Range of Perception

Range of Perception

"First, I need to become proficient in using my ability. Then I need to learn... The more knowledge I possess, the more information I can understand."

To Huang Ji, so-called superpowers were merely rare traits.

If no one else in the world could speak, but he could, then speaking would be his superpower.

If no living creature in the world had sight, but he did, then sight would be his superpower.

Huang Ji felt that information perception might be the same. Information could inherently be perceived; it was just that no one else could see it. For the time being, only he could perceive it.

However, it was worth noting that when he observed himself, he could find no information at all about the ability called "information perception."

"Maybe I still don't understand the true nature of my ability?"

"Forget it. Grandpa is asleep. I should take this chance to save Doctor Liang."

The best way to master a skill was to use it often...

Doctor Liang had shown him kindness. Her kidnapping was highly suspicious, and no matter what, he had to save her.

Earlier, while everyone else had been completely at a loss, he had already learned from observing the scene that Doctor Liang had been kidnapped.

There were tire tracks at the scene. They were faint, but they were there. Ordinary people could not see them, but Huang Ji could.

His eyesight was exceptionally sharp. The tracks on the road had been very faint, and twelve hours had already passed. Human eyes simply could not distinguish them.

But Huang Ji did not need to distinguish them at all.

He only needed to stare at the ground and expand the information of some indistinct trace.

One of the entries turned out to be: traces left when a Jinbei van braked.

That was how he knew: Oh, so these were tire tracks!

Then, following that information, he expanded it and searched for other details, such as when it had appeared. From that, he learned that the tire tracks had been made at 7:05 in the morning, when the Jinbei van braked. It had carried four people before the tracks were left, and five passengers afterward.

"From tire tracks alone, I can't tell exactly who was in the vehicle, because I never observed the van itself. Through the tracks, I can only know who the driver was."

The driver had created the tire tracks, so Huang Ji could learn the driver's name, but that was all. After all, what he had observed was only the information of the tire tracks.

Reviewing his earlier actions, Huang Ji summarized to himself, "Through the footprints left by five people at 7:05 in the morning, I learned the names of those five people."

Once he knew the time was 7:05, he could investigate the information of all traces left on the ground at that moment.

As a result, he found the footprints of five people.

At 7:05, only five people's footprints had been created in that area.

Every piece of information had a creator. By querying the creators of the footprints, he could learn the names, heights, weights, and other information of the five people who had left them.

It was worth mentioning that because he had not directly observed those five people, he could not use the footprints to query more detailed information about them, especially historical information.

He could only learn some basic physical information from the moment they left the footprints.

"For me, the best kind of observation is direct observation through the five senses. Whether I see, hear, or smell something, I need to have direct interaction with it. This method yields the richest information."

"If I don't have that opportunity, I can only observe indirectly. It's best if I have something they 'created,' such as footprints or an item they left behind. Through that, I can at least learn basic information about the creator."

"For both of those media, the bigger, the better. If there isn't even an indirect object, then I can only use exhaustive search."

Huang Ji pondered it. Exhaustive search was the most helpless method.

Human capability was limited. The more he thought about his ability, the more he felt that humanity had limits.

The exhaustive method was simple: all he needed was to know where someone had been, then inspect everything there.

Unless too much time had passed, they would always leave behind some fragments of organic matter—perhaps a little dandruff, perhaps moisture in the air they exhaled, or at the very least, a cluster of cells.

The reason bigger media were better was that if something was too small, he might easily overlook it.

There were simply too many things in the world. Wherever he looked, countless substances could have their information expanded.

In theory, if his thoughts could operate down to the molecular level, he could expand the information of a single molecule and then query whom it had previously belonged to.

That was exhaustive search: expand and inspect the information of every tiny object. Perhaps one of them had been left behind by someone passing through.

For example, when a person passed through an area, they would leave scent molecules behind. If Huang Ji happened to expand the information of one such molecule, he could obtain most of that person's information.

It sounded simple, but it was far too difficult in practice.

A random clump of air contained trillions upon trillions of molecules. Check them one by one? That exhaustive method was enough to kill someone. Even if he checked them clump by clump, unless most of them had once belonged to a particular person, the information would still be muddled and chaotic.

