Chapter 103: The Swallowed Man
Sister Qin ushered the rest of the children back to their games, took the young boy by the hand, and guided Song Yuqing and her staff into her private office to sit down. None of them noticed that a middle-aged woman was standing a short distance away outside the shelter gates, silently tracking their movements.
Once the office door was firmly shut, Song Yuqing and Liu Xiaona leaned forward in their chairs, dying to know the boy’s story.
Sister Qin took a seat behind her desk and began to speak slowly. “I stumbled across this little guy on the road about two weeks ago.”
Song Yuqing nodded. The boy clearly possessed elemental mutations, yet he had sought refuge in a sanctuary dedicated exclusively to ordinary non-espers. He was almost certainly an orphan.
“He actually originates from our home world,” Sister Qin revealed.
“What?!”
Song Yuqing, Liu Xiaona, Gaha, and Little Meat Bun stared at her in absolute shock, their heads snapping in unison to gawk at the child.
The boy puckered his lips, offering a small, solemn nod to confirm it.
“How is that possible?” Song Yuqing’s heart began to hammer frantically against her ribs. Had this child also been violently dragged into a localized black hole by Lin Han? How could that monster find the heart to banish an innocent kid?
“A couple of weeks ago, on my trek back from purchasing goods in the city center, a massive bolt of lightning suddenly struck from the heavens,” Sister Qin recalled, the memories still vivid in her mind. “It was a perfectly clear, sunny afternoon, so a random lightning strike made absolutely no sense. I had never heard of anyone in this city wielding electrical mutations, so out of curiosity, I went to investigate the impact zone. That’s where I found him, curled up on the dirt, looking completely pitiful.”
The boy’s playful, arrogant demeanor vanished instantly, his voice dropping into a low, somber register as he picked up the narrative. He explained that he had been living with his father at Base 13. During a routine expedition beyond the base walls to clear out a mutant sector, his father had witnessed a human survivor actively communicating and coordinating with a zombie.
Sensing immediate danger, his father had turned on his heel to flee, aggressively dragging the boy away. But their movements were spotted. A man launched a dark, swirling void directly at their heels, instantly vacuuming both him and his father into the darkness. When he finally opened his eyes again, he was entirely alone in this hyper-modern, unfamiliar reality.
“Was the man who attacked you Lin Han?” Song Yuqing asked, her brow furrowing.
“It sounds exactly like him,” Liu Xiaona mused, rubbing her chin. “But Lin Han is openly conspiring with zombies now?”
Sister Qin gently patted the boy’s shoulder. “Go ahead, tell them what you saw.”
“My dad and I had never laid eyes on the guy who attacked us,” the boy explained quietly. “He and another partner were deep in conversation with a zombie. From a distance, the creature didn’t look like a monster at all. It was only when we crept closer that my dad realized something was horribly wrong.”
“What did you see?” Song Yuqing pressed.
“The skin across its body was completely rotted and peeling,” the boy whispered, his eyes suddenly welling with thick tears at the memory.
He had materialized in this strange world completely disoriented and battered with physical injuries. If Sister Qin hadn’t rescued him from the roadside, he likely would have perished two weeks ago. Sister Qin had nurtured him, showered him with maternal affection, and completely validated his trauma. Having grown up without a mother, he had quickly joined the rest of the orphans in addressing her as “Mom.”
The agonizing disappearance of his father still weighed heavily on his mind, but Sister Qin’s warmth had brought a fragile sense of happiness back into his life. He frequently fantasized about the day he would locate his father and convince him to permanently move into the shelter, finally fulfilling his dream of having a true family of three.
“My mom and I have scouted dozens of sectors, but we haven’t found a single trace of my dad,” the boy added, lowering his head dejectedly.
Over the past fortnight, whenever Sister Qin managed to secure a break from her teaching schedule, she would personally escort him across the territory to hunt for leads, but their efforts had yielded nothing. Still, the boy clung to a stubborn shred of hope: if he could survive being swallowed by that terrifying void, his father was bound to be alive somewhere out there, too.
That morning, because Sister Qin had been locked into a mandatory lesson plan with the younger orphans, he had quietly slipped out of the compound alone to scout the city center for his father. Sister Qin was naturally terrified for his safety, which was why she had been fiercely reprimanding him when they arrived.
“He might have been flung into a completely separate parallel dimension,” Song Yuqing sighed softly.
Sister Qin gasped, her eyes widening. “There are multiple parallel worlds?”
The boy’s head snapped up, a frantic light reigniting in his eyes. “Do you know where my dad is?!”
Song Yuqing shook her head gently. Seeing the crushing wave of disappointment wash back over his small face made her stomach twist with discomfort. “Actually, Sister Qin, the primary reason we deployed to this reality today was to secure your assistance.”
“What’s happened?”
“Whew…” Liu Xiaona let out a heavy, dramatic sigh that instantly set Sister Qin on edge.
“Is it that serious?” the schoolteacher pressed.
