Chapter Seventy-One: Breaking the Deadlock

“So that’s how it is!”
He replayed everything that had just happened and finally realized the grave mistake he had made.
Even this was a lie.
Ji Cheng’s vision went black; the hallucination vanished, and the pounding headache and nausea faded completely.
“Sister Jing’e, have you had enough rest?” Luo Rao’s voice reached him.
“Not... not yet.”
Luo Rao was in the midst of speaking with Zhang Jing’e, while the others stood tense and motionless, anxiously waiting nearby.
“As expected.” At last, he laughed.
The foundation of his deduction had been correct.
But everything he’d believed he’d said from start to finish had been nothing but a figment of his own imagination.
He had never spoken aloud at all.
The one communicating with Zhang Jing’e had been someone else.
Only after carefully reviewing the events did Ji Cheng realize that his supposed conversation with Zhang Jing’e had been utterly incoherent.
At first, he’d asked her about the lights, and she’d replied that she could see a little.
Given the tension, that wasn’t unreasonable, but the second question raised serious doubts.
He’d asked her if she could see anything else.
Yet she answered with things that had happened nine minutes before, talking about grains and rock particles.
The question concerned what else she could see, but she responded with a story from nine minutes ago.
It didn’t match at all.
“Couple that with the earlier episode of nausea—a hallucination—and it’s highly likely I experienced other false perceptions as well.”
Ji Cheng immediately made a bold deduction:
His questioning of Zhang Jing’e had been an illusion.
“How fortunate.”
There was still a lingering sense of fear; it had taken a great deal of luck to rid himself of the infection—much of his reasoning had been little more than inspired guesswork.
And some forms of psychic contamination simply have no solution.
If all the information he had received had been hallucination, uncovering the truth would have been nothing short of a miracle.
He cleared his throat softly.
Now free from the contamination, Ji Cheng could move and speak at will.
With everyone watching in terror, he strode directly to Zhang Jing’e, gazed at her pained expression, and spoke slowly:
“If you can hear me, please respond.”
What is he doing!
Luo Rao and Zhang Jing’e were already conversing; Ji Cheng’s interruption was a flagrant violation of the basic principles of the “Psychic Contamination Protocol.”
This could have triggered an extremely dangerous outbreak of infection.

“Yes.” Zhang Jing’e answered in a dreamlike voice.
“Remember, the lamp truly went out. Everything else you described was false—just hallucinations.”
Having said this, Ji Cheng pulled a light stick from his thigh holster and tossed it to the floor, flooding the room with light once more.
“Don’t worry. I’ve cleansed myself of the contamination.”
Zhang Jing’e stared blankly, then, as if awakening from a dream, exclaimed, “It’s true! I’m free of the contamination too—those were all hallucinations!”
Upon hearing Ji Cheng’s words, Zhang Jing’e hesitated only briefly before choosing to believe him. That belief led her swiftly to the truth and freed her from the contamination.
With Zhang Jing’e’s recovery, the dizziness, nausea, and malaise vanished for everyone present.
This meant the psychic contamination source in the room had been completely eradicated.
“I-is it really gone?”
“The discomfort is gone. The contamination really seems to have cleared up.”
There were a dozen or so people in the room, still reeling from the experience. Though some tried speaking, no one dared to move.
“So, in the end, only Ji Cheng and Jing’e were actually infected?” Zhang Lingfei’s face was ashen; she’d been terrified.
Suddenly thrown into a psychic contamination event with a 3% survival rate, her fear of death nearly caused her to break down on the spot.
“For now, that seems to be the case.” The young man with the crew cut managed to squeeze out a response.
As long as every infected individual within the contamination zone is freed, the contamination source is considered nullified.
There’s even a school of thought that claims the infected themselves are the true sources of contamination.
“Thank you, Ji Cheng.” Zhang Jing’e offered her thanks, a bit shyly.
The others kept silent, but their faces were full of lingering fear and gratitude as they looked at Ji Cheng.
Though they hadn’t been infected, they’d been exposed to the source of psychic contamination. More than thirteen minutes’ exposure would have driven anyone mad.
Ji Cheng’s quick resolution had undoubtedly saved them.
“Can someone explain what just happened?” asked an ability user from Anxi City, dressed in gray-white combat gear. “How many people were actually infected?”
“I’ll explain.” Zhang Lingfei tried to compose herself. “When the dizziness, nausea, and fatigue began, everyone must have immediately realized we were facing psychic contamination.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“Then Jing’e said the light went out, and Luo Rao was the first to respond.”
Luo Rao bit her lip and glanced repeatedly at Ji Cheng. “Yes, I asked Sister Jing’e what else she could see. You all heard it.”
She was always bold, and with a background in psychology, she’d taken the initiative to speak when no one else dared.
Zhang Lingfei continued her recap:
“Jing’e said the light had gone out; we all saw that too. So I instinctively assumed she was a normal person, not infected.
“Then she talked about nine minutes having passed, and something about grains—I thought it was real, and began to suspect I’d lost my memory, that I was the one infected. You probably all thought the same.”
Most ability users, like Yao Zhenyuan who’d died under Ji Cheng’s command, devoted their energy to improving their strength rather than memorizing the “Compendium” as Ji Cheng had. In a crisis, it was hard to realize that grains can’t petrify.
“Yes, I also thought I’d been infected,” Lei Junming chimed in.
“Jing’e’s words were extremely misleading, plunging everyone into self-doubt.” The crew-cut youth frowned, sounding somewhat discontent.
Even if some people vaguely sensed they were fine, no one dared take the risk. If they were truly infected, any action could have been fatal.

