Chapter 194: You Shouldn’t Stick Your Card in Your Brain!
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
When the usually nurturing Mrs. Manas swore out loud, Lin Sanjiu’s shock far exceeded the teacher’s. Lin Sanjiu found herself momentarily dumbfounded. Unfortunately, due to her current form, which was just a brain in mid-air, no one could see her emotions from the folds in her brain’s white matter.
After quite some time, she explained hesitantly, “I-I just thought that it’d be good if I could convert my body into a card… so, I touched it with my ‘head’ and it really became a card…”
After calming down for two minutes, Mrs. Manas finally understood what had happened.
Usually, after Lin Sanjiu changed something into a card, she would keep the card in her body. After that, it would appear in a ‘catalog’ in her brain—which was her card inventory. However, without her body, where would the items be kept?
“Where did her/my body go?”
Both Lin Sanjiu and Mrs. Manas became anxious. Following Mrs. Manas’ advice, Lin Sanjiu floated close to the ground. With a single thought, her body appeared from nowhere and fell to the ground with a thud. Lin Sanjiu didn’t even notice that there was a small cut on her temples because she was too shocked. After both of them discussed for some time, they were still unable to understand how it worked.
Seeing that they could not make sense of it by discussing, Mrs. Manas warned Lin Sanjiu not to be rash and disappeared once again. Lin Sanjiu figured that Mrs. Manas probably planned to check the entire ‘brain form’ she was now in before returning.
Lin Sanjiu was a little worried about the situation, but being able to store her own body was a good thing. She floated gently to her body and ‘touched’ it. It instantly became a card again. In any case, keeping her body with her was the safest bet.
Without Mrs. Manas talking to her, Lin Sanjiu flew unsteadily around the train carriages. The flickering fluorescent lights in the train were caused by a man who was scuttling along the ceiling of a train, like a gecko. Whenever he scurried past one of the fluorescent light, it would go out. Once he left, it would light up again. Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help but wonder if her previous experience with flickering lights were all caused by such a man—but she had no idea what sort of urban legend this ‘fluorescent light man’ was from.
Looking at her Teru Teru Bozu, she guessed she couldn’t keep it any longer. The woman, who was dangling from the Teru Teru Bozu, had buried her head in it, so her sinister face was showing through the cloth. Lin Sanjiu could only see the two black eyes of the originally cute, smiling face on the doll following her—as a brain. For a second, Lin Sanjiu was afraid that the woman would suddenly reach out to grab her.
The other passengers were sitting silently in their seat and did not even bothered looking at the floating brain in the air. After Lin Sanjiu roamed about the train, she found out that there were ‘people’ in the driver’s cabin as well. Every now and then, she would see some of the passengers shifting a little in their seats. However, considering the current situation, the unique duoluozhongs in Kirasagi Train Station were not interested in attacking her in this state.
With some thoughts in her mind, she drifted back to the carriage where she died. She tried to call Mrs. Manas a few times but she did not receive any reply. Lin Sanjiu floated in mid-air absent-mindedly. As her mind wandered to the problems about her future, she didn’t immediately notice when the old woman on the seat in the carriage suddenly moved.
“So, this explains things…” Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help sighing after she eyed the old woman for a few seconds. The old woman’s limbs were very stiff and she seemed to have difficulties coordinating her movements. The old woman stood up rigidly. Her body was stuck in the position where she was bending over at a 90 degrees angle. She maneuvered in a way that almost seemed as if her back was breaking. The old woman reached for the newspaper that Lin Sanjiu had thrown to the ground and stuffed it back into the crevice between the seat.
That was the same paper that warned new passengers not to get down the train. Lin Sanjiu understood its significance after thinking about it for some time. In the past, someone must have written that message and stayed on the train for some time. The person eventually found out that there was something terribly wrong with the train but was harmed before she could finish writing her contradictory warning. The first piece of advice had been turned off by the spirits on the train and placed in an easily noticeable spot. In order words, the paper with the original piece of advice had been used as a trap.
But Lin Sanjiu couldn’t figure out why the ghostly old woman would suddenly remember to return the newspaper to its original position. Could it be—
“Good news!” A loud exuberant broke her chain of thought. It was Mrs. Manas.
“I have already check your current condition thoroughly. I know what is going on now…” she sounded happier than before Lin Sanjiu died, “It isn’t your time yet. Plus, this is great for you!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you are currently in this brain form because you had expended almost all your higher consciousness. It can only protect and surround that portion of you. After you died, though you do not have your body, your higher consciousness is still gradually recovering. You can’t see it yourself, but with that little bit of recovered higher consciousness, you created a small pocket at the back of your brain. Your card is currently kept there. That is to say, your card didn’t disappear, your consciousness just hid it.”
“But my other cards are in my body, right? Like my knife, special items… Without my body, is this anything to be happy about?”
Mrs. Manas voice immediately turned cold and she spoke sternly to Lin Sanjiu, “I wanted to point this out long ago… As a posthuman, don’t you think you are over-reliant on your items and your physique? Any other person who can activate [Defence Forcefield] could probably maintain it for a week, whereas you are unable to handle things without your special items… You don’t even bother working on your abilities.”
Lin Sanjiu considered what Mrs. Manas said and she couldn’t help feeling a little ashamed. Honestly speaking, her fighting style in battles had not changed much from the time she killed Ren Nan with a kitchen knife. The differences were perhaps that the weapons she used had improved and she had become agiler.
“Now that you have become a form made of higher consciousness, this could be an opportunity for you,” Mrs. Manas was very positive about it. “From today, I will coach you to use your higher consciousness. You will have to practice your overall proficiency using it, controlling its amount and strength. Once you can use your higher consciousness to sculpt an exact replica of your body… No, that wouldn’t mean you are alive. I mean, by then, we can see if you can link the replica created by higher consciousness with your actual body…”
“So higher consciousness can be used as an all-purpose adhesive?” Lin Sanjiu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this conclusion. However, she couldn’t deny that seeing hope in her current situation made her feel much better.
“Anyway, duoluozhongs are uninterested in you now and posthumans are unable to see you. You have 14 months to work hard…” Before Mrs. Manas could finish her sentence, her words were proven wrong.
At the same time, the noise of the train traveling on the tracks quietened. Without any other warning, the train had stopped at a station. The train doors opened.
“There are many of them here in this train… Huh? Why is there a brain here?”
