Thank you to chamana_digital for the ko-fi~
Su Mingyue pressed her earpiece, exchanged glances with Lin Bai, and asked in a soft voice, “In which direction?”
Lin Bai opened his tablet, and a blue dot marked as a triangle lit up less than three hundred meters away between them.
Zhao Xiaokui, pretending to look around, raised her head, subtly scanning the hovering drone in the sky.
In her perception, three familiar auras were converging toward her.
Lin Bai, Su Mingyue… and someone she hadn’t seen before but was familiar with, the person who followed behind Shen Zhifei’s car when she returned home.
Holding a strange device in their hands, they seemed to be scanning something, but the direction they were moving was clearly on the same path as Zhao Xiaokui’s.
“Beep, no detection of superhuman powers.”
“Beep, no detection of superhuman powers.”
…
“Beep, detection of superhuman powers.”
Su Mingyue looked up and saw Zhao Xiaokui standing not far away, looking up at the buildings on both sides with a bewildered expression.
Her gaze fell on Zhao Xiaokui’s feet, a flash of understanding in her eyes.
Zhao Xiaokui was wearing a pair of cloth shoes today, but stepping into the sewage flowing everywhere, her cloth shoes were surprisingly unstained.
Obviously, someone with a cleanliness obsession had used superhuman abilities to prevent contact with the sewage.
Still a child at heart, Su Mingyue couldn’t help but think, if it were a cunning and slippery person, why would they expose themselves for such trivial matters?
“Zhao Xiaokui.”
She called out softly, and Zhao Xiaokui, surprised to be addressed by her full name, turned around with a panicked expression. When she saw it was Su Mingyue, a look of panic appeared on her face. She instinctively took a step back, as if she wanted to escape but restrained herself. A somewhat awkward smile appeared on her face, “What a coincidence, Officer Su. Are you also working here?”
Su Mingyue wanted to laugh but held it in. She asked softly, “What are you doing here?”
“I, I…” Not prepared with an excuse, she stammered and struggled to find words, blushing as she finally said, “I just happened to pass by. I heard strange things were happening here, so I thought I’d come and take a look.”
Lin Bai, with a meaningful look, remarked, “Passed by? That detour seems quite far…”
The young girl in front of them obviously wasn’t good at lying. Mocked by his comment, her face turned completely red. She, somewhat annoyed, explained, “I was just curious. I saw the news about this place in the newspaper, and I wanted to come and see. Is that not allowed?”
Su Mingyue pinched Lin Bai, signaling him to speak less and not scare the person away. She followed up on Zhao Xiaokui’s words, “Did you see any ghosts then?”
Upon hearing this question, Zhao Xiaokui suddenly became dejected. “No,” she replied.
Su Mingyue wasn’t surprised by the answer she received.
Although supernaturals can sense each other, Zhao Xiaokui was being cornered too quickly, and she hadn’t covered much ground.
This kind of sensing ability, like the devices they had for testing supernatural energy, also has a distance limit. Unless that supernatural happened to be nearby, Zhao Xiaokui wouldn’t sense anything.
Moreover, the entire area near Wangjiang Road had been thoroughly scanned by the Nightwalker’s people holding instruments, nearly digging three feet underground to check if there were ancient graves with supernatural items as burial objects. Unfortunately, they found nothing. They could only resort to the most straightforward method: using a manpower-intensive approach, mobilizing colleagues from the public security system to check each household.
They had just come over with a detection device, mostly for show in front of Zhao Xiaokui.
“Oh, by the way, what is this thing?” Su Mingyue deliberately exposed the screen of the supernatural detection device in front of Zhao Xiaokui, successfully arousing her curiosity. She asked about it proactively.
“This? It’s something for detecting special energy,” Su Mingyue smiled with some deeper meaning.
The young girl’s expression had a sudden hiccup, and she stuttered, “W-what special energy?”
Any discerning person could see her anxiety.
“Mainly, it detects a form of high-energy radiation. When the distance between this device and the emitter is within a hundred meters, it will issue a prompt.”
The girl’s internal struggle was now evident to anyone with eyes.
She looked at Su Mingyue, a look that seemed to want to ask something. However, the more she asked, the more she might reveal. Her eyes kept glancing at the supernatural detection device, trying to get a comforting or despairing answer from the full-screen greenish image.
However, the point-like prompts that should have appeared on the detection device had long been discreetly turned off by Su Mingyue. When she looked, all she could see were concentric circles, resembling radar patterns.
Su Mingyue said, “Since you’re here for fun, why not join us? Maybe we’ll find the ghost together?”
Gou Rixin took two steps forward, silently standing beside Zhao Xiaokui. Seeing this attitude, Zhao Xiaokui understood everything.
