Ch46 - “It’ll definitely be in the top three of all pollutants in China.”

After spending a whole day examining Lin Hao’s office, classroom, and dorm, and then making the only living person in the school other than himself walk a whole hundred meters away from the school…

Xiao Jinyu was extremely sure that this logic skill had nothing to do with users. 

Xiao Jinyu’s first reaction to a logic skill that had completely isolated itself from a user was that it was an out-of-control logic skill.

But what he didn’t know was whether or not an out-of-control logic skill had an effective period. Such as, at the moment of the logic skill going out of control, would all users and ordinary people be polluted or will there be a break before it starts polluting.

He hadn’t even asked the question yet before the man on the other end of the phone answered—

23 days. 

…Su Jiuzhou knew what he was thinking.

In the evening breeze, Xiao Jinyu pulled on the soft scarf around his neck and spoke into the phone with a soft, yet very calm voice: “I roughly understand what you mean. Colonel Su, for the time being, I’ll assume that logic skills are… conscious beings. Is this assumption alright?”

“Yes.”

Xiao Jinyu lowered his eyes.

Surprisingly, Su Jiuzhou didn’t refute his assumption.

He kept quiet for a second before he continued explaining: “Then, when these logic skill creatures are with a user, the two are able to peacefully coexist. But once it goes out-of-control, it will leave the user. If it is willing to, it will contaminate all humans the moment it does go out-of-control; But it can also choose to conceal itself and wait until it cannot hold itself back, when it must ‘absorb nutrients’, to contaminate humans, so that these polluters can hunt other humans down and gain nutrients from them.”

The phone made Su Jiuzhou’s voice sound slightly muffled, yet he still sounded firm: “No.”

Xiao Jinyu froze. 

Su Jiuzhou had a hint of a smile in his voice yet was still very patient as he explained: “The capital’s Logic Research Institute had already done experiments on out-of-control logic skills before. The moment that the logic skill leaves the user, the user is immediately contaminated and turned into a polluter. But other than that user, their logic skill can choose to not contaminate other humans.”

He paused and added: “You can think of the period after a logic skill goes out-of-control as two separate phases: controlled and uncontrolled. Out-of-control logic skills that are still within their survival period are controllable, they can choose to contaminate humans or not to. Once they go past that period, they will then lose all reason and uncontrollably contaminate humans. In addition, the logic skill’s owner is contaminated during a special uncontrolled period. This is also part of the uncontrolled category. At the moment the logic skill goes out-of-control, it is unable to control itself so its owner is always contaminated.

“There are only two conditions under which the logic skill will lose control of itself and be forced to contaminate humans—

“First, it goes past its survival period and it must contaminate humans and force its polluters to kill humans for it to absorb nutrients. 

“Second, that human is its owner.”

His eyes slowly closed and his mind moved quickly. He thought of all the weird logic skills he had seen in the past two weeks and of what he had heard from Qi Simin and Xu Qi about polluters and out-of-control logic skills. And of that, his mind quickly conjured up a sentence from them that mentioned a key relationship between out-of-control logic skills and its polluters.

The next second, he opened his eyes.

Xiao Jinyu remained calm: “Colonel Su, you just said that the longest survival period for an out-of-control logic skill is twenty three days?” 

“Yes, twenty three days.”

Xiao Jinyu replied without thinking: “But this is a theoretical number derived from lab observations.” This implied that the period can be longer, but it wasn’t observed for that entire time.

However.

As if he had already predicted that he would come up with this question, Su Jiuzhou replied immediately: “The logic skill that lasted 23 days was a level five user. His previous ranking was A09.” 

Xiao Jinyu suddenly fell silent.

In just a few words, he seemed to have learned another important piece of information: According to Su Jiuzhou meaning, an out-of-control logic skill’s survival period is seemingly related to its ranking.

The higher the ranking, the stronger the logic skill and therefore, the longer it’s survival period.

Then… 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

He raised his eyes. The youth looked in the direction of the school’s gates, where a young teacher was quickly running towards him.

Wljb Alcse: “Ktfc ktja kf cffv ab vb olgra, lr ab mbcolgw ktfatfg atf ibulm rxlii atja lr reggbecvlcu atlr rmtbbi lr jc bea-bo-mbcagbi ibulm rxlii. Ciatbeut, gluta cbk, kf vbc’a xcbk kts la xliifv Olc Ljb yea vlvc’a xlii jcsbcf firf. Dea atfgf lr ralii atf qbrrlylilas atja la mjc yf jc bea-bo-mbcagbi ibulm rxlii atja lr ralii lc lar regnlnji qfglbv.”

November 5th, Lin Hao went to the hospital for a check up and found that all the cancer cells in his body disappeared.

November 15th, Lin Hao suddenly died. 

