At dawn, the shifters were still awake, sleeping in a heap.
The “Bai Anyi” have had three hours of figuration time after tackling two “catfish” that were trying to kill them.
The forest is full of mist in the early morning, the air feels like milk, and the milky, thick mist is as solid as if it could be guided by your fingertips.
”Bai Anyi” is on the roof of the hut, watching the squirrels bouncing around the tree tips from afar.
Not long afterwards, a man settled silently beside him.
There are not many people who can do this, not to mention that ” Bai Anyi” is in a state of full alert at the moment, so ” Bai Anyi” is far more nahan than killing.
As far as “Bai Anyi” could remember, this man was not one of the escaped shapeshifters.
The person in question was not aggressive in appearance or temperament, and looked frail, with one hand on his left forehead and a faint white tinge on his lips, a hint that reminded “Bai Anyi” of someone.
He called tentatively, “…… Chi Jiangyu ?”
The visitor nodded slightly, “Yes. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
”Bai Anyi”, with his long legs folded, looked at him curiously, “Do you actually look like this?”
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”What’s wrong?”
” Bai Anyi” smiled: “OK, Chi Xiaochi is not bad, quite a match. A good couple.”
”Thank you.” Lou Ying pursed her lips, “I came, just to talk to you about him.”
Lou Ying’s data body has not yet been fully repaired, and his re-emergence as a physical body is inevitably energy-intensive, so he speaks with a weakness that can only be concealed.
But he still felt he needed to make the trip: “I’d like you to apologise to Xiaochi.”
” Bai Anyi” is smart too, dropping her eyelids and rolling her eyes twice before she figured it out, “Because I called him cold-blooded at the pond? Did you hear all that?”
Lou Ying nods.
” Bai Anyi” said, “I was comforting him then.”
Lou Ying laughed: “Is there such a thing as comfort?”
” Bai Anyi” said with certainty, “There is such comfort in that.”
Lou Ying stopped talking and waited for his explanation.
”Do you know what is the most painful thing about being a human being?”” Bai Anyi” held up two fingers, “Two things: wanting to be bad but having good intentions; wanting to be good but being mixed with selfish thoughts.”
”It’s not others who suffer when you don’t get involved at both ends, it’s yourself,”” Bai Anyi” says, “People who are cold-blooded don’t worry about the necessary losses or feel bad about not doing their best. The situation was such that I ……”
Lou Ying doesn’t say anything, just looks at him.
The ” Bai Anyi” also turned in his silence to find out what he meant, without further explanation, “Yes, I was wrong. I will talk to him.”
Lou Ying was polite: “Thank you.”
” Bai Anyi” is clear in his thinking: “There is nothing to thank. I am a person who has been tied to Bai since I became conscious. I don’t need to get along with anyone else, and I don’t think about getting along with any other people. You two, you are the only people I talk to the most besides him. And I have to thank you for pointing out my problems, otherwise, I wouldn’t know where to find you guys if I regretted it later.”
Lou Ying came out and originally wanted to ask “Bai Anyi” to apologise to Chi Xiaochi for his words, but after hearing “Bai Anyi’s” words, he was no longer in a hurry to go back: “In the future, what are your plans with him?”
”Ah …… yes, your mission is complete and when you’ve accumulated enough of that ‘remorse value’, it’s time to go.”
” Bai Anyi” nodded and briefly made an arrangement for the future, “Even if we escape, there is no way we can stay in our home country much longer, most likely we will borrow the path you guys have paved and use the footage from the Great Escape to apply for political asylum abroad, to a country that is more tolerant of the shifter, to land on our feet and then let Bai do something he likes.”
”Bai Anyi” is mostly calm and sober throughout his words, nothing earthy and hot.
But Lou Ying had read his memories and knew what he looked like in front of the real Bai Anyi.
Gentle, patient, with a sense of proportion and knowing what to say and what not to say.
That can’t be faked.
” Bai Anyi” knows exactly what is best to do, he just doesn’t have that kind of patience with the next person.
Lou Ying asks, “What about you?”
”Me?”” Bai Anyi” said, “I can kill for him, or not kill for him. A heart is only a tiny bit big and it all grows on him, so of course I will go wherever he goes.”
Saying that, he fell a little melancholy, “But I killed someone in front of him, and I don’t know what he’ll think of me.”
Lou Ying : “I’ve read some books on psychology and it says that most dual personalities are born because of some kind of spiritual need of the host personality.”
” Bai Anyi”: “So?”
