Travel through time, and then establish an anomaly management bureau!

Page 66

Zhang Su shook his head, his eyes fixed on Reg's twisted arm: "No need to help. Terry, just block their view for me."

He turned to look at the teenagers who were carrying the gang members and occasionally glancing back curiously. "The treatment I'm about to use is a bit unusual and might scare them."

Terry immediately understood what Zhang Su meant. Although he didn't know what "strange" meant, he chose to believe it.

“Okay!” he replied without hesitation, immediately turning around with his back to Zhang Su and Lei Ge, facing the alley entrance, spreading his arms and using his thin body to form a human wall as much as possible, blocking most of the possible gazes.

He left Reg with only a resolute silhouette.

Reg watched Terry's decisive action, his suspicions growing even stronger—what magic did this mysterious man possess that made Terry trust and obey him so much?

"I'm about to start, just bear with it." Zhang Su's deep voice interrupted Reg's thoughts.

The next second, excruciating pain erupted like a volcano!

Zhang Su's hands, like iron clamps, suddenly grabbed Reg's two twisted arms! The movement was fast, accurate, and ruthless, without the slightest hesitation!

He pressed down, pushed, and twisted with both hands!

Poof! Click!

Accompanied by a tooth-grinding sound of bone grinding and a faint sound of bones resetting, Zhang Su forcefully pressed the several pale bone fragments protruding from the flesh on Reg's arms back under the skin with an almost brutal technique!

"Uhhh-!!!"

An indescribable, soul-tearing pain instantly overwhelmed Reg!

His muscles tensed instantly, his eyes bulged, and a suppressed scream, like that of a dying beast, escaped from deep within his throat!

Large beads of sweat instantly covered his forehead. He clenched his teeth so tightly that his gums bled! If it weren't for his extraordinary willpower, he would have fainted by now.

When Terry heard a muffled groan and the sound of bones grinding behind him, his body trembled violently. But he gritted his teeth and didn't turn around. Instead, he straightened his body even more to block all view.

Just as Reg was about to be completely destroyed by the excruciating pain, a strange and vibrant energy, like a trickle, surged into the shattered flesh and bones of Zhang Su's arms through his tightly clenched hands!

This energy was precisely a trace of activating pollution power that Zhang Su had precisely guided from the "Void Space" and from the "Greedy Treasure Chest"! Using the control of the "Containment Protocol," he carefully extracted the "activation" properties contained within it, which could stimulate the cells to proliferate wildly, and suppressed its concentration to an extremely low and controllable threshold!

"Activation"—it is both the curse of alienation and the miracle of life's rebirth! The key lies in guidance and dosage!

"Ugh..." Reg's howl of pain stopped abruptly, replaced by an indescribable, bone-deep itch!

This feeling was even more unbearable than excruciating pain! It felt as if millions of tiny ants, with a slippery touch, were frantically crawling, gnawing, and secreting something in the cracks of his broken bones, between his torn muscle fibers, and inside his ruptured blood vessel walls!

itch!

An itch that went straight to his bones! The itch was so intense that every hair on his body stood on end, and every pore seemed to be screaming!

He couldn't help but want to scratch, but his arms were firmly held in place by Zhang Su. He could only twist his body in pain, letting out a suppressed, beast-like growl from his throat. Veins bulged on his forehead, and his muscles twitched uncontrollably.

Hearing the suppressed roars and the sound of bodies scraping the ground behind him, Terry's palms were sweating with tension, but he remembered Zhang Su's words and dared not turn around.

Zhang Su was completely focused, his mind highly concentrated, as if walking a tightrope on a cliff. He precisely controlled that faint yet violent energy, carefully guiding it to flow through every wound on Reg's arms.

He could clearly "perceive" that, stimulated by the power of activation, Reg's shattered bone fractures were like thirsty sponges, greedily absorbing energy. Countless bone cells at the fracture sites were dividing, proliferating, connecting, and calcifying at an unprecedented rate; the severed tendons and muscle fibers, nourished by the energy, were like vines infused with life force, wildly stretching, coiling, and reweaving; the ruptured blood vessel walls were also rapidly repairing and healing...

In Zhang Su's view, the wounds on Reg's arms were changing at an astonishing speed that was visible to the naked eye!

