Lin Jianyuan’s scalp tingled.

Seeing that something was wrong with him, Xie Yu immediately asked, “Was there an S-class just now?”

Those words instantly put Lin Jianyuan at ease.

He knew that no matter what happened, Xie Yu would always be the strongest support he could rely on.

Lin Jianyuan quickly calmed down and began reviewing the sequence of events.

There was no record on the mobile terminal. That made sense, since the other party was S-class.

But even Xie Yu failed to notice the other party’s presence, which was terrifying.

No. More precisely, it wasn’t that Xie Yu failed to notice the other party. After the old woman left, he lost his memory of her like everyone else.

Then what about me?

Lin Jianyuan fell into deep thought.

Why am I the only special one? Why can I see S-class Aberrants and retain my memories too?

It was definitely Flash Granny’s doing.

Is my mental resistance really stronger than Xie Yu’s, even though he's an S-class?

Or did Flash Granny do it on purpose, deliberately leaving only my memory intact so I would remember the “Shhh” she said?

What did that mean?

Was she telling me to shut up?

Was she telling me to stop meddling?

…No, seriously, you need to make it clear about which matter you want me to stop meddling in!

More than figuring out what Flash Granny was trying to do, Lin Jianyuan now wanted to understand what was going on with himself.

Why did every Aberrant in the world start converging on him once he started seeing them?

Maybe once he figured that out, all the other questions would solve themselves.

Lin Jianyuan thought of the last S-class that acted this strangely around him.

Without hesitation, he returned to the Bureau and went to the deepest level of the Inverted Spire.

This time, he still didn’t let Xie Yu accompany him.

Lin Jianyuan walked alone into Containment Cell No. 1. He pressed the button and opened the reinforced-concrete lid covering the pool.

After a deep, rumbling crash, the entire pool of floral water came into view.

This time, Lin Jianyuan was completely mentally prepared.

No matter what form Delirium took, even if he wasn’t in the pool at all, Lin Jianyuan wouldn’t be surprised anymore.

And yet that idiot Delirium still managed to surprise him.

The last time Lin Jianyuan came here, Delirium was a male corpse floating on the surface.

This time, the male corpse came to life.

Straight up and back to life!

Delirium stood in the center of the pool like a sentry on guard duty.

His pale skin reflected the rippling light of the water, and his wet hair swayed across his forehead like black aquatic weeds.

The moment the lid opened, Delirium raised his head.

His eyes were still that same pair of empty and lifeless eyes.

Dazed and drifting, his gaze never found a focus.

But because of the light refracting off the pool water, he somehow looked like he were crying.

What a mess.

Like a scruffy little dog soaked in the rain.

For some inexplicable reason, Lin Jianyuan’s brain short-circuited.

He crouched at the edge of the pool, held out a hand, and made pspspsps sounds at Delirium.

No dog could resist pspspsps.

Naturally, Delirium…

Hm?!!!

Why wasn't he an exception?!

Lin Jianyuan was profoundly shaken as he watched Delirium stretch out his long arms and legs and clumsily paddle through the water.

His movements were slow, but he was trying very hard to swim toward him.

Lin Jianyuan: “.”

The floral-water pool was a full three meters deep, and its walls rose well above the surface.

No matter how hard Delirium kicked and paddled, he could only barely keep his head above water. Climbing out was obviously impossible.

This left Lin Jianyuan completely at a loss.

He mainly came here to see whether anything unusual was happening with Delirium. The pspspsps were just an impulsive brain fart.

He never expected Delirium to actually come over when called!

What did that mean?

Was Delirium a dog?

Lin Jianyuan: “.”

Hahaha, just kidding! Just kidding!

Lin Jianyuan crouched beside the pool and looked down at Delirium, who kept paddling in the pale green floral water.

Delirium’s gaze remained hollow and unfocused. His eyeballs trembled faintly, as if he couldn’t bring his vision into focus, much less concentrate his attention.

But he really was tilting his head slightly upward.

Like a person with no reason left, retaining only physiological instinct…

Relying purely on “physiological instinct,” Delirium heard the pspspsps and came over.

He also tilted his head up slightly, looking toward the direction of the sound.

Lin Jianyuan really wanted to bring a few college students in to help him run a repeat experiment and determine whether Delirium reacted specifically to his pspspsps, or whether he responded to anyone who made the sound.

Unfortunately, at present, Lin Jianyuan was the only person who could withstand Delirium’s mental contamination.

So Lin Jianyuan could only assume that he was somehow even more special now.

Delirium was actually starting to respond to his pspspsps.

Lin Jianyuan: “…Shake hands?”

Delirium: “…”

No reaction.

Lin Jianyuan: “…”

Hahaha, just kidding, just kidding.

Of course he knew Delirium wasn’t a dog!

That said, Lin Jianyuan still cautiously tested a few other keywords dogs tended to like.

Things like food, meat, going out to play, and so on.

Delirium: “…”

Thankfully, Delirium was an idiot whose mind was always somewhere else.

Otherwise, Lin Jianyuan was genuinely afraid he might see a speechless expression appear on that face.

“All right. No more messing around.” Lin Jianyuan became serious. “Delirium, are you gradually becoming conscious?”

Lin Jianyuan didn’t know what the opposite of delirium was.

But compared to before, the current Delirium really did look a little less… delirious.

Delirium: “…”

Still no reaction.

The only thing the pale, dazed man was doing was slowly paddling with his arms and legs to keep himself from sinking to the bottom.

That also seemed to be a physiological reflex.

So Delirium was only awake enough to have physiological reflexes?

Lin Jianyuan suddenly remembered the containment report from when Shi Shaoning first intercepted Delirium.

The report said that even when Delirium fell into muddy water, even when mud splashed directly into his eyes, he wouldn’t close them.

He kept those dazed and hollow eyes open, as if he didn’t know he had eyelids. As if he didn’t know that eyes were fragile and precious organs that needed protection behind closed eyelids.

Lin Jianyuan said to Delirium, “I’m going to splash some water at you to test something.”

Delirium: “…”

Lin Jianyuan was smarter this time and brought a telescopic cane when he came in.

He extended it to its full length and dipped the end into the water. Then he flicked it upward.

Splash

Water splashed up, and Delirium got a faceful of floral water.

…He didn’t close his eyes.

Delirium still didn’t close his eyes or turn his head, making no attempt to dodge.

There were two possible explanations for that.

One was that Delirium’s physiological reflexes weren’t developed enough to protect his eyes.

The other was that “eyes” simply weren’t so fragile that water could harm them; after all, he wasn’t human but an S-class Aberrant.

He was an Aberrant, after all.

He simply looked so much like a human that people instinctively assumed he was one.

For the sake of scientific rigor, Lin Jianyuan should repeat the experiment several more times, splashing water at Delirium from different angles to test whether he truly had any physiological reflex that protected his eyes.

But… he couldn’t do it.

One end of Lin Jianyuan’s telescopic cane rested in the water, and Delirium simply paddled quietly beside it.

Whether Lin Jianyuan splashed water in his face or struck him with the cane, he looked like he wouldn’t resist at all.

…Who the fuck could actually bring themselves to do that?!

An intense sense of guilt over bullying someone with an intellectual disability surged through Lin Jianyuan. His moral baseline wouldn’t let him do it, even if the other party was an Aberrant.

Humans really were strange creatures.

Even when the other party merely looked human, it was enough to make people perceive them as one of their own.

People couldn’t help feeling empathy for their own kind. They imagined that water splashed into his eyes would hurt and a blow from the cane would cause pain.

Thus, they couldn’t bring themselves to do it...

Maybe that was another kind of physiological reflex?

A reflex for protecting your own kind, and thereby protecting yourself.

Lin Jianyuan stood silently beside the pool for a long while, then sighed and stood up.

He retracted the cane and murmured to himself, “What will happen next…? What will you turn into later?”

Splash

Delirium turned his head and looked behind him.

Lin Jianyuan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I didn’t mean that kind of ‘later.’ I meant… holy shit!”

Lin Jianyuan was instantly horrified. His knees nearly buckled, and he almost dropped to them in front of the floral-water pool.

“You understand me?!” Lin Jianyuan stared at Delirium in alarm. “You understood what I just said?!”

Delirium turned his head back again and looked at him.

Dazed and Empty. His eyes, like those of a blind person, held no focus. He was like someone with a shattered soul.

That strange sensation returned.

Every time Lin Jianyuan stared at Delirium for too long, or more precisely, whenever he stared at Delirium alone for too long, he couldn’t help feeling sad.

A dull, suffocating sadness.

As Delirium gradually became more conscious, that feeling seemed to grow stronger.

Was this Lin Jianyuan’s first time seeing Delirium?

It was hard to say. Delirium’s face had a quality that made it difficult to remember. People forgot it as soon as they saw it, which also seemed to be a form of mental contamination.

But this sadness wasn’t because Lin Jianyuan felt sympathy for Delirium himself, nor was it because of any other ambiguous emotion toward him.

The sadness was more like… empathy.

Yes. Like when he splashed water at Delirium just now, or when he held up the cane and pretended he was going to strike him over the head.

In that instant, he felt he couldn’t do it because he thought, “What if I were the one being treated this way?”

…He couldn’t keep thinking about it.

Lin Jianyuan suddenly felt extremely unwell. Physically unwell.

His head spun. He felt nauseous, his eyes hurt, and a massive torrent of sound poured into his ears.

Afraid that he might lose his balance and fall headfirst into the floral-water pool, Lin Jianyuan hurriedly closed the pool cover and turned to leave the containment cell.

The heavy gray reinforced-concrete lid slowly shut, and the entire S-class containment cell sealed shut as well.

Splash

Splash

Beneath the concrete lid, in the pale green floral-water pool hidden from everyone’s eyes.

Delirium slowly paddled. His arms and legs were sluggish and hesitant.

He seemed lost... or perhaps waiting.

…

Lin Jianyuan felt much better after leaving the S-class sector. The dizziness and headache disappeared completely, but out of caution, he still asked Xie Yu to examine him.

“My imprints are all still there, fully intact,” Xie Yu said. “You haven’t suffered any physical injury. Want to do two advanced-calculus problems?”

Lin Jianyuan: “?”

When did he ever hear “do advanced calculus” without laughing?!

Lin Jianyuan casually rubbed Xie Yu’s pancreas, then cheerfully hooked an arm around his wife. “Come on. Come with me to the archives.”

Xie Yu asked, “What for?”

“I’m going to check some information.”

Lin Jianyuan went to the Internal Affairs Department’s records archive and used his access privileges as an A-class combatant to pull every file he wanted.

He wanted to check whether the old woman appeared before or ever caused anything similar to what happened today.

But no matter how many keywords he tried, he couldn’t find anything useful.

Lin Jianyuan even searched for “Flash Granny.”

Still nothing. Not even jack sh*t.

With no hope left, Lin Jianyuan could only go find the Director.

This time, the Director finally wasn’t sitting behind his desk with both hands clasped beneath his chin.

He held a terminal in his left hand and a phone in his right, running around in a frantic mess.

The Containment Department went through a major upheaval and was still rebuilding everything. As a result, the Director’s eyes lit up the moment he saw Lin Jianyuan.

“Lin Jianyuan? Why are you…”

Lin Jianyuan decisively cut him off and reported everything about Flash Granny at the fastest speed a human could manage.

The Director: “…”

He deflated like a balloon.

“Ah. A new Aberration sighting. Ah. And it’s even S-class.”

The Director seemed to age 57 years in a single second.

Lin Jianyuan comforted him. “It might not be S-class.”

The Director immediately perked up.

Lin Jianyuan continued, “After all, even my wife lost his memory. Maybe it’s a completely new and even more powerful Aberrant. Like S+ or something.”

The Director: “…”

The Director aged another 57 years in one second.

“You really did make a major contribution by adding the new D- class,” the Director said gravely. “But we don’t need to record an S+. Really, we don’t.”

At the mention of D-, Lin Jianyuan couldn’t help rolling his eyes.

When Lin Jianyuan wrote the containment report for the [Baldness Monster], he rated it as D class.

Although the Baldness Monster stole people’s hair and made their hair greasy, even without it, people still lost hair, and their hair still got greasy.

The Baldness Monster merely accelerated the process.

