Outside help from "Lichuan"

"Mom..."

Hu Zihao's voice rang out, and in an instant, everyone turned to look at him beside Feng Wanshu.

"Zihao, as long as you're all right. What on earth happened?"

There was no way Feng Wanshu could remain unruffled, even after all the tactics she had witnessed in business. Faced with such an immediate threat, and having seen so many bizarre phenomena firsthand, no one could have stayed calm.

"Ms. Feng Wanshu, I'm a police officer. Here are my credentials. I suggest we leave first. I can explain everything afterward."

Without waiting for Hu Zihao to speak, Shen Bai stepped in and told Feng Wanshu what he wanted.

But Feng Wanshu could not trust the people before her either.

"Wait, why should I trust you? At first you said you were my son's classmates, but then every one of you... I can't explain it. In any case, I can't trust you right now."

Frowning, Feng Wanshu watched them warily and stretched out an arm to shield Hu Zihao behind her.

"Mom, it's okay. They aren't bad people. They really are my classmates. Let's explain the rest later. Let's go with them."

Feng Wanshu frowned at her son. Suddenly, she remembered how he had seemed to hold something back the night before.

A woman's intuition told her all these things were connected. In that case, what had happened at the school might not have been the "explosion" those police officers had described.

And why had someone come to attack her son? Feng Wanshu knew that tall trees caught the wind; once a business grew large, there were always people with crooked ideas. But she had never seen anyone act like this.

Who would attack someone in front of so many people, in a hospital full of surveillance cameras?

And that fake nurse's speed had been utterly beyond a normal person's capabilities. She had moved so fast Feng Wanshu had barely seen her, yet her stab had missed as though she were blind. That surely had something to do with those three children too.

The vase moving through the air was no different. In the past, if someone had told Feng Wanshu that people could move objects without touching them, she would certainly have assumed they had been duped. But today, the truth had been right before her eyes. That kind-looking boy had waved a hand and flung a vase half a meter away from him at the nurse.

Now another man claiming to be a police officer wanted to take her and her son away.

With all of this piled together, Feng Wanshu's mind was in turmoil. But her son was right beside her. She absolutely could not show fear.

Yet her son had also confirmed those children's identities.

Feng Wanshu knew she would certainly be unable to resist if she faced someone like that nurse again. And it probably would not be difficult for these people to take her by force either. After weighing her options, she decided to go with them.

Steadying herself, Feng Wanshu said:

"I can go with you, but I've already messaged my butler. If I don't reply within three hours, he'll call the police."

Shen Bai nodded and said:

"That's fine. Caution is a good thing. Let's go."

A little worried, Hu Zihao took his mother's hand and walked toward the door with her.

Hu Zihao did not know how to begin explaining what had happened at school or the changes to his family and himself.

He did not dare tell his mother that he, too, had become a... person with superpowers.

Shen Bai went out first. He looked both ways, then turned back and said:

"Han He, bring that woman. Make sure she doesn't wake up on the way. We can learn a few things from her."

Han He nodded and lifted the unconscious woman off the floor as easily as picking up a handbag. But carrying her that way seemed a little awkward for walking, so he swung her over his shoulder and carried her out of the ward.

"Damn..."

Huo Qiuliang murmured in amazement, following close behind Shi Yu. Hu Zihao and Feng Wanshu followed right after them.

The moment he stepped outside, Shi Yu froze.

Beside the door, he saw a man lying on the floor, his limbs twisted behind him as though bound. Yet Shi Yu could not see anything binding him.

The man was writhing on the floor like a caterpillar, but however he struggled, he could not crawl far, as though chained in place.

Shen Bai adjusted his glasses and spoke mildly.

"That woman's accomplice. He has the ability to affect light. Probably here to cover their retreat."

As he spoke, a pair of scissors suddenly appeared in Shen Bai's hand. With iron handles and iron blades, they looked like an old object.

Feng Wanshu happened to come out with Hu Zihao just in time to hear Shen Bai's voice.

"Taking two would be a bit much. I'll deal with this one briefly and let the Police Force clean up afterward."

The man's eyes widened in terror, and he struggled even harder. As he struggled, strange folds suddenly began rippling across his skin, making the sight dizzying and mesmerizing.

At the same time, a small portion of the surrounding light began to distort, and the scene before everyone's eyes slowly blurred.

