Stop playing with the octopus

The eastern⁠⁠​‍⁠‍‍‍⁠‍⁠‍​​⁠​‌​⁠‍⁠​‍⁠ side of District 34 was a dense industrial zone, and there were many people in situations similar to the little boy’s. Injuries sustained by workers during their labor would never heal and each time reset would return them to their injured state. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it was an endless reliving of their pain.

Minor injuries and illnesses were one thing; the most pitiful case was a man who had lost half his hand to a malfunctioning machine. When An Yu’s team passed by, he was sitting on the street, listlessly tossing a knife in the air with a vacant stare.

Qin Zhilu spoke in the team’s public channel: “I just confirmed with High Peak. The people at the District 34 communications center have also lost their concept of time. The strange thing is, they were completely unaware of it until they were reminded. High Peak appended the time information to a communication, but the line of text disappeared when they received it. The digital time that should have been displayed during their normal internet usage was also wiped clean. Right now, the Main City can only convey the time verbally.”

“To think there are people completely unaware that the measurement of time has vanished.” An Yu’s gaze swept over the several people on the street staring blankly at their wounds. A silent tragedy was unfolding in the city. He said softly, “It seems the degree to which everyone is affected is different.”

Qin Zhilu continued, “This super-aberrant is incapable of creating a complete space-time disorder; it cannot block communications. Inflicting different degrees of time plunder on different people is likely its method of preventing the anomaly from being detected.”

He switched to a private channel with An Yu. “You’ve also undergone the full sequence of gene induction experiments. Did you ever lose your perception of time?”

An Yu pulled his gaze away from a grocery store on the side of the street—inside the open door, the shop owner was weeping, but as far as the eye could see, he had no obvious physical injuries.

“No, I only felt immense pain, and I was constantly trying to stop my heart from bursting out of my body,” An Yu said calmly. “Have you, Commander?”

Qin Zhilu let out a soft “Mm.” “I have.”

He rustled some papers, his tone peaceful as ever, as if he were talking about someone else. “Do you remember when I told you that when I was sixteen, I was briefly blind for four hours after a gene injection?”

An Yu stopped at the entrance of the grocery store. “I remember. The second-to-last door.”

“What door?”

An Yu quickly said, “It’s nothing…”

Fortunately, Qin Zhilu didn’t press the matter. “During those four hours, I also lost my perception of time. I thought at least a few days, or even months, had passed. Time is not an objective entity. When you lose your perception of time, the suffering you endure comes from your inner demons. Perhaps it’s because you have absolute mental stability that you weren’t affected.”

An Yu stepped into the grocery store.

The owner was a middle-aged man. His mother had died in the last plague, but with the disappearance of time-keeping devices, he could no longer say exactly how many days ago she had passed.

He looked down at his fingernails, which were caked with black grime. “I can’t control it. Every time I think the grief is about to subside, it comes rushing back. I went to the hospital to see a psychiatrist…” He trembled, putting a nail in his mouth to chew on it. “They said there was nothing wrong with me, that it’s normal for people to be like this after losing a loved one.”

A trace of pity appeared in Ning’s eyes. He said to An Yu in a low voice, “It seems that not only visible wounds, but even inner pain cannot escape its perception.”

Qin Zhilu explained in the team channel, “He was one of the first people to show signs of mental abnormality. According to the data, the first anomalies appeared three months ago.”

Lumen, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up. “Did anything happy happen during this period?”

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The man’s eyes were somewhat vacant. He stared blankly for a long while before saying, “It’s hard to say. I feel like my life is a rope that’s been cut up into a mess. Some knots have vanished into thin air, and others keep repeating.”

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He paused after speaking, he was momentarily stunned. A moment later, he remembered that the Commander had said those words at the orphanage, when he had covered An Yu’s eyes and taught him to block out interference and focus on perception.

Don't scrape

Don't copy

An Yu touched his earpiece. “Commander? Are you alright?”

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“High Peak just released Corner’s previous combat footage,” Qin Zhilu said. “They’ve finished the hidden records from the orphanage and are now watching the clip of him ascending to the heavens in the District 53’s slums.”

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“……”

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“One Jiang Xiao has left, but it’s expected that many more Jiang Xiaos will appear in the Spire.”

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The earpiece went quiet. Just as he stepped into the hospital, he heard Qin Zhilu continue reading in an unruffled tone: “The latest piece of divine nonsense about you—[Aegis of the Divine]: Those who faithfully worship Corner will receive the supreme protection of the divine in battle. Their wounds will heal at an accelerated rate, and attacks against them will be twisted into another dimension. Through their worship of Him, the people will become omnipotent.”

An Yu’s face went blank.

“It is a bit better, actually,” Qin Zhilu commented objectively. “The wording is slightly exaggerated, but it’s not entirely baseless.”

An Yu silently poked the octopus chibi on his screen.

“Stop playing with the octopus,” Qin Zhilu’s tone suddenly turned serious. “From the surveillance feed, the hospital is far more crowded than usual; it’s already operating beyond capacity. Find out what’s going on.”

“Oh, okay,” An Yu immediately pocketed his terminal, but he couldn’t resist asking, “But can you please stop reading my chats with the AI whenever you feel like it?”

“You were really playing with an octopus?” Qin Zhilu, who had just sat down at his desk, raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t reading. I was just bluffing.”

An Yu: ?

The back entrance of the hospital opened into a corridor cluttered with miscellaneous items. An and his recording drone were stopped at the corridor’s entrance, feeling embarrassed..

Just beyond the door, the place was a cacophony of voices.

The entire hall was packed with people, the queues winding around in circles. An Yu followed the lines with his eyes for a long time before realizing that the vast majority of people were waiting for the “Dermatology and Infectious Skin Diseases” department. He scanned the crowd but saw nothing unusual about their skin.

Qin Zhilu reminded him, “The first group of people who were considered mentally abnormal are on the fourth floor.”

An Yu hesitated. “But these people…”

Qin Zhilu said, “A mass outbreak of skin disease is indeed strange, but for now, it doesn’t seem connected to the mission. Put it aside for the moment. Getting sidetracked is inevitable; you need to learn to focus on the core objective.”

An Yu turned and walked toward the stairwell. “Understood, Commander.”

Flame, following behind him, let out a chuckle. “Corner is surprisingly obedient.”

Qin Zhilu said calmly, “There are times when he’s disobedient, too. He gets pretty wild when he acts up.”

“Oh?” Flame glanced at Lumen. “I never really thought you would take on a supervised subject before. So it’s hard to imagine what you would do when the little one misbehaves.”

Qin Zhilu said, “I let him be.”

Lumen turned his head and shot him a glance, his eyes cold and defiant.