DDT - Chapter 142

Chapter 142: Interstellar ABO (27)

The first thing that came into view on the second floor was a small entranceway. On a sandalwood-colored cabinet sat several pairs of shoes with slightly flawed workmanship. Chi Junluo hadn't seen any shoes like these during her time in this world. Compared to the multi-functional footwear of this interstellar world, these ordinary, functionless shoes, which looked like somewhat crude handmade products, seemed like pointless toys, because no one would choose to put such things on their feet. The shoes and the logos on them looked so familiar. She reached out and picked up a pair of white sneakers. The laces were neatly wound around the shoes, and the soles showed clear signs of wear. Onitsuka Tiger. It was her favorite brand back in her own world. The logo on the shoe even had a layer of flocking that was very comfortable to the touch.

She had frozen for a moment earlier because she had been gradually forgetting the memories of her original world. But these few pairs of shoes, so out of place in this world, had violently dragged her fading memories back to the surface. She stood there blankly for several minutes, holding the shoe, the light blue floor tiles beneath her feet also stirring her memories.

She put the shoe down, rounded the entranceway, and then stopped at the doorway to the living room. On the ceiling was the same large, flat, square ceiling light from her memory, a ring of warm yellow light surrounding a less glaring white light in the center.

The ceiling was patterned with light blue squares, and fine, delicate lines divided it into sections of varying sizes, making it look neither monotonous nor messy. Several picture frames hung on the walls. Inside were what appeared to be hand-drawn pictures with somewhat mottled backgrounds. The figures in the paintings wore clothes from her era in her original world. What was different from her memory was that none of these people had facial features.

Back when Chi Junluo was still in her original world, she had worked desperately hard. She needed money, needed the sense of security to establish herself in that world. And she had achieved it, climbing her way up at Yi Corporation. Her salary grew, and with her frugal lifestyle, so did her savings. In her final year, she finally bought a small apartment. It was tiny, but in a metropolis where every inch of land was gold, it had cost nearly all her savings. She had spent a great deal of time and poured a lot of energy into this small apartment that belonged to her alone. The decor, the paint on the walls, the choice of floor tiles, every single light fixture, big or small, and every piece of furniture, large or small—she had compared many options before settling on each one. The placement of every piece of furniture was something she had designed bit by bit.

After the smells of new construction had dissipated, she lived in this small apartment of hers for nearly a year. Though the apartment wasn't large, it was truly warm and gave her a sense of security she had never had before.

She remembered every detail of the apartment with perfect clarity, even how many of the small succulents on the windowsill had bloomed after a year. She remembered it all clearly, until she was forced into a desperate situation, met the Heavenly Dao, and began traveling through different, bizarre worlds to collect the soul fragments of that world's heroine and the Power of the Heavenly Dao that it had lost.

If she hadn't seen this second floor, a near one-to-one replica of her original home, she might not have deliberately tried to recall the small, warm apartment that had once given her so much comfort.

A light gray sofa, a low-legged coffee table with a black glass top, on which two small glass cups were placed neatly upside down on dark blue coasters. Next to them was a small, sandalwood-colored tissue box containing some light yellow tissues. The sandalwood box was also clearly handmade. On the coffee table was a small, black remote control that looked like a model, and next to it was an electronic device shaped like a fruit-brand phone. The floor tiles in the living room, like those in the entranceway, were blue, though a slightly darker shade.

Following the path of her memory, Chi Junluo turned her head and saw two small, adjacent bedrooms. Next to the bedrooms was the washroom, and diagonally opposite them was the kitchen.

Chi Junluo did a quick tour, and a suspicion began to surface in her mind.

The secondary bedroom, which she had converted into a study, was identical, with the same bookshelf and sandalwood desk and chair. There was even a laptop computer. Although it couldn't be turned on, she could see that the level of detail in the replica was extremely high. The bookshelf held some history books from this world, as well as some clearly antique books encased in exquisite transparent boxes.

These, at least, were different from what had been on her original bookshelf.

