I, the World’s Strongest, Have Failed the Civil Service Exam Thirty-Nine Times – CH59

Chapter 59

Crack! Crack!

Stimulated by the terrifying surge of energy, the ability-container embedded in the wall began to fracture.

Even the evaluators submerged in the dream state were affected, slowly coming to their senses as they remembered who they truly were.

As the evolutionary energy emanating from Bai Hewei expanded continuously, the ability-container finally reached its breaking point.

In particular, the Awakening Block inside the container thrashed relentlessly, attempting to break free from its bindings.

The very next moment—

The ability-container shattered completely.

The Awakening Block tumbled onto the floor, rolled around twice, and vanished without a trace.

Bai Hewei felt an overwhelming sense of lightness flow through his entire body.

The enemy who had been trying to control him just a moment ago was no longer the slightest threat. In fact, Bai Hewei even had the leeway to crack a joke or two with him.

Though, from Jonathan’s perspective, this kind of joke wasn’t funny in the slightest.

“You… you’ve been controlled by Special Operations’ restrictors this whole time?! Is that why you obey them?!” Jonathan’s mind raced, believing he had caught the absolute crux of the matter.

“Huh?” Bai Hewei was utterly baffled by the question. What kind of logic is that?

“So I was right! China is no different from us!” Jonathan took Bai Hewei’s hesitation as tacit agreement, as if he had just seized a vital leverage.

“This world has been ruled by ordinary people for far too long. They reject us, terrified that we’ll steal everything they possess, so they use every means necessary to control and threaten us! It’s the same for you, isn’t it?! After all, as the world’s strongest evaluator, the shackles on your body must be heavier than anyone else’s! Hahaha!” Jonathan laughed and cried simultaneously, looking utterly unhinged.

Perhaps that evaluator serum contained some unknown ingredients; he genuinely looked like someone who had fried his brain on drugs.

Bai Hewei let out a sigh.

What is going on here?

Why is it that every evaluator I meet is either out of their mind or politically warped? Aren’t there any normal evaluators left in this world?

Bai Hewei didn’t even feel like saying another word. Unhesitatingly, he drove a heavy fist straight into the center of Jonathan’s chest, where his evolutionary energy was dense.

Pfft! Jonathan was sent flying through the air, crashing onto the ground and coughing up several mouthfuls of blood.

Bai Hewei had intentionally held back; otherwise, that blow would have smashed Jonathan into fine dust.

“Hahaha, I hit the nail on the head, didn’t I?!” Seeing the insurmountable gap between them, Jonathan didn’t launch a desperate counterattack. Instead, he began to mock Bai Hewei hysterically.

“Captain!”

“Captain, are you alright?!”

Several members of Team [Interdict] seemed to have just awakened from the dream state. They leaped down directly from the second floor, rushing to help Jonathan up from the ground.

“Bai Hewei!”

“Why did you guys suddenly start fighting?”

Cecilia and the others had snapped awake as well, jumping down from the second-floor corridor to gather around Bai Hewei.

“Hiss… How did you get even stronger?! Wait, were your restrictions released?!” The moment Cecilia stepped close to Bai Hewei, he felt the majestic, overwhelming surge of evolutionary energy emanating from him.

Cecilia couldn’t help but take two steps back to avoid being overwhelmed.

The others also instinctively stepped backward.

Pullman, in particular, supported Shirley while taking several big steps back, making his retreat stand out among the group.

It couldn’t be helped—possessing the [Dispersal] ability meant that standing too close to Bai Hewei would cause him to involuntarily disperse that energy, which drained his stamina far too quickly.

“Shirley, are you alright?” Feeling awkward, Pullman grasped at straws to start a conversation.

“I’m fine,” Shirley shook her head. “The evolutionary energy generated from the fight between Bai Hewei and Jonathan earlier was too immense, which snapped us out of the dream state.”

To be precise, Bai Hewei’s sheer power had drastically accelerated the shattering of the ability-container sample embedded in the wall.

Once the ability-container broke, they naturally broke free from the ability’s influence.

