Chapter 35
Although Bai Hewei had taken exams all over the country before, his previous attempts were limited to a few provinces near his hometown. He had never actually taken an exam out here at the border, so he naturally had no idea that the testing material here was completely different.
Once Huo Ling pointed this out, Bai Hewei’s previously firm resolve inevitably wavered a little.
“Even though the test questions are different here, fewer people register, and the passing scores are much lower,” one of the local leaders quickly chimed in. He wasn’t entirely sure what had just transpired, but seeing that Bai Hewei was showing signs of backing out, he hurriedly added, “How about this? Comrade Xiao Bai, you can register for our local exam first and prepare here. We can cross that bridge when the results come out. What do you think?”
“No, Xiao Bai. Your work-related injury leave doesn’t last that long,” Huo Ling followed up immediately. “If you delay any further, it will affect your final performance evaluation. Besides, your family is about to return.”
Bai Hewei instantly fell into another bout of agonizing indecision.
After a long moment, he finally made up his mind.
“Leaders, thank you so much for your high regard. How about this? I will still register for the position here. But when the time comes, I’ll head back with Director Huo first, and I’ll come back right before the exam.” After pondering it over, Bai Hewei realized he couldn’t just throw away his current rice bowl.
Number One had said he was applying for a one-million-yuan bonus on his behalf. With that one million, it wouldn’t really matter if he didn’t pass the exam for a year or two; the urgency was completely gone.
The local leaders wanted to say more, but they saw Huo Ling shielding Bai Hewei behind his back like a mother hen protecting its chick, glaring death at them. They swallowed their words, genuinely terrified that if they pushed any further, Huo Ling would shamelessly pounce and bite them.
No rush. Once Bai Hewei registered and officially became one of their applicants, they could take their sweet time mocking Huo Ling.
“Since Comrade Xiao Bai has made his decision, we won’t press the matter further. Let’s hurry up and eat! I’ll have the server bring over two more chairs and two sets of utensils. Huo Ling, you and your subordinate sit down and eat with us. Don’t be strangers; our branch doesn’t have a habit of letting our guests go hungry.”
“It’s the middle of the day. Let’s eat first.”
The sheer thickness of these leaders’ skin and the speed at which they changed their tunes left Bai Hewei thoroughly amazed.
As expected, you couldn’t be a leader without a thick face.
Even Huo Ling, who had been on the verge of drawing blades with them a moment ago, was now smiling, chatting, and exchanging toasts with them.
After the meal, Bai Hewei returned to his dormitory and crashed, falling into a deep sleep. Although he had managed to catch a few brief catnaps during the intervals when Cecilia and Number One were competing over those three days, he hadn’t slept soundly at all. Now, he could finally completely unwind.
This sleep lasted until the next morning.
When Bai Hewei woke up, he learned that Cecilia had already been transported away. He was told that a tactical task force from the central headquarters had arrived last night. They originally wanted to see him, but seeing how soundly he was sleeping, they didn’t want to disturb him. They left a message saying they hoped to meet him in the capital down the line, and even left him some local specialties from the capital.
Our own people are truly the best.
They were all Evolvers, yet those foreign rogue elements wanted to slaughter him the moment they saw him, whereas domestic Evolvers actually knew to bring him local snacks. The contrast between the two was truly night and day.
Bai Hewei strolled over to the cafeteria to finish his breakfast, then casually scrolled through his phone for a bit. After a while, Guan Yan called him.
“Xiao Bai, something happened over at [Sage] Batu’s side.”
“Huh?”
Bai Hewei blanked for a second. He had almost forgotten about that guy.
Without wasting any time, Bai Hewei wiped his mouth with a napkin after finishing his breakfast and rushed over to Guan Yan’s office, even stopping someone to ask for directions along the way since he couldn’t find it.
Inside Guan Yan’s office, Huo Ling and An Tingyu were already waiting early.
