“Awake, she’s awake!”
“Zhao Xiaokui, do you recognize where you are?”
“How do you feel?”
“This is Room Two, I’m not an idiot.” Zhao Xiaokui opened her eyes, glancing at Gou Rixin, and tugged at the corner of her mouth. “How did you guys get here?”
In front of her were none other than Lin Bai and Gou Rixin’s group, who were supposed to be in City S.
“What do you mean, ‘how did we get here’? Do you even know how long you’ve been unconscious?”
Zhao Xiaokui was surprised. “Have I been unconscious for a long time?”
“A whole month and a half. Is that long enough? Hurry up and call your girlfriend. Since the first day you passed out, she sensed something was wrong and kept asking us about your whereabouts. If you lie down again, we’re all ready to tell her the truth.”
Zhao Xiaokui took the phone and dialed the familiar number, making a call to Shen Zhifei.
“Hello?”
The call connected quickly, and Shen Zhifei’s voice, slightly distorted through the transmission of radio waves, was still recognizable to Zhao Xiaokui.
Originally, the somewhat empty and unsettled heart, which had nowhere to rest, suddenly landed on the ground. She softly spoke, “It’s me.”
“… ” There was silence for quite a while on the other end of the phone. She heard Shen Zhifei seemingly take a breath and say, “You’re back.”
No inquiries, no doubts, just a simple sentence, “You’re back.”
Zhao Xiaokui felt like a kite floating in the wind, landing back in the hands of its owner.
She gently responded.
Medical staff arrived quickly, and Shen Zhifei, on the other end of the phone, also heard the sounds. She softly said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”
Gou Rixin took the phone, looking at Zhao Xiaokui’s smiling face, feeling somewhat pitiful. “I don’t want to eat dog food!”
Surrounded by a group of medical staff, Zhao Xiaokui waved her hand dismissively at him. “Dear, step aside. Don’t interfere with the doctor’s work.”
The doctors, wearing masks, curved their eyes slightly.
One person pushed Gou Rixin away, and the others systematically attached various devices to Zhao Xiaokui’s body. At the same time, someone held a form, asking her about her current feelings.
Zhao Xiaokui naturally answered each question.
After approximately an hour of testing, Zhao Xiaokui was finally allowed to leave the ward.
However, she wasn’t entirely free at this point. Lin Bai informed her that Zhu Wei and Shi Ning were on the plane and should be arriving soon.
Feeling extremely hungry and knowing they wouldn’t be there for a while, Zhao Xiaokui shouted, “I want to eat, I want to eat. If I don’t eat, I’ll starve.”
Gou Rixin put his arm around her shoulder, leading her towards the cafeteria. “Let’s go, I’ll treat you to a meal. Tell me about what you saw in the relic. I’ve never been to a relic on the sea before.”
“Have you been to a relic on land?” Zhao Xiaokui asked in return.
“Hey, you’re underestimating me.” Gou Rixin pretended to be angry. “Not only have I been to a relic, but I’ve also discovered one!”
Zhao Xiaokui widened her eyes. How come she didn’t know about this?
Lin Bai interjected, “What he discovered was just a standard cave relic, with a spatial area of five square meters. The relic he found had ten square meters, and inside, apart from rocks from tens of thousands of years ago, there was nothing.”
Gou Rixin stubbornly said, “Well… it’s still a relic!”
Zhao Xiaokui and Lin Bai burst into laughter, filling the air with cheerful sounds.
Gou Rixin was curious about the sea relics, mainly because of Zhao Xiaokui’s adventurous experiences. Lin Bai, on the other hand, was more pragmatic. He was curious about the mutated creatures Zhao Xiaokui encountered. According to the data returned by Zhu Wei and others, this relic they discovered was the largest among all sea relics. Besides the discovered mermaid king’s city, they explored hundreds of kilometers and found many giant marine creatures not seen in modern society.
“Unfortunately, no mermaids.” Lin Bai expressed regret. “Experts from the Night Watchers believe that there should be a humanoid species similar to humans living in this city, suspected to be the legendary mermaids. Unfortunately, there are no murals left in any of the palaces, and no one knows what mermaids actually look like.”
“Uh…” Zhao Xiaokui, holding a chicken leg, asked in confusion, “Isn’t there a statue?”
This time, Lin Bai asked her in return, “What statue?”
Zhao Xiaokui only learned about it when Zhu Wei arrived. Except for him, everyone else seemed to have forgotten about the lifelike mermaid statue in the middle of the mermaid king’s city.
“You fainted suddenly.” Zhu Wei described what he saw. “While others were recording, you and I swam above the city. Suddenly, you swam towards the base of the statue in the middle of the city, and then you passed out. If you don’t believe me, I have the video recorded at that time.”
Zhao Xiaokui watched the video in silence. Indeed, in the video, she swam to a huge statue base and suddenly fainted.
This didn’t match her memory at all.
She continued to inquire, “I remember when we entered the relic, we discussed the mermaid statue. Is there a video of that?”
As if anticipating her question, Zhu Wei replied, “Yes.”
It was also a flawless video. In the video, in the middle of the underwater city, there was only a bald statue base, and no one discussed the mermaid statue on it. It seemed like from the beginning to the end, that statue didn’t exist.
But Zhao Xiaokui was certain that she saw the mermaid statue.
“Can I have a pen?” Zhao Xiaokui asked.
Zhu Wei and Shi Ning exchanged a glance, and the two third-tier adepts nodded simultaneously, saying, “Of course.”
