I’m No Longer Human After Being Blacklisted – CH26

Chapter 26 – The Other Side of the Scientific World

Lin Jiu was having a blast catching shrimp in the Demonic Sea plane, while people back home were eagerly waiting for his return with the goods.

Many were waiting for Lin Jiu’s shop, Demon Fish Restaurant, to open. Some were waiting for the food, others for money. Every day, netizens saw the words “Demon Fish Restaurant” and “Lin Jiu” online. Those in the know were used to it, while those who weren’t kept asking around.

Ji Anchen called Si Xu every day, asking about his relationship with Lin Jiu, hoping he could help connect them. Si Xu refused, so Ji Anchen pestered him daily. That day, as soon as Ji Anchen walked through the door and before he could speak, Si Xu handed him a small insulated box.

Ji Anchen was taken aback. “What’s this?”

Without even looking up, Si Xu replied, “Something good. Take it home for the elderly. It can improve their eyesight.”

Many elderly people have vision problems, and the bone marrow of the Silver Carp could enhance vision. Lin Jiu had left ten Silver Carp for Si Xu, but the fish’s bone marrow was more abundant. The marrow from the fish sold at the shop was all given to Si Xu.

After hearing this, Si Xu immediately took some to his grandparents and his grandfather on his mother’s side. The rest he left for Ji Anchen’s grandparents and the elderly in Jiang Ge’s family.

Si Xu’s grandfather, upon hearing it was Silver Carp bone marrow, didn’t need to ask more—he knew it was good stuff. He ate one serving a day, and now, he could read the newspaper without glasses. His grandparents also gave excellent feedback: their vision was now as good as when they were young, without the hassle of near-sightedness.

Ji Anchen was skeptical. “Is this some kind of miracle cure? How could it work so well?”

Si Xu had only one response, “It’s from Lin Jiu.”

Ji Anchen’s expression grew serious, and without another word, he left with the insulated box.

Considering the Black Star Pearl, everything Lin Jiu had was undoubtedly top-quality.

Si Xu didn’t take his eyes off the documents in front of him as he reached for the coffee next to him. But before he could grab it, the coffee cup suddenly slid into his palm. Scalding coffee spilled all over his hand, and the heat startled him. He quickly grabbed some tissues to wipe his hand, noticing that it had turned red from the burn.

There was also a lot of coffee on the desk. Worried about staining the documents, Si Xu started wiping the table as well. The coffee cup was now close to the edge of the desk—an easy spot to knock it over by accident. He would never have placed the cup there.

Si Xu’s hand paused mid-air. He had always had an excellent memory, and ever since his illness, it had become extraordinary. He picked up the coffee cup and placed it where it originally belonged, measuring the distance. Somehow, the cup had mysteriously moved nearly 20 centimeters!

Si Xu was certain his memory wasn’t wrong, so the problem must be with the coffee cup.

He carefully inspected both the cup and the desk, but everything seemed as it always was—nothing unusual. So why had the cup moved on its own and landed in his hand?

Unable to figure it out, Si Xu put the cup back in its original spot, recalling the events that had just happened. He reached out again, but the cup didn’t budge.

He then thought to himself, I want to drink coffee, but still, the cup remained motionless.

For the moment, Si Xu couldn’t make sense of what had happened. It was the first time he’d encountered something like this—the mysterious movement of the coffee cup.

He couldn’t figure out the answer, but he did realize he was hungry.

He opened the insulated box he brought and took out a portion of sliced Silver Carp. The chilled fish was slightly cold, melting in his mouth, incredibly delicious. He didn’t hold back his appetite, eating as much as he wanted, hoping Lin Jiu would return soon.

Si Xu glanced at the calendar—it’s been a week, and Lin Jiu still hadn’t returned, not a word from him.

Before he could finish the box of Silver Carp, Jiang Ge walked in boldly. As soon as he saw the fish, his eyes lit up. He quickly walked over, grabbed a piece, and tossed it into his mouth, speaking unclearly with his mouth full.

“Lin Jiu is so biased! He left you so much Silver Carp, but didn’t leave me any! It’s been a week without good food, and I feel out of sorts, like all my energy left with Lin Jiu.”

Si Xu pushed the rest of the fish towards him. “And you haven’t been mooching food off me enough?”

Jiang Ge chuckled sheepishly and took the box to eat on his own.

Jiang Ge lounged in Si Xu’s office playing on his phone, waiting for him to finish work so they could go home together. He planned to mooch another meal of Silver Carp.

The two of them took the elevator down to the underground parking garage. As soon as they stepped out of the elevator, they heard a heated argument between a man and a woman. It sounded like a couple breaking up. Since this was the parking garage of the Mohong Group’s office building, they figured the two were company employees.

Si Xu and Jiang Ge didn’t want to get involved and headed towards their car.

Suddenly, the woman screamed, her voice filled with fear. “What are you trying to do? I’m telling you, murder is a crime! If you kill me, you won’t get away with it!”

Si Xu and Jiang Ge stopped in their tracks. A breakup escalating to talk of murder?

The two exchanged glances and decided to check it out. After walking through a couple of sections, they finally saw what was happening.

The man had disheveled hair and wrinkled clothes, holding a fruit knife. The woman was trapped between him and the car, with no way to escape if he really wanted to stab her.

Seeing the man’s trembling hand holding the knife, the woman regained a bit of courage. “We’re just not compatible. Let’s break up.”

The man roared like a trapped animal, “It’s not that we’re not compatible! It’s because I went bankrupt, and now you want to leave! You only care about money! You’re just a gold-digging slut! You think you can just leave me and go find someone else? Dream on! If I go to hell, I’m dragging you down with me!”

He waved the knife threateningly at her, making her scream and dodge. Spotting Si Xu and Jiang Ge, she cried out for help. “Help! He’s going to kill me!”

Si Xu and Jiang Ge: “…”

What kind of idiot screams for help at a moment like this? It’s just going to make him angrier!

Sure enough, the man turned, saw the two of them, and in a panic, lunged at the woman, wrapping his arm around her neck.

“Shit!” Jiang Ge cursed and charged forward.

Si Xu barely saw him move—it was like a gust of wind. Jiang Ge was already behind the man, locking his arm around the man’s neck and grabbing his knife-wielding hand. The two struggled, and the woman took the opportunity to run. Jiang Ge twisted the man’s arm, pinning him against the car, and threw the knife away.

Si Xu: “…”

Si Xu looked at where he was standing and then at where Jiang Ge was, about 30 meters apart. How did he cover that distance in an instant?

Si Xu felt like today had taken a turn into the surreal.

He called security, and they arrived quickly to restrain the man and take him away.

The woman, in tears, kept thanking Jiang Ge. He awkwardly waved her off, and security escorted her away as well.

Jiang Ge walked back, rubbing his stomach. “Damn, that was close.”

Then he groaned, “I’m starving. Ah Xu, I want to eat Silver Carp…”

He glanced over and noticed Si Xu hadn’t followed. Turning back, he saw him still standing in place. “Why are you just standing there?”

Si Xu was deep in thought. “How did you get from here to there so quickly?”

Jiang Ge looked at Si Xu, then at the car where the woman had been, and his eyes widened in shock.

“Holy crap, am I some kind of superhero now? That’s not human speed! Could it be I’m not human? What am I?!”

Jiang Ge spiraled into an existential crisis about his species.

Si Xu: “…”

Si Xu glanced up at the security camera in the corner. Jiang Ge’s heroic rescue was probably caught on tape. Climbing onto the car, he manually smashed the camera.

‘Wait here, I’m going to the security office.’

Si Xu personally retrieved the footage of Jiang Ge’s rescue, deleted the original, and on his way out, told security that the camera in zone 9 was broken and needed repairs.

Better to nip potential trouble in the bud before they figured out what was going on.

When Si Xu returned, Jiang Ge was crouching on the ground, clutching his stomach.

“What’s wrong?” Si Xu thought maybe he was hurt.

‘I’m starving to death,’ Jiang Ge groaned weakly, barely able to speak.

Si Xu reached out to pull him up. “I know you’re craving Silver Carp. I’ll make it for you when we get home.”

Jiang Ge collapsed to the ground, too weak to stand. “No, really. I’m actually starving to death. I’m not exaggerating, I mean it.”

In just a short time, all the color drained from Jiang Ge’s lips, leaving them as pale as his face. Cold sweat covered his head. Si Xu realized something was wrong and hoisted him toward the car. Jiang Ge was almost dragging behind him, too weak to walk.

Once inside the car, Si Xu rushed to a vending machine and bought a bunch of chocolate bars for Jiang Ge to eat.

Jiang Ge ate chocolate the entire way home, but still felt hungry. By the time they got home, he couldn’t wait another second. He yanked open the fridge, found a whole piece of silver Lo fish, and started eating it raw, like he hadn’t eaten in 800 years.

After wolfing down the fish, Jiang Ge let out a long breath, finally feeling alive again.

“Still in the world of the living, how wonderful.”

Si Xu stood beside him, deep in thought.

*

As soon as Jiang Ge left, Si Xu immediately turned on his computer to review the surveillance footage.

Judging by the normal speed, Jiang Ge seemed to move from one point to another in an instant. However, slowing down the footage revealed that he didn’t teleport—he actually ran there. The frequency of his footsteps was astonishingly fast. From an average person’s perspective, it would be hard to imagine how such a thing was possible.

But Si Xu wasn’t an ordinary person. Coming from a political family, with both his father and grandfather in high-ranking government positions, he had been exposed to things far beyond what others knew.

He clearly remembered when he was 13 years old, his father had taken him to pick up two unfamiliar men from school and brought him to a tightly secured office building. There, they showed him some videos, asking him to identify the person who appeared most frequently in the footage.

Si Xu had an exceptional memory, a fact known only to his family. His father and grandfather had always protected him carefully, not wanting this to become public. That day marked the first time his father needed his memory to assist with something important.

Si Xu understood the weight of the situation. His father never explained, and he never asked. He simply did as instructed.

The footage showed tourist attractions, bustling streets, and event venues, with people moving everywhere. Finding the person who appeared most frequently among the crowd was like finding a needle in a haystack.

It took Si Xu three hours to watch all the videos, committing the faces of every person to memory. His brain worked like a high-speed machine, searching, matching, and narrowing down the footage, discarding video after video without the target person. Eventually, only a few clips remained.

Si Xu already had a candidate in mind, but to be absolutely sure, he watched the footage again, pausing and rewinding several times.

He noticed something strikingly similar to what had happened today: someone who appeared in one spot one moment and in another the next. If it weren’t for comparing the videos and referencing the timestamps, it would have been nearly impossible to believe it was the same person moving that fast. To make it even harder to spot, the person had changed outfits.

Back then, a confused Si Xu asked, “Can someone really move that fast?”

No one answered. The expressions of the people in the room darkened as they circled the head of the mysterious man. He had an extremely ordinary face, someone who would blend in and go unnoticed in a crowd.

Afterward, Si Xu was sent home by his father. What happened next remained a mystery to him.

His father’s work had a high level of confidentiality, so despite his curiosity, Si Xu kept his questions to himself. The incident with Jiang Ge had brought back those memories, making him wonder if his father had the answers.

Si Xu returned home late that night, surprising the housekeeper.

“Has my dad come back?”

His father was always busy, but whenever he was in City A, he’d make it a point to return home to support his mother, who needed him.

“Why are you back so late?” Si Xinian, already in his pajamas, was holding an empty glass of milk.

His mother wasn’t in good health, so his father had asked Si Xu to avoid coming home late to ensure his mother could rest undisturbed.

Most of the time, Si Xu lived outside. His busy work schedule kept him from returning home often, as he didn’t want to disturb his mother.

Knowing his mother must have already gone to bed—she always drank a glass of milk before sleep to avoid nightmares—Si Xu spoke up. “I have something I’d like you to take a look at.”

Si Xinian handed the empty milk glass to the housekeeper and led Si Xu to the study.

Si Xu showed him the surveillance footage. Si Xinian remained indifferent until the moment Jiang Ge appeared behind the man in an instant. He then sat up straight, paused the video, rewound it, and watched it again. This time, he focused on the time. There were no cuts, no splicing—the time was perfectly normal.

Si Xinian watched the footage several more times, looking for any flaws, but found none. Finally, he was convinced it was real.

“How long has he been like this?” Si Xinian asked without revealing any emotion.

“This should be the first time,” Si Xu guessed.

“Any physical reactions?” Si Xinian’s tone suggested he expected some.

Si Xu observed his father closely. “He was extremely hungry, pale, unable to walk, and very weak.”

Si Xinian nodded. “Have you cleaned up the footage?”

“It’s been handled.”

Si Xu hesitated before continuing, “I want to know why.”

Si Xinian, confident in Si Xu’s capabilities, replied, “This isn’t something you need to know.”

“Does Jiang Ge need to know? His speed reminded me of that person from ten years ago…”

Si Xinian cut him off. “This is not your concern. Whether Jiang Ge needs to know or not depends on further observation.”

Si Xu remained silent for a moment. “I might be like Jiang Ge.”

Si Xu then told his father about the coffee cup incident.

For the first time, Si Xinian’s usually unreadable expression showed a hint of surprise. “Are you sure you didn’t just misplace it?”

“I wish I had, but you know better than anyone about my memory.”

Moreover, he had felt a similar hunger at the time.

All clues pointed to the Silver Carp. Even eating high-energy chocolates hadn’t helped; only Silver Carp could relieve that life-threatening hunger. Si Xu didn’t know why, but he was becoming more aware of its significance.

Si Xinian frowned deeply as he stared at Si Xu. “This is a serious matter. You’re my son, and I believe you, but belief alone isn’t enough. Unless you can demonstrate this ability to me now, I’ll have to go through the proper procedures and arrange for both of you to get a full examination.”

If Si Xu could use his ability, he would have done so already and saved the trouble of talking.

He agreed to follow his father’s arrangements.