Scientist

"The compensation claim was rejected by higher-ups."

Zhang Ling, the foreman in a gray vest so dirty its original color was impossible to make out, climbed off the train and viciously stubbed out his cigarette. His messy hair was covered in coal dust.

Yan Li, another Coal Mine Field foreman beside him, frowned as well.

"I told you last time. The company up top doesn't care about this little bit of money, but the people above them set a yearly quota for them. Once they exceed that quota, the mine is forbidden from having anyone die."

Zhang Ling bared a mouthful of yellowed teeth and snorted, apparently amused by the notion of forbidding deaths.

"What if they don't pay? Wouldn't those jobs have been for nothing? We took the risk, only to not get a single cent?"

Yan Li was far more seasoned. He shook his head.

"Don't worry. Even without official compensation, if the dead workers' families make trouble, the mine will always privately give some benefits to the few leading the loudest protests. That money will definitely pass through our hands."

"But there's less profit in that! That's my money!"

"Keep it under control this year. Once there's a new quota next year, we can use those old bachelors to squeeze more money from the people up top."

"Damn company, acting all righteous! They even put quotas on deaths!"

Zhang Ling cursed angrily for a while. Just as he was in a foul mood and preparing to go home and take it out on his wife, a tall figure suddenly loomed over him.

Cautious, he did not immediately start swearing. Instead, he raised his head and looked at the person blocking his way.

It was a young man, no older than twenty.

He was nearly six foot three, a full head taller than Zhang Ling. His face was covered in grime, making him look no different from the laborers around them, yet he still gave off the impression of being a remarkably handsome guy.

Beside the young man stood a girl in plain linen clothes with half-gray, half-green hair. She kept hold of his arm, her head lowered so no one could see her face.

"Foreman Zhang?"

The young man warmly extended a hand. Zhang Ling found it strange, but still shook his hand. One did not slap a smiling face.

"Do I know you?"

"This is our first meeting. I asked around about you from others. My name is Zhao Wei."

The young man calling himself Zhao Wei never lost his smile. He looked like the sort of sociable person who could get along with anyone. As he spoke, he took two crumpled cigarettes from his pocket and fawningly offered them to Zhang Ling and Yan Li.

Zhang Ling accepted the cheap cigarette that only bottom-rung laborers smoked. Zhao Wei immediately took out a match and lit it for him.

Amid the drifting smoke, Zhang Ling enjoyed the pleasant sensation of nicotine entering his lungs. Squinting, he looked at Zhao Wei with a grin.

"What do you want?"

"I'm looking for work that'll keep us fed." Zhao Wei got straight to the point. "The pay doesn't matter. Just don't let my sister and me starve to death!"

Yan Li, who had remained silent, frowned. Just as he was about to refuse, Zhang Ling suddenly stopped him with a hand.

Zhang Ling glanced at the little girl beside Zhao Wei. He neither agreed nor refused, instead continuing his questions.

"No one else in your family?"

"My parents both died from illness. It's just me and my sister now. I'm not asking for much. We just need enough food not to starve."

"Got an ID card?"

"If I did, I wouldn't have come looking for you."

"So you're unregistered." Zhang Ling flicked away some ash and spoke slowly. "Since you managed to find me, you should understand that unregistered workers pay a different rate to get in."

"I understand. Eighty a day, thirty-five paid to you as tea money. No compensation if anything happens. If we die, we get buried wherever the body falls."

"As long as you know the rules. Tomorrow morning at five-thirty, wait for me at Platform 19."

Zhao Wei immediately thanked him again and again. After Zhang Ling impatiently waved him away, he wisely left with his sister.

Only after the tall-and-short pair had gone far away did Yan Li speak in a low voice.

"Didn't we just say we weren't doing this this year? Why recruit him?"

Zhang Ling took one last drag from his cigarette and smiled.

"You can only think about that little bit of compensation. That kid looks decent. We can't see his sister's face, but she definitely won't be bad-looking. Kill the kid, then sell his sister. Won't that make more than compensation?"

Yan Li was much more cautious by nature. But since Zhang Ling insisted on doing it, he did not interfere. He merely warned him.

"Don't go too far. If something happens, neither of us will get away!"

"Relax, I know what I'm doing."

"That Foreman Zhang doesn't look like someone who knows what he's doing."