Zhang Lingfei shot him a glare but said nothing in return.
Zhang Jing’e flushed with embarrassment and bowed apologetically.
At the time, everyone had been waiting to see if someone could deduce the truth and speak up to save them all.
Zhang Lingfei turned to Ji Cheng, her eyes bright with curiosity. “Ji Cheng, what exactly happened to you? How did you, an infected person, solve the puzzle first?”
“I’d like to know too,” Lei Junming added, a new note of respect in his tone.
Generally, without an unaffected observer, it’s nearly impossible for an infected individual to break free, let alone solve the puzzle first.
Ji Cheng answered honestly, “From my perspective, the light was still on—I didn’t see it go out. I couldn’t hear my sister at all, only the equally infected Jing’e.”
“My god, so how did you figure out the truth?” Zhang Lingfei brushed her hair back, incredulous. “Your hallucinations were that bad?”
“I just followed the steps in the ‘Psychic Contamination Protocol,’ one by one—and I’ll admit, luck played a part…”
Ji Cheng acted as though it were only natural.
“All right, enough talking. Let’s report to command,” the crew-cut youth said, pressing his headset.
Ji Cheng, interrupted, felt a little annoyed.
Even ability users played at office politics?
The Zhang sisters ignored him, as did the remaining two from Councilor Yao’s squad.
Even though Yao Lun’s authority was immense, and they all knew Ji Cheng had killed Yao Lun’s son, there was now an unspoken sense that Ji Cheng was in charge.
Since psychic contamination had already occurred in this hive, the odds of another incident were high. Ji Cheng might be their ticket to survival—so they naturally followed the strongest lead.
Seeing himself ignored, the crew-cut youth remained calm and spoke into his headset, “Base, we encountered psychic contamination just now; it has been cleared.”
“Well done, Zuo Hao.” Yao Lun’s voice came through the earpiece, steady and emotionless.
Zuo Hao? Upon hearing that, Ji Cheng recalled that when he’d first become an ability user, Lu Shangbai had mentioned this name—a prodigy from the selection two cycles ago, with a high level of original assimilation.
But that hardly interested him. In a universe filled with countless colonies like Baishan, so-called “geniuses” were as common as grains of sand. His attention was reserved for those legendary figures at the center of the narrative.
“Any casualties?” This was Zhou Ze’s voice.
“Base, no casualties,” Zuo Hao replied.
Ji Cheng nearly laughed out loud, finding the man rather childish.
Zhang Lingfei, however, frowned. Her knowledge of Zuo Hao told her he was not the type to scramble for credit.
She sensed something amiss, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it and let it go.
Clearing his throat, Ji Cheng glanced up at the ceiling.
Maybe the properties of the contamination source had caused the light to go out. Or perhaps the sudden darkness had triggered the psychic contamination.
In any case, it was over now.
Ji Cheng placed another light stick on the table to make the room even brighter.
“Let’s go. Next room.”
The rest hurried after him, unwilling to be left behind.