From the grotesque, gaping, and bloody edges of the wound, tender new granulation tissue sprouted like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, emerging from the ruptured tissue at an astonishing speed, wriggling, intertwining, and spreading wildly! They greedily covered the exposed bone and damaged muscle, and wherever they went, the wound quickly closed and healed!

The exposed, white bone fragments were gently wrapped by a layer of rapidly proliferating, translucent, and tough fascia tissue, and then covered with more flesh and blood tissue.

The bruising and swelling beneath the skin seemed to be wiped away by an invisible hand, quickly subsiding. On the skin's surface, the edges of the torn wound began to shrink inward, and pink new skin grew rapidly along the edges of the wound, closing towards the center, leaving behind healing marks that resembled red earthworms, but were fading and flattening at a rapid pace!

In just over ten seconds, Reg's two arms, which were originally twisted, broken, with bone fragments sticking out, and covered in blood, looking like a terrible sight, miraculously returned to their original state!

Although his skin still retained the pinkish glow of new life and a few faint red marks that had not completely disappeared, his bones had been repositioned and reconnected, his muscles and tendons had reconnected, and the swelling and bruising had vanished without a trace! Apart from his still pale face due to blood loss and excruciating pain, and the eerie glow that flashed by on the skin of his arms like faint blue vein patterns (those were faint traces of residual activation energy), his arms no longer showed any signs of the terrible state they had been in just moments before!

The intense itching receded like a tide, replaced by a deep, warm, tingling sensation that penetrated to the bone, as if countless tiny electric currents were flowing joyfully through the newly formed tissue, nourishing every inch of the reborn flesh and blood.

Reg's heavy breathing gradually subsided. He looked down in disbelief at his arms, which were completely unharmed and even felt stronger than before he was injured. He subconsciously moved his fingers and tried to bend and stretch his arm joints—they were flexible and easy to use!

Apart from a slight tightness and lingering tingling sensation in the new skin, there was no pain whatsoever!

He suddenly raised his head and looked at Zhang Su, who was still squatting in front of him, his face slightly pale, his forehead covered in fine beads of sweat from the intense concentration and exhaustion he had just achieved.

Those deep, star-like eyes were now filled with unparalleled shock, confusion, and a sense of horror at the existence of non-human beings!

When Terry heard that there was no more movement behind him, he finally couldn't help but cautiously turn around.

When he saw Reg's perfectly intact arms and the look of utter disbelief on his brother's face, Terry froze instantly. His mouth gaped open, his eyes widened, and his mind went completely blank, with only one thought echoing in his head:

"A miracle! This is simply a miracle! I never imagined that Mr. Zhang Su was actually an 'apostle' of God, capable of causing a miracle!"

“You…” Reg’s voice was dry and hoarse, trembling with the shock of surviving a catastrophe and immense confusion, “…Are you a devout believer in God? Or…a superhuman?”

He uttered those two words with difficulty, his gaze fixed on Zhang Su, trying to find the answer in his calm face.

The incredible and illogical "miracle" he had just witnessed completely overturned his understanding of reality.

Zhang Su met his shocked gaze and asked with a smile, "Guess?"

Reg frowned, struggling to process this illogical scene, and finally shook his head, his voice low and honest: "I can't guess, this power could be either."

He could feel a lingering, tingling sensation in his arms, like a faint electric current, as if the new flesh and blood were leaping with joy. But the sensation itself was filled with an inhuman eeriness.

“Then you can consider me the latter,” Zhang Su shrugged, his tone as casual as if he were talking about the weather. “Anyway, I’m not a devout believer in God.”

Then he asked, "And you? Are you a believer in God?"

Reg's eyes instantly became complicated, and past memories flashed before his eyes like a dusty scroll—the faint candlelight in the dilapidated chapel in the slums, the rough wooden holy emblem his mother clutched tightly before her death, and countless silent prayers in despair... In the end, those images were covered by the coldness and cruelty of reality.

He paused for a few seconds, then said in a low but firm voice, "It used to be. But not anymore."

He raised his head, his gaze piercing through the roof of the dilapidated shack, looking towards the distant and indifferent sky. "God may exist, but He... or they, cannot protect everyone. At least, they cannot protect people like us. We are born into this mud, struggling to survive, seeking nothing more than the dignity of living. God may not hear us, or he may hear us but choose to remain silent."

"If one is not protected, then faith loses its meaning."

