Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The moonlight flowed over Septimus like a river of light, outlining his slim body figure and dying the air particles white. Seeing the man’s refusal to respond to her statement, a sardonic smile flitted across the tip of her lips.
“Why do you look so surprised? This isn’t rocket science.” Lin Sanjiu smirked. She straightened her back as a card appeared in her palm. “After meeting Ryuji, the staff working in Mokugyo Forum, I already knew the person behind this manhunt must be one of Luther’s twelve personalities. Besides, you have a rather distinctive characteristic, so…”
When she was in Oasis, 12 had deceived Marcie into thinking that he was Septimus. During that time, she learned that “Septimus” had a gender identity disorder.
Instinctively, Septimus lifted his hand and ran his fingers across his collarbone.
“I see. Well, to be frank with you, lately, I’ve been wondering whether I should be a male or a female,” said Septimus. His voice had an erratic pitch and he sounded as if there was a glut of smoke in his throat. Sometimes, he sounded like a mezzo-soprano singer while at other times, his voice lingered around the vocal range of a man talking with his nose pinched. “I just materialized not long ago, so I’m still not a real human being yet.”
The sentence brought Lin Sanjiu back to an incident that she had long buried within the depth of her psyche. “I remember when I first bumped into Marcie and Luther, a duoluozhong said that she is made of fake flesh and bone.”
The slim silhouette shrugged. “Well, that duoluozhong isn’t wrong.”
Then, both of them fell silent.
After a moment of dismayed silence, the card containing the [Power Of Word Picture] finally stopped flickering and laid flat in Lin Sanjiu’s palm. This was the first time she was summoning the Special Item after snatching it from the man who had sold her Exodus.
Septimus turned his gaze to her palm for a second and commented, “Your ability is really suitable for cheating in card games.”
Without waiting for her to reply, he switched to another foot but still leaned lackadaisically against the frame of the gate. “But you don’t need to use your ability against me. After all, I’m not your enemy.
Lin Sanjiu could not believe what she just heard. She turned around to point at the mass of posthumans behind her with a cold sneer upon her face. “Not my enemy? Then, your way of saying hello was a real eye-opener.”
Septimus lowered his head and let out a sigh. Due to the uniqueness of his voice, it gave people the impression that smoke would spill out from his mouth when he sighed. “If I didn’t do that, how was I supposed to get to you? I know those posthumans cannot harm you, so I hypnotized them and got them to waylay you.”
“Why would you want to do that? What is your purpose?”
“You’re looking for Luther and Marcie, aren’t you?” Septimus tilted his head and said, his voice slowly becoming solemn. “Don’t you want to know what happened to them while you were away?”
Lin Sanjiu wanted to know everything about them so badly. She was so eager that her words tumbled out her lips before she even realized it. “Are you willing to tell me where they are?”
“Of course, otherwise why would I go so far as to reach out to you?”
Lin Sanjiu fell into silence, and she only spoke after a few seconds, “But I don’t trust you.”
Stunned, it was apparent that Septimus did not expect Lin Sanjiu to reject him. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and squinted his eyes.
“Ryuji,” Lin Sanjiu said as she used the hypersensory to read the air movement around. All of the posthumans had been liberated from their hypnosis as they returned to their respective rooms one after another. “Weren’t those going after him hypnotized by you? You’re willing to lay your hands upon an innocent person just because you don’t want him to get in touch with me, yet you expect me to believe you that you’re here to help me?”
Septimus put his arms down and chucked, tickled pink by what he heard. His robe slid down his shoulder and made him look even smaller.
“You’re wrong,” he said nonchalantly, “I’m not the one who makes the decision to go after that staff. It’s just that my ability is particularly useful in this kind of thing, so they want me to hypnotize a group of posthumans to hunt him down. Since I don’t really care about him, I just do what they told me to do. However, tracking you down and intercepting you is my own decision.”
A thought flashed across Lin Sanjiu’s brain when she heard Septimus mention “they”. She was stunned into silence and could not come around for a fair share amount of time even though Septimus had finished speaking. It was only when Septimus called out to her that she snapped out from her reverie and asked, “Is Bliss one of the twelve personalities as well?”
This time, it was Septimus who was taken aback. He moved half step forward into the light. On his exquisite face was a shocked expression. His two beautiful eyes were wide and fixated while his mouth was open in shock and disbelief. “How did you know that?”
Lin Sanjiu did not know what to say. She patted her face and then began to inspect the person, who had not decided to be male or female yet, in front of her.
