"Aaaaaah!!!"
Lin Niannian's scream, like a marmot, made Lan Shiyu's facial muscles twitch violently.
He wanted to maintain his seriousness and continue asking about the situation, but Lin Niannian was climbing up his body in an extremely twisted posture, trying to stand up.
"It's a real satellite!! So cool!! Mr. Xiao Lin, you actually brought it back to life! Can I touch it? Can you let me touch it?" She looked at that massive object, her eyes shining with light.
"Niannian, don't offend Mr. Xiao," Lan Shiyu hurriedly reminded her. After all, Xiao Lin was a Parahuman; once he felt offended, they might not be able to bear the consequences.
But the moment his words fell, the huge satellite slowly sank, like a tame giant beast, drooping down right in front of Lin Niannian's eyes.
Lin Niannian excitedly touched the satellite's casing: "Mr. Xiao Lin is so amazing! As amazing as Mr. Bai! By the way, can I ride it? Just for a little while."
Xiao Lin's eye twitched. He knew he shouldn't have given this girl a good look.
"Alright, alright, touching it a few times is enough, don't break it for me."
He raised his hand, and the satellite began to rise. After rising to a safe altitude, it suddenly accelerated. A violent wind rose, and in an instant, the satellite had vanished into the horizon.
Lin Niannian looked at the sky, then wrinkled her nose at Xiao Lin: "Cheapskate."
Xiao Lin ignored her protest: "I'll let you play with it another time. Now come back to the institute with me first and get your wound treated."
"Yay!" Lin Niannian was ecstatic, but immediately Lan Shiyu objected, "Mr. Xiao Lin, we won't trouble you with this matter. I'll take her back to the town for treatment."
"The institute is closer, and I have tools and medicine there. It will be more convenient."
"This is too much trouble for you. We should solve our own problems."
Xiao Lin could sense the wariness in Lan Shiyu's attitude. He could also understand it. After all, when an ordinary person suddenly displayed such power, it was impossible not to be wary.
But he was also a bit helpless: "Mr. Lan, I know you don't trust me right now, but I have never lied to you."
Lan Shiyu's expression stiffened slightly. That was true. Xiao Lin had claimed to be a Parahuman from the very beginning; they just hadn't believed him.
"You are the first people I've met since coming to this world." Xiao Lin looked at Lan Shiyu calmly and gently. "You mean a lot to me. I won't bite the hand that feeds me."
Lan Shiyu seemed touched. He shook his head slightly and sighed: "Mr. Xiao Lin, thank you for your honesty. Unfortunately, this is... not a very friendly world."
"I think you've witnessed it today. Even if you do nothing, there will be people who want you dead. This is the basic logic of this world: survival of the fittest."
"That's right, I've witnessed it." Xiao Lin said calmly. "But I still adhere to my own order and morality."
"Mr. Mayor, for most of my life so far, I have been the weak party. It was the conventional order and morality that protected me."
"I won't betray my life just because of what the world is like. That would be equivalent to me not existing." Lan Shiyu stopped speaking. He lowered his head, looking at the cigarette in his hand, and then crushed it out:
"Mr. Xiao Lin, actually, I do trust you quite a bit. It's just that I have to respect you now, because you are a Parahuman."
He put the remaining half-cigarette back into the case: "You are very similar to Mr. Bai. I think you two would get along well."
"Then can I..." Lin Niannian blinked her eyes.
"I'll go with you guys." Lan Shiyu said. "Anyway, Niannian needs to treat her wound now. I'll handle the inventory counting."
Xiao Lin remembered the transaction agreement between them, so he nodded and said: "That's good too. Saves Niannian from tearing my place apart."
Lin Niannian protested again, but no one paid attention to her.
The three of them walked along the long street toward the institute. Although Lin Niannian had a leg wound, she still chattered non-stop. She talked about how scared she was when hiding in the ruins, until Lan Shiyu found her, and so on.
Xiao Lin suddenly became curious: "So why could you recognize your mayor at a glance?"
After all, as a patient with common sense dysregulation, it was hard for her to distinguish whether something was a human, let alone recognize a specific person at a glance.
Lin Niannian explained triumphantly:
"You don't understand this, do you? It's actually the feature memory method."
"I remember a unique feature of theirs. As long as that feature appears, no matter what form it takes, it must be them."
Xiao Lin first nodded, but soon realized something was wrong: "Wait, how do you determine that feature is unique? And unfalsifiable? And features can also change and disappear."
"I can't determine that." Lin Niannian admitted unreservedly.
Xiao Lin facepalmed: "I don't even know how you managed to live this long..."
"Coincidentally, I don't know either." Lin Niannian said, tilting her head.
Xiao Lin was still pondering the meaning of this sentence when Lan Shiyu next to him gave the answer: "Lin Niannian has amnesia."
"That's not amnesia, that's called memory encryption." Lin Niannian explained seriously.
"Memory encryption?" Xiao Lin was becoming more and more confused.
"Lin Niannian said that someone encrypted her memory, asking her to wait here for him to return. So she has been waiting for five years."
"Five years? Then can Lin Niannian still recognize him?"
Lan Shiyu seemed to expect Xiao Lin to ask this question. His expression was enigmatic: "It shouldn't be hard to recognize. She said that person has seven tentacles, six eyes, and a pair of chelicerae."
"Wait, are you sure that thing you're talking about is human?" Xiao Lin was shocked.
But Lin Niannian nodded affirmatively: "I know he looks a bit different from you guys, but he completely fits the academic characteristics and definition of a human. And he's a very good person."
"Maybe it's some rare human subspecies we haven't seen before." Lan Shiyu guessed. "After all, history has been distorted. It's normal for us not to understand."
Xiao Lin said: "Absolutely impossible. The evolutionary history of humans is very short, and the genetic similarity is extremely high. Different human subspecies cannot have such huge differences." Lan Shiyu looked at him and said softly: "Mr. Xiao Lin, how do you know that the history you perceive is correct and hasn't been distorted?"
Xiao Lin couldn't answer immediately.
"By the way, Mr. Xiao Lin, do you remember the Internet?" Lin Niannian suddenly asked happily.
"Of course I remember. And I probably won't forget it for a while." Xiao Lin replied.
"One of the core figures of that Internet is used to deduce the correct history." Lin Niannian showed an expression of admiration. "The people in Wisdom City want to use the Internet to gather the knowledge of all humanity and use massive computing power to extract the correct history. Isn't that super cool?"
"Wisdom City. You mentioned this name on the Internet yesterday too." Xiao Lin recalled.
"Mm, a super city. The City Lord is a second-generation Parahuman, very powerful." "But their entry threshold is also very high. You must have a sufficiently massive knowledge base or computing power, which means your intelligence. Otherwise, you won't get an invitation."
Xiao Lin looked at Lin Niannian with pity: "Then this girl has no chance. She's so stupid."
"Yes, obviously." Lan Shiyu said indifferently.
"You two!!" Lin Niannian said angrily.