Light Barrier

“I’m back.” Gu Shen pushed open the door and called out softly.

The simple one-bedroom apartment was empty. It was about thirty to forty square meters, and other than a table and a bed, there was nothing else. It was not an exaggeration to describe it as an apartment with only four walls.

The dim light in the bedroom flickered faintly.

Did I forget to turn off the holographic screen on the table before I left? Gu Shen was surprised.

“Meow.”

The usual response he received was a cat meowing eagerly for food, but the response today was slower and sounded much calmer than usual.

An orange cat was sitting in front of the holographic screen on the table, staring at the entrance of the apartment.

This was a stray cat that Gu Shen had picked up not long ago. He had named it Orange. After picking it up, he realized that… this cat really ate a lot. But surprisingly, it didn’t gain much weight despite its hearty appetite.

Too many things had happened today, and it was already past two in the morning when Gu Shen returned home. It must have been difficult for the cat to wait until now.

Gu Shen yawned, took out a large bag of cat food, and poured it into a bowl. “Orange, food.”

No response.

Gu Shen was a little surprised that this silly cat didn’t come over immediately like usual. He was facing away from the table, so he didn’t see the orange cat looking down from above, its eyes emitting faint fluorescence.

“Not eating? You’ll regret it if you don’t.” Gu Shen turned around.

“Meow!”

With the sharp cat cry, Orange shivered all over, seemingly waking up from a dream, and the fluorescence faded from its eyes. It jumped off the table and buried its head in the bowl to eat heartily.

These table manners… Gu Shen felt a little disgusted.

After eating and drinking its fill, the silly cat swaggered off to find a place to sleep.

Gu Shen sat in front of the holographic screen, wrapped his fingers in a tissue, and carefully took out the ruler from his lapel. Looking at the silver ruler, he was lost in thought.

This ruler doesn’t seem to have any corrosive ability. When A-009 handed me this thing, she didn’t seem to have any ill intentions.

But what’s the use of this thing?

The scenes after he got on the train played back, froze, and flashed back.

Gu Shen had too many doubts… He thought that he would be able to get some answers from the people in the interrogation room.

But…

The man named Wei Shu remembered the story he made up while drinking water with utmost seriousness… Clearly, there was a problem with the surveillance footage in the carriage, and those people simply didn’t know what had actually happened on the train!

What they saw was the normal Line 13.

But what he had boarded at the beginning was the old and mottled ‘000′.

“… That girl and A-009, what’s going on…” Gu Shen had no clue. He rubbed his forehead and murmured to himself, “That old man said that a new era is coming…

“A new era… a new era…”

He opened a webpage.

The holographic screen displayed layers of waves washing across.

In the year 638 of the New Calendar, thanks to the supercomputer ‘Deep Sea’ developed by Alan Turing, the Five Continents were closely connected through a virtual network. All citizens could enjoy a vast amount of practical information and extremely fast, super-intelligent services without leaving their homes.

Tonight’s commotion was so big, but there are no related posts… Gu Shen frowned. He glanced at the news, feeling that something was off. He prepared to type on the keyboard but abruptly stopped.

He recalled what the old man had said in the car.

“Now, people are paying attention to you.”

This sentence was a reminder to Gu Shen. If people are really paying attention to me, I have to be careful.

Gu Shen knew very well that the search traces he left behind could become clues for people with ulterior motives to investigate.

There was a soft ‘ding’ sound.

Suddenly, a dialog box popped up on the holographic screen.

“Congratulations.” The dialog box showed that the other party was typing. “… You answered that question correctly. Very impressive.”

This is… Gu Shen was stunned.

The other party’s profile picture was blank, but this tone was unmistakably that of the girl in the white dress he had encountered on the train.

There was no need to worry about someone impersonating her. Gu Shen was certain that no third person knew about his encounter with the girl. Even the mysterious Mr. Tree didn’t know.

Gu Shen immediately clicked on the profile picture, wanting to find information about her. But in the profile and related sections, no matter where he clicked, they were blank.

This wasn’t the absence of inputted information. It was as if there were no fields to fill in to begin with. On the small profile window, there was no name, gender, date of birth, hobbies, signature, anything.

Blank.

There was only blankness.

Even for the deceased, as long as they were born, there wouldn’t be such a blankness.

Gu Shen had never seen such a situation. Every citizen of the Five Continents had their blood taken and recorded in the Deep Sea database. Only by using real names could people access the Deep Sea network.

But everything on this profile was blank… Was there a system glitch?

Regardless, it wasn’t important.

Gu Shen felt lucky now. He was glad he had not told the truth in the interrogation room. Who knew what crazy things those guys who arrived in helicopters aggressively to collect A-009’s body would do after finding out about the existence of a wild card like this girl.

He didn’t want the girl to end up imprisoned like A-009!

“Thank you,” Gu Shen replied politely before asking anxiously, “I have some questions to ask… For example, who are you?”

He had too many questions.

Who was the girl, what was up with the train, A-009, that newspaper… There were too many questions to count.

“My name is Chu Ling.” The girl seemed to be able to read minds, and the moment Gu Shen sent the message, she immediately replied. “… I know you have many questions, but now is not the time. People who want to kill you are on the way.”

“??!!”

This sentence felt like a heavy hammer bashing him.

Gu Shen’s fingers hovered above the projection keyboard, his brain short-circuiting.

“The current situation is quite dangerous. Next, communication will be blocked, and the network will be cut off. I will contact you in another way.”

He tried his best to digest this dismaying information. The last message from Chu Ling in the dialog box was the same sentence she had spoken when she departed on the train.

“Gu Shen, survive.”