The future comes without warning.
The local public relations robot roams along the road to educate people passing by so they don't stay outside for too long today. The weather is too hot will cause dehydration and heat stroke, and according to the weather forecast from the local climatology, today will be the hottest day this month.
"Ugh, what's the date today anyway?"
In a small shop that sells cigarettes and other daily necessities, there are two people taking shelter while drinking bottled drinks that only came out 10 years ago. This is a conventional shop that is very rare to find in this era. The owner is a granny of more than half a century who does not truly understand how to use a modern digital wallet, so she prefers to open a small shop that only accepts money in paper form.
"June 19th, right?" the other companion answered while wiping the sweat off his forehead. He and one of his companions complained that they had to wear a formal three-piece suit on this hot day due to work demands.
The granny who was sitting on the terrace of the shop petting her poodle in her lap, glanced at the paper calendar hanging on the west side of the wall near the entrance and objected, "It's the 20th, Friday!" after saying this, the granny grunted in a low voice, "Today's young people, not old enough to be senile!"
This granny has a habit of rounding off the date on the calendar every day so she doesn't lose track of time.
The two youths in front of her glanced in the same direction and groaned. They approached each other until their shoulders touched, and whispered so that this conversation could only be heard between the two. "You made sure that we left the headquarters on the 19th right?"
"Yeah. But I don't think it would be useful. Since we're already separated, your time and mine might be different to others."
"Shit, then let's rush over to Lady Lin's place!"
"You pay, okay? I don't have any cash."
One had jet-black hair, the other had brownish-black hair. One had no cash, and one was grumbling as he reached into his pocket. "Fortunately there is one person in our association who likes to use cash but never keeps it himself. Thanks to him at least I always have some cash in my pocket."
"Do you mean Master Suisha?"
"Who else? "
They paid and hurried away without waiting for the change. The old granny with two coins in her outstretched hand let out a gasp of anger. As she complained about the disrespectful attitude of today's youth, her eyes involuntarily glanced back at the paper calendar hanging near the exit.
It clearly states that the date circled is June 23.
"Eh...?"
...
In a different niche, the Lady Lin in question was standing under a street lamp while glancing around passively. A gust of wind blew the tassel of the white hanfu she was wearing. One of the students came out of the school gate and gave her a cursory glance. Lin NianZhen smiled in greeting, and the student smiled back as thin as a paper.
Someone asked in surprise next to Lin NianZhen, someone invisible to the bare eye. "Huh? Is it time to go back to school now?"
Another voice replied, "No way. It's still early. He's probably asking permission to go home."
Lin NianZhen had no interest in joining the chat. Instead, she walked towards the middle school gate not far from here. She was standing right in front of the street scanner installed in front of the gate. When she looked up, she found that there were quite a few students who had stopped halfway to stare at her. She turned her head to the side and spoke dryly, "You guys can hide your forms, but can't for me?"
A voice answered her without any sign of apparition, saying, "Sorry, Lady, your presence is extremely strong to hide."
Lin NianZhen didn't answer. Instead, she snapped her fingers with a loud click, followed by a gust of wind that grew stronger from time to time. Her right hand touched the huadian¹ which was a small red petal on her forehead as she said, "Shì—fàng²." firmly.
[¹花钿: forehead decoration]
[²释放: Release/Liberate]
Soon, her previously brown eyes turned blood red. And the huadian petals on her forehead emitted the same colour. The aura around her turned heavy and thick. Soon after, she walked forward casually.
Street scanners and body sensors placed right in front of the school gate could not detect her presence. The object blinked several times as if it was catching something passing through its surveillance area, but no matter how many times it was rechecked, there was no solid evidence that could be used as a reference, so the mysterious process was reported by it as a wind anomaly.
Lin NianZhen entered the school grounds with her invisible comrades. As soon as she entered the area, the earth felt like it was shaking, a chilling cold spread from the soles of her feet to her back and continued up to her head, as if there was an invisible monster trying to choke and gulp her alive.