But Shen Bai remained composed. His scissors opened and closed lightly in his hand, leaving afterimages in the morning light like the quivering wings of a moth.

Feng Wanshu watched the spectacle before her.

Light twisted, brightness and darkness flickered, and even the tiniest specks of dust were magnified within this strange sight.

What was blurred around her became clear, while what was clear gradually dissolved. The light on the glass gathered chaotically into patches of colorful halos.

The man bound by something invisible slowly faded amid it all.

Yet the bespectacled man remained unperturbed. He stepped forward gently and slipped the iron blades into something invisible and soft, his movements as practiced as those of the most seasoned craftsman.

"Snip."

The scissors opened and closed with a crisp, light sound that left no doubt something must have been severed.

"Thud-"

Something fell to the floor.

In an instant, all the light stopped twisting. It returned at once to where it belonged, the bright remaining bright and the dim remaining dim.

Everything just now seemed like an illusion.

Suppressing her shock and fear, Feng Wanshu glanced toward the place where the man had been bound.

But it was not what she had imagined.

There was no blood, no severed limb. The man simply lay on the floor, breathing evenly, as though he had fallen into a sweet sleep.

Out of sight, Shen Bai turned his wrist slightly, and a strand of thread ran along his fingertips and wound onto a ball. He put it away without betraying anything.

Shen Bai turned to Feng Wanshu and said:

"Ms. Feng, let's go. We'll have plenty of time shortly."

Feng Wanshu gritted her teeth, looked at her son, and squeezed his hand.

Feng Wanshu spoke:

"Let's go. I have plenty of questions too."

In the car.

Shen Bai drove everyone away from the hospital, heading straight for the police station.

He did not drive particularly fast, speaking as he drove:

"I've already arranged for someone to follow up at the hospital. They'll explain Hu Zihao's discharge and all the other matters to the hospital staff. A colleague transferred from another of our teams is treating and protecting the other teachers and students there. She's a professional."

"A professional? Around here, someone who can treat damage in the mental realm... that would have to be that lady from 'Lichuan,' right?"

Shen Bai nodded, looking at everyone in the rearview mirror as he said:

"'Lichuan's' captain, Xi Yao."

Meanwhile, at the hospital.

"Miss... Xi Yao, we've placed the items you specified according to your instructions, and temporarily cleared the medical staff from these two floors."

A police officer spoke to the woman before him, who was gazing at a ward.

The woman did not look particularly old, and her jet-black hair reached her waist. Her eyes seemed to hold some indescribable feeling, giving the impression that they had stories to tell. Her features were gentle and intellectual, with an indescribable tenderness.

She wore a long beige trench coat, its belt tied to accentuate her slender waist. Beneath it was a white fleece sweater, paired with well-fitted black trousers and heeled ankle boots.

"Thank you for your hard work."

Xi Yao's voice was gentle and clear.

"You can leave me here alone now. I'll notify you when I'm finished. Thank you, everyone."

Xi Yao smiled at the accompanying officer. A little embarrassed, he nodded, relayed the instructions over his radio, then saluted her and said:

"We'll leave it to you, then."

Xi Yao nodded and watched the officers on the floor leave the corridor.

Then she turned back, closed her eyes, and reached out to touch the ward's wall gently.

Her long hair fell with her movement, and an invisible force rippled around her.

In Xi Yao's mind, she perceived all the patients in the surrounding wards as outlines.

Among those silhouettes of light and shadow, every teacher and student from No. 12 Middle School, without exception, had missing portions in the outlines of their heads. Large or small, countless little holes riddled them as though insects had eaten through them.

But Xi Yao did not stop. She continued expanding her power.

Its range was no longer limited to the floor she stood on. Her perception kept expanding, seeping into space like flowing water. She could encompass the entire Surgery Building.

Xi Yao frowned slightly. Soon, she had singled out everyone who would have difficulty recovering on their own.

Then she opened her eyes and withdrew her arm. Shaking her head helplessly, she said:

"What a mess..."

But complaints aside, Xi Yao had no intention of stopping.

She turned and walked toward the very center of the corridor.

"Click, click."

Her low-heeled boots struck the floor with crisp sounds. Winter was approaching and the weather was growing colder; the heels, hardened by the cold, had not yet had time to soften inside the hospital.

