scélérat

Chapitre 22

Kou Yun sat quietly beside him, without saying a word.

That troublesome ancestor!

I suddenly thought of the Bi'an again. We actually did something sneaky right under the nose of this mythical beast in charge of punishments; you could call that performance art.

It wasn't convenient to question Kou Yun in the taxi, so I silently recalled what had just happened.

First, this is an event that current science cannot explain; it's commonly known as a supernatural phenomenon. Kou Yun, from a great distance, thought to herself and took the crystal ball into her arms. Her final request to visit the New Hope one last time was clearly preparation for stealing the crystal ball.

Kou Yun actually has this ability, which can be called a special ability. In fact, it is the same ability as shaking a pill through a bottle, which is to transfer an object from one place to another without ignoring the distance, but the difficulty is worlds apart.

Kou Yun's extraordinary ability was like a thread, connecting many things in the blink of an eye.

For some reason, the first thing that came to mind was a lamp.

The lamp that suddenly fell to the ground in the detention center, triggering a desperate escape. The chain holding the lamp inexplicably separated; the two tightly connected rings were shaken apart by the magician. And wasn't Kou Yun peeking out the window at that moment? And earlier, when she was taken out for interrogation, she was scolded by the guards for dawdling on her way back. What was she looking at? She must have been looking up at that lamp.

9. The Strongest Thief (4)

If I'm not mistaken, the prerequisite for using this ability is having a certain level of familiarity with the object being transferred. At the very least, you need to know what it looks like.

The second thing that came to mind was a gun.

I used to think that Kou Yun had received rigorous training, which would allow her to pick up a gun from the ground while running. Later, as I got to know her better, I realized that she didn't seem like a girl who had received that kind of training. That gun became a mystery buried deep in my heart.

Now the mystery is solved. Kou Yun doesn't need to lift a finger or move a foot; she can get her hands on the gun simply by thinking about it.

And then there's her undefeated dice, the poor man who got hit by a beer bottle falling from the ceiling... oh, and the reason she got arrested—for stealing bread.

Good heavens, she's an absolute master thief, but all she has is her skill and she's too stupid, which is why she got caught.

Then there's Kou Feng, that amazing magician.

That's a magic trick that even the most skilled magician couldn't see through. Because it wasn't magic at all!

I placed my briefcase on the sofa. This bulging bag is now worth millions, but I'm not in a hurry to open it.

"Besides you and your brother, is there anyone else who has this skill?" I asked Kou Yun.

Her face was somewhat pale, whether it was because she had just exhausted too much "power" and hadn't recovered, or because she was feeling uneasy.

She sat at the other end of the sofa, like a frightened little lamb.

“I don’t know about others, but everyone in the village knows how to do it,” she replied softly.

It sounds like it's hereditary. A mutated ability passed down through bloodlines.

"So, when you heard me recount my ordeal in the detention center, you guessed that this might be related to your brother. Others might think it's a joke—how could a knife stuck in a dead man's chest just fly into my hands? But you know it's possible. Because you could do it, your brother could do it, and even everyone in your Koujia Village could do it."

Kou Yun burst into tears, sobbing as she said to me, "Brother... I did think about it... I wanted to go with you, maybe I could find... find... but, but, brother, I didn't mean to use you, really I didn't..."

She became emotional and cried so hard that she could barely speak.

I stood up, went to the bathroom, and wrung out a towel for her. When I came back, the little girl thought I was ignoring her, so she curled up into a ball and started wailing, calling out "Brother! Brother!" from time to time.

"Stop crying, stop crying. If you keep crying, the neighbors will come knocking on the door. People who don't know the situation will think something bad has happened to this family. Here, wipe your face yourself." I handed her a towel.

"Let me make this clear first, you'll have to wash these clothes yourself. They're covered in tears and snot, they're filthy."

"Brother, aren't you going to kick me out?" Kou Yun asked me, sobbing, as he looked up at me with his painted face.

"Who said they were going to kick you out? You're just crying your eyes out."

Actually, I watched her cry intentionally, hoping she would misunderstand so I could vent my anger. This girl initially clung to me because she definitely wanted to find her brother; otherwise, she's too shrewd to be so easily swayed by a stranger's help. But as we spent more time together, she genuinely started to see me more and more as a brother or family member. That's why she acted so anxious and fearful today, as if afraid of losing my trust, after revealing this big secret.

