Jian Xing

thank you‌⁠​⁠‍‍‌‍‌‌​⁠⁠‌‌⁠⁠‌​‌​​‌‍ everyone for all the comments <3 here’s an extra chapter~~ (i was in the middle of translating it when the eletric power box exploded but now the energy is back!)

When An Yu woke up, he was lying on the ground.

Outside, the snowstorm hadn’t ceased, and sunlight pierced through the hail, casting faint light onto the old floor of the activity room.

He felt something elastic beneath his neck—he was resting his head on a plump octopus tentacle, which curved around him and  held tightly in his embrace.

An Yu abruptly sat up.

Qin Zhilu sat beside him on the floor, one leg bent, a wooden guitar from the activity room casually resting on his lap. “Awake so soon?” he asked, a hint of surprise in his voice. “You only slept for two hours.”

“Hmm…” An Yu, still clutching the tentacle, was dazed for a moment before saying, “It seems that every time I am on a mission, I can’t sleep for a long time.”

“Looks like your sleeping sickness has its own rules, only acting up in safe environments.”

“Maybe…” Although he hadn’t slept long, An Yu’s mind was still a bit muddled. He recalled the battlefield before he passed out. “Where are they?”

“They went to track the protected person on the second level. Since we didn’t know how long you’d be unconscious, we split up.”

“Oh…” An Yu rubbed his aching temples, trying to retrieve his last memories before falling asleep. “How’s Jiang Xiao?”

“His mental power is a bit unstable. The shattering sound when an aberrant dies impacts everyone’s psyche, and Jiang Xiao reacted more strongly than others. He needs to calm down for a bit,” Qin Zhilu said. ” There is a little bit left that hadn’t healed, but Fengjian fixed him up.”

An Yu remembered the fluffy dandelions and sighed. “Fengjian’s healing speed is a bit slow. But he’s highly ranked on the Ladder. He said before that he’s good at ‘blood locking,’ and he can set the blood line.”

“Indeed,” Qin Zhilu said casually. “I haven’t been on a mission with him, but it’s said he can really do it. Although his normal healing speed is slow, once he sets a blood line, if life drops below that line, no matter how great the deficit, he can instantly pull it back above the blood line.”

“Instantly?” An Yu asked, surprised. “How does he do that?”

Qin Zhilu shook his head. “Many Protectors are unwilling to disclose the details of their abilities. It’s their personal privacy, and the Black Tower helps them keep it secret. I have no right to know either.”

An Yu could only nod in a daze. The Commander always seemed to be like this. Although he was the highest authority in the Spire, and there would be no secrets if he wanted to know them, he remained indifferent to many things, such as the privacy of other Protectors and the Poet’s reasons for avoiding him.

The white glove rested on the soundboard of the wooden guitar. Just like the previous night in the activity room on the first level, Qin Zhilu simply held them casually. Though he wasn’t playing, the strings seemed to have a natural sense of familiarity in his hands.

Driven by a sudden impulse, An Yu unexpectedly asked, “Can you play?”

Qin Zhilu paused. “It’s been a long time since I played. I might have forgotten.” He casually placed the guitar aside and hooked a backpack against the wall. “Slade left all the food he brought for you, hoping to earn your forgiveness.”

An Yu’s spirits immediately lifted at the mention of food.

The Spire’s Protectors liked to carry energy bars during missions. Although they’re essentially still compressed food, they were rich in sugar and nutrients, and the taste was quite good.

An Yu consecutively tore open three bars, held them together and chewed them in large bites, like he was eating coarse bread.

The sticky sweetness burst in his mouth and made him feel exceptionally safe.

Qin Zhilu had originally torn one open, but when he saw how he was eating it, he put it back in silence.

An Yu mumbled indistinctly, “You don’t need to save any for me.”

“I just suddenly lost my appetite.” Qin Zhilu reached out and tore open the remaining dozen or so energy bars one after another, and pushed them towards him. “Eat slowly. You’re not an orphan anymore; no one will collect protection food from you.”

An Yu’s chewing suddenly paused at those words. After a moment of silence, he fixed his gaze on two of the nutrient bars, deciding to secretly save them. The Commander was his protector now, and for safety’s sake, it couldn’t hurt to leave two for the Commander.

This was the survival instinct of a weak creature: even if they weren’t full, they always kept some food on hand for whoever might collect “protection food” from them.

Qin Zhilu, completely unaware of his thought process, pulled out two pages from the nearby documents beside him and handed them over. “Look at this.”

These were the textual records they had just retrieved from the medical examination capsule, containing the health records of everyone on the second level.

“Both the aberrants and humans have records. Aberrants were only tested once after the Mirror descended, while humans are monitored weekly,” Qin Zhilu explained. “I’ve roughly scanned them. Only these two are relatively special.”

The first page had only a few lines of text.

[No.] 21371115

[Name] Jian Xing

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[Physical Characteristics] Human body, refused detailed examination.

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[Name] A-Yue

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“Refused examination…” An Yu was stunned for a long time. “Then he should have been killed by an aberrant long ago, right?”

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Jian Xing, A-Yue.

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“So, Jian Xing is very likely the key to this level,” Qin Zhilu pointed to another paper. “And he might be the one protected by Jian Xing, just like Sisi was to Chen Nian.”

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“Yes. Coincidentally, it’s the exact location you and Law are currently in,” Slade paused. “Based on the time, he should be having lunch in the cafeteria now. We might not make it in time, but you’re very close to the cafeteria.”

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Qin Zhilu paused for a moment, considering. “It’s fine. It might not attract their attention.”

