Chapter 430 413: Saving People

After once again correcting some of Lin Yuexiu's basic mistakes, Lin Hui finished absorbing the golden aura and left the small courtyard, his mood pleasant.

As he strolled home, he noted that the road connecting the suburbs to the city looked no different from an ordinary street in his previous life.

Hover cars zipped back and forth—some with passengers, some driverless, and some purely automated cargo trucks. Few people strolled along the roadside as he did.

Every so often, a golden spaceship would streak across the sky, leaving a special halo in its wake as it accelerated.

But that had nothing to do with ordinary people.

Only after living here for so many years did Lin Hui truly understand. The spaceships streaking overhead, the high-end hover cars zipping past on the road—they all belonged to a world completely separate from that of the common person.

They were merely scenery, like images on a backdrop, present in his world but utterly detached from it.

But to actually touch that world, one needed a different way in.

After walking for a little while longer, he gently pressed the silver bracelet on his wrist.

A semi-transparent virtual screen emerged.

He fiddled with it for a moment, and in less than two minutes, a white, driverless hover car glided to a smooth stop before him. The door slid open automatically.

"Please board, passenger," a soft, synthesized female voice announced.

Lin Hui let out a breath. After Ding Luo left, he, as a high school student, was finally allowed to have his own personal smart terminal.

Only then did he truly appreciate that he was in a technological world far more advanced than those of his previous two lives.

He got into the hover car, and the door closed.

Lin Hui leaned back against the seat and slowly closed his eyes to rest.

As dusk fell, the car entered the city proper. The roadside lights grew more numerous, their glow intensifying. The sounds of the city swelled—the hum of vehicles, the chatter of people, the calls of pets—all growing louder.

Yet he always felt a sense of alienation, unable to blend into the lively outside world.

Before long, the car began to slow down, then came to a gentle stop in front of a two-story, single-family house.

The area was filled with similar detached homes, each with its own small yard. Red Pattern Star was vast and sparsely populated, so its cities sprawled, and even the average person enjoyed decent living conditions.

He walked to the front door and gently gripped the doorknob.

"Palm print correct. Door unlocked."

CLICK.

A sweet electronic female voice sounded. The milky-white door opened automatically.

Inside, an empty shoe rack and white floor tiles were revealed.

"Welcome home." A familiar female voice made Lin Hui pause for a moment.

He stepped inside and followed the sound to his right. He saw his older sister, Ding Luo, bustling about the kitchen in a blue apron and slippers. 'Is she... cooking?'

'How strange.'

Lin Hui was taken aback. Ding Luo was notoriously averse to cooking. Other than making the small hot pot she herself loved to eat, she couldn't prepare anything else.

She only knew how to operate the fully-automatic cooking machine.

But now...

Lin Hui's brow furrowed slightly as he studied the Ding Luo before him.

She seemed to have just returned from the office, still wearing a white blouse and a short black skirt. Her back was to him, showing off long, shapely legs clad in black stockings—a perfect, golden-ratio silhouette.

But...

Lin Hui frowned.

He noticed a detail.

Ding Luo's skirt was too short...

This skirt was so short it nearly exposed the very tops of her thighs. This wasn't her style.

Besides, she had just left for what she'd called a long business trip—one that was supposed to last for years.

Now, after such a short time, not only was she back, but her style of dress had changed drastically.

Although Ding Luo usually dressed sexily, her style was actually relatively conservative. In her own words, it was "sexy, but not vulgar."

But this current outfit was leaning towards the vulgar.

"Who are you?" Lin Hui asked directly.

"Eh?" Ding Luo paused, then turned around and twirled for Lin Hui.

"I'm your sister, of course. What? Can't you tell?"

"Bullshit!" From a nearby bedroom, Ding Yiran suddenly burst out. He was supposed to be at school, but now he had rushed back as well.

He glared at Ding Luo, filled with righteous indignation.

"My sister would never willingly let me get handsy with her! You're definitely not her! Spit it out! Who the hell are you!?"

Called out by both Lin Hui and Ding Yiran, 'Ding Luo' finally put down the spatula and let out a soft sigh.

"I didn't expect you both to be so perceptive."

"So you admit you're not my sister!" Ding Yiran trembled, his anxiety visible on his face. "Quick, tell me! Where did my sister go!?"

Lin Hui also stared at her calmly, awaiting her answer. 'I already have a suspicion,' he thought. 'But I don't know the internal rules of the Endless Divine Race, so it's best to hear what this new Ding Luo has to say.'

"So annoying..." The fake Ding Luo's pretty face showed a look of impatience.

She stood up straight, and her aura quickly switched from Ding Luo's style to her own bewitching and sexy one.

It was the same body, yet a simple shift in expression and posture created a completely different aura, so drastic it was as if she'd become another person entirely.

This left Ding Yiran staring, dumbfounded.

"Alright, I admit it. I didn't expect you to see through me on the very first day," the fake Ding Luo said with a frown. She puffed out her chest slightly. "I was planning on taking this body out to the bars, have some fun, and hook some rich suckers. Since you've found me out, I guess I'll just forget it. I'll give her back to you."

"Wait, what do you mean? What do you mean, 'give her back to us'?" Ding Yiran asked hastily.

