Chapter 278 Alien Growth Manual

In his dream, he heard a girl humming, accompanied by a steady beep-beep-beep like a device transmitting a signal.

When Ke Mingqing opened his eyes, he seemed to be suspended in the cosmos. Billions of stars streaked past before he finally glided over a lonely, gleaming planet.

Then, he spotted a small spaceship shaped like a shark.

The perspective shifted. He suddenly saw a girl of about nine sitting in a tiny storage compartment, hugging her knees.

A layer of dark metal covered her cheeks and coated her body from her neck down to the soles of her feet. Her hollow eyes were downcast, and metallic tentacles rose and fell in the darkness behind her like a cat's tail.

"Z12235, they will teach you love. They will teach you the gentleness of the human world. You must learn these things, retract your fangs and claws, and blend in among them to complete our mission... One day, we will come to bring you home."

The voice rang out in the darkness, coming from an unknown source.

Ke Mingqing followed the sound, discovering it originated from a tiny metal sphere in the girl's hands.

The girl kept her head lowered, her arms still tightly wrapped around her knees, but she used two thin metal tentacles from her back to roll the little sphere back and forth across the floor.

It was like a black cat playing with a dropped ball of yarn.

Every time a metal tentacle pressed the red dot on the sphere, the fitful, hoarse voice emanated from it: "At that time... Planet Fangongta will usher in a new glory."

"You must endure... endure, and discern the enemies on this planet for us."

Only then did Ke Mingqing snap out of his daze. He glanced down at his nonexistent body, then raised his head to quietly observe the girl with six metal tentacles growing from her back.

He froze. 'Is this... Mom?' he wondered.

After a while, the girl turned her cold face, peering out through the storage compartment's window. The spaceship was steadily approaching that blue planet. She slightly widened her empty eyes, her pupils illuminated until they looked as blue as the ocean.

When he regained his senses, the perspective had changed once more.

Ke Mingqing saw a shooting star streak across the night sky and crash into a distant forest. Soon after, the alien girl crawled out of the storage compartment.

At the top of the mountain, the alien girl tilted her head back. The night wind rushed at her face, blowing her hair and the metal tentacles behind her.

She stared blankly at the starlight filling the sky. In that moment, the night sky felt vast, so boundlessly vast that it could swallow her whole.

The mountain fire spread rapidly, and before long, the alien spaceship self-destructed. The alien girl walked down a small path through the forest and washed her face with water from a stream.

Just then, she heard an urgent shout from nearby.

"A mountain fire's started!"

The alien girl paused. As she crouched by the stream, her figure was suddenly enveloped in a layer of camouflage, and her presence vanished entirely.

Following the sound of human voices in the woods, she turned her head toward the distance. Her bright black eyes quietly watched the young men running past with fire extinguishers in the dark, along with someone riding a bicycle, the bell tied to its front clanging loudly.

The alien girl studied their appearances, then looked down at her own reflection in the stream. Reaching up, she touched the dark metal on her cheeks.

A moment later, the metal covering her body suddenly vanished, and the tentacles swaying behind her disappeared.

The alien girl stood naked in the moonlight, looking up at the mountain peak.

After those young men had busied themselves for a long time, a figure wearing a red bodysuit and a red helmet suddenly leapt over from the distance, riding a wave of water like a waterfall.

Amid the splashing water, one of the young men shouted, "The superhero is here!"

A smattering of disgruntled mutters followed. "I told you guys not to mess around. I said the superhero would come, but you still dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night."

"Hmph, and what if he didn't come?"

"Shoo, shoo! Do you think he collects a government salary for nothing?"

The alien girl froze, looking up at the red figure riding the waterfall. His battle suit had a very vintage feel, bearing a red flag with five stars alongside a line of text: "Captain China County."

"Super... hero?" she murmured.

Before long, the red figure in midair turned around and spotted the alien girl by the stream, a flash of surprise crossing his eyes.

The next day, a young paperboy flew through the streets and alleys on his bicycle, leaving the latest edition of the county newspaper at every household. A piece of news spread throughout the mid-sized town.

"'Captain China County' extinguished a massive mountain fire last night and found an orphan wandering in the mountains. This orphan has been tested for the super-human species gene and confirmed to be an ordinary human. Captain China County has stated that he will take in this poor child."

The perspective shifted. Ke Mingqing saw the alien girl, now with short, choppy hair and a padded cotton coat, sitting at a dining table in a wooden house.