Lin NianZhen looked up. The sky she saw was already not the sky she knew. It was still day and the sun was still standing firmly on its throne, but at the same time, the stars that should have been in the night sky also glowed adorning the magnificent sky. She can even see naked Saturn and Venus from where she is.
While still looking up, Lin NianZhen asked the unseen a rhetorical question, "Looks like we're too late, huh?"
"Lady Lin, how is it? There are still a lot of people at school. "
Lin NianZhen pointed her index finger sideways at the unseen person who was talking to her, asking them to be quiet. On the other hand, her other hand reached into her hidden pocket and took out an object that now can only be found in historical heritage museums.
A flipped phone. She fervently searched for a name in her number list. A loud clicking sound was heard every time she pressed the keypad with a fingertip. A quarter of a minute later, she got the number she was looking for. She pressed the dial button and waited a few moments. It didn't take long for the destination number to answer nervously.
["Hello, Lady Lin?"]
Lin NianZhen pressed the loudspeaker button and spoke into the speakerphone right in front of her mouth. She answered the phone in the same way as an elder in ancient times.
"What's the date where you are now?"
["June 23rd."]
"See if there are any records of the death of more than 100 people in the same place in the past two or three days."
["Wait a minute..."] there was a noise on the other side of the phone, as if someone was rummaging through somewhere to find their dropped pen. Amidst the noise, another voice rushed in and answered Lin NianZhen's call in a playful way of speaking.
["Yo, Nian-Nian. Everyone's wearing Davis and look at you, still giggling with that old cell phone of yours."]
Lin NianZhen didn't answer back.
["Ack! Master Suisha! Please don't get me fired from my job!"] the noises of rioting sounded again, before the situation on the other side seemed to settle down.
["Hello, Lady Lin?"]
"Yes."
["Yes, there is. The death inquiries for 328 people, the location is Southeast Elite Middle School in District 1.]
"What date? "
["June 20th."]
"Okay, thanks." Lin NianZhen hung up the phone and put her flip phone back into her sleeve.
One unseen person spoke, "Isn't it tomorrow?"
Lin NianZhen remembered seeing the date on her phone. "No, that's right now."
Her gaze was straight ahead, towards the four to five-story buildings that housed more than 300 people. "At least in my time, it is now."
Each of the unseen has a name and each of them will form a regular number if sorted. There were a total of 9 people who could hide their appearance even to the very depths of their existence, and their voices could only be heard by the people they were intended for.
The unseen people who stay with Lin NianZhen today were Ichi, Ni, San, and Roku. The four of them soon checked their own time to know what Lin NianZhen meant. And true as she said, they have different points in time.
Roku asked in surprise, "How much time has been twisted in this place?"
Lin NianZhen replied, a gust of wind blew the ruffles of her clothes dancing like a child. "We went here on the 19th of June. But on the way, it seems time started to split and twist so that our times are all different."
San in turn asked, "What should we do?
San's question was directly answered by Ichi, "The time of death written in the Shinigami book cannot be wrong. It's impossible to save everyone. We are one step too late."
Lin NianZhen replied calmly, "Well, at least those in front of us are still alive."
"Lady Lin, you don't intend to force yourself right?"
Lin NianZhen smiled and chose to remain silent. She scanned her eyes thoroughly, noticing any signs of anomalies in the surroundings. When she got it, she spoke back, "Let's split up. The doors to other worlds have already opened. There will be a lot of genies out to find breakfast. Run away instantly if you feel you can't fight them. Also, prioritize one of you to manually count the time for two hours. If I'm not back in two hours, you all go and get Suisha Maya over here."
"Roger, Ma'am!"
In an instant, no one else's voice could be heard anymore.
Lin NianZhen formed a circle with the forefinger and thumb that were joined end to end. The circle was pointed where she was headed. Her eyes were closed on one side, with the other looking focused forward through the circle. The open eye blinked. And before long, she had moved to the place she saw through the circle.
