Chapter 231
by Golden DragonChapter 231: Long Time No See
“Hello everyone~ I’m Science Pop Meimei. Recently, a hot topic on the internet is the reappearance of Shrimp Tail Island, along with some long-distance footage. So, is the story about Shrimp Tail Island reappearing after a hundred years true? First, we need to understand the history of Shrimp Tail Island. As the largest island in the Shrimp Tail Archipelago…”
“And that’s the history of Shrimp Tail Island. As for whether its reappearance is real, this editor doesn’t know either.”
An AI-generated female voice, paired with content just searched up in the browser and repeatedly shown images—sometimes a single script split into three segments, with two-thirds of every video being repeated content.
Successfully wasting five minutes of time.
Combine that with Yiwen’s newly trained ability—to waste over ten minutes—in today’s already anxious, fast-paced society, these kinds of things only make people even more irritable.
And Mi Xiaoliu wasn’t around to soothe her heart.
Whatever. She might as well find a reason to beat up Dias. She just happened to come across a short video yesterday where someone suspected to be Dias @’d Mi Xiaoliu in the comments.
If only marketing accounts could be arrested someday.
Not sure if it’s Earth OL’s big data at work, but right after Shrimp Tail Island was discussed in geography class, news of its reappearance started spreading online.
Due to the destruction of the port at the scene, only long-distance footage was available.
The island suddenly stitched into Metropolis’s harbor looked like a mystical fairyland, like something Photoshopped.
There were all kinds of shots from different angles.
After the typhoon passed, the island disappeared with it.
What exactly happened was not disclosed to the public. If the Resurrection Day were just a terrorist group, warning the public would’ve been fine. The key issue is—they’ve already infiltrated the Federation…
But the devastating aftermath of the Metropolis port being attacked by an ability user couldn’t be hidden.
Footage of Shrimp Tail Island was turned into a bunch of memes online, becoming an inexplicable joke—but unfortunately Shrimp Tail Island doesn’t use the internet, or it could have been live-streaming and selling products.
Certain people who heard the news looked like they’d seen a ghost.
Just moments earlier, Metropolis researchers were still discussing whether they should toughen up under the pressure of the Little Demon King and the Chairwoman, and force Mi Xiaoliu to reveal the exact origins of the miracle herb. But upon learning the truth about Shrimp Tail Island, they immediately calmed down.
After all, being so aggressive to a 13-year-old girl wasn’t very appropriate—it contradicted the Federation’s principle of absolute leniency toward minors.
Why didn’t you say earlier that you were an LV5? If you had, we would’ve treated you much better!
That’s just how real the world is. Once you’re strong enough, everyone around you suddenly becomes friendly. So who would choose to live a boring life pretending to be weak?
And then came the bodies found on the island. Excluding the experimental subjects, there were over twenty thousand—not everyone was wearing a white lab coat, the Resurrection Day didn’t just consist of researchers.
Ninety percent of these members had no official ID, not even a trace left in global records.
They were born and raised there, an independent civilization hidden from the world—a New Atlantis.
Next were the corpses of the rebels, most already unidentifiable by appearance.
But that wasn’t the saddest part. The saddest part was that some couldn’t even be identified through DNA, so their families couldn’t claim the bodies.
“Emily Eudora, formerly an interrogator in Duoyu City, LV4 with mental suggestion ability, passed away at age 47, born in…”
A priest stood at the podium, recounting her life.
The system’s judgment is absolute. If someone could be saved, they wouldn’t have been stored inside it.
Hands folded over her abdomen, the mature beauty slept peacefully inside the box.
From her features, you couldn’t even tell she was that old.
She awakened her ability at age nine. After that, her parents shifted most of their affection to her younger brother.
Graduated from the same university Gloria now attends. She resigned at age 36 and disappeared from the Federation—never married.
She loved beauty and was just an ordinary woman. In her youth, she broke up with a boyfriend of six years over a dowry argument. By the time she truly realized her regret, it was already too late to reconcile.
And yet, she was also great.
In the final years of her life, she fully expressed her excess motherly love.
It was an ordinary funeral. Her family showed up just to go through the motions, to see if there was any insurance money. Some even asked upon seeing Mi Xiaoliu, “Is that her daughter?”
It wasn’t just curiosity. They were afraid she’d left behind a burden even in death.
It was her former coworkers and friends who showed genuine emotion.