She held a meat bun in one hand and a language textbook in the other, quietly memorizing the text.

Her cheeks were slightly rosy, and her lips were a bit chapped. She looked no different from an ordinary village girl, except that her eyes still seemed covered by a layer of fog, making it impossible to tell where her focus lay.

Watching this scene quietly from the side, Ke Mingqing tilted his head. 'Mom's childhood appearance is cut from the exact same mold as the little characters drawn in textbooks, isn't it?' he thought.

"This child is so smart. She ranked first in our county. Keeping her in this small town would be doing her an injustice," the woman at the dining table said.

The man at the other corner of the table crossed his arms. He lowered his head and pondered for a moment before nodding. "Yeah."

"The County Hero Association reported in today. They want you to send this girl to the capital. That way, it'll be easier for them to build public momentum for you. If the people vote enthusiastically, you'll remain Captain China County for the next term."

"Alright, let's do that. We'll send her to Leijing."

With a plop, the meat bun stuffed in the alien girl's mouth fell to the floor. She slowly looked up from her textbook, blinking at the two of them.

Ke Mingqing looked away from this country bumpkin of a girl and shook his head.

In the next instant, the perspective shifted again, cutting to the inside of a middle school in Leijing.

The squeak of sneakers rubbing against the floor filled the gymnasium. The alien girl, now a teenager in a blue-and-white school uniform, sat all alone in a corner, hugging her knees. Her eyes, covered with faint static, stared straight ahead.

Following her line of sight, Ke Mingqing realized she was silently observing a teenage boy playing basketball.

[Observation Target: Ke Mingwei (Potential high-tier esper, one month until esper ability gene awakening)]

Ke Mingqing sat down next to the alien girl, leaning his back against the wall, and joined her in silently observing the boy sprinting freely across the court.

Ke Mingwei ran as fast as a horse, his bangs and clothes dancing in the wind. Perhaps due to the influence of his esper genes, his physical stamina far surpassed that of every other boy on the court.

"Holy shit, the alien-exclusive stud is here..." Ke Mingqing quipped.

Not long after, the girl suddenly stood up. With her hands behind her back and her head lowered, she approached the boy without a word.

Ke Mingwei froze for a moment. He wiped his sweat with a towel and turned to look at her in confusion. The alien girl still didn't speak; she merely raised her fog-veiled eyes and stared unblinkingly into his.

Seeing those strange, unfathomable eyes, Ke Mingwei was visibly taken aback again. He fell silent for a moment, then asked, "What is it?"

The alien girl brought out a bottle of mineral water from behind her back and quietly handed it to him.

"Baffling," Ke Mingwei said. He turned and left, leaving his defeated opponents still panting and groaning on the court.

But the alien girl remained motionless, staring at his retreating back.

A moment later, she tilted her head, as if pondering a countermeasure.

"Mom is way too straightforward. Are there really guys who would bite such a straight hook?" Sitting in the corner of the gym, Ke Mingqing tilted his head as well, looking helplessly at the girl's lonely back.

Next, the alien girl repeated her old trick, continuing to catch the moment Ke Mingwei was about to leave the gym to give him things. Only, the gifts changed from towels and mineral water to popsicles and handmade crafts. Ke Mingwei's attitude gradually shifted from ignoring her to softly saying "Thank you," until finally, he started sitting down in the gym to chat with her for a while before leaving.

The scene rapidly shifted, arriving at a small riverbank path under the setting sun.

Ke Mingwei rode his bicycle swiftly past, the girl sitting on the backseat, hugging his waist tightly. The two turned their heads in the wind, gazing at the sparkling surface of the lake.

Ke Mingqing's eye twitched slightly. 'No way, old man. You got taken down by this alien spy that easily?' he thought.

'I thought you were mind-controlled or something!'

Before long, as Ke Mingwei and the alien girl's figures disappeared at the end of the riverbank, the perspective shifted again.

"Can I be a good mother..." the alien woman murmured, her eyes lowered as she looked at the baby boy in the cradle. Gentle static flickered in the depths of her eyes, like overlapping black and white snowflakes falling together.

It was a snowy night. The Christmas tree indoors shone brightly, and gold foil was scattered all over the floor. Ke Mingwei stood by her side with a smile, wrapping a scarf around her neck. He gently hugged her shoulders and softly teased the boy in the cradle.

