Chapter Thirty-Two: Lacking the Ability

Gongsun Ce took off his glasses, massaged his brow, and methodically dismissed the countless ideas flooding his mind, knocking them out of the field of thought one by one, leaving only the few he deemed most plausible.

The gray-haired youth asked solemnly, "Has the MP3 file taken on a life of its own?"

The eldest brother folded his hands beneath his chin and spoke in a low voice, "You’re right, Ce. Our city is exposed to the gaze of countless musical phantoms. They will inevitably use melodies to dominate those with supernatural abilities, turning us into wretches who can’t survive without listening to tacky hits. After thorough deliberation, the organization has decided to entrust you with the mission to save the world!"

The information broker rummaged through his drawer and produced a palm-sized speaker, a gift from his last fried chicken delivery.

"Seek out ten small speakers to extinguish the phantoms. Defeat all the musical ghosts and uphold world peace!"

The psychic quickly stood up. "With this heavy task upon me, I am moved to tears, and will fight with all my strength to defend the skies!"

The overweight youth nodded slightly and said to his junior, "Are you really this silly? You’re in college, yet you’re still playing this game."

"You started it, and I went along so well—aren’t you going to thank me?"

Mo Yuankai shook his head helplessly. "Who started the jokes first?"

"I think the idea of MP3 files becoming sentient is quite reasonable," Gongsun Ce explained, counting off his fingers. "Qiluo started out as a song. But what is a song? A sequence of sounds arranged in a specific order; essentially, a stretch of sound with a certain amount of information. An informational lifeform has no physical body, and only an unlucky fellow like me can see her, so I couldn’t use my abilities to interact with her at first. From our conversations, she obtained the necessary information to condense the intangible into reality! As a song’s information content increases, the power of the MP3 file grows as well—doesn’t that make sense?"

Gongsun Ce, full of enthusiasm, was ready to offer a few more prank theories—for instance, that Qiluo’s curiosity about his daily life meant the music wanted intel to become more human; Qiluo’s lack of common sense was because songs inherently lack human common sense; Qiluo disappearing meant she reverted to her musical form...

He didn’t get to finish these thoughts, because he caught sight of his elder brother’s expression.

The psychic put his glasses back on and muttered, "...I was joking."

"I know. But Ce, don’t you think your explanations sound quite convincing?"

He did think so. Anyone would find them convincing, because they were all arguments constructed backwards from the conclusion. No matter how plausible they sounded, they were still forced and contrived. He could just as easily argue that Shiyu Ling and Alice from the storybook were one and the same, providing a string of seamless proofs—yet all of it would be useless, for everyone knew it was impossible.

"I could use cognitive interference to explain these phenomena as well... except for the initial incident where my abilities were ineffective."

Mo Yuankai picked up the remote and pressed it a few times; the big screen began playing surveillance footage.

"If it had been before this morning, I’d have found it absurd too. But I checked the cameras when I got home just now."

Gongsun Ce stared at the pink-haired female courier in the footage, watching her weave recklessly through traffic on her electric scooter—hair-raising maneuvers, yet she remained completely unharmed, as if protected by some divine force.

His mouth dropped open wider and wider.

When he saw the long-haired rider and the schoolgirl chasing her, his jaw could no longer close.

"Ignore those two for now, and focus on Qiluo."

He opened his mouth. "I’m watching."

The elder brother posed a question, like a diligent teacher calling on a lucky student who happened to pick the right answer. "Explain, Ce. Using cognitive interference, how can anyone drive like that?"

"...Maybe Qiluo was a hidden master driver before losing her memory."

Even he didn’t believe this far-fetched excuse.

The elder brother brought up another video—several people arguing in front of a cinema. Before Mo Yuankai could speak, Gongsun Ce volunteered, "That’s me, Qin Qianbai, and Qiluo. Qin Qianbai and I are wearing teddy bear costumes; Qiluo isn’t."

The information broker, brimming with schadenfreude, said, "What I see is all three of you wearing bear costumes."

Gongsun Ce immediately understood why the young lady had been angry.

He clutched his head in despair and shouted, "Yan Qi got me into trouble!"

