100kV Chapter 75

Chapter 75
The Calm Before the Storm
Monitoring the Superhumans

After walking along the road for a couple minutes, Adonis brought Ye Wenxuan into a small alley. They walked through a couple turns in this old neighborhood and finally stopped in front of a five story building.

Ye Wenxuan looked around. This was the most common tube-like apartment building. The walls were broken and decayed, the bricks covered with a layer of ash. The wall facing the east had some sort of algae growing on top that had tenaciously climbed to the fourth floor, as if they wanted to grow all the way to the top.

The stairwell was much cleaner than Ye Wenxuan imagined. There was no clutter, just a few bicycles in the walkways. It seemed quite empty.

Adonis took him to the fourth floor. He stopped at a door on the east side and opened the door with a key.

Ye Wenxuan looked around: “Are there a lot of people living in this building?”

Adonis looked at him: “A lot.”

Ye Wenxuan just wanted to sigh when the foreigner next to him added: “All soldiers from your place.”

Ye Wenxuan: “Eh?”

Adonis: “They’re all just watching me. The other day I looked around, and three-quarters of this neighborhood was sent to watch over me.”

Ye Wenxuan: “…I suddenly feel like they might not have sent enough people.”

Adonis smiled and opened the door: “Come in, Kathy is in the room.”

Only after entering did he discover that it was quite nice inside. Ye Wenxuan looked around and raised an eyebrow: “They connected the two apartments?”

“Yeah. The wall of the living room was taken down, and the place Kathy and I live in now has four bedrooms and two halls.” Adonis took off his windbreaker and threw it on the sofa. Walking over to a bedroom with the door locked, he knocked and said: “Kathy, there’s a guest.”

In a moment the door was opened from the inside. A thin blonde girl ran out and shuffled to Ye Wenxuan’s side. She hugged his thigh and then stopped moving.

Kathy was really too thin. Ye Wenxuan was pounced on by her and didn’t even move. He leaned over to hug her up: “Kathy, do you still know me?”

The girl still wore a mask on her face. She nodded slowly: “Awesome…brother…”

Ye Wenxuan smiled, his mood inexplicably improving.

The trio moved to the living room couch. Adonis took out two cans of iced beer from the fridge and stuffed a bottle of Yakult into Kathy’s arms.

Ye Wenxuan saw that he was wearing a thick metal ring around his wrist, most likely a tracking device to monitor these superhumans. He pretended not to notice, changing the topic: “Why is Kathy always wearing a mask?”

Adonis: “She’s afraid of scaring people.”

Ye Wenxuan blinked and saw the other person turn to ask Kathy: “Baby, would you like to let Ye take a look at your face?”

Kathy looked back and forth between the two of them and nodded slowly.

Ye Wenxuan was a little confused: “Eh, you don’t have to do this, I was just curious, if it’s not convenient…”

Kathy didn’t wait for him to finish speaking. She took the mask off and faced Ye Wenxuan.

Ye Wenxuan: “…”

The little girl’s face was clean, besides a circle of stitch marks around her lips, as if someone had used a needle to sew her mouth together. The fine lines were tightly embedded in the flesh, making a string of terrible scars.

Now there was no trace of those fine lines, only the reddish-brown scars left on Kathy’s face. It was extremely horrifying, and even Ye Wenxuan was dealt an intense shock.

He was horrified: “This…who did this, was it those institute people?!”

Kathy shook her head. Adonis answered for her: “Before she was sent to the lab, her mouth was always sewn closed using a fishing line. Her mother did it.”

Ye Wenxuan: “…What…the…fuck?”

“Kathy’s father died in a car accident, and her mom also had some mental problems from this. Kathy’s mother later discovered that her daughter often talked to herself, and that the words she said would be corroborated very shortly after.” Adonis explained slowly: “The final time, she predicted that a neighbor would be shot when he went out. After it happened, her mother broke down.”

He reached out and rubbed Kathy’s head, whispering: “Her mother thought that those people who had been predicted, even her own husband, had all died because of Kathy’s curse. So she poured alcohol down her daughter’s throat and used fishing line to sew her mouth shut.”

“That way, Kathy would never be able to speak again, and no more strange things would occur.”

Ye Wenxuan looked down, watching the little girl poke the straw into the bottle and swallow the drink little by little.

He swallowed heavily, struggling hard to swallow the curses back down into his stomach.

Adonis saw his wildly fluctuating mood and comforted him: “This was a long time ago. When she got to the institute, in order to study her powers, they healed Kathy’s throat and removed the fishing line.”

