by N. Heller
“He lied to you.”
“I don’t mean the conversation just now.” Hu Changzai explained as he gave his head a scratch, “After my ‘Lie Detection’ leveled up, it has two new attributes. Now, I can tell if someone had lied to another person and the identity of the person being lied to in the past 24 hours. So…”
Now, Lin Sanjiu understood his words, but it was difficult for her to accept this. She crossed his arms and thought for a long time before she mumbled, “He avoided my question about Marcie, just now. That’s a little odd. Could it be that he lied to me about this? But that doesn’t make sense. We didn’t even talk much since we came back…”
[Could he have lied even before the mission? Or during the mission? But Marcie was us before the mission so we wouldn’t have discussed about her. When did he lie to me?] Lin Sanjiu was feeling increasingly perplexed by the matter. She just could not wrap her head around it.
After Hu Changzai got those words off his c.h.e.s.t, his mood lightened significantly. Not caring that Lin Sanjiu was now confounded, he planted his head back on the bed, “You can take your time to think slowly. This patient needs to rest now.” He was indeed feeling very tired after being tortured by his injured leg and dragging it around for such a long time.
Preoccupied, Lin Sanjiu replied, “Okay, you should rest first. I need to go to Chen Jinfeng’s office to get something…” Since Septimus knew where she had hidden her Diary Card, she was a little bugged by that. Anyway, it had already been two hours or so since she planted her card there.
“Be careful. Since I am not around with you, I can’t help you discern the truth,” Hu Changzai advised before he closed his eyes comfortably. Unexpectedly, Lin Sanjiu froze for a moment and suddenly gripped Hu Changzai’s arm tightly, “Hey, I have a question. Can you tell if someone is lying without using your ability?”
Her question was quite confusing and really came out from nowhere. As he looked into her pair of amber eyes at close proximity, he stammered, “Of course… not. I can only discern whether a person is telling the truth because I’m using my ability… what do you mean…”
At that instant, Lin Sanjiu realized what Septimus’s lie was. She thought for some time while Hu Changzai skin grew very hot. “Hey… You are too close. A girl like you shouldn’t—”
Chapter 53 - Baffled
During the mission, Septimus told her that he could not use any of Luther’s ability. Lin Sanjiu moved so fast that she was just like a fleeting shadow, but her footsteps were silent. Chen Jinfeng’s office was just ahead, his office door was shut, and light filtered through the gaps around the door frame. She halted and walked slowly to the door. As thoughts ran through her mind, Lin Sanjiu held her breath as she tried to hear for any movements behind the door.
[Luther had two abilities. Persona Separation and Shapeshifting. If Septimus could not shapeshift, logically, he would not be able to use Persona Separation. If so, as a product of Luther’s Persona Separation, Marcie should also disappear...]
She did not hear a single sound from behind the door, so she concluded that there was no one in the room.
[...However, before we left, Marcie was still her usual self and only disappeared after we returned. That meant that Septimus has been maintaining Luther’s ability. Not only did Marcie know this, but she just took it as a given, so she simply didn’t bring this up to me. That’s right! Septimus lie must be that!]
Lin Sanjiu turned the doorknob carefully and found it unlocked. She celebrated her luck and scanned around her before she slipped into the office and closed the door behind her. After she entered the room, she crept to the table and reached out to check—her Diary Card was still there. She took it and saw the last line on the card: “3.05 am. The defiled and humiliated Diary Card was retrieved.”
“I don’t have time to hear your complaints.” Lin Sanjiu rolled her eyes and quickly wiped away the gel bait without reading the rest of the content on the card. Since the door was not locked, Chen Jinfeng might not be far and could return at any time. The card disappeared into her palm, and she left the office without delay.
Their dorm in bas.e.m.e.nt one was already filled with sounds of few conversations which belonged to the people who had finished work are were resting. As there were only a handful of people, their voices echoed hollowly through the bas.e.m.e.nt, making the place sound rather empty. Lin Sanjiu beelined to her own cubicle and called out her Diary Card.