Her hand anxiously tugged at her skirt, wrinkling the little black silk dress. Subconsciously, she used her water control ability to smooth it out. Lin Bai and Gou Rixin, who kept sensing supernatural fluctuations, both glanced at her hands. She noticed their gazes, becoming increasingly nervous, and tears welled up in her eyes.
“Alright, don’t scare her.” Su Mingyue said to her two teammates without good grace. She gently wiped away the tears that had been scared out of Zhao Xiaokui, whispering, “Don’t be afraid, we are not bad people. Didn’t we meet this morning? Don’t be nervous; we won’t do anything to you.”
The more Su Mingyue spoke, the more tears flowed from Zhao Xiaokui’s eyes.
Lin Bai sneered on the side as if mocking Su Mingyue’s uselessness.
Su Mingyue glared at him, feeling somewhat helpless. Zhao Xiaokui’s courage was indeed a bit small, but thinking about it, she could understand. A young girl who had just graduated from high school woke up to find that she had skipped five years of time, turning from eighteen to twenty-three, and gaining some strange powers on top of that. If she put herself in Zhao Xiaokui’s shoes, her performance might not be much better.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry. It’s not good-looking when you cry. Good girl, don’t be afraid. We are police officers. You’ve seen our badges. Our duty is to protect the public, and we won’t do anything to you.”
Sniffling, Zhao Xiaokui said, “Won’t you capture me for human experiments?”
Su Mingyue wanted to laugh but answered seriously, “No.”
“Will you lock me up?”
“No.”
“Hiccup.” Zhao Xiaokui’s tears stopped.
Her sudden stop was so fast that Su Mingyue didn’t react at first.
She belatedly understood that Zhao Xiaokui had scared herself and cried on her own.
Su Mingyue said helplessly, “What are you afraid of? You’re a supernatural being. I, an ordinary person, am not afraid. You should be the one who isn’t afraid first.”
“Supernatural being?” Zhao Xiaokui keenly caught Su Mingyue’s choice of words.
In the language of mermaids, the literal meaning of “Supernatural beings” is beings that surpass ordinary life.
In that realm, life is determined by rank, and in a world where hierarchy is determined by levels, using this term is quite appropriate.
However, in human society, Zhao Xiaokui originally thought they should use a more neutral term like “gifted individuals”.
Su Mingyue mistakenly thought that Zhao Xiaokui hadn’t heard of “Supernatural beings” and explained, “The so-called ‘supernatural being’ refers to individuals like you who possess abilities beyond the ordinary life level. Such people are not commonly seen in the crowd, but among ten thousand people, there will always be one or two who evolve to this level, possessing some special abilities.”
She blinked and continued, “Actually, the two police officers by my side are also ‘supernatural beings.'”
This revelation startled Zhao Xiaokui, nearly making her jump.
Gou Rixin didn’t betray his expression, his lips curved momentarily. Lin Bai extended his hand towards Zhao Xiaokui with an expressionless face, and his tone sounded almost robotic but still friendly, “Hello, I’m Lin Bai, evolving in the domain of the mind.”
Curious, Zhao Xiaokui examined him for a moment, with a mixture of awe and novelty, she shook his hand and said, “Hello, I’m Zhao Xiaokui, evolving in the domain of water.”
After shaking hands with the seemingly refined Lin Bai, Zhao Xiaokui turned her attention to the burly Gou Rixin. She bared her teeth nervously and, with an uneasy and shaky gesture, extended her hand, “Hello.”
Having been nudged by Su Mingyue’s elbow, Gou Rixin couldn’t hold back his expression. He burst into laughter, transforming instantly from a big shot in the underworld to a laughing husky. He grinned, revealing a set of pearly white teeth, and said, “Hello, I’m Gou Rixin, evolving in the direction of smell.”
Smell? What kind of evolution direction is that?
To Zhao Xiaokui, Lin Bai’s mental evolution seemed like a manifestation of undeveloped mental evolution.
For example, at this moment, she could sense a layer of spiritual energy lingering around Lin Bai’s body, ethereal like mist. The day this spiritual energy solidifies into a barrier would be the day Lin Bai breaks through to the first rank.
As for Gou Rixin…
His spiritual energy wasn’t outstanding, at least not like Lin Bai’s, which could be projected externally. His physique was robust, but it was evident that this was the result of extensive training rather than an inherent manifestation of extraordinary power.
With another psychic-evolved super being standing beside them, Zhao Xiaokui didn’t dare to casually use her own psychic energy to scan Gou Rixin’s body. She merely glanced at him a couple of times, showing a hint of curiosity.
Gou Rixin scratched his nose, apparently not considering his own superpower particularly impressive.
If it weren’t for the fact that becoming a super being enhanced their physical attributes, he probably wouldn’t have made it into the Night Guard team.
After getting acquainted with the two super beings, Zhao Xiaokui, in a somewhat stiff manner, asked, “I, I just came out of curiosity, wanting to know what happened here, but I haven’t done anything wrong… Can I leave now?”
