Missing beats
by M1zushi
Click.
Dr. Lao snapped the meal box shut and walked out of the hospital room, holding the empty box and wooden spoon in one hand.
The fourth floor was deathly silent. The stench of blood in the air was so thick it made him dry-heave. But as he retched, he suddenly chuckled twice, as if recalling some absurd scene. He continued to count “Tick, tick, tick” even as he coughed and choked.
Several corpses lay on the floor. After the pustules on their bodies burst, they left behind ugly post-mortem sores.
The nurses were all long dead. He carried the meal box to the washroom by himself and then returned to the pharmacy.
“Tick, tick, tick…”
The frequency never changed, but his tone became cheerful, as if he were singing.
The little girl was dead on the examination bed. Under the toppled medicine rack on the floor, there were also specks of blood. His blood. He rolled up his sleeve and looked at the scars left by the burst pustules on his own body. The scars had already shriveled and scabbed over, as if it were nothing more than a case of chickenpox.
“C4720, D792A8, that’s right!” He suddenly switched to counting by tapping his fingers, jumping up and pointing at the little girl, shouting with a laugh, “But one is missing! We still need to add B1825X to completely inhibit the receptor cell enzyme activity and cut off the infection process!” He rushed over and vigorously kneaded the little girl’s swollen, deformed face, saying affectionately, “Baby, thank you. B1825X is a very basic agent. The first two are the potent ones. I didn’t dare test them on myself. Thank goodness there was another early-stage ‘lucky one’ on the fourth floor besides me! You’re as fortunate as Zhong Ke, destined to be a pioneer for a great medicine!”
He began to sing happily in the room like an old child, hopping over to the window with a “Tick, tick, tick.” A water ant slammed into the glass from outside with a thud. A aberrant sonic wave penetrated the walls and floor. He immediately crouched down, clutching his temples in pain as his body twitched slightly.
But amidst the convulsions, he suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter. “Those idiots from the Main City!”
Still laughing, he lay down in the pool of blood on the floor, relaxing and spreading his body out. He closed his eyes and continued to chant softly, “Tick, tick, tick.”
After a long time, the water ants left. Only then did he suddenly open his eyes, his gaze exceptionally clear.
His throat was already hoarse. He switched back to counting by tapping his fingers. His sunken eyes looked out at the heavy rain, and he muttered, “How did those stupid things seem to find the entrance…”
He shot up abruptly, sprinting out of the hospital and wading through the gore of blood and minced flesh. He pried open a car door in the pouring rain and floored the accelerator. His head slammed against the windshield, bleeding profusely, but he paid it no mind.
He sped all the way to Zhong’s Antique Shop. Staring at the spatial boundary revealed behind the piano, he sneered, “Just as I thought. Once you’re in, don’t come out. You’ll forever be trapped in the time of District 34’s worthless dogs. Millions of timelines, savor them well.”
As he spoke, he picked up the metronome, glanced at the slider resting at the 60 mark, and wound the spring twice.
The pendulum began to swing from side to side. His fingers tapped lightly in time with the metronome’s beat. When the pendulum stopped, he naturally picked up where it left off.
“Tick, tick, tick, tick…”
He counted aloud, excitedly watching the spatial entrance behind the piano slowly close. Then, he casually lifted the piano bench lid and took out a photo frame.
Zhong Ke’s black-and-white funeral portrait.
He tapped his left index finger cheerfully, his right thumb gently stroking Zhong Ke’s face. He closed his eyes, recalling the scene of Zhong Ke’s death.
The young man behind the oxygen mask, on the verge of death, stared at him. Amidst the dull sounds of the monitoring equipment, despair flowed in those eyes. Zhong Ke weakly reached out and hooked his finger.
A silent plea.
He lowered his head, smiling broadly. “For those destined to die in the plague, suffering is a setting preordained fate. Don’t hog your happy times. Leave them, leave them for the lucky ones who can escape the plague. Don’t worry, no matter how heavy the casualties in District 34 are, it will always recover after the disaster subsides. I will always be here, the one who helps redistribute time, who leads people to defeat the plague and welcome the light.”
His consciousness was pulled away from the “Tick, tick, tick” chant.
An Yu opened his eyes. He was still standing in front of the doctor’s screen. On the screen, the doctor was still sitting by the hospital bed, calmly spooning pear pieces into his mouth while facing off against the frenzied water ant aberrants outside the window.
According to the objective world’s timeline, this scene should have happened one or two hours ago, but it was being reset and replayed repeatedly by the screen. If one didn’t immerse their consciousness into Dr. Lao’s timeline, they would never know what happened afterward.
An Yu gazed at the screen, deep in thought. The sound of a gun bolt sliding suddenly made him flinch. He turned his head. Lumen was holding a gun and aimed it directly at the screen.
Rage burned in his bright eyes. He said coldly, “My guess is, regardless of whether we can get out, if we shatter this screen, he will die.”