Xi Yao walked quickly. The air stirred by her movement billowed the hem of her trench coat, making her look even more slender.

Seeming to find the trench coat a little cumbersome, she undid its fastenings and belt, then flung it to the floor with a whoosh. The loose coat settled compliantly there, the color of its cuffs bleeding onto the floor. Her long hair rose with her movements and footsteps, tracing smooth arcs behind her. Sunlight through the windows made her fleece sweater shine.

She held her arms slightly away from her sides, her fingers moving rhythmically as she walked.

With her footsteps and movements, an invisible force began to rise, surging like a tide from somewhere in the corridor. The materials the police had placed in their designated positions seemed to be lapping softly... everything around her began to grow ambiguous.

Light seemed to become viscous, like oil. It no longer passed cleanly through glass or stopped before an obstruction.

Instead, like thick wine, it seemed to acquire mass, drooping slightly before flowing across the solids it touched.

The murky light slid down the walls like crawling lamps, and what was bright grew brighter.

The walls seemed to soften, their spines bent by the slipping light. There even seemed to be a sound from within them as bubbles were softly expelled from the lime.

Inside the wards, iron beds softly held quilts in their crevices, and wooden bed boards gave off the smell of cotton batting.

People's breathing tangled together. Skin draped loosely over flesh, and tender textures slid with the faint trembling of internal organs. People became so soft, like chocolate slowly melting beneath tepid sunlight.

Click, click.

But Xi Yao did not stop walking. Everything was so soft and docile now that her footsteps had become the only hard thing in this moist world.

Xi Yao stopped at the center of the corridor. Slowly, she turned to face the staircase before her.

Light rippled like mucus over the soft, springy glass set into the window frames, splashing wave after wave of brightness into the warm hallway.

Xi Yao silently regarded the chaotic yet harmonious world. Then she raised her head slightly, closed her eyes, and slowly but firmly drew a breath.

"Hhh..."

Her chest rose and fell, her alveoli expanded, and Xi Yao felt that subtle comfort.

The corridors on either side seemed to be making sticky sounds, as though everything were dissolving. Even colors encroached upon one another. The once-luminous white walls were attempting to exchange their hues with the flesh-colored tiles, while the transparent glass sought to take on the white of the window frames.

Hhhh-

Xi Yao opened her eyes and suddenly raised her right hand high toward the empty space ahead, like a beacon holding aloft power.

In an instant, everything chaotic, ambiguous, and moist ceased its transgressions.

And at that moment, all the teachers and students in the wards opened their eyes and mouths. They opened the holes in their bodies, their souls seeming to forget their independence in astonishment.

"Smack!"

A crisp sound rang out.

Xi Yao brought her right hand down firmly until her palm touched tiles that were no longer cold and hard. Her entire body followed the movement, kneeling and bowing against the floor, her forehead pressed to it. Her black hair flew up and spread around her in a gorgeous picture.

At that moment, the world seemed to plunge into a turmoil encountered only once in countless ages.

Hardness, softness.

Black, white, or color.

Memory, flesh, and spirit.

All collapsed into chaos in an instant beneath Xi Yao's bow.

The air trembled, as though it, too, were startled by what had befallen this place.

And the teachers and students in those wards seemed to cry out together at that moment, shedding tears together, drooling together.

Fragrance, stench.

Everyone joined into a single whole amid an indescribable scene.

And those holes in their minds forgot their own emptiness. Within this great, interconnected harmony, they joined with the surrounding minds, even and full.

In only an instant, all the holes in those teachers' and students' minds vanished without a trace.

Then Xi Yao jerked her head back, her long hair like a stark black flag in space. She raised this anxious signal, and a piercing sound came from her mouth.

"Hhhh----"

The sound was like a sharp blade splitting sticky, rotten wood, shrieking as it tore through everything that existed!

With her action, all the collapse stopped once more.

Then everything soft and sticky, black and white, light and heavy, bright and dark disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Panting, Xi Yao lifted her head and looked ahead.

Light passed through the glass and fell lightly upon the sharply defined walls.

*Note:

The steps of "Palette": fourth step: "Flavor"

"Remember the moment you swallowed the paint. Upon this, we savor carefully. Scars, suffering, hope, desire. The flavors upon the tongue must be balanced."

"Yes... yes. What I seek is absolute balance. For that, I am willing to shatter the boundaries and let them devour me."