The knife-wielding man stabbed at the other person’s back, only to find he’d stabbed into a petrified woman of stone!
Seeing this, the man drove his knife toward her eyes.
The whole change had taken only two or three seconds, and many in the surrounding crowd hadn’t even reacted.
Shan Ran had already drawn her pistol and was just taking aim when a figure suddenly charged in and slammed the man aside.
The man was knocked nearly ten meters, crashed through a shop window, and only then hit the ground, out cold.
The one who’d rammed him was the strength-type esper she’d just seen at the pharmacy.
“You all right?” the man asked, lifting his head, his voice booming.
By now all the skin on the petrified woman had returned to normal.
She turned around and looked down at the man before her, her hair hiding her face.
She said nothing, only shook her head to show she was fine.
The man grinned honestly and scratched the back of his head.
“Oh my dear mother, how tall ‘are’ you? How’re you so much taller than me?”
“……I-I’m one-eighty-eight……”
The man was only about one-seventy.
Looking up at the tall, sturdy woman before him, the envy on his face didn’t look the least bit fake.
“Name’s Zeng Dali. What’s yours?”
“Zhen… Zhen Shimei…..”
By now a ring of people had gathered, and only then did everyone learn what had just happened.
The knife-wielding man had a grudge against the injured woman’s husband, learning her husband was feverish, he’d grown jealous that the man would gain an ability later on, and so had come to their door to kill.
The world was already a chaotic mess anyway, maybe the detectives wouldn’t even bother with this.
“Tsk, tsk, what’s the world coming to?”
“Move along, move along, stop gawking, hurry home. Don’t go out if you don’t have to.”
The crowd gradually dispersed.
At this point a pair of pale arms reached out in front of Zhen Shimei, holding gauze and iodine.
The two of them looked over, and their breath caught for a moment, stunned by the young woman’s beauty.
But both keenly sensed that her limbs were tough and powerful.
Shan Ran was about to say something when she heard the two of them hiss in unison.
“Oh my goodness, there really are more good people than bad in this world……”
“I… I…..”
Shan Ran: …..
She stuffed the supplies into Zhen Shimei’s hands, turned, and left.
A large supermarket that had been closed for three days finally reopened today, packed with customers.
At checkout, a man trying to skip out without paying got into a scuffle with the cashier, just as the knife was about to plunge into the cashier—
—the man’s neck was suddenly pierced through by something.
His eyes split wide with fury, and he dropped to the ground convulsing.
“Aaah, murder!”
The cashier’s fingernails had grown extremely long and hard, and in an instant had punched through the fare-dodger’s neck.
The supermarket erupted in screams as people fled for the exits.
‘Too terrifying. Espers are too terrifying!’
The supermarket, boiling with noise a moment ago, fell deathly quiet in an instant, even the other cashiers had run.
Seeing an ability was one thing, seeing someone kill with an ability was another.
The cashier stared dumbly at her own fingernails, now back to normal, then turned to look, and found the entire supermarket nearly empty.
Only a few bold souls were still grabbing things.
And one very pretty girl was self-checking out.
The cashier blinked.
Having killed for the first time, she badly needed some emotional outlet.
She looked at the girl, lost, and asked, “You… you’re not afraid of me?”
Shan Ran looked over, thought about it, then answered, “Self-defense. You didn’t do anything wrong, so why would I be afraid of you?”
Having scanned everything and loaded up several full carts, Shan Ran got ready to leave.
Before she went, she looked back at the cashier.
“Give yourself a good wipe-down, change your clothes. And don’t be afraid.”
The cashier stared blankly at the girl’s retreating back.
For some reason her eyes stung, and the tears wouldn’t stop falling.
After a long, hard day of labor, Shan Ran came home to find the house’s renovations entirely finished.
The rooftop solar panels were installed too, the courtyard wall and yard were still in progress.
Because of the construction, all three above-ground floors were filthy and chaotic.
Shan Ran thought about it, took out her phone, and made a call.
“Hello, Auntie Zhang, it’s me. I’m back home.”
A delighted voice came from the other end.
“Oh! Ranran, you’re home? I thought you were still in District 4? How are you? Did you catch the fever? You doing okay?”
Shan Ran sneered inwardly but said evenly, “Auntie Zhang, I’m fine. A lot of people at school came down with fever, so we came straight back. My place is a mess right now, come over and help me clean and tidy up.”
Auntie Zhang was the Shan family’s housekeeper.
She didn’t live in, normally she just came by each day to clean and cook.
Shan Ran considered herself good to the woman, paying generous wages, but last life, Auntie Zhang had been one of Rong Shuyao’s protagonist squad.
She and her son had both joined the squad, and the exposure of Shan Ran’s special ability owed a “contribution” to her son, too.
Right now, at this point in time, Auntie Zhang had already gained an ability, and her words were probing whether Shan Ran had one.
Shan Ran sidestepped the question and only told her to come clean.
Auntie Zhang hesitated, then asked, “Ranran, is it urgent? Could I come tomorrow instead?”
Shan Ran put on a little wheedling lilt.
“Auntie Zhang, the house is really such a mess, it makes me miserable just looking at it. If you come now I’ll give you a raise, all right?”
Unable to resist the lure of a raise, Auntie Zhang agreed to come.
Shan Ran left the door open, brewed a pot of tea, and sat on the sofa, waiting at ease for Auntie Zhang to arrive.
Before long, a delighted voice rang out at the door.
“Ranran!”
Shan Ran turned her head without rising, a standard, polite smile on her face.
