STB Chapter 30: Tired Heart

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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You know about my ability? Yeah, the whole world will know about it.

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For about five seconds, Li Fei and Jian Hua couldn’t comprehend the meaning of that statement.

A book, what book?

The world is a book, meaning we are—

“Clang.” Jian Hua, reacting, dropped his soup spoon into the bowl, splashing soup onto his clothes. He didn’t bother to wipe it, instead staring at Major Zhang as if he were insane.

Li Fei’s mocking smile widened, then suddenly froze.

They were both pondering the same question: What did Zhang Yaojin mean by throwing out such an absurd excuse? How could provoking them benefit a Red Dragon Major?

Jian Hua thought of the young man with a mountain bike and a snack bag who mentioned “plot.”

Li Fei remembered the conversation in the stairwell of the Pearl Hotel. The thugs claimed that day was a “documented outbreak day,” and an awakened person might be in one of the rooms. Knowing about the abandoned world wasn’t strange, nor was predicting what would happen that day, but “documented”?

Where was it documented? In some ancient prophecy book?

All these puzzled Li Fei. He couldn’t understand, and set aside the questions. Now they resurfaced, engulfing him in a wave of absurdity. He wanted to object, but for the first time, he was at a loss for words.

The atmosphere in the room became oppressively tense.

Zhang Yaojin frowned, and the young man beside him instinctively reached for his gun, but a stern look from the Major stopped him.

The devices on the table vibrated, their screens showing climbing numbers.

“Cough!” Major Zhang broke the deadlock, braving the dangerously swirling air of the room. “I know, this sounds far-fetched…”

Four pairs of eyes shot towards him, burning with anger: far-fetched was an understatement; it was a joke!

Zhang Yaojin understood their feelings.

The entire Red Dragon team had been dumbfounded by the chat records for a long time, and some still couldn’t accept their content.

“A state secret department can’t find a better excuse?” Jian Hua asked, face stern.

“Or, should I phrase it differently?”

In his decade-plus in the military, facing life-and-death situations countless times, Major Zhang kept his composure, even knowing how terrifying Jian Hua and Li Fei’s abilities were: “Our fates have been written on paper, and when we know the ending, changing it isn’t difficult.”

Li Fei regained his calm, fingers intertwined, head bowed, his forefinger pressing against his forehead, clearly deep in thought.

Jian Hua closed his eyes, and after a long pause, spoke in a barely audible voice, “Evidence.”

“It’s part of the state’s top-secret files, I can’t carry it with me.”

“But you casually mentioned such a secret?” Li Fei laughed cryptically, lifting his eyes. For a second, his gaze through his fingers made the nervous young man’s scalp tingle, and he instinctively stepped back. When he came to his senses, the charming, gentle movie star was still there.

—That was definitely not an illusion!

Zhang Yaojin had to use his gaze again to reassure his subordinate: If Li Fei was as transparent as he appeared, how could he be the boss of Black Abyss? Even just on the surface, before his identity was exposed, Li Fei was an S-level ability user, effortlessly suppressing many others with abilities.

Turning back, Major Zhang continued his conversation with the two bosses.

“I really don’t want to reveal such a shocking secret.”

Zhang Yaojin emphasized four words in this sentence, Li Fei slightly scoffed coldly, while Jian Hua remained expressionless.

“…But if I don’t tell you, you’ll find out sooner or later. These informed parties aren’t smart enough, and I think you might have already encountered people who speak strange things and try to get close to you.”

Li Fei hadn’t, or rather, there were too many trying to connect with a celebrity, enough to line up from the door of this private room to the street across and turn five corners.

Jian Hua had it harder.

He thought of the strange female student in Universal Cinema, and Lu Zhao’s bizarre behavior. Numerous chaotic thoughts surfaced, only to be extinguished in his mind.

No, this couldn’t be true! Why would such absurd things happen?

“Say that again!” Losing control of his emotions, Jian Hua’s fingertips on the table revealed fine white filaments.

Zhang Yaojin’s pupils contracted, he pressed the sides of his wheelchair and quickly retreated to the door, also shielding the young man behind him.

Jian Hua came back to his senses: “…”

The room fell silent for half a minute. Jian Hua retracted his palm, his gaze dangerously fixed on Major Zhang: “You know about my ability.”

An affirmative statement.

Zhang Yaojin’s expression was conflicted, not out of fear of death, but because he was deeply troubled by the chat group records.

—-To maintain the secret, Jian Hua killed everyone who saw his ability. He hid deeply because everyone who knew the secret died, showing his merciless nature.

“Yes, I know, many people know.”

“…”

Under Jian Hua’s hostile gaze, Major Zhang calmly explained: “Factors that have a significant impact on this world are all recorded. I’ve mentioned in our last conversation, you are people who will influence not just China, but the entire world in the future.”

Li Fei, hearing this for the first time, had his smile frozen.

Soon, he recovered, rubbing his forehead with his fingers, “The former, I arrogantly feel I have achieved, and I am working towards the latter goal, but clearly, the impact you’re talking about is not on the same level as what I hope for.”

Li Fei is a top-tier actor in China, probably just a step away from going international.

But influencing the world? That’s Venice, Cannes, not using abilities to gain fame!

“The informed parties… they know everything.” Zhang Yaojin spoke slowly and seriously, “Red Dragon has already arrested some of them, but the mastermind behind the Pearl Hotel explosion is still at large. They wander outside, destabilizing society.”