In the past two hours, her Diary Card had recorded a total of ten pages of content due to Chen Jinfeng’s penchant for saying bullsh*t. The card named the people whom Lin Sanjiu knew and gave labels like ABC to the people she did not. Even after reading the card for a while, she found nothing suspicious except for the first 15 mins when Chen Jinfeng left the room. After that, the conversations were just trivialities like Man A discussing some random administration matters or Woman A asking him about the breakfast menu...
But Lin Sanjiu’s eyelid twitched when she reached the sixth page. She was speechless because it recorded the conversation between Chen Jinfeng and Woman C. Even though it was a conversation, there was barely any content. Lin Sanjiu braced herself and scrolled through the countless lines of “Uhh... Uhh… Ahhh… Ahhh…” before she was finally stunned.
Chen Jinfeng: “You’re still better… Today, I searched for a foreigner because I just wanted to try her out. But she got away. F*ck! She doesn’t know her place! And I don’t know where she went!”
Woman C: “Hey… you baddie. How could you look at other women when you already have me…”
[That son of a b*tch actually laid his hands on Marcie!] Lin Sanjiu’s face darkened. If the Diary Card were just a normal piece of paper, she would have torn it up. Suppressing her anger, she quickly read through the page, but Chen Jinfeng did not talk about Marcie after that. She was on the last page, but she still found nothing of interest. Even though Lin Sanjiu didn’t know what she was expecting to find, she could not help feeling a little disappointed. “Huh?” she suddenly muttered, as her gaze hovered over the following words: 2.48 am. Tian Minbo (Voley) arrived at the door of office 306 and knocked.
Chen Jin Feng: “I was trying to f*cking find you! What’s wrong with your info?”
Tian Minbo: “There is nothing wrong with my info. There must be some misunderstanding.”
Chen Jin Feng: “Misunderstanding? Then, how do you explain Lin Sanjiu’s display of power?”
Tian Minbo: “I think she found a good item. Executive Chen, this is good news! If they die, you will get both the Pocket Dimension Escape Portal[1] and that item to create sandstorms…”
Chen Jinfeng: “Grunt. Voley, I am already at my limits. Because you were afraid that they would find you, I even sent Hu Changzai out on a mission. Just because he is acquainted with them and have seen you before. You should start being useful!”
Tian Minbo: “Just tell me what you need.”
Chen Jinfeng: “I am going out now. We’ll discuss this on the way.”
2.50 am. Both people left the room and left the recording range.
“Why did Chen Jinfeng choose that time to leave!” Lin Sanjiu cursed with gritted teeth and kept the Diary Card. Her brows furrowed as she thought hard about what she had just read, yet she could not get any logical conclusion.
“Damn it! I am not going to think about it! I will just wallop Voley and Septimus, then we’ll see if they talk!” she got down from her bed moodily. If she couldn't make sense of it, she’d just follow her intuition!
Just as she lifted the curtain to go out, she nearly collided with another person. She was stunned when she looked up. The person in front of her had a head of fluffy red hair and faint freckles on fair skin—isn’t that Marcie?
“Xiao Jiu, you’re hurt?” Marcie was just like before, she had the same tone and mannerism, “Cough. Septimus ran too far from me, so I disappeared as I was not within the effective range of his ability. I only regained my corporeal form after you both came back. You must have been wo
rried…”
Lin Sanjiu’s Keen Sense gave her a sudden jolt, and Lin Sanjiu stared back at Marcie suspiciously. She was about to speak when she suddenly spotted someone approaching them, it was Septimus. From what it seems, they came to look for her together. Now Lin Sanjiu was totally baffled. [If Septimus transformed into Marcie to deceive me, who is acting as Septimus? Could it be that Marcie really came back?] She looked at Marcie as she tried to test her, hesitatingly, “When we were away, did anything happen?”
She only read about this matter from her Diary Card a few minutes ago, so no one else should know except for Marcie, herself...
