Secret

"So... what exactly was going on now? Since Old Man and Big Brother were both coming to Tokyo, wouldn't they happen to run into our troupe robbing the auction and decide to get involved?"

Watching Gu Qiye's retreating back, Ji Minghuan scratched his forehead and pondered.

I'm really worried my No. 2 character will get one-shot by Big Brother. It's not like he can compensate me with Split Points so I can create a new character.

With a sigh, he dismissed the thought. "I should focus on the Welfare Home first. Finding clues about the laboratory is more important."

He casually pulled the door shut, stepped onto the second-floor rooftop, and approached the railing to look toward the distant Welfare Home. Leaning against the railing, Ji Minghuan stared blankly at the Library beneath the sunlight for a while.

The morning breeze, heavy with summer heat, blew toward him, stirring memories of the past.

When he was four years old, Ji Minghuan had been abandoned by his Parents and sent to this Welfare Home. Over the years, he had become familiar with every building and every corner of the place, especially the Library in his line of sight.

Ever since he was little, he had loved spending time in that Library, reading everything from astronomy and geography to humanities and history, as well as philosophical theories from people like Nietzsche and Camus. He had even read quite a few books on psychology and religion. Of course, most of them were just miscellaneous filler books. He had never expected a Library meant for show to contain anything of particularly high quality, so making do was enough.

To explain just how much Ji Minghuan loved that Library, one particular matter had to be mentioned.

The Welfare Home had rather unusual rules. It arranged for one or two designated teachers to teach the children it took in, then used tests to assess each child's intelligence level. Children who performed exceptionally well earned the right to attend school;

Children judged to have failed to meet the intelligence standard remained in the Welfare Home and symbolically received only the basic education covered by those intelligence tests.

Perhaps because he spent every day in the Library, Ji Minghuan stood out sharply among the children. He scored full marks in every subject, far surpassing the standard required to be sent to school, yet he resisted it and refused to study outside the Welfare Home.

The teachers and director repeatedly tried to persuade him, but he refused to yield. Eventually, he even threatened self-harm.

After he resisted time and again, the director snorted coldly and said, "Then just curl up here and be a useless good-for-nothing for the rest of your life." Ji Minghuan had merely tilted his head and continued reading his miscellaneous books, not taking those words seriously.

Only Kong Youling knew why Ji Minghuan did not want to attend school: he loved that Library.

Whether he was lonely or sad, he liked to stay in that quiet Library, sitting alone in a corner and reading, with mountains and seas of books behind him. Nothing made him feel safer than that.

While the other children played on the lawn, he leaned against the bookshelves and read alone;

While the other children napped in the dormitories, he leaned against the bookshelves and read alone.

Later, a Computer Room was added to the Library, and Ji Minghuan's affection for the place rose to another level. Every day, he was either immersed in video games or buried in books. He could not be bothered to attend a single class at the Welfare Home, since they were all perfunctory nonsense, existing only to put on a show for outsiders and maintain the director's image as a highly respected man.

Kong Youling often came to keep him company.

As the sun slanted westward, the afterglow of dusk streamed through the skylight and into the Library. The two children sat leaning against the bookshelves in the last row. She drew beside him while he kept his head lowered and read. Sometimes, neither of them spoke for a very, very long time. The setting sun sank toward the horizon, and the Library was silent. It was as if they shared the whole world through pictures and books.

Yet it was precisely within this beloved Library that there existed the corner Ji Minghuan knew least about in the entire orphanage:

—the basement, which was always tightly locked.

The iron door leading to the basement was secured with several layers of locks. Once, Ji Minghuan had walked down the stairs and tried pushing the iron door in the darkness. The director, who had been ordering the cleaners around inside the Library, immediately changed expression, hurried down, and fiercely scolded him. He had even punished him with three days of confinement in the attic at the top of the Library.

Later, when the matter was brought up, the director claimed that it was an underground shelter built during wartime. It had not been opened in a long time, and no one knew how filthy it was inside, which was why they were forbidden from entering lest they catch some respiratory illness.

Ji Minghuan suddenly raised an eyebrow. Could it be... that the laboratory is behind that iron door? And that my Main Body was never moved at all, but had been locked beneath the Welfare Home from the very beginning.

Just then, something strange appeared in the distant sky. He abruptly raised his head and saw a huge red exclamation mark standing in the air.

"A Card Event?"

Following the position of that exclamation mark, Ji Minghuan lowered his gaze and spotted the Welfare Home's Library in the city below. In other words, it seemed that a special "game event" was waiting for him to explore inside the Welfare Home's Library.

Ji Minghuan had already been curious about what lay behind that iron door, not to mention that an "Event Card" icon was now hanging over the place.

"Now that it's come to this... there's no reason not to go. I'll first see what's hidden in that basement."

With that thought, Ji Minghuan left the rooftop and quickly returned to his room. Using the Restraint Band, he dragged the Swallowtail Windbreaker out from beneath the wardrobe, put on his mask, raised a hand to press the button beside his ear and secure it, then activated the Voice Changer.

The Restraint Band spread across the surface of his body like a tide, gradually wrapping around his entire body.

When Ji Minghuan used "Restraint Band Color Change" to turn invisible, he had to cover his eyes as well. Otherwise, others would still see a pair of eerie eyes floating in midair, as though he were a ninja in black, making perfect invisibility impossible.

Since "Restraint Belt Senses" could completely replace his vision—and could even be considered an upgrade—there was no issue with covering his eyes too.

Thus, while traveling, though no one else could see him, Ji Minghuan was basically in full "mummy" form, making him unusually eerie.

Using the Restraint Band to pull open the Floor-to-Ceiling Window, he leaped up from the base beneath the air conditioner's outdoor unit. His figure melted into the bright sunlight, weaving between skyscrapers like the sun's shadow.

In no time, Ji Minghuan crossed half the city and vaulted over the Welfare Home's fence.

He stood silently atop the fence. Before him were still the same old, low buildings, vines climbing the yellowed walls and spreading toward the quaint Library.

The Library was tightly locked in the morning, and no children came here at that hour.

Ji Minghuan diverted gravity into the Restraint Band and, as if dragging a sheet of black rain behind him, leaped onto the attic eaves of the Library. He steadied himself, approached the attic skylight, and dropped down soundlessly.

The old floorboards creaked beneath him. When he turned his head, he froze for a moment before noticing a girl sleeping in the attic. She had probably caused some trouble and been punished by the director, locked in the attic for the night, just as Ji Minghuan had been before.

Hearing the sound, the girl opened her eyes and looked around, but she could not see anything except piles of miscellaneous books. So she closed her eyes again, turned over, and fell back into a deep sleep.

Ji Minghuan glanced down at her, casually used the Restraint Band to cover her with a blanket, then turned toward the attic exit.

Just then, a Prompt Panel appeared before his eyes.

China's Li Jing City No. 1 Card Event triggered—Explore the "basement" of the Welfare Home Library.

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