So, even though I've decided not to argue with her, I'll still let her cry it out so she'll learn her lesson and stop trying to play tricks on me.

This is a rare opportunity to deal with the little witch; how could we let it slip by?

After wiping her face, Kou Yun, with her two peach-shaped eyes, was more obedient than ever before, occasionally sniffling, and answering every question.

The Kou family, from an unknown clan member, possessed the ability to manipulate objects with their mind. Afterwards, those of pure blood were mostly born with this ability. However, such an ability was so astonishing that even today, no one would believe it; they would likely be dismissed as pseudoscientific fraudsters, or secretly protected and researched by relevant institutions. In ancient times, such an ability rarely ended well. After suffering many hardships and several tragedies, by the mid-Qing Dynasty, several elders of the Kou family made the decision to live in seclusion, exiling themselves for peace.

From that time on, the Kou family became a separate lineage, not interacting with outsiders, and established a rule: unless someone could subdue the entire clan in the ability to retrieve objects from a distance, the clan's secluded state could not be broken.

The Kou family ancestors who established this rule were well-versed in psychology. If a rigid, inflexible prohibition were imposed, people would be tempted to change, and eventually someone would break it. By leaving a loophole, giving the clan members something to look forward to, the validity of the prohibition could be greatly extended.

But outside the Kou family, it's already difficult to find a person who can shake out the pills through a glass bottle, so how could there possibly be someone who surpasses all the members of the Kou family?

The family lineage has been passed down through generations, with each generation practicing consanguineous marriage. Surprisingly, it is extremely rare for any child to be mentally disabled or intellectually challenged. However, the family has never prospered, with the number of members remaining at around one hundred.

According to Kou Yun, retrieving objects remotely is more difficult in two ways: first, the heavier or larger the object, the more difficult it is; second, the farther the distance, the more difficult it is. Another factor is whether the object is within sight.

If it's something you can see, as long as it doesn't weigh tens or hundreds of kilograms, Kou Yun can retrieve it without much effort. But if it's something you can't see, something out of your sight, then you need to be very familiar with it. However, it doesn't matter whether the item is hidden in a safe or held tightly in someone else's hand. Retrieving it remotely with a thought is a piece of cake.

As for the distance, Kou Yun and her brother Kou Feng, who were quite playful as children, conducted an experiment. They found that the success rate dropped significantly beyond 300 meters, and they never succeeded even once beyond 500 meters. Other villagers might have exceeded that distance, but not by much.

"See that knife? Try to move it into my hand," I said, pointing to the long-handled watermelon knife on the dining table.

Kou Yun looked at the knife, then at my hand, and aimed for a long time.

"Be careful not to prick me." I was a little worried because of her gaze.

No sooner had I finished speaking than my left hand was lightly touched, followed by a clanging sound as the knife fell to the ground.

"Oh, I failed. It's too precise to turn the handle into your palm. It would be easier if it were in my own hand." Kou Yun said, and without her closing her eyes to concentrate, the watermelon knife on the ground was in her hand.

"Brother, how about I try a few more times? After a few more tries, I'll know how to handle it."

"Never mind, never mind," I quickly waved my hand. What if she accidentally slipped the blade into my hand...?

What Kou Yun can do after just a few practice sessions, Kou Feng will definitely be able to do effortlessly, after all, he worked as a magician for two years, a job that requires a high degree of precision.

9. The Strongest Thief (5)

From a scientific perspective, this is simply inexplicable. An object disregarding space and moving point-to-point from one place to another cannot be explained even by the wormhole theory within the space-folding hypothesis. Creating a wormhole by bending space would require an astronomical amount of energy concentrated at a tiny point and released in an instant. Look at Kou Yun; aside from breaking a sweat when she got the crystal ball, she moved things around in front of her as if it were child's play. Could it be that the energy she possesses is more powerful than Helium-3?

However, the fact that science cannot explain something does not mean that such a thing does not exist. On the contrary, there are many things that science cannot reach, and there is one such example standing in front of me.

Ultimately, it's because human science is still at a rather rudimentary stage.

Having stopped Kou Yun from continuing his experiments with the knife, I suddenly thought of another very important point and quickly asked, "Have you ever tried moving living things, like people?"

Such wondrous space travel leaves knives and crystal balls unresponsive, but what would happen if it were a person? Would everything go black and they'd be transported to another place, or would they witness magnificent spatial wonders?

Or... turn into a pile of minced meat...