Besides, Huang Ji still could not expand the information of a single molecule. He could not even expand a single cell on its own.

So although Huang Ji had thought of this method, he knew he could not do it. It existed only in theory.

In practice, Huang Ji could only meaningfully query information from things the other party had left behind that were visible to the naked eye.

At the limit, it had to be something like a strand of hair, and even that required exceptional care and patience.

"These people were extremely careful. They left no traces at all. No one but me could make out these footprints."

Because the rural roads were poor, they must have gotten out of the vehicle before arriving. Their shoes had mud on them, and when they got out, the four people left inconspicuous yet long-lasting footprints on the concrete.

The footprints had been obviously damaged, and only consisted of a few specks of mud. Even the most skilled forensic trace expert could not recover anything useful from them.

But "damaged footprints" were still footprints, unless they had been completely covered by another kind of trace.

To Huang Ji, as long as it was a "visible trace left by a footstep," he could expand information called footprints.

Long before anyone else knew Doctor Liang had been kidnapped, Huang Ji had already learned the names of the five perpetrators.

He had even observed traces beneath the old tree and learned that there had been a witness at the time.

Later, when Wang Meng drove away the villagers and told them not to gather around, Huang Ji quietly left. Alone, he followed the tire tracks to find where the van had gone.

The van headed onto the national highway, and Huang Ji followed its trail for a while.

Logically, they had a vehicle while he only had his legs. How could he possibly keep up? Twelve hours had already passed. They might even have reached Zheng-Zhou by now.

But Huang Ji knew some of Doctor Liang's secrets, and from that, he had already guessed the kidnappers' objective.

The kidnappers wanted something. Before getting it, how could they possibly flee far away?

Sure enough, after following the traces for only a short distance, Huang Ji discovered that the information on the ground showed the vehicle had stopped at 7:15 that morning.

It had stopped right on the national highway. Then, through traces on the guardrail... he learned that four people had gotten out and climbed over it.

There was no doubt about it. Three men had stayed behind with Doctor Liang, while only the driver had continued onward in the vehicle.

"So that's it. Based on witness Li Fan's account, even if the police check the surveillance footage at the highway entrance ahead and trace where that van went, at most they'll only track down the 'decoy.'"

"The police will think the kidnappers have gone to the county town, never realizing they're still within Huazhuang's boundaries."

By the time Wang Meng dispersed the villagers, Huang Ji had investigated this much. Then he walked back.

After returning, he wrote a ransom note to warn the police.

Yes, a ransom note. He had written it "on behalf of" the kidnappers and secretly slipped it under the police car's windshield wiper while Wang Meng was taking photographs inside the clinic.

'Liang Yuan is in our hands. Trade her parents for her, or she dies.' Signed, Lü Zongmin.

Huang Ji had deliberately written this extremely brazen letter to remind the police that the kidnappers had not left.

Not only that, he had signed it with the kidnapper's true name.

Names queried through information were called true names, though they were not necessarily the names people commonly used.

That person's commonly used name might be a nickname or something similar. A true name was the first name that person had been given.

The reason it might not be the commonly used name was that Huang Ji had observed himself. His own information listed his name as "Huang Xu."

Logically, the name on his household registration was Huang Ji, and most people had always called him Huang Ji.

Yet the information listed his true name as "Huang Xu," the name Grandpa had chosen for him before he was registered.

This showed that an Information True Name was a person's first name.

It also had to be a name generally recognized by others, rather than merely the first proposal.

After all, before naming him Huang Xu, several elders in the family had suggested several names. Most had not been accepted and had remained only proposals. Only in the end did the old man make the final decision on Huang Xu.

"Other than special cases like mine, most people's true names should be their registered names."

"Lü Zongmin... the police might be able to uncover something from that name."

With that purpose in mind, Huang Ji wrote the ransom note and signed Lü Zongmin's name.

The other three names were too common, and there were surely many people with the same names. So among the four kidnappers, he could only choose the one with the most distinctive name.

After doing all that, Huang Ji returned to take care of Grandpa. Only after Grandpa had fallen asleep did he come back out.

After giving them so many hints, if the police still could not find Doctor Liang, then he would have no choice but to look for her himself.