From the fifth until now, a full twenty two days have passed. It just so happened to be within the twenty three day limit.

Truthfully, Xiao Jinyu knew that twenty two was an impossible number. A logic skill that could last twenty two days was at least a level five user’s level. But lately, no level five users have disappeared from the A rank leaderboard—

Three days after a user dies, the APP will automatically remove the user’s name from the leaderboard.

As of right now, no level five users have died in China. 

If this logic skill can last twenty two days without contaminating any humans, then it can only be the logic skill of a foreigner.

This possibility was very low, but it wasn’t impossible. And what he needed to do now was to eliminate this possibility and find the answer.

Teacher Zhong huffed as he ran towards the fifth building. Xiao Jinyu looked in the direction of his silhouette and seeing that he was getting closer, Xiao Jinyu suddenly said: “What if this isn’t an out-of-control logic skill?”

Su Jiuzhou slightly paused. 

Xiao Jinyu immediately thought in that direction and quickly said: “It’s not a logic skill and I can’t see any logic factors. In this world, other than out-of-control logic skills that are logic skills that operate without a relationship with a human, are pollutants…” As soon as he said that, Xiao Jinyu immediately stopped talking.

That’s not right.

Suppose it was a pollutant. A pollutant has no legs so it cannot move, so it won’t be like out-of-control logic skills and hide itself.

He didn’t see a single logic factor in this school, not to mention the black contamination factors. 

This cannot be a pollutant.

Every pollutant will release contamination factors, which are not controlled by the pollutant. It’s bound to contaminate humans all day. But not a single polluter has appeared from Kangxin Middle School. And Lin Hao wasn’t a polluter either.

And if Lin Hao really was affected by a pollutant, causing all the cancer cells to disappear, then this pollutant has to be something he came into contact with often. And just now, he checked all of Lin Hao’s belongings and found no abnormalities.

Unless he can’t see the pollutant’s contamination factors. 

…

Wait!

His eyes widened.

Xiao Jinyu clenched his phone. 

“Soil?”

“Breath of life?”

The two men’s voices sounded at once.

Xiao Jinyu’s mouth moved. 

Over the phone, Su Jiuzhou slightly smiled: “Yes, breath of life.”

At the same time, Zhong Xiao had run back from the plaza. Before he hung up, Xiao Jinyu quietly said: “As for whether it’s an out-of-control logic skill, I’ll investigate myself. But if there really is a pollutant buried underneath this school… Colonel Su, I’ll have to trouble you to help.”

…

Xiao Jinyu hung up the phone and then looked up just as Zhong Xiao arrived in front of him. 

Despite being busy from the morning to late night, Zhong Xiao hadn’t shown a single trace of annoyance. He asked politely: “Mr. Xiao, how is it? Is there anything else you need me to do?”

Xiao Jinyu nodded: “There is another thing I need Teacher Zhong’s help with.”

Zhong Xiao froze.

There’s more? 

He just asked out of politeness…

He originally thought that this Mr. Xiao was going to make him run around and do some weird things again. But who would have thought that this young man just looked at him and didn’t ask for anything weird, just looked at him seriously and asked: “Teacher Zhong, I want to ask if there have been any other strange incidents at this school other than Lin Hao.”

Zhong Xiao said in surprise: “Strange incidents? Uh, I don’t know what Mr. Xiao is talking about. Our school has a lot of schoolyard tales, some you might know. Students always like to tell scary ghost stories, but I can promise you that none of them really happened. For example, there’s a rumor that Kangxin Middle used to be a crematorium, but it’s not, it really was just an orphanage.”

Xiao Jinyu’s eyes were calm: “No, what I mean by strange incidents, are those that are related to physical health.” 

The cancer cells in Lin Hao’s body had suddenly disappeared and it must have had something to do with that mysterious logic skill. If Kangxin Middle School had other people that had special reactions, then it must be related to physical health.

Zhong Xiao thought for a long time and eventually shook his head: “There really isn’t any. Mr. Xiao, in October of last year, after Teacher Lin discovered he had cancer, our entire school paid heavy attention to it, even raising money for him, in addition to having all 187 of our teachers go for a full physical examination. The teachers in our school are all very healthy, none of them even have common diseases such as high blood pressure.”

There aren’t even any strange incidents in this regard?

Xiao Jinyu thought for a moment and then asked: “It doesn’t even have to be as serious as cancer, even those that are slightly strange are fine…” 

His voice slowly stopped.

Xiao Jinyu’s expression was strange when he asked: “Teacher Zhong, you just said that all 187 of your school’s teachers are extremely healthy?”

Zhong Xiao was confused as he nodded: “Yeah.”

“187 people?” 

“Yes, 187 teachers.”

Xiao Jinyu pursed his lips: “Other than teachers, of your students, how’s their physical health?”