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The instant his finger squeezed the trigger, a hand suddenly gripped the barrel of the gun.
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Liu Ming frowned and turned to him. “What happened inside follows the objective world’s timeline. It’s all logical. He’s a lunatic! Only those who can be saved are noble, and those who can’t be saved deserve to die—that’s his self-righteous rule!”
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An Yu: “…Don’t play with it. It’s dangerous.”
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An Yu listened to the story again and shook his head. “It’s actually very simple. Whatever happened on this screen, it’s guaranteed to be a trap. As long as we remember that, we won’t be deceived.”
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An Yu thought for a moment and said in a low voice, “Dr. Lao isn’t that kind of person. He’s a doctor with true medical ethics. Although he sensed something was wrong and pretended to be crazy to hide himself, he would still risk his life to save the little girl in a moment of crisis.”
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An Yu pressed his lips together and said nothing.
What he saw on the screen might be false, but his memory regression was definitely real. He had genuinely felt the doctor’s intense guilt for being unable to save Zhong Ke. The doctor couldn’t even bear to look up and meet Zhong Ke’s expectant gaze.
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Qin Zhilu suddenly said, “This story contradicts itself.”
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The channel fell silent. An Yu was stunned for a long moment, then subconsciously poked the octopus chibi on his terminal screen.
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On the private channel, his real Commander said in a low voice, “You did very well. Stick to your judgment. Leave the things that are hard to explain to me. Don’t reveal your memory regression ability so easily.”An Yu gave a very soft “Mm” and whispered, “Thank you, Sir.”
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An Yu put away his terminal and thought. “The super-aberrant’s behavioral pattern.”
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The High Peak paused. “How do you know?”
“There were no living people in Dr. Lao’s ‘memory’,” An Yu said softly. “The hospital was full of corpses. The entire way, we saw no one. The water ant aberrant tide and the plague make this seem reasonable, but I suspect that even if the disaster hadn’t occurred, we still wouldn’t have seen any other living people.”
He paused. “Inside the screen just now, besides Dr. Lao, the only other living person who appeared was Zhong Ke.”
Lumen frowned. “Zhong Ke appeared in his memory.”
An Yu immediately asked, “If this screen can only enact things that happened in the objective world, as an observer, what gives you the right to read someone else’s memories?”
Lumen was at a loss for words, stunned.
An Yu hadn’t been sure earlier if that memory of Zhong Ke’s death was his own ability being triggered again, which was why he hesitated to make a judgment after his consciousness withdrew.
But just now, when Flame reported to High Command, he had also described that memory.
On the screen, Dr. Lao cursed them as “idiots from the Main City.” That was the super-aberrant’s true voice.
He truly had imagined them to be that stupid.
An Yu looked back at Dr. Lao on the screen, who was still staring blankly out the window. An Yu’s gaze was ice-cold.
“This super-aberrant can enter and exit everyone’s timeline at will. If your consciousness also drills in, it can show you a fake play. But it seems to only be able to control the screen’s ‘owner,’ using fragments of their past experiences to piece together a story. It cannot, however, cross screens to pull in other living people to participate. To make the story perfect, it himself must appear as an actor.”
“That is the flaw.”
As soon as his words fell, Dr. Lao’s screen suddenly flickered. The image changed to a little boy, crying and huddled in the corner of a bedroom. That was the screen’s true owner.
Soon, High Peak reported, “This little boy is the doctor’s grandson. It’s highly likely that a large amount of footage of Dr. Lao would appear in his past experiences.”
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, the little boy’s screen time began to reset repeatedly, until the screen filled with garbled static, and a pale face emerged.
Zhong Ke didn’t speak. His face only flashed for an instant amidst the static.
But that venomous smile sent a chill down everyone’s spine.
A few seconds later, another screen nearby began to repeat the same process, followed by the next…
He moved wantonly between the screens, arbitrarily dragging people’s time, plundering and resetting. He tormented the innocent lives of District 34 like a creator who had mastered time.
A challenge was issued to the five Protectors, and to High Peak, Brain, and Spire far away in the Main City.
Amidst the dead silence on the public channel, a very soft, cold laugh was suddenly heard.
An Yu muttered to himself, “Trying to show a fish how to swim.”
That voice stunned High Peak and the Brain far away in the Main City.
That included Qin Zhilu.
This seemed to be the first time they had ever sensed An Yu’s anger.
After a burst of static, Zhong Ke’s face disappeared from one screen. An Yu whipped his head around, as if sensing it. Another screen, far behind him, began to distort abnormally.
Almost instantly, his figure flashed and appeared in front of that screen.
“Then let’s see which of us is faster.”
As he spoke, his fingertips touched the screen, and his consciousness merged.
M1zushi: I’ve added new fanarts from Baidu for SAOR~~ https://chrysanthemumgarden.com/shaor-fanart/
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