"It's exactly what it sounds like. Can't you bugs just pretend you don't see anything? You always have to make things so troublesome," the fake Ding Luo said irritably.

"Hey! Who are you calling a bug!?" Ding Yiran immediately flared up. Already anxious about his sister's situation and now being insulted to his face, he lunged forward, reaching for the fake Ding Luo's collar.

But in an instant, his vision blurred, and he was taken down with a shoulder throw, easily pinned to the ground, unable to move.

"Don't get handsy, bug," the fake Ding Luo said impatiently. "If the rules didn't forbid me from killing you, you would have died a few hundred times over just for your insolence!"

"Who... who are you people?!" Ding Yiran lay on the ground, struggling a few times but still unable to get up.

The fake Ding Luo laughed a few times, then turned her head to look at Lin Hui, who had been watching coolly from the side the whole time.

"Who am I? I'm your sister, of course."

"Endless Divine Race?" Lin Hui cut straight to the heart of the matter, naming her identity.

"You've got some knowledge," the fake Ding Luo said, surprised. "Looks like you were suspicious from the start?"

"Where is Ding Luo now?" Lin Hui ignored her nonsense.

"Her? She violated the prohibition against forming emotional connections with bugs, so she's been sent back to the Endless Divine Domain for review," the fake Ding Luo said with a smile. But there was something strange about that smile, an indescribable quality to it.

"The Endless Divine Race!!?"

Ding Yiran, on the floor, of course knew what that was. Stories about the Endless Divine Race fighting against psionic monsters for countless years were everywhere. Related spin-off games and movies were ubiquitous.

Not to mention, every so often, there would be an incident of a psionic monster attack, right in his own city or a neighboring one.

So everyone, including him—all ordinary people—was actually very familiar with the Endless Divine Race.

But no matter how familiar he was with the stories, he had always thought they were something distant, far removed from his own life.

But now, it seemed it had been right beside him all along...

'My sister, Ding Luo, is actually one of the legendary heroes from the Endless Divine Race who are always saving people?'

There were too many thoughts in Ding Yiran's head, and for a moment, his brain seemed to shut down.

He now made the connection. No wonder his sister had always so easily overpowered him whenever he tried to get handsy.

He'd thought it was because he played too many games and didn't exercise, making him too weak. But now, it all made sense.

"She violated the prohibition. If she goes back and doesn't pass the review, what will happen?" By now, Lin Hui had connected this event with Ding Luo's strange behavior from before.

At the time, he felt Ding Luo was a bit strange, but he just thought it was a normal transfer within the Endless Divine Race. He figured Ding Luo was just reluctant to leave because she had spent so much time with them.

But now, it seemed there was a problem.

"Simple... Punishment is determined by the review score. With her negative score, she'll likely be charged with a serious crime and executed directly. Because someone before her set an extremely terrible example for everyone!" The fake Ding Luo's tone was quite vicious, as if she were gloating.

But Lin Hui keenly noticed that the glint in her eyes was not one of true malice, but of anger, frustration, and the helpless exasperation of someone whose high hopes have been dashed.

"I warned her long ago, don't get emotionally involved... Don't! That idiot, she just wouldn't listen!" The fake Ding Luo closed her eyes and leaned back against the kitchen counter, suddenly not wanting to say another word.

"Executed!?" Ding Yiran hadn't even processed the fact that his sister was a hero of the Endless Divine Race, and now he heard she was going to be executed.

He immediately scrambled up from the floor.

"I don't have time to joke with you," the fake Ding Luo said impatiently. "Even if I tell you about this, what can you do anyway?"

For a moment, all three of them in the room fell silent.

Ding Yiran's breathing grew heavy. Lin Hui's face was contemplative. The fake Ding Luo, meanwhile, was toying with a kitchen knife in one hand, tossing it up and down as if lost in thought.

After a long time...

"How can you prove what you're saying is true?" Lin Hui asked.

"I don't need to prove anything. You people..." The fake Ding Luo let out a breath and didn't continue. Instead, she turned and strode away.

Back in Ding Luo's bedroom, the fake Ding Luo plopped down on the edge of the bed.

"Hey, you still haven't said what we're going to do now?" An urgent inquiry came from the mark on her chest.

"What else can we do? What do you want to do?" the fake Ding Luo responded irritably.

"We appeal directly! Sister Luo's situation shouldn't be this serious. Someone must be sabotaging her behind the scenes," the male voice from the mark said quickly.

"An appeal needs as many people as possible. There are only five of us here. Each of you, contact the kinsmen around you and see how many you can rally," the fake Ding Luo said quickly, steadying her emotions.

In reality, she was also Ding Luo's friend. The main reason her attitude toward Ding Yiran and Lin Hui was so hostile was that she believed they were the reason Ding Luo had ended up in this situation!

If it weren't for them, Ding Luo would never have been subjected to continuous reviews and ended up in this predicament.

At this time, in the living room outside the bedroom.

Lin Hui changed his shoes and, as if nothing had happened, stepped over Ding Yiran on the floor, walked to the kitchen, and continued preparing the meal the fake Ding Luo had left unfinished.

Seeing this, Ding Yiran's face showed clear anger.

"Ding Lin, what's your problem!? You heard what's happening to our sister! Why are you reacting like this!?"