CH 84

Translation checker: Carolin

Editor: Agneya 

Proofreader: Khun

The Shaojin Mansion was a secluded mansion that was a good 1200 square meters wide. It had stood on Greenfly City peninsula since the beginning of the last century. The original owners of the mansion lived in isolation, hence very few knew about its existence.

Thanks to generations of effort, the mansion had been modernized and no longer resembled an ancient, old-fashioned estate.

There were a total of 5 floors in the mansion, but only the 1st to 4th floors were open. Although the lights of the 5th floor were always on, no one entered or left the place except the maid who cleaned and delivered food. It was said that the owner of the Shaojin Mansion inhabited that floor, and he never left the house. 

There was a gaming room on the far east side of the first floor, and all four sides of the walls were occupied with hanging PCs and monitors. The crawler omega had the hood of his yellow hoodie on even though he was at home. With a pink candy cane in his mouth, he sat on the ergonomic chair in the middle of the room, typing away on the keyboard, staring lazily at the ten-plus screens in front of him with his huge headphones on.

There was a butterfly omega nestled on the white swing chair on the left-hand side. Domino was curled up in the pillows of the hanging chair with a laptop in his hands, staring at the screen and gritting his teeth as the two antennae stood straight up from his curly hair.

“This is so infuriating.” Domino smashed the keyboard.

Crawler lifted one side of his headphones and asked, “What are you even doing?”

“Arguing with a human.” Domino replied, “He has too many ways to insult people; I can’t win. I can’t type faster than him either. Quick, help me think of some good comebacks.”

Crawler took off the headphones and came with his hand in the pockets in front of his belly. With the candy cane still in his mouth, he squeezed next to Domino on the swing chair. He took over the laptop on Domino’s legs, tapping a few keys vaguely, then a black panel appeared in the middle of the laptop screen. Crawler quickly typed several rows of white English instructions and finally added the IP address of the person who was arguing with Domino online.

“Okay, he’ll shut up now.” Crawler returned Domino’s laptop. He went back to his computer and put on his headphones, still eating the candy cane.

Domino went back to the page he was arguing on and found out that the other person’s messages were gone. 

“Vb sbe yjccfv tlr jmmbeca… Qtja’r atja ublcu ab vb? Lf mbeiv ralii mbwf yjmx klat j vloofgfca jmmbeca.” Gbwlcb geooifv tlr wfrrs, megis tjlg, tlr jcafccjf vlrjqqblcafvis vgbbqfv vbkc ab atf ifnfi bo tlr mtffxr.

“Lf kbc’a.” Jgjkifg ifjcfv yjmx jcv aegcfv tlr mtjlg,” Lf klii cba yf jyif ab rfcv jcs wfrrjufr bcilcf obg atf cfza 10 sfjgr.”

Crawler’s gland J1 differentiation ability, Digital Prison: Obtained web user’s life ID and declared custody years at one’s will. The imprisoned life ID would not be able to log in to any websites, and previously uploaded messages would be privatized forcefully. For example, the devices he held would not be able to connect to the internet, and computers would not recognise his identification and bank cards. He would be unable to use payments other than cash as if the digital world had alienated him.

Domino felt more elated, and he ran towards Crawler with the laptop in his arms. “I have a lot of people I hate. Help me imprison them all……” 

Two soft knocks came from the door of the gaming room, and a back leopard alpha walked into the room. He wore a black trench coat and a sapphire ring on his index finger.

The alpha frowned as he saw the two little omegas pranking together. “Domino, are you done with the thing you were assigned to do?”

Domino hugged his laptop and sat up straight, his antennae swaying, “The Divine Envoy just left the special training base. 4 investigators are on his tail, what’s the hurry?”

The alpha brushed away Domino, held the back of Crawler’s chair, and asked, “Let me see the progress of the model.” 

“Okay.” Crawler punched a few keys, and a silhouette analysis of Bai Chunian appeared on the monitor. It seemed that currently, only the left arm was filled with a three-dimensional color. A full-page running analysis bar appeared when one clicked to open the left hand. The font size of the analysis numerals was small and dense.

“Up till now, only 324 played a role in testing him.” Crawler said, “Divine Envoy originally wanted to conceal his power. He won’t even need to fight if the experiment is not strong enough. He also has Electro-optic Phantom by his side, so the chances of him having to fight would be even slimmer.”

“I also cannot collect battle data out of nowhere. It has to be like 324. He has to fight with Divine Envoy. Invisible Stalker’s fight with Divine Envoy at the triangular pyramid cabin had more use; he at least managed to let Divine Envoy break form and grabbed on to him with his left hand.”

“But the information is too scarce. I only just found out that Divine Envoy is left-handed. His J1 ability is Bone Armour, M2 ability is Annihilate, and I also know that his left hand’s attack speed, strength, and defense. But the other data still needs to be collected slowly.” 

The alpha fell into silence.

“Can you find out his next task goal?”

“Impossible. The IOA’s Technology Department has a professional, who completely sealed the intel of key personnel. Even the contents of a normal phone call could not be accessed.” Crawler spread out his arms, “But I know an octopus experimental subject escaped to the west coast, and it is close to the domain of Electro-optic Phantom. If Electro-optic Phantom was in trouble, Divine Envoy would not stand by and watch. You all can go and check.”

“No, that place is too dangerous.” The alpha said calmly. Thinking ahead, he continued, “Having no offshore contact with Electro-optic Phantom is our safety criterion.” 

