Zhang Youzhi's phantom could pass through any object. Likewise, if he wanted to, he could touch any object.
But touching was all he could do. He could not change an object's state, not even move a floating balloon the slightest bit.
The train was packed with people traveling during summer vacation. Zhang Youzhi's phantom sat by the window, listening to the noisy chatter around him and thinking back to what had been said during that conversation by the river.
"The White Jade Capital Company is dedicated to eliminating emotional disasters."
"Most people's emotions cannot give rise to emotional disasters. Common emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness soon fade on their own with the passage of time."
"But there are many extreme cases. For example, someone might suffer nothing but contempt from childhood, grow up isolated, and then face constant targeted mistreatment in society. This can give rise to intense negative emotions. These emotions unconsciously affect the people around them and do not dissipate on their own.
"Once the person is swept up in these intense negative emotions and acts irrationally, committing suicide or murder, for instance, it develops into what we call an emotional disaster. These negative emotions are highly contagious."
"[Nip Problems in the Bud] is the White Jade Capital Company's guiding principle."
"Emotional disasters are generally divided into individual emotional disasters and collective emotional disasters."
"The former are easier to resolve than the latter. Usually, sending trained personnel to soothe and care for the person involved is enough."
"When we encounter irreversible emotional disasters arising from death, such as dying for love, revenge, irrationality, madness, or collective retaliation, the company also dispatches specialist teams trained to deal with death."
"Emotional disasters do not necessarily involve extreme acts. The saying 'no sorrow is greater than a deadened heart' is also an accurate depiction of an emotional disaster."
Zhang Youzhi clearly remembered an example being given.
He himself was an example of someone whose death had plunged those close to him into an emotional disaster of utter grief and sorrow.
"Individual emotional disasters generally do not exceed A-rank. Only collective emotional disasters reach the rare S-rank."
"When He Min was about to jump into the river earlier, she would never actually have jumped, even without your intervention. She would only have lain against the bridge pier and cried her heart out, then shivered in the cold river wind, climbed down from the pier, and walked away crying. A kind female driver would then have given her a ride home."
"This is called the [nonessential nonoccurrence theory]. It is a theory developed by the White Jade Capital Company to improve the precision of our work.
"The theory is combined with the company's internal [future trajectory prediction system] to identify, as effectively as possible, the people who truly need help."
Combining theory with a system. Thorough.
Zhang Youzhi had asked him, "Then wouldn't He Min's level of grief constitute an emotional disaster?"
"Even when she was crying the hardest, she was still nowhere near an F-rank emotional disaster. It only counted as an ordinary emotional fluctuation. Only F-rank and above can cause negative effects. When you died, though, her emotions briefly approached F-rank, but they soon subsided."
Zhang Youzhi had asked how these ranks were determined.
"There are no clear criteria. We judge mainly by how the emotions manifest, but there are certain patterns. E- and F-rank emotional disasters are usually accompanied by a small number of individual deaths."
"C- and D-rank emotional disasters are usually accompanied by large-scale incidents with severe consequences. Here is an example: many years ago, a massive stampede occurred overseas. That collective emotional disaster reached C-rank."
"As for A- and B-rank, we have to discuss these emotional disasters in two categories. First, collective A- and B-rank emotional disasters.
"Emotional disasters at this level generally involve casualties on an enormous scale. These cases usually make headlines around the world. For example, that infamous chain of air disasters twenty-two years ago was A-rank.
"There are very few examples of individual A-rank emotional disasters, only three or four. Their causes were all extremely unusual and not representative. As a result, we cannot use them to infer what effects someone who triggers an individual A-rank emotional disaster might have."
"What about S-rank?" Zhang Youzhi pressed.
Zhang Youzhi still remembered how Number Two had given him a long, searching look before finally uttering just two words.
"...Massive earthquakes."
Zhang Youzhi was shaken to his core.
"I remember you mentioned SSS-rank emotional disasters before. Surely nothing like that has ever happened in history?"
"Twice."
Although Zhang Youzhi had only been a soul at the time, he could still recall how he had felt.
"Were they especially massive natural disasters?"
"No."
"They were both man-made."
"Man-made?!!!" Zhang Youzhi blurted out, aghast.
"Yes."
Using the two clues he had been given-"twice" and "man-made"-and what he knew of history, Zhang Youzhi soon realized which events those two SSS-rank collective emotional disasters corresponded to.
The voice remained calm, but there was a trace of fear in its icy tone.
"We could not bear to watch any longer. So we came."
Zhang Youzhi still remembered how, while saying those words, the man had faced the Crane River and spread his arms, as though about to plunge into it.
Zhang Youzhi had seen in him the resolve to willingly face death.
"We knew this world could never withstand a third SSS-rank emotional disaster. Preventing a possible third SSS-rank emotional disaster was the White Jade Capital Company's highest purpose from the moment it was founded."
Zhang Youzhi had wanted to ask about the White Jade Capital Company's origins.
"We are the people of White Jade Capital that the ancients spoke of. But after we came here of our own accord, we became ordinary people just like you. We can never return to the real White Jade Capital. This voyage came with no return ticket.
"The company was founded in 1957. Seventeen of us came back then. Now only six remain."
"What happened to the others?"
"They all died."
"They gave far too much for White Jade Capital's development. The White Jade Capital Company has now begun to recover some special powers. Your current state, for example, is something we did everything we could to create. We have begun to regain the ability to preserve souls.
"But we could not do that back then. They all died too early.
"The last of our companions to die passed away in 1986, during a rescue operation in an S-rank disaster. Although the White Jade Capital Company had already established its basic framework by then, we had no effective treatment for people severely injured by nuclear radiation. He became the eleventh of our companions to sacrifice his life."
"1986... nuclear radiation..." Zhang Youzhi murmured.
"The six remaining companions, myself included, are all still alive and well. The White Jade Capital Company has also grown into a comprehensive global conglomerate. But the vast majority of its people are ordinary people. A tiny minority of those ordinary people know some of the inside story, but nowhere near as much as you do."
"Just because Li Douyu is the bearer of an S-rank emotional disaster?" Zhang Youzhi asked with a bitter smile.
"To be precise, she is the first bearer of an individual S-rank disaster in history. We still do not know what consequences she might bring about. But as the focal point of the conflict, you are naturally someone we watch closely. And I truly do want to bring you into our ranks as our seventh member."
"...I'm sorry," Zhang Youzhi said with a bitter smile.
"I don't have any grand ambition to save the world."
"It's all right. We simply want to gather every drop of water into the river before us."
An announcement sounded.
It jolted Zhang Youzhi out of his thoughts, forcing him back from his memories.
"Attention, passengers. We have arrived at Songjiang North Station. Please take all your luggage and belongings with you, look after any children and elderly people accompanying you, and leave the train in an orderly manner..."
Before you continue