From the end of the world

Chapter 89: Sharing What You Have 3
Since I had previously suggested that Ma Zao use Luo Shan's power to investigate the Doomsday, it was inevitable that Ma Zao would continue to have contact with Zhu Shi. On this basis, I had to tell Zhu Shi about Ma Zao's unlucky physique and let him understand the risks of continuing to have contact with Ma Zao.

Besides, even if I didn't say it, Ma Zao would have told it on his own initiative. It is impossible to hide it.

And once I said it, my true motives were within reach.

I explained Ma Zao's unlucky physique in just a few words. As expected, after listening to it, Zhu Shi paused for a long time. She was puzzled at first, then suddenly realized, and finally seemed to have figured out many mysteries, showing a look of light and clarity.

"I see...I see!" she said, "In the past, you were so powerful that you were repelled by strange things, but recently you have become able to come into contact with strange things normally for some reason...I knew there must be a major reason for this turn of events, it turns out it's because of your contact with that amnesiac girl!"

"Yes." I nodded.

"And the reason why you took her in, took her so seriously, and gave her a GPS bracelet was because she could fulfill your wish!"

"Yes," I admitted.

"Now everything makes sense..." She suddenly felt refreshed, but couldn't help complaining, "But no matter what, the GPS bracelet still has some..."

I sincerely admitted my guilt: "I was wrong, and I won't do it again."

"Why don't you tell her the truth?" She observed my reaction and then said, "Is it because you have lied too many times before and have a burden in your heart? Are you worried that telling her the truth will destroy your image in her mind?"

Since I had already confessed to this extent, I no longer pretended to be anything more and simply accepted her speculation: "That's about it."

Ma Zao is a doomsday survivor who is very wary of her surroundings. I can often feel her vigilance and defensiveness when I interact with her, but in the end, the process of getting closer between us is relatively smooth. This is because she has a stereotyped impression of humans living in a peaceful era, or an unrealistic fantasy. And I followed her preconceived psychology and played the role of a kind person.

In other words, her trust and good impression of me are probably based on that false image.

Although I had concealed my superpowers from her before, there was still room for argument. After all, people with superpowers in this era are in a hidden state. Before she proved that she had superpowers, it was reasonable for me to hide my superpowers.

However, if I concealed my true motive for taking her in, the nature of the matter would be quite different. She would doubt my inner character.

The worst thing is that I know very well what my true inner character is. If I make it public, not to mention Ma Zao, even Zhu Shi will probably distance himself from me, and Chang An will be greatly disappointed in me.

How could I be the kindhearted person that Ma Zao imagined? I was clearly an evil person whose primary motive was my own selfish desires.

"You are actually worried that exposing your true self will destroy the image you have worked so hard to build in the hearts of the opposite sex. Brother Zhuang, are you a girl in love..." Zhu Shi was stunned at first, and then said, "And I think you don't need to hide it. Can't you just be honest? As long as you are honest enough, the other party will definitely accept it.

"More importantly, truth will come out sooner or later. As long as you two date for a long time, she will definitely find out about your pursuit of weird things from other places, and then realize the purpose of your dating her."

"I understand. I will try to explain it to her." I said, "So I hope you can cooperate with me in the near future and don't tell the truth."

Hearing this, she hesitated to speak, thought for a long time, and finally agreed: "Okay...you have confessed to me, I can still help with this small favor."

"Then it's your turn to answer me..." I looked at her seriously, "When you were communicating with Ma Zao just now, you secretly used 'Buzhou Mountain', right? In your opinion, is what Ma Zao said about the doomsday and time travel true or false?"

She admitted directly: "Everything she said was true."

"Do you believe her?" I asked.

"...To be honest, it's hard to believe." She hesitated for a moment and said, "Perhaps she has a way to hide it from me; or maybe she had a nightmare about the end of the world during her amnesia and believed it to be true after waking up; or maybe amnesia itself has the effect of making the patient mentally confused..."

She paused for a long time before she said with difficulty: "...But since she firmly believes in her own ideas, I can't just laugh off her words as empty talk."

From her point of view, she probably hoped to simply regard Ma Zao as a patient with amnesia who had awakened, and find clues to curing amnesia from him.

Her mother is a patient with amnesia, so it is inevitable that there will be some personal feelings involved.

Yet she still forced herself to make a calm analysis.

