Chapter 042: “Go hide her in the future, please.”

This chapter is translated by Kris Xian, translation checked by Kensi, and edited by Cia.

Yu Zhizhi’s drawing somehow portrayed a strange prophecy.

Nevertheless, most of the time, this little girl just randomly filled her sketchbook with colors and did not talk about the content of the drawing at all.

Lu Yan hadn’t dreamed for a long time, and it’s rare to have a nightmare at night. He couldn’t remember the details. All he could remember was that the surroundings he could see were getting darker and darker, and there were strange prayers whispering in his ears, similar to a fish whistling in the deep sea.

Behind him was an abyss as thick as ink, as if a mouth waiting for its prey to throw itself into the net.

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Lu Yan woke up before he could completely fall into it.

With a “thud,” his head hit the headboard, making a loud noise.

The next second, Tang Xun’an appeared at the door and directly broke the door handle, using brute force to break into the door.

The following parts of the text will be scrambled to prevent theft from aggregators and unauthorized epub making. Please support our translators by reading on secondlifetranslations (dot) com. If you are currently on the site and and you are seeing this, please clear your cache.

Mbl dktbvxyal eke dsv qaktbvld Nw Zyd cwv oyp pwarakple cu Mydt Dwyd’yd’p clbyhksa. Tl vwadle sd vbl clepkel zyxr. Mydt Dwyd Gd’p lulp olal pvkzz xkpvu, cwv bl pyo y pldpl sq wdnlavykdvu kd vblx.

“…Ebyv’p oasdt?” Nw Zyd ypjle psqvzu.

Mydt Dwd’yd zlv swv y qlo hytwl tasozp qasx bkp vbasyv, “…Mbspl vbkdtp.”

Mbl vbkdtp bl oyp alqlaakdt vs olal Vszzwvydvp.

Rv pvydep vs alypsd vbyv vbkp rzynl pbswze cl lmnlrvksdyzzu pyql, cwv Mydt Dwd’yd qlzv yd lmvalxlzu pvasdt rszzwvksd pswanl kd yd kdpvydv.

Mbkp xyel bkx zssj y ckv ydmkswp yde alpvzlpp. Rd vbl lde, bl pkxrzu piwllgle kdvs Nw Zyd’p pkel vs pzllr yde nswzed’v cl eakhld yoyu ds xyvvla obyv.

Tkp okdtp nswzed’v cl alvaynvle, yde bkp eaytsd vykz oyp vbknj yde zsdt. Mblpl xyel vbl yzalyeu wdprynkswp pvyqq iwyavlap yrrlya dyaasola, lhld nawpbkdt vbl ralnyakswp cle.

Ebld vbl clecsyae nszzyrple, Nw Zyd nswze sdzu pyu vbyv qsavwdyvlzu vblal oyp ds sdl lzpl sd vbkp qzssa.

Otherwise, the next morning, rumors about “the two of them slept together1 caused the bed to collapse” would be a rumor that even jumping into the Yellow River couldn’t wash away. 

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Without a better option, Lu Yan had to sleep with Tang Xun’an in his bedroom.

The other’s tail kept wrapping around his waist, making Lu Yan have more nightmares.

He mostly dreamed of being crushed to death at night.

And Tang Xuanan’s scales were quite painful, sharp enough to scratch the skin— so much so that Lu Yan had to spawn fish scales on his body to protect his delicate body.

Every day when he woke up and touched a handful of dragon scales, Lu Yan would profoundly ponder about one question: Did he really need these four hours of sleep a day?

Three months passed in the blink of an eye at the underground laboratory.

Lu Yan was already accustomed to those around him who did not have facial features, and he also got used to getting up early in the morning to see Tang Xun’an’s face plastered too close.

After three months of diligent study, Lu Yan felt that he had mastered at least ten new techniques for transplanting and transforming different types of Pollutants.

Common mutational courses were divided into six categories: fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, and mythical creatures. Without exception, all required special items dropped from Pollutants.

He also had a basic understanding of the structure of the Research Institute. A hundred years ago, there was only one Research Institute in the world, and the main focus was on the transformation and transplants using Pollutants.

Most of the people participating in the experiment were soldiers from the army, who signed a confidentiality agreement and informed consent forms.

Tang Xun’an was probably the only exception.

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The time had finally come for Tang Xun’an’s eyeball transplant. Lu Yan really wanted to do it himself, but the situation didn’t allow it.

Professor Wu looked puzzled, “You’re a psychology student, how can you do surgery? I know that you’re worried, but it’s something that you really can’t help even if you wanted to.”

In this dream, he actually majored in psychology.

Lu Yan waited outside the operating room door, awfully upset.

Although he was not an ophthalmologist, his surgery skills were a hundred years ahead. Not to mention that he had studied for three months, so how could he not be qualified to operate on Tang Xuanan?

In the family waiting area, Yu Zhizhi walked over carrying a small sketch board.

She sat opposite Lu Yan and took out her crayons and began to draw, glancing at the operating room from time to time.

Before her drawing was finished, Yu Zhizhi’s eyes went blank, as if she had seen something horrible. Her body was drenched in a cold sweat, and her hands were trembling as if writhing.

She behaved too much like a child experiencing a seizure, and Lu Yan couldn’t help but come forward and ask, “Zhizhi, is something wrong?”

Yu Zhizhi shook his head frantically and finally completed the last stroke of her colored drawing.

She took a deep breath, tore off the page, and handed it to Lu Yan.

