Ordinary Chapter 29: It’s Not Scientific

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

 

Yi Mingzhi woke up after three days in a coma. The heart attack symptoms Yi Mingzhi suffered in the playfield completely disappeared after he woke up, and he was able to be discharged directly from the hospital the next day, which was a medical miracle. For Yi Mingzi, whether he got an ability, only he knew. Since this matter belonged to personal privacy, Shen Si didn’t ask, but he still had to worry about one other person.

Shen Si turned his head to look in the ward, Jian Nian was lying quietly in the hospital bed, his breathing very shallow, giving the impression that he was already a corpse.

Sitting in the chair next to Jian Nian, Shen Si stared at him in silence.

Only when he was asleep did he look like a good boy. He was lying in the hospital bed unable to move, his pale face and thin body made his whole person give off a strong sense of sickness, which was deceptive indeed.

On the day of his return, Jian Nian and his family had been completely cut off. He didn’t treat his family well, and the couple who raised him, but didn’t treat him as a human being, were naturally afraid of him. At such a time, none of them came to the hospital, but his brother, who wasn’t close to him, visited once.

The doctor and the Inspection Unit worked for several days to check Jian Nian’s body. After determining that he was not injured, and that his unexplained slumber may be his digestion of the things eaten in the playfield.

Digesting what? The dream of his own?

Shen Si leaned back in his chair and yawned. He could have gone back, but the Special Unit people stopped him, and said there were some things that needed his cooperation, and hoped he could stay for a while. Shen Si also knew going repeatedly into the playfields had attracted attention, so he didn’t refuse.

It was clear that he was just an ordinary person, and he couldn’t wake up his ability even when he entered a playfield. Why did it get to this point?

He missed his old ordinary life.

The phone rang, Shen Si picked up the phone and looked at it, then stood up from the chair. Shen Si took the phone to the corridor to answer.

“Hello?”

“When are you coming back?” Xi Luo stood on the balcony to help Shen Si water the flowers, the water in the can sprinkling all over the balcony. He looked down at the wet balcony, then pretended not to see. “It has taken you a week after signing the dismissal paper. I knew I should have gone with you.”

Shen Si pulled open the window to look at the bare landscape outside, “The Special Unit said there are things I need to cooperate with, so it should be soon.”

“But your luck is really bad. You better find a way to come back, at least there is still me and the God of Light here.” Xi Luo put the watering can in the corner of the balcony, stepping on the water, he went into the house, then went to get a mop to clean up the water.

Xi Luo was so done, he’s been doing the same thing the past few days. He didn’t know what grudge the watering can had against him. Every time he watered the flowers, water would splash a large part of the balcony.

“Can I still enter a playfield in the territory of the Special Unit?” Shen Si sighed, “Child, do not worry so much, study well.”

“I just think your luck is really a little strange, or more like bad, since you’ve gone into every dangerous playfield that has appeared. Isn’t the frequency too high?” Xi Luo leaned on the balcony door, with a bit of sadness in his voice, “Look how long it took you to go into three of them, and none of them were ordinary playfields. You have a higher frequency than anyone in the unlimited flow world.”

“I wouldn’t want to go in if I can help it, there’s no benefit in entering a place like that.” Shen Si felt the wind blowing in from outside.

Xi Luo didn’t continue to speak, so a moment later he hung up after he and Shen Si said goodbye. After mopping up the water on the balcony, he lay down on the sofa, dark eyes staring at the ceiling.

To be honest, he was not familiar with Shen Si, this cheap cousin of his. As a child, he just heard his mother say it was his aunt’s son without blood relations. They weren’t really close and they had never met. After returning from the unlimited flow world he was forced to come to Shen Si. He did not expect that Shen Si was not as simple as what people had assumed.

Xi Luo calculated the odds of meeting three S-class Survivors at the same time and came up with a very small result, so small that it was almost negligible. Even they themselves in going to the Special Unit to report were not acquainted, who knew that they would all be connected in this way.

And Shen Si was not an S-class Survivor like them, but an ordinary person who didn’t enter the world of unlimited flow with them.

Perhaps there really were embodiments of coincidences in this world.

On the other side, Shen Si hung up the phone and put it back into his jacket pocket. A gust of cold wind blew in and rustled his jacket. Shen Si shivered, then hurried to close the window. The warmth in the hospital let him breathe a little easier, but just then, he saw a shadow reflected in the window.

