Under a gray, overcast sky, a circular building hovered in midair. If you looked closely, you could see a black plaque with gold trim hanging from it, bearing six large characters: "Ability Research Institute."
"Time travel?"
"Not just traveling through one world? Are they all worlds that suffered some kind of catastrophe?"
"Setting everything, including the rules of how the world operates, but you have to make yourself and others believe it for the setting to come true, right? Got it, noted."
"Rebirth, huh... Is this kind of rebirth like in the novel *After Getting the War God System, I Killed All the Mutants*?"
Xia Wang'an nodded. "Yes, I also have a system, but unlike Zhao Tiezhu’s, which just fell from the sky, mine is a system I designed myself."
— Zhao Tiezhu is the protagonist of *After Getting the War God System, I Killed All the Mutants*.
"I see." The staff member wearing a hat, responsible for Xia Wang'an, nodded as well and quickly added "Accompanied by System (Custom-Designed)" to the file.
Then, after checking for typos, he copied the content recorded on his light-brain and projected the document to Xia Wang'an:
"Let me summarize it for you. Your name is Xia Wang'an, you’re sixteen years old biologically, and you’re a reborn individual. In your previous life, just before your college entrance exams at sixteen, you time-traveled into other worlds ravaged by disasters. For the past ten years, you’ve been hopping between these disaster-stricken worlds, eventually becoming the strongest in each of them. Then you died. After death, you were reborn. Upon realizing this, you were very happy and came forward to the state to reveal your true identity, aiming to save the world because in your previous life, our world was destroyed."
The staff member recited the summary with strong conviction and finished in one breath before looking at Xia Wang'an: "Does this sequence sound right to you?"
Xia Wang'an glanced briefly at the back of his neck, then nodded seriously. "More or less like that."
— Outside the room where the two of them were, two staff members tasked with perfecting the handwritten records were staring blankly through the glass.
Staff A: "...Am I the only one who thinks this is something truly shocking?"
Staff B, dazed, squatted down: "You’re not alone."
He picked up a pen that had slipped from his hand due to shock long ago, then slowly rose: "Their calmness makes me feel like I’m the one who’s overreacting."
"Should we report this?"
"Technically, we only have collaborative recording rights; the reporting rights belong to the team leader."
After saying this, he looked toward the room again.
In their ears, their beloved team leader’s voice came through an invisible earpiece: "Do you want to add the prophecy event?"
"It should be considered a prophecy," the girl named Xia Wang'an replied calmly. "Anyway, on one of the days this month, there will be a mutant invasion on the western border of Huaxi, causing heavy casualties."
The two outside hearing the mutant invasion prophecy: !!!
A mutant invasion is definitely a first-level event.
"Alright, mutant invasion. Do you know the exact day?" Team Leader Lin asked calmly, following protocol, without changing the tone of his voice even slightly.
Xia Wang'an didn’t find anything unusual either.
She hadn’t seen a living person in about three years, so Team Leader Lin’s attitude actually made her feel comfortable.
But she couldn’t quite recall the exact time. Xia Wang'an had faced countless alien invasions over the past decade and witnessed several catastrophic worlds fall to these invasions. She had long since grown numb to it all.
“I only remember that it was this month because I’m heading to the first disaster-stricken world on the first day of next month.”
“Understood, it’s been recorded. Please review everything once more, and if there are no issues, sign your name on the last page. That will complete our [Dialogue Inquiry]. Also, please rate my service, with one being the lowest and five the highest.”
The rating options immediately popped up on Xia Wang'an’s neural interface.
It had been ten years since she last saw a rating system. How nice.
The long-haired girl excitedly tapped [Five Stars], her face full of anticipation. “Can I write you a positive review as well?”
Team Leader Lin, whose expression and movements had remained stoically neutral, suddenly brightened. For the first time, a flicker of emotion stirred across his face, making him look lively. The corners of his mouth curled up like a cat begging for food:
“Yes, dear, thank you so much for your kind review, dear dear.”
Outside the room, two people exchanged glances: “…”
Having just been reborn, Xia Wang'an was clearly taking this chance to write a glowing review very seriously, diligently focusing on it.
The two outside again: “…”
“… Maybe we should just report this ourselves.”
***
An officer’s heavy boots echoed down the long corridor of the Ability Research Institute. She had just returned from the alien battlefield; her boots still bore the faint, bloody stench of fresh gore. But now was clearly not the time to worry about that.
She waved her hand, and a large group of soldiers immediately marched forward and back with precise, disciplined steps.
The soldiers had clear roles: some stood guard, others hoisted weapons, and some knocked on door after door.
“Hello, National Intelligence Bureau. Please cooperate.”
The staff inside the rooms looked puzzled. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“Please cooperate. This is a confidential matter.”
The officer didn’t pay attention to the researchers being controlled behind her. She strode straight to the end of the corridor and pushed open the heavy door labeled [Director’s Office].
“Don’t you know what’s going on with Lin Ke? How could you let him become the head of the recorders! Something this big almost slipped by because of him!!”
From inside came the director’s furious scolding, accompanied by the deputy director’s hesitant explanations:
“He’s strong in combat. I thought having him conduct the inquiries would be good — if anything unusual happened, he could handle it…”
“But now there *is* something unusual! And what’s he doing? He just told me not to worry, saying it was your decision! In our Ability Research Institute, ‘unusual situations’ are totally normal!”