Domino raised his hand on the fingertips and suggested, “Or maybe we could send more powerful experimental subjects to intercept Divine Envoy and challenge him when the Electro-optic Phantom is not there. Divine Envoy would certainly fight back so as to not slow down and get it over with.”

The alpha did not feel like it was a good plan, “Even if he chose the fast route, he would still only use his left hand. Repetitive battle data is useless to us. Anyhow, he is extremely sharp. If he were to realize that we are preventing him from finding Electro-optic Phantom, it might raise a warning bell and make him mark us as enemies.”

“It’s fine, I would send the message to the Red-Throated Bird organization that an Alliance agent has left the country. And in order to avoid hindering their octopus plan, they will send people to obstruct him by themselves. If I’m lucky enough, I might be able to catch some new battle data.”

Then, one of the monitors suddenly popped up with an email notification that was signed by Bai Chunian. 

Crawler spun his chair to read the email, then suddenly sat up straight. “It’s from Divine Envoy.”

Domino moved closer “What did he say?”

“Please give me Experimental Subject No. 809’s detailed information. In return, you can ask for a favor within 3 days.”

“This is a good chance. Think carefully about what favor we want him to do.” Crawler replied to Bai Chunian in a roundabout way, “Is he still being tailed by the investigators?” 

“Yes.”

Bai Chunian was casually sitting at a single table in some fast-food restaurant near the dock. He ordered a set of fried chicken and fries. He dipped his fries in the ice cream while handing the phone he borrowed to send an email back to the child sitting at the next table.

He raised his head and observed the short-skirted worker giving out leaflets on the other side of the glass wall. Then, his gaze fell onto a man in a striped shirt sitting diagonally across him.

The striped shirt man seemed to sense Bai Chunian’s gaze and lifted the newspaper in his hand a little higher, blocking himself from his sight. 

When he put down his newspaper, the seat Bai Chunian was occupying was empty, and all that was left in the tray were chicken bones and an empty fries box.

He pressed the micro communication device in his ear and mumbled, “Divine Envoy is gone.”

The employee handing out leaflets outside of the fast-food restaurant inadvertently responded, “He is in the crowd. I can’t see him. Let number 4 follow him.”

Number 4 responded, “I can’t find him. Maybe he went towards number 3.” 

Bai Chunian was lazily squatting on the roof of the fast-food restaurant. He licked his ice cream as he watched the 4 confused spies. As he finished his ice cream, he licked his fingers and hopped down from the roof the opposite way, his hands in his pockets. Stepping on the safety cable post, he jumped onto the dock, climbed the anchor line of a Seaview cruise ship, flipped onto the other side of the cruise ship, let go, and landed on a motorboat under the cruise ship. He sailed it towards the port airport, the motorboat leaving a waterline on the ocean surface.

He had the documents prepared by the Alliance Technology Department and boarded a long-haul airliner along with the other commuters. He changed into casual clothes—a black and white patterned men’s silk scarf tied to the neckline of the white shirt and suit trousers for the bottom. Leaning on the back of the business class seat with his eyes closed, he waited on the long journey.

Bai Chunian had a long conversation with Clownfish before he left the special training base, so as to understand the cultures of the territorial waters that were foreign to him.

Clownfish said that merfolks were a race with exceptionally high intelligence, just like the humans on land. 

Merfolks alphas were mostly gorgeous, delicate, and graceful. However, their race did not entrust all their hope onto an alpha but rather chose the strongest omega among them as their leader.

In addition to this, there was another criteria.

If an infant was born with glowing scales, it was seen as the ocean’s gift. Under such a condition too, the race would automatically choose him as the future leader.

But in the deep seas, having glowing scales was almost like a fatal curse because babies couldn’t defend themselves. The glowing light would bring the race great danger, becoming the prey of an array of sea monsters. 

So when such kinds of infants were born, his mother and clan would use seashells to scrape off all of their scales and bury them into the sea bed. This would cause the baby great pain, but the scales could be regrown so, they would be repetitively scraped off.

But the merfolk whose scales were torn and regrown over and over again would become stronger by each day and would naturally become the leader.

Clownfish’s family home was next to the sea and every generation relied on the sea for food, hence elders in the family were very familiar with the ocean, wrecks hit rocks, battleship torpedoes, hurricanes at sea, and fish migration. Basically, they would know anything that had happened in any part of territorial waters.

70 years ago, which was not that long ago, a mid-ocean ridge submarine volcano erupted. At that time, the merfolks of the Caribbean merfolk island had a total of 3 thousand and ninety-seven merfolks, and together with a large number of fish, they followed their leader to migrate to safe waters. During this migration, many merfolks from other sea areas also joined their group. However, according to the time between the start of the uprising and the main outbreak, the volcano erupted before the estimated time, and the merfolks were not able to leave in time, hence the old folks thought there were no more alive mermaids in the ocean anymore. 

But the eruption stopped halfway, and the remainder of the lava got stuck in the cracks and did not surge up. Although the heat was still terrifying, it still led to a large amount of marine animals’ death. To escape the high sizzling temperature, the mermaids curled into a ball and have been forever buried underneath the solidified magma. But it did not bring about the predicted havoc, and no species extinction occurred.

Only afterwards did the elders know that after the eruption stopped, a burnt, blue transparent ball tumbled out of the solidified magma and sunk into the oceanic trench for 70 years and had not surfaced since.

This period of time was enough for the clan to change an entire dynasty. Nobody knew what the new leader did to steal the hearts of the commoners. But when the old chief returned, he was banished as a criminal who had deserted his people and never returned, foreseeably.