Lin NianZhen arrived at the school corridor she had just seen from a distance. If previously she had seen a corridor full of life, the corridor she was standing in now was filled with death. There is blood everywhere. Whether it's pooled on the floor, splashed on the wall, or even dripping from the ceiling. Lin NianZhen used one hand as an umbrella, shielding her face from the dripping blood. The bottom of her clothes was already seeped by a pool of blood, and her sleeves weren't spared either. It made her look like the actual killer.
Lin NianZhen continued to move forward without blinking an eye. When she reached the next corridor, the people there were still alive and chatting comfortably. The bloodstains on her clothes disappeared completely, as if the bloody places she had previously walked through had never existed. Then in a different corridor, the same thing happened again. There is blood everywhere. The smell of rust filled her nostrils, making her a bit numb for a while. The only option left was to use her instincts to guide her in the direction she was headed, to the source of the calamity where the deaths of over 300 people were inevitable.
The view of the sky is mixed between the clusters of stars in the night sky and the splendour of the sun's throne in the day sky. The wind was blowing hard from all sides. But somehow breathing even became a difficult task. As if the air supply only survives in space and time without wanting to breathe in human lungs. It's a shame that the only person who feels this way in this place seems to be Lin NianZhen alone. The people around her who were still alive in one place and had died scattered in another, didn't seem to have any trouble at all. Or maybe soon they will.
Lin Nian Zhen walked past an empty classroom filled with only two living beings. One was a boy who was choking another boy with one hand, who lightly lifted the victim as high as possible in the air, as if what he was lifting was not a human but a rat. On the floor not far from them lay scattered their classmates who had lost most of their flesh and blood. It seeped out to form a pool which then fused as a dripping bank of blood welcoming Lin NianZhen at the door.
She tilted her head as she tucked her hair behind her ear. Her fiery red eyes resonated with the pool of blood pooling on the floor. After looking indifferently at the mess on the floor where corpses and sufferings were strewn about like worthless objects, her gaze shot upwards to scan the last two surviving students. They were the only two people on the verge of death who could see her in this special form.
Lin NianZhen smiled as faintly as a dragonfly's wing. The clock on the wall not far from them showed 12:32. Meanwhile, the flickering screen of the classroom projector showed plant and animal growth material like a broken film. The date on the end of the hologram screen shows that today is June 18, 2436.
Hadn't the calamity in this class started two days before the date set by the death notebook of the Shinigami?
"The only survivors are you two huh..." there was no sadness in her voice. There is only apathy and a slight sense of defeat.
"W-who is you?!" one of them screamed in terror, as if the one who was choked wasn't him.
Lin NianZhen glanced briefly at the corpses under her feet before looking again at the two youths in the middle of the classroom. She answered, but it was not the answer to the question. "I think this is the same as a battle royale huh..."
Neither of the two people wanted to answer. "..."
Lin NianZhen snapped her fingers. "Bingos."
"..."
They are still silent.
"Is there someone, or even some other almighty entity, that is forcing you guys to kill each other?"
Still no answer. The silence in this place is so eerie.
"It's gone now, right? You guys can let each other go already."
A fleeting fear passed through the eyes of the two. The boy who was choking off his friend's neck, and the boy who was being choked soon collapsed in a pool of blood and vomited for many reasons.
Lin NianZhen spoke again, "Tell me the chronology of events. Even if I can't save your classmates anymore, I can at least save you two."
With widened eyes and chapped lips, one boy who still had the last bit of sanity explained in a trembling voice. "We just went to school as usual... We studied as usual... Then the class president got angry before recess, and charged people who didn't collect homework, as usual... Then suddenly, when the class president left to look for one last student who hasn't collected homework, that student came back in a strange way and-and— " it seemed he couldn't continue anymore.
Lin NianZhen wasn't so stupid as to not be able to catch the continuation of the story without even needing to explain further. She changed the question, "What date did you go to school today?"
"The 19th..."
"What's your name? "
"Hamada Tadashi."
"Is your class president still not back?"
"Yes..."
"What is that student's name?" Lin NianZhen asked about which student had not submitted homework.
The young man looked confused and stuttered a few times. "... Uh, Inoue Kai?" he himself seemed unsure of his own answer. He had difficulty understanding what the woman in front of him meant, especially in his psychological condition which was still in a post-traumatic period.