Chi Junluo returned to the living room and sat down on the sofa. The phone-like electronic device still had power. Chi Junluo pressed the power button, and the black screen gradually lit up. She didn't see any kind of lock screen, so she lifted the phone slightly and suddenly saw the screen display: Face recognition successful.

So it was face-unlocked.

Upon reaching the home screen, she saw a data collection log: Since last unlock: 27 failed attempts. Unlock Method 7.

She thought about how the original owner had only just left home for a mission where she was framed. Yet someone had immediately announced her death and tried to uncover her secrets.

With all the advanced technology in this world, they couldn't even unlock a small phone-like device. How did the original owner manage that?

Chi Junluo glanced up again at this highly accurate replica of a small "apartment." Whether it truly belonged to the "original owner" was another matter entirely. Her head was now full of questions.

The phone's interface had icons that resembled the apps from her era in her original world, completely different from the way programs were displayed on the Star Network's light screens in this world. As expected, an interface like this was much more comfortable to look at.

In one of the apps, called "Seal," she might find some answers.

As soon as she opened the app, a passage appeared:

"This is the year 1325 of the Star Calendar. It has been 23 years since I came to this world, or rather, since I've had memories in this world. I went from being full of confidence at the beginning to starting to have doubts. I thought I had been to so many worlds and had enough experience to handle whatever was coming in this new one, but the long passage of time and the loneliness have made everything I once firmly believed in begin to waver. Today, the first day of 1325, everyone in the Alliance is welcoming the new year. Only I am left to feel the cold wind on a third-class planet in the remote Western Star Region. Shuhan invited me to her small base to celebrate the new year, but I just want to be alone and think."

Chi Junluo silently finished reading the passage. This was the latest entry in the "Seal" app. She scrolled back to the very first page and began to read carefully from the beginning.

After about an hour and a half, Chi Junluo had scanned through all the records in "Seal" and roughly understood what had happened to this body.

The original owner of this body had likely died at the age of three in the slums of Gemark Planet, a third-class planet in the remote Western Star Region. The Heavenly Dao had disappeared right after transporting her to this world. The environment on the remote third-class planet was harsh. The original owner lived in a cellar, which showed signs that another person had lived there before. But from the moment the previous Chi Junluo arrived in this world, she was the only one in the cellar. In a hidden compartment, she found only a few star coins and an identification card for someone born in 1299. The name on it was the original owner's single character: "Chi."

The earliest entries in "Seal" were in the form of photos of the most primitive handwritten manuscripts. For the first few years, Chi Junluo, upon arriving in this world, found her surroundings to be far too backward and herself far too poor to afford even the most basic electronic devices. To be precise, the people in the slums where she lived weren't even allowed to enter stores that sold electronic products.

At first, the original Chi Junluo could only carve her thoughts and questions onto the stone walls of the cellar. It wasn't until two years later, when she used the Power of the Heavenly Dao—invisible to ordinary people—to "endure" her way into the top ten of a fighting arena, that she received a beast-skin notebook and what she considered a rather advanced "high-tech water pen" that could convert ordinary water into ink as a prize. From then on, she condensed and transcribed the contents of the small mountain of inscribed stone slabs from the cellar onto the notebook. That thick beast-skin notebook stayed with her for twenty-one years.

The original body's physical fitness and mental power were, by the standards of this world and this era, quite terrible. As an Alpha, her physical and mental power were both B-grade; no wonder she had been abandoned. Although the Chi Junluo of that time had used the cheat of the Heavenly Dao's power to survive in the top ten of the fighting arena, the top ten fighters were all experienced adult Alphas with mental power at or above the A-grade, or even S-grade, standard. The Power of the Heavenly Dao was suppressed by the laws of this world, barely able to reach an A-grade standard, and so she nearly lost her life in the top-ten deathmatch.