Marcie’s expression changed instantly, and she gave an angry harrumph. “Something did happen… but I am okay. That bast*rd, Chen Jinfeng, will definitely have to pay for what he did sooner or later!”
A sense of relief washed over Lin Sanjiu as Macie’s answer matched her expectations. She gave a long sigh before giving Marcie a hug, “I thought you’d never come back!” Marcie laughed and hugged her back. Lin Sanjiu eyed Septimus, who was just nearby, then she whispered, “Umm. Can Septimus use Luther’s ability?” Now that Marcie was here, she wanted to confirm her conjecture.
“Of course not.” Lin Sanjiu heard a gentle female voice at the side of her ear.
---
Translator’s note: [1] The Chinese translation specified that it was a mirror, but it might be a little hard to understand in the context. This is probably the item that was taken from Hei Zeji.
Chapter 54 - My Ability Turned Weird After a Level Up
Lin Sanjiu really felt relieved when she finally saw Marcie. As for her doubts and questions, she decided that she could slowly investigate about them later. The next item on her to-do list was to hunt for Voley. Since she spotted him at Bas.e.m.e.nt One, that basically meant that he was living in the same building. If she searched cubicles one by one, there was no way she wouldn’t find him.
The surprising thing was that Lin Sanjiu didn’t even catch a glimpse of Voley for consecutively three days. For the past three days, she waited till everyone was asleep before searching the cubicles. She already checked every cubicle in Bas.e.m.e.nt One, but she couldn’t find him. Just to play safe, she also searched the cubicles in Bas.e.m.e.nt Two, but it was futile.
[Is it possible that he’s not in this building? If so, it’ll be troublesome.] Lin Sanjiu thought to herself. Recently, Xiao Yu somehow became much stricter about sleeping times. Perhaps because she had been triggered by something, she now sits in a chair at the stairway every morning as if she was deeply afraid that someone would just go out during daytime. After four uneventful days of fruitless searching, Lin Sanjiu laid on her bed. She was starting to get impatient about the matter.
For the past few days, her Keen Senses had constantly been wailing like a police siren in the far corner of her mind, making her feel very uneasy. She had the nagging feeling that something was wrong. During the night, she could temporarily ignore the underlying anxiety as she went around Oasis helping others with their chores; however, once she laid on her bed, it was a different story.
Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes and took a deep breath then slowly exhaled. After she had done this a couple of times, she managed to just focus on her own breathing. All her distracting thoughts melted like snow in summer and faded back into the recesses of her mind. Her mindscape was just a dark navy, she could see nothing there. It reminded her of the silent deep sea where thousands of mysterious creatures hid. Lin Sanjiu found herself in a very strange state of mind: it was as if she was an outsider in her own mind, quietly observing the depths of “Lin Sanjiu” consciousness. She looked downward as she felt the light current of the water against her body. She suddenly spotted a gigantic object, so large that she could not see the far side of it. It was so large that she thought that it was part of the sea!
The gigantic object seemed to have possessed a sort of magnetism which pulled Lin Sanjiu toward it. She headed toward the object faster and faster. Just when she thought she was about to collide with it, there was a huge boom, and the object broke through the surface of the water. At the same time, Lin Sanjiu opened her eyes abruptly and sat up, panting heavily. Her Keen Senses had leveled up!
“How has it changed? Let me see…” Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes and controlled her breathing again and once again entered that meditative state.
【School of Higher Consciousness】Just as if a violinist knowing how to perform Eine kleine Nachtmusik, or a soccer player knowing how to dribble across the field, that name appeared within her mind naturally.
Even though she only sat up for a fraction of a second, when Lin Sanjiu entered her mindscape once again, she found that it had totally changed. When she opened her “eyes”, she realized that she was sitting on a small stool and there was thick children foam mat under her feet. There were many toys scattered throughout the room, such as teddy bears and toy cars and others. When she looked at her hands and found that she was holding an educational picture chart. There was also a red flower brooch pinned on her c.h.e.s.t. It looked extreme strange on a grown woman like herself.
