AITAMITB Chapter 19

Shen Zhifei: “…”

Helplessly and with a hint of annoyance, she glared at Zhao Xiaokui, walked over, pinched her cheek, found a seat, and said, “Speak.”

Zhao Xiaokui rubbed her face, which was a bit sore from laughing, pulled a chair, and sat across from Shen Zhifei, saying, “Do you remember when I told you before that the authorities probably knew about the existence of superhumans and had formed a superhuman force? I suspect that the two police officers who came today are members of the official superhuman force.”

Shen Zhifei: “Two superhumans?”

“No, one. One of them should be an ordinary person.” Zhao Xiaokui shook her head. “Two people came, a man and a woman. The woman is named Su Mingyue, showing traces of being influenced by superhuman powers but doesn’t possess superhuman abilities herself, so she shouldn’t be a superhuman. The man is named Lin Bai, tall and thin, with moderate physical strength, slightly better than an ordinary person. However, the outward projection of his mental power is almost at the level of a first-tier.”

“On my side, three people came,” Shen Zhifei said. “Two men and one woman. Both men are tall and strong, but I don’t know if they are superhumans. I just feel they are dangerous, giving me a strong sense of oppression. As for the woman, I find her a bit strange. When talking with them, I always inadvertently overlook her. It takes a long time for me to remember her existence.”

Zhao Xiaokui became interested, “So you mean that the woman has a very low presence?”

“Yes, basically as soon as I shift my gaze away from her, within about ten seconds, I completely forget her existence.”

“Can you describe her appearance then?”

“She was wearing a red dress…”

Shen Zhifei suddenly found herself unable to continue her words. She was confident in her memory ability. If she had met someone once, even after many years, she could still recognize them when they met again, and she could even describe the person’s features to others. However, she found that when she tried to recall Hong Ying’s appearance, her mind could only retrieve a blank space, as if trying to see through mist-covered flowers. Except for the vivid red dress, she couldn’t recall any other features.

“…” Shen Zhifei found herself speechless for the second time. “What kind of ability is this? Why is it so strange?”

“It’s not an ability; it’s a kind of innate talent,” Zhao Xiaokui shrugged. “Something jealousy can’t achieve, an inherent talent she probably has a trace of abyssal demon lineage. This kind of inherent invisibility function is likely derived from the Shadowless Demon, a species that is said to have no shadow even in the light and is naturally ignored when being observed, a born assassin.”

“Demon… Are there really demons in the world?” Shen Zhifei looked at Zhao Xiaokui with skepticism.

Zhao Xiaokui rolled her eyes, surprised, “Vampires and mermaids have appeared, so what’s strange about a demon? I thought you had already accepted the worldview setting of this world.”

Shen Zhifei chuckled, gently shaking her head, and said, “It’s not that I can’t accept it; it just feels absurd…”

Yes, absurd.

Mermaids, vampires, and now demons…

These creatures were once only present in literary works and movies and TV shows as if suddenly appearing in the real world, constantly breaking her pre-established understanding.

Who wouldn’t find it absurd?

She now felt like she was having a magnificent yet bizarre dream. Perhaps when she woke up, she would still be lying in bed, preparing to discuss matters related to Rong Zhen with Zhao Xiaokui in the afternoon.

“Get used to it, get used to it…” Zhao Xiaokui patted Shen Zhifei’s shoulder, feeling quite sympathetic.

Who didn’t emerge from the absurdity?

Back then, the first book she opened in the mermaid world was a travelogue written by a sixth-tier wizard. She read it with relish, treating it as a first-person narrative of Western fantasy. It wasn’t until she opened numerous history books that contained similar content that she realized the author’s fantastical plot, which she initially thought was a wild imagination, was not fabricated but based on personal experience.

It’s funny she used to complain about the author exaggerating a red dragon into a celestial being, with rainbow-colored praises echoing through the sky. She thought it would engage in a fierce battle for hundreds of rounds, but in reality, the dragon was intimidating from afar, and she left timidly. Afterward, the author never mentioned the red dragon again. If there was a real-time commentary feature, she probably would have mercilessly criticized the author for describing the red dragon’s appearance and characteristics so dramatically. But what about after learning the truth?

Author, you’re awesome!!!

Dragons… In the records, they are born as first-tier beings, and their rank continuously increases with age. As long as they live long enough, reaching the ninth tier is not an impossible feat for these powerful creatures. According to official records, they are tyrants, dominating rulers. Even a fly flying over their territory would have to leave its wings behind. The fact that the author could encounter a red dragon and retreat unscathed—how cool is that?

After that encounter, Zhao Xiaokui’s heart improved significantly. Even when faced with abyssal demons that feed on human organs, reproduce by parasitizing in the human body, and resemble face-hugging bugs, she could calmly turn the page.

Ah, this damn world.

Without fully understanding the various races, one wouldn’t know how they would die once they stepped outside. Although Zhao Xiaokui didn’t expect to go out, she took the attitude of casually reading Western fantasy and settings as a pastime. She forcibly absorbed the entire library of the mermaid race into her mind.

She vowed that she had never been so diligent and hardworking, not even in her senior year of high school. But thinking about it carefully, it seemed that her diligence in her senior year had little to do with being diligent.

