STB Chapter 15: Oversight

This is machine translated and all copyrights belong to the author. Please note that the translator might take creative liberties for better readability. Thank you for reading.

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Transmigrator Number 2: I’m very sincere, you know.

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–There’s a feeling that something important has been forgotten.

Jian Hua was cooking udon noodles absentmindedly, sprinkling some pepper into the bowl.

The television in the living room was on, and the sound reached the kitchen.

“Acclaimed actor Li Fei reveals his love life for the first time, surprising the host! Let’s see the live report…”

Jian Hua paused, and the pepper scattered onto the countertop.

Someone he had just seen a day ago was now in a romantic relationship? Jian Hua couldn’t help but recall the rumors about Li Fei being gay. It seemed normal for Li Fei to have unrequited love. Perhaps he had fallen for a straight man, making it difficult for him to confess his feelings.

He turned off the stove and carried a steaming bowl of noodles into the living room, coincidentally catching a glimpse of Li Fei on the TV screen, his eyes filled with sadness. “Although the person I like is also single, I know that they didn’t have feelings for me.”

So, it was a love triangle after all.

Jian Hua picked up his chopsticks and began eating his noodles while contemplating. The noodles were slightly overcooked and mushy, which added to his mental burden. Jian Hua sighed.

The television was filled with a frenzy of reporters eagerly asking questions.

“They…are someone from the industry,” Li Fei smiled and continued his revelation.

“They are a very serious and hardworking person. It’s not reliable to inquire about the person I like from me because, in my eyes, they are perfect in every way.”

“To be honest, I don’t know them well enough because of the distance… you know, we’re not that close. But every time I meet them again, I discover something new that keeps me infatuated. That’s what unrequited love is like for me.”

“In fact, it was love at first sight for me.”

Jian Hua’s hand holding the chopsticks froze. He carefully observed the changes in Li Fei’s expressions and eyes. Although Jian Hua had long accepted his lack of talent, encountering Li Fei made him marvel at how some people were simply blessed by fortune.

Who was this man who could find satisfaction in the tiniest details, despite having a love affair with no resolution? It was a world of difference compared to General Wu!

All this just to escape from Xiao Yaqin, Jian Hua ate his noodles and pondered. He didn’t delve deeper into Li Fei’s words.

The entertainment industry was full of truth and falsehood, constantly changing. Life was like a drama, and it all depended on acting skills. For exceptional individuals like Li Fei, if you took him seriously, you would lose. Not to mention the entertainment news using the word “she” in Li Fei’s “deep confession,” making it difficult for Jian Hua to believe it at all.

After listening to today’s entertainment report, Jian Hua cleaned up his dishes and returned to the kitchen to wash them. As cold water ran over his hands, he finally realized what he had overlooked.

In the stagnant world of time, the cameras were mere decorations, but when he entered Huan Yu Cinema’s elevator, he should have been caught on camera!

Five people mysteriously vanished inside the elevator, and one couple died under strange circumstances…

Jian Hua tossed his chopsticks into the sink and furrowed his brows, contemplating how to extricate himself from this situation. Without even thinking, he knew he would become a suspect in this murder case.

He turned on his computer and began searching for the details of the Huan Yu Cinema incident.

Due to the Pearl Hotel explosion the next day, the buzz around the cinema case had rapidly declined. The gossipmongers had shifted their attention to the Xiao Yaqin video incident, and there were no further clues regarding the couple’s death.

Jian Hua kept changing the keywords—-Huai City, Huan Yu Cinema…

“Hmm?” Jian Hua’s gaze halted on a missing persons’ post on Weibo. Two female students from Huai City University had gone missing, and on the night of the incident, they had mentioned going to Huan Yu Cinema to watch the late-night showing of “The Crow.”

He clicked on the photo and examined it for half a minute.

Jian Hua didn’t have a photographic memory, and photos often distorted reality to some extent. He couldn’t be certain if these two girls were the same ones he had seen in the elevator that night.

Jian Hua thought about his own near-starvation a few days ago, and his brows furrowed even tighter.

He suspected that the two female students, with their physical endurance, were likely dead in some corner.

This was troublesome. Out of the five people who entered the elevator, he was the only one alive, and his eloquence couldn’t provide a clear explanation.

Jian Hua regretted not having the habit of wearing sunglasses and couldn’t remember the exact position of the cameras in the elevator or whether the surveillance cameras in the parking lot had captured his license plate. He didn’t know.

If it weren’t for the Pearl Hotel explosion diverting the attention of the police, Jian Hua believed he would already be a person of interest, waiting to be interrogated at the police station instead of scrolling through Weibo at home.

The past couldn’t be changed unless the surveillance videos were destroyed. Not to mention how to infiltrate the security department of Huan Yu Cinema and erase the surveillance records, what about the fact that this footage wasn’t extracted after the incident? Wasn’t it copied and taken away by the police?

Jian Hua’s complexion grew increasingly grim. He had no choice and no way out, like an animal cowering in a room. No matter how dark the corner he hid in, he couldn’t escape.

It was the suffocating feeling of being forced onto a dead-end path, with an invisible net slowly closing in on him!

“Crash!”

Objects on the table floated uncontrollably before crashing to the ground.

Jian Hua couldn’t suppress his own power. Despair and fear overwhelmed him just a moment ago.

He was different from Li Fei. He didn’t have anything or anyone he couldn’t let go of in this world. He had no achievements or dreams that occupied his soul, nor did he feel a sense of belonging to this world.

