Chapter 69: Artificial Stupidity (5)
69 – Artificial Stupidity (5)
Lin Kexin didn’t speak.
Since she remained silent, Lin Xun spoke instead.
“Those things you can see,” he said, “started appearing around me about ten days ago. I don’t know what they are, but they all seem to want to attack me.”
“I’m not interested in them. I just want to know what it is about me that attracts their attention?”
Demonic creatures—that was the term the cultivation world used for these things. They crawled out from the cracks between the human and demon realms, attempting to wreak havoc in the mortal world.
But so far, based on the few demonic creature attacks Lin Xun had experienced, they seemed particularly interested in him.
First, the initial demonic seed possessed Jiang Lian and attacked him. Later, a demonic realm rift appeared in Chaoyang Community, right beneath his apartment. No matter when or who he was with, whenever demonic creatures appeared, Lin Xun was always their first target.
Today at the hospital was no different. He did nothing, yet all the children in the hallway turned into demonic creatures chasing him.
How to defeat them was secondary; what he really wanted to know was why.
And this little girl, Lin Kexin, could see demonic creatures in their non-aggressive state and even communicate with them.
After speaking, he lightly tapped the axe handle a few times with his fingertips and said calmly, “I don’t mean anything by it.”
The little girl’s gaze lingered on the axe as she spoke her first words: “Then put it down first.”
Lin Xun didn’t put it down.
He looked toward Mingming—or more accurately, not at Mingming himself, but at the empty space behind him.
“I’ll hand the axe over to Officer Cao. He’ll investigate the cause of your death,” he said. “Rest in peace. Stop tormenting your son.”
A faint breeze seemed to brush past his eyes, and Mingming’s previously rapid breathing gradually eased.
He turned back to the little girl, mentally calculating the time.
Lin Xun: “If I were to attack you, would that invisible friend of yours come out to protect you?”
The little girl answered with certainty: “Yes.”
“Oh,” Lin Xun said. “Then it seems he can’t defeat me, otherwise he would have acted already.”
“It’s not that he can’t defeat you,” the little girl blinked. “My friend seems to say they don’t actually want to attack you—they just want to understand you.”
Lin Xun stared at her.
Lin Xun: “Do you think I believe that?”
“Whether you believe it or not, there’s nothing you can do,” Lin Kexin tilted her head, her expression one of innocent naivety.
Lin Xun: “So, what do they want to understand about me? There’s nothing worth understanding.”
The little girl only smiled. In this situation, no matter how innocent or pure the smile, it felt utterly eerie and terrifying. “Anyway, you can’t escape now.”
As her words fell, Lin Xun heard a distant “ding” from the elevator.
That elevator full of monsters and ghosts had ridden back up.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced discreetly at the clean glass window, recalling the location of the air conditioning unit, and prepared to retreat.
At that very moment!
A fierce gust of wind swept from in front of Lin Kexin, rushing violently toward him!
Headache.
A world-shattering, earth-rending kind of pain.
As if a transparent humanoid figure had seized him, fingers gripping the crown of his skull. An icy sensation spread from there, coursing through his entire body.
Lin Xun’s heart felt as if it were being gripped, his blood ceasing to flow, his ears filled with a deafening ringing and the thunderous pounding of his heart. An intense sense of suffocation enveloped him, his mind thrown into chaos, barely able to think. There was a fixed point in his head radiating sharp, piercing pain, as if something were being forcibly torn out from within.
He clutched his keyboard, sword light gathering around him. At the same time, his fingers moved across the keys, attempting to disconnect himself from the network amidst the near-fatal agony.
His fingers trembled, unable to press the right keys.
Just then, a voice rang out.
Time stood still.
In the next moment, the suffocation and pain receded like a tide, vanishing from his body.
Lin Xun gasped for breath a few times and looked ahead.
