Hey! Control Yourself! - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Thread Dilemma

The moment the assassination of Saint Lu occurred, it wasn’t just the members of Shaxing who found it unbelievable; even the people below were shocked. No one had seen clearly what weapon or method the assailant had used. As Saint Lu’s white hair drifted in the wind, like a clockwork machine being triggered, a series of chain reactions followed.

Shen Ji leaped from the window and fell rapidly, the fierce wind serrating his lapels. Protruding platforms on the building’s exterior allowed him to land steadily. The moment the assassination happened, members of Shaxing had already vanished from their positions, charging directly toward him.

“Give me an evacuation plan!” he commanded his light-brain.

“Planning your escape route immediately.”

Shen Ji: “…”

A glowing right-turn arrow appeared before his eyes, signaling him to turn. He ducked into the alley on the right, just as a barbed hook whistled past, narrowly missing his shadow.

Meanwhile, Rey and the others were still by the riverbank outside the cathedral. Having just witnessed the bloody scene of the living Pope being torn apart and beheaded, the teenagers were struggling to process it, their hearts pounding wildly.

“As expected of a demon’s eyes… one look at them and you’d go mad within three seconds,” Rey muttered, staring up at the cathedral.

Sha Mo nodded. “He… he made them take off the Pope’s pants.” That sentence had been barely deciphered by the light-brain’s translation software.

The crowd below refused to disperse. Llyrs sneered, “You want to become his believer.”

Rey thought seriously. “Well, yes, but I can’t betray my current faith just yet.”

“Your current faith?”

“Of course! my faith is…” Rey’s hands shimmered as his light-brain pulled up a virtual portrait: “The Lord of Sleep, Shen Ji!”

Llyrs didn’t even bother giving him a cold laugh.

“Found you! So this is where you were!” A panting voice rang out. Llyrs and the others turned to see the students from the First Military Academy. They seemed to have been searching the area for a long time, sweat beading on their foreheads.

“How did you find us?” Llyrs asked cautiously.

“Following the light-brain navigation. Don’t our two teams have linked positioning?” the opposing team leader asked. Although there had been a sense of competitive hostility before they arrived, encountering people from the same world in this strange, prehistoric land brought a genuine sense of joy to their hearts.

Rey said excitedly, “Did you see Saint Lu just now? He looks like an ancient god, wow!”

“It was too far, couldn’t see clearly at all.”

“I even captured the moment Saint Lu was assassinated!”

“Really?!” the opposing leader asked in surprise. The two groups began to walk together. Sha Mo pulled up his food guide again, sending friend requests to the other team. The other side looked confused.

“…” Llyrs closed his eyes.

“Where is your team leader?” the other side suddenly asked.

Sha Mo: “Huh?”

Rey turned to Llyrs: “…Come to think of it, we haven’t officially elected a leader yet.”

“Isn’t Shen Ji your leader? Oh? Did he go back to sleep again?” the other side teased.

Rey shrugged. “Maybe.” He opened his light-brain, which showed Shen Ji’s location changing at an incredibly high speed. “Looks like he’s busy with some intense parkour.”

Initially, following the arrows through the crowded city allowed Shen Ji to navigate like a fish in water, successfully shaking off the pursuing Shaxing members. However, he had a lingering bad premonition.

Not until he entered an underground passage and climbed a long stone staircase did he realize that this long, red path he was traversing looked remarkably similar to the serpent-like suspension tunnels outside the cathedral. As it turned out, under the guidance of his “idiot” light-brain, he had accidentally entered the Colossus Cathedral…

“You brought me here?” Shen Ji stopped.

“Master, the most dangerous place is the safest place.”

“…” Shen Ji closed his eyes. He had said it before: smart products should not try to mimic the human brain.

When he opened his eyes again, several Shaxing members had silently surrounded him. Gaya humans had no concept of masks, so when they wanted to hide their identities, they remained shrouded under cloaks. The mental power of the group quickly pulled up a “curtain,” trapping Shen Ji within.

