Embers Ad Infinitum

Chapter 564: Price

Basement Three, Project C-14.

Jiang Baimian carried her tactical backpack and met Mei Shou’an.

“Hi there, Mianmian.” Mei Shou’an smiled kindly. “The team and the corresponding equipment needed for your biological cochlear implant are already prepared. We’ll try our best to finish it in one go so that you won’t have to go through any additional suffering.”

According to the procedure, Jiang Baimian would undergo anesthesia at the last step of the Awakening experiment and fall asleep. Mei Shou’an planned on splitting this into two parts. He would leave the first half for her Awakening and the second half for her cochlear implant.

This was completely feasible given the amount of time.

“Thank you, Uncle Mei.” Jiang Baimian thanked him sincerely.

Jiang Baimian was afraid of being anesthetized, losing her consciousness, and falling into the darkness—unable to control herself again. Therefore, she would definitely agree wholeheartedly if she could be done and over with it in one shot.

Mei Shou’an nodded, and his expression gradually turned serious. “I need to tell you certain things before we officially begin. You should already know that Project C-14 is extremely low risk, but this doesn’t mean that there isn’t any danger at all. There’s a 0.5% chance that the subject will never wake up again. 20% of them experience all kinds of problems, including anxiety, mania, short-term memory loss, and allergies for a period of time. Most of them show clear improvement after treatment and are expected to recover in the foreseeable future.

“As for the success rate of the experiments, which is to say, the probability of Awakening is very unstable. Sometimes, there will be two to three in a batch. At other times, there will be three to four consecutive batches without any Awakening. In addition, the probability of problems arising from repeated experiments rises exponentially. It’s almost equivalent to suicide.

“Think about it again now. There’s still a chance of turning back.” After explaining the risks, Mei Shou’an sighed and said, “You’re already a D9, and it’s only a matter of time before you enter management. If you were my daughter, I definitely wouldn’t want you to take such a risk.”

The meaning behind his words was: Mianmian, you have to consider your parents’ feelings.

Jiang Baimian smiled and said, “Uncle Mei, as you know, the missions I’m in charge of are a little dangerous if I keep spending time outside. The probability of death is probably more than 0.5%.”

Although that was the case, she had never discussed it with Madam Xue—her mother. She had dragged Old Jiang into helping her in carrying out the deed before informing her mother.

Mei Shou’an tersely acknowledged her words. “Since you’ve already thought it through, I won’t say anything else. Let’s begin.”

He called for a female researcher and got her to lead Jiang Baimian elsewhere to change her clothes. After all, she had to undergo surgery later.

Jiang Baimian followed her instructions with an attitude of learning and research. She changed her clothes, put down her backpack, and underwent a test. When the results were out, she was injected with a drug.

She then took three X-rays one after another and stayed in the room that was dark and silent for nearly 15 minutes.

This was different from the process Shang Jianyao had previously described. It was obvious that the Project C-14 team had made many improvements in the past year or so.

At the end of the experiment, Jiang Baimian entered a room made of silver-white metal. Plenty of medical personnel and equipment were waiting nearby.

“Lie on the bed.” Mei Shou’an pointed at the mobile operating bed fixed in the middle of the room.

Jiang Baimian nodded, walked over, sat down, and lay down.

“Next is the anesthetic injection,” Mei Shou’an said simply.

At the same time, two researchers had already entered the room with medical boxes.

“Wait!” Jiang Baimian suddenly raised her hand and sat up.

“What’s wrong?” Mei Shou’an asked warmly.

Jiang Baimian grunted and stammered, “Can—can you play some music?”

The thought of falling into uncontrollable darkness made her nervous.

Mei Shou’an frowned slightly. “Music?”

Jiang Baimian smiled obsequiously. “Uncle Mei, play a song to relax my mind. After the anesthetic is injected, you can turn it off. The song is on my computer, and the computer is in my backpack. Please get someone to bring it over for me.”

Mei Shou’an—who had always strictly followed the procedures for the experiments—wanted to voice his doubts about it affecting the final outcome. However, he choked back the corresponding words when he heard Jiang Baimian say that he could stop the music after injecting the anesthetic.

That’s not a problem. We’re all conversing now, so there’s no difference if we play an additional song... Mei Shou’an thought for a moment and nodded slightly. “Alright.”

A researcher quickly took a key from Jiang Baimian and brought her backpack over.

According to Mei Shou’an’s careful instructions, the laptop wasn’t brought into the silver-white metal room and was instead placed at the entrance.

Jiang Baimian only gave a few instructions before the researchers—who were familiar with computers—successfully launched the music player.

“Do you remember the dreams of your youth?

“Like a flower in eternal bloom;

“Accompanying me through the wind and rain;

“Watching the impermanence of the world;

“Watching the vicissitudes of life[1]...”

A melodious song echoed.

Jiang Baimian took two deep breaths, lay down, and closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she secretly squinted her eyes.

Jiang Baimian sat up again, pointed at the syringe, and blurted out, “Why is it so thick?”

