By the time Chen Shouyi returned, military police were already patrolling the streets.
He saw quite a few hooligans who had taken advantage of the chaos to smash and loot. The police swiftly tackled them to the ground, and they were handcuffed without the slightest chance to resist.
As an arm of the state's coercive power, the military and police systems had always made a point of recruiting Martial Apprentices from society.
For many civil-service positions in the police system, being a Martial Apprentice was essentially a basic requirement.
If they joined the army, they would start out with the rank and benefits of a warrant officer.
Many public institutions and state-owned enterprises also gave these people priority when hiring.
After all, even a Martial Apprentice was no less than a killing machine in the eyes of ordinary civilians. If one turned to evil, they could pose a tremendous threat to social stability. Naturally, the state would never let such power run unchecked.
In fact, even if you went nowhere at all, the moment you registered as a Martial Apprentice, you automatically became a member of the militia in your registered place of residence.
For instance, his younger sister, Chen Xingyue, was now a militiaman in the armed forces department of their neighborhood.
Of course, her militia status was only nominal.
Under normal circumstances, she didn't have to fulfill any obligations; she could go about her usual business. But if severe unrest broke out locally or barbarians appeared, she would have to help maintain public order and might even be sent to the battlefield.
Of course, if it ever came to that, the situation would already be extremely dire.
People hurried along the street, panic written on their faces.
Traffic remained hopelessly gridlocked, with no sign of it moving anytime soon. Quite a few drivers simply left their cars where they were and walked home.
When Chen Shouyi returned to the hotel, he found the corridor still full of people. For most people, it clearly wasn't time to go to sleep yet.
"I went to have a look. It was awful. He'd been stabbed more than a dozen times all over, and there was blood everywhere."
"There's no power now, so ** can't even monitor anything. I don't know if they'll be able to catch the killer."
"Someone died here. It's really creepy. If the power hadn't gone out and made it hard to find another hotel, I'd have gone somewhere else."
"Same here. I'll probably have nightmares tonight!"
As Chen Shouyi walked down the corridor, he heard a group of people talking.
He looked surprised.
No wonder he'd caught a faint smell of blood when he came in.
"Hey, what are you talking about? Did someone die here?" When Chen Shouyi reached his room, he couldn't help asking a young man.
"You didn't go look?"
"I just got back from being out," Chen Shouyi explained.
After listening to the guests nearby, Chen Shouyi learned that someone had died while he was out.
The victim had been staying on the same floor, not far from Chen Shouyi's room.
After the power went out, he'd been chatting in the corridor when, for some reason, he got into an argument with someone. They started fighting, and perhaps tempers flared as they fought. The killer had pulled a knife, and when he realized he'd caused a disaster, he fled at once.
By the time the police arrived, the body had already gone cold.
Darkness often magnified the evil in people's hearts.
It made people unusually bold. That was what people meant by seeing red.
Aside from feeling sorry that the victim had died for nothing, Chen Shouyi didn't take much notice of it.
He had no connection to the victim and didn't even know him.
As for someone dying here, to Chen Shouyi, who had killed more than a dozen barbarians earlier that very day, it barely stirred a ripple in his heart.
He entered his room and shut the door.
Then he let Shell Girl out and set her down by his pillow.
She was genuinely angry this time. She turned her head away and ignored Chen Shouyi completely.
Normally, Chen Shouyi would have turned on the television or soothed her with a glass marble by now.
But today, he simply wasn't in the mood.
He turned on his phone's flashlight, lay on his back, and didn't feel like moving a muscle.
Too much had happened today. He felt utterly drained.
Shell Girl sulked for a long while, but Chen Shouyi still didn't react. At last, she couldn't hold back any longer.
She stood up and studied Chen Shouyi where he lay. An idea struck her, and she grabbed the hem of his clothes, then flipped herself onto his chest.
She deliberately bounced up and down a few times and shouted, "You %@# giant! Beiqi, I want Beiqi!"
The word modifying "giant" was definitely nothing nice. It was probably something like "evil" or "awful."
Chen Shouyi glanced at the increasingly bold Shell Girl and said lazily, "There's no Beiqi today!"
"Why is there no Beiqi?" Shell Girl still refused to give up.
"Beiqi needs to rest too. It's tired!" Chen Shouyi casually made up an excuse.
Shell Girl looked doubtful.
"Then how long does it need to rest? Does it need several sunrises and sunsets?"
"I don't know."
As he said this, Chen Shouyi's heart grew heavy.
He could only hope things would be better tomorrow.
Perhaps affected by the mood, Shell Girl quieted down too. She looked at Chen Shouyi, blinked, and asked in confusion, "Giant, are you unhappy?"
Chen Shouyi nodded slightly, not really wanting to talk.
"I'll dance for you!"
With that, she began flailing her arms and legs.
Chen Shouyi soon found himself laughing. Her dance had little grace to it; she simply waved her arms and legs about. It was less a dance than some kind of ritual.
He had no idea where she'd learned it.
Come to think of it, this was the second time he'd seen her dance.
The first time had been just after he caught her, when she'd suddenly started dancing for no reason.
But back then, there had also been specks of light swirling all around. They had almost fooled him.
Seeing Chen Shouyi laugh, Shell Girl danced with even more enthusiasm.
At first, Chen Shouyi didn't pay much attention. He watched the exotic dance with a relaxed expression, but as he kept watching, his face gradually turned serious.
As she danced, a mysterious atmosphere seemed to descend.
An idea struck him, and he suddenly turned off his phone's flashlight.
The next moment, he saw tiny points of light flicker into view around Shell Girl.
They appeared and disappeared in turns.
The scene was steeped in a magical atmosphere.
Of course, compared to the first time she danced, when the points of light had been bright enough to see clearly even in daylight, these were so faint they were almost impossible to notice.
They were only just visible in a room plunged into complete darkness.
But this was Earth.
Even though the mysterious field had begun to erode this place, its concentration was still pitifully low.
The fact that his Natural Healing talent hadn't manifested was proof enough.
Yet in surroundings like these, she could still use some extraordinary abilities, however weak—so weak they were practically nonexistent.
"Where did you learn that?" Chen Shouyi couldn't help asking.
"I could do it from the moment I was born!" Shell Girl stopped and said proudly, her little face smug.
Chen Shouyi remained unconvinced.
But when he thought about it carefully, Shell Girl really was quite mysterious.
He was no longer a newcomer to the otherworldly Small Island, still clinging to the childish idea that creatures there all possessed supernatural abilities.
In truth, extraordinary abilities weren't common even in the otherworld.
At least, the barbarians he'd encountered had basically shown no supernatural abilities. Or perhaps they simply hadn't had the chance to use them before they died.
The only one he knew who had extraordinary abilities was Shell Girl.
For instance, she could fly, though not very fast—slower than a fly.
For instance, she could easily find Gold Sand buried in the sand, as if she already knew where it was.
And her eyesight was astonishing. Even in a downpour, she could easily see how many barbarians were on a canoe hundreds, even a thousand, meters away.
If she hadn't been so tiny, she might not have been the one captured back then. He might have been the one taken prisoner instead.
The thought filled Chen Shouyi with anticipation. He hurriedly asked,
"Is there any use to that dance?"
"Don't you think it's pretty?" Shell Girl asked, looking adorably clueless.
Pretty enough to eat?
"Time to sleep!" Chen Shouyi said irritably to the vain Shell Girl.
Before you continue