Chapter 15

Translated by boilpoil Edited by boilpoil

No matter how unwilling Bai Lianhua is inside, the journey to the institute is still ending. He is brought into the institute with a complicated expression, and begins his new life with butterflies in his stomach.

Though, the staff really didn’t exaggerate. The institute has long since stopped being so terrifying——The blinding silvery whiteness completely enveloping the place is now gone. The new colouring scheme is clean and refreshing, no longer feeling artificial and cold.

His information is registered and he is brought into a separate study room. There’s even preprepared snacks and drinks as refreshments on the table. Rather than waiting to be studied, he’s more like a guest at a host’s place.

And, whether the staff in the institute are just careless or not particularly worried about him, they left him in this study room alone. There’s no one there watching over him, and he can’t see any surveillance equipment nearby. Are they really not afraid of him running away?

…Alright, even if he didn’t really want to run away in the first place.

Bai Lianhua puts his arms up on the table as he’s got nothing better to do. He puts his head on his hands waiting for a researcher that might do this and that to him, while pondering the probability that he can see Jian Yiguang and how long it might take through normal channels.

In any case, according to that staff member’s description, Jian Yiguang is now definitely the last boss type of character. If he doesn’t completely conquer the entire instance of institute, he’ll probably not even be able to catch a glimpse of the antagonist, not to mention completing his mission.

Eh, this is hopeless… #You ran away on your own, but now the antagonist is not someone you can see when you want to#

While Bai Lianhua is concentrated on his ponderings, the door to the room is suddenly opened. He looks over curiously, but unexpectedly, he sees the person who he was dissing in his mind just now.

It shocked Bai Lianhua so much he immediately straightens his posture, pretending he’s being serious instead of thinking of depressing things like a salted fish .

——Has he managed to awaken some sort of wish-fulfilling superpower? How did he immediately manage to meet Jian Yiguang when he was just thinking about him?

Jian Yiguang looks at Bai Lianhua’s unconscious little movements quietly as he walks inside casually. He slowly puts the documents in his hands onto the table, sits down opposite Bai Lianhua, and then smiles and says, “are you surprised to see me?”

Bai Lianhua pauses for a second.

Uh, how should he put this, it feels like the first thing the antagonist says to him after their reunion shouldn’t be this.

Isn’t this a bit too… mundane? Jian Yiguang is not like Wen Fu who knew he’d be back eventually. Isn’t this something he shouldn’t have expected?

Where’s his excitement gone? As it’s supposed to be an unexpected reunion after a long time, it wouldn’t have been surprising even if the antagonist lunges onto him and starts shaking him by his shoulders like in those ridiculous romance dramas.

——Well, still, it would have been strange for someone with the personality of Jian Yiguang to be doing something like that.

But it’s also odd how calm he is. Oddly, it feels like the calm before the storm.

While his thoughts were firing off quickly, it’s surfaced as a pause before Bai Lianhua nods earnestly, “it is surprising… I thought it wouldn’t have been this quickly.” At least there should probably have been several standard procedures he’d have to have gone through first.

“You’ve caused such a big ruckus that even I’d have been alerted and personally come meet you… Besides, before I came here, I’ve already seen the name you gave for the registration, Bai Lianhua.” Said Jian Yiguang as he takes the document in his hand and waves it lightly, then he looks indifferent again, and lowers his head, saying in a mundane tone, “right, you also said you didn’t know me?”

Bai Lianhua “…” Oof. That staff told him that?

Bai Lianhua is slightly irked. That staff member looked earnest and simple with his thick brows and big eyes, but he sure didn’t hesitate to sell him out and reported every sentence in their dialogue up. Man, appearances are deceiving.

#Never believing in honest people existing in this world anymore#

Bai Lianhua is dissing and feeling dejected inside but he is putting a grin on his face and trying to vague his way through the problem, “since it’s the Jian Yiguang in the past that I knew, and not the one right now. You’ve changed a lot over the years, I wasn’t too sure it was you.”

This is the truth too. In his memories, the Jian Yiguang back then was pale and thin, moody-looking even with his above-average appearance. Compared to this charming, serious and cold academic, they’re almost two different people. One might even suspect he has been taken over by someone else.