There was no helping it; everyone wanted to poach their precious cabbage. Before they left the border, Huo Ling couldn’t set his mind at ease for a single second.
An Tingyu could only follow him around, busying herself with logistics. The longer they delayed here, the heavier her expression became.
Ah, when I get back, a mountain of backlogged paperwork will be waiting for me. I want to die. She suddenly didn’t want to go back at all.
Maybe she should apply for leave too, claiming her parents were forcing her to go on blind dates.
“This morning, angry citizens of his country threw rocks at [Sage] Batu’s Sage Tower, demanding he come out and give a formal explanation,” Guan Yan said, his eyes filled with pure amusement. “The reason is that media outlets exposed that Batu’s financial records are opaque, suspecting he received economic backing from foreign nations. Even the documentary crew he invited posted online stating that Batu’s finances are highly questionable.”
In truth, if it were just this, Batu wouldn’t have fallen to such a state; it would have been enough for his country’s official government to step forward and back him up.
But the issue was that his country’s government chose to do absolutely nothing.
Because inside the Sage Tower, S-Class Evolvers from other nations, like Gentleman and Cecilia, had materialized. Furthermore, when those powerhouses fled, they didn’t even bother taking Batu with them.
Why was Batu left behind then?
He must have been trying to help those foreigners gather intelligence!
Consequently, Batu’s national government did not stop the rumors in time and temporarily stripped him of his privileges. However, Batu’s utility value remained exceptionally high, so they wanted to afford him another chance to see if he would abandon the darkness to join the light.
“He was abandoned that quickly?” Recalling the luxury of the Sage Tower and looking at its current tattered state on the video feed, Bai Hewei couldn’t help but sigh. “As expected, things that are handed to you overnight are too much like a castle in the air. Only a permanent post within the official establishment truly belongs to you.”
Look at that. Even for a top-tier Evolver, if you couldn’t stand on your own two feet and failed to secure a permanent slot within the system, the more lavishly privileges were given to you, the faster they would be stripped away.
Suddenly gaining so many things that didn’t truly belong to you meant that once a scandal broke, the resulting backlash would come in a thousand different shapes and sizes.
“The news that a tactical task force from our central headquarters was operating inside the Sage Tower was leaked by us, along with physical photographs,” Guan Yan rested his chin on his palm. “We even made sure to photograph the most physically striking operative of our task force, whom everyone globally recognizes. Batu has absolutely no way to deny it now. He has been linked to our country’s central task force; even if he wants to beg those foreign organizations for help, no one will pay him any mind.”
Presently, Batu was completely riding a tiger and couldn’t get down. He had nowhere to go, and everyone would harbor intense wariness toward him. His absolute best option was to stay put inside the Sage Tower. Only when the citizens regained their faith in him could he slowly return to his previous lifestyle.
“Therefore, Xiao Bai, we need to move quickly on your end,” Guan Yan smiled warmly. “We already know your raw strength and have a comprehensive understanding of your personality. But your supernatural ability remains an absolute mystery. Thus, we plan to escort you to see Batu tonight to extract information regarding your ability from his mouth. Crucially, we have secured some incredibly formidable reinforcements.”
With that, Guan Yan signaled the personnel outside to enter.
The door pushed open, revealing two individuals.
A man and a woman.
The woman was clad in a hospital patient’s gown, while the man wore a white laboratory coat.
The man was handsome and the woman was beautiful; anyone who didn’t know better would have assumed they were shooting a medical television drama here.
“These two are?” Bai Hewei was somewhat puzzled.
“A combination from the central headquarters,” An Tingyu recognized them instantly, her eyes gleaming. “The man is Wang Ren, and the woman is Wang Yan. They are fraternal twins, and they basically always operate as a pair.”
An Tingyu stepped quietly to Bai Hewei’s side, whispering with absolute caution.