He chuckled self-deprecatingly. "A very pragmatic idea, isn't it?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Su's eyes flashed with admiration, and he chuckled, "That's certainly pragmatic. However, if you said that to other believers outside, you'd probably be punished as a heretic."

Reg smirked. "I know. That's why I never talk about my 'faith' with other people."

Zhang Su smiled knowingly and didn't press the matter further. He stood up and patted Terry's shoulder, who was still immersed in great shock, his mouth slightly open, and his eyes fixed on Reg's arms.

“Alright, Terry,” Zhang Su’s voice carried a gentle smile, rousing the boy from his reverie. “Stop daydreaming. I want to have a serious talk with your older brother about some important things. Could you find us a quiet place? Ideally, a chair to sit down and rest for a while.”

Terry jolted awake, his face instantly flushing with a mixture of excitement and awe. He nodded frantically, his voice trembling with emotion, "Yes! Yes! Sir, please come with me! Brother, let's go!"

He instinctively reached out to help Reg.

Although Reg had just experienced the excruciating pain and shock of having his broken bones reattached, his physical condition was actually better than before the injury.

But he still reached out and shook the hand that Terry offered, stood up, and nodded to Zhang Su: "This way, Mr. Zhang Su."

Terry led the way, guiding the two through several narrow passages separated by broken planks and discarded canvas, until they finally arrived at a relatively secluded corner.

He carefully pushed open a door made of old wooden planks.

Behind the door was a small cubicle of only five or six square meters, a stark contrast to the filth and chaos of the slums outside.

This place has clearly been well-maintained. The ground is paved with relatively flat stone slabs, and although the gaps are filled with dirt, it has been swept very clean.

The walls were carefully covered with a layer of discarded thick canvas, which covered the gaps in the shed outside and also blocked out some of the noise and cold.

A low table made of discarded wooden crates and several thick planks was placed in the center, covered with an old tablecloth that was washed white, with worn edges but fine stitches.

On the tablecloth sat a small vase made from a broken earthenware pot, filled with a few unidentified wildflowers. Although they were a little wilted, they added a rare touch of life to the small space.

Two “chairs” made of wooden boxes and thick cloth cushions were placed on either side of the table. Although simple, the cushions looked quite sturdy.

In the corner, there was even a small "fireplace" made of bricks, with remnants of burnt charcoal inside, and a small bundle of chopped firewood neatly stacked next to it. Above the fireplace hung a simple oil lamp made from a tin can, with a neatly twisted wick.

The entire space was filled with a faint, clean scent mixed with wood ash and some cheap soapberry. Although small, it was surprisingly warm and tidy, a small haven full of life that stubbornly existed in this desolate place.

Terry rubbed his hands a little embarrassedly: "Sir, brother, the place is a bit small, but it's clean enough. Please have a seat."

He ran quickly to the fireplace, picked up a similarly washed, faded earthenware pot and two relatively intact earthenware cups, poured some water from a large water jug ​​with a wooden lid in the corner, and carefully carried it to the table, placing it in front of Zhang Su and Reg respectively.

"Thank you." Zhang Su nodded slightly, showing no sign of disdain.

He picked up the ceramic cup, which contained crystal-clear river water.

He knew the source of the water was strange, but with his body now enhanced by abnormal energy and his immunity to pollution, he had nothing to worry about.

He tilted his head back and drank the water in the glass in one gulp, the movement natural and fluid.

"Tsk," he put down his empty glass and exclaimed sincerely, "This water is indeed quite delicious, clear and sweet."

Terry scratched his head, a shy and somewhat awkward smile on his face: "I'm glad you like it... It's just that this water... I feel like it's a bit... um... not presentable enough..."

His voice trailed off, clearly feeling that serving such a mysterious "gentleman" with river water from the slums was rather stingy.

Reg also picked up his glass of water and drank it all in one gulp. The cool water soothed his throat, which was dry from excitement and nervousness.

He put down his cup, looked calmly at Zhang Su, and asked directly, "Mr. Zhang Su, thank you for saving my life and for healing my injuries. Now, what brings you here to discuss something privately?"

He had a gut feeling that what this mysterious man was about to say would be very important.

Zhang Su leaned forward slightly, his hands crossed on the simple wooden table, a gentle yet enigmatic smile on his face.