"You really love pinning the blame on Mr. Yan."

"If not for him, I wouldn’t be seeing different things!"

"If there was no Nether Child, you couldn’t see Qiluo at all."

Gongsun Ce groaned, "I... sigh! Is she truly an informational lifeform? Is her ability’s priority so high that only the Nether Child can see through it? But that doesn’t explain the bear transformation—it’s the same cognitive distortion as before."

If he followed his earlier MP3-lifeform prank theory, even the wild driving could be explained: she acquired information from her surroundings, analyzed the situation at high speed, and planned the optimal route—like the most advanced self-driving AI! But this theory couldn’t explain how she turned into a "nonexistent" bear; that was back in the realm of cognitive distortion...

The elder brother suddenly asked, "What is cognition, Ce?"

"Cognition is the subjective process of understanding objective existence; it’s how humans process information from the outside world and convert it into mental activity..."

The gray-haired youth’s explanation slowed.

"You’ve made it clear. Cognition is how people process external information."

He understood what his elder brother meant.

"If someone could tamper with the information itself, what would humans who perceive erroneous information see?"

Human understanding and cognition are built upon information obtained through observation. If the observer receives information that is fundamentally false, then the knowledge gained from processing it can never be true.

Gongsun Ce fell silent, thinking deeply about everything Qiluo had done so far.

He reached a definite conclusion.

"This ability can’t truly affect reality—the evidence is that I can see through her real form."

"It can," Mo Yuankai shook his head. "There’s a method that lets her effortlessly use her powers to influence the real world."

Manipulating information, distorting information—the greatest scope for this ability is...

They all looked at the computer on the table.

"The omnipresent information network," declared the genius hacker and information broker. "If Qiluo can fully use her ability, she’d be the greatest hacker in the world. Even if Cecil and I teamed up, we couldn’t catch her."

He knew the broker wouldn’t say anything meaningless at a time like this.

They had just encountered an incident recently, where a hacker was causing trouble behind the scenes.

"...How many people ‘escaped’ today?"

"The big sister covering your shift is exhausted. Just this morning, there were six cases—all middle or high school students. The plans were still crude, but more feasible than before. No trace of the mastermind."

"You suspect Qiluo."

Mo Yuankai nodded decisively. "Just a suspicion. The intelligence shown in those plans matches your description of her perfectly. I can’t think of another super hacker who’s both clueless and clever."

He had to admit, it sounded exactly like something Qiluo would do. He could almost picture the child hopping in place, shouting, "Gongsun Ce, listen to me! This city is dangerous—we need to escape as soon as possible!"

But what’s the motive? Has she learned some secret information? And how? Making plans and gathering intel take time and equipment. Did Qiluo sneak out for reconnaissance while everyone was asleep at night? It’s not impossible. As for equipment, Qin Qianbai’s home has a computer...

He could see through Qiluo’s disguises, but couldn’t monitor her around the clock. Once she left his sight, she could do whatever she pleased.

"The three of them left together, and are probably still together. Brother, bring up the live feed—I want to see."

Mo Yuankai tapped his phone a few times; the big screen switched to a recording from inside a private room.

On the karaoke screen played a bizarre music video, with several abstract-looking chefs energetically preparing food by hand. The pink-haired girl they were watching stood in the center of the room.

Qiluo wore a plush costume that made her look delicious—a giant sushi roll with a face and limbs. Holding the microphone in one hand, she sang with exuberant delight—

"I want to eat sushi!?"

The girl sang and danced with the sushi chefs in the music video, her energy almost bursting through the screen into reality: "I want to eat sushi!?"

Two girls sat expressionless on the sofa, identical to the other two girls in the room.

"Want to eat sushi till you’re full? Sometimes craving pizza? But ultimately, still want sushi!?"

"Hey!" Qiluo clapped with a smile. "Join in!"

Kaldacia suddenly stood up, jumped over the central table, grabbed another microphone, and shouted as if venting, "I want to eat sushi! Even if it’s the end of the world!"

Qin Miss watched a while, picked up the room phone, and said, "Hello, I’d like a sushi platter."

