Light Barrier - Chapter 25: Cat Talk

Following the usual protocol, the Adjudication Bureau assessed newcomers based on four main aspects.

Strength, speed, mental power, and control.

This fifteen-day special training revolved around enhancing these four aspects. Nan Jin was in charge of strength, Zhong Wei was in charge of speed, and Senior Sister Luo was in charge of mental power and control, which corresponded to the transcendental characteristics of the three of them.

…

“I’m back.”

Late at night, half past eleven.

Exhausted after a day of training, Gu Shen returned to his apartment, pushed open the door weakly, and leaned against the wall to steady himself.

The special training today was too brutal.

After the Jingzhe Dream ended, Nan Jin had dragged Gu Shen to a boxing ring. It was nominally for strength training, but in reality, it had been a beating session. Nan Jin was a top expert in melee combat and proficient at targeting vital points. She had tortured him in all kinds of ways. Gu Shen had been like a sandbag being pummeled relentlessly, beaten until he was black and blue, barely clinging to enough consciousness to still stand.

This wicked woman had drilled him for a full six hours… And the intermittent rests in between had amounted to less than twenty minutes.

These six hours had felt like a century.

So much so that Gu Shen’s legs had been constantly trembling on the way back.

“Meow.” The moment the orange cat heard Gu Shen’s voice, it meowed happily and trotted out of the room.

“Here, food.” Gu Shen wasn’t in the mood to pay attention to this silly cat. He opened a large bag of cat food, tossed it to a corner, and went to wash up.

Then he collapsed on his bed, bone-tired.

His entire body felt like it was falling apart. It was hard to imagine that, according to Nan Jin, this was just the so-called ‘appetizer’ and ‘warm-up exercise’.

How terrifying would tomorrow’s training be?

In fact, Gu Shen wasn’t afraid or timid. On the contrary, in the boxing ring today, every time he was knocked down, he would immediately get back up.

Getting back up wasn’t about showing off but because he didn’t want to stay down.

He let out a deep breath.

Gu Shen stopped dwelling on this matter. He stretched out his hands and looked at the calluses on his palms in satisfaction.

Today’s training was very fruitful.

He was already beginning to get used to using Jingzhe to replace normal breathing, and every breath took away a third of his mental fatigue.

Oftentimes, only in extremely quiet and limited spaces would Gu Shen feel that he was real…

Like now.

There was not a single sound in the sealed room.

Not even the sound of wind.

Gu Shen slowly closed his eyes and drifted asleep. The experiences of the past few days flashed through his mind.

Real yet surreal.

He didn’t know when, but at some point, he had pushed open the door to the transcendental world.

There was a sense of unease in Gu Shen’s heart, as though something was missing. He reached out a hand and felt around under the pillow. After touching the Ruler of Truth, he felt much more at ease.

Hmm… I’m relieved now.

In the future, it’s probably better to bring the Ruler of Truth when I go out, just in case anything happens. After all, I was even lucky enough to encounter A-009 on a train, so anything could happen.

“The feeling of comprehending the Jingzhe Breathing Technique… How is it?”

Orange, the cat, tiptoed to the bed and jumped onto it, its eyes shining.

Chu Ling was online.

Gu Shen rubbed his chin and thought for a moment. “This breathing technique is very powerful. I feel lighter than ever.”

“This is only the beginning. Your good days are coming,” Chu Ling said. “But you need to be careful these days. Someone has their eyes on you.”

Gu Shen immediately became alert. “Is someone… targeting me?”

“Yes. This person is named Han Dang.” The orange cat licked her paws, came to Gu Shen’s side, and raised her paws. The bedroom projector automatically turned on, displaying file after file in the blue light.

From an unknown distance away, Chu Ling was controlling the system here to display Han Dang’s information.

Gu Shen frowned.

He had already vaguely guessed that there were conflicts and differences within the Adjudication Bureau.

At the end of his previous interrogation, Chief Justice Yan Shicheng of Azure River had mentioned a name.

Zhu Wang!

At the time, he felt that there would be some twists and turns in the future.

“Han Dang is Zhu Wang’s disciple, and his status and strength are comparable to Senior Sister Luo’s. He’s also a mental-type transcendent.”

In the depths of the Deep Sea archives, Chu Ling retrieved all the information about Han Dang, from his date of birth to his honors and medals… After skimming through it, Gu Shen clicked his tongue in wonder.

This man named Han Dang had an outstanding record and was indeed a dazzling new star in the Adjudication Bureau’s younger generation.

He was truly worthy of being the equal of Senior Sister Luo.

When Gu Shen saw the latest information about Han Dang’s actions, things instantly became clear to him.

All his sleepiness was gone.

“He came to Oto City and immediately went to the old building to investigate the fire…” Gu Shen sat up, his fatigue vanishing from his body. He quickly skimmed through the electronic files. From a distant cloud server, a packaged video was still uploading.