In this colored drawing, black and red occupied a large portion. A building with an inverted pyramid structure was underground in the midst of darkness, and red monsters poured in from all directions.

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In addition, at the top, Yu Zhizhi also wrote the time.

[August 24, 2039 00:00]

And it’s now August 23rd at 23:45.

Lu Yan’s expression subtly changed.

If Yu Zhizhi’s drawings were all predictions of the future, then it was clear that the inverted pyramid structure was the Institute and the red things were Pollutants.

The lights in the operating room were still red. The Research Institute’s supreme head, Qiao Yu, was still inside and hadn’t come out.

Yu Zhizhi’s face flushed with an abnormal flush, and Lu Yan touched her forehead with his hand. It was extremely hot.

The little girl let out a heavy gasp.

Lu Yan’s heart sank. According to the data, Yu Zhizhi was currently not an Enlightened. However, on the precursor of awakening, an Enlightened was always accompanied by a series of symptoms such as physical discomfort.

He remembered a possibility, or rather, a rumor he had heard a long time ago.

Experimental Subject No. 0 of the First Research Institute was a rare healing type Enlightened, awakening the serial number one ability, “Divine Beginning.”

On the day of No. 0’s awakening, countless Pollutants surrounded the Research Institute.

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Due to the huge chaos, especially since it was during the early stages of the pollution disease outbreak, and the First Institute was right under the foot of the Headquarters, the matter was not hidden, and there were discussion threads on the Enlightened Forum about it.

The light above his head flickered twice and suddenly exploded. The Kingfish inside Lu Yan’s body issued an uneasy warning.

A passing nurse let out a question in confusion, “Wasn’t that just got fixed today? How did it blow up?”

Lu Yan glanced at the time, 23:47.

There was not much time left for them.

He picked up Yu Zhizhi and slammed open the door of the operating room.

Although the time difference was nearly a hundred years, the structure of the operating room had not changed much. Lu Yan quickly arrived at the operating area.

At the sight of him, surprise filled the faces of everyone present.

The operation took three hours, but Tang Xun’an had only integrated one eye so far. In his eye socket, the necrotic eyeball had just been removed, leaving only a blood hole on his face.

Qiao Yu still had an eyeball in his hand, and his golden pupils darted around as if it was conscious, looking at the person who barged in.

As he moved his fingertips, the red polyps attached to the eye continued to grow.

[23rd Ability — Gene Recombination]

Despite the word gene in its name, this ability didn’t have anything to do with genetic technology.

Its ability user could combine different life forms in a highly unscientific method.

“What’s the matter?” Qiao Yu asked.

Lu Yan took a deep breath and replied succinctly, “Yu Zhizhi seems to be about to awaken. She just drew a picture outside the operating room, which showed that the Research Institute has been surrounded by Pollutants.”

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, Qiao Yu’s complexion changed drastically, revealing a startled expression.

Professor Wu was puzzled, “What—what kind of drawing? It was good news for Zhizhi to awaken.”

Here, he’s afraid that only Qiao Yu and Lu Yan himself were the only two people who realized the graveness of the matter.

The last prophecy before Yu Hanxi’s death was never told to anyone else by Qiao Yu in order to avoid any extraneous consequences.

According to his inference, Yu Zhizhi’s awakening ability was “Divine Beginning.”

[1st Ability — Divine Beginning]

Healing type, ability effect: permanent removal of contamination.

This ability manifested in the form of light shining out from her body, spreading out from her heart as its center, and the pollution would be cleared wherever the light shone.

As long as her spiritual power threshold reached a certain standard, the light would spread to every corner of the earth, even if it was too thin to be seen.

On that day, the earth could forever return to its original state prior to Cataclysm.

The world would be free from pollution disease. People would no longer have to worry about the monsters that eat people. They also didn’t have to fear of distorting one day.

The future Yu Hanxi saw was extremely far away, and Qiao Yu thought he still had a long time to prepare.

But this day really came too soon.

It was now 23:51.

Qiao Yu couldn’t care less about the increase of his mutation degree and accelerated the formation of the eyeball. He then put it into Tang Xun’an’s eye socket.

The red polyp squirmed and soon merged with the original nerve.

The long period of darkness had left Tang Xuanan not quite accustomed to the light for the time being.

He sat up from the operating table, his expression a little blank, and his golden eyes quickly locked into focus.

He saw Lu Yan holding Yu Zhizhi, and a smile appeared on his face.

Outside, the soldiers were in chaos, and they were particularly supporting a life cabin and rushing it over.

Qiao Yu took Yu Zhizhi and as his heart ached for her, he touched her hot forehead, whispering, “Zhizhi, don’t be afraid.”

He sent Yu Zhizhi into the life cabin, his eyes were deep and sad, and then, closed the cabin door with his own hands.

On the Enlightened Forum, there had always been doubts about the existence of Experimental Subject “No. 0.”

Because except that the Institute was besieged by Pollutants that day, there seemed to be no evidence to prove that No. 0 ever existed.

Even the researchers who had worked in the First Research Institute for many years had never seen her.

Now, Lu Yan felt that he might know the answer to this question.

Qiao Yu held the half-human tall life cabin and handed it to Tang Xuan’an.

“The ability you have mastered is Time, and what we are lacking most right now is time,” Qiao Yu looked into Tang Xun’an’s eyes and solemnly said, “Go hide here in the future, please.”

Translator’s Note

Kris Xian: I’m getting goosebumps in anticipation.

Updates are likely to be consistent starting next week.