could still be seen: "You still have something to ask, right? Speak up while my mind is still clear."
Shu Ningmiao opened her mouth, but couldn't say a word.
"Let's consider it a deal." Yelü Qi saw her dilemma and thought to himself that she was still a child. He smiled wryly and said, "I'll answer your question, and you'll stay with me for the last ten minutes or so. It's quite lonely being alone."
"...The year you fell ill." Shu Ningmiao turned her head away: "What happened?"
After reviewing Edwina's information, one point remained puzzling to her.
Superhumans are almost never infected with Manra disease, let alone the elite among superhumans, the rich wielders of Pandora.
Yelüqi is likely one of only two users to contract the disease since User No. 01 three hundred years ago.
What caused him to contract Manla disease? Was it the same reason as the one that caused the Executor who died three hundred years ago?
If superhumans can be infected for some reason, Shu Ningmiao must find out what that reason is.
Yelü Qi gave her a deep look: "I didn't even tell the research center."
"I won't tell," Shu Ningmiao assured.
“It’s alright, it doesn’t matter anymore.” Yelü Qi shrugged: “When I was on a mission in the Arctic, I saw a Pandora’s Spring under an insulating crystal, it was black.”
Shu Ningmiao could hardly understand the meaning of his short sentence.
The northern polar region is the well-known Pandora desert, the only place on the planet where Pandora cannot be mined.
“I stared at the spring and heard someone talking to me.” Yelü Qi paused for a moment: “They told me that Ayan’s death was all my fault, and that I could be forgiven if I jumped from here.”
"You jumped?" Shu Ningmiao frowned unconsciously.
"Otherwise, I wouldn't be here."
Yelü Qi sighed, "I lost consciousness after I jumped down. When I woke up, I was lying on a piece of insulating crystal, with nothing around me. I didn't report it because no one else had found Pandora's Spring, and I can't explain why I jumped down."
“It was like a dream, but after having this dream, my body started to change.” Yelü Qi looked at her furrowed brow and added, “Don’t take it seriously, I don’t even know if it was an illusion myself… They all think that my mental state has not been good since Ayan left.”
"In short, nothing else happened except for this accident."
After Yelü Qi finished speaking, he looked out the window and remained silent for a long time, his expression somewhat lost in thought: "I haven't apologized to her yet."
"……who?"
"My wife," Yelü Qi smiled sheepishly, "is probably my ex-wife now."
"What's her name?" Shu Ningmiao squatted down beside his bed, looked into his eyes, and said earnestly, "If I meet her in the future, I will tell her for you."
“Her name is Liang Yu. She used to be Cornunos’ teacher. She resigned after Ayan left.” Yelü Qi was in a daze for a while, then said, “Never mind.”
Shu Ningmiao wanted to say something, but when she heard the increasingly rapid beeping in her ear, her heart skipped a beat, her hair stood on end, and she broke out in a cold sweat.
A sense of unease crept over her, and she abruptly stood up, staring into Yelü Qi's eyes, which he avoided.
The yellow liquid in the vein representing the anesthetic in his arm began to flow slowly.
"...When did you start it!"
The surrounding machines began to screech urgently, and Shu Ningmiao panicked. She instinctively tried to stop the equipment, but Yeluqi grabbed her wrist.
The anesthetic had begun to take effect, and Yelü Qi forced his eyelids open: "Enough, enough, let's hurry up."
His smile was more like a grimace: "The more I talk, the less I want to leave."
Shu Ningmiao's hand was pulled away by him. She didn't say a word. The hum of the machine made her heart pound. She really couldn't say anything else.
Yelü Qi looked at her, but his eyes were empty, as if he were looking elsewhere.
For a very long time, so long that she thought Yelü Qi had fallen into a deep sleep, she heard a barely audible whisper in the silent room: "Thank you..."
Thank you for watching my death and witnessing my departure.
Yelü Qi's eyes were still half-closed, as if he was just too tired and would open them in the next second.
She thought the process would take longer, but after the whisper faded, the grip on her wrist gradually loosened.
Yelü Qi's hand fell to the side of the sickbed.
With a "beep" from the machine, she was left alone in the ward. Shu Ning's hand hovered in mid-air, her face showing a complex expression of sorrow and confusion.