He knew very well that mental-type transcendents could often develop the ability of Profile, and the top-tier ones like Senior Sister Luo could even Profile the circumstances of the fire a day after it happened.

Senior Sister Luo had used her transcendental methods to restore the scene and had nearly seen through the Ruler of Truth.

This person named Han Dang was the number one disciple of Mr. Tree’s long-standing adversary. It was self-evident why he came to Oto City.

He’s coming for me! He’s here to investigate the fire and my transcendental ability!

“This is a segment of the action video I captured.”

The video from the cloud was downloaded and immediately started playing.

In the video, amidst hazy, swirling dust, Gu Shen saw the scene of a helicopter arriving at the sight of the fire. The following scene was truly heart-stopping. After Han Dang fell from the sky, all the guards immediately prepared to attack. But for some reason, they all stood frozen in a daze and abandoned their weapons like puppets.

“Were these people hypnotized?” Gu Shen still had lingering fear when he recalled what happened in the afternoon.

Facing Senior Sister Luo’s Dream Induction, he had no ability to resist. Without exception, the guards at the fire scene had all been suppressed by Han Dang’s transcendental power.

“He went to the old building to investigate. Due to the lack of surveillance  cameras, I don’t know what happened inside.” Chu Ling’s tone was still calm. “Fifteen minutes later, Han Dang erased the memories of these people.”

“This is too terrifying…” After watching the video, Gu Shen asked fearfully, “Han Dang’s transcendental power can manipulate people’s minds so easily. Who can be his match?”

“Han Dang is indeed formidable.” Chu Ling paused for a moment. “But perhaps… he’s not as powerful as you imagine. Without a doubt, only a transcendent can defeat a transcendent. But no one is perfect. Everyone has a weakness, and in life-and-death battles, this weakness is a fatal flaw.”

Gu Shen noticed an extremely eye-catching red document among the retrieved files. Is this a classified file on Han Dang?

Curious, Gu Shen moved the cursor to hover over it and clicked.

Instead of opening this file, a warning prompt popped up.

Then garbled characters appeared.

Finally, the screen was filled with a large red cross and two bold words.

[Insufficient permissions.]

Gu Shen was stunned.

All along, he had always thought that Chu Ling was omnipotent. Connecting to Deep Sea’s authority, providing amazing monitoring, analyzing real-time data, planning strategic deployments… This was simply another Deep Sea with the highest authority.

But this time, she hit a wall.

“You seem surprised?” The orange cat licked her paws calmly. “I don’t think I’ve ever said I can do anything.”

“Yes…” Gu Shen said instinctively, “But… this is just Han Dang’s file…”

“You’re thinking that this is just Han Dang’s file. But above him, there’s still Zhu Wang, the sitting members of the East Continent Parliament, and even higher…” The orange cat turned her head. “I’m not omnipotent. There are still many things I can’t do now, but perhaps I’ll be able to do them in the future.”

Then she suddenly asked, “If I could open the file of the President of the Five Continents now, would you want to take a look?”

“I’d want to… but I wouldn’t dare. I don’t have enough heads to lose.” Gu Shen understood the sarcasm and immediately cowered. “Have I unknowingly boarded a pirate ship?”

It’s really ironic. I was the one who advised Chu Ling not to do illegal things in the first place. But now, I’m the one used to the conveniences.

“Have you unknowingly boarded a pirate ship? Do you want to back out now?” the orange cat suggested seriously. “If you back out now, you might only get life imprisonment. But if you’re caught later, it will be the death penalty.”

“Bah. What kind of unlucky words are you saying?” Gu Shen raised the orange cat in all seriousness. “We’re good and upright young people, and we have never done anything that violates the law… As long as we’re not caught, who will know?”

The orange cat felt a bit uncomfortable being lifted.

She struggled in protest.

But it was fruitless.

So she gave up.

“In short, you need to be aware that people are watching us, so you have to be vigilant at all times.” Chu Ling sighed. “That guy named Han Dang isn’t easy to deal with. He came all the way to Oto City likely to sabotage your assessment so that he can make use of the pardon order to launch an attack and overthrow Zhou Jiren.”

Gu Shen fell into thought.

“The worst-case scenario is that he used Profile and captured the existence of the ruler and began to suspect your transcendental ability. If you come into contact with him in the future, he will definitely test you. You have to think of a good countermeasure.”

The orange cat wagged her tail, and the light in her eyes slowly faded away.

“Okay, I’m tired. If there’s nothing else, I’m leaving.”

A meow startled Gu Shen out of his contemplation.

Halfway through, Orange suddenly found itself being held in the air. It was first shocked and then furious. With a low growl, it hugged Gu Shen’s face and released a burst of yellow fumes before swaggering away angrily.

Translation Note: I forgot to mention something in a previous chapter. The author doesn’t really specify the gender of the cat and uses it, but there’s no pronoun for when Chu Ling is in control, so to differentiate, I’m using she/her when ‘Chu Ling is online’.