The man in the Immortal Pharma uniform suddenly appeared in the room. He took one step through a decade. Time didn’t leave any trace on him. The man looked around 40. He was gentle and polite, but his eyes were deep.
“Thank you, bloody man.” The man extended his hand to Han Fei. “My work Id is A0019. I have access to Immortal Pharma from twenty years ago. You can call me Brother Nian.”
“Bloody man?” Han Fei was covered in blood, so Ah Nian was not wrong. “You can thank me later. We need to get away now. All the ghosts are coming here!”
“Is it because you’ve saved me?” Ah Nian didn’t see how the garden was destroyed. He felt guilty. “Even after so many years, are they still worried that I might leak the secret?”
Saving Ah Nian wouldn’t anger the Pure Hatred, but Han Fei stole many souls and memories. He was like a stranger who came to take a bite out of someone’s birthday cake and ran away.
“Stop wasting time! Run!” Han Fei grabbed Ah Nian and ran out of the security room. The Pure Hatred was furious. The floors folded together. It felt like every room’s time flow was different.
“I just want to save someone. How is that wrong?” Han Fei almost panicked. The whole place was shaking.
“Don’t panic. I’m very familiar with this place. Leave this to me.” Ah Nian stepped forward. His wrinkles rippled. Memories appeared on his body. “My persona is very special. It’s made specially to test the tragedy. It contains all the knowledge available to Immortal Pharma. Other than that, I can pull energy from memory. In other words, the enemy has to deal with me from every past moment.”
Han Fei was still confused when he was picked up by Ah Nian. The ghost territory had almost no effect on Ah Nian. His memory was unshaken by time. “No one can influence me unless everyone in the world has forgotten me.”
Ah Nian talked a big game, but Han Fei felt like he was exaggerating. If he was that powerful, why would he be trapped in the security room? Ah Nian evaded all the time traps and reached the end of the corridor.
“Why none of the elders and caretaker came to stop you?” Han Fei was confused. He was attacked the moment he stepped into the home.
“Because they see me as one of them. Many elders here are my former friends. I even promised to help them achieve immortality.” Immortality appeared to carry a special meaning for Ah Nian as his expression changed. “There’s a Pure Hatred here called Immortality. He was once someone I respected a lot.”
Ah Nian stepped on the gaps in time. He could see the threads formed by time. As long as he avoided the threads, he wouldn’t be trapped. Terrifying sounds came from behind. Another Pure Hatred had awakened. Han Fei hadn’t really done anything, but he had angered almost every Pure Hatred there.
“It looks like they really hate me. But I was the one who was lied to!” Ah Nian was still absorbed in his own world. Every place he passed, the time moved faster. He moved very fast. He managed to get Han Fei out of the Old Folk’s home before the ghost territory covered the night sky.
Ah Nian didn’t stop. He raced down the mountain. The ghost territory rushed at them like a flood. They ran for a thousand meters and back to the city before things returned to normal.
Looking from a distance, Gu Yang Tian Nian Old Folk’s Home had returned to normal. It was hard to imagine the dangers inside.
Ah Nian leaned against the wall and slumped to the ground. “Memories are related to time. My power is connected to theirs too.”
“You said your persona is made to prepare for the tragedy? And your brain has all the documents from Immortal Pharma?” Han Fei immediately asked about the things that he was most concerned about.
“In reality, everyone can resist ghosts. Thanks to Immortal Pharma’s research, we use the ghosts’ obsession to trigger the potential of persona. The first persona is born inside Immortal Pharma’s lab.” Ah Nian didn’t hide anything from Han Fei. After all, Han Fei had read through his Book of Life.
“Persona is your research result, but this tragedy appeared because of you.”
“Let’s assume there’s a button before you. There’s a 50 percent chance you’ll get immortality and 50 percent chance to die if you press it. Will you press it?” Ah Nian’s pale face smiled.
“No.” Han Fei shook his head firmly.
“That’s cause you’re still young. When you’re old or threatened by illness, you will change your mind.” Ah Nian shook his head. “Plus, this world is never decided by the majority but the minority.”
“But isn’t the minority picked from the majority.” Han Fei carried Ah Nian to the car he had hidden earlier.
“It’s meaningless to argue what has already happened.” Ah Nian pointed at his brain. “The research result of Immortal Pharma is in my brain. Bring me to the headquarters, and I’ll rebuild hope.”
