Part 2
The child then began to chew slowly, savoring the deliciousness of the dried sweet potato. After finishing it, he looked longingly toward the butterfly in Grandmaâs hand.
“Eat!”
Grandma Luo skillfully stuffed another dried sweet potato into his mouth: “Eat the dried sweet potato, don’t eat the butterfly. Butterflies are meant for looking at. See, its wings are so beautiful.”
The child then stared intently at the butterfly: “Beautiful?”
“Yes, beautiful. Butterflies are beautiful, and our Shizhen is beautiful too. Beautiful things are for looking at; just looking at them makes one very happy.”
The child was still very stubborn: “Eat! Want to eat!”
He felt everything was meant for eating.
Grandma Luo would just stuff another dried sweet potato in.
Piece after piece of dried sweet potato went down, and in the end, they didn’t fill the child’s stomach, but the butterflyâs wings had dried.
Grandma Luo placed it on a leaf. The butterfly tentatively fluttered its wings twice and flew away.
The small childâs eyes were sparkling as he watched it fly further and further away, its wings revealing colorful hues in the sunset.
He stared blankly and blurted out two newly learned words: “Beautiful.”
Grandma Luo laughed as she picked him up: “Yes, the butterfly is truly beautiful, isn’t it?”
“If you eat it, it won’t be able to fly so beautifully. So we don’t eat butterflies.”
The child snuggled obediently into the elderly womanâs arms. This was the first time he knew that not everything in the world could be eaten.
It was also the first time he knew the word “beautiful.”
In that sunset twilight, he leaned in Grandmaâs arms, watching the sun slowly descend.
Before this, seeing the sun, the child would only think it must be delicious. But now, looking at that stretch of evening glow, he understood for the first time what “beautiful” meant.
“Shizhen-ah…”
Grandma placed the child in a back basket and carried him home. Walking along the way, they met people who would stand far away, talking in low voices about Grandma Luoâs foolish grandson.
The child couldn’t understand what they were saying and just stared at every person who passed by with his clear, large eyes.
Those neighbors who whispered that he was a fool felt inexplicably apprehensive under such a gaze. Their mouths stopped moving, and their eyes avoided the child’s gaze.
But the child still stared straight at them, staring until he drooled.
“Eat!”
Grandma Luo temporarily put him down, wiped his drool, and coaxed him:
“There will be delicious food when we get home. We won’t eat anything else; we’ll just eat rice.”
“If you eat your fill, you can grow up, just like othersâgrow up, go to school, graduate, find a job, then get married and have a child.”
At this time, Luo Shizhen couldn’t understand what Grandma was saying. He just felt that being carried in that crude basket by Grandma, swaying back and forth, made him feel very secure.
So, that night, he caught a snake and gave it to Grandma to eat.
The snake, which was thicker than his arm, was still alive, its neck held tight, as it hissed at Grandma Luo in the candlelight.
The childâs clear, large eyes still looked straight at her: “Eat!”
Grandma Luo was startled. Seeing that she wouldn’t eat it, the child opened his mouth and was about to bite the snakeâs head. She quickly stopped him and led him by the hand to turn the snake into snake soup.
“Shizhen, when we eat, we eat cooked food.”
The child didn’t understand: “Eat!”
It’s all eating; whatâs the difference?
Grandma Luo then patiently taught him: “Because other people also eat cooked food. If you’re the only one who eats raw food, they will be afraid of you, and they might want to hurt you. Grandma knows you have no ill intentions, but they will think you do.”
“So, Shizhen-ah.” In front of the warm stove, she took the small child into her arms: “Don’t let others discover your differences.”
“Grandma doesn’t need you to be wealthy in the future; she just wants you to grow up safely, be the most ordinary and inconspicuous person, and live a good life.”
The child was confused, but looking up at the loving gaze in Grandmaâs eyes, he nodded earnestly.
At this moment, Chen He-yan was watching the being-examined Luo Shizhen with concern. He was sleeping soundly and even talking in his sleep.
But over and over, he was saying: “Eat.”
“Want to eat!”