There was a youth holding the door frame looking at him, although it was only a reflection, he could still see the pair of dark eyes filled with obsession.

Shen Si turned around and Jian Nian quietly stood there directly behind him, smiling like a child who had eaten candy after seeing Shen Si look over.

“I thought I was having a beautiful dream when I opened my eyes and saw Shen Si, it was so nice.”

Shen Si walked over to push him back to the ward, pressed the call button on the hospital bed, then sat back in the chair and looked at Jian Nian.

Because his health has been poor, even from the unlimited flow world to now, Jian Nian’s pale body was thin, with a strong sense of fatigue. Wearing a hospital gown made him look like he was about to die at any moment. Shen Si was not sure if he was fine or if his body was truly going into failure, anyway, he had always been this way, with a smile.

“I’m fine.” Jian Nian was also unsettled in the hospital bed, “I have laid around enough, don’t want to continue lying.”

“Do you know how long you have been sleeping?”

“Of course I know.” Jian Nian stared at Shen Si smiling happily, “I have been lying for a week and seven hours, if you include the time in the playfield it’s been a week and ten hours!”

Shen Si looked at him somewhat amazed, and a moment later he looked at the time on his phone to make sure that Jian Nian was right on all points.

“My slumber is not a slumber in the ordinary sense.” Jian Nian reached out and tapped his temple, he smiled subtly, like a fox sizing up the prey in front of him. “Even in slumber, I can feel the passage of time, hear the surrounding sounds and even perceive the birth of things around me. In other words, I just lie awake.”

Is that why you look so tired?

If sleeplessness lasted for a week the average person’s spirit would break down, but he could still talk to him in an organized manner.

The doctor ran in with a nurse, hastily surrounding Jian Nian. Shen Si saw this and immediately rose back to give them a place. Jian Nian frowned slightly when he did that, and he stared straight at Shen Si, seemingly unhappy. 

The doctor’s questions didn’t get answered either, so he looked back at Shen Si, then waved towards him, “Mr. Shen, come here for a moment.”

Shen Si froze before he pointed at himself, and after the doctor nodded in the affirmative, he came over, “What is it?”

“Nothing, just stand here.”

Shen Si: …… 

After the doctor’s examination and questioning, Jian Nian fell asleep. His spirit was very tired, and the doctor couldn’t determine the cause, whether it was simply because of Jian Nian’s devouring ability. He could only wait for the head of the Inspection Unit to come and check again, but for now he could only let Jian Nian get a good night’s sleep.

After Jian Nian fell asleep Shen Si sat on the bench outside the ward, and opened his phone on the forum that he hadn’t visited for a long time. On top of the forum was the extremely dangerous zone notice. Most of the posts were still about discussions of this playfield area, and it was said that foreign countries also had this level of playfield open, but theirs ended in it becoming the world’s first playfield with a total annihilation ending.

Almost everyone panicked, normal work and social functioning were nearly unsustainable, and some people were afraid to leave their homes.

The world rules were still rapidly shifting.

“You’re worried?” A cold voice appeared next to Shen Si. He looked up at the young man in the white coat standing next to him and staring at him with a pile of documents in his hand, “This is not the first time we’ve met, but it can also be considered our first official meeting. I am He Xin, the head of the Inspection Unit, hello. “

“Hello.” Shen Si replied to He Xin’s last question, “Why be worried when everyone else is worried? I was just wondering when things will stabilize, because I need a new job.”

“Oh? You do have a lot of confidence in us.” He Xin looked at him, his voice serious, “Where do you get your confidence from?”

“Because there is no way to disbelieve.” Shen Si didn’t seem to understand why He Xin would ask this question, “At a time like this, if I don’t believe in you guys, can I still believe in myself? I’m just an ordinary person who accidentally got into the playfields and had to wait for the Special Unit to come to my rescue.”

He Xin nodded, “Also, anyone with a normal mind would know not to challenge what they can’t challenge and hope with us. You are indeed a rational and normal person.”

Not really understanding He Xin’s intention to strike up a conversation, Shen Si politely put his phone away, and carefully listened to him talk.

“Do you know why the Special Unit would value these three S-class Survivors so much?”

Shen Si shook his head, “Of course I don’t know, I’m just an ordinary person, I’ve never been to the unlimited flow world, and I don’t have an ability.”

That was a statement.