It was at this time that a combat sports company on Gemark Planet took notice of Chi Junluo's abilities. Seeing her as the youngest survivor in the arena, they saw a young, impressionable, and highly potential Alpha they could use. If properly trained like their other signed Alphas, she could become a new cash cow for their company.

It was also then that Chi Junluo learned that humans existed on more than just this one planet. Although the terms offered by the combat sports company were very tempting, one clause caught her eye: upon signing, she would be barred from enlisting in the Main Star's military. Since this was a third-class planet, the heroine naturally wouldn't be here. Following the trend of the heroine having a better background in each successive world, the heroine of this world was most likely on the Main Star. Therefore, she had to go to the Main Star!

Alliance law stipulated that Alphas with qualifying physical and mental power could enlist at the age of sixteen. At that time, Chi Junluo had to wait for ten years.

Chi Junluo frowned as she read through the middle and later entries in "Seal." Perhaps it was because the Heavenly Dao had helped her in the previous worlds, or perhaps her own luck had been too good, but all her missions had been completed quickly. In reality, the time she spent on missions in the previous few worlds wasn't very long. With the Heavenly Dao and the heroine by her side, she never felt out of place or lonely.

But the records in this "Seal" grew more confused and despondent by the day. In the early stages, she was still driven by the thought of finding Yi Shuhan as soon as possible and working hard to complete the mission. But as time trickled by on the small Gemark Planet that trapped her, her days consisted of nothing but a few duels in the fighting arena, earning just enough Blue Star coins to survive, and then staring blankly at the inscribed stone slabs and the beast-skin notebook in the cellar where she eked out a living. Because she refused to sign with the agency, she had no one to protect her, and the subsequent seven or eight years she spent waiting on Gemark Planet were exceptionally difficult. She even began to suspect that the Heavenly Dao had given up on her completing the mission to find the heroine, form a contract, and collect the Power of the Heavenly Dao, deliberately tossing her onto a godforsaken third-class planet to fend for herself while it went to find the heroine on its own.

As time went on, aside from the dwindling Power of the Heavenly Dao, which Chi Junluo used extensively to temper her body and mind, her only remaining hope was to wait until she turned sixteen and go to the Main Star to see for herself.

But prolonged isolation, coupled with the endless waves of assassins sent by those on Gemark Planet to stop her from going to the Main Star, and the daily need to fight in the arena just to survive, caused the Chi Junluo of that time to quickly sink into depression. Her doubts deepened, and she even began to think that those bizarre days were just a dream of the Chi Junluo on this planet. As time wore on, those past memories started to blur, becoming more like the fading remnants of a dream upon waking.

Finally, when she turned sixteen, Chi Junluo wrote only the single character "Chi" in the name field of the application form. She tried to forget those strange experiences, yet couldn't bear to discard the past entirely. The name "Chi" allowed her to leave one last sliver of leeway for this world, for herself, and for everything that had happened.

She was unwilling to admit that she had been abandoned.

After turning sixteen, Chi Junluo successfully entered the Main Star's military with her formidable physique, mental power, and combat experience. She also met an heiress of the Yi Family named Yi Shuhan. She went from initial resistance and aversion towards Yi Shuhan, to later, after spending a long time together, slowly falling in love with this lovely Omega, and eventually proposing to the Yi family elders. Everything happened naturally. As for the mission or the heroine, the later Chi had long since cast it all to the back of her mind. She had truly fallen in love with this Omega named Yi Shuhan, loved her to the point of wanting to possess her, protect her, and cherish her dearly.

This residence of General Chi was something she had restored and furnished at the age of seventeen, using all her accumulated merits and savings. For the next eight or nine years, to keep herself from sinking into the bizarre, dream-like memories of the past, Chi spent most of her time in her mecha, only occasionally bringing Yi Shuhan here for a visit.

Chi Junluo lay on one end of the sofa, trying to digest this horrifying truth.

So, she hadn't just been transported to this world a few days ago. She had been betrayed and had lost her previous memories.

So, that chattering Heavenly Dao had really been gone for twenty-three years?

Had she really been abandoned?

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