Lin Kexin’s eyes were filled with confusion as she stared in one direction. He followed her gaze and saw a shadowy mass rapidly disappearing at the edge of his vision—as if fleeing in panic.
His entire body ached, especially his head. He pressed his temples, and his blurred vision gradually cleared.
On his phone screen, a video call.
From Dong Jun.
He paused for a moment, then answered.
In the background was Dong Jun’s office, the smooth wooden desk gleaming with a honey-like sheen.
Dong Jun wore a simple white shirt and smiled at him through the screen. “What are you up to?”
“I…” As soon as he spoke, he realized his voice was weak and hoarse. “Still at the hospital, keeping watch.”
Dong Jun frowned slightly. “What’s wrong? Are you unwell?”
Lin Xun shook his head. “It’s nothing, just a bit tired.”
He glanced down the empty hospital corridor. The iron door remained intact, everything as if nothing had happened. The child’s cries echoed once more, and nurses in pink uniforms moved through the hallway. The chaos he had just experienced had vanished without a trace, as if the clock had been turned back half an hour.
Like a dream, or an illusion.
He said to Dong Jun, “You were looking for me?”
“Zhi Zhen was looking for you,” Dong Jun lifted a white bundle from his lap onto the desk. “He kept meowing. I guessed he missed you.”
Zhi Zhen stared unblinkingly, extending a pink paw toward him. “Meow.”
Lin Xun smiled and touched his finger to the paw.
Just then, Lin Kexin let out a sharp, piercing cry.
She stumbled off the bed and rushed toward Lin Xun. “He’s gone! You made him leave—!”
Two nurses burst through the door—perhaps having heard Lin Kexin’s cries. With practiced movements, they restrained her on the bed, administered a sedative, and began to soothe her.
Gone?
With Dong Jun’s call, all the demons, along with the friend who had been speaking to the little girl, had scattered?
Lin Xun looked at the screen, meeting Zhi Zhen’s blue eyes.
Dong Jun had said Zhi Zhen kept meowing, which was why he had called.
Zhi Zhen.
He wondered, could it be because of Zhi Zhen?
A cat that treads the rifts of the demon realm as if walking on flat ground, today effortlessly drove away dozens of demons that had nearly taken his life?
At the same time, Dong Jun on the other end of the call seemed to notice the commotion on his side.
Dong Jun asked, “What’s going on?”
“There’s a child,” Lin Xun explained. “She had an episode. The nurses are calming her down now.”
Dong Jun continued to frown slightly. “So where exactly are you?”
Lin Xun: “…”
He replied, “A children’s psychiatric hospital.”
“You don’t look well,” Dong Jun said. “Do you want me to come pick you up?”
Lin Xun gasped for breath; the sensation of near-death had felt too real. In that final moment, he had truly been afraid, and now he was like a startled bird.
At this moment, it seemed only Dong Jun—or rather, Dong Jun’s pointer—could offer a sliver of security.
He: “…Yes.”
Dong Jun’s reply was brief: “Give me your address.”
Ending the call, Lin Xun sent the address.
Now, his phone signal had returned to normal, and everything was calm.
A nurse noticed the axe by Lin Kexin’s bedside and cried out in alarm.
Lin Xun stepped forward to explain, but the nurse seemed to suspect him of being a murderer and threatened to call the police.
Call the police? Fine, let her.
Lin Xun picked up his phone and dialed Officer Cao’s number, informing him that he had found an axe in the hospital morgue, which might hold the truth about Mingming’s father’s murder.
After reporting it, he glanced at Mingming lying in the hospital bed. The child was now breathing steadily, his complexion rosy, no longer looking like a sick child.
Even Chen Xiaochen in the neighboring bed had stopped screaming in terror, no longer accusing monsters of trying to eat him, and instead lay quietly staring at the ceiling.
Only Lin Kexin was still crying and screaming, accusing Lin Xun of scaring away her friend and vowing to fight him to the death—until she finally fell asleep under the influence of medication.