With his hands stuffed in his pockets, Ke Mingqing mused, 'The first kid born around this time should be my oldest brother, right?'

Suddenly, as if a television set had malfunctioned, the entire world was covered in a frenzy of static snow, buzzing and crackling everywhere.

The moment the perspective shifted, Ke Mingqing saw a rooftop late at night. The alien woman stood on the railing, looking up at the stars. Every metal tentacle behind her was convulsing, weaving into a net that enveloped her body.

Her eyes were lowered, and the tips of the metal tentacles opened like the maws of snakes, emitting a deep, low voice: "Do not forget your mission..."

In an instant, Ke Mingqing jolted awake in his bed, staring blankly at his bedroom ceiling.

He glanced at the clock on the wall; it was already the morning of the next day.

His lips were slightly parted like a fool's, and his right arm still rested across his forehead, shielding his eyes from the autumn sunlight. But the system's Broadcast still chimed punctually by his ear.

[Good morning to the Red Name Player "Ke Mingqing," who sought out all the truths for us.]

[The current time is 07:00 on Sunday, October 7th. The time limit for the "Exterminate Superhumans" task has 68 days, 17 hours, and 0 minutes remaining.]

Ke Mingqing kept his eyes closed, unmoving. Initially, he didn't think much of it; after all, it was just a mundane part of his daily routine. He lazily rolled over, his mind still replaying the events of the previous day.

But after hearing those last numbers, he thought for two seconds and suddenly realized something was wrong. "Wait... sixty-eight days?"

In the very next second, Ke Mingqing's eyes snapped open, and he shot up from the bed.

"68 days? Why are there only 68 days left on the time limit? Did I sleep for a whole fucking fifteen days?" He froze for a moment and shook his head, then reconsidered. 'No, impossible... there has to be some kind of problem.'

Cold sweat instantly soaked Ke Mingqing's back and slowly trickled down his forehead.

A moment later, Ke Mingqing took a deep breath. He slowly looked up, his gaze fixing suspiciously on the notification panel hovering in midair.

[Current date: October 7th; Current time: 07:01 AM.]

"That's right, yesterday was October 6th. I should have only slept for one day. Then the problem isn't with me, but with the time limit given by the system. What is this... a glitch?"

Ke Mingqing muttered quietly. Raising his eyes slightly, he apprehensively glanced at the time limit.

[The time limit for the "Exterminate Superhumans" task has 68 days, 17 hours, and 0 minutes remaining.]

The boy's pupils trembled violently.

He remembered it clearly. On October 6th, the time limit had stood at exactly eighty-three days and seventeen hours. Yet a mere twenty-four hours later, fifteen days had been abruptly stolen from the countdown before his eyes. Only sixty-eight days remained.

Rain still fell outside the window. The dense autumn drizzle soon blotted out the sunlight, casting Ke Mingqing's face in shadow once again.

In the gloom, his expression shifted uncertainly, his Adam's apple bobbing.

'Fifteen days early.'

'Why?'

'Could it be because the system observed the conversation between Xia Wenna and me?'

'If these fifteen days were cut, what could the system achieve?'

'Right. If the time limit advanced by fifteen days, the alien fleet from Planet Fangongta might not reach Earth in time.'

'In the previous timeline, the player faction only registered as failed because Xia Wenna summoned the alien fleet on the final day.'

'The system guessed I might defect. It wants to stop me from ordering Xia Wenna to call in Planet Fangongta's alien fleet on the last day to wipe out the other players on Earth.'

'Is that why the final time limit was moved up by fifteen days?'

At this thought, Ke Mingqing slowly raised his head, paralyzed on the bed. The autumn sunlight was piercing and cold, washing his face pale.

"Without Mom's alien fleet, who else can stop the one hundred players on Earth?" he muttered hoarsely. "Just the S Rank super-human species on Earth, who number in the double digits at most?"

After pondering for a long time, a pale Ke Mingqing opened the front page of the Player Forum to see how the other players were reacting to the shortened time limit.

Instead, an entirely unexpected post caught his eye.

[Title: Everyone, I must reveal an ugly truth here. I hope you will no longer be kept in the dark. Regardless of the outcome, I will use this post to make the truth I have seen public.]

[Post Time: October 6th, 8:00 AM.]

[Poster: Kamishiro Ruri (This player is confirmed dead)]

[Replies: 635.]