“This Wang Yan, she ran into some terrible luck in romance. Seven or eight years ago, she crossed paths with a scumbag who subjected her to extreme psychological manipulation. Back then, she was barely a teenager and completely immature, so how could she withstand that kind of trauma? Following the breakup, a psychological issue triggered, and she frequently resides in the hospital. Wang Ren is her younger brother. He originally studied clinical medicine, but after learning of his sister’s condition, he double-majored in psychiatry and has been caring for her ever since. Who could have anticipated that during the Day of Awakening five years ago, both siblings would awaken, unlocking exceptionally rare psychic-type capabilities?”
“Among them, Wang Yan can freely erase a segment of a person’s memory, while Wang Ren can insert a fabricated block of memories into a person’s mind. This brother and sister pair are the most heavily seconded and formidable logistics support group within the central headquarters. Provided they coordinate with their tactical captain, combining the three abilities can neutralize wide-scale collective supernatural incidents, completely erasing any adverse social impact.”
An Tingyu marveled with absolute sincerity. “Don’t look at how meticulously Wang Ren serves his sister and assume he isn’t powerful. In reality, he has opened several private hospitals specializing in psychiatric disorders that are globally famous; this pair of siblings is filthy rich.”
It was just that currently, Wang Yan only listened to her brother’s words. Most of the time, she simply stared blankly, completely immersed in her own inner world.
Wang Yan could erase the memories of others, but she couldn’t erase her own.
It was a rather tragic circumstance.
The reason these siblings were discovered by the state was because Wang Ren had tracked down that scumbag and altered his memories, making the scumbag firmly believe he was a literal dog. His family assumed he had gone insane and rushed him to the hospital. Soon after, that scumbag’s circle of delinquent friends similarly believed they were dogs and flooded the hospital, triggering a massive commotion, which finally drew the central headquarters’ attention.
“To accurately ascertain your ability profile, we require Batu’s sensory capability. Simultaneously, your ability data must remain strictly classified, which is why this brother and sister were dispatched to assist us,” Guan Yan chuckled. “My squad has coordinated with Wang Ren and his sister many times. They are exceptionally busy; we filed a secondment request long before your deployment, and they only managed to rush over after wrapping up their prior tasks.”
“Captain Guan is too polite.” Wang Ren pulled out a chair for his sister to sit down, handing her a plush doll to keep her quiet and occupied before formally engaging in conversation with the group.
“The moment Batu finishes scanning your ability data, Wang Ren and Wang Yan will erase our memories of the profile and overlay a fresh block of data. That way, even if we run into a similar sensory-type Evolver down the line, we will possess a double layer of operational security,” Guan Yan addressed Bai Hewei with absolute gravity. “Your data has already been classified as an absolute top secret by the state.”
Only an extremely selective segment of personnel could apply to review files regarding Bai Hewei’s profile.
Therefore, they had to wait until the Wang siblings finished their tasks and were seconded over before they could formally launch their play against Batu.
“Deal.” Bai Hewei rubbed the back of his neck. He felt that revealing his ability parameters wouldn’t really matter, but since the organization had mapped out this blueprint, there had to be a solid reason for it, so he would fully cooperate.
Wang Ren scrutinized Bai Hewei thoroughly, offering a gentle smile. “Mr. Bai’s spiritual energy is simply too overwhelming. Thank goodness the target of my ability deployment today is not you. Otherwise, if I tried to use my ability on your mind even once, I would likely suffer a total mental collapse first.”
As a psychic-type Evolver, Wang Ren carried strict criteria regarding the subjects of his ability deployment.
He preferred those with a lower baseline of spiritual energy who wouldn’t trigger a fatal backlash against his mind.
Otherwise, if an target’s internal ability was too formidable, or their spiritual threshold was too high, or if they similarly belonged to the psychic track, launching an assault would subject him to a severe backlash.
The same held true for Wang Yan.