Zhong Xiao: “Huh?” He carefully recalled: “I was a teacher in the academic affairs department, but other than that, I also teach year one geography. In my memories, I’ve taught four classes, yet I’ve never seen a student ask for a sick day…” His voice also stopped.

Xiao Jinyu: “Teacher Zhong?” 

Zhong Xiao moved slowly, as if someone had pressed the slow-mo button. But he raised his head and looked at Xiao Jinyu, his voice hoarse: “Mr. Xiao, I have been teaching at Kangxin Middle School for five years and none of my students have ever taken sick leave, not a single one of them have had a cold or a fever…”

Xiao Jinyu’s expression slowly became heavy: “Teacher Zhong, please organize the physical condition of all the students in Kangxin Middle School, we need this information very much!”

Zhong Xiao came back to his senses: “Yes!”

*** 

Outside of Kangxin Middle School.

The moonlight was soft yet bright as it illuminated the area outside of a small alley, making the alley appear narrow and dark.

The man hung up the phone and his straight, thin eyebrows slightly raised. Su Jiuzhou looked towards the silent school shrouded by the moonlight.

The night breeze blew through the thick layer of creepers, making a slight sound. 

Now they were sure that the mysterious logic skill hidden in Kangxin Middle School only had a 1% chance of belonging to an out-of-control logic skill; And the remaining 99% chance of belonging to a pollutant buried underneath the ground.

He originally wanted Xiao Jinyu to complete this task in order to see if the other party could find any logic factors in the air. If there really was an out-of-control logic skill that could last twenty two days, then this matter would become extremely tricky; that logic skill wasn’t awakened in China, so the logic skill wouldn’t be included in the APP.

There are two situations for catching an out-of-control logic skill, the most difficult one is that the logic skill is still within the survival period.

To catch it is very, very difficult… 

Su Jiuzhou stuck both of his hands in his pockets, his lips slightly raised, expression full of helplessness.

However, if it was a pollutant, then it would be a lot easier to catch. As long as the pollutant is enclosed in the breath of life, then they would be able to successfully retrieve it. He also wished it was a pollutant. For it to be able to affect his logic factors, to make them collapse even more violently—

Since it could increase the speed of them collapsing, then perhaps they could research it and find out how to slow down the speed of logic factors collapsing.

Su Jiuzhou smiled. 

Just now, he called Wang Tao and asked him to immediately send excavators to dig up the ground of Kangxin Middle School. This school wasn’t very big, and with the work of ten excavators, they’ll definitely be finished by dawn.

As he was thinking this, in the dark and narrow alley, a phone suddenly rang.

Su Jiuzhou answered his phone.

Xiao Jinyu’s cold and calm voice sounded from the other end: “Colonel Su, I confirmed just now that this cannot be an out-of-control logic skill.” 

The lights in his eyes gradually disappeared. Su Jiuzhou: “How?”

Xiao Jinyu: “Because it’s not twenty two days, nor is it twenty three. It’s not even a hundred or two hundred days… It’s three years! And three years as far as we know because the health records for the school are only kept for three years. All records before that were all destroyed.”

Su Jiuzhou’s eyes narrowed: “What do you mean by three years?”

XIao Jinyu’s voice became firm: “My meaning is that in the past three years, of the 1,986 students in Kangxin Middle School, only three students had taken sick leave because they caught a cold. Only one person left the school because of congenital heart disease. In addition, after adding the 187 teachers, all 2,174 people in Kangxin Middle School are extremely healthy! 

“Colonel Su, if this was an out-of-control logic skill, then it’s survival period is at least three years! A09’s survival period was twenty three days. As for what kind of logic skill has a survival period of three years… I think that even A01 won’t be enough.

“So, it can only be a pollutant. But this pollutant has affected at least 2,174 people and lasted for over three years..

“Colonel Su, it’s very powerful, it’s very, very powerful. I’ve only seen one powerful pollutant before, Pollutant 008. After it started singing, the tens of thousands of people in Zhongdu were all affected. Their bodies’ speed was a tenth of their original speed. I feel that the pollutant at Kangxin Middle School… isn’t any weaker than Pollutant 008.”

After finishing his speculation, Xiao Jinyu’s face was calm. He had long asked Zhong Xiao to leave the school to prevent the teacher from being contaminated by the mysterious pollutant. Yet he himself stayed. 

Su Jiuzhou was unable to enter the school, so he must stay there to wait for the help from the User Committee.

He didn’t receive a response from the other party for a long time.

Xiao Jinyu: “…Colonel Su?”

“It’s not ‘not weaker than Pollutant 008.’” Su Jiuzhou’s voice sounded.

Xiao Jinyu froze.

“Xiao Jinyu, if it really affected over two thousand people and directly changed their physical health for over three years…

“Then it will definitely be in the top three of all pollutants.”