“Is Excellency a person from the Fifth Level, or a die-hard loyalist of the Colossus Sect?” one man asked. Shen Ji lowered his head and said nothing.

A person behind him raised a pistol, aiming at him.

“Wait, I want to see who he is.” Another member extended a hook from beneath his robe, reaching for Shen Ji’s mask.

Suddenly, a string of blood droplets sprayed! Blood flowed uncontrollably from the man’s wrist. The man with the hook stared in shock, only then realizing his wrist had struck a razor-sharp thread. The thread-blade extended into the darkness, its source nowhere to be found.

The group’s eyes widened: When did this happen?

Just one step more and the thread would have cleanly severed the man’s wrist. Shen Ji had not moved an inch from beginning to end.

A member in the back pulled a trigger, only to find the entire pistol—including his fingers—wrapped in fine threads. The others squinted and saw cold glints flickering in the passage; the space around them was filled with reinforced threads. Every thread was positioned with extreme precision, pressing against their vital points—some were almost touching their eyelashes.

A chill crawled up everyone’s spine. That guy clearly hadn’t moved.

“This is… mental energy threads.”

“Wait! Who exactly are you?”

Among the four, two spoke simultaneously. Shen Ji, his face masked, tilted his head, his features falling into shadow. He walked over to the member holding the pistol and took it. A mental energy pistol—to a master of mental power, this was the most lethal weapon. In the Empire of the New Century, civilians were forbidden from using such firearms. However, in the Gaya world, he was a nameless outsider; with this gun, he could effectively do as he pleased.

The Shaxing members, trapped in the threads, watched him take the gun and assumed they were dead. However, Shen Ji simply took the weapon and walked past them, exiting the serpent tunnel. Not a single word was spoken throughout.

Shen Ji walked out of the cathedral. The front of the building was still in chaos; the Pope had been beheaded, and his head had been crushed into the mud. People crowded together, chanting the name of the demon atop the Tower of Babel.

Hiding in a corner, Shen Ji glanced back at the upper reaches of the cathedral. Amidst the cheers of the people, the black hem of Saint Lu’s clothes fluttered in the gale. He stood before the arched window, and his severed white hair had actually grown back completely.

Suddenly, those pomegranate-red eyes shifted again. Without warning—yet as if premeditated, they landed on Shen Ji. Their gazes met. The color in Saint Lu’s eyes deepened; his pupils dilated. An ecstatic demon had seen his prey; a hungry tiger had seen a lamb. His pale skin flushed slightly red.

Shen Ji’s figure flashed back, disappearing into a dark alley. That guy’s eyes can push a person into the abyss.

He followed the kaleidoscopic streets, taking off his mask to breathe for a while. In the prehistoric era, Gaya’s forest coverage was as high as 70%, making the air quality exceptional. Now, he needed to find Rey and the others.

Following Rey’s signal, Shen Ji entered the downtown area. Occasionally, the silhouettes of flight vessels streaked across the suspended tracks in the sky. A colorful, eel-like bird-beast flowed through the air. Two children on hoverboards chased each other past him, nearly colliding with him.

Shen Ji smiled. Perhaps this was how his father had grown up.

Back at the cathedral, several members carried the man with the hook—who had lost too much blood, back to the top.

“Saint Lu.”

The others also bore fine cuts of varying depths. It seemed they had struggled significantly to break free from Shen Ji’s thread dilemma.

Saint Lu looked down at the disheveled group. Everyone kept their gaze lowered, yet each cautiously observed Saint Lu by the window in their own way. Saint Lu leaned back in the gold chair and beckoned to the man with the hook without any expression: “Come here.”

Everyone’s tense heartbeats relaxed. The man with the hook removed his hood, revealing the face of a youth, appearing only seventeen or eighteen. He walked over and knelt by the gold chair, pressing his forehead devoutly against the demon’s shoe, and then pressed his nearly severed wrist against the demon’s calf.