“Immortal Pharma has been destroyed. Of the two giants, only Deep Space Tech remained.” Han Fei put on the safety belt for Ah Nian. “Tragedy destroyed the city. The survivors needed to find someone to blame. That thing was Immortal Pharma. Everything related to it was destroyed, and no one would bring it up now.” Immortal Pharma was now history. Han Fei passed his Id to Ah Nian. “Now, there are three big bases at Xin Lu. I’m affiliated with one of them, the Tragedy Investigation Center. I’m the leader of Team 13.”
“A normal team leader dares to enter the Old Folk’s Home alone to taunt 3 Pure Hatreds?” Ah Nian was shocked. Humanity didn’t seem to need his help.
“I’m just braver than normal.”
With Ah Nian in tow, Han Fei returned to the center around dawn. The time flow at home was different than outside. It had already been the second day already.
The black band was nullified inside the ghost territory. The center couldn’t reach Han Fei, and they were worried.
“Teacher Gao, where have you been? Why can’t we contact you?” The patrols saw Team 13’s car and immediately ran over. The medics came as well.
“Didn’t you go to investigate the survivor’s base?” Tou Qi immediately ran over when he heard that Han Fei had returned. He was already ready to go out to look for Han Fei with Xue Ba.
“My initial plan was to go to the Village of Longevity. But I realized that place was related to Gu Yang Tian Nian Old Folk’s Home. So I went there to investigate.” Han Fei answered calmly.
“Are you crazy? You went to a Strange Building alone?!” Tou Qi was shocked. “We shan’t allow you to go on solo missions again.”
“It’s fine. I had a helper.” Han Fei tapped Ah Nian’s shoulder. “I have a new friend to introduce to everyone. This is Brother Nian. He has the memory persona with seven awakenings.”
“Seven?” The patrols were shocked. That was the power level of a vice-captain.
Whenever Han Fei came back from a mission, he would bring back a huge surprise. Last time, he destroyed Hope City’s black sheep.
“Bring him to do a persona test first. I’ll go inform the leaders now!” Tou Qi hurried and left. Han Fei opened the abyss and let out the flower of resentment. He had swallowed the test device, so he needed to conduct the test. Ah Nian cooperated fully. He was trapped in that one minute for a decade, so he was very interested in the outside world. “Humans are really adaptive creatures. After their potential is triggered, they have swiftly rebuilt on the ruins.”
After the test was over, the higher-ups summoned Ah Nian and Han Fei to the conference room. Once he entered the door, Fu Lie at the table stood up. He looked at Ah Nian in shock. “You’re still alive?”
“Fu Lie?” Ah Nian paused at the door, and the atmosphere became tense.
“You two know each other?” Han Fei stood between them to prevent an altercation.
“It’s more than that. I personally placed his body in the test chamber.” Ah Nian chuckled sadly. “You saw my memory. In the underground lab, there were many chambers. Fu Lie was in one of them when the tragedy happened.” “That’s right. My family was framed. I was part of the company until I became an experiment target. And he was responsible for leading that experiment.” Fu Lie’s tone was harsh. “Where’s your teacher? To awaken the persona, he has tortured me a lot.”
“He is now a Pure Hatred, the ghost that he hates the most. The last mission he gave me is to do everything to kill him.” Ah Nian entered the room. “It was not me who betrayed you. We are not enemies.”
With the other higher-ups nodding, Fu Lie sat back down.
The meeting started. Han Fei shared the result of his investigation at Gu Yang Tian Nian Old Folk’s Home. This was worth a lot of contribution points. Other than that, Ah Nian also shared his test result with the center. The info from his memory helped the center a lot. For the center, Ah Nian was like a treasure. He was worth more than Fu Lie.
The center wished Ah Nian could join the persona test department, but Ah Nian didn’t trust people. He didn’t want to stay too long within the admin. The higher-ups decided to respect him and made him the first member of Team 13.
To protect Ah Nian and to protect Han Fei from doing crazy things, the higher-ups decided to expand Team 13.
They allowed Yan Lan and Crow to join Team 13. They also moved someone with a sixth awakening stable persona to be the vice-captain.
Just like that, Team 13 had 2 persona users with 7 awakenings and 3 users with 6 awakenings.
