Chapter 9: Origins

Teacher Xia didn’t follow her out of the classroom. After saying those words, she seemed to instantly forget Qi Ran’s matter and returned to the Teachers’ Office.

Watching that utterly oblivious behavior, Qi Ran’s wariness deepened. The middle-aged driver’s danger level rose another notch in her mind. People like him, possessing such bizarre abilities, seemed to harbor no intention of abiding by any worldly rules whatsoever.

“What do you think he wants with me? Has he already discovered the issue with me?” Qi Ran asked in a low voice, a hint of worry in her tone.

Moments later, Miss Ah Qiao’s figure materialized, seated upon Xu Yan’s desk to the left. She seemed to have developed a real habit for changing outfits, now sporting the Jiang High school uniform. Qi Ran averted her gaze, because right now, Miss Ah Qiao’s face was still that of Tao Xiao. She didn’t understand why she felt a twinge of discomfort in her heart. She simply stopped looking.

“Can’t you just use your own face?” Qi Ran was blunt.

“I prefer becoming someone familiar. It unconsciously lowers their guard around me,” Miss Ah Qiao replied with righteous conviction. “For an untrained person like you, even if you’re wary of me in your mind, that sense of familiarity will still overpower your defenses. This is very important. I don’t want everything falling apart because of some rebellious teen’s issues.”

She paused briefly. “As for my own face… ever since I became like this, I can’t recall what I originally looked like. This face I have now—I like it, so I have no intention of changing it.”

Qi Ran glanced at her but said nothing.

Miss Ah Qiao’s expression was utterly natural. In her view, there was nothing wrong with what she did. She had the ability to steal, so she just stole it. Just like that middle-aged driver didn’t think there was anything wrong with altering someone else’s cognition. It was the simplest and most efficient way, so he chose to do it.

Qi Ran wasn’t going to criticize or scorn this way of thinking. After all, they possessed the means to commit unspeakable evils, yet only used them for personal convenience. In a sense, that could even be considered morally commendable—it wasn’t as if everyone who gained strange, otherworldly powers was content to live quietly and unnoticed.

She took a deep breath, not wanting to waste any more time. She changed the subject. “Why do you think he’s here to find me?”

Miss Ah Qiao shook her head, looking equally puzzled. “I’m absolutely certain my performance that day was flawless. Perhaps he’s just suspicious and wants to check one more time, to confirm?”

“Should I go?”

“Go. If you don’t, it’ll definitely raise his suspicions,” Ah Qiao said after a moment’s thought. “Don’t worry too much. With me here, his tricks won’t work on you.”

Qi Ran nodded and walked to the school’s East Gate. Even with Ah Qiao acting as a shield, she remained highly vigilant. She planned to stand within view of the security cameras and talk to the middle-aged driver through the gate. As a student, it was completely reasonable for her not to leave campus. She refused to believe his methods could fool the surveillance.

But as she arrived at the gate, she froze.

Two security guards stood there. She recognized one—a young man in his twenties who worked the regular security detail. But the other guard made her blood run cold. He was of medium build, slightly heavyset. The black security uniform he wore seemed ill-fitting, and he looked exactly like one of those kind-hearted uncles you might see anywhere.

It was the middle-aged driver.

Seeing Qi Ran, he adjusted his security cap and waved at her in an amiable greeting.

“Old Li, is that your niece? Go on, get off work early. If anything comes up, I’ll report it for you.” The real security guard had spotted her too and approached with a smile, drawing a strange object from his pocket that looked like a flashlight.

“Something’s wrong. Run.”

The instant she heard Ah Qiao’s voice, the tense Qi Ran immediately dodged backward. As expected, the real guard’s deep-black device crackled with blinding electric light—a fearsome sizzling sound that made one’s skin crawl just hearing it.