No grand spectacle, only the priest’s cliched prayers. But this is how most people end.
“That time I actually helped Wei Shi chase her. We even ambushed one of his love rivals with a sack and beat him up. Got a formal warning for it.”
Humpback Whale, the big guy tapped Mi Xiaoliu’s head like petting a hamster.
Mi Xiaoliu stepped forward and placed a white flower into the coffin, leaning over the edge, silently gazing inside—without crying or making a sound.
Until Okulet pulled her away.
The typhoon, the faceless man, the fall of Supreme Heaven, the rebuilding of the Lasvedo main house, Nikita’s interrogation, and Shrimp Tail Island being reclaimed by Mi Xiaoliu—
The aftermath was so complex that many people had already forgotten everything started because of a petty thief girl’s sticky fingers.
“Since childhood, our elders taught us: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ Only by going through trials can one become a true hero. All suffering lays the groundwork for that.”
“Remember why I was sent to the Fallen City as a child? My uncle said I was being trained to become the next head of the family. That place was far crueler than any of you can imagine. Students would kick over a street vendor’s stand without blinking. Thinking you’re superior is the real lowlife trait. Twenty percent of the adults were missing fingers, and they took pride in that—said it was a symbol of social status.”
Nikita sat in a chair, his hands shackled behind him by suppressor cuffs.
“If suffering doesn’t come with proportional reward, then what’s the point of it?”
“So you resent Xiao Ao?”
Mi Xiaoliu’s eldest aunt slapped him across the face.
“Do you have any idea what Misha went through because of you? Just for the title of family head? I could’ve had it, you could’ve had it, and you threw your niece into hell over that?!”
Ridiculous. A childish pursuit of meaningless vanity.
“Wasn’t all that suffering supposed to make one a hero?”
Nikita’s expression didn’t change at all.
He was met with another loud slap.
“When did it happen?”
She was asking when Nikita joined the Resurrection Day.
“Since I was a child. Why are you so surprised? In our family, the friends we grew up with were always more intimate than our own parents, weren’t they?”
“But I only told the Red Prince to steal the ‘Star.’ As for Misha’s misfortunes, I regret them too.”
He was the Red Prince’s employer.
“You thought stealing the ‘Star’ would make you family head?”
“I just wanted to prove that the current family head might not actually be capable of fulfilling the role. As for the Resurrection Day’s orders, I don’t care all that much.”
“How do you contact them?”
“Only when they contact me first.”
“What’s so special about that masked man that made you all hunt him down like this?”
“He got his hands on the list of Resurrection Day’s external members.”
A reply given without the slightest hesitation.
There was no point in hiding it.
“In other words, the list of everyone who’s infiltrated the Federation.”
———
The reconstruction of the Lasvedo residence would probably have to start from scratch. During this period, they could only rent a house to live in.
Fortunately, in Metropolis, there were quite a few courtyard homes available for rent, so they managed to settle in.
Everyone else was fine, but the old man had suffered more than just a small loss—all the antiques he had bought had returned to the earth in the form of shattered fragments.
There weren’t many requirements when renting the house. They simply picked whichever one had a tree in the yard with a sturdy enough trunk and just the right height.
Mi Xiaoliu hadn’t been in great spirits these past two days—everyone could see it, even though she remained expressionless as always.
Even when Okulet called her to catch crickets, she didn’t respond. She just sat quietly in her room, staring blankly at Emily’s portrait.
This kind of thing happens to everyone. It just takes time to adjust.
That night.
Just like before, Mi Xiaoliu got up in the night to pee.
But this time she wouldn’t see the little thief girl who’d stepped on a nail—because the newly rented house didn’t have such shoddy construction, and the little thief girl was now being illegally detained by the old man, hung from a tree in the new courtyard.
After peeing, she returned to her room.
As she was closing the door, someone blocked it.
It was the faceless man, his arm in a sling around his neck, pushing her as he entered.
Under the moonlight, the two of them silently stared at each other.
After a moment, the faceless man reached for the doorknob again, seemingly about to leave.
He sighed.
Then he took his hand away, removed his mask, and shook his hair.
The mechanical voice from the voice changer was gone.
“Long time no see, Xiao Mi. You probably don’t remember me anymore. Let’s reintroduce ourselves—my name is Gwen.”
[Translator’s Note: See the index page for this Novel if you want to see the Amazon Link for the eBooks.]
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