Ye Wenxuan furrowed his eyebrows: “…It turns out they actually did something good?”

Adonis laughed: “I just thought that if I said this your expression wouldn’t be so twisted.”

Ye Wenxuan stared at his bald head for a while and then sighed: “Congratulations, you have succeeded in making my mood very bad.”

“Believe me, that’s not what I intended.” Adonis chuckled: “Kathy doesn’t mind these things very much, she just doesn’t want to scare people. Anyway you know now, and Kathy won’t have to wear the mask at home. She can take it off and breathe in the fresh air of China.”

Ye Wenxuan angrily replied: “Alright, everything you say is reasonable.”

Sitting around the coffee table, Adonis turned on the TV and changed to the TV drama channel, chatting with Ye Wenxuan while watching the drama with relish.

Ye Wenxuan: “What do you do here now?”

Adonis: “Besides the weekends, every day people in uniform pick me up to go to different places. They cover the windows with black film, I also don’t know where it is.”

Ye Wenxuan: “Doing what?”

“Just asking some questions, about SP Institute, and about other superhumans. Sometimes I’ll spar with your soldiers a bit, and we can both benefit.” Adonis shrugged: “My identity is still very sensitive and I’m still in the assessment period. I can only actively cooperate with your work and strive to get rid of this thing earlier.” As he spoke, he raised his hand and shook his wrist.

Ye Wenxuan looked at him a bit and casually picked up the remote control, changing to the news channel: “As long as you have no other purpose, this thing will be taken off sooner or later.”

Adonis: “Hey!”

Ye Wenxuan: “Huh?”

Adonis: “I was watching that, go back to channel 8!”

Black lines appeared on Ye Wenxuan’s face: “…What’s there to watch with mother-in-law and daughter drama, can we look at something meaningful?”

Adonis looked at the TV. On the screen was playing something about the Xing family’s big losses. He didn’t know what was happening, and finally still firmly wanted to go back to the watch the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law drama.

Ye Wenxuan: “…Do you even understand Chinese, watching with so much relish.”

Adonis modestly said: “I don’t really understand it, but art knows no boundaries. I can watch their body language.”

Ye Wenxuan: “…” What fucking body language.

After an hour, seeing that it was getting late, Ye Wenxuan got up and said goodbye. Adonis followed him out: “I’ll bring you out and buy some food along the way.”

Ye Wenxuan shook his head: “You’re completely in retirement mode.”

Adonis smiled: “If there wasn’t a crowd of plainclothes behind, that would be even better.”

Ye Wenxuan squinted at him: “If you have no problems, they will naturally retreat very quickly.”

Adonis didn’t refute him, only nodding: “It’s very nice here, Kathy also likes it a lot. We will work hard to bridge the gap with you all.”

When they separated, Ye Wenxuan patted him on the shoulder: “No need to send me further. Who knows, I may come back tomorrow to disturb you.”

Adonis smiled: “We guessed it to some extent.”

He said sincerely: “If you want to come, Kathy and I always welcome you.”

After that, the two would sometimes keep in contact over text. They both felt like this way of getting along was quite good.

Two days later, Ye Wenxuan received a new assignment.

——Stay in B city suburbs, supervising the two foreign superhumans from up close.

~

Mid-July.

The summer weather was getting more sweltering. There were fewer pedestrians walking along the streets. No one wanted to bask in the sun, all hiding indoors with electric fans and AC.

An ordinary residential building on the outskirts of B city, an apartment in the east corridor on the fourth floor.

A window open to the south was cracked open halfway. A slightly hot wind blew in from the outside, lifting a corner of the flowery curtains.

In the training room, someone sat on his knees in the middle of the room, his hands spread open on his knees. His eyes were slightly closed, as if he were meditating.

Around the youth, there were dozens of metal balls, large and small, suspended in midair. They circled around the young man, rotating around him with some kind of wonderful rhythm.

If viewed from far away, this scene was quite like that of many cosmic planets orbiting the sun, quite spectacular.

But if you looked carefully, those more meticulous could find that there was more than this one person in the room.

The metal balls spinning in the air began to accelerate gradually. The friction between the spheres and air made whistling sounds, and then at this time, a tall thin bald man suddenly appeared in a corner of the room.

This person seemed to have torn apart the space itself, appearing without any sign. This man raised his hand to catch a metal ball, and when the others were flying over toward him, he suddenly disappeared.

A second later, he appeared in another corner diagonal from where he had been.