The police response from Chaoyang District was terrifyingly fast. Within ten minutes, police cars arrived. After greeting Officer Cao, the team immediately began investigating the hospital’s basement level.
The investigation yielded significant results: in a long-unused freezer in the morgue, they discovered the body of an adult man with sharp-force injuries.
—Mingming’s father.
To explain it in unscientific terms, this entire incident was the result of his lingering consciousness making calls for help—both to the police and to Lin Xun—ultimately leading to the discovery of his cause of death and the apprehension of those responsible.
As for a scientific explanation, Lin Xun couldn’t think of one, and his physical condition didn’t allow him to dwell on it.
After declining a nurse’s suggestion to receive an IV drip, he left the ward.
Everything seemed normal. He took the elevator down and sat on a bench under a tree in front of the hospital.
His thoughts were chaotic, countless ambiguous clues flashing through his mind.
Why were the demons afraid of the pointer? And what did they want from him?
Thinking of this, he immediately thought of the system.
He closed his eyes, attempting to enter the System Space.
Three seconds later, his eyes snapped open.
—He couldn’t enter.
An unprecedented fear enveloped him. He closed his eyes and tried again.
Only an empty, dark void greeted him, just like any ordinary moment with closed eyes—no trace of the System Space in sight.
He desperately focused his attention and finally spotted a faint blue dot at the edge of his vision.
With his mind, he approached it.
The blue dot flickered, and a line of text appeared before his eyes.
“System damaged, rebuilding in progress. Please wait.”
It was still there.
He let out a sigh of relief.
System damaged.
So, was the purpose of the attack from that unseen friend earlier to destroy this system?
Lin Xun thought this and asked accordingly.
“Are the demons targeting you?”
The previous line of text vanished, replaced by another sentence.
—”Perhaps.”
Lin Xun continued: “What is your purpose?”
—”To help you.”
“Why me?”
No response.
Lin Xun changed the question: “Help me with what?”
System: “Tribulation Transcendence, shattering the void.”
Lin Xun: “…”
Alright, this is indeed a genuine Cultivation system.
Lin Xun asked, “How long will it take for you to recover?”
The system replied, “Three days.”
Lin Xun said, “Then… is there anything I can do to help you?”
The system said, “Don’t die.”
Lin Xun replied, “I’ll do my best.”
The system said, “Then I’m going offline.”
“Wait!” It was rare to be able to communicate with this thing like a human—it usually just gave out tasks in a cold, mechanical voice. Lin Xun didn’t let it go easily and asked, “Is there anything you want to say to me? What’s your principle? Why are the demonic creatures afraid of Zhi Zhen? Why doesn’t Dong Jun have a program?”
The previous line of text dissipated, and new words appeared.
“Stay away…”
Just as the new text was forming, the characters suddenly twisted a few times, like a television losing signal, turning into a screen of white static before completely disappearing from Lin Xun’s sight.
Stay away—stay away from what?
Only after confirming that he could no longer get a response from the system did Lin Xun open his eyes.
At that moment, Dong Jun’s car appeared at the edge of his vision.
Dong Jun got out of the car and walked up to him. His snow-white shirt reflected the sunlight, revealing the cufflink Lin Xun had given him on his sleeve.
Lin Xun smiled.
Dong Jun asked, “Are you okay?”
“I’m a bit dizzy,” he said, tentatively grabbing Dong Jun’s wrist before standing up from the bench.
As he got closer, he saw Zhi Zhen peering at him from inside the car.
He got into the passenger seat, and Zhi Zhen immediately burrowed into his arms. The cat’s fur might have picked up Dong Jun’s perfume, carrying a familiar scent.
Dong Jun started the car and asked him, “Where to?”
Lin Xun couldn’t speak.
The moment he touched Zhi Zhen, his entire body suddenly relaxed from its tense state, and his overexerted body gave its response.
He lost consciousness.