“It’s tied directly to the victims of Lin Han’s void,” Song Yuqing explained. In concise terms, she laid out the active threat of Lin Han and Wan Youzhi’s alliance, followed by the high-stakes doomsday mandate Master Fu had dropped on the supermarket.
When she finished the summary, Sister Qin fell into a heavy, contemplative silence.
“The system requires us to locate and permanently settle every single individual Lin Han has banished,” Song Yuqing said, her voice laced with fatigue. “But we don’t even have a master roster of who those victims are, let alone where they’ve landed.”
“Wait, didn’t you also mention that you literally just saw Lin Han materialize in this exact dimension?” Liu Xiaona suddenly blurted out, slapping her own thigh.
“Gaha, gaha!” Gaha mirrored the gesture, aggressively slapping her own thighs as her arms rose and fell, shaking violently.
The entire office fell deathly quiet, everyone staring at the gargoyle in utter bewilderment.
“Is she saying… it’s snowing?” the little boy blinked, trying to interpret the flailing.
Gaha shook her head frantically. She shifted gears, rapidly clawing at the empty air before clenching her claws into tight fists and flinging them outward.
“An explosion?” Liu Xiaona guessed, craning her neck.
Gaha shook her head even harder, stomping her feet against the floorboards in sheer frustration.
“Are you trying to describe…” Sister Qin watched her movements thoughtfully, a realization clicking.
“Lightning!!!” Sister Qin and Song Yuqing shouted in unison.
“Gaha!” The gargoyle nodded vigorously. Yes! Lightning!
“What does lightning have to do with anything?” Song Yuqing asked, still struggling to connect the dots.
Gaha opened her mouth, but she could only produce a low, guttural click—the primal dialect unique to the undead.
“Think about it, Song Yuqing. Did you encounter a random bolt of lightning when you arrived at the intersection today?” Sister Qin asked, her brow furrowing in deep thought. “And I witnessed a massive flash of lightning the exact afternoon I rescued this child.”
Yet, the atmospheric conditions of this specific parallel world were almost entirely locked into perpetual, unblemished sunshine.
Song Yuqing turned to Sister Qin. “Did you experience a lightning strike the day you were originally displaced into this world?”
Sister Qin rubbed her temples, trying to recall. “Back then, my consciousness was completely fractured and clouded. I was practically a mindless simpleton; I didn’t register a thing.”
Liu Xiaona’s eyes lit up with a sudden theory. “Are you suggesting that every time a random bolt of lightning strikes this dimension, it means Lin Han has successfully devoured and banished another victim?”
Song Yuqing nodded slowly. While they lacked concrete empirical data to back the claim and the hypothesis felt a bit far-fetched, it was the only actionable pattern they had. If the correlation held true, tracking down the displaced survivors would become infinitely easier.
“Hey, little guy,” Song Yuqing said, squatting down to match the child’s height as she gently reached for his hand. “What’s your name?”
The boy smoothly pulled his hand back, crossing his arms protectively. “Please. That’s entirely too corny.”
Song Yuqing let out a soft chuckle, entirely unbothered by the rejection. “Alright. What is your father’s name? If I cross paths with him during my travels, I’ll make sure to let him know you’re safe. But before we locate him, I need to ask: do you want to ride back to our original world with us tonight, or would you prefer to stay here?”
The boy tucked his hands behind his back, his fingers clenching tightly together. He cast a long look up at Sister Qin. Seeing her offer a warm, encouraging smile, his resolve solidified.
“I want to stay right here with Mom. If you ever track down my dad, tell him to move to this shelter. Just let him know that Zhu Wu is waiting for him.”
“Understood, Zhu Wu,” Song Yuqing said, standing up to give his head an affectionate pat.
“Does this mean we’ve officially settled our very first victim?” Liu Xiaona asked tentatively.
“Technically, yes,” Song Yuqing replied, looking toward Sister Qin. “In fact, I’ve successfully settled two of them now.”
Sister Qin offered a brilliant, supportive smile. “That’s right. I’m staying put. If I ever cross paths with any other displaced survivors from our world, I’ll handle their logistics and help them settle down here. But how are we supposed to maintain contact?”
Song Yuqing froze. Right. Communication.
“Hey, Little Meat Bun,” Liu Xiaona nudged the panda’s arm. “Does your old Master Fu happen to have some sort of high-tech, cross-dimensional communicator stashed away in his cottage?”
The panda shook his head in confusion. Technology capable of breaching the multivesal barrier was something strictly exclusive to the system governing God’s Supermarket.
“We’ll just have to establish a mandatory deployment schedule,” Song Yuqing decided, gritting her teeth. “From here on out, my team will jump to this coordinates exactly once every month.”
At the very least, they had secured an active lead on this jump. She was willing to bet that the probability of Lin Han’s victims filtering into this specific, advanced reality was considerably higher than other dimensions.
“Mom! Someone’s sneaking around the main office door!” “There’s another total stranger creeping through the courtyard, Mom!”
Suddenly, the panicked shouts of several children erupted from the hallway outside.