Lou Ying : “So, you are the person he subconsciously wishes existed. The fact that you have the power and yet you didn’t kill indiscriminately is good enough alone.”
” Bai Anyi” looked at him, “Thank you. You are very good at comforting people.”
Lou Ying was about to answer, when he suddenly looked like he was about to say sorry and disappeared into the morning mist.
Chi Xiaochi was already gargling with the rainwater he had received last night when his main consciousness returned to Chi Xiaochi’s body.
Lou Ying roughly calculates the time.
The group settled in the hut at 1am, Chi Xiaochi went to bed at 2.30am, woke up once at 4.30am and it is now just before 6am.
…… He slept for less than four hours on a full night’s sleep.
Lou Ying was a little distressed: “Why don’t you get some more sleep?”
Chi Xiaochi says: “It’s been a while since I woke up. The stock market is open and currently floating in the red.”
Others don’t know what he is talking about, but Lou Ying naturally does.
He looked at the progress value and was surprised, “78 points? Jiao Qingguang’s remorse value is moving so fast?”
”I saw the news.” Chi Xiaochi said, “…… He’s up early.”
The ex-boyfriend he had sent to prison with his own hands had become a wanted criminal who had escaped from prison with seventy-six psychics overnight, and there were unusual deaths in various places.
”We still have our instant cards.” Lou Ying suggested, “It’s not like there are so many pairs of eyes watching now, so why not just go to his house and scare him a little?”
Chi Xiaochi was a bit surprised: “Brother, who did you learn this from?”
Lou Ying : “I like to study on my own.”
Chi Xiaochi poked him with a smile, “Stealing from a teacher.”
Lou Ying, from goodwill: “Then can we steal Mr. Chi with us.”
Joking aside, Lou Ying has his own agenda.
Before, they were trapped in that virtual world of consciousness and had no way to approach Jiao Qingguang. Now that they had escaped, he could only hope to gather the repentance value and leave this world as soon as possible.
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In such a world, it is a great test of one’s will, spirit and personal safety.
Even if the video was released, they could not be sure that the agency would find them anytime soon, that these currently docile alters would not have other ideas, or that they would be able to take refuge as “Bai Anyi” had planned.
Lou Ying did not want to put Chi Xiaochi through this kind of hiding.
As he laughs, Chi Xiaochi exits the hut, paces back and forth on the muddy carrion, and stares into the air, wondering what he is looking at.
Lou Ying said, “Me and ‘Bai Anyi’ are keeping an eye on it, no one is coming after us for now.”
Selfishly, he wanted Chi Xiaochi to sleep a little longer.
Chi Xiaochi responded, “Well, I’m comfortable with what you guys are doing.”
This sounded perfunctory.
Lou Ying couldn’t help but sigh, “What are you thinking about?”
Chi Xiaochi’s answer was, as expected, “I was wondering why there were shifters.”
Lou Ying has downloaded and read more than 30,000 SCI-level papers related to psychics since regaining full internet access.
It has been five years since the first psychic was born, and the virus theory, the contagion theory, and so on, have been put forward and debunked.
Researchers from various countries are still exploring the origins of the Alter Ego.
There is no definitive academic conclusion.
With the conversation with “Bai Anyi” still fresh in my ears, Lou Ying wanted to poke Chi Xiaochi in the head and put a little more thought into himself: “Those professionals couldn’t find the reason, can you?”
Chi Xiaochi, slowly and deliberately: “Maybe I can.”
Lou Ying was dumbfounded for a moment before he realised something: “Did you think of something?”
”Every time I mobilized my psychic powers, I manifested a surge of Class A globulin and the types of psychic powers that appeared were strange.”
Chi Xiaochi raised his hand in mid-air and gently touched the particles of dust that were visible only to him: “Do you remember Lu Qingshu?”
Lou Ying remembers, of course, the “catfish” with the little girl at home.
Chi Xiaochi asked again, “What was his psychic ability, do you remember.”
Lou Ying : “He’s a fast runner.”
Chi Xiaochi turned her head and asked “Bai Anyi”, who was sitting on the roof, “In Lu Qingshu’s daughter’s favourite superhero comic, is the main character fast?”
This question was asked by Chi Xiaochi when “Bai Anyi” first returned.
” Bai Anyi” is a computer memory, and although he has only turned a few pages, he has occasionally scanned enough sub-screens and lines to get some valuable information.
At first, although he did not know what Chi Xiaochi was asking for, he answered truthfully.
Now that the question was being asked anew, he didn’t hesitate to raise his voice and answer, “Yes.”