Zhang Fuzhi and his team, on the other hand, noticed the shattered sample the moment they woke up, digging the remnants out without a second thought.

We’ll take it back to the research institute for study first.

“Captain, are you okay?”

“Did you get the items?”

Several team members gathered around Jonathan after regaining consciousness.

Then, their eyes fell on Jonathan’s backpack, which was currently resting firmly in Bai Hewei’s hand.

“What are you looking at me for? You can all come at me together if you want,” Bai Hewei held the backpack casually in one hand, a faint smile spreading across his face. “You don’t hold the numerical advantage now.”

Besides, even if they did have numbers on their side, encountering an anomaly like Bai Hewei rendered any numerical advantage utterly meaningless.

The members of Team [Interdict] knew full well how formidable their captain was. When enemies were off guard, he could easily handle multiple S-class evaluators at once without taking a loss. Yet right now, facing Bai Hewei, he was completely defenseless.

Still, Team [Interdict] was not about to give up so easily.

In an instant, several members made their moves simultaneously.

The woman with black dreadlocks clapped her hands lightly, and roaring flames suddenly erupted from the empty ground, illuminating the entire ruined space.

“Go!”

At the woman’s sharp cry, the blazing fire coalesced into the shape of a colossal beast in midair, spewing scorching flames as it lunged straight toward Bai Hewei and the others.

Meanwhile, another burly man clenched his fists tightly, manipulating countless stones, concrete fragments, and debris from all around the ruins to fly up into the air, swooping down in a torrential barrage.

Intermingled within were attacks from the rest of the squad.

Someone abruptly pulled out a blade and stabbed themselves; in that exact moment, identical wounds materialized on the bodies of Bai Hewei and his companions.

Another person possessed an even more peculiar ability: after hopping around a few times on the spot, his body expanded rapidly, turning into a massive lion within the blink of an eye. Its thunderous roar was enough to make anyone’s scalp go numb.

For Team [Interdict] to dare break into a forbidden zone like this, they naturally possessed genuine skill.

Whether they were natural-type, puppet-type, or beastification-type evaluators, every archetype was represented among their ranks.

Seeing this layout—especially that gigantic lion—the astonishment on Bai Hewei’s face could no longer be concealed.

“There are actually evaluators who can turn into animals?! But why turn into a lion? If you turned into a panda, I wouldn’t even dare lay a finger on you!” Bai Hewei pointed at the lion with sheer amazement, looking for all the world like a tourist visiting a zoo.

“Animals transformed from evaluators are not protected by animal welfare laws,” Zhang Fuzhi chuckled beside him. “Otherwise, given the worldwide love for pandas, evaluators who could turn into pandas would have overrun every zoo on earth.”

That said, Zhang Fuzhi didn’t deny the existence of panda-shifting evaluators.

When certain zoos lacked actual giant pandas and wanted to draw in tourists, they would hire evaluators capable of transforming into pandas to trick the visitors and boost business—several such cases had already been exposed in the news.

Chu Han immediately erected a shield, blocking all those bizarre abilities on the outside.

However, taking simultaneous attacks from so many S-class evaluators placed an immense strain on Chu Han’s defense, causing cold sweat to pour down his face.

These attacks were far stronger than he had imagined.

“Let us help you,” Huang Silin and Wei Yan took action immediately.

Huang Silin’s ability was [Regulation]. He could automatically regulate the evolutionary energy within himself and other evaluators, temporarily boosting or reducing an evaluator’s energy level without having to expend his own energy to compensate for the difference.

With Huang Silin’s support, the defense barrier that had looked on the verge of shattering regained its integrity once more.

Meanwhile, Wei Yan firmly subscribed to the philosophy that “the best defense is a good offense.” Exploiting the chaos while the two sides were locked in a stalemate and using the light cast by the flames, she teleported right in front of Team [Interdict], landing a heavy punch straight on the dreadlocked woman who was putting the most pressure on Chu Han.

Cecilia frowned slightly, preparing to expand his ability to drag everyone into his game world, which would naturally nullify all other abilities.

“Vivian, DO IT!” Jonathan suddenly roared at the top of his lungs.

In a flash, a sudden, terrifying twist occurred.

Just as Cecilia activated his ability and prepared to make a move, a sharp gasp echoed from behind him.

“Shirley—!”

Beside Jonathan, Vivian slumped to the ground.

Meanwhile, a cold gun barrel was pressed tightly against Cecilia’s neck—and the person holding the gun was none other than Shirley.

Except right now, her expression was the absolute opposite of before, as if she had been replaced by an entirely different person.

Vivian, the parasitic evaluator, hadn’t chosen any of the three fake Kimchi Country evaluators. Instead, she had chosen to parasitize Shirley.

A healing-type evaluator who seemingly lacked offensive capabilities, yet happened to be Pullman’s sister—there was simply no better host to parasitize.

“If any of you move an inch, I’ll blow his head off!” The gun in Vivian’s hands pressed firmly against Cecilia’s skull. “If you take a single step forward, I’ll force this body to die along with him!”

The assault launched by Team [Interdict] just now was nothing more than a feint designed to buy Vivian the opportunity to make her move.

They knew they couldn’t beat Bai Hewei in a direct fight.

A chasm that vast was more than enough to plunge every member of Team [Interdict] into utter despair.

Thus, their only option was to seize control of the woman and the child in Bai Hewei’s group first.

“Despicable!” Wei Yan teleported back instantly, fuming with rage as she stared at the evaluator hiding beneath Shirley’s skin.

This was the most disgusting trait of parasitic evaluators.

As long as they didn’t expose themselves, no one could drive them out.

And at critical moments, they excelled at ruining everything.

“Shirley…” Pullman had never imagined that his own sister was the one who had been parasitized.

Under normal circumstances, this should have been impossible.

Because with Pullman’s [Dispersal] ability, the moment he detected anything amiss with Shirley, he could directly purge Vivian from her body. Therefore, choosing Shirley as a parasitic host was an insanely risky gamble.

Furthermore, a parasitic evaluator couldn’t parasitize two hosts simultaneously. If Shirley failed to break free, parasitizing her would be equivalent to a dead move on a chessboard.

It required a massive gamble.

Evidently, Team [Interdict] had won that gamble.

Pullman tried to step closer, but how could Vivian possibly give him the chance to disperse her?

“Take another step and see what happens, Pullman!” Vivian commanded through Shirley, blood instantly streaming from the corners of her eyes. “She was parasitized by me the moment she was captured! You want to disperse me? In your dreams!”

“…Couldn’t you guys have captured Bai Hewei instead?! Why are you picking on a kid?!” Held at gunpoint, Cecilia felt utterly wronged.

I didn’t even get the chance to make a move—why capture me?!

Bai Hewei is clearly the most important one here!

“Shut your mouth, traitor!” Vivian spat venomously. “If you hadn’t betrayed the Eastern Alliance to side with China, you would have been exploring this forbidden zone right alongside us!”

They had already reached an agreement with the Eastern Alliance, only for Cecilia to turn coat the moment he was captured.

If Team [Interdict] had Cecilia on their side, coupled with the ability-container capable of plunging countless evaluators into a dream, they could have bought enough time to haul away all the data—even if they were facing Bai Hewei.

Yet Cecilia’s betrayal left a fatal flaw in their otherwise perfect plan.

Now, they were driven into this desperate corner.

They were a squad composed entirely of S-class evaluators, boasting enough combat power to overthrow a small nation. Yet inside this forbidden zone, their energy had first been depleted by various native entities, and then they had run straight into a freak of nature like Bai Hewei. The power they could muster right now was less than a tenth of their peak strength.

Since brute force failed, they could only rely on cunning.

Cecilia curled his lip.

These so-called superheroes talked big, but in reality, they were nothing special.

How rich of them to mock him for surrendering!

Please! Facing a monster like Bai Hewei whom you couldn’t beat no matter what, what else could you do besides surrendering and joining his team?

Besides, the Eastern Alliance hadn’t treated him well anyway.

Bai Hewei felt a bit helpless. He really should have come on this mission alone.

Now, he couldn’t just stand by and ignore the safety of Cecilia and Shirley.

Pullman was practically on the verge of tears.

“Do you really think taking them hostage will let you leave this forbidden zone alive?” Pullman gritted his teeth. “Vivian, you’re parasitizing my sister! If anything happens to her, you won’t survive either!”

“If we get captured by you, we’re dead anyway,” Vivian replied without a second’s hesitation.

“Nonsense! We don’t just execute captured foreign evaluators willy-nilly—at most, we put you through reform through labor,” Zhang Fuzhi swore to defend his nation’s reputation.

“But we will die,” Jonathan, supported by his team members, looked at Bai Hewei with dark, gloomy eyes. “Our bodies were modified long ago. The evaluator serums we took were specially tailored, and the neutralizing agents must be specially tailored as well—nothing like the mass-produced versions in your country. Once we become your prisoners, our fate will be no different from death.”

Every member of Team [Interdict] was unruly and untamed; most hadn’t even received a proper education. After being elevated to “superheroes,” they had caused no shortage of scandals, relying entirely on top-tier PR teams to sweep their messes under the rug.

Under such circumstances, foreign institutions naturally wouldn’t hold back when it came to controlling them.

“Bai Hewei, isn’t the restrictor on your body the exact same thing as the shackles on ours?” Jonathan sneered. “These ordinary people will never grant us evaluators a way out. You allow yourself to be bound by their so-called honor and morality, but in reality, it’s completely meaningless. As long as you’re willing to cooperate with us, we can split the data here evenly. Once we’ve both secured the credit and stand at the top, wouldn’t it be better to forge a world for evaluators together? The Doctor has already begun experimenting with turning ordinary people into evaluators. Once we retrieve the data from the No. 0 Research Institute, our research will advance even further. When everyone becomes an evaluator, there won’t be any more conflicts!”

Jonathan’s line of thought was simple.

If he refused to go back to being an ordinary person, then he would turn all ordinary people into evaluators.

That way, there would be no distinction between the two.

“…People without a systematic education really don’t understand basic historical materialism,” Bai Hewei sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Captain Zhang, do you mind taking this one? I don’t think I can explain it.”

Out of nowhere, the enemy had given up on fighting and insisted on engaging in a verbal debate instead.

He really wasn’t suited for this.

Little did he know, after witnessing the terrifying evolutionary energy surging within Bai Hewei, not a single evaluator present wanted to engage in a genuine fight with him anymore.

It wasn’t even a matter of whether they could win; they were wondering if they could survive three moves against him.

Faced with such a staggering disparity, they could only resort to other means.

“Even if everyone becomes an evaluator, who will drive the cars, who will cook the meals, and who will farm the land?” Zhang Fuzhi laughed softly. “Support-type evaluators are bound to lose against combat-types, and lower-tier evaluators will always lose to higher-tier ones—and lower-tier evaluators will always make up the majority. When that time comes, those lower-tier evaluators will simply fall back into the exact position of ordinary people.”

“You keep talking about looking down on ordinary people, but who is controlling you right now?”

“Make no mistake: we aren’t controlled by drugs like you are. If there are any restrictions on us, they are the law, morality, and our own desire to live a peaceful life,” Zhang Fuzhi shook his head slowly. “And those exact same restrictions apply to ordinary people as well. It’s you who have strayed down the wrong path, not us bowing to ordinary people. Before awakening, we were just ordinary people ourselves.”

It was extremely difficult for Jonathan and his squad to comprehend Zhang Fuzhi’s words. They simply couldn’t believe anyone would willingly give up a life of privilege as rulers to live as ordinary citizens facing uncertainty.

“Hand over the data!” Jonathan revealed his true colors. “As long as you hand the data over to us, we’ll return Shirley and Cecilia to you once we’re safe.”

“Do you take us for idiots? What if you go back on your word after we hand it over?” Wei Yan cursed furiously. “Your reputation for dishonoring agreements and pushing hegemony precedes you—as if we could ever trust you!”

With one side refusing to let hostages go and the other unwilling to relinquish the data, the situation ground to a tense standstill.

Bai Hewei really wanted to ask Mr. Number One for advice, but remembering that the little robot had been reduced to scrap, he suppressed the thought.

Hmm.

He was currently contemplating whether he could rescue Shirley and Cecilia before Jonathan and his team could even react.

It feels pretty doable… maybe I should give it a shot.

Bai Hewei felt a sudden surge of restless energy.

“Ah, Comrade Little Bai, don’t move just yet,” Zhang Fuzhi let out a heavy sigh, gesturing for Bai Hewei to stay his hand.

Before being selected as captain for this mission—

The researchers represented by Wen Zhiyi and the Special Operations leadership represented by Huo Ling had repeatedly emphasized one point to Zhang Fuzhi:

“Bai Hewei is far too strong. At a critical juncture, no one knows what he might do, so you must keep him in check.”

“It’s not that we’re worried Bai Hewei will do something bad—we trust his character implicitly. Our concern is that if Bai Hewei releases too much energy and it becomes overly active, we won’t be able to apply a new restrictor to him.”

“If Bai Hewei remains in an active energy state continuously, no evaluators will be able to stay within a hundred-mile radius, ordinary people might be affected, and nearby forbidden zones will be drawn toward him. That would be an absolute disaster.”

“Therefore, if this mission reaches a truly dire crisis, you must use your ability.”

“That is also the primary reason you were chosen as captain.”

…

Zhang Fuzhi rarely deployed his ability in the field.

The reason was simple: once he activated it, he would be bedridden for months upon returning. His ability worked by draining every last drop of evolutionary energy from his body at once, leaving him temporarily weaker than an ordinary person.

Because of this, both his ability type and its side effects were classified as top-secret.

Otherwise, if that information leaked, an early grave would be the only thing awaiting him.

Bai Hewei looked at Zhang Fuzhi beside him in surprise.

“In a moment, do me a favor and catch me. This place is full of sharp rocks—I can’t afford to hit my head when I pass out,” Zhang Fuzhi smiled wryly. “I’m not getting any younger; if I hit my head, I might just be a goner.”

With that, the evolutionary energy inside Zhang Fuzhi erupted violently!

“Don’t even think about ambushing us, I—” Vivian pressed down hard on the gun’s trigger, preparing to shoot the moment something went wrong.

However, in the very next second, the expression on Vivian’s face vanished entirely, replaced by a look of sheer confusion.

“What… what happened?” Shirley looked at her own hand, dropping the gun in absolute terror.

“ROAR—!”

The evaluator who had transformed into a giant lion also reverted back to his human form right before his teammates’ disbelieving eyes.

The debris being manipulated in midair crashed to the ground, and even the defense barrier Chu Han had raised vanished without a trace.

Bai Hewei merely felt his body grow considerably heavier.

The overwhelming evolutionary energy that had enveloped his frame inexplicably vanished.

Zhang Fuzhi’s body swayed, and Bai Hewei and Huang Silin quickly reached out to catch him.

“What’s going on?! Why can’t I use my ability?!”

“Where did my evolutionary energy go?!”

“What did you do?!” Vivian snapped awake inside her own body, looking around in utter disbelief.

Her parasitism… was just gone?!

“You… you’re Special Operations’ trump card—the one who can temporarily nullify all abilities?!” Pullman was briefly shocked, though he quickly recovered his senses.

He simply hadn’t expected that Zhang Fuzhi, who looked thoroughly slick, casual, and practically oozed the aura of a tired office worker, actually possessed such a tyrannical and unreasoning ability!

The moment he activated his ability, everyone else’s abilities were rendered unusable.

Oh, wait—Bai Hewei’s ability was still functional; it was just equivalent to having a restrictor placed back on him.

Still, that was utterly absurd.

Pullman felt that the favor he owed was growing larger and larger.

China’s assistance was already immense—giving them Bai Hewei was one thing, and that could still be framed as a personal favor from Bai Hewei himself. But to deploy a trump card like Zhang Fuzhi as well… He and his sister selling themselves into service permanently might not even be enough to repay this debt!

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