WEF - Chapter 24
Chapter 24: Everyone Is a Fellow Prisoner
A fierce pain flashed through her chest. Before Ning Dali could even register it, she caught the smell of disinfectant.
The scent was faint, not at all pungent, and strangely reassuring.
The temperature around her was extremely comfortable. Ning Dali opened her eyes and found herself in an empty operating room.
The lighting in the operating room was soft, the floor spotless, and the words "Federal Benevolence Hospital" written on the door.
Federal Benevolence Hospital? Was this the Federation, the place where she had been born?
She had come back? Just like that?
Ning Dali's heartbeat suddenly raced. Still staring at the words, she found it hard to believe.
She took a few brisk steps forward, pushed open the door, and turned into the changing area outside the operating room. From there, she pulled on a clean set of surgical scrubs.
Once dressed, she helped herself to gloves, a mask, and a cap from the changing area, then stepped into a pair of sanitized clogs. Fully outfitted, she headed for the corridor outside.
Ning Dali had never visited Federal Benevolence Hospital because it was a famous private hospital whose benevolence was reserved for a select group.
She had actually been born here... Ning Dali, who had grown up in foster care, found the thought absurd.
She was one of the Heavenborn? That has to be a joke.
But now was not the time to think about such things.
Ning Dali walked along the corridor. Along the way, she passed several medical workers, casually raising a hand and nodding as she greeted them in silence, as though she were one of them.
She walked at an unhurried pace toward the vending machine at the end of the corridor.
The upper left corner of the vending machine's screen displayed the time.
July 9, 2035, 23:20.
July 9... Ning Dali's gaze froze on the date.
Before she had crossed over, the date had still been July 1.
She had spent four days in the Famine World, and the Federation had somehow reached the ninth. Was the flow of time wrong, or was she wrong?
Ning Dali frowned and temporarily pushed the matter to the back of her mind.
Not much time had passed in the Federation, and the world outside showed no signs of any sweeping changes. She should leave the hospital first and decide what to do afterward.
Federal Benevolence Hospital stood in the Federation's central city, where security was extremely tight. Ning Dali had few people from prison whom she could contact, only one or two who seemed reliable.
She mentally narrowed the list of people she might contact, then stepped into the elevator.
An older woman was inside.
She wore a finely tailored black suit, carried a square briefcase, and had a Federation court badge pinned to her lapel.
Ning Dali cast a discreet glance and felt mildly surprised.
When she was eighteen, she and a lunatic had gone at each other with blades. The woman before her was the presiding judge who had handled the case.
The judge had strong professional integrity. She had withstood enormous pressure and sentenced Ning Dali to only ten years.
More than ten years had passed, and here they met again. The courts must pay well. Ning Dali withdrew her gaze thoughtfully.
"Ding. First floor."
The elevator stopped, and its doors slid smoothly open to either side.
Ning Dali followed the judge out and planned to wander around the hospital's first floor, find a back entrance, and slip away unnoticed.
After all, leaving through the front door in surgical scrubs would look strange.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
She turned, and the face hidden beneath her mask could not help but curve into a smile.
At that moment.
Clad in navy surgical scrubs, Ning Dali suddenly fell backward. Her body struck the floor with a dull thud, and one clog flew from her foot.
The judge, who was just about to leave Federal Benevolence Hospital, turned at the sound and saw the unbelievable scene.
In full view of the crowd, the doctor lying on the floor vanished.
Only one clog remained on the floor.
Half a second later, the clog vanished too, as if patching some bug.
"Damn, are my eyes playing tricks on me? Where did that doctor just go?"
"D-disappeared...?"
"God, did you all see that? Check the security footage, hurry, and report to our superiors!"
Chaos erupted at the first-floor reception desk. Even the most disciplined professionals had never encountered such a thing, and they stood around at a loss.
One medical worker grabbed the receiver and was about to dial a number.
The judge reached over and pressed the receiver back down.