Similar to the impression left by 12, although Septimus was a beauty in his own right, he had a kind of cold aura enveloped around him which made him look somehow unapproachable. He had slanted eyes that tilted slightly upward and a pair of thin lips. His skin was as fair as snow and so smooth as if no expression could stay on his face. His beauty was like a hollow ice shell that did not leave a strong impact. Instead, it would reflect one’s gaze back.
Generally, Lin Sanjiu was pretty good at seeing through somebody. However, she had been observing Septimus the whole time, yet she still could not tell whether she should trust him or not.
In the end, she let out a long sigh. “Alright, I’ll believe you for once. Just tell me whatever you want to say.”
“Here?” Septimus looked around and threw his hands up. “Honestly, my hypnosis has a time limitation, and they are about to wake up soon. I suggest we go out first and talk along the way.”
There was a probability that this was yet another trap set up by the twelve personalities to kill her, but Lin Sanjiu had no other choice left. She could either take a chance on the truth or be continued to be hunted by them. It was not a hard decision to make since, after all, she was not a coward.
“Even if you all come for me together, I can still keep myself safe, so…” She waved her hand and continued, “lead the way.”
Septimus looked at her as a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Really?” He turned around and walked into the alley. “You seem pretty confident.”
The alley was dark. The moonlight and the streetlight in the distance could do nothing to light up the deep darkness that seeped into every inch of the red-bricked alley. As both of them walked down the staircase, Lin Sanjiu asked, “Now that I already know everything, you don’t have to hunt Ryuji anymore, do you?”
“You’re exactly the same as the rumors say,” Septimus commented without turning his head. His long robe flowed behind him as he smoothly went down the staircases, moving as one.
“What do you mean? What have you heard about me?”
“Nothing. The rumors say you’re a kind and lovable person. Don’t worry. Nobody is interested in Ryuji.”
When they were halfway through the red-bricked alley, Septimus snapped his fingers. The Lost Dog’s Pod Hotel fell silent for a moment before a round of shouting burst out. Dali’s voice tore through the sky and fell clearly into their ears, “What the hell happened here?! My hotel! Argh, my hotel! Who did this to my hotel?!
Her guests seemed to finally come around as well. In that split second, an undulating scream, shouts of fear and pain, and cries filled the air. The person who was responsible for the tragedy was now in front of Lin Sanjiu, humming a tune as he strode down the alley.
“Where are we going?”
“Nowhere.” Even though she did not tell him about the checkpoint pocket dimension, Septimus hopped onto the roof when they reached the end of the alley. The way his robe fluttered behind him made him look like a butterfly that was dancing under the moon. He then leaped down from the roof and stood behind the checkpoint. “Didn’t I tell you earlier? We will talk as we walk.”
‘Perhaps he doesn’t want to expose the location of Luther and the twelve personalities,’ Lin Sanjiu thought inwardly.
“I’ve too many questions.” This was the truth. Lin Sanjiu’s mind was filled with so many doubts and questions that she did not know where to start. After she combed through everything in her mind, only then she began to ask, “Right now, how many personalities have formed?”
However, she did not expect Septimus to give her the cold shoulder.
“I don’t know.” He cast a glance at her. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m telling the truth. I really don’t know.”
“How is that possible?” Lin Sanjiu stopped walking, her face livid with rage. “Aren’t you all going to stay beside Luther all the time?”
“Yes, but that was only in the initial stage of the splitting. Take me and Marcie, who you met at Hyperthermal Hell, for instance. As personalities that have just been formed, we can’t stay too far away from the main body. Otherwise, we will be forcibly ‘reclaimed’ back. I guess you should know very well about this, don’t you?”
Septimus slowed down and stayed about five steps away from Lin Sanjiu. They walked shoulder to shoulder under the moonlight and the hovering streetlight. “Now, I’m going to tell you something you don’t know. During the later stage of splitting, we are largely unaffected by distance. So long as all of us are in the same world, a soon-to-mature personality is completely free to move based on our own will. There are only three circumstances under which we will return to the main body: Luther decides to call us back, we decide to return on our own, and world leaping.”
“What if you die?”
“Then, we will disappear,” Septimus answered with a nonchalant smile, “Even though we are personalities, we are just like all the humans. We only have one life. Of course, once one of the personalities dies, the main body, Luther, will suffer some damage.”
“So, are you telling me that since you all don’t need to stay beside Luther, you don’t know how many personalities have formed?”
“Bingo.”
A question rose in Lin Sanjiu’s heart, but she could not reveal what she was wondering. Besides that, there was one question that preceded all the others. “Tell me, where can I find Luther and Marcie?”
