Master of Kaidan
Chapter 59 What a Lucky Human-shaped Koi

Chapter 59: Chapter 59 What a Lucky Human-shaped Koi

Watching Chen Xiyao fall silent for a moment, the female officer thought the other party didn’t know how to start speaking. Although it was their first time dealing with someone who had returned from the other side "in one piece," they had seen her attire—marked by unmistakable traces of vomit, as well as bloodstains and bits of innards on her shoes. As police officers, they naturally wouldn’t overlook such details.

However, this was also why the interviewers were all female officers; after all, people generally find it easier to open up about their unwillingly recalled past to women.

Although the act of digging into someone’s wounds was in itself difficult to broach, given that each year many people fall victim to Kaidan invasions, this almost unique lucid survivor could almost be seen as a breakthrough in recent years.

Therefore, she slightly softened her tone and suggested,

"As for the world on that side, our understanding is also very one-sided, so you can start by talking about your own experience, um, if there’s anything you don’t want to say, you can skip it."

"There’s nothing I’m reluctant to speak of," Chen Xiyao gently shook her head, but just before she was about to speak, she hesitated and asked,

"What is the nation’s stance on Kaidan?"

"?" The female officer was slightly startled by the question. She hadn’t expected the girl to ask something like this. Those who had gone through psychological intervention and were barely able to converse in previous years were mostly hostile, with statements like "we have to kill all those things," but this girl’s attitude, how could it be...

Could this be that cliche from romantic dramas where the sheep fall in love with the wolf?

The female officer entertained such a thought, but after some deliberation, she honestly replied,

"In fact, we don’t have a sufficiently comprehensive response to them, because their appearances and disappearances are extremely sudden, so sudden that not even our languages are mutually intelligible. Even if we capture a Kaidan, they mostly seem frantic to escape—they appear to be under some restriction and tend to vanish completely not long after being captured."

"But over there, I could understand what they were saying!" Chen Xiyao was puzzled, but the officer nodded and explained,

"That’s right, all survivors who still retain the ability to communicate have reported that within Infinite City, even knowing that the language used was different from their own, they could easily understand the content. But this is why we can’t analyze their language, because each Kaidan uses a different language."

At this point, the female officer noticed a subtle change in Chen Xiyao’s expression and added,

"It’s precisely because of this situation that we can’t properly communicate with the Kaidan. We don’t know why they kill or torment people, nor what they want. If there comes a time when we can communicate with a Kaidan, I believe the nation would definitely attempt to engage with it. But for now, we can only treat them as invaders or dangerous wild beasts."

"I understand," Chen Xiyao took a deep breath and then looked straight into the female officer’s eyes and said,

"I was very lucky and didn’t encounter too much danger, but I don’t know too much..."

"That’s okay; even a little more understanding is good." The officer said in as gentle a tone as possible, while signaling to her colleague beside her.

Chen Xiyao didn’t notice the small gestures of the police, her eyes slightly vacant as if recalling, she said,

"That afternoon when I was returning home, as soon as I opened the door, I realized something was off about the house. Then suddenly, someone in white robes burst out and covered my mouth..."

Chen Xiyao slowly recounted her experiences from the past couple of weeks. Apart from some embarrassing details such as pink toys and why she hadn’t gone to the toilet that day, including using the restroom outside the walls, encounters with oddly shaped monsters, and finally returning in a cardboard box, she revealed everything.

It was the police officer who remained somewhat bewildered throughout, yet forcefully restrained herself from interrupting the young girl’s story. At this point, their view of the girl before them had completely changed.

When they received the assignment, they thought, "Another pitiful girl," but now, in their minds, there was only one thought about Chen Xiyao—what sort of human koi fish was she? Wasn’t her luck a bit too good?

People who strayed into Infinite City would at least lose half their lives; those who could articulate a couple of sentences after coming out were considered lucky. Most others were left barely clinging to life.

But what about this girl? She was gifted a Powerful Bodyguard upon arrival, offered food and shelter, and they even tried desperately to send her back. What was this, a template from some old web novel’s protagonist?

Although she knew it was wrong to think so, the female officer just felt that the girl was perhaps too fortunate, even suspecting whether the Infinite City she traversed to was the one they knew of. Yet, the various details the girl described matched their current intelligence—

Except for the white-robed man who had taken her from place to place in hiding.

Setting aside details like Kaidan torturing people to collect Fear, which had long been speculated, the officer focused on those aspects that contradicted their existing theories and began to inquire—

"You mentioned that the white-robed person said that the monsters outside the city and the ’people’ inside the city are two different things?"

"Yes, he said those monsters are called omens... It seems like even the people inside the city are afraid of them too. Those monsters seem very sensitive to the presence of outsiders like us; they would even fight over our excrement. Moreover, he said that if I died in Infinite City, I would become one of those irrational monsters, but a very strong one," Chen Xiyao repeated what Feng Xue had casually mentioned before, deliberately omitting Feng Xue’s name and referring to him only as ’him’ or the white-robed person. The officer, upon hearing this, revealed a flash of realization, but didn’t explore the topic further, switching to another question instead—

"When I saw you pulling your parents into the house earlier, it didn’t seem like you had the strength expected for your physique. Was it because you ate some strange meat there?"

"No, it was Inner Strength," Chen Xiyao shook her head, with no intention of hiding the truth. Her reasoning was simple—

Although she had brought back parts of the Secret Manual, completing it with her abilities alone was nearly impossible. But it would be different for the nation.

Moreover, if the officials realized that Feng Xue could create or even mass-produce the Secret Manual, his status in their eyes would surely rise. Thus, even if just to have him produce Secret Manuals, they would definitely protect him.

Hearing these two words, the officer thought for a moment that there might be something wrong with her hearing, and forcefully resisted the urge to reach for her ear in a gesture that would break her composure. She asked for confirmation,

"The Inner Strength you’re talking about, is it like that from martial arts novels? If I remember correctly, your traversal was only for about a couple of weeks, wasn’t it? Or is time flowing differently between the two worlds?"