Chapter 53: Chapter 48: The Safe Zone is Very Safe
Songx Shiyi woke up at seven o’clock sharp. She took a shower, dried her hair, drank a glass of warm milk, and then began to read the memo on her phone.
No matter what happened the day before, a recurring amnesia would reliably wipe her memory clean, leaving her with only what she knew before the age of fourteen.
Some people say that having too good a memory is a burden.
But for Songx Shiyi, constantly forgetting was also a source of regret.
She would always wake up to a blank slate and then, in a daze, discover that the person in the mirror had suddenly grown up. It was as if she had turned twenty overnight.
’What on earth had happened during those six lost years?’
Songx Shiyi couldn’t help but wonder.
According to records from the hospital and the Committee, she was injured by a special Artifact during an arrest mission three years ago. The injury caused a brain abnormality, leaving her unable to retain new memories.
Her days practicing dance and performing with the Suh Girl Group felt like they were just yesterday.
Songx Shiyi opened the memo she had synced to the cloud server. The first line read:
"Every day is a new beginning."
She had been selected by the simulator at a very young age to become one of the Divine Players, and this part of her memory had somehow remained completely intact.
In other words, the relevant memories were protected by some kind of rule of power, so that even an Artifact capable of destroying memories could not strip them away.
The records in her memo were divided into two parts.
The first part was work, the second was life.
She opened the work section first.
The latest entry read:
"In the Divine Hall of the Gods, tag and locate the player named [Yao God]. His Fragment World is related to the [Golden Field]."
She tapped her finger lightly beside the entry, and an audio recording began to play.
A woman’s voice said, "It’s you? Can’t we get someone else?"
"...All I know is he calls himself ’Yao God.’ Beyond that, I know nothing."
Songx Shiyi had no memory of this conversation.
But she was already used to it: hearing conversations on her phone she couldn’t remember, constantly getting calls from strangers, having people she didn’t recognize greet her...
Sometimes she would imagine things. ’Maybe I’m not really Songx Shiyi, but just someone who inherited or stole her personality and life, and is now walking through the world in her place.’
’Or maybe the real Songx Shiyi is long dead. The current me is just a 24-hour substitute that reboots when the time is up, like a machine with insufficient storage.’
But that didn’t really matter.
After all, in everyone’s eyes—and even she herself couldn’t deny it—she was Songx Shiyi.
Suddenly, her phone rang. The call was from an unknown, unsaved number.
Songx Shiyi answered on speakerphone.
But there was no sound from the other end.
"Hello?" Songx Shiyi ventured. "This is Songx Shiyi."
Then the person on the other end spoke. "Let’s meet."
It was a girl on the other end, and from her voice, she didn’t sound very old.
Songx Shiyi asked, "What is this about?"
"We’ve met before, in an alley with a lot of cars. Yuyao of the East Sea Clan was there. I have some information for you, and I also want to ask you about a few things."
Songx Shiyi opened the work section and scanned down through the entries by date.
Sure enough, she found a relevant entry.
"Outside the motorcycle factory dorms in Jiuyuann Community, parking alley: Jia Xiaokai’s believer, Yuyao of the East Sea Clan, caused two deaths. Executed by the female Apostle, Mary."
"Ah, right. Hello there."
Only then did Songx Shiyi agree. "Alright, where should we meet?"
The other person said, "The same alley as last time."
The call ended there.
Songx Shiyi glanced at the caller’s number. It looked like a perfectly normal phone number.
However, she didn’t try to trace the number, as it was unlikely she’d find anything anyway. As far as she was concerned, her greatest advantage was her ability to forget. It saved her from trouble and didn’t burden anyone else.
This was also the key to why she had so many informants.
Songx Shiyi changed her clothes, slung her bag over her shoulder, and waved at the crystal chandelier in the living room.
"Mingzai, I’m heading out."
A small sparrow flew out of the brightly lit chandelier and landed on Songx Shiyi’s shoulder.
The moment it left, all the lights in the house instantly went out.
The sparrow preened its chest feathers with its short beak, tilted its head, and looked at Songx Shiyi with its tiny eyes, appearing no different from an ordinary bird.
"Same old rules. No matter how tempted you are, you can’t steal electricity or fire outside, especially from public facilities. Got it?" Songx Shiyi scratched its head with her finger.
Mingzai bobbed its head in agreement.
...
Outside the motorcycle factory dorms, two boys, about eleven or twelve years old, were kicking a soccer ball around in the parking alley.
After Songx Shiyi arrived, their eyes kept stealing glances at her, and their conversation became a little absent-minded. They kept fumbling the ball at their feet.
When they met Songx Shiyi’s gaze, the two boys blushed, hurriedly looked away, and pretended to be seriously practicing their passes.
Songx Shiyi glanced down at her own outfit.
She wore a wool jacket over a black, form-fitting knit shirt, paired with jeans and leather boots. Her short, silver-gray hair was fluffy and ear-length. She wore no earrings or necklace, just a bit of eyeliner and a natural-toned lip gloss.
This outfit made her look a little more mature.
Songx Shiyi looked around and saw that the other person was already sitting in a car.