Furthermore, because the capabilities of these two siblings were simply too rare and practical, if they hadn’t anchored themselves to national protection, they would have likely faced violent capture and slaughter by foreign syndicates. Thus, they joined the central logistics support group, executing specialized clean-up duties for the state.
But the moment word of their capabilities leaked, regional branches across the country fired off continuous requests to borrow their services daily.
They were genuinely so busy their feet barely touched the ground.
They had barely managed to secure two days of rest, and if it hadn’t been for the extreme urgency regarding Bai Hewei’s situation, they wouldn’t have been deployed here so easily.
The moment he laid eyes on Bai Hewei, Wang Ren knew he could absolutely never project his ability onto this man.
The other party’s spiritual threshold was too overwhelming.
He suspected that even if another psychic Evolver merely tried to project a telepathic whisper inside his mind, Bai Hewei would still hear it with crystal clarity.
The rank suppression of a psychic-type Evolver was infinitely more absolute than any other track.
“You’re too kind,” Bai Hewei noted politely. “I’ll be counting on your assistance.”
“This is merely our duty,” Wang Ren answered.
“When dusk arrives, we will arrange for you to head into the Sage Tower to seek out Batu directly,” Guan Yan directed. “Once the task wraps up, Wang Ren and his sister must catch a direct flight back to the capital tonight, and your ability profile report must be compiled as well, so our schedule is tightly strained. If you face any difficulties, please state them in advance.”
“I have no issues on my end,” Bai Hewei stated immediately.
“I have no issues either,” Wang Ren smiled gently. “My sister has rested reasonably well over these past few days, so she can execute her ability.”
“Excellent.” Guan Yan shared several more instructions regarding the afternoon’s operational arrangements before inviting them out for lunch as midday approached.
The group stepped out of the office together.
Wang Ren turned to support his sister.
To his surprise, his sister Wang Yan stood up entirely on her own without his assistance, pacing forward with large strides until she stood directly before Bai Hewei, holding out the plush doll in her hands to present it to him.
Bai Hewei, Guan Yan, and the others blanked completely.
“Excuse me, what is the meaning of this?” Staring at the woman presenting him with a doll, Bai Hewei felt a bit overwhelmed by the sudden gesture, turning a bewildered glance toward Wang Ren beside her.
Little did he know, Wang Ren was infinitely more shocked than Bai Hewei.
“Sis, what are you doing?”
Ever since his sister awakened as an Evolver, she had never once taken the initiative to step forward and present an object to another person.
This was his sister’s absolute favorite plush doll; why on earth was she giving it to Bai Hewei?
Instantly, the gaze Wang Ren directed toward Bai Hewei completely altered.
Even though Wang Yan was his sister, he still had to concede that she was a late-stage hopeless romantic, and exceptionally prone to being drawn to scumbags. This Bai Hewei was remarkably handsome; could it be that his romantic track record was equally messy?
“This is literally my first time laying eyes on your sister,” Bai Hewei blurted out a defense the moment Wang Ren stared at him.
Perhaps he simply happened to be the exact visual archetype Wang Yan preferred.
“Bai Hewei’s overwhelming spiritual energy exerted an influence on Wang Yan.”
The robot resting on Bai Hewei’s shoulder emitted a voice.
“You and your sister’s spiritual baseline ranks near the absolute top among psychic-type Evolvers. Usually, the individuals you encounter possess a spiritual threshold vastly lower than yours, but Bai Hewei is an exception,” Wen Zhiyi interjected smoothly. “His colossal spiritual energy will inevitably trigger a resonance within other psychic-type Evolvers. Your sister’s spiritual capability is stronger than yours, so her perception runs slightly deeper.”
Hearing this familiar voice, Wang Ren subconsciously recalled the painful memory of his thesis defense being blasted as a literal pile of feces by this exact individual.
Chief… Chief Wen?
Wang Ren directed a deeply resentful glance toward Guan Yan.
If he had known this man would be monitoring the deployment, he would never have come.
