Chapter 223: A Familiar Extraordinary Ability
What Qi Yanxin was anxious about was the possibility of not being able to get new medicine in time. She was afraid Xu Zhi’s condition would worsen, and she also worried that suddenly stopping the medication might cause adverse effects.
In fact, this was easy to deal with.
Xu Zhi sat in her wheelchair and slightly raised her right hand, gathering a trace of [Lamp]-attribute extraordinary energy at her fingertips. She then gently tapped the back of Qi Yanxin’s hand resting on the table. When Qi Yanxin was drawn by the movement and turned to look at her, Xu Zhi gave her a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry, sis. I have a way.”
For some reason, at that moment, Qi Yanxin felt that this fragile child she had once picked up from a trash bin had suddenly become steady and composed.
She tried to calm herself. The chaotic thoughts that had been spiraling in her mind finally quieted down a little. Perhaps it was because Xu Zhi’s expression and tone were simply too reliable?
But she was still a patient—what kind of solution could she possibly have?
As if sensing Qi Yanxin’s doubt, Xu Zhi didn’t get annoyed. She just said calmly, “I’ve recovered my extraordinary abilities.”
“…”
However, what greeted her was not the joy Qi Yanxin had imagined. After hearing this, Qi Yanxin froze for a moment, then forced out a smile. It looked awful—far too bitter for a face that was usually so gentle—and the desolation in her expression was impossible to miss.
Xu Zhi hesitated, not quite understanding why Qi Yanxin looked like this. But when she noticed the woman’s body language—previously relaxed, now suddenly stiff and restrained—she understood.
In this world, there was an invisible wall between extraordinary beings and bottom-tier scavengers. The vast, chasm-like gap in status might not be something Xu Zhi fully grasped, but Qi Yanxin understood it all too well.
She was, after all, just a stranger Qi Yanxin had picked up. Even if Qi Yanxin treated her like family, if that suddenly found “little sister” turned out to be a noble extraordinary being, who knew whether the next step would be leaving this slum behind and returning to the life she was meant to have?
Qi Yanxin was probably feeling uneasy. And with the season amplifying emotions, she was likely already thinking things like, Xiao Zhi is going to leave.
That was why her expression looked so miserable.
Xu Zhi looked at her helplessly. “Why do you look so sad? I didn’t say I was leaving right now, did I?”
“Huh?” Qi Yanxin looked startled. “Y-you’re not… leaving?”
Xu Zhi nodded. For some reason, a long-lost mischievous thought surfaced in her mind, and she said, “Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t in this heavy fog, right?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Qi Yanxin’s expression—just beginning to recover—immediately turned sorrowful again. “That’s true… Once the fog clears, Xiao Zhi will leave.”
Seeing her visibly growing more upset, even anxious, Xu Zhi hurriedly cut her off.
“Hey!” The girl waved her hand in front of Qi Yanxin’s eyes. “I was joking. I don’t have any plans to leave for now.”
“For now… That still means you’ll leave sooner or later, right?”
Qi Yanxin suddenly became a troublesome woman. “I know, and I’m not trying to stop you. It’s just—”
Xu Zhi covered her forehead, instantly regretting her momentary mischief. She knew this would backfire!
“Alright, alright. If I do leave one day, I’ll take you with me, okay?” Her tone was helpless and hurried. After making the promise, even she froze for a moment.
It sounded like a stopgap measure to soothe Qi Yanxin’s plummeting mood—yet also like something spoken straight from the heart.
“Really?” The dejected woman suddenly lit up, looking at the girl with cautious hope.
There was no helping it.
Looking at that expression, how could anyone possibly refuse her?
Right. There was no helping it.
So Xu Zhi nodded. “Really. If one day I leave, I’ll try my best to take you with me.”
Even then, she used the words try my best.
Xu Zhi couldn’t make an absolute promise. She knew very well that if some obstacle stood in her way, and bringing Qi Yanxin along would harm her own interests, she probably wouldn’t insist.
“That’s great!” Qi Yanxin seemed to regain her vitality. “If Xiao Zhi’s extraordinary abilities have recovered, your body will get better too, right?”
“I’ve heard that extraordinary beings’ bodies grow stronger step by step as their abilities increase.”
Xu Zhi nodded. “That’s right. My recovery has actually been much faster recently—you’ve noticed it too, haven’t you?”
“It’s not because the medicine suddenly got more effective. It’s because I’m gradually recovering my extraordinary abilities.”
“So don’t worry. Even if the medicine runs out, it won’t cause problems. You could even say that from today on, I’d still recover even without taking it.”
Just more slowly. The medicine was still useful.
“No.” Qi Yanxin immediately rejected the idea. “You still have to take the medicine. Even if you’re recovering, you won’t be fine right away, will you?”
“Though if Xiao Zhi’s extraordinary abilities are back, the job I was planning to find for you before won’t be suitable anymore.”
She immediately started worrying about something else. “What kind of work should an extraordinary being do?”
“I don’t really understand either. What should we do?”
Xu Zhi shook her head helplessly. “Didn’t I say not to overthink things during this season? I’ll figure it out myself. If it really comes to it, we can ask Doctor Zhuang and Xiao Man. They probably know more.”
Even if they might not tell her for free.
“That’s true.” Qi Yanxin nodded, easily convinced by Xu Zhi.
Xu Zhi noticed that ever since she openly said her extraordinary abilities had recovered, her words carried different weight with Qi Yanxin. It wasn’t that Qi Yanxin hadn’t valued her before—she had—but back then, she saw Xu Zhi more as a child who needed care.
Now, because of her identity as an “extraordinary being,” Qi Yanxin was more willing to listen to her.
Xu Zhi narrowed her eyes in satisfaction, feeling this was a good sign. She no longer needed to spend so much effort persuading her.
After comforting Qi Yanxin, Xu Zhi said she felt a bit tired and wanted to lie down for a while. Urged along by Qi Yanxin, she returned to her room.
She now needed to study the newly “unlocked” extraordinary ability she had regained: the Spirit Body.
After the game dissipated and [Lamp] merged into her body, Xu Zhi understood many things. She realized that some of the game’s abilities had originally been her own extraordinary powers, while others came from the ancient [Lamp] entities that had fused into the game console and did not belong to her.
For example, datafication was not her ability. Neither were the warehouse nor forging. But Spirit Body and retainers—those were truly her own extraordinary abilities.
Only now, with the game console gone, the manifestation of Spirit Body had changed.
All the former save points had vanished. Creating a Spirit Body now required her own extraordinary energy. She could no longer create Spirit Bodies of other attributes—only same-attribute “clones” drawn from her own energy.
And she could no longer choose locations at random. She now had to spend extraordinary energy to “record” a location.
All in all, it had become much less convenient.