The director was completely overwhelmed: “He still actually believes that the girl crossing over, being reborn, and changing the world is normal!!”
The deputy director’s tone noticeably weakened, filled with hesitation: “I, well… what I meant was, seeing some people who think that growing a single hair on their head means they’ve reverted to some ancient bloodline, or those who believe that blowing bubbles is a fish-like ability, or those who insist on stabbing themselves repeatedly just because their wounds can heal—these kinds of ability users are actually quite normal here in our department…”
A soldier knocked on the door, and the voices inside abruptly stopped. Soon after, the deputy director, with only a few strands of hair left on his head, opened the door. Upon seeing her, he immediately straightened up and saluted.
“Director Fan!”
The soldier nodded in acknowledgment.
After he left, the deputy director finally spoke to Old Wang, “Alright, Old Wang, now’s not the time to scold anyone. I’ve reviewed the surveillance footage. That recorder named Lin Ke actually got lucky.”
“According to Xia Wang’an’s own account, she has lived through various catastrophic alternate timelines for ten years. Her ability to distinguish between normal and abnormal events is almost nonexistent. If the recorder had been overly strict or tense, it would have negatively affected her. It was precisely because the recorder maintained a calm and ordinary demeanor during questioning that we were able to gather the most information in the shortest time.”
Old Wang’s attention immediately zeroed in on the phrase “living alone in alternate timelines for ten years.”
“Have you confirmed that what Xia Wang’an said is true?”
Director Fan nodded and handed him a paper file. “We were supposed to hold a meeting today, but we hadn’t informed you yet when your department reported this.”
Old Wang quickly took the file, flipping through several pages, his lips trembling. “Time rewind??”
“At 12:31 today, Qiming, a Perceiver who was having a normal lunch, suddenly couldn’t breathe and suffered cardiac arrest. After two hours of emergency resuscitation, his vital signs stabilized. Upon waking, he immediately triggered an alarm. The alarm reported that he had perceived the world collapsing and being destroyed. However, at the moment of destruction, time rewound—why it rewound, even he doesn’t know.”
Director Fan’s expression remained calm, but his eyes were grave. “The rewind time Qiming detected was exactly ten years. In other words, for us, the destruction ten years from now is not the future, but a past event that has already happened.”
“After Qiming triggered the alarm, we quickly questioned various ability users, but no one remembered what happened during those ten years. Even Qiming himself only sensed the world’s change in that instant through his perception ability; he has no memories of those ten years. But now, Xia Wang’an has appeared.”
Old Wang’s heartbeat quickened. He slowly exhaled, “So, that young girl might be the only person in this world who remembers that ten years have actually passed.”
“Not just that.”
Director Fan projected a surveillance video marked [Orphanage for Martyrs’ Children, September 3, 2338].
“She may also be the only person capable of preventing our world from being destroyed again.”
In midair, the holographic projection played the video.
Amidst a pool of blood lay a small boy. He slowly moved his fingers, as if trying to get up, but in the end, he could only barely open his eyes. The light in his gaze was slowly fading.
Anyone with even a little experience dealing with the dying could tell—he was on the verge of death.
But in the next moment, soldiers burst through the door.
The instant the door swung open, the wounds on the boy’s body suddenly began to heal rapidly and vanished. His pale face flushed with color in an instant.
—The surveillance footage froze right there.
Director Wang watched the entire video carefully. “I remember this footage. It’s from an incident involving a mutant invasion at an orphanage.”
He recalled, “At that time, this boy was four years old. He hid a girl two years younger than him inside a wardrobe and drew the mutant’s attention onto himself. After the mutant pierced his throat, he triggered a [Self-Healing] ability. By the time the rescue team arrived, his wounds had already healed.”
Director Fan asked him, “Did the boy show any further signs of the [Self-Healing] ability later on?”
“We observed him for two years. Normal bruises and scratches never healed by themselves, so we concluded that his ability probably only activates at the brink of death. This isn’t uncommon among those with powers. We certainly couldn’t keep harming the child just to test it, so we had to stop the observation.”
After Director Wang finished, he asked with some confusion, “Is he connected to this current matter?”
Director Fan replied, “The girl he hid in the wardrobe back then was Xia Wang’an. She was only two years old at the time.”
She switched to another surveillance video, also from the kindergarten setup. “Look at this.”
—“There’s a child here!”
A soldier in protective gear cautiously swept the room with his weapon before opening the wardrobe. Inside, he found a little girl hiding. Carefully, he lifted her out.
He said to his comrades behind him, “It’s a girl. She’s unharmed.”
In the footage, the tiny Xia Wang’an had two little braids. Held in the soldier’s arms, she sniffled and raised a small hand, pointing firmly toward the door of the reading room.
“There’s someone still inside.”
“He’s not hurt either.”
Soldiers cautiously pushed the door open. A voice came from inside, “There’s a boy. He’s not injured but has passed out.”
Another soldier asked curiously, “There are no wounds on this kid’s body, so why is his clothes covered in blood?”
—The screen went black.
Director Wang was stunned. “So, it wasn’t the boy who triggered the [Self-Healing] ability back then.”
“It was the two-year-old Xia Wang’an who used the [Setting] ability,” Director Fan revealed what he hadn’t said before. “She [set] the boy’s condition as uninjured. The rescuers believed her, so the instant they opened the door, