Chapter 12

Wu Peng still tried to persuade Yun Xin,

 “Even if you ask the director, it might not be the truth. Why don’t we go back and think of another way first?”

Yun Xin’s response was, “If you can’t get answers, it’s because your posture is wrong.” then walk towards the director office

Wu Peng was curious at the time—how could posture affect questioning? He tried to imagine it but found it impossible; his imagination was indeed somewhat lacking.

Following Yun Xin into the director’s office, Wu Peng finally understood the correct questioning posture—Yun Xin grabbed the director by the neck with her left hand, pinning her against the wall with her feet dangling in the air.

With this posture, what questions couldn’t be answered?!

Wu Peng couldn’t help but be impressed.

The director, pinned against the wall and nearly fainting from being choked, surprisingly still had the presence of mind to say to Yun Xin, “You’re different from what’s written in the files. The files only said you could sense danger in advance; they didn’t mention you were so strong and such a good fighter.”

Yun Xin told her, “Not everyone shows off their power once they acquire it. I only use my ability at critical moments, like now.”

“How strong are you? 4? 5? Or have you already surpassed 6?” the director asked curiously.

Yun Xin tightened her grip slightly.

 “I have questions for you, not the other way around. Know your place.”

The director, struggling to breathe.

“I can’t breathe.”

Yun Xin eased her grip a bit and pressed, “Tell me, how did you find us?”

The director? looked at Wu Peng and said, “Strength 0.9, Agility 0.9, Stamina 0.9, Spirit 1.7.”

“Huh?” Wu Peng looked confused.

Yun Xin, however, seemed to understand something.

The dean looked at Yun Xin and smiled. “You, I can’t see through. But my Spirit is 4.7, and my superpower is detection. I can see the four attributes of anyone whose Spirit is lower than mine.”

“Damn this superpower!” Yun Xin cursed softly.

Last time, she had managed to cover up her lie, but Tong Jia awakened her superpower and immediately sensed something was off. 

This time was no different. Without even thoroughly investigating, just because they couldn’t see through her, they knew something was wrong.

How could she go on living like this?

Yun Xin felt a growing sense of despair.

“What are you talking about?” Wu Peng was completely out of the loop.

“I mean,” the director quickly changed her tune.

“I know everything about your situation.”

“One day, you insisted that the sculpture outside the mall would fall and blocked passersby from walking underneath it. The mall employees thought you were causing trouble and deliberately interfering with their business, so they called the police. You were taken away by the police, and the commotion subsided. Three hours later, the sculpture did fall, hitting seven passersby, resulting in five deaths and two injuries.”

“How do you know about that?” Wu Peng felt a chill strangely wondering why the director know about the scene.

“I work at the police department. All sorts of strange reports eventually end up on my desk,” the she explained. 

“I sift through them and personally visit those people. If they have special abilities, I can tell just by observing from a distance.”

“That’s impossible!” Wu Peng was incredulous. “How could the police do such shady business, restricting citizens’ freedom?”

“They didn’t do anything wrong. Everything has its reasons, but I can’t disclose them to you,” then she sighed. “In life, you really need to get an A.”

“Bullshit,” Wu Peng snapped, furious enough to curse. “Why should only those with an A matter? What about B, C, D, E, F, and G? Are they not alive? What kind of police are you, discriminating against people? I’ll tell you, all men are created equal. Even without talent or an A grade, everyone has the right to live in this world!”

Wu Peng was completely clueless.

Yun Xin murmured, “Because only those who achieve an A or higher rating can learn the truth about the world.”

“The next part of the conversation isn’t suitable for him to hear. Let him wait outside,” the director told Yun Xin.

 “All the staff here are my colleagues; no one will harm him.”

“I’d rather not…” Wu Peng said, feeling uneasy, he didn’t trust anyone else besides Yun Xin.

“Go on,” Yun Xin reassured him. “If anything happens to you, I’ll definitely avenge you.”

Initially, Wu Peng felt comforted, but the more he thought about it, the more wrong it seemed. Questions keep going in Wu Peng’s mind, when the security guards barged, going straight toward him hurriedly take him away.

The door is closed, only the director and Yun Xin remained inside.

“Put your hand down. Aren’t you tired of holding my neck all this time?” the director tried to ease the tension.

 “If you don’t believe me, I can show you my police ID.”

And Yun Xin let go. “Grabbing your neck  mean to  tell me the truth. If you’re willing to talk then I don’t need to use force to spill the truth.”

The director finally slid down from the wall, rubbing her bruised neck. laying her hands in her pockets, she asked Yun Xin, “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Yun Xin said bluntly. “How did you know about me? What do you know? What do you want from me?”

“My name is Bai Wei, I’m thirty-three years old, and I’m an ordinary police officer… At least, that was true before I defused the bomb at the mall and saved more than twenty people.” Bai Wei motioned for Yun Xin to sit down and talk.