Every time this man appeared, he must take away a flying metal ball.

In the end, the metal balls rotated faster and faster, and the man disappeared more and more often.

Finally, a few minutes later, the last metal sphere was held in his palm.

The young man sitting on the floor opened his eyes, letting out a breath.

A hand appeared in front of the youth. He looked up and didn’t hesitate, holding that hand to stand up.

“How long did it take this time?” The youth asked.

The bald man walked out of the training room and looked at the clock hanging in the living room: “It took 23 minutes to take back all of the metal balls, en, your control has increased.”

He threw the heavy backpack from his back onto the floor and removed the insulated gloves from his hands: “The power seems to be increasing. A couple times I almost flew out from catching the balls.”

The young man smiled: “But you still caught all of the balls, worthy of being the supersonic man, very powerful.”

The two were precisely Ye Wenxuan and Adonis.

Since Ye Wenxuan took over the task of overseeing the two superhumans, until now, it had been over three months.

He lived in the building that the special affairs department arranged for Adonis. Adonis’s house was combined with the one next door, and Kathy and Adonis each took a bedroom, so Ye Wenxuan simply picked one of the other two empty rooms. For the other one, after the two discussed a bit, they spent a week transforming it into a training room.

Ye Wenxuan was the first superhuman found in China. Before that, this field was basically a blank. There was no teacher to teach him how to use his powers, and everything was groped out by him.

After a few falls, there were gains.

Now meeting two “companions” who were also superhumans, how could Ye Wenxuan not want to come to ask for advice?

This was the reason for the birth of the training room.

After Ye Wenxuan moved in, he would often explore his abilities with Adonis. He was completely ignorant, but Adonis had experienced a lot.

Adonis sincerely wanted to take root in China, so he didn’t stint in teaching Ye Wenxuan about the limitations and experiences he had.

Nowadays, Ye Wenxuan’s abilities were not limited to hacking people with lightning or using lightning bolts as a simple means of violence. A month ago, he finally figured out how to use electromagnetism, how to arrange a magnetic field, and how to interfere with the current and charge, so as to manipulate the magnetic fields of various non-living objects to achieve various effects.

This feeling was wonderful, a little like he had established his own “space”, in which he controlled everything.

It was just that he trained for so long, but still couldn’t control the magnetic fields of living things, and couldn’t affect the human body’s biological electricity.

Ye Wenxuan thought of many reasons to explain why he failed repeatedly, and finally came to the conclusion that he was too bad at science!

As a bad student who never learned physics or biology after high school sophomore year, he could already be moved to tears from fumbling out something like an electromagnetic field, and he still wanted to directly continue to study biological electricity?

Ye Wenxuan: F*ck your mother, lao zi can’t even recite the basic meaning of bioelectricity, isn’t this the legendary “wanting to learn how to run before learning how to walk”.

So this bioelectricity or something could be recorded down, and then when he was more skilled in the use of this ability, perhaps he could study it again.

He just hoped that by that time he wouldn’t be 60 years old.

Leaving the training room, Adonis looked at the clock: “It’s almost noon, I’m going to cook noodles.”

The three superhumans living in apartment, besides Kathy who was too young, the other two would pick up the housework and cook every other day. Ye Wenxuan was assigned Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and Adonis did Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Sundays the group would step it up and could go out to a restaurant.

Today it was Adonis responsible for cooking.

Ye Wenxuan slowly calmed the magnetic field around him. Some tiny currents slid past his skin, leaving a subtle sense of sensitivity.

He fixed the mussed hair behind his head. His hair had not been cut for a long time, and could already reach his chest.

Ye Wenxuan shook out his hair, throwing out a few wisps of charge, crackling on the walls and the ceiling.

“Ai. I still have to find a day and get a haircut ah.” He grabbed the comb on the coffee table and began to fix his hair.

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## who’s faster ##

Adonis: “I’m supersonic, I’m faster.”

Ye Wenxuan: “Nonsense, lightning is even faster.”

Adonis: “Nope. I’m definitely the fastest man in the world!”

Ye Wenxuan: “…”

Ye Wenxuan: “Okay okay okay, you’re fast, you’re the fastest. I won’t rob this with you.”

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Translator Notes:

[1] tube-like apartment building – 筒子楼, the so-called tube-shaped apartment building is a building with a corridor running through the main structure with rooms on both sides of it. these are all public houses, very tiny and often very crowded.

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Random Notes:

About an hour: 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm, for 4.4k characters to 2.5k words.

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