“It’s fine. Accept her doll; it will make her happy,” Wen Zhiyi addressed Bai Hewei. “She is actually starting to recover slowly. Wang Ren, in about three months, bring your sister back for a fresh diagnostic check. She can slowly start attempting to learn how to speak again.”
“Under… Understood.” Wang Ren was completely ecstatic. He hadn’t anticipated that this field deployment would yield such an unexpected blessing.
Bai Hewei could only accept the doll Wang Yan presented, and the group headed over to the cafeteria together for lunch.
Throughout the meal, Wang Yan didn’t do anything else, simply sipping on her milk tea.
And it was full sweetness!
“My sister doesn’t really like eating food, but thank goodness she loves drinking milk tea. Sometimes, if I mix some medication into her drink, she swallows it down without a problem,” Wang Ren smiled gently. “There are no fat individuals among psychic-type Evolvers, primarily because our internal energy expenditure is colossal. Deploying our ability once burns energy equivalent to an ordinary citizen grinding through a full Pilates session.”
Bai Hewei noticed that An Tingyu’s eyes were completely packed with pure envy.
They were all fellow Evolvers; how come channelling your ability could shed weight, while they couldn’t?
This kind of innate weight-loss miracle was enough to make anyone dedicated to fitness weep with jealousy.
The moment two o’clock in the afternoon arrived, Guan Yan organized the squad to escort Bai Hewei and the others to the Sage Tower to seek out Batu.
Barely three or four days had passed, yet the Sage Tower—which had appeared extravagantly lavish to Bai Hewei’s eyes previously—had already devolved into a completely hollowed, desolate shell. A profound air of neglect radiated through the corridors, and the windows shattered by local citizens hadn’t even been patched up.
The hordes of personnel who used to staff the building had naturally fled entirely.
When Guan Yan’s team stepped past the threshold, they caught sight of Batu clumsily heating up a few slices of sandwiches for himself inside the kitchen.
“You… You’ve arrived.” Batu perceived their approach instantly.
He hadn’t anticipated that they would move this quickly; he had assumed they would wait a bit longer.
“Our schedule is tight,” Guan Yan waved his hand, turning his head to ask Wang Ren, “Where is Bai Hewei?”
“Still down on the first floor. He said he wanted to take the elevator up to experience the ride,” Wang Ren noted from the side.
…What on earth is there to experience at a time like this?
However, right as Guan Yan turned his head intending to warn Batu to behave himself, he discovered that Batu’s physical form was trembling uncontrollably.
“Hey, are you alright?” Seeing Batu shaking to this extent, his eyes appearing on the verge of losing focus, Guan Yan grew somewhat anxious.
Could it be that this guy had contracted some bizarre medical condition from playing too hard previously? Please don’t let him suffer a fatal seizure right now; otherwise, outsiders might assume the Special Operations Department had deployed underhanded methods against him.
“He… He is coming! He is coming!” As the elevator systematically ascended floor by floor, Batu’s sensory capability mapped out the target with increasing clarity.
His body shook violently, his legs completely losing the structural strength required to keep him upright, collapsing flat onto the floor. Droplets of sweat the size of soy beans poured down his face, rapidly pooling into a dark stain on the tiles.
Batu had never experienced this level of sheer terror before.
He clutched Guan Yan’s hand, the horror on his face practically concrete. “He is coming, he is coming! No—stop it! I refuse to perceive him!”
Guan Yan and his team stared at the elevator indicator, then down at Batu, completely at a loss for a proper course of action.
The next moment, Batu suffered a sudden, violent convulsion and blacked out entirely.
Ding-dong.
The elevator arrived.
Bai Hewei stroked the micro-robot on his shoulder, looking quite cheerful.