“Surviving an accident and directly saving ten or more people usually earns you an A. But getting an A isn’t something to brag about it will be the beginning of your nightmare.”

“After seeing the panel, I realized the there’s something strange happening and I wanted to report it to my superiors.”

At this point, she emphasized, “I saw the annotations, but I believed that all the problems could be solved. The important thing was to report it to the higher-ups and inform everyone. Unfortunately, three days after I informed my superior, they were caught in an accident while saving someone and died unexpectedly.”

“After numerous attempts, we replaced ‘Evolution Game’ with ‘Indescribable Entity’ and conveyed the objective reality that ‘humanity is facing a great crisis’ without explicitly mentioning the ‘Evolution Game’.”

“Since we didn’t know how to inform and warn uninformed people without harming them, the government approved us to start experiments.”

“So you’re telling me this entire nursing home is a lab? The elderly here were informed about the ‘Evolution Game’, which is why they frequently encounter accidents?” Yun Xin was exasperated. “Have all the death row inmates died off? Why use ordinary citizens for experiments?”

“How do you know we didn’t?” Bai Wei countered. “This is the 15th experiment; all the previous ones failed.”

Yun Xin was speechless.

For a moment, she wanted to ask what was wrong with the world.

“It was bad enough that good doctors were few, but now even medicines were running out.”

Bai Wei continued, “Food poisoning, gas leaks, explosions, fires, earthquakes… Once people are informed about the ‘Evolution Game’, inexplicable accidents will happen and this will be the way to take their lives.”

“To solve this problem, I’ve been searching for people with the ability to foresee danger.”

“In fact, five people were invited this time, but in the end, only you and Wu Peng came.”

“Research shows that women have a special strength in the ‘Spirit’ attribute, often called ‘woman’s intuition.’ But when their ‘Spirit’ is low, they might sense something without knowing what it means.”

“As the ‘Spirit’ attribute goes up, there will be a strong but unclear urge to do something. When they encounter almost 3 accidents and they get superpowers, the feeling becomes clearer, and they’ll understand it better. They’ll also know more about how to use their abilities.”

“‘Strength’, ‘Agility’, and ‘Stamina’ work the same way. By the way, the two bodyguards outside—one has a ‘Strength’ over 3, and the other has a ‘Stamina’ over 3—and you still managed to take them down.”

Yun Xin acted like she didn’t hear that. “You’ve been talking for a while, but you still haven’t told me why you brought Wu Peng and me here.”

Bai Wei got straight to the point. “To foresee danger, avoid danger, and save everyone. I want to save them, and I need your abilities.”

“Couldn’t you just say that? Why deceive people to get them here?” Yun Xin couldn’t understand.

At this, Bai Wei sighed. “We tried explaining the situation and inviting them before, but they all refused. Since they were law-abiding citizens, we couldn’t force them and had to respect their decisions.”

“In the past five years, the number of accidental deaths each year has been more than ten times that of five years ago, and it’s still increasing annually.”

“This situation get worse and worse, and the progress of the experiment has stalled. I can’t let this continue.”

“Using deceit to bring you here was entirely my idea. I’m willing to take full responsibility for it.”

“If deceiving you can lead to a breakthrough in the experiment, then while I’ve wronged you, I’ve done right by humanity.”

Yun Xin was frustrated. “If you tricked us and the experiment fails, you’ve just hurt us and done nothing to help humanity.”

“We have to try,” Bai Wei said, her 

expression showing unmistakable fatigue. 

“There are many things I can’t explain to my superiors or leaders, otherwise it would be considered murder.”

“I can say everything but can’t fully explain what I mean. I have to make many decisions, but I don’t even always know what to do.”

“I keep trying to fill the answers in my mind reflecting, and summarizing the scene. When I have new ideas, I try again.”

Yun Xin suspected Bai Wei was trying to play on her sympathy, but she had no proof.

“Do the elderly know about this?” she asked.

“They are unaware,” Bai Wei shook her head.

Just as Yun Xin frowned, she heard Bai Wei continue, “We conducted surveys beforehand. We asked if they would prefer to know when will they die, live in fear today, or choose not to know and suddenly face an accident. Yet the result is they preferred ‘not to know anything.'”

“All the elderly here were carefully selected, and all are volunteers. Some are terminally ill and beyond treatment; some have lost the will to live and attempted suicide several times; others have said they’ve lived long enough and, since the government needs them, they’re willing to sacrifice their lives and have voluntarily applied to participate in the experiment.”

“Although we may not be able to prevent their deaths, we try to respect their wishes in all other matters.”

“They are also unaware of the ‘Evolution Game’. I’ve arranged many lectures for them, including one titled ‘If Reality Were a Game’. They probably think it’s just a hypothetical scenario, merely a lecture.”

“So,” Yun Xin realized keenly, “if someone is informed unilaterally and they don’t believe that the ‘Evolution Game’ exists, they could still be considered ‘illegally informed’?”