After returning to the alley, Li Wei, who had casually changed his surname, said this thoughtfully.

Feng Zi was still unhappily tugging at her half-gray, half-green hair, which made her look like a rebellious teenage delinquent.

"Doesn't know what he's doing? Could he take back the cigarette? I traded my clothes for those."

She looked extremely reluctant to part with that outfit. Several coins were still clenched tightly in her hand, and she resembled a miser guarding her fortune.

When she had traded her clothes for supplies, she had argued tirelessly and logically to get extra money. The moment she received those coins, Feng Zi had guarded them as carefully as a squirrel storing food for winter.

Li Wei glanced at Feng Zi's pathetic display, but inwardly, he carefully recalled Zhang Ling's every action and the subtle changes in his expression.

"While he seemed to be thinking, his eyes kept drifting toward you. It felt like he was plotting something bad."

Hearing that, Feng Zi scrutinized Li Wei from head to toe with an inquisitive expression. Li Wei found it strange and met her gaze.

"What are you looking at me for?"

"626, where did you learn all this? Living in that testing ground, could it have taught you how to read people and understand social customs?"

Li Wei answered without even blushing.

"After you gave me that injection, I suddenly knew how."

Feng Zi seemed to have blind faith in him. Even with an answer like that, she believed him first and looked for reasons afterward.

"You were created using three million six hundred seventy thousand outstanding male samples. It's possible that your brain cells also contain the thoughts and subconsciousness of all those men! The Key must have awakened that subconsciousness, which is why you were born knowing these things!"

Feng Zi's eyes lit up.

"If those people at the Biology Institute learned about this, they'd definitely do everything possible to study your brain!"

Li Wei could tell that her occupational habit had flared up again.

Whenever this lame girl encountered a scientific research problem, she displayed an extraordinary degree of enthusiasm.

And she was stingy and greedy for money, too.

"Instead of thinking about dissecting my brain, think about what's right in front of us. The police are looking for us everywhere."

At his words, worry immediately returned to Feng Zi's face.

"Then are we still taking the train with him tomorrow?"

"We are. Why wouldn't we? We're not really going there to be laborers. We just want to hitch a ride."

Li Wei was clearly the one making decisions between them. As the first internal tester to enter the game, he had plenty of experience. To push the plot forward quickly, he naturally had to find unconventional methods.

As if remembering something, he looked at Feng Zi again.

"By the way, what exactly does this Key do?"

Feng Zi met his eyes and answered very seriously.

"It can help you open the door to science and become a scientist walking the path of discovery and order!"

"A scientist?" Li Wei repeated the title in an unreadable tone.

Li Wei's understanding of this world was indeed still at the most superficial level, limited to what he could see with his own eyes.

When he killed "Mom and Dad," he had already realized that his physical abilities were absurdly high.

He could easily knock out an adult, and even lift "Dad's" hundred-plus-pound body with one hand without any effort. That was absolutely beyond what a normal person could do.

But he was certain that he could not be the only exception in the game. Otherwise, if everyone else was ordinary, players would become invincible after gaining a couple of levels and a few stats, leaving no motivation to keep improving.

So Li Wei had actually been staying alert all along, afraid that cultivators, espers, mages, battle aura users, or other beings capable of moving mountains, overturning seas, and riding clouds might suddenly appear around him.

But scientists?

Feng Zi naturally had no idea what Li Wei was thinking, but she could see his confusion.

"Who knows how many years ago, the scientific laws humanity had explored shattered after they fled underground. The laws once known to everyone became controlled by only a handful of people. The rules of nature no longer belonged to nature, but to scientists."

"Every fragment of a natural law is called a Key. It gives ordinary people the chance to inherit science, and it also promotes the evolution of normal human bodies, allowing them to better adapt to natural laws that have already become private property."

Li Wei had no particular opinion on her explanation. In his view, it was merely the game's writing team constructing a fake but reasonable background for supernatural abilities.

Scientist was only a title. It would make no difference if they changed it to esper or mage.

He looked Feng Zi up and down.

"Then are you a scientist?"

Feng Zi's reaction to that question was somewhat strange.

She lowered her head and looked at the leg that made her limp whenever she walked. Her voice was quiet, and her tone carried an indescribable loneliness.

"Me? I no longer have the qualifications."