"Alright," Lin NianZhen nodded in understanding. He continued, "Don't leave this classroom no matter what."
In an instant, she had turned towards the exit and disappeared into the dark passageways.
If her guess is correct, then the original massacre actually took place on the 20th. However, the time when the old codex was opened for the first time was more or less the 18th. If the students went from home to school without encountering anything wrong, that means the old codex was opened at school. And the reason why most of the students couldn't notice the awkwardness of time, was because everyone was moving towards their own ending.
The Old Codex is an ancient manuscript that is as strange as that.
When Lin NianZhen stepped into the corridor on the next floor, a huge monster with a lump of flesh and 12 large eyes glared at her, blocking her way to the top floor. No, rather than a monster, it looked more like a giant naughty baby hand. Each of its fingers was as big as Lin NianZhen's hips, and those five hip-sized fingers wouldn't fit in the narrow hallways of the school's corridors. As a result, two of the five fingers penetrated the walls on both sides and were trapped.
Lin NianZhen laughed disdainfully. Her graceful and gentle voice tickled the ears of the angry monsters. A roar like a chainsaw sounded like an outcry, shaking the surrounding buildings. The ceiling of the roof was starting to crumble, and the footing below was starting to shake. Lin NianZhen bit her thumb until it bled, and the red liquid dripping one after another spread on the surface of her lips. She said furthermore,
"Yang Asha!"
The floor beneath her feet gave in and the ceiling of the room above her head caved in. Lin NianZhen moved swiftly to dodge, but it was only a small movement that the enemy had expected. The monster's large hands gripped her tightly, nearly breaking all of her ribs. Blue flames gushed out from around Lin NianZhen, scorching the monster's flesh in an instant. The roar of a monster's pain echoed throughout the school. One building had collapsed to reveal only the form of one hand. One can't imagine what would happen if all of its forms were present in this place. Maybe one school will fall apart.
Because she had burned the monster's hand with her blue flames, Lin NianZhen was spontaneously thrown away by it. She spun in the air twice and landed gracefully on the ground. One foot kicked lightly against the ground, and in the next second, the steel contained in the ground gathered together and formed a Miao Dao sword.
The giant hand with stubby fingers and 12 bulging eyes once again lunged at her, unable to let her relax for even a second.
Lin NianZhen welcomed the monster's arrival by rotating with her blade. The sharp blade was positioned right in front of her face, with the scabbard positioned above and the pointy tip of the blade facing downwards. One hand held the scabbard of the sword firmly, while the other hand gripped the hand that held the scabbard to give it more strength.
As soon as the monster's hand came rushing in, Lin NianZhen lowered her body and slashed forward from bottom to top. The type of sword that is long and slightly curved makes it easier to cut. In an instant, the giant rotten flesh and bones were split in two. The enraged monster then roared in pain and hid in the shadows with the echo of its defeat.
The red tassel attached to the sword scabbard danced several times in the air, as if cheering for Lin NianZhen's absolute victory.
She planted her Miao Dao into the ground and looked at the circumstances around her. The jumbled sky of day and night became increasingly submerged in the depths of darkness. Lin NianZhen looked up for a while, enjoying the view of the sky that was rarely seen. Satisfied, she looked back at the harsh reality in front of her and started to focus on her work.
Lin NianZhen formed a rectangle by bending 3 fingers and arranging her index finger and thumb, joining end to end in such a way that a rectangle was obtained. She pulled the rectangle up to one eye, closing the other eye. The same way she did with her circle before.
"Asha, 𐎠𐎫³; Inoue Kai!"
[Sindari³: Truth]
In an instant, the sight of the fallen building in front of her was replaced by the future flash of the person whose name she had mentioned, displaying that person's future roughly one year in the future.
Lin NianZhen could peek into someone's future as she liked as long as she had enough strength to do so. It usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes to glimpse a person's future for the next year. And that was enough for her to be able to remember everything. But this time, it wasn't even a minute and she had stopped. Her face turned sour.
"Damn, I obtained the wrong name."