Chapter 225: Vanishing Traces
Xu Zhi didn’t pay much attention to whether Qi Yanxin’s mindset had changed. She focused intently on examining the wounds on the severed limbs scattered across the street. Soon, she noticed that the cuts were fairly “clean.” In her judgment, this wasn’t because the killer had exceptional strength, but because the blade used to sever their bodies was extremely sharp.
Moreover, although the bloodstains on the ground looked terrifying at first glance, when compared with the dismembered bodies on the street, the amount of blood was actually insufficient.
It was thanks to Xu Zhi’s extensive experience that she could spot this discrepancy in blood loss, which only further confirmed her suspicions. After arriving in the real world, she had almost completely cut ties with the group known as “extraordinary beings,” as if she had started an entirely new life. It wasn’t until this familiar scene appeared again that she finally felt a sense of things falling back into place.
As expected, peaceful days never last long.
She was already burdened with far too much karma. Even if she tried to avoid trouble, trouble would keep coming to her. Events that seemed completely unrelated might, in the end, still be closely tied to her. Perhaps now, she herself had already become a kind of “secret.”
Xu Zhi had never believed that after leaving the Federation she could remain unscathed and live a calm, ordinary life. These leisurely days she had enjoyed lately felt like something stolen from the long river of time.
She just didn’t know what kind of incident had appeared right at her doorstep this time—and why.
Everyone stood at their own doorways watching for quite a while. No one wanted to be the first to step outside. But as time passed and the clock edged closer to factory check-in time, some people could no longer hold back. Their aversion to skipping work outweighed their fear of the bloody scene before them. Starting with the first person who stepped into the street, more and more people pinched their noses, suppressed their nausea, and walked toward the factories.
Just this narrow street alone housed many scavengers. After they all passed through it on their way to work, even though they tried to avoid stepping on the bodies, the once blood-soaked street became a complete mess. The morning air was already damp, and the ground was still wet with dew left behind after the fog cleared. Under countless trampling footsteps, the originally red-stained ground was soon covered with overlapping footprints.
At this point, even a famous detective would have trouble telling which footprints belonged to the killer.
When most of the scavengers living on this street had already left, Qi Yanxin packed her bag and prepared to take Xu Zhi out as well. She had planned this early on—to take Xu Zhi to the hospital on the very day the fog cleared.
Perhaps because of the good news that Xu Zhi’s extraordinary abilities had recovered, and because the fog was gone and no longer weighed on her mentally, Qi Yanxin looked noticeably more relaxed and cheerful today.
Although the cost of medical treatment still felt like a huge burden on her shoulders, as long as Xu Zhi could get better, everything would be worth it.
When they arrived outside the clinic in a neighbor’s ride, they happened to run into Doctor Zhuang just as he was opening the door.
After saying goodbye to the neighbor, Qi Yanxin pushed Xu Zhi’s wheelchair forward and asked curiously, “Doctor, are you opening late today?”
Zhuang Xu ran a hand through his messy, sleep-ruined hair. “Ran into a bit of trouble.”
He didn’t elaborate, and Qi Yanxin didn’t press the issue. Instead, she changed the subject. “Doctor, my sister’s medicine has run out. We’re here to get a new prescription.”
“I know.” After hanging up the door curtain, Zhuang Xu said to the two of them, “Come in.”
“This fog season came too suddenly. The medicine I prescribed before wasn’t enough. Going without it is a bit dangerous. Did you take the pill I gave you for emergencies?”
Zhuang Xu figured that with that pill as a stopgap, Xu Zhi’s condition shouldn’t have worsened.
Xu Zhi first shook her head. Zhuang Xu was about to ask why she hadn’t taken it when he heard her say, in an unhurried tone, “Doctor, my extraordinary ability has recovered.”
“…Huh?”
Zhuang Xu stared at her with his mouth wide open, eyebrows twisted together, his face screaming: What on earth are you talking about?
“Recovered?” Each syllable was higher than the last, and by the final word his voice had turned sharp.
Xu Zhi nodded calmly.
But Zhuang Xu clearly couldn’t accept it. “That’s impossible!”
There hadn’t been even the slightest trace of extraordinary power in Xu Zhi’s body before, and she couldn’t absorb any at all. How could it suddenly recover?
Xu Zhi replied casually, “Maybe some kind of medical miracle?”
“A medical miracle?”
“I haven’t even started treating you—where would a medical miracle come from?”
“Then I don’t know,” Xu Zhi said innocently. “It just suddenly got better.”
After all, she was just a poor little thing who “didn’t remember anything.”
And she was doing this on purpose—making Zhuang Xu feel that it was unbelievable, so he would want to investigate the reason behind her recovery.
She was even willing to cooperate.
She wanted to see whether Zhuang Xu could figure out why her extraordinary abilities had returned, or whether he could uncover something more.
After all, if it was just Doctor Zhuang, Xu Zhi felt it was still within a “controllable” range. If she sensed something was wrong, she could even kill him. Treating him as a kind of risk probe wasn’t a bad idea. If even he could see the problem, then doctors from the upper levels of this world would definitely be able to see it too, right?
On the other hand, if Zhuang Xu was completely at a loss and couldn’t see anything at all, Xu Zhi could relax a little.
That would mean the issue inside her body was something ordinary people—even ordinary extraordinary beings—couldn’t perceive.
So, under Zhuang Xu’s expectant gaze, Xu Zhi agreed to let him run some tests.
Now that she had the ability to protect herself, there was no need to be overly cautious about everything anymore.
“I’m going to prick you, alright?” Zhuang Xu took out a needle and looked at Xu Zhi’s finger.
It seemed he was still somewhat haunted by how excessively frail her body had been before.
“Don’t worry, Doctor Zhuang. My body is much better now.”
“Alright.”
With visible tension, Zhuang Xu pricked a small hole in Xu Zhi’s finger. Thankfully, this time there was no excessive bleeding.
Such a precious test subject had to be handled with care. Zhuang Xu carefully collected a drop of blood and placed it onto a culture dish, then waited for it to react with the reagent.
This test was meant to determine which extraordinary attribute had previously caused harm to Xu Zhi.
However, after waiting for quite a while, the reagent still showed no reaction at all.
Zhuang Xu’s expression gradually darkened.
Xu Zhi raised an eyebrow slightly. “Doctor, could your reagent be expired?”
“Impossible. I checked—it’s an active reagent!”
Even as he said that, Zhuang Xu picked up the test tube to check again, confirming there was indeed nothing wrong with it. He even added a drop of his own blood. When it reacted—showing signs that he had once been injured by a [Blade] attribute—Zhuang Xu’s expression turned complicated.
“In that case, there’s only one possibility left.”
“What is it?” Xu Zhi asked curiously.
“Either the one who injured you had no extraordinary abilities at all—which is impossible.”
“Or its existence has been erased, concealed as a secret, and cannot be easily perceived.”
This also meant that the level of trouble surrounding Xu Zhi far exceeded his expectations. In fact, this was definitely not something that originated from the lower levels.
There was no one in the lower tiers capable of erasing traces to such an extent.
