Lin Sanjiu really felt relieved when she finally saw Marcie. As for her doubts and questions, she decided that she could slowly investigate about them later. The next item on her to-do list was to hunt for Voley. Since she spotted him at Basement One, that basically meant that he was living in the same building. If she searched cubicles one by one, there was no way she wouldn’t find him.
The surprising thing was that Lin Sanjiu didn’t even catch a glimpse of Voley for consecutively three days. For the past three days, she waited till everyone was asleep before searching the cubicles. She already checked every cubicle in Basement One, but she couldn’t find him. Just to play safe, she also searched the cubicles in Basement Two, but it was futile.
[Is it possible that he’s not in this building? If so, it’ll be troublesome.] Lin Sanjiu thought to herself. Recently, Xiao Yu somehow became much stricter about sleeping times. Perhaps because she had been triggered by something, she now sits in a chair at the stairway every morning as if she was deeply afraid that someone would just go out during daytime. After four uneventful days of fruitless searching, Lin Sanjiu laid on her bed. She was starting to get impatient about the matter.
For the past few days, her Keen Senses had constantly been wailing like a police siren in the far corner of her mind, making her feel very uneasy. She had the nagging feeling that something was wrong. During the night, she could temporarily ignore the underlying anxiety as she went around Oasis helping others with their chores; however, once she laid on her bed, it was a different story.
Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes and took a deep breath then slowly exhaled. After she had done this a couple of times, she managed to just focus on her own breathing. All her distracting thoughts melted like snow in summer and faded back into the recesses of her mind. Her mindscape was just a dark navy, she could see nothing there. It reminded her of the silent deep sea where thousands of mysterious creatures hid. Lin Sanjiu found herself in a very strange state of mind: it was as if she was an outsider in her own mind, quietly observing the depths of “Lin Sanjiu” consciousness. She looked downward as she felt the light current of the water against her body. She suddenly spotted a gigantic object, so large that she could not see the far side of it. It was so large that she thought that it was part of the sea!
The gigantic object seemed to have possessed a sort of magnetism which pulled Lin Sanjiu toward it. She headed toward the object faster and faster. Just when she thought she was about to collide with it, there was a huge boom, and the object broke through the surface of the water. At the same time, Lin Sanjiu opened her eyes abruptly and sat up, panting heavily. Her Keen Senses had leveled up!
“How has it changed? Let me see…” Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes and controlled her breathing again and once again entered that meditative state.
【School of Higher Consciousness】Just as if a violinist knowing how to perform Eine kleine Nachtmusik, or a soccer player knowing how to dribble across the field, that name appeared within her mind naturally.
Even though she only sat up for a fraction of a second, when Lin Sanjiu entered her mindscape once again, she found that it had totally changed. When she opened her “eyes”, she realized that she was sitting on a small stool and there was thick children foam mat under her feet. There were many toys scattered throughout the room, such as teddy bears and toy cars and others. When she looked at her hands and found that she was holding an educational picture chart. There was also a red flower brooch pinned on her chest. It looked extreme strange on a grown woman like herself.
[What... is this place?]
“Hello, dear students!” a warm, enthusiastic female voice filled the room. Startled, Lin Sanjiu looked up and saw there was no one other than herself. There was a movie projector screen at the front of the room, and a voice suddenly came from the two speakers beside the screen: “I am your kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Manas[1]! I want to congratulate all of you on your graduation to the next level in Keen Senses and successfully enrolling into the【School of Higher Consciousness】!”
Lin Sanjiu’s mouth hung open as she looked around the room. Beside herself, there were still a few small stools around, but… there were only other toys sitting on the stool — a teddy bear, a Barbie, and a Transformer figurine.
[I must be your only student!]
Regardless of the audience, the voice over the pair of speakers continued, “Everyone must be curious about the difference between Intuition and Higher Consciousness, right? What we call ‘intuition’ is actually a sort of rapid judgment about a situation based on one’s previous experience, sensations, and emotions, etc. Thus, there is no guarantee that Keen Senses is correct 100% of the time.
“The root of our intuition lies in our subconscious mind. Higher Consciousness is a skill that is developed from our subconscious mind, and it is super powerful!” The tone used did sound like one meant for speaking to a group of young children. “Alright, now everyone will learn how to control their Higher Consciousness. The first step to do that is to have a thorough understanding of what it is. Little Bear, please don’t touch Barbie’s leg.”