“Your physique far exceeds that of ordinary people. The amount of anesthetic you need will definitely be different,” explained the researcher in charge of the anesthesia.

Jiang Baimian instinctively retorted, “It’s not like I’m an elephant!”

“It’s just a little more than normal,” consoled the researcher in charge of the anesthesia.

Jiang Baimian opened her mouth and hesitated for a few seconds. She suddenly closed her eyes and plopped back down on the operating table. What you don’t see can’t hurt you!

“Do you remember the dreams of your youth?

“Like a flower in eternal bloom...”

The song on loop lingered in her mind, making her force herself not to sit up again.

After a little prick, she knew that the coma and darkness would inevitably come.

...

Amidst her fugue, light appeared in front of Jiang Baimian.

She slowly opened her eyes and realized that she had come to an unfamiliar place.

This was an abnormally wide and empty hall. The walls around her were cast from black metal that shimmered with an icy glow.

The hall was dark like the night sky.

The ‘sky’ was densely filled with countless resplendent stars. They slowly swirled, interweaving into 13 dreamy rivers.

Infinite starlight scattered, condensing into a blurry figure in the middle of the hall.

The figure’s hands were spread out with strict symmetry. It looked like he was hugging the world, but it also seemed like he was simulating a scale.

His loud but hollow voice echoed in the hall. “Three bestowments for one price.”

“Three bestowments for one price...”

Upon seeing this, Jiang Baimian roughly understood where she was—Star Cluster Hall!

This was identical to the Star Cluster Hall Shang Jianyao had described!

I’ve Awakened... The experiment succeeded... Jiang Baimian was first delighted before she felt intense confusion.

She had never felt that her luck far exceeded others. She had long been mentally prepared to fail in her Awakening, but things went smoother than she imagined.

Could it be that I have some conditions that coincide with the requirements for Awakening, or was some additional ‘blessing’ given due to our deeper involvement in the investigation of the cause of the Old World’s destruction? Jiang Baimian had always been smart, and smart people always liked to read too much into things and end up overly suspicious.

She composed herself and forced herself to focus on the figure in the middle of the hall. Since she had already come this far, she could only continue regardless of the reason.

Jiang Baimian—who liked to make all kinds of plans—had long thought of which domain she would Awaken.

She was more inclined to think that the six domains—Master Zhuang, Subhuti, Dawn, Last Man, Shattered Mirror, and Arbiter of Fate—could complement her other characteristics and the team’s exact situation.

As there was already an Awakened in the Master Zhuang domain in the team and he was very strong, Jiang Baimian eliminated this option when listing them down.

The price she knew of in the Dawn domain was an intermittent coma, schizophrenia, and abnormalities in the five senses. She couldn’t accept the first two at all and didn’t plan on choosing them. For the last price, losing the sense of taste was the best outcome. But if that happened, she felt that she would lose a lot of the fun she had as a human.

Life was already bitter enough. If she couldn’t even have a good meal to comfort her, she would get depressed sooner or later.

The Last Man domain’s prices that Jiang Baimian knew of were memory loss, sleep disorders, and lack of self-discipline in certain aspects. These were all problems that she felt affected her usual state. Therefore, this was the second domain she gave up.

In the Subhuti domain, Jiang Baimian didn’t want to suffer from mental disorders or have abnormal senses. Likewise, she didn’t want the inability to lie. It was prone to causing major problems at critical moments. As for the enhanced desires, she felt that she couldn’t bring herself to harm her team members.

Jiang Baimian didn’t even consider limb paralysis and drowsiness as prices for the Arbiter of Fate domain. The former would directly reduce her combat strength, and the latter would clearly affect her thinking. She felt that an eyeball abnormality was acceptable, but it was relatively ugly. Hence, she gave it a lower priority.

The Shattered Mirror domain’s fear of light, water, and mirrors affected one’s daily life too much. Furthermore, it was easy to be discovered. Jiang Baimian gave up immediately.

It was the same for claustrophobia. The death of the Virtual World’s owner remained fresh in her mind. Of the remaining prosopagnosia and being directionally challenged, the former easily led to her being unable to distinguish between friend or foe and was too dangerous. The latter could be considered...

As these thoughts raced through her mind, Jiang Baimian quickly went through the options—abnormal sense of taste, fixed eyeballs, and being directionally challenged.

Ten seconds later, she made a decision—a directionally challenged person!

This was one of the prices she could counter using the auxiliary chip in her biological prosthetic limb. Although this would most likely reduce her ability to observe and remember her surroundings at the same time, she could ‘remember’ them as she looked around during important situations. She wasn’t afraid of forgetting, which might cause problems.

In addition, being in a team could also effectively allow her to avoid problems.

Phew... Jiang Baimian exhaled and walked in front of the figure. She looked up and said loudly, “I’ll exchange my sense of direction for my abilities.”

Just as she said that, three stars rapidly fell from the sky. They transformed into different blobs of light that were cast at Jiang Baimian’s body.

These blobs of light had some words in them. They were: Spatial Hallucination, Item Agnosia, and Stimulation Disorder.

[1] Price of Love, Lee Tsung-Sheng.