She was a talented student, able to get a decent score with just a little attention to lectures and solving problems. She had low expectations of herself, so she spent her entire senior year in a laid-back manner. While others were waking up at five in the morning and going to bed at twelve, she would arrive punctually at the classroom every day. During self-study sessions, she would secretly sneak out to find a place to embrace her guitar and write songs, dreaming of becoming a generation’s idol god, receiving cheers from the audience.

Who the hell would have thought that, once she crossed over, she would become a mermaid.

In fairy tales, mermaids are said to be born natural singers, with voices possessing the ability to enchant hearts. In Zhao Xiaokui’s eyes, it was all made up. Having spent five years in the deep sea, she never heard anyone singing.

There was no such thing as singing in one place and causing a stir in another. More often than not, it ended up in a brawl, with blood flowing several kilometers away with the ocean currents.

Although everyone was violent, there were plenty of books in the mermaid world.

She didn’t know how they collected them, but books from various races could be found in the mermaid’s library. To read these books, Zhao Xiaokui even taught herself several different languages—learning the languages of gods and demons, she realized how naive she had been to complain about English being anti-human.

Past and future tenses, future and past times, now and future times… Hundreds of tenses, tens of thousands of honorifics. It’s no wonder that many high-end races would at least require a first-tier creature as a subordinate.

With such a low level, it’s probably impossible to even articulate words properly.

Moreover, there’s another advantage to the books in the mermaid world.

One can’t expect a group of mermaids living in the deep sea to read paper books, right? Therefore, the books collected by mermaids are all like jade carvings on stone tablets, where one book is equivalent to one page. No need to flip through; just sweep your mental energy over the stone tablet, and you can easily read its contents.

Zhao Xiaokui doesn’t know if there are paper books in the mermaid world; she hasn’t seen any. However, the effect of these stone tablets is truly impressive. Some are like VR scenes, and clicking inside allows you to see lifelike 3D animations, covering various sensory experiences such as sight, hearing, smell, and touch.

If there’s any downside to these books—

It’s probably that if you encounter one with a seal on the surface, never rely on your high-level hacking skills to blindly decrypt it.

If your level isn’t high enough and you try to pry into information about highly advanced creatures, you’ll either end up dead or insane.

Zhao Xiaokui had experienced near-death once when she unlocked a seemingly safe stone book emitting holy light.

Then, she received a glance from the archangel inside the book and almost died on the spot.

She stumbled out of the library in a daze. Later, she heard that someone had found the book she had opened but left unsealed. They were directly awestruck by the records of high-level creatures inside and died on the spot.

Since that day, Zhao Xiaokui never had that curiosity again.

She didn’t care if others were killed by her actions. Mermaids were naturally cold-blooded, and there was no such thing as camaraderie among them.

She was just afraid of death, afraid that by merely glancing at someone else’s record of high-level creatures, she would die, dying without any value, like a plankton, akin to a speck of dust.

Shen Zhifei was somewhat speechless. She pushed aside Zhao Xiaokui’s hand and asked, “The official authorities are coming. What do you plan to do? Will you contact them? Join them?”

Zhao Xiaokui chuckled lightly, appearing somewhat indifferent. “Do you know what they will think if I voluntarily expose my identity as a supernatural being now?”

“What?”

“They will only think, why didn’t I come out earlier or later but chose to come out precisely when vampires appeared. Is it possible that I am a spy from another country lurking in Hua Nation? They will be wary of me, guard against me, suspect me. If they find out I’m already at the First Order…” Zhao Xiaokui looked out the window. Not far away, through the dense foliage, one could vaguely see the white roof of a villa. In the brief moment they were talking, someone with supernatural fluctuations had moved in there. She withdrew her gaze, looking at Shen Zhifei. “I think they will kill me.”

Shen Zhifei said, “Are you being too suspicious?”

Zhao Xiaokui shook her head. “Not suspicious, you just don’t understand the supernatural world.”

Shen Zhifei was puzzled, and suddenly, Zhao Xiaokui said, “Do you know that when you came back, there was a car following you?”

Seeing Shen Zhifei’s shocked expression, Zhao Xiaokui, sitting in the shadow outside the window, said, “There were three people in that car, probably the three who came to find you. All three of them have supernatural characteristics. One of them felt very special to me. I didn’t dare to sense too much; she might detect it. She’s probably the woman with the low presence that you mentioned.”

“Including the two police officers who came to me today, there are a total of four supernatural beings. Based on their allocation of manpower, they probably treat you as me. They think you dealt with the vampire that night, so they sent three supernatural beings to face you. Even choosing the meeting point at the Shen family, I’m afraid it’s to make you cautious about your identity and not dare to act recklessly.”

“The energy concentration in this world is not high. Even beings like me, who can survive in remote and impoverished areas as First Order creatures, need a significant amount of food to absorb enough energy. From my observations, individuals with extraordinary talents among ordinary people are extremely rare. You can imagine how precious supernatural beings are in this world. However, they dispatched three individuals at once—do you know what that means?”

Shen Zhifei, being intelligent, quickly grasped her meaning. “It means they consider you a formidable enemy.”

“Yes,” Zhao Xiaokui nodded approvingly. Then, her smile turned somewhat ironic. “Yet what I dealt with was nothing more than a recently transformed vampire, not even reaching the First Order.”

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