“The structural architecture of this Sage Tower is genuinely fascinating. I took a look earlier…”
The moment Bai Hewei stepped out of the elevator, he raised his hand intending to greet Guan Yan and the others, but was cut off as Guan Yan blurted out, “Xiao Bai, freeze right there. Or better yet, press the button and take the elevator back down first. The Sage Tower still has plenty of fascinating architectural designs; go explore those first while we handle some preliminary business with Batu.”
“Huh?”
Bai Hewei peered over their shoulders, discovering that Batu was already foaming at the mouth, lying unconscious on the floor while Wang Ren rushed to administer emergency first aid.
“Ah? What kind of illness does he have? It looks so severe—is he still capable of speaking to you all?” Bai Hewei was shocked; the guy looked as though he were on the verge of passing away.
“Head back down first. Once you leave, he might stabilize,” Guan Yan urged.
“Exactly, Mr. Bai, please excuse yourself for a brief moment,” Wang Ren chimed in as well. “Otherwise, it will severely disrupt Batu’s emergency treatment.”
Left with no choice, Bai Hewei pressed the elevator button again.
“His spiritual threshold has completely withered,” Wang Ren administered a heart-stabilizing pill to Batu, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He hadn’t anticipated that his double major in clinical medicine would be deployed under these exact circumstances.
“Strictly speaking, a sensory-type Evolver like Batu can be categorized within the broader classification of psychic-type Evolvers. At the very least, their spiritual parameters are infinitely more sensitive, allowing them to perceive variables that are entirely distinct from what regular people experience,” Wang Ren let out a long sigh. “If my sister and I can be described as standing on the shoreline looking out at the ocean, then someone like Batu is a deep-sea diver capable of plunging to the absolute bottom of the sea.”
Consequently, the things Batu could perceive were fundamentally different from what they experienced.
“Which means, he terrifies Bai Hewei?” Guan Yan frowned slightly. “He collapsed entirely due to a spiritual backlash?”
“Pretty much,” Wang Ren mused for a moment before speaking. “From the very first moment I laid eyes on Bai Hewei, I comprehended that he was absolute, and I didn’t dare probe his mind. This level of biological caution allows me to bypass a mountain of hidden perils. My sister’s spiritual energy is slightly more absolute than mine, but precisely because her mind is compromised by an illness, she managed to manifest a distinct reaction because of Bai Hewei’s presence.”
Just like the descriptions written across numerous Lovecraftian horror novels—certain cosmic entities carried zero danger provided you remained ignorant of their existence and couldn’t perceive them. But the absolute second you perceived them, a catastrophic doom clamped down on your sanity.
This exact logic had manifested on Batu’s mind.
The entity he perceived when scanning Bai Hewei was fundamentally different from the ordinary human form they observed with their eyes.
“When can Batu be reawakened?” Guan Yan cared about this timeline above all else.
“I suspect that even if he wakes up, he will have dissolved into a literal simpleton,” Wang Ren noted flatly. “To be completely honest, my sister and I can apply to return home now; remaining here carries zero utility value.”
A top-tier sensory Evolver like Batu had devolved into this broken state merely because Bai Hewei drew near his coordinates. Moving forward, any other sensory-type Evolver in the world would likely turn tail and run the moment they caught a single trace of Bai Hewei.
Bai Hewei stepped out of the elevator, feeling somewhat deflated. “Batu must have simply played too hard previously. Look at that—he contracted a severe seizure, and who knows what his actual condition is now.”
Conversely, Wen Zhiyi could surmise a few technical points.
In reality, he hadn’t harbored high expectations regarding Batu’s ability to smoothly harvest Bai Hewei’s true capability files anyway. But since the leadership committee at the central headquarters insisted on forcing a clear profile of Bai Hewei’s strength, he had merely chosen to keep his mouth shut.
Once they slammed face-first into a brick wall, they would naturally comprehend the reality.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have directed Bai Hewei to take the elevator instead of directly stepping past the threshold alongside Guan Yan to appear before Batu. If he had stepped out face-to-face, Batu would have likely perished on the spot.