"You..." The medical worker looked up, stunned.
There was a tired, haggard look about the judge, as if she had been forced to work overtime. Without letting the medical worker respond, she cut off the call before it connected and said coolly, "In a situation like this, you need to call another special number."
Ning Dali could clearly hear the sound of her body striking the floor, but she could not feel the slightest pain or make any response.
She could only lie on her back, staring at the hospital ceiling and thinking:
This private hospital even had such a lavishly decorated ceiling. There was actually a dinosaur fossil hanging from it.
As she kept looking...
The bright lights and dinosaur fossil slowly spun and warped in her vision. Then the world around her collapsed with a roar and plunged into darkness.
"Bang."
It felt like no more than an instant, yet like a long time had passed.
Ning Dali struggled to open her eyes. In the dark room, she reached out and touched a warm, fishy-smelling liquid.
Blood?
In the darkness, she dimly made out a familiar body...
Damn it. Could this be her own corpse? Was that her own blood?
Ning Dali inhaled sharply. For once, she was at a loss, unable to decide which problem to think through first.
She flailed about in place for two seconds, then suddenly felt a chill pass over her.
The clothes she had taken from the hospital's changing area were gone.
Ning Dali: "..."
Completely naked, she pulled herself up from the floor, felt her way around barefoot, and switched on the room's light.
Under the light, every corner of the room was exposed.
Ning Dali looked at the body on the floor with a complicated look in her eyes, then reached out and felt its temperature.
She had not been dead for long, and the body was still warm. A huge wound gaped in its chest, and the blood from the wound had soaked its clothes completely.
Those clothes could not be worn.
Ning Dali thought regretfully.
She opened the room door, which had been locked from the inside, went outside, rummaged through the backpack in her car for clothes, and put them on. Then she returned inside to deal with her corpse and the bloodstains.
Ning Dali absolutely could not leave her own corpse lying there like that.
It would frighten Zhuang Yuezhen half to death and interfere with the plan she had already arranged.
But disposing of the corpse would be difficult. If she buried it outside, the Farming Folk would dig it up and take it. If she burned it to ashes, she lacked the means.
It was not completely impossible, though.
Ning Dali turned to look at the car she had bought only half an hour earlier.
She took a body bag she had bought at the market from the car, stuffed her own corpse into it, and tossed it into the trunk for the time being.
After she slammed the trunk shut, a large block of text appeared before her eyes at last.
[Nirvana]
A phoenix bathes in flames and is reborn.
Skill One: Hey, I'm standing again. You fall, and you come back to life right where you fell. Once every 24 hours, you can use this skill to escape the state of death and return instantly to the place where you last died.
Skill Two: Of you and her, only one can die...
The description of [Nirvana] appeared again, but the description of its first skill had changed. Instead of reviving at her birthplace, she would now revive where she was.
Ning Dali's face revealed little, but inside she was far from calm.
She opened her mouth, intending to activate Passing Lies as Truth once more and try to change the first skill back. Unsure whether someone might be hidden nearby watching her, she could only restrain her impulse and keep her mouth firmly shut.
Whether or not anyone was watching, Ning Dali performed a sequence of emotions for the empty air: shock, bewilderment, anger, helplessness, and dejected acceptance.
When she was done, she stuffed the food from her hiking backpack into the refrigerator and drove away from the place.
On the drive, Ning Dali sorted through all the information she had just gained.
First, she had gained the ability [Nirvana].
When she had activated Passing Lies as Truth, the effect she had designed for herself was this: she could not be killed, and she would revive at her birthplace.
Both effects were embodied in the first skill of [Nirvana].
What exactly did it mean to be unkillable?
Zhuang Yuezhen's unkillability meant that she could continuously reduce incoming damage and never die.
Ning Dali's meant that she could pull herself out of the dying state over and over and would never truly die.
She would either revive immediately or wait until her 24-hour cooldown had elapsed before coming back to life.
With this skill, she seemed safe. But...