He Xin handed the documents in his hand to Shen Si, slightly lifting his chin to indicate to him that he should flip through it. As a result, after flipping through the documents twice and reading all the unintelligible data and tables and graphs, Shen Si didn’t understand a word of it, so he looked up at He Xin with a little confusion on his face.

“Can’t figure it out?” He Xin bent down and pointed to one of the data above, “Look at this table, what trend is it showing?”

He Xin pointed to the table showing a trend of zigzagging upward, although Shen Si didn’t know what this represented.

“Currently we have three S-class Survivors in the country, and their abilities have one thing in common, and that is that they can evolve.” He Xin turned to the next page and showed Shen Si another table, although Shen Si still couldn’t decipher this one either, “Jian Nian’s devouring, Bai Junyi’s light and even Xi Luo’s manipulation, their abilities were not strong at the beginning, after relying on various means they began to upgrade a little. Only then did they become the S-class Survivors we see now.”

Shen Si looked at He Xin, “Why show me this?”

“Because the Inspection Unit suspects that you have also awakened such an ability.” He Xin closed the information, his voice remained cold, “Initially, yours should be undetectable, and have some kind of conditions that will let it grow slowly. Currently our guess is this, but of course this is only in theory, there is no actual data to support it. In order to avoid any problems in the future, we want you to be mentally prepared in advance.” He Xin walked into Jian Nian’s hospital room. “I’ll see what Jian Nian’s condition is first, and we’ll talk about your problem in detail afterwards.”

Shen Si stood up as he watched He Xin walk into Jian Nian’s ward, then only to sit down again with a slightly strange expression on his face.

“Ability? Abilities that can evolve?” Shen Si muttered, “No way, in that case, it can’t be the ability to enter playfields, right? …I don’t want that at all.”

… 

He Xin gave Jian Nian an examination, and didn’t get close to Shen Si, but scanned with the device from two meters away. Then he looked at the image and data above, constantly recording it on paper, while occasionally also tsking. The doctors around him looked at each other, but in the end, they couldn’t understand what He Xin was looking at.

But He Xin seemed to have completely figured out what was going on with Jian Nian.

“Let him sleep.” He Xin organized the recorded data, then picked up the device and went outside.

The doctor in charge of Jian Nian followed him, “Team Leader, can you at least tell me what’s going on with him?”

“His ability has evolved, it’s not a problem.” He Xin explained to the doctor as he walked, “The God of Light snatched the original God of Light’s divine body in the playfield, Xi Luo stole the boss’ authority of the playfield, so this itself is the means of evolution of their ability. For Jian Nian, eating something with sufficient weight is the standard for the evolution of his ability. Although the process is difficult, when successful, it is completely beneficial and harmless to him.”

The doctor was also a Survivor, and he knew quite a lot about Survivors and their abilities. Hearing He Xin explain, he also understood, so the doctor nodded his head, “I understand, thank you, Team Leader He.”

“It’s okay, it’s my job.” He Xin walked out with the device, then threw that document to Shen Si who was sitting on the chair, “Shen Si, come with me.”

As he picked up the materials thrown on the chair, Shen Si stood up from the bench. He turned his head to look at Jian Nian, who was still sleeping, and then sighed slightly, following He Xin, who did not wait for him at all. He Xin walked fast and steady, not caring whether Shen Si would follow or not.

He was really a team leader ready for action.

With the documents, he walked to the office of the Special Unit. In the office, Ning Yangze and Xia Leyu were sorting through files. Their tables were piled full of white paper, four or five computers had their screens lit up full of data and text. When they suddenly heard the door open, they were both so startled that they jumped.

When coming to the office of the Special Unit, generally people would knock on the door, and if someone didn’t knock and barged straight in, it meant that there was an emergency. This time they were so shocked, that they almost bounced up from their chair and flew out instantly just now.

“It’s you.” Ning Yang Ze sighed, “How is Jian Nian?”

“It’s fine, his ability has upgraded. It’s a good thing.” He Xin put the device in his hand on the table, then took the file from Shen Si, “It’s just as well that you two are also here, let’s give Shen Si a checkup together. Our Inspection Unit’s newly created machine can definitely detect his ability!”

Hearing about the latest machine, Xia Leyu’s eyes were bright, he left everything on the table and ran over, “Team Leader He, how does this work?”