[What... is this place?]
“Hello, dear students!” a warm, enthusiastic female voice filled the room. Startled, Lin Sanjiu looked up and saw there was no one other than herself. There was a movie projector screen at the front of the room, and a voice suddenly came from the two speakers beside the screen: “I am your kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Manas[1]! I want to congratulate all of you on your graduation to the next level in Keen Senses and successfully enrolling into the【School of Higher Consciousness】!”
Lin Sanjiu’s mouth hung open as she looked around the room. Beside herself, there were still a few small stools around, but… there were only other toys sitting on the stool — a teddy bear, a Barbie, and a Transformer figurine.
[I must be your only student!]
Regardless of the audience, the voice over the pair of speakers continued, “Everyone must be curious about the difference between Intuition and Higher Consciousness, right? What we call ‘intuition’ is actually a sort of rapid judgment about a situation based on one’s previous experience, sensations, and emotions, etc. Thus, there is no guarantee that Keen Senses is correct 100% of the time.
“The root of our intuition lies in our subconscious mind. Higher Consciousness is a skill that is developed from our subconscious mind, and it is super powerful!” The tone used did sound like one meant for speaking to a group of young children. “Alright, now everyone will learn how to control their Higher Consciousness. The first step to do that is to have a thorough understanding of what it is. Little Bear, please don’t touch Barbie’s leg.”
“Okay, just as expected, our Lin Sanjiu was successfully distracted by my words. Humans are just that odd. Despite being in a highly unusual environment, any information worth of gossip still steals their attention like this...“ the speaker said gloatingly.
[This teacher! She’s totally full of sh*t!]
“This is because human consciousness is affected by your inherited genes. A person consciousness is inherently attuned to topics that involve human reproduction. Did you know? A seemingly intuitive reaction is actually brought by the decision of your subconsciousness.”
“No matter what you say, it sounds like a random excuse…” Lin Sanjiu’s expression was still sour. Just as though the speaker heard her, the speaker changed the subject abruptly: “Now, we shall start our class. Please look at your picture chart.”
Lin Sanjiu took a closer look at the picture chart and saw that there was a drawing of a motherboard on the piece of paper. Honestly speaking, no children would be able to understand what is written there.
“This is the topic for today. The database in our consciousness.”
“Many people spend a lot of effort trying to sharpen their perception. However, what they do not know is that massive amounts of information are recorded by one’s eyes, nose, ears, body, and skin. Unfortunately, normal humans will never be able to acce
ss this information even if they try an entire lifetime, this is because this information is stored in one’s subconsciousness.”
“After you possess a higher consciousness, your subconsciousness will automatically filter through all the information in its database. It is not easy to understand this, so let me give you an example.”
After the speaker had said this, a close-up image of a bowl of instant noodles appeared on the projection screen with a “pa!” sound.
Lin Sanjiu looked down at her own hands half-wittedly and confirmed that the hands shown on the screen were hers. She had some impression of that instant noodle. During that month they spent in the supermarket, she often ate that brand of noodles. However, Lin Sanjiu could not remember Marcie saying those words before.
“What can I do? You have already taken on a corporeal body.” Lin Sanjiu recognized Luther’s voice.
“Well, you could make me look like Natalie Portman.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. It will tire me out to keep that ability activated. Besides, her fans wouldn’t be happy to see her killing duoluozhongs!”
Once the screen turned black, Lin Sanjiu shuddered a little. She instantly knew what was wrong. The scene changed, and it now showed the incident which happened when she first saw Luther and Marcie at Zhu Mei’s house. At that time, both had transformed to look like her parents. Luther could use his Shapeshifting ability on another person beside himself!
She was unable to fathom how she could forget that since she witnessed it herself. “That meant that Septimus need not transform into Marcie. He could transform someone else into Marcie or even get that person to look like himself…” Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself. Bizarrely, while it was supposed to be an infuriating matter, all she felt was a strange calm.
The screen suddenly turned black again, and Mrs. Manas voice sounded out from the speakers.