She could not settle after recalling the altered description of her ability that had appeared before her.
Someone could modify the specific effects of her ability.
That conclusion might be premature. The modified text could have been the work of an illusion-type ability.
Only another death would reveal whether the actual effect of her ability had changed.
Even so, Ning Dali had a vague sense that, even if her next death returned her to the Federation, she would not be able to stay there for several minutes as she had this time.
She would be teleported straight back here.
This was undoubtedly bad news, but it was not entirely bad.
The person who had sent her back had merely returned her here instead of killing her outright.
That person had changed where she revived, but had not changed the revival skill itself.
So that person only wanted to lock her up, not kill her?
Then why confine her if that person did not want her dead? Confine her... yet not let her die.
That attitude felt familiar to Ning Dali.
The judge's face appeared unbidden in her mind.
Back then, a lunatic had cut her from shoulder to waist. Unable to pay her medical bill, she should have died in the hospital.
Instead, the judge had paid it and pulled her back from the jaws of death.
The blade had not killed her, yet she had spent ten full years in prison.
How much alike her present circumstances were! Even the food was just as awful!
So had she simply traded one prison for another?
Was this a prison, where everyone was a fellow prisoner?
Ning Dali exhaled a breath of stale air, her face blank as she searched her past life for the unforgivable crime she must have committed.
However she thought about it, before entering a prison cell she had been an honest, upright high school student. Her grades were excellent, and she had never cheated on an exam. She had committed no crime at all.
If she had to name a crime, then, judging by her birthplace, she might be one of the Heavenborn.
That was her original sin.
A thought flashed through Ning Dali's mind. Wait, original sin?
If this world were one giant prison cell, and everyone in it were guilty...
Then would their original sin be their abilities?
If they had been trapped here because they had awakened an ability, would the Federation be the one behind it?
The judge's face appeared in Ning Dali's mind once more.
Yes. The Federation.
The Federation had designed her imprisonment back then, and it was the Federation that had designed it for her now.
A definite answer formed in Ning Dali's mind.
The Federation had cast everyone who had awakened an ability into this world and locked away this world's intelligence, causing people to overlook anything that felt out of place.
Only powerful Single-Character Ability Users could detect such anomalies.
They had noticed them. Had any of them ever gotten out?
Ning Dali was inclined to believe that they had.
She could use the Concept-Type Ability [Old Liar] to get out of here, and Wang You could use the Concept-Type Ability [I Have a Car, What Did You Expect?] to summon a vehicle from the Federation.
The difference among Three-Character, Two-Character, and Single-Character Abilities lay in their range of effect. Concept-Type Abilities were unaffected and could operate beyond the world.
That was why Concept-Type Ability Users received better treatment than Farming-Type Ability Users at Fertile Base and were required to have an interview.
"It all clicked. Everything clicked."
Her heart, which had raced furiously all night, finally steadied.
She needed to get back on track with the world's main quest.
All she had to do was meet with Plague and find out what was in Plague's keeping. Then she would understand even more.
For example, did the people of this world want to break out of prison, or rise up in rebellion?
Ning Dali pressed the accelerator and drove toward her destination.
That night, she felt she had learned a great deal, and her plans for the future had become much clearer.
What she did not know was that Iron Face, who had waited at home over and over for a one-on-one chat with Ning Dali, felt as though the sky had collapsed.
"What kind of news is this? Why can't I make sense of any of it?"
Iron Face sweated as she scrolled through her smart device, feeling that every word on the screen was utterly unfamiliar.
"What does it mean that Ning Dali joined the Extremist Eaters overnight and Zhuang Yuezhen put justice before family loyalty by raiding Ning Dali's hideout?"
"What does it mean that Zhuang Yuezhen betrayed her former boss, became rich overnight, took Ning Dali's vast fortune with her into Fertile Base, and declared that she would never leave the Base again?"
"What even is all this? I wasn't involved at all! I never got any notice!"
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