Chapter 126

Chapter 126: Selling Dreams

No good. Still no good.  

Staring at the lifeless rat in its cage, Heli felt an unusual flicker of irritation—a rare emotion in her usual experiments.  

One of the most crucial qualities of an outstanding researcher was patience. Even those without it had to cultivate it, because groundbreaking experiments weren’t accomplished in a day or two.  

Some dedicated their entire lives to a single study.  

“You look like you could use a break. Need me to assign you an assistant?”  

The sudden voice startled Heli.  

So absorbed in her work, she hadn’t noticed the institute Chairwoman standing behind her.  

“Maybe. But few meet my standards,” Heli replied.  

The gap in knowledge was the biggest hurdle. While breaking-in periods were inevitable, she wasn’t sure how long it would take—Easter’s technology and thought processes were simply too different from the outside world’s.  

“That ‘soul’ theory you mentioned earlier—you weren’t just feeding my husband nonsense, were you?” The Chairwoman leaned over, squinting at the indecipherable experimental data on the table.  

Heli kept dual records: digital and handwritten. Her notes were messy, but a quick scan showed no mention of “soul.”  

“No, souls are real.” Heli shook her head. “They’re a form of energy distinct from brainwaves, originating in the brain. Though undetectable by conventional means, they’re not metaphysical—they even have mass. The core of abilities lies in the soul.”  

The compulsive knowledge-sharing urge of researchers.  

Heli flipped open a notebook and sketched a stick figure: 

“Say someone’s ability is shooting lasers from their palm. The activation requires the hand’s presence because a laser-emitting ‘pore’ forms there.”  

She blacked out the hand with her pen: “If the hand is severed, no more lasers. Even if transplanted to another person, they couldn’t use the ability.”  

“But if reattached—even via transplantation rather than modern tissue regeneration—the ‘pore’ would eventually reappear.”  

This defied traditional biology, yet it was Easter’s primary research focus.  

Outside, ability studies barely scratched regeneration’s surface. Even that couldn’t grant permanent regenerative powers—precisely because they overlooked the soul.  

“I know all this.” The Chairwoman waved her off. “What I want to know is: If a soul dissipates after death as you claim, does resurrecting someone reassemble the original soul? Or—”  

Would the reborn soul still be that person? Given how “soul” was defined across texts as one’s essence, the question was unavoidable.  

“I don’t know.” Heli’s infuriating answer.  

Modern tech and espers could easily repair organs. But not even Easter could restore a soul—at best, harvest it as material for ability-enhancing drugs.  

Critical to life yet seemingly its byproduct, souls upon death shed their 21 grams without trace unless specially preserved.  

Even Bingyuan Ya, with her LV4 regeneration, couldn’t recover once brain death scattered her soul—no matter how much nutrients you pumped in.  

Easter’s research had touched souls, how else those ability serums? But reconstituting them? Not yet.  

If we’re talking about true “soul resilience”… 

Take our house pet Mi Xiaoliu. Experimental data shows her soul remains in a fixed state after every death, never dissipating. 

Theoretically, she can only die of natural aging—no other method can truly kill her. Even artificially induced aging wouldn’t work.  

But she wasn’t part of the experiment.  

“Then how can you guarantee the resurrected person would still be themselves?” The Chairwoman’s hands, clasped behind her back, made popping sounds—the noise of Buddhist prayer beads being squeezed the wrong way.  

“I can’t guarantee it.” Heli shook her head again, then quickly added to reassure her: 

“But Easter does have ability-modification technology. If you’re concerned about the soul aspect, I could attempt to cultivate a time-reversal ability to recall the soul. The resurrection plan for your daughter won’t be easy—after all, only her bones remain.”  

Though even Heli had never actually heard of a genuine time-reversal ability—that fell under physics, and her expertise was in biology and medicine.  

But as the former Third Fractal, she still had the authority to propose theories.  

To put it bluntly, she was selling her boss a pipe dream.  

“If you can create a time-reversal esper, why not just change history?” The Chairwoman’s appetite seemed even bigger.  

“Then you’d have to face paradoxes or butterfly effects—the outcome might be worse.” 

Though Heli didn’t know much about this, it didn’t stop her from riffing based on TV dramas she’d seen: 

“Look at all those who tried to change history—did any of them end well? What if only one person died originally, but the butterfly effect turned it into the whole family being wiped out?”  

“Hmm… I’ll find you a physics expert as an assistant.” The Chairwoman was easily convinced. 