Lin Sanjiu turned her head wanting to see that student who would have been banned from any kindergarten school. The teddy bear was sitting silently in its seat, and the Barbie still wore the same smile.
“Okay, just as expected, our Lin Sanjiu was successfully distracted by my words. Humans are just that odd. Despite being in a highly unusual environment, any information worth of gossip still steals their attention like this...“ the speaker said gloatingly.
[This teacher! She’s totally full of sh*t!]
“This is because human consciousness is affected by your inherited genes. A person consciousness is inherently attuned to topics that involve human reproduction. Did you know? A seemingly intuitive reaction is actually brought by the decision of your subconsciousness.”
“No matter what you say, it sounds like a random excuse…” Lin Sanjiu’s expression was still sour. Just as though the speaker heard her, the speaker changed the subject abruptly: “Now, we shall start our class. Please look at your picture chart.”
Lin Sanjiu took a closer look at the picture chart and saw that there was a drawing of a motherboard on the piece of paper. Honestly speaking, no children would be able to understand what is written there.
“This is the topic for today. The database in our consciousness.”
“Many people spend a lot of effort trying to sharpen their perception. However, what they do not know is that massive amounts of information are recorded by one’s eyes, nose, ears, body, and skin. Unfortunately, normal humans will never be able to access this information even if they try an entire lifetime, this is because this information is stored in one’s subconsciousness.”
“After you possess a higher consciousness, your subconsciousness will automatically filter through all the information in its database. It is not easy to understand this, so let me give you an example.”
After the speaker had said this, a close-up image of a bowl of instant noodles appeared on the projection screen with a “pa!” sound.
“Hey, I really dislike this bed of red hair,” Lin Sanjiu suddenly heard Marcie’s voice over the speakers, she sounded like she was quite some distance away. A pair of familiar hands appeared on the screen, tearing open a packet of condiment.
Lin Sanjiu looked down at her own hands half-wittedly and confirmed that the hands shown on the screen were hers. She had some impression of that instant noodle. During that month they spent in the supermarket, she often ate that brand of noodles. However, Lin Sanjiu could not remember Marcie saying those words before.
“What can I do? You have already taken on a corporeal body.” Lin Sanjiu recognized Luther’s voice.
“Well, you could make me look like Natalie Portman.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. It will tire me out to keep that ability activated. Besides, her fans wouldn’t be happy to see her killing duoluozhongs!”
Once the screen turned black, Lin Sanjiu shuddered a little. She instantly knew what was wrong. The scene changed, and it now showed the incident which happened when she first saw Luther and Marcie at Zhu Mei’s house. At that time, both had transformed to look like her parents. Luther could use his Shapeshifting ability on another person beside himself!
She was unable to fathom how she could forget that since she witnessed it herself. “That meant that Septimus need not transform into Marcie. He could transform someone else into Marcie or even get that person to look like himself…” Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself. Bizarrely, while it was supposed to be an infuriating matter, all she felt was a strange calm.
The screen suddenly turned black again, and Mrs. Manas voice sounded out from the speakers.
“The reason why Lin Sanjiu can’t remember that this has nothing to do with her muscles being more developed than her brain — though that is in fact true. This is because most people would just store such information in their subconscious mind. Under normal circumstance, no one would actually take notice.
“The information that is recorded in one’s subconscious mind for a mere 0.1-second glance can fill up over ten pages. If you use your Higher Consciousness, you will be able to filter and analyze the large amount of information and make a judgment… obtaining the observational skills of a legendary detective. But of course, you must know that you will use up a lot of your ability power to use Higher Consciousness to assess the information in your subconscious mind. With that being said, I hope that all my students are prudent about it. Unless it is necessary, don’t conveniently access that database, okay?
“Alright! That’s the end of our kindergarten class. I hope everyone can use their new knowledge and quickly enter elementary school. Class dismissed!”
[So, it just ended like that?] Lin Sanjiu still had many questions to ask, but she ran out of time. The voice disappeared. Following which, the entire scenery faded. When she opened her eyes once again, she was back in her tiny cubicle.
Translator’s Note: [1] The author referred to the teacher as Teacher Yi. The Buddhist term Manas is the closest term to the Chinese word.
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