Yelü Qi was the second elder to pass away before her eyes; the first was her mother. During her mother's final days, the gentle woman, weakened beyond recognition, clutched her hand and, delirious, pleaded, "I don't want to die."
She sat by the hospital bed, trimming her mother's fingertips. Her mother's struggles left several bloody marks on her arm. The sound of a person's yearning for life was so jarring, even with the restraints binding her.
She had thought death was quiet, but death was so noisy; the struggles, the gasps, the groans were all clear and clamorous.
Death is not quiet; perhaps only funerals are quiet.
Shu Ningmiao looked up at the window of the room. Mist condensed on the window, and her figure was reflected in the white glass.
She knew that Yelüqi's vital signs had disappeared and that researchers from the Academy of Life Sciences would arrive soon.
In the distance, heavy footsteps overlapped.
Shu Ningmiao took a deep breath, put on her mask and headscarf, and was surprised to find herself covered in a cold sweat.
Yelü Qi's death was unexpected. With more than an hour left before the scheduled two-hour deadline, she could have left smoothly.
However, if we go out through the main gate now, we will definitely run into the on-duty researcher who is rushing over, which is tantamount to walking into a trap.
With no other option, Shu Ningmiao opened the window and decided to jump. This height was no obstacle for her now.
As for the resulting riots...
Shu Ningmiao took out a backup plan B from the pocket of her white coat: Su Ni's "Symbol of Life" pendant.
—She intended to give it all to Prometheus.
The pendant flew to the ceiling under her control and landed on the edge of the lamp holder.
Shu Ningmiao stepped onto the window frame and noticed that the Heart Stone Earring, which was under her headscarf, suddenly began to vibrate wildly.
Someone is using supernatural abilities and is very close to her.
Shu Ningmiao frowned, surprised to find other superhumans around so late.
The electronic sound of swiping a card came from outside the room. Without hesitation, Shu Ningmiao let go of her hand and fell backward. The thick white fog around her instantly swallowed her body.
The mist evaporated at her body temperature, sticking to her face wet and cool like icy tears. She touched her face and found it was indeed wet.
The fog is so thick it's almost abnormal.
The officers below the research center noticed her movements. With their vision obstructed by the fog, they simply turned on the infrared imager and began scanning the outer wall extensively.
Shu Ningmiao had anticipated their actions. She covered her head in mid-air. Ordinary firearms were unlikely to harm a superhuman. She only needed to focus on using Pandora to deflect the bullets.
Thankfully, there was fog.
Although the fog was muddy, damp, and gloomy, it really helped her a lot tonight.
The security system and gates have not yet been restored. Once she lands, as long as she rushes out of the National Research Center, it will be very difficult for these people to find her again.
The next second, Shu Ningmiao's smile vanished.
—Because she found her body, suspended in mid-air, was flying upwards.
The gravity-defying movement nearly shattered Shu Ningmiao's understanding of things built up over a decade ago, but the frantically buzzing Heart Stone Earrings in her ears told her that this was clearly the work of another superhuman.
An invisible, intangible, transparent person was flying overhead, with her arm around his waist.
Just as Shu Ningmiao was about to struggle, she realized that she was being taken away from the research center, so she slowed down.
A moment later, the force changed direction and plunged towards the ground.
Shu Ningmiao was carelessly thrown into the water, and the force controlling her finally dissipated. She climbed out of the water, looked around, and found that this was the park closest to the research center, which had been abandoned for a long time.
She had just fallen into an artificial lake in the park. The surface of the water was covered with moss, much of which stuck to her body, making her feel slippery and extremely disgusting.
Shu Ningmiao had no time to care about that. The night wind rustled the tree branches, creating a terrifying silence, as if she were all alone again.
The Heart Stone Earring is still vibrating; that person hasn't left yet. I don't know if they're friend or foe.
When she was being carried away, she didn't hear any human breathing or heartbeats; instead, her body became even wetter.
Thinking of something, Shu Ningmiao stared at the wet ground, a thoughtful expression on her face.
With a crackling sound, a small bonfire broke out not far away.
The flickering flames illuminated the outline of the body, accompanied by a rustling sound as the body moved through the dry branches and leaves.
The man raised his face, his eyes gleaming with a burning, bewildered light: "I want to talk to you."
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