“An anti-riot stun baton?” Unlike Qi Ran’s current state of disarray, Miss Ah Qiao was floating in mid-air, examining the chaotic arcs of electricity with keen interest. “You better not get hit by that thing. It’s a modified stun baton. Those are genuine Devil-Sealing Lightning arcs wrapped around it. If it hits you… a normal person would just pass out and lose bladder control. But for the two of us, one hit on you and I might be expelled. I’d be completely obliterated. And you’d probably instantly reveal your true form—and by that, I mean a pile of bloody mincemeat.”

“What do we do?” Qi Ran watched the guard slowly advancing. Her words came out rapid-fire. “How do I run?”

“Don’t run. He doesn’t want to kill you. This is the most moderate tool they have for suppressing people like us. He probably has no idea that getting hit by that stun baton would kill you outright.” Ah Qiao’s voice was eerily calm. “Now, put your hands up and yell to him that you surrender. Say you’ll cooperate fully. Tell him to turn off the baton. If he’s using this method, it means he doesn’t dare actually kill anyone. Answer whatever he asks. Your life is the priority.”

Qi Ran halted her retreat. Before the crackling electric light, she displayed none of the rebelliousness typical of a teenager. She immediately heeded Ah Qiao’s words, raising both hands to show she wouldn’t resist. Facing the warmly smiling middle-aged driver standing at the East Gate, she shouted, “I’ll cooperate. Ask me whatever you want.”

“Why not try to run?” The middle-aged driver seemed almost regretful. “It’s been so many years… I wanted to see the Xie Family’s techniques in action again.”

Qi Ran held her hands high as the original guard pulled a black cloth bag over her head. Since Ah Qiao told her to cooperate, she decided to spill everything preemptively. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. My surname is Qi. I myself, and my whole family, don’t have any special abilities. Really. Before the car accident, I had absolutely no idea these supernatural things even existed. My family has been law-abiding for three generations… Okay, fine, my dad wasn’t exactly a model citizen; he’s in jail. But it was for pyramid schemes, not for some ghostly mumbo-jumbo. My mother, even less so. She’s a red-blooded patriot. Don’t we have a rule that says ‘no magic after the founding of the nation’? If you don’t believe me, you’ve at least got to believe in that heritage, right…?”

She babbled on, words tumbling out at a frantic pace. When she was a child watching TV, she’d once thought she’d be the unyielding, fearless type in the face of danger. But now, with her vision shrouded, the only thought in her head was to confess everything. She was terrified that a single wrong word would make the man in front of her decide to zap her with that sputtering electric baton.

Through the dense black cloth, she heard the middle-aged driver’s footsteps draw near, making her subconsciously hold her breath.

The seemingly honest, amiable driver’s voice was no longer in standard Mandarin. It shifted into a rough, unrestrained old Pingjiang drawl. “Hey there, Miss Qi. If I may say so, your words are a bit too distant for old friends, aren’t they? Others don’t know your family’s situation—that’s their ignorance, their poor eyesight. But shouldn’t I, Li Siwen, know? Never mind what I am now… back in the day, when Old Master Xie was rising to power like the midday sun in Zhongnan, I shamelessly went and scraped quite a few benefits for myself. If we’re talking formal ties, I’m half a dog raised by the Xie Family. That father of yours might be an outsider with a different surname, cast out of the Xie Family—a piece of mud that can’t stick to the wall. But your grandmother was Old Master Xie’s most cherished daughter, the apple of his eye, and your father was her only son. As the saying goes, blood is thicker than water; even broken bones are still connected by tendons. Do you expect anyone to believe she didn’t leave at least a few hidden cards for her only biological son?”

He paused briefly, guiding the blindfolded Qi Ran forward. “Honestly, I’m not just flattering you here. Just the fact that my tricks don’t work on you—how many juniors can pull that off? And look at you! Not only do my tricks fail, but you even put on such a convincing act. If it weren’t for this little bit of inside knowledge, you would have fooled me good. Ah, forget it. Get in the car. We can talk more comfortably on the way!”