Under a soft glow of mental energy, the severed tendons and bones healed visibly, the skin becoming whole again, leaving only dried blood. The youth looked up at him, his heart radiating longing and adoration. The Shaxing members stood guard silently; in their eyes, the white-haired man in the chair was as holy as a god.

After the crowd dispersed, the “god-like” Saint Lu revealed a look of strange excitement and tremors. His lips fluttered like parched butterfly wings. He looked down at the side of his face where he had been injured; Shen Ji’s mental threads had not only severed his hair but also cut his cheek. Because his self-healing ability was too powerful, the wound was almost invisible, yet he could still taste the burning heat brought by that mental thread.

“Finally…” His fingers brushed over the wound, his breathing gradually becoming rapid, his pupils dilating. His remaining words were drowned out by the wind outside the cathedral.

Underneath an aerial track, in a dark alley, the atmosphere was grim and deadlocked. Two groups were in a standoff.

“Hand over the recording to us.”

Llyrs said coldly, “So students from the First Military Academy also love playing the bandit. It seems the Federation really can’t change its ways.”

“We advise you to be sensible.”

“No way!”

“There are four of us, and only three of you. Besides, one of you is already injured.”

Rey’s shoulder had clearly been pierced by something, and blood was flowing. The four opponents stood in a fan shape, forcing the Baocheng group into a corner. One of them had materialized mental energy into a chain, one end of which was dripping with blood—Rey’s blood.

Sha Mo supported Rey with one hand and maintained a shield with the other. Llyrs stood on the other side; his mental power was the strongest of the three, and his defensive wall covered them all.

Rey was in immense pain but still managed a laugh. “Are you crazy? It’s just a mission, and you’re going for the kill?”

“Just do it. We can’t leave any survivors now,” one person on the other side said.

Llyrs countered coldly, “You can kill them two, but I will definitely break through at the cost of my life. When that happens, can the First Military Academy handle the wrath of the Baocheng Military Academy and the King?”

Rey said, “That’s right, Llyrs. You just have to break out and meet up with Shen Ji. They won’t be able to do anything to you then. When the time comes, avenge me and Sha Mo.”

Sha Mo: “?”

The people from the First Military Academy laughed. “It seems you didn’t read the agreement clearly. Once the Gaya experiment begins, the participants are responsible for their own life and—”

Bang! A spray of blood and brain matter suddenly exploded.

“—death…” The speaker collapsed onto the ground, his eyes wide in death.

Shen Ji stood behind them, the mental energy pistol in his hand still smoking.

Bang! Another person fell.

“Wait!!” the other side shouted.

Bang!

Bang!

Four figures lay mangled and scattered on the ground. The mental energy bullets exploded inside them, vanishing as their power dissipated.

“How did you guys end up like this?” Shen Ji lowered the gun and glanced at the battered group.

Rey, covered in blood, threw himself forward wailing, “Shen Ji-ya…”

Sha Mo slumped to the ground. Llyrs stood still for a moment, then walked over to the bodies. After confirming they were dead, he fished out their IDs and turned over their palms.

“As I thought, they weren’t students at all. They’re well-trained soldiers.” Llyrs said to Rey, “Did you record what just happened?”

Rey opened his light-brain screen, closing his eyes smugly. “Don’t worry, I captured everything. Perfectly recorded. They can’t pin this on us.” He had been recording since the Pope’s unveiling ceremony.

Sha Mo, who was treating Rey’s wound, leaned over to take a look. “Rey, someone is sending you gifts.”

“What?” Rey looked down, confused.

“Ah! Wait! When did I start a live stream!?”

At that moment, in the live broadcast, beneath the Gaya aerial tracks, Rey’s terrified face was visible, along with a smiling Sha Mo, a “done with this stupidity” Llyrs, and the silhouette of Shen Ji in the background.

Above them, thousands upon thousands of bullet comments were flying past at high speed.