During his childhood, Jian Hua came from a wealthy family and had everything he wanted. However, after falling into debt and bankruptcy, his relatives disappeared without a trace, and his friends avoided him whenever they saw him. His house was mortgaged, and he couldn’t even afford a hot meal, feeling like a forsaken dog. The only person who didn’t leave him was Lu Zhao, who always seemed to have ulterior motives for investing in him. Jian Hua had a deep sense of distrust toward people in this world.

He pondered how to explain his experience at the Huan Yu Cinema and how to ensure he wouldn’t become a guinea pig in a laboratory. Just the thought of facing interrogators who would scrutinize his astonishment or contemptuous glances made Jian Hua’s emotions unstable.

Realizing that he couldn’t escape from this situation, his uncontrollable powers surged exponentially.

“Boom.” His head was struck by a powerful force, leaving him drenched in a cold sweat and convulsing for a while before he managed to get up from the overturned chair.

The room was in chaos, with the sofa floating in mid-air, the television tilted on the shoe rack, and water gushing out of the kitchen sink, its splashes frozen in place, creating an eerie scene.

“…”

Suddenly, all the objects fell back to their original positions.

Jian Hua turned his stiff neck, and the humming noise from the old-fashioned range hood in the neighbor’s house disappeared.

The second hand of the wall clock stopped at 13:10.

–Li Fei’s awakening had prematurely ended the abandoned world, and now Jian Hua’s uncontrollable power eruption brought forth the return of this ominous world.

Jian Hua instinctively reached into his pocket.

He had developed a habit of carrying food with him, but it was absurd to carry a backpack filled with food for 24 hours. Currently, he had some chocolate and two small bottles of glucose in his pocket.

Jian Hua opened his wardrobe and picked out an unremarkable sports jacket. He also found a hat, a mask, sunglasses, and gloves, which he put on. Opening the front door, he ran downstairs, quickly circling around the silent and soundless neighborhood. He took an unlocked bicycle near the mail room and rode away.

Immense power filled every muscle and nerve in his body.

Jian Hua sensed that this time was different from the previous two occurrences. The silent city was like a frozen pond, and he moved within it, creating ripples that spread out in circles. It was the fluctuation of his power.

In other parts of the pond, faint ripples emerged, contrasting with the serene surroundings.

Jian Hua skillfully avoided these “ripples.” The city was vast, and it was difficult for them to meet head-on, let alone Jian Hua who was purposely hiding.

In a police car on the side of the road, laughter emanated as someone pounded on the car door, seemingly trying to escape. There was also commotion in the detention center, but just as they snapped out of their euphoria, they were restrained by handcuffs.

–with no powers, even if everyone in the world disappears, they still can’t escape.

The laughter turned into angry shouts and screams of despair.

Jian Hua was unaware of all this as he made his way to Huan Yu Cinema.

The bustling mall was empty with no one around. Jian Hua maneuvered to the staff area and finally found the security department. However, the control room had a password lock, and only employees had access by entering the password.

Using his abilities, Jian Hua pressed the door handle from the inside and forcefully opened the office door.

Fortunately, it was during working hours, and all the equipment was running. Jian Hua inputted the time and accessed the surveillance records, only to discover that the records for the elevator and parking lot on that particular night were missing.

Could it be that the police took away the footage because the content was too bizarre and they were afraid it would cause a social uproar, deleting the original copy?

Jian Hua was troubled by this thought when he suddenly sensed an object outside the cinema moving closer.

When referring to it as an “object,” it’s because, in Jian Hua’s power perception, it appeared as a standard rectangular prism. There certainly weren’t any living creatures like that in the world. Jian Hua deduced that it must be another person with abilities, surrounded by a field-like effect.

Swiftly leaving the control office, Jian Hua gathered his power and calmly arrived on the first floor of the mall.

There were many places to hide here, and the mall had multiple entrances open at the same time. The intruder’s location held no secrets in Jian Hua’s eyes, so he could easily avoid them and quietly depart.

Then, something unexpected happened.

The person with abilities stopped at the cinema elevator entrance looked around, and shouted loudly, “Hey!”

“…”

“I know you’re here. On that day, we experienced an incident. The newspaper said that the couple died, and my friend also died. I’m too scared to go home now!”

The voice belonged to a young girl, and she sounded on the verge of tears.

Jian Hua crouched down, using the sparkling sign of a jewelry store as cover, and took a detour from behind the counter to get closer to the elevator. He squatted in the darkness and glanced at the girl.

She looked remarkably similar to one of the missing persons in a photo circulating on Weibo.

“Yesterday, Li Fei awakened his abilities, and the abandoned world abruptly ended. You didn’t have time to destroy the surveillance at Huan Yu Cinema. I knew you would come today. Can you come out? I know what’s going on, and I can tell you the truth.”

Jian Hua’s mouth curved into a deep arc, his gaze was cold and severe.

He walked away without even looking back, not sparing another glance at the girl.

Unaware of Jian Hua’s departure, the girl shouted a few more times in the mall before sitting defeated on the floor. Speaking in a voice only she could hear, she muttered, “Strange, did he not come? That’s impossible. Jian Hua is so cautious. He wouldn’t compromise his safety without personally confirming it. He can’t even sleep properly.”

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Last Edit: 06-16-2023 3:00 PM

This is machine translated and all copyrights belong to the author. Please note that the translator might take creative liberties for better readability. Thank you for reading.