Oh, the sushi platter arrived quickly! She used chopsticks to pick up sushi... She ate sushi! Two pieces in one go!

"No sushi, no life~" The two holding microphones kept singing. By the time they finished the song, the girl on the sofa had polished off the whole platter.

"Qin Qianbai, you should sing too~"

"Little Qian! Try it, it’s really satisfying for venting!"

Faced with their encouragement, Qin Qianbai seemed hesitant. Then the playlist switched to the next song! Judging by the video, it was the Miso Ramen Song!

Gongsun Ce pressed the power button.

The two of them gazed at the now-black screen in silence, as if they had glimpsed the true nature of the universe.

"...I saw her in a sushi costume singing the sushi song."

"In my eyes, Qiluo wasn’t wearing a sushi costume," Gongsun Ce denied part of the scene. "But yes, she was singing the sushi song."

Mo Yuankai fell silent.

"I believe that human thought divides into rational and emotional. From rationality, I completely agree with your hypothesis, brother. From emotion..."

The gray-haired youth rubbed his forehead.

"I just don’t think this silly kid has so many schemes."

The information broker stared at the ceiling. "Now I want sushi."

"If you want it, just order—wait, if she actually pulled that off, I’ll eat this remote right now. It’s too absurd! Even Orianna back in the day had more cunning than her!"

He recalled the golden-haired, silver-armored knight, who was introverted, and he used to tease her about it. But even before her awakening, the young knight was nowhere near as carefree as this.

The elder brother ordered sushi delivery and said, "For now, let’s keep the possibility open. Then think about other explanations."

"Even if you say that..." The gray-haired youth felt helpless. With so few clues, what more could he do?

Investigating Qiluo’s origins and her pre-amnesia identity could be one avenue, but he suspected it had little to do with the black hand luring the children to ‘escape’. He needed to consider other leads—had anyone else noticed something he’d overlooked?

Who had he discussed this with? Brother, Miss Qin, Shiyu, Kaldacia, Yan Qi...

How did Yan Qi phrase it?

—"You only saw me in this room, right?"

—"Are you sure there have always been just the two of us here?"

He’d repeated the same question twice—once before knowing about Qiluo, once after.

The middle-aged painter was an infuriating riddler. Riddlers have two reasons: either they don’t fully understand themselves, or some things are unsuitable for direct speech.

Was it the first, or the second? Maybe both.

How many people were in the room?

If he could see through reality, and thought about the question from that angle...

Gongsun Ce once again replayed everything he knew about the case, starting from his job at the airport before meeting Qiluo.

Vaguely, he had another idea. A theory with no evidence—not something to hint at, much less to speak aloud.

He turned instead to the information he ought to be curious about.

"Brother, what was the result of the voiceprint analysis?"

Mo Yuankai explained the results in detail. After listening, the gray-haired youth felt even more unsettled. If he traced Qiluo’s identity, they’d come into contact with another force in the city. It made logical sense, yet the sense of discord wouldn’t leave him.

They discussed Qiluo’s identity for a while longer, and reached a roughly certain conclusion. By the time they finished, the sushi delivery had arrived.

"It’s all too chaotic. I’ll head home first and see if there’s any reply."

Mo Yuankai was unpacking the sushi box. "Not going to the lab? Even the Dawn Knight couldn’t help you sort this out, no matter how clever she is."

If he could, he wouldn’t be so eager.

Once he read the replies, he’d have an ‘excuse’ to visit Yan Qi on the mountain... but best not to mention that yet.

"No, I’m not going. Dealing with the lab coat crew on their turf would turn even a peaceful matter into a fight," the gray-haired youth replied with a grimace. "Besides, you’re underestimating her. If she were here, she’d probably sort everything out before the afternoon was over."

Meanwhile, he himself had spent so much time and still couldn’t see the whole picture.

"True, you know her best." The overweight youth tossed him a piece of sushi. "Eat some sushi and get going."

Gongsun Ce caught the salmon sushi with telekinesis, popped it in his mouth, and mumbled a half-swallowed lyric.

"I want to eat sushi~"