“Auntie Zhang, you’re here. Come on in.”
Auntie Zhang wasn’t tall, just past fifty, with thick calluses on her hands.
She used to come to work in plain, practical work clothes, today she wore a brightly colored dress, hardly suited to work, her hair changed from a low ponytail to big curls, the color going from its old black-streaked-with-gray to a coffee-brown sheen.
Auntie Zhang’s hair had changed color because she’d awakened a wood-element ability.
After gaining abilities, some people’s appearances shifted somewhat, height and build might change, or hair and eyes might change color.
Fire espers’ hair gradually turned red, ice espers’ hair turned white, water espers’ hair and eyes both turned blue, and wood espers turned coffee-brown.
“Ranran, thank goodness you’re okay! I was so worried you’d run into danger over in District 4!”
Auntie Zhang clomped in on her thick-soled shoes, knocking out ‘thud, thud’ sounds on the marble floor.
“What are all those workers outside doing? Why such a big commotion, what got into you to suddenly remodel the house?”
She used to wear plain black soft-soled cloth shoes.
Shan Ran looked Auntie Zhang’s outfit up and down but said nothing, and didn’t bother with pleasantries either.
“Auntie Zhang, the house is too messy, just get started cleaning, or you won’t know what hour it’ll be by the time you get home.”
As she spoke, Shan Ran stood, lifted her arms in a stretch, and covered a yawn with her left hand.
“Auntie Zhang, I only just got home, I’m exhausted, so sleepy. Whatever it is, let’s talk in a couple of days.”
With that, paying no mind to whatever expression Auntie Zhang wore, she went straight downstairs, into her bedroom, and shut the door.
Auntie Zhang: …….
The floor was littered everywhere with shards of glass and stains.
The furniture was covered with big sheets of clear plastic film, but it all still needed washing.
Even though she’d done this kind of work out of habit for decades, Auntie Zhang now felt thoroughly out of sorts.
‘She had an ability now. She wasn’t an ordinary person anymore!’
‘Why was she being called over in the dead of night to do cleaning??’
She raised a hand and tried doing it the old way.
After a long while, a single shoot finally sprouted from her palm, only to vanish a moment later.
Unwilling to give up, Auntie Zhang squeezed her eyes shut and pictured a future in which she had money and power and stood high above, with everyone around looking at her in a whole new light, even pictured a scene where Shan Ran, the mistress of the house, was cleaning and waiting on ‘her’…
Suddenly a shoot sprouted from her palm again, this one noticeably thicker and sturdier than before.
It quivered, then snapped forward with a ‘crack’, punching clean through the teapot Shan Ran had just been drinking from, with the crisp sound of shattering glass.
Auntie Zhang gazed in delight at the thicker, longer shoot, not pulling it back until she felt her ability was nearly spent.
How things would develop wasn’t clear yet, but espers would surely be treated differently from before.
She and her son were both espers, give it some time and they’d surely rise to power and riches!
It was just that, for now…….. better to do a good job first.
She still didn’t know what ability Shan Ran had.
She hadn’t managed to ask just now, it wouldn’t be that she had ‘none’, would it?
Then again, not necessarily, maybe it was some weird, ugly thing she was too embarrassed to show off…
Lost in such thoughts, Auntie Zhang took a careless tumble.
With a few yelps of “aiyo,” she got shakily to her feet, and in the end went and changed into a different pair of shoes after all.
Shan Ran shut and locked the storeroom and cold cabinet before returning to the bedroom.
Meng Xinye looked just as he had before, breathing evenly, his complexion rosy, the red mole at the corner of his eye vivid, a little sweat seeping from his temple.
Shan Ran wiped his face with a clean towel, fed him a bit of water, then lay down beside him and slept soundly.
By the time Auntie Zhang had finished cleaning all three above-ground floors, it was already past five in the morning.
She pounded her aching back, unwilling to linger a moment longer, and left the villa quickly.
Espers’ constitutions were somewhat improved, but Auntie Zhang was, after all, her age, after working through the night, she was sore all over and her hands were shaking.
Shan Ran had never once called her over to clean this late before, how had she turned into a different person today, all coquettish one moment and cold the next, like a clingy little minx?
Could it be Shan Ran had awakened a fox-type ability??
Animal-type espers’ bodies could take on animal traits, like Auntie Zhang’s son, Zhang Xinren, who had a tiger-type ability.
Right now he could turn both hands into tiger paws, give it time, she believed, and his head would be able to become a tiger’s head too.
Even if his body didn’t turn into a tiger, Zhang Xinren’s sense of smell was keener, he ran much faster than before, and he could climb trees with ease.
Auntie Zhang’s husband had died long ago, she’d raised her son alone, renting a unit in resettlement housing not far from the villa district.
When Zhang Xinren got up and smelled breakfast, he came to the living room to find Auntie Zhang had already made the meal, and only then learned she hadn’t gotten back until dawn, and about Shan Ran remodeling her house.
Zhang Xinren frowned and stood there without a word.
“What is it, son? Why so quiet?”
Zhang Xinren looked up at his mother and chose his words carefully.
“Shan Ran’s from the Second Continent. She definitely knows something, that’s why she’s remodeling the house. Right now the people up above are clamping a lid on it, but clearly they won’t keep it on much longer. Maybe abilities are just the beginning, and more disasters are coming after.”
Auntie Zhang’s hand jerked, and her phone nearly hit the floor.
“Don’t scare your mother, son, what do you mean by that?”
Zhang Xinren’s brows drew together.
“I mean, something big is coming. We need to be ready.”