Glancing at the unmoved Jian Hua and Li Fei, Major Zhang had no choice but to reveal a bombshell, “The abandoned world doesn’t only appear in China, and the informed parties aren’t just Chinese. Any government that isn’t utterly incompetent will discover their existence.”

The ‘they’ referred to here are transmigrators, not ability users.

“You are in great danger,” Zhang Yaojin warned solemnly, not exaggerating the threat.

Jian Hua frowned, deliberately ignoring the unsaid implications in Major Zhang’s words.

Logic told him that these were utterly absurd jokes, but his intuition kept nagging him that this was the truth. Jian Hua felt a headache coming on, needing a quiet environment to think things through.

“When you last visited, you only mentioned that monsters would appear in the abandoned world. You didn’t mention that squid, let alone describe it as such an exaggerated and ferocious creature!” Jian Hua stared at Zhang Yaojin, questioning why he hadn’t mentioned it earlier if he had known.

“Is it because you knew of our abilities, confident that we would manage without danger, and wanted us to ‘see clearly’ the reality and cruelty of this world?” Li Fei’s tone was gentle, but laced with hostility.

Zhang Yaojin, of course, denied such accusations: “No, they shouldn’t have appeared so early! The lowest level monsters, the fur balls, were supposed to attack ability users next spring, and the man-eating squids came even six months earlier!”

Li Fei’s expression read ‘keep making up stories,’ though he wasn’t as certain as he appeared.

Was it all a lie? Li Fei was beginning to waver.

Major Zhang continued tiredly, “This morning, in the fog, our car on the expressway almost crashed into a man-eating squid. The tentacled monster… I still hoped it was a fluke until I woke up in the hospital and saw the photos from the Ginkgo Tree Avenue.”

The reasons for the early appearance of the monsters were still under analysis by Red Dragon.

They had a lot of information, but their main source, the chat group records, was populated by idealistic older children, fantasizing about gaining abilities, becoming powerful and impressive, or plotting how to conquer story characters, not to mention the girls fixated on proving Li Fei’s true love.

Extracting useful information, distinguishing truth from fiction, and analyzing it was not easy.

“The informed parties have influenced the original course of events, changing some people’s experiences,” Zhang Yaojin said, glancing at Li Fei. According to the original story, the actor would still be lying in a hospital bed after a car accident.

Jian Hua picked up his spoon from the soup, only to find the silverfish soup had gone cold.

He put down the utensils, frustrated, and asked, “So, Major Zhang, after encountering the rainforest squid on the Haohuai Expressway, how did you end up in front of my house?”

Zhang Yaojin seemed to want to correct Jian Hua’s name for the squid, but discussing such trivial details seemed pointless, so he ignored it.

“We first encountered a group of furry balls, had limited ammunition, and had to take refuge in the car, only to be targeted by long-armed monkeys. These creatures are intelligent and very vengeful. We turned around towards Huai City by coincidence, because the road to Huai City had fewer monsters. Looking back, it was probably because the squid had just passed through, scaring off the other creatures.

“We were trapped on the expressway, the vehicle was heavily damaged, and finally, we jumped into the river to escape the monkeys. After entering Huai City, we chose an office building to hide in for a few hours until cat-sized furry balls broke the glass. After a hard fight, everyone was injured, and without food or water, we worried we wouldn’t have the strength for another attack. In desperation, I decided to go near your house—”

Jian Hua frowned. Was his home’s safety written in the book?

Li Fei felt awful as if a secret only he knew had suddenly been shared with the whole world.

“Facts have proved that’s the right decision,” Zhang Yaojin spread his palms, his gaze frank. “The entire neighborhood was quiet, with no monsters appearing. After exhausting our strength, we took turns resting. I vaguely heard screams, felt something pulling me off the stone bench, and wanted to open my eyes, but I was too weak. I have no knowledge of what happened afterward, only that I was found lying at Jian Hua’s doorstep.”

“What about Geng Tian?” Li Fei asked.

“According to the report I’ve received, Geng Tian disappeared in the fog at 7 a.m. that day—-I’m still not used to saying ‘today.’ He left the car to check a fault and vanished in the mist. At 7 a.m., our car hadn’t entered the expressway yet. We experienced different delays and did not meet in the abandoned world. It’s just that the location we returned to in the real world coincidentally overlapped.”

Jian Hua had an ominous feeling. Did his mushrooms attack Zhang Yaojin and Geng Tian?

When he returned home from the supermarket and found two people barely alive at his doorstep, was it actually the mushrooms from the abandoned world, delivering “delicious food” to their master?

Li Fei looked at Zhang Yaojin for a long time before suddenly asking, “If this world is a book, who is Jian Hua?”

Zhang Yaojin thought there was nothing to hide and turned to Jian Hua. “You are the final antagonist in this seven-part novel series.”

“……”

Jian Hua felt his expression breaking apart.

He heard a faint, mocking sound again, and Li Fei, keeping a straight face, tapped the table with his finger. “I see. Then who is the protagonist of our world?”

“He’s named Johnson Brown, an American.”

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The author has something to say：

The opening volume of the story is complete╮(╯▽╰)╭ The next chapter will switch perspectives.

Mini Theatre:
Li Fei: Who is Jian Hua?
Major Zhang: He’s the antagonist of the book.
Li Fei [smiling]: And the protagonist?
Major Zhang: His name is Johnson Brown, an American.
Li Fei: WTF!! This script is wrong, shouldn’t it be me? (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻
PS: Oh, time is just a beautiful mistake, don’t ask for double updates, go to sleep ZZZZZ

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Last Edit: December 20, 2023 at 8:14 AM

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.