Chapter Fifteen: The Third-Tier Monster

Li Luyan had a long, long dream.

In it, little Luyan was in a small rural courtyard with her grandmother. She was wearing a pink dress that her parents had bought her years ago, though the fabric had been washed until it was faded and white, and the little leather shoes on her feet were peeling at the soles.

She found herself hovering in mid-air, a transparent spectator, watching it all like an outsider. She saw her grandmother gently braiding little Luyan’s hair and heard her ask, "Do you hate your father?" Her grandmother’s voice carried the distinct, raspy frailty of old age—how long had it been since she heard that?

Did she hate him? She didn’t know. Little Luyan’s eyes mirrored the same confusion she felt at the time.

"Then, little Yan, do you want to..." Her grandmother’s words suddenly cut off. She looked up, past the young girl, and locked eyes with the older Luyan.

Her breath hitched. How could she see her? This was a dream, surely it was just a dream. She stared back at her grandmother with forced intensity, but even now, Li Luyan could not decipher the meaning behind those clouded eyes.

She felt as if thousands of ants were gnawing at her brain—a dense, agonizing pain, a sorrow that bit deep into her soul. What had her grandmother left unsaid? Why did her head ache so fiercely?

She crouched down and clutched her head. What was this lost memory? Fragments of the past flickered before her eyes like frames of a film. She reached out, trying to grasp them, but it was in vain. Every time she reached for those crystalline shards, they slipped past her fingertips.

"...No."

This was no dream. This was her lost memory, a record of everything she had endured. She heard her own trembling voice. What was it? What memory had been lost? Why had her grandmother left home? Why had she abandoned her?

Why! Why! Why!

Li Luyan jolted awake, her back soaked in cold sweat.

"You're awake?" A strange female voice came from her right, and she instantly tensed.

"Don't be nervous," the voice said lazily. "We're in the gymnasium."

Only then did Li Luyan notice she was back in the familiar gym. She didn't recognize the woman before her and asked in a hoarse voice, "Who are you?"

"Let me formally introduce myself. I'm Zhang Min." The girl curled her lips into a smile, her peach-blossom eyes brimming with allure.

Zhang Min? The girl who had been directing everyone in the group chat, the younger sister of Zhang Wan'an. She was also the top scorer in the city's college entrance examination for the 55th class.

Li Luyan looked her over properly. Unlike the "good girl" image she had imagined, Zhang Min had a head of red, wavy hair and a row of silver studs piercing her ear cartilage. She looked nothing like a studious, bookish top scorer; she looked more like a rebellious girl who had just walked out of a punk concert.

The girl narrowed her eyes, smiling brightly. "My ability is the Light element."

At the same time, Li Luyan noticed a tongue piercing glinting in the girl's mouth as she spoke. An individualistic girl—perhaps they were cut from the same cloth.

Seeing Li Luyan stunned, she tilted her head. "What? Not what you expected?" Her red hair slid across her shoulder. "Is my red hair pretty?"

"It's pretty. Of course it's pretty," she replied mechanically. A sharp pain flashed through her mind, like silver needles piercing her brain.

Zhang Min suddenly turned serious. She leaned forward, and Li Luyan caught the faint scent of tobacco on her. "You had better not overdraw your ability in the future."

"Even if you do overdraw it, it’s not the end of the world. But never consume crystal cores to force a recovery after an overdraw."

"Otherwise..."

Li Luyan felt an inexplicable chill. "Otherwise what?" she asked hoarsely.

Zhang Min narrowed her eyes. "Severe damage to your mental capacity. Which is to say, you'll become a fool."

Li Luyan looked up at her, voicing her question: "Aren't you from the Physics department? How do you know so much about mental faculties?"

"Light element," Zhang Min said, blowing on her fingernails. "It can heal, and it can restore the mental power of patients who have been forced to overdraw. But," she shifted her tone, "I cannot treat infected individuals who have been chosen. I am an ability user, not a serum."

Nearby, a girl with chestnut hair spoke indignantly: "Why is this new ability user so reckless with her own body? Because of her, Minmin almost had to overdraw her own power to recover from the exhaustion caused by that mental breakdown, forced to rely on crystal cores just to get by."

"Alright, Lingling, enough," another girl said, toying with a glass marble in her hand. The amber sphere refracted the sunlight like rainbow-colored candy wrapper. She asked lazily, "Is this all you and Minmin brought back?"

"Minmin told me to bring it back; I don't know what use it has." Qiu Lingling pointed to a hiking bag in the corner. "But it's not just that. We found plenty of supplies; if we ration them, they'll last us two or three days."

"Oh..." The girl stared at the bead in her hand, thoughtful. "Minmin always has her reasons."

She tucked the marble into the other girl's hand and offered a smile. Her thick eyelashes cast fan-shaped shadows over her eyelids, concealing the emotions in her eyes. "Keep it safe. Don't let anyone else take it."

"How could that happen? Only you, Minmin, and I know about it. It’s impossible for a third person to find out," Qiu Lingling promised as she tucked the marble into her inner pocket.

"Is that so..." The girl stared at Li Luyan, lost in thought.

Li Luyan noticed a gaze locked onto her—the feeling of being hunted. She frowned. She looked up and met the eyes of the girl in the distance.

The girl raised an eyebrow, her fox-like eyes narrowing as she walked over. She curled her lips at Li Luyan. "Hello, my name is Pei Siying." Before Li Luyan could react, she continued, "Your performance was impressive... Based on our assessment, that was at least a Level 3 monster. It was capable of manifesting its own domain, and our entire school is the domain it created." She played with a strand of her hair and sat on the edge of Li Luyan's bed.

It was called a bed, but it was really just three gymnastics mats pushed together.

At the mention of a Level 3 monster, Li Luyan immediately thought of the crystal core. If it was a Level 3 monster, its core should have been enough to help her own ability evolve. The sensation of power was truly intoxicating, and she couldn't help but curl her lips. Although she couldn't remember what happened after the energy surge, when she had forced her power out, she had felt her mental energy skyrocket, allowing her to warp space with a single palm.

Thinking of this, she held out her hand to Pei Siying.

"What?"

"The core. The Level 3 monster's core." Li Luyan dropped her smile, her expression stone-cold, her voice hard.

Pei Siying chuckled softly. "When your power surged, the spatial distortion crushed that Level 3 monster into a mist of blood. Do you really think there would be a core left?"

Li Luyan's eyes darkened. This was the downside of an ability surge—the inability to control one's own strength.

"However—" Pei Siying drew out the syllable. She pointed to the bag in the corner. "We did manage to collect over twenty cores from the group of monsters you killed."

"Don't worry. We wouldn't dream of taking what's yours."