According to the Standards, something at this level counted as harmless, but after Lin Jianyuan submitted the report, Quality Control sent it back.

Quality Control believed that the rating didn’t meet the standards because one important criterion for a D-class Aberrant was a Contamination concentration in the [Extremely Low to Low] range.

The Baldness Monster’s Contamination concentration was [None].

Lin Jianyuan: “?”

Lin Jianyuan: “What do you mean? Isn’t [None] lower than [Extremely Low]? What’s wrong with giving it D-class?”

Quality Control: “This doesn’t meet the D-class standard. It isn’t compliant.”

Lin Jianyuan: “Then what rating would be compliant? Don’t tell me I’m supposed to give it C.”

Quality Control: “C would be even less compliant.”

Lin Jianyuan: “So what am I supposed to give it???”

Quality Control: “This needs to be determined according to the actual circumstances reported by your frontline combat personnel. Quality Control only provides assistance. The final rating still depends on the judgment of frontline combat personnel.”

Lin Jianyuan: “??? My judgment is D.”

Quality Control: “No. D isn’t compliant.”

Lin Jianyuan nearly stormed into the QC room to stuff ten thousand Baldness Monsters down the throat of the nameless Quality Control person who kept him trapped in that infuriating loop.

At the time, eager to get off work and furious, Lin Jianyuan called the Director directly, ordered him to rectify the issue as soon as possible, and went home to spend time with his wife.

Several days later, after layer upon layer of meetings, discussions, reports, and approvals... The Bureau’s Aberrant classification system finally gained a new level: D-.

A certain employee surnamed Lin, who was a D- combatant not long ago: “..................”

In any case, the Baldness Monster’s final classification was settled as D-.

The bubble crabs they scraped from Pei Shuo’s body this time were in the same category.

Lin Jianyuan and the Director spent a while longer discussing Flash Granny and Delirium’s sudden reanimation.

After half a day of discussion, they made absolutely no progress.

It wasn’t really Lin Jianyuan’s fault or the fault of his useless superior. There were simply too few clues.

F**k. Did S-class Aberrants dispense clues one word at a time or something?!

The mystery of Delirium’s “you” remained unsolved, and now Flash Granny showed up with a “shh”!

“Shh, shh, shh! What the hell are you shushing for?!” Lin Jianyuan grew more irritated the more he thought about it and slapped the desk. “Shh your f**king… hey, wait.”

The Director’s eyes lit up. “Your f**king what?”

Lin Jianyuan frowned in thought. “Did I jump to a conclusion? I didn’t hear it clearly at the time. I only heard a very faint breathy sound…”

At the time, Flash Granny initially stood across the road, and Lin Jianyuan first thought she was an ordinary old woman waiting for the traffic light so she could cross.

But in the next instant, the old woman suddenly teleported more than ten meters forward.

It was like someone cut a frame out of a movie. Or, to use the technical term:

“It was like someone cut a frame out of a film, and she suddenly flashed right in front of me,” Lin Jianyuan said, rubbing his chin and frowning as he recalled it. “All I heard was a very, very short breathy sound…”

The sound Flash Granny made lasted only an instant. Combined with the shape of her mouth, there was no doubt that it was 'xu'.

Immediately afterward, the flood came, and Lin Jianyuan turned to look at it.

Then Xie Yu wrapped him up with a single intestine and hauled him away.

At some point, the Director returned to his desk and was once again sitting there with both hands clasped beneath his chin.

The Director said gravely, “Then if it wasn’t ‘shh’…”

Lin Jianyuan began listing possibilities. “Xū as in ‘empty’? Xú the surname? Xǔ as in ‘permit’? Xù as in ‘recount’?”

The Director: “…”

The scene abruptly became a little ridiculous. Lin Jianyuan coughed. “Anyway, that’s all the information we have for now. Why don’t we pass it along to some colleagues who are good at deduction and have them brainstorm?”

The Director immediately began making arrangements.

As for the “you” mentioned by Delirium...

For some reason, Lin Jianyuan had that subtle feeling... Feeling that Flash Granny’s words were incomplete, while Delirium’s were complete.

Delirium only wanted to say one word:

You.