Chapter 20: Interview
“Gah! Ahhhh…” Fat Jun hysterically yelled and squirmed with his fat body for about eight seconds until he settled down.
“I’m…not dead?” Panting, Fat Jun looked down. The bullet had hit his right arm, but strangely, it wasn’t bleeding. There was only a black hole in it.
Then his right arm began to melt and ferment until finally, it gurgled and turned into a big lump of flesh, vomiting the bullet out with a sputter.
A few seconds later, it turned back to normal.
The other three saw all that happen.
Officer Huang put away his gun. “Your arm is a monster’s, Fat Jun. According to what I know about Talents, not one grants such strange transformation power.” He rubbed at his temple with his thumb and said with a frown, “But you are still human at the moment.”
“At the moment?” Fat Jun slumped.
Officer Huang sighed and turned to Gao Yang. “What do you think?”
“Brother Yang! Save me, Brother Yang…” Fat Jun was on the verge of bursting into tears. “I know you won’t give up on me. You saved Brother Kai too, right? You won’t let me be killed, will you?”
“We’ll spare him for now,” said Gao Yang.
“Why?” Wang Zikai was a little disappointed. “There’s no use keeping him alive. Might as well kill him.”
“I’m not useless!” Fat Jun yelled. “I’m more useful than you! You, you…” In the end, he managed to swallow the word ‘wanderer’.
Gao Yang shot him a look. “The transformation of his arm must have something to do with the white cat’s bite. If it spreads to other parts of his body, we can always kill him then. If it’s only limited to the arm, though, Fat Jun is more valuable to us alive.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Fat Jun jumped to defend himself, driven by his will to survive. “I can heal! I’m the only healer in this group! I’m valuable!”
Officer Huang thought for a moment. “Alright. Keep him tied up. We’ll observe him for a few days.”
Then he turned to Wang Zikai. “We’ll entrust this honorable and difficult mission to you. Make sure he has enough food and water. Don’t starve him.”
“Leave it to me.” Wang Zikai thumped himself on the chest and broke into a smirk. “I’ll make sure to take good care of him!”
…
Gao Yang, Wang Zikai, and Officer Huang returned to the living room.
Time flew without them noticing. It was already five o’clock in the morning, and dawn was arriving. Looking out of the window, they could see the prosperous riverside. The three of them sat down on bean bags and each drinking a can of beer, watching the scintillating river slowly turn from dark blue to a soft pink under the dawning sun.
After some discussion, Officer Huang concluded, “I’ve never seen something like Fat Jun. He isn’t a monster, I don’t think. At least not now.”
“Maybe the white cat that bit him is a monster?” Gao Yang wondered out loud, his head lowered. “I thought monsters only pretend to be humans, but do they pretend to be animals too? And can you turn into monsters after getting bitten? Like the case with zombies?”
“I don’t know.” Officer Huang shook his head. “My handler told me that there are more than delusion monsters and wrath monsters in this world… What we know is but the tip of the iceberg.”
Officer Huang glanced at Wang Zikai.
He had fallen asleep sinking in the beanbag and even started snoring, exhausted after being overly excited the whole night, as well as transforming partly in the earlier fight.
“Your friend…seems to be a new kind of delusion monster.”
Gao Yang nodded.
He had noticed the difference between Wang Zikai and Old Man Liu.
Old Man Liu ignored and filtered out any verbal information regarding monsters. As for how images of or personal experience with monsters would affect him, it was still a mystery. However, Officer Huang speculated that wanderers like him would go berserk and fully transform under such stimulus.
Wang Zikai, however, didn’t filter out any information, be it verbal or visual information about monsters, or personal experience. Instead, he remembered, understood, and rationalized everything. He never thought he was a monster and believed he was human. Could it really be entirely attributed to…his lack of a functional brain?
“I don’t know if this is just a feeling of mine,” Officer Huang said wryly. “Since meeting you, I feel like the world has been getting more and more dangerous. It’s like a precarious balance is being broken, and things are going off rail. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt like this since my awakening, and it’s been years.”
Gao Yang wasn’t sure what to say.
“I’ve run into my fair share of awakeners.” Officer Huang took out a pack of cigarettes. “Some are strong, some are weak, some are reckless, some are cautious, some are crazy, some are cold-blooded…”
He narrowed his eyes. “They all died, one way or another.”
Gao Yang quietly waited for him to continue.
“There’s something different about you.” Officer Huang glanced at him. “Something that sets you apart.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, I think you’ll live for a long time.”
“Really?” Gao Yang perked up. Honestly, he was afraid of death. Death meant losing everything. There would always be hope as long as he was alive.
“So…” Officer Huang lowered his voice. “I think I’m in great danger.”
“Why?”