Lou Ying thought for a moment, “That’s not evidence.”
”Yes.” Chi Xiaochi says, “It really can’t be used as evidence. People often think about which superpower or psychic ability they would choose if they could have one. For example, a student wants to have the ability to see through cheating, a politician wants to have the ability to see through everything, someone wants to be invisible, someone wants to fly, someone wants to foresee the future, someone wants countless abilities for him to wield for evil, someone wants world peace and no more weapons …… Ideas are not only diverse, they change, so they are very elusive.”
”But …… Bai Anyi is a special case.”
”He is in the academic field, his psychic ability is mastering formulas, because he has no other preferences or areas of expertise other than academics, he likes stars and dinosaurs and exploring unknown areas of science, that’s why his psychic ability is so special …… and what’s even more special is that he has another personality inside him, another consciousness, and after the psychic ability evolved That personality also has its own body. That’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it.”
Lou Ying was already very clear-headed, and when Chi Xiaochi pointed it out to her, there was nothing she didn’t understand: “I know what you mean. You’re saying that psychic abilities evolve naturally according to each person’s own needs. But …… is just a guess, what does it have to do with the origin of psychic powers? Could it be that psychic abilities are mind-only?”
”No way.” Chi Xiaochi immediately dismissed the idea, “If it were truly mindful, those fervent fans of the shifter who are human would have gotten their wish long ago.”
Lou Ying mused, “You think it was some special chance that caused some humans to randomly become psychics?”
Chi Xiaochi : “Uh-huh.”
”Food and water should not even be a channel of transmission,” Lou Ying says. Lou Ying said, “All over the world there are psychics, and they have completely different eating habits and water sources. When the number of alters was small, there were experts who specifically observed their diet and sampled them daily. Later, when there were more alters, it was found that no pattern could be found and such checks became meaningless.”
Chi Xiaochi said, “Where’s the air?”
Lou Ying said, “Airborne transmission is not established when the virus cannot be checked in the body of an alien.”
Chi Xiaochi’s eyes flicker to Lou Ying.
At his gaze, Lou Ying suddenly understood: “…… Are you saying that what triggered the mutation was some kind of substance in the air?”
”People don’t eat the same things, they don’t drink the same water.” Chi Xiaochi shrugs, “But don’t they all breathe the same air under the same sky.”
”Indeed, similar speculations have been made.” Lou Ying sifted through the theory Wen carefully, “but after sampling, no particular substance was detected in the air.”
”That’s just their sampling, they can only take a few specific points.” Chi Xiaochi says, “I’ll start by sampling a 200 cubic metre and see what happens.”
It had rained last night and the rain had trapped particles in the air and crashed into the soil. Now that the rain had stopped and a fresh mist had risen, some of the trapped particles had separated from the land again, just in time for him to investigate.
Chi Xiaochi plucks the particles out of the air one by one and investigates them in detail.
Oxygen, hydrogen, helium, chlorine, respirable particulate matter, water, all of which he has classified and marked.
This is a habit formed under the influence of years of collecting.
With his heightened powers, his ability to manipulate the air is also greatly enhanced, and he can even slow down the flow of air within his control.
So, Chi Xiaochi condensed 200 cubic metres of air directly into the mountain, patiently searching for even the slightest possibility.
He has extracted all the known substances currently present in the air of this world.
At the end, surprisingly, he did catch a little foreign object.
Cleared clean of the air, only two tiny pale red particles remain, floating in the air, swirling in companionship, like a dandelion with nowhere to return to.
It has no name, does not belong to any of the known databases of this planet, looks like the spore powder of a plant, and has a particle diameter range of a mere 3 nanometers.
In 200 cubic metres of air, only these two specks of fine dust are available.
Chi Xiaochi put the two spore powders into her palm and fiddled with them: “What is this?”
Lou Ying gives a brief paraphrase: “Single particles in living things, active, contain radioactive material, but this radioactive material …… is also not present in the existing knowledge system of the Earth.”
Chi Xiaochi offers a conjecture: “Outer space?”
”That can’t be ruled out. But it could also be some kind of newborn species on Earth.” Lou Ying speaks more cautiously, “The particles are so few in number, so dense and so light and mobile that it’s not unusual for them to be undetectable. But how do such particles appear?”
Chi Xiaochi frowns and gently teases the two particles with his fingertips.
Lou Ying asks, “What’s on your mind?”
”I was thinking that the emergence of the Alter Ego might not be an infection or a disease.” Chi Xiaochi said in a surprising way, “Is it possible that it is the inevitable …… evolution of history?”
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