Paper and pen were quickly provided, and Zhao Xiaokui stared at the blank paper, swiftly sketching the mermaid city she had seen. For extraordinary people, creating artwork might be challenging, but imprinting the images from their minds onto paper was not that difficult.
However, when she reached the mermaid statue, a problem arose.
Shi Ning and Zhu Wei watched as the image on the paper became distorted and strange compared to the clean and decisive lines nearby. They realized that what Zhao Xiaokui said was probably true.
She did see a mermaid statue.
“Stop, no need to draw anymore, we believe you,” Shi Ning said.
Zhao Xiaokui halted her pen, coming to her senses and seeing the peculiar image she had drawn.
She frowned slightly, “I didn’t mean to draw this.”
“We understand,” Shi Ning reassured her. “You probably encountered something of a higher rank, so you couldn’t depict it.”
“What is that?”
Shi Ning and Zhu Wei exchanged a glance, both conveying a sense of helplessness in their eyes.
Before inviting Zhao Xiaokui into the relic, neither of them had expected her luck to be so good that she would encounter a situation like this.
“You should know that beyond second and third-tier adepts, there are even higher-ranked superhumans, right? Do you know how many tiers the most powerful superhumans on Earth are?” Without waiting for Zhao Xiaokui’s response, Shi Ning continued from where Zhu Wei left off, “It’s the sixth tier.”
“But is the sixth tier the end? Obviously not. In all the relics we’ve entered, although we’ve never encountered creatures higher than the sixth tier, all traces and records indicate that the sixth tier is by no means the limit of extraordinary people.”
“And the so-called existence of higher tiers refers to those extraordinary beings that surpass the sixth tier.”
Shi Ning smiled helplessly, “Your luck is truly extraordinary. Encountering beings of a higher tier within a relic has occurred less than ten times worldwide. However, each occurrence shares a commonality – after witnessing entities of a higher tier, no one can reveal the scenes they witnessed. You being able to describe what you saw already surprises us.”
When Zhao Xiaokui mentioned seeing a mermaid statue, they didn’t fully believe her because instances of hallucinations occurring upon entering a relic had happened more than once or twice. However, when she held a pen and couldn’t draw anything, they became truly convinced that Zhao Xiaokui had likely encountered beings of a higher tier.
Because if it was a hallucination, even if the seen object itself didn’t exist, it would be impossible for someone not to draw anything under the supplement of human imagination.
Shi Ning and Zhu Wei both expressed their astonishment because people who had similar experiences not only couldn’t draw anything, but they also couldn’t articulate what they had seen. They could only vaguely describe having an extraordinary experience, but when asked for specific details, it seemed like they were under some kind of spell, unable to utter a useful word.
Zhao Xiaokui’s uniqueness prompted them to continue questioning, “Do you still remember anything?”
Zhao Xiaokui closed her eyes and skimmed through the memories in her mind.
Surprisingly, she found that there seemed to be more things inside.
She opened her eyes, hesitated, and said, “My mind seems to have gained something, but if you ask me to say… I can’t express it.”
Shi Ning felt a bit regretful but still smiled, “You don’t have to force yourself to say it. Perhaps one day, when your level is high enough, you’ll be able to express it. Congratulations on reaching the third tier.”
“Ah?” Zhao Xiaokui, who had belatedly become a third-tier extraordinary, felt no special sensation. Since returning to Earth, her advancement had seemed remarkably smooth. Except for the first tier when her soul and body didn’t integrate, causing her pain for a while, her second and third-tier advancements were unbelievably smooth.
“Oh, oh.” She absentmindedly accepted Shi Ning’s congratulations. She felt an unreal sensation about her promotion to the third tier, but there was a more important matter at hand.
She thought Shi Ning and Zhu Wei might have misunderstood her words.
She explained, “No, you’ve probably misunderstood. When I said I couldn’t say it, I meant I don’t know how to express it, not that I really can’t say it.”
“What do you mean by not knowing how to say it?”
Zhao Xiaokui scratched her head, feeling a bit troubled. She looked around, seeking a way to describe it. Suddenly, she saw the emblem of the Night Guardians Research Institute on a nearby instrument and got an idea.
“Let’s go to the research institute. I should know how to say it once we’re inside.”
Shi Ning and Zhu Wei still didn’t understand what she meant, but going to the research institute wasn’t a big deal.
Professor Gu, at the Night Guardians Research Institute in S City, was familiar to Zhao Xiaokui. The stone tablet book discovered earlier was his research project. After the meeting, he expressed great concern about Zhao Xiaokui’s health and teasingly asked, “Xiaokui, how’s your body? Better now?”
After receiving an affirmative response, he couldn’t help but jest, “Why think of coming to me again? Did you discover something new?”
Who knew Zhao Xiaokui would smile and say, “It’s not confirmed yet. I need to take a look first.”
Professor Gu didn’t expect this answer, was momentarily stunned, then suddenly grabbed Zhao Xiaokui’s hand, saying, “Let’s go, where do you want to go in the laboratory? I’ll take you in.”
Zhao Xiaokui was startled by Professor Gu’s enthusiasm for experiments and couldn’t help but say with a wry smile, “There’s no rush for now.”
In Professor Gu’s mind, the discovery of the content of the stone tablet book, capturing the evil god, and a series of events had long made him equate Zhao Xiaokui with a lucky charm. Hearing that she had a new discovery, how could he not be eager?
Shi Ning and Zhu Wei, the two third-tier extraordinary who were usually treated with great respect wherever they went, now felt the rare sensation of being ignored. They exchanged a glance, touched their noses, and hurriedly followed the two in front who were walking quickly.
To be honest, they were also looking forward to what Zhao Xiaokui was going to do at the research institute.