I was waiting for Kou Yun's answer, but she shook her head and replied, "I've tried moving small beetles, but larger ones, like wild rabbits in the mountains, don't work, let alone people."

What's the logic behind this? I wondered to myself.

Why can't a rabbit handle something that's just as heavy, but an iron block can? If something that's alive can't, then a beetle can. And even a knife has millions of microorganisms attached to it, so isn't that also life?

I've met many people with special abilities, so while Kou Yun's hidden abilities are unbelievable, they didn't really frighten me. After a moment of reflection, I opened my bag and took out the crystal ball.

Somewhat hesitant, he decided not to open the crystal ball and to leave the "battery" inside. Although the Black Flag Group claimed it was safe, who knew? His life was at stake; if the crystal ball had radiation-blocking properties, opening it would be suicidal.

"It seems that this contains Helium-3. I never thought that ore could be extracted from the moon in this way. The cost is negligible."

"Ah, brother, you mean you want to use this ability to get ore from the moon? Impossible!" Kou Yun said decisively.

"What? All signs point to this. That lunar rover is pointing its camera at the helium-3 ore and flipping it over every now and then. Your brother is definitely at the Black Flag Group's base watching it. Once he's familiar with the rock enough, he'll be able to turn it around. Even if your brother can't do it, there's definitely someone more capable than him who can."

"How far is the distance from the Earth to the Moon? How could there possibly be such a person? Let alone one person, even if there were a thousand or ten thousand such people, and all their skills were combined into one person, they still couldn't do this."

I was taken aback by what Kou Yun said.

The two most perplexing aspects of this incident could be connected by Kou Yun's ability to manipulate objects remotely. First, how did the knife end up in my hands that night? The answer is obvious and indisputable. Second, why did the Black Flag Group go to such lengths to send the lunar rover into space, only to then simply point a camera at a piece of ore, changing the angle of the camera every so often? This second point also had a perfect explanation in my mind: someone with this ability can only move something after becoming extremely familiar with it. The ore had a certain volume and weight, and its surface was uneven and irregular, so it naturally took a long time to become familiar with it, and the slow progress was to be expected.

But I forgot something, and only realized it after Kou Yun reminded me.

That is, human resources are sometimes limited.

I have met many extraordinary individuals, some of whom have become my friends. Their abilities are incredibly strange. For example, Lu Yun, who follows ancient cultivation methods, possesses illusion magic, and Xiahou Ying has super-powerful suggestion abilities, both capable of causing a person to lose their true nature. Shui Sheng, who has the blood of a sea creature flowing through her veins, can stay underwater for extended periods without needing to breathe. Liu Er, with his genetic mutation, possesses extraordinary strength and can even change his shape, conjure wings, and fly through the air. Each of them has remarkable abilities, but none of them truly possesses the power to overwhelm mountains and seas.

The force required to extract helium-3 from the moon and bring it to Earth would be beyond description, even if it were described as overwhelming.

That requires the power to break through the gravitational pull of Earth and the Moon, and to traverse the vacuum of space 380,000 kilometers away.

Perhaps only a god could do that.

It felt like I had solved all the mysteries, only to be suddenly brought back to reality. The contrast between then and now left me feeling rather frustrated.

However, the frustration only flashed through my mind for a moment, while another emotion slowly began to grow.

"Brother, what are you laughing at?" Kou Yun asked curiously.

Before I knew it, a smile had crept onto my lips.

“I think this is starting to get interesting. It seems the answer lies somewhere beyond my current imagination,” I said.

That damned curiosity, like a little wild animal, stuck out its butt and started wriggling around.

Part Four of "Shadows of 380,000"

10. Thought Locking and Long Distance Experiments (1)

10. Thought Locking and Long Distance Experiments

I still remember Guo Dong's reaction when I told him.

"Did you know about the New Hope disaster?" I asked him.

"I just found out, how come this is..."

Before he could finish marveling at how strange things were, I interrupted, saying, "We did it."

Then I took the microphone away, and I could still clearly hear his loud shouts travel through thousands of miles of telephone lines and a meter of air to reach my ears.

After a few seconds, I brought the microphone closer and asked him, "Do you want to give it back?"

"Give it back? You've already made it and you still want to give it back? Oh, well, you still have to give it back, but there's no rush. You, oh no, I'll come to Shanghai right away to escort this treasure. You keep it safe and don't touch it."