“I read a lot of manga when I was young. Usually, the one who lives a long time is the protagonist, while everyone around the protagonists dies early…”
Gao Yang sweated. You’re right, and I can’t argue with you. I am different from others. First, I transmigrated into this world. Then I got a strange system when I awakened. If I am to put aside my shame, I’ll call that protagonist privileges. However, it may turn out to be survivorship bias. Perhaps there are tens of thousands of transmigrators. Perhaps I’m not the first, nor would I be the last.
Gao Yang’s mind wandered a little.
Officer Huang got to his feet. “I’ve decided. I’m going to keep my distance from you.”
“What?” Gao Yang was taken by surprise. “Don’t abandon me, Officer Huang.”
“I don’t mean it like that.” Officer Huang took a drag of his cigarette and smiled cryptically. “I mean we should join the organization as soon as possible. Then you’ll have more companions by your side, and statistically, the risk of me meeting an untimely demise will be lower.”
Gao Yang was speechless. You act more like the transmigrator, sir!
Officer Huang took out a post-it note and a pen, jotting down a time and an address quickly. “Twelve o’clock tonight. Come with Qing Ling. I’ll take you to the interview.”
“Okay!” Gao Yang took the note.
…
After a short rest at Wang Zikai’s place, Gao Yang went to school.
Wang Zikai stayed behind to keep an eye on Fat Jun and cultivated in the meantime. Due to him entering SEED mode last night[1], Wang Zikai believed he was finally seeing the result of his cultivation and became highly motivated to keep cultivating. It seemed Gao Yang could keep him out of trouble a few more days with that.
After the morning self-study, Gao Yang called Qing Ling to the rooftop and gave her a summarized version of what happened last night. Of course, he did his best to downplay Wang Zikai’s contribution.
Qing Ling didn’t comment on that.
Then later that morning, Gao Yang went to Wan Sisi, the English student assistant, to ask about a few English problems. Wan Sisi was pleasantly surprised and answered his questions enthusiastically. Afterwards, she invited Gao Yang to have lunch together, along with other classmates, of course.
Gao Yang accepted and spent an enjoyable lunchtime with his classmates—it was enjoyable on the surface, at least. They bought the story that he had been keeping distance with them because he was too heartbroken about Li Weiwei’s death.
Nothing unusual happened in the afternoon.
The same was true of the evening self-study.
After that, Gao Yang and Qing Ling met up in an alleyway near the school. It had become a meeting spot for them. The moment he saw Qing Ling, Gao Yang made to take off his clothes.
“No need for that,” said Qing Ling.
“We aren’t disguising ourselves today?” Gao Yang was a little surprised.
“Yeah.” Qing Ling took a look at the note. “The address is Huangsong Street 121, Feiyang District. It’s too far away and on the other side of the bridge. We can’t walk there.”
“What then?”
Qing Ling gave it some thought. “Then we’ll just take the last metro with a good cover story.”
“Alright.”
They walked out of the alley. Qing Ling put her arms around Gao Yang’s and rested her head on his shoulder, like a girl snuggling her boyfriend. “We’ll pretend to be dating and stealing time to stay together[2]. That’ll rationalize our behavior.”
“Okay.” Gao Yang wasn’t going to oppose that. Surrounded by monsters, he couldn’t feel safer with a pretty and powerful bodyguard holding him.
They took the metro and emerged in Feiyang District in Riverwest after half an hour. Then they walked for another twenty minutes or so. Qing Ling stopped at a street selling late night snacks and bought malatang—she really had a thing for malatang!
Huangsong Street sat in an old neighborhood waiting for renewal. The street was lined with two-story and three-story cement buildings. The storefronts had long closed. The road hadn’t been maintained for a long time and was covered in bumps and holes. Many of the streetlamps weren’t working either, and Gao Yang was sure the cameras must have all been conveniently damaged.
They walked along the street checking the door plates. Soon, they found number 121.
It was an unassuming place. The rusty roller door was half open. Inside was a piece of blue fabric common for old storefronts. The light was flickering, and the sound of fighting and explosions could be heard. Gao Yang vaguely made out the old arcade machines.
“I didn’t know arcades like this still exist.” Gao Yang loved arcades when he was young. Five cents would last him the whole morning. Of course, he was terrible at the games. Usually, he would stand behind the older boys and watch how they won the game with only one token. Thinking back, that could be considered the start of game streamers.
“Come. Let’s go.” Qing Ling put on a mask.
“Wait,” Gao Yang said.
“What?”
“Give me the time of a song.[3]”
1. A reference to Gundam. SEED mode is when a person, usually a mecha pilot, exceeds their physical and mental limits. The term is then used generally to refer to someone demonstrating power beyond their limits. ☜
2. It’s generally frowned upon in China for students to date before college. There’s the term ‘zao lian’ that was coined because of that, meaning dating young when students should be focusing on studying. ☜
3. A reference to singer/songwriter Jay Chou’s Give Me the Time of a Song. ☜
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