"Over here." A girl waved at her.
The car the girl sat in was covered in dust, possibly abandoned by its owner. But that wasn’t important.
Songx Shiyi got into the back seat of the car as well.
She studied the other person.
Mary was a girl in a gray hoodie. She looked to be about seventeen or eighteen, and wore a baseball cap as if to conceal herself, with long green hair coiled up underneath the brim.
The girl wore a pair of sunglasses, seemingly not wanting people to know her true appearance. A normal person would never understand that a terrifying Apostle’s power was hidden within that seemingly slender body.
The girl said, "I want to look into someone. Prayer God."
The girl said softly, "He has something in his possession. It’s very dangerous."
"Miss Mary."
Songx Shiyi began, "I do have information about Prayer God. However, as a prosecutor for the Committee, leaking secrets to outsiders is a violation of discipline..."
"May I ask, what is this thing that you consider dangerous?"
"No comment."
Songx Shiyi wasn’t surprised by her reaction.
Essentially, her relationship with her informants was one of mutually beneficial intelligence exchange. But the Committee had its red lines, which had to be respected.
Both of them were silent for a moment.
Mary suddenly said, "The item might be hidden in a safe zone, not a Fragment World. That’s the information I have."
Songx Shiyi wasn’t sure what she meant.
But for the Committee, maintaining the normal Order in the safe zones was the top priority.
"Miss Mary, the safe zones are still safe," Songx Shiyi said.
"Are they really?" Mary retorted.
This left Songx Shiyi at a loss for words.
Recently, two incidents had occurred in this very neighborhood.
The case of Yuan Lisha’s Faith robbery, the case of Jia Xiaokai’s believers breaking through a barrier to commit murder...
Lately, public order had been far from good.
Songx Shiyi could only resort to the official line. "We will do our best to stop dangers before they happen, but our manpower is ultimately limited. We can’t prevent every single incident..."
Mary interrupted her. "I’m not talking about that."
"Then what?"
"Something even more dangerous... like a [Whistleblower], for example."
Songx Shiyi immediately shook her head. "Impossible."
Mary met her denial with silence.
"I don’t know your reasons. But..."
Songx Shiyi blurted out, "According to the parallel World Dimension theory, the High and Low Realm Dimensions have always maintained a relative parallel. The physical distance between players on Earth—or to be precise, the information they exchange—maintains a kind of Synchronization with the Low Realm Dimensional Worlds."
"From a macroscopic perspective, unlike the active and ever-changing Low Realm Dimensions, the High Realm Dimension exists in a long-term static state and cannot directly overlap or interfere with other World Dimensions."
"For a player from another World Dimension to arrive here, they would have to move their entire world to create a world-level overlap. But the higher the World Dimension, the more difficult it is to move."
"Any closed world or Fragment World that cannot form a two-way channel or a world-level overlap fits the definition of a safe zone. The High Realm Dimension’s Earth is one of them."
"As the saying goes, a person cannot lift the ground beneath their feet."
"The usual method is for players to use the Divine Hall of the Gods to descend in dimension and enter a Low Realm Dimensional World. By moving the Low Realm Dimensional Worlds they control, they can overlap or interfere with other Low Realm Dimensional Worlds."
"It’s like two people living in different countries. They can’t move their entire houses and cities, so they can only step outside and meet by using mobile forms of transportation."
Songx Shiyi cited many established conclusions before finally summarizing, "The safe zones are like the deep sea, and the Crawling Area is like the shallows."
"The pressure of the deep sea makes it difficult for shallow-water creatures to survive. The various abilities they pride themselves on would all become useless here, and they might even suffocate."
"Even if players from other World Dimensions manage to reach a safe zone, they would have to sever their own limbs, so to speak, losing all their abilities from the Crawling Area. In doing so, they’d be no different from the ordinary people or animals here, and would instead put themselves in extreme danger."
Mary said, "There are exceptions to every rule."
That one offhand remark, however, made Songx Shiyi’s mind race.
The safe zone theory was a conclusion drawn from extensive practice.
But as the Committee’s research into the simulator deepened, new perspectives and ideas were constantly emerging.
The consequences of any breach in the theoretical security of the safe zones would be unbearable.
Even if the possibility was low, she had to guard against it. This Miss Mary hadn’t come to her with this information just for fun.
"Thank you for the information, Miss Mary."
Songx Shiyi said seriously, "I will report this to the Committee as coming from an anonymous source."
...
In his room, Luh Yao let out a long breath.
’Every organization has security anxiety. You just need to point out a theoretical risk and throw in some sensational, plausible-sounding news, and they’ll at least be suspicious.’
’This time, he’d done all this for a single question.’
"Are the safe zones actually safe?"
To get this small saucer of vinegar, Luh Yao had prepared a whole plate of dumplings.
Since the safe zones were stable, and Gods from other World Dimensions couldn’t come over for a real-life PK, then Luh Yao had nothing to fear.
’So what about the [Whistleblower] or the [Skinner]?’
’It all came back to one thing.’
’On the Garlic Tribe’s turf, if any of your people dare to show their faces, I’ll smack ’em down every single time.’