"Will you report her to the higher-ups?" I asked. "Of course. We are still not sure if she is a pure soul traveler. Perhaps her soul travel is related to amnesia." She analyzed, "Maybe other amnesia patients will think they were living in a doomsday world after waking up, just like her."

"It's easy to verify this hypothesis," I suggested. "She has a friend in the apocalypse. As long as Luo Shan takes out all the photos and information of the amnesiacs and asks her to identify them, and finds someone who matches her friend's characteristics, it means that the souls of other amnesiacs are likely to have traveled to the apocalypse she mentioned."

"You're right!" She perked up, but was confused. "Wait, didn't you tell her about her friends before? And since you gave her a GPS bracelet and she didn't notice it, does that mean you knew her location all along?"

"It's not convenient to talk about how I met her friend now," I said. "As for the GPS bracelet... for some reason, the bracelet has not been able to send out a signal since she left me. I'm also very curious about what's going on..."

She didn't dwell too much on my contact with Ma Zao's friends, but after hearing what happened next, she said thoughtfully, "Maybe it has something to do with her ability..."

"What is her ability?" I was very curious. "You mentioned 'Power of Return' earlier. Is that the name of her ability?"

"Yes." She explained, "Her ability is 'return', or it is easier to understand if we describe it as 'reset'.

"She can reset her state in time and her position in space. So even if she gets hurt, she can recover instantly, or she can move herself to a route she's been to before.

"At the same time, this ability should also be used on objects she touches, including clothes or accessories. If my thinking is correct, the reason why the GPS bracelet is not sending a signal now may be because she reset it to a state where it has not been paired with your device.

"Her athletic ability that surpasses the monster is probably obtained by this ability, but it seems to involve more complex application operations. I was mostly focused on the monster at the time and didn't see clearly how she achieved it."

After listening to it, the cloud of doubt hanging over my heart suddenly dissipated.

If the GPS bracelet was reset in that way, then the thermal signature I left inside her body was likely reset in the same way.

This also means that as long as Ma Zao wants to escape from me, I can neither stop her by force nor leave any meaningful backup plan in secret.

It turned out to be the right approach to use No. 2 as bait to let the hemp be hooked early in the morning.

As for why she chose to reset the GPS bracelet immediately after leaving me three days ago, I can only think of one reason... It was not because she found that there was something wrong with the bracelet, but because I took her to too many places on our "date" at that time. She might have been sweating, hungry, or simply wanted to restore her strength, so she reset her entire body.

Last night, the weirdo with the ability to "transfer damage" said that he had successfully escaped from Ma Zao's pursuit. The reason why the latter did not use space transfer at the time was probably because the weirdo fled in a direction she had never set foot on.

Many confusing mysteries become so simple once they are solved.

Zhu Shi removed the barrier that blocked out the sound, and then went back to Ma Zao with me.

"Have you finished?" Ma Zao looked at us, "So, what are you going to do with me next?"

"Let's act together later." Zhu Shi said in a friendly voice, "We need to solve the monster incident, and you need to collect evidence of the approaching doomsday through the monsters. It will be beneficial for both of us to work together. In addition, we will also need your cooperation in the investigation of amnesia later. Is that okay?"

Ma Zao seemed to have expected this, and nodded without much hesitation: "Okay."

"Well, without further ado, can you please provide some clues?" Zhu Shi said, "It's about the weird guy who escaped earlier. In fact, we also lack clues related to him. You were chasing him before, which means you should have enough clues to track him, so you were able to find him. Is that right?"

"No, I don't have any clues either." Ma Zao shook his head, "I was just wandering outside and happened to run into him."

"Wandering around... just by chance..." Zhu Shi was stunned, and then couldn't help asking, "Is this how you investigate the apocalypse?"

"Yes." Ma Zao said confidently, "I have a physique that attracts weird things. As long as I walk around outside, weird things will find me sooner or later. Is there any problem with this?"

"Uh..." Zhu Shi looked at me at a loss.

I had also speculated in the past about how Ma Zao was going to investigate the apocalypse. I had thought that as a time traveler, she must have some clues that I didn't know, which gave her the confidence to investigate the apocalypse alone, but I didn't expect her approach to be so simple and crude.

"I have a question for you as well." Ma Zao looked at Zhu Shi, "You said that you can see through other people's abilities. Then what about the demon that escaped earlier... or the weirdo? Do you know how he escaped?"

(End of this chapter)