Shen Si looked at these three people, then pulled out a chair to sit down. It’d be best to let these three people do their own thing, since it seemed they completely ignored him, but it was normal. The Special Unit and Inspection Unit were busy and working overtime every day, naturally they had no time to pay more attention to him.

With this thought, a red dot suddenly shone into Shen Si’s eyes. Shen Si subconsciously closed his eyes, since it was a little uncomfortable.i

“Bear with it a little, don’t close your eyes.” He Xin looked at the data on the machine, “It will be measured soon.”

About ten seconds later, the machine emitted a dinging sound, like a mosquito buzzing, and the red dot disappeared, Xia Leyu leaned in to check the results. A moment later he raised his head with a frown, “This also says he does not have any abilities?”

“Although his mental powers are stronger, it is not over the value of ordinary people. It is an ordinary, tougher number.”

He Xin nodded, “Indeed, it looks too normal.”

“Moreover, Night’s people are coming, you two hurry up and do the business first.” Ning Yangze documents were sorted, then he politely sent Shen Si out. Ning Yangze then hurried back, looking like he was still in a hurry to finish his documents.

Although he inexplicably came over, it didn’t matter, he didn’t have anything to do anyway.

Shen Si walked out with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, head down and walked to the corner. Pedestrians came out of the corner past him towards the walkway.

Those people were wearing uniform black suits. The person at the front, was not only wearing a red rose on his chest, but also wearing a high hat, and looked like a magician. Watching them walk into the office of the Special Unit, Shen Si turned back to look out the window.

Everything was bare, in deep winter. The weather was cold but there wasn’t any snow, only two sparrows squatting on the branches were frozen and shivering… 

Sparrows?

Shen Si walked to the window, and at that moment, the sparrows suddenly fluttered up. Sparrows usually huddle together to keep warm and rarely chirp while flying away unless threatened. Their feathers fell down as they flapped their wings.

What happened?

The organization Night had come this time to sign a cooperation contract with the Special Unit, so the Inspection Unit leader and Night’s boss needed to be present. The Inspection Unit was in their busiest time, and needed to do this fast. After the start of the cooperation, they could more quickly determine the playfields opening time and conditions, as far as possible to avoid more people being victimized.

“There’s a person who can detect the arrival of a playfield opening?” He Xin opened his mouth and went straight to the point, “Which one is it?” 

The woman behind Yang Yi came out, and smiled generously towards everyone, “Hello everyone of the Special Unit and Inspection Unit, my name is Sun Zhi, the playfield that was featured in the news, its opening was detected by me.”

Looking at this woman, He Xin nodded, “Okay, I understand. To ensure the accuracy of your ability, can you say where the next playfield will open in the near future? I want to compare it with the information calculated by the Inspection Unit.”

Sun Zhi smiled with ease. Yang Yi told her about this, so she used her ability to confirm the times for the organization, but also for their own sake. She could make He Xin believe in her. She closed her eyes and began to use her ability to detect again.

“The playfield that is about to open is at…” Her voice abruptly stopped and Sun Zhi opened her eyes with a jerk, her eyes filled with horror. “How could this happen!”

“What’s wrong?” Yang Yi placed his hand on Sun Zhi’s shoulder from behind, with worry in his voice, “What happened?”

“The playfield opening time: in three seconds; location: under our feet.”

Xia Leyu snapped open his eyes, he quickly shoved everyone out of the way, and within two seconds pushed open the office door and scampered into the corridor. In the corridor outside the office, Shen Si stood at the window, looking out. The sparrows outside the window were acting like they had met a natural enemy and were constantly flapping. It seemed that the sound startled Shen Si, before he looked over towards Xia Leyu.

The moment he turned his head, a large black wall quickly popped out from the ground, as if it was a magical pea in a fairy tale, and in an instant the entire building of the Special Unit was wrapped up airtight.

“What?” Shen Si was so shocked that he took two steps back.

The people in the office followed Xia Leyu out, and He Xin and Ning Yangze looked at Shen Si as if they were looking at some magical creature.

“This is the fourth playfield.” He Xin took out the documents to add a number, “This matter once again answers to the fact that Shen Si must have the ability that we don’t know about, it’s not a matter of coincidence.”

“But this… this is the Special Unit ah!” Ning Yangze was frantic, “Why is there a playfield open in an absolutely safe place like the headquarters of the Special Unit Headquarters?! This is not scientific!”