Chapter 278: Cells
Chapter 278: Cells
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
If Mrs. Manas were to appear as a real person in front of her right now, Lin Sanjiu wasn't sure if she could hold herself back from punching that woman.
The was a heavy atmosphere in the room.
The siblings who had initially decided to "take a stroll" outside noticed something amiss when they saw Lin Sanjiu's serious expression. They stood to one side of the room feeling at a loss. Meanwhile, the cat doctor, who had heard the earlier conversation between Lin Sanjiu and Mrs. Manas, sat on a table looking up at her with his head tilted.
"So, what the matter now?" Lin Sanjiu held back her anger as she questioned Mrs. Manas in her head, "What is this so-called little problem… Didn't you consider that before?"
Mrs. Manas spoke very softly because she felt guilty, "Erm… Actually… well…"
Lin Sanjiu let out a heavy sigh and pulled out the card holding her dead body. Accompanying her mood which had reached rock bottom, Lin Sanjiu's dead body fell to the ground with a thud as it was converted back to its original form.
A woman with a pallid face lay on the ground with her eyes shut. Her gray skin and her unnatural, stiff limbs already showed signs of rigor mortis. Though there weren't any wounds on her body, she didn't look like she was 'just sleeping', anybody could see that she was most positively dead. Though their faces looked the same, it was hard to imagine that the dead body and the person standing beside it were one and the same person.
Even though this was not the first time Reno had seen that body, and Rena had heard about the situation, they couldn't help staring at the corpse, turning slightly pale. Reno let out a long sigh suddenly and averted his gaze. It was as if he couldn't really bear witnessing a situation where Lin Sanjiu was dead.
"I think it's time for me to be honest," Lin Sanjiu sat down beside her own body and almost lamenting.
Though she had gone through multiple near-death situations with the two kids, Lin Sanjiu had not revealed the details regarding her current predicament. Under such circumstances, it seemed like she had no choice but to explain her situation to them.
"When I meet both of you on the train, I had just died... I basically retained this—" she gestured to her own body as she couldn't find an appropriate word, "—because of one of my abilities…"
Before she could finish her sentence, Lin Sanjiu noticed that her physical body had moved a little, as if someone had pulled it a little distance away from her. In that instance, she didn't know whether she should laugh or be angry, her previous emotions quickly disappeared as she held the arm of her physical body and shouted in the direction of her physical feet, "You better stop!"
A pair of dark green eyes peered from behind the Timberland boots on the dead body. It blinked slowly at Lin Sanjiu.
"This isn't for you!" Lin Sanjiu was so amused by the situation that she couldn't get mad, "Didn't you hear what I say, this is my body! I can't let you do your weird experiments with this!"
However, the cat doctor didn't show an ounce of repentance. He put down his paws and started licking his fur. He walked away from the boots and acted as if nothing had happened.
After catching her breath again, Lin Sanjiu started to explain her situation from the start. Even though it was somewhat difficult to comprehend the concept behind her higher consciousness body, Reno and Rena got a general idea very quickly and understood the seriousness of the matter.
"So, what is that problem that Mrs. Manas has identified?"
Addressing this subject, Lin Sanjiu felt a heaviness in her heart once more.
It was true that her higher consciousness had kept Lin Sanjiu alive in some sense. However, it wasn't as if she didn't have her doubts even as she recovered and strengthened her higher consciousness.
Her doubts stemmed from her uneasiness that her current higher consciousness body seemed a little too tough. It was as if she needed to stuff a steel body into a body made of flesh. Lin Sanjiu simply couldn't imagine how this could be done. However, trusting Mrs. Manas, she suppressed her worries and doubts.
Unfortunately, she was thrown into despair when she heard what Mrs. Manas said today:
"From a biological perspective, your original physical body is fully dead. It doesn't even have a single vital sign. Since you retained your higher consciousness, I assumed that it was still connected to your physical body. However, considering the current situation, your higher consciousness had developed independently from your original body. Currently, your physical body doesn't show any sign of life. Naturally, you can't be resurrected."
When Lin Sanjiu revealed this information to the siblings, they turned paler than her dead body.
"What... what are you going to do now?" Rena asked with a quivering voice.
Lin Sanjiu stared at her own corpse and didn't say anything for a very long time.
From the beginning, she knew that Mrs. Manas's plan wasn't exactly foolproof. She repeated this many times to herself internally trying to keep herself calm. Living on, even without a physical body, was something she could accept. However, would she still be transported to another world even without a physical body? What would she do if something went wrong during that process? How long could she maintain her higher consciousness body? Could she even be considered human at this point?
As more and more questions and thoughts filled her mind, she began to feel more and more confused. Suddenly, Mrs. Manas suddenly asked her a question in a very soft voice, "Erm, do you remember? In the previous world, your [School of Higher Consciousness] shrunk suddenly and I even threw you out…"
This immediately caught Lin Sanjiu's attention.
"And, do you remember me telling you that I had to delay the opening of the elementary division of your [School of Higher Consciousness] because I had to deal with a problematic student…"
Lin Sanjiu could remember this clearly. At that time, she thought that Mrs. Manas only said that to provide some sort of "realistic" background. Recalling that memory, she immediately asked, "This isn't the only two things! Before I died, you were constantly using my higher consciousness, right? You always refuse to tell me these things you do behind my back…"
"That's right," Mrs. Manas sighed. "I have been hiding these things from you because I know that you'll be uncontrollably affected if you know the truth. This issue involves another person's schemes and your own psychological state, so it is very complicated. However, considering the current situation, this has ironically become our lifesaver. Maybe, this might be the key to reviving you…"
Lin Sanjiu could no longer hold back her curiosity; she couldn't stop herself blurting out, "So, what are exactly are you talking about?"
Lin Sanjiu had no idea what could remedy her current situation.
"To be precise… we can explain death at a cellular level," Mrs. Manas said slowly. "When all your cells die, you die. However, what would it mean if some of your cells are still alive?"