Chen He-yan: “Could it be that this child used too much ability and his bodyâs nutrition can’t keep up, so he feels hungry even while sleeping?”
the doctor felt Chen He-yanâs analysis made sense: “Possibly. Iâll have someone administer some nutrient solution.”
“This is the last examination item. The results of the previous checks are out, and everything is very normal. Perhaps under extreme pressure, he was stimulated, and Student Luo Shizhenâs ability has risen to Grade 3.”
The people sent by Yongzhou also joined in: “I’m not actually surprised by the rise to Grade 3; when Shizhen purified other classmates before, he also underwent a grade rise. But I want to know why he can purify an Awakener with an Alienation value of 94%. Does this have to do with his talent?”
The doctor said: “There is indeed some connection. We detected that Student Shizhenâs Qi is slightly different from other Energy Users. It didn’t show when his grade was low, but now, his Qi displays an aggressiveness that other Energy Users don’t have.”
“Aggressiveness?”
This was indeed a major discovery. Energy Users were all auxiliary-system, and the Qi itself didn’t have much aggressiveness.
That was something only combat-system Awakeners had.
Chen He-yan asked: “Could it be an ability mutation?”
Awakeners had only appeared for thirty years, and the Awakener Center was still constantly exploring many abilities. A situation like an ability not in the Sequence suddenly appearing was something that happened once every two or three years.
The doctor nodded: “There is a possibility. The good news is that these mutations haven’t brought any negative impact to Student Shizhen.”
This news made everyone breathe a sigh of relief.
Sui An looked at the sleeping student through the glass window and suddenly asked:
“Can a Purifier mutate into a Devourer-type?”
“This…”
The doctor couldn’t give an answer. There were no such examples before, but no one could guarantee there wouldn’t be in the future.
“Sui-laoshi, is there a reason you’re asking this?” Chen He-yan keenly realized he might know something.
Luo Qi from the Zhadao team also had his eyes light up:
“Thatâs right, Captain Sui. You’ve been keeping your mental energy on this little student. You should have seen very clearly what happened before he purified the other student, right?”
Chen He-yan: “?”
His always warm gaze instantly became sharp, falling on Sui An like the flash of a blade.
“Sui-laoshi, you placed your mental energy on Shizhen?”
Even the people sent by Yongzhou and the doctors looked at Sui An with shocked expressions.
Mental energyâwhat a private thing that was. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say it was like a Prosecutorâs other half.
If this had been done by someone else, it wouldn’t have been so shocking, but for Sui An to do it, that was too strange.
Under so many gazes, Sui An remained as calm as ever:
“I am the accompanying teacher. This is the fastest and most guaranteed way to protect them. Is there a problem?”
Chen He-yan let out a cold laugh. Whether everyone believed Sui Anâs words could be heard from that laugh.
Luo Qi said: “Captain Sui, so what exactly did you see?”
Sui An still had that lazy manner:
“It involves the studentâs privacy; I can’t say for the time being. Once Luo Shizhen wakes up, if he doesn’t mind, Iâll report it.”
When privacy was mentioned, everyoneâs expressions looked as if they had a toothache.
Awakeners indeed received comprehensive preferential treatment from the Awakener Center, but “privacy” was absolutely not something that belonged to Awakeners who could mutate at any moment.
After all, once an Awakener lost control, they could cause the deaths of tens of thousands of humans.
Even Sui An, this Inspector and Prosecutor, wore a detector with positioning on his body.
But for Sui An to bring up privacy didn’t seem to have any flaws.
Luo Shizhen was an Energy User, and Energy Users were famously fragile, with their ability usage easily affected by emotional fluctuations.
Sui An judged that this privacy might affect Luo Shizhenâs ability, so choosing to set it aside for now was no problem according to the rules.
Moreover, Energy Users were already precious, and an Energy User who could purify an Awakener with an Alienation value of 94% was even more so.
Yongzhou would only work harder than before to cherish Luo Shizhenâs mood.
With a ding, almost everyone present looked down at their phones.
The examination report for Lu Qiujin was out.
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