She patted Heli’s shoulder. “Rest when you can. With a theoretical lifespan of 230 years now (Thanks to medical advances), we have plenty of time.”  

Watching her leave the lab, Heli looked up.  

Inside a wall-mounted refrigeration unit lay the severely damaged corpse of a woman—her head looked like it had exploded from within.  

A physics expert as my assistant?  

Why not have a chef assist a surgeon while we’re at it?  

Shaking off the thought, Heli cleaned the lab bench and picked up the newly made Black Element suppressant. 

Time to coax Mi Xiaoliu into another injection.  

She wondered how many more doses the girl’s body could take.  

If they failed to develop a cure, even with suppressants, Mi Xiaoliu would likely develop debilitating symptoms by next year—weakness confining her to bed. She wouldn’t last until the third New Year before dying again…  

Easter supposedly had a drug that could delay Black Element symptoms, but it only created an illusion of health while accelerating the Black Element’s spread.  

Frustrated, Heli vigorously rubbed her face—two days unwashed—and rolled a grime ball between her fingers.  

————————  

“You actually came.” Gloria narrowed her eyes at the clown woman she loathed, clutching her sister Misha’s old clothes. “Is this your husband?”  

Her gaze flicked to the side. This time, besides the clown woman, there was a new clown—a man, balding, with fierce, unblinking eyes, like a lead actor crawling straight out of a horror movie.  

“No, this is my assistant. Also my father.” The clown woman magically produced a red cloth from her palm and tucked Misha’s clothes into its fold.  

“Night Hawks have family dynasties now?” Gloria raised an eyebrow.  

“Of course.” The clown woman had the other clown hold the opposite end of the red cloth.

They looked like genuine circus clowns meant to amuse, each holding a corner of the red cloth as they spun in lighthearted circles. Had this scene played out on the street, Gloria might’ve even tossed a couple of coins at their feet out of pity.  

A burst of smoke erupted—though without the usual acrid sting. But given Gloria’s already heightened wariness, the spectacle did nothing to endear them to her.  

Her body radiated light once more, cutting through the haze and illuminating three figures before her: one large, one medium, and one small.  

There was an extra one now.  

A child, barely past kindergarten age, wearing a purple cat-eared beanie and a dark blue dress. Her small, pale feet stood bare against the ground—after all, Gloria hadn’t provided any shoes.  

Through the thinning smoke, the little girl’s feet appeared faintly translucent, like an adorable ghost straight out of a moe anime. Her head hung slightly, her large, beautiful blue eyes—inherited from the Chairwoman—staring vacantly at the floor.  

“Agh! My eyes! I’m blind!” The clown woman rolled around exaggeratedly on the ground, playing up the drama.  

“Misha…” Gloria’s voice wavered.  

She stepped forward slowly, reaching out to touch the girl’s chubby cheek—only for her fingers to pass right through.  

The child stood motionless, gaze hollow, utterly unresponsive to Gloria’s presence.  

The cold reality doused the fire in Gloria’s chest. Her golden eyes pulsed with faint light, concentric rings of the same hue radiating outward from her pupils.  

In one swift motion, she seized the clown woman by the throat and slammed her against the wall. “You dare mock me with my sister’s image, you fucking trash?!”  

This wasn’t just intimidation. Gloria’s middle finger pressed against the clown woman’s abdomen just above the navel—then pierced straight through with a sickening squelch. 

The clown woman gagged, howling in pain as the digit began to glow, shifting into a searing laser. The heat radiating from it was unbearable.  

The male clown—introduced earlier as the woman’s father—merely watched in silence, expression unchanging. He made no move to intervene.  

“W-Wait! I told you—she’s just a soul!” The clown woman, impressively, managed to speak despite the assault. “No physical body means no reactions! Don’t forget—people need eyes to see and eardrums to hear!”  

Gloria released her.  

“Tomorrow,” the clown woman rasped, rubbing her scorched stomach, her tone the very picture of forced meekness. 

“Tomorrow, I’ll have someone craft a temporary body for her. But it’s just a stopgap. If you want her truly resurrected… you’ll need to trade the ‘Star.'”  

Damn, that was close. For a moment, this 17-year-old girl had genuinely wanted to kill her. The Lasvedo family really aren’t to be trifled with.  

“Will there be yet another clown joining us tomorrow?” Gloria sneered, her laughter laced with venom.

[Translator’s Note: See the index page for this Novel if you want to see the Amazon Link for the eBooks.]