He gazed into Reg's deep, resolute eyes, and spoke slowly, his voice not loud, yet like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, it stirred up huge ripples:

Actually, I only want to ask you one question.

Reg frowned slightly, a vague premonition forming in his mind, but he still said in a deep voice, "Please ask."

Zhang Su's smile deepened, and a strange light seemed to flash deep within his calm eyes. He asked clearly, word by word, the question that could change Reg's fate:

"That is—do you crave power? Do you want to become a superhuman?"

Upon hearing this, Reg could barely contain his emotions. His hands clenched into fists involuntarily, and his whole body trembled!

But he forced himself to control his emotions and said, "Becoming a superhuman... how could I not want to... if I had superhuman abilities, my parents wouldn't have died in that disaster... and my brothers and I wouldn't have to continue struggling in this despairing place..."

"So... sir, please tell me, what is the price?"

"—What is the price for gaining transcendence?!"

Volume 2: Chapter 19: A Satisfactory Response, Preparations Before Going Down the Mine

Zhang Su was satisfied with Reg's response!

The other party craves extraordinary power, while he craves new talent; the two strive towards each other, a win-win situation!

Zhang Su nodded and said, "Good answer. You are exactly the kind of talent our bureau needs. Now, tell me your full name."

Reg did not hesitate at all, as if his name itself represented his belief: "Reg Lornheim!" The surname carried a sense of hardship and weight, just like him.

“Reg Lorneheim…a good name! Now it’s my turn to introduce myself.” Zhang Su nodded, savoring the power within. “My name is Zhang Su. I belong to a supernatural organization called the ‘Curtain Cornerstone Administration’.”

“An extraordinary organization?!” Reg’s eyes narrowed.

Terry suddenly covered his mouth, his eyes wide open, and dared not breathe, because he felt he had heard something very serious.

“Yes,” Zhang Su continued, “I am here on orders from the organization to investigate unusual events in Migai City and to find potential talents. I am here today to investigate the source of that strange clean water river in the slums.”

"And you, Reg Lornheim, with your mortal body, faced the Sequence 10 superhuman 'violent element' head-on. Your courage is admirable. Although you were ultimately defeated, your combat instincts, physical abilities, and will to protect your companions are all top-notch."

Zhang Su stepped forward, his tone carrying an undeniable invitation: "On behalf of the Curtain Cornerstone Administration, I formally invite you to join us. As long as you join the organization and perform missions for it, you can accumulate 'performance points.' When you have enough points, you can exchange them for a 'Sequence Potion,' which will unlock your path to extraordinary power and grant you the strength to fight against injustice and darkness. Are you willing?"

Without a second thought, Reg looked Zhang Su straight in the eye and asked the only question he cared about without hesitation: "Is your organization good or evil?"

Zhang Su did not shy away from the issue and replied directly: "Lawful good. We do not act out of selfishness or for the sake of domination, but only to safeguard the overall survival and stability of human civilization and to fight against threats from anomalies, chaos, and malice."

“I understand!” Reg said resolutely. “I’ll join!”

"Oh?" Zhang Su raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised. "You agreed so quickly? Aren't you going to ask about the organization's details, rules, or risks?"

Reg's expression was serious, but with the straightforwardness of a warrior and his keen intuition for judging people, he said, "No need! I only know that you saved us, and that your organization's goal is to protect humanity, and that's enough. As for the other rules, I will naturally abide by them and learn them after joining."

"That's great!" Zhang Su's eyes showed even more appreciation. He said no more. "Since that's the case, let's not waste any more time."

As soon as he finished speaking, he seemingly casually flicked his wrist, and a piece of gray-blue cardboard about the size of a palm floated slowly but precisely toward Reg, as if carried by an invisible current, defying the laws of physics.

Reg caught it with lightning speed, snapping it shut.

It feels cool and smooth to the touch, with a unique material. The edge of the paper is surrounded by a border of deep, flowing, azure blue geometric lines, which appears mysterious and extraordinary in the dim light.

The front side was completely blank.

"What is this?" Reg looked at the strange card, then looked at Zhang Su with a puzzled expression.

“An invitation from the Curtain Cornerstone Administration,” Zhang Su explained. “The organization will be holding a new recruit interview session in a few days. This invitation will guide you to the interview location.”

Reg was taken aback, somewhat surprised: "An interview? I thought... the interview was over just now, and I was already a member of the organization?"