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“Probably. I’m not completely full, actually,” An Yu mumbled softly. “In District 53, you scolded me for testing my ability without restraint, but just now, you seemed to have even less of a bottom line.”

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Qin Zhilu couldn’t help but curve his lips, urging, “Hurry up.”

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Ling Qiu had indeed said that bigshots could go back on their word and do as they pleased, but the Commander’s sudden contradictions came too quickly, making him feel a bit… humiliated.

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“Grape said that the supervised subject and the supervising Commander are equal in terms of human dignity,” An Yu paused. “Although you are a noble and powerful person from Main City, and I’m just a commoner from Bait City, we have now established this relationship of equality in dignity. You should show me basic respect.”

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It turns out that there is no such thing as equal status of dignity.

However, after a few steps, Qin Zhilu’s voice suddenly sounded in his earpiece again. This time, his tone was very serious. “I just wanted to test if, when we’re close enough to each other, those aberrants can still be attracted to you. Or rather, are they perceiving you or the terrifying existence that Chen Nian mentioned?”

An Yu’s steps abruptly halted.

Chen Nian was able to perceive things in the cafeteria, near the sleeping nest, and when they first went underground. At moments, without exception, the Commander was folded up by him in small spaces close to his body.

And, as luck would have it, just as the Commander was released outside the reading room, right before Chen Nian’s final killing, the sensation of Chen Nian’s presence vanished.

Qin Zhilu said calmly, “You barely attracted the aberrants’ attention on the first level because whenever aberrants were present, I was folded up by you, right?”

An Yu’s back stiffened. “What… does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” Qin Zhilu said calmly. “But it’s too much of a coincidence. If we don’t confirm this hypothesis, I’ll be a bit uneasy.”

It was peak lunchtime, and the cafeteria was bustling with people. Due to the large number of massive aberrant supervisors on the second level, the cafeteria felt particularly crowded.

The moment An Yu entered, all the aberrants almost simultaneously froze. No matter what they were doing, they all stopped in unison, cautiously and confusedly looking around, as if timidly searching for something. The supervised human children, however, remained oblivious, continuing to silently get their food and eat.

“Indeed,” Qin Zhilu said in the earpiece. “Chen Nian didn’t lie. All the aberrants can sense that immense, terrifying presence, and it’s hard to connect you to it based solely on your appearance.”

“If they keep searching like this, they’ll eventually discover that feeling comes from me,” An Yu whispered. “We need to find Jian Xing quickly.”

“Hmm. Look at your ten o’clock, in the corner. If I’m not mistaken, that’s Jian Xing,” Qin Zhilu paused. “That… white-haired little boy.”

An Yu looked up and met Jian Xing’s gaze for a fleeting moment. In that instant, Jian Xing expressionlessly shifted his gaze, while An Yu froze.

At first glance, Jian Xing indeed showed no signs of abnormality, looking no different from the most ordinary human children in the orphanage. But his complexion was exceptionally pale, as if he suffered from severe malnutrition, and his white hair messily covered his cheeks. Beneath the messy hair, his dark circles were deep, making his golden eyes appear very hollow. He sat in the corner, silently chewing on compressed biscuits, his oversized orphanage uniform trailing countless loose threads.

“Very much like you,” Qin Zhilu paused. “Although I don’t know what you were like before you were eight, he’s… very similar.”

Aside from hair and eye color, his facial features weren’t actually similar to An Yu’s, but the strong sense of déjà vu came from his demeanor.

That extremely solitary, empty yet focused gaze, that desperate temperament like a little animal.

If there had to be a difference, An Yu’s gaze was more like a blank canvas, while Jian Xing’s was like a paper that had rolled in dust, stained with some gloom.

Qin Zhilu said, “The aberrants are indeed keeping their distance from him.”

“Mm…” An Yu’s gaze fell on the person beside him. “Only that person is an exception.”

The cafeteria was packed, but there were many empty tables around Jian Xing. The only one willing to sit near him was another boy, who looked to be about his age, sitting at the table to his right. He broke off a large portion of his biscuit and placed it on Jian Xing’s table.

Jian Xing frowned and pushed it away; the boy pushed it back. They went back and forth for a long time, until Jian Xing irritably threw the biscuit away.

The boy good-naturedly trotted over, picked up the biscuit, wiped it twice with his hand, and put it into his own mouth. As he turned around, An Yu saw the mark on the back of his clothing: 21370226, A-Yue.

“Your hypothesis seems to be completely true,” Qin Zhilu said.

An Yu frowned. “But Commander, he’s just like Chen Nian; I can’t see any signs of distortion in him at all.”

As he spoke, Jian Xing had already risen, carrying his tray towards the return station. Seeing this, A-Yue quickly gulped down the remaining half-bowl of nutrient soup and followed.

All the aberrants they passed silently made way for them. Jian Xing’s expression was gloomy as he swiftly moved through the crowd.

Passing by the restroom entrance, An Yu suddenly noticed something was amiss.

The restroom had no windows or lights, and the open door revealed only darkness. But as Jian Xing passed by the entrance, it suddenly lit up, and as Jian Xing’s figure moved past, the light slowly diminished until it disappeared.

Everyone in the cafeteria seemed to be accustomed to this. Once they left, everyone turned their eyes away and continued eating.

An Yu said in a daze, “This is…”

“Another material type mutation,” Qin Zhilu murmured, thoughtfully. “It seems he fused with… the light?”

An Yu stood frozen, unable to speak. If Jian Xing himself was a light, then the protective mechanism the Mirror imposed on him could never be broken—not even if he went to the dark underground like Chen Nian.

There was no way to kill Jian Xing.