If this Jian Yiguang is put into the worlds he’s been through he’ll probably immediately become well-known as a male star of the abstinent variant. Bai Lianhua cannot picture what sort of circumstance could have caused such great change on Jian Yiguang.

Jian Yiguang chuckles, “you didn’t change much in comparison.” Looking exactly the same as when he disappeared.

Even the biometric magnetic chip on him is the same. That communication signal that he had never ever received again no matter what he did that year, is suddenly active and found again.

For a whole decade, as if he’s vanished. The person has seemingly passed through the ages travelling from 10 years ago directly here in front of him.

It’s probably a reflex that’s been formed in Wen Fu’s world, but when Bai Lianhua sees the antagonist chuckle, his head starts to hurt.

He blinks in awkwardness, and shifts focus onto the document Jian Yiguang was previously holding onto.

If he wasn’t mistaken, then isn’t that the personal file of him that’s set up and backed up in the institute now due to him being a participant in a study?

Sigh, this scene sure is quite a replica of the one from many years ago, with a researcher and a researchee, except the two people are switched in their roles.

… Once, he also held Jian Yiguang’s file in his hands.

Though he didn’t have the right then to examine the file then, since he’s only a keeper.

That’s right, the previous identity of Bai Lianhua in this world, is an assistant researcher——He was once part of the institute.

With system’s help back then, Bai Lianhua successfully obtained a legitimate identity in this world. After graduation, he is also transferred to the institute with the exceptional S-grade psychic strength that he displayed on the surface.

In a certain sense, in this world, he can be said to have been given a golden finger, even if it’s not directly given to him by the system——Defined in this world’s ranking, the psychic strength of his body is at least SS+ in reality.

According to the system, after having been through so many worlds with his conscience continuously trained, particularly after having been in several cultivation worlds where cultivation of the conscience is also a way of training mental strength, when his body is materialised in this world where psychic power is studied, it would be stranger if his psychic strength was low in rank.

If it were not for the principles of the world and the system both suppressing him, his psychic strength should have been even greater.

Without the golden finger, he wouldn’t have been able to successfully eliminate Jian Yiguang’s hidden damages to his psychic power in the end. At Jian Yiguang’s psychic strength, it’s ridiculous to imagine just anyone giving up their psychic strength for him would have been effective. At the very least they mustn’t be too big in difference. Bai Lianhua’s SS+ grade psychic strength was the best choice in this world.

But, given he had to rematerialise in this world, Bai Lianhua examines himself and discovers that his SS+ psychic strength apparently, maybe, seemingly… returned.

What a great deal that was. Doesn’t this practically mean that he’s essentially sacrificed nothing? The system didn’t mess with him this time.

Well, he digresses, but, as a newcomer, in the institute he didn’t have access to any secrets anyway. Even the contents of the experiment are not accessible to him——This is why when Bai Lianhua was worrying over his fate earlier, he could only imagine what kind of treatment he’d receive like he has had zero experience with this… Despite him having been employed in the institute before, he’s never actually been involved in any research.

But he did have a connection to Jian Yiguang – he was assigned as the caretaker of the important object of study Jian Yiguang’s daily necessities. He’s managed to secure an opportunity to get close to him so that he can enact his plan to save the protagonist afterwards.

Yet… Now it’s the turn for Jian Yiguang to study him.

Karma is a bitch.

Fortunately, he’s never tortured Jian Yiguang, so he doesn’t feel guilty at all… He doesn’t want a lot either. As long as Jian Yiguang gives him the same treatment he once gave him those days then he’d be satisfied.

As for the research… Um. The institute right now doesn’t appear that scary! With Jian Yiguang here, if it’s just little experiments then he thinks he has nothing to fear.

The system can’t help but be slightly impressed, “host, you certainly are a white lotus that’s easy to nurture~”

——But, while this delicate flower is easy to keep is one thing, what the person in charge of nurturing it will actually do is another.

Author’s notes:

Bai Lianhua: Hmph. I will never again believe there are honest people in the world

_(:з」∠)_[Harrumphing and feeling wronged]

Mob C: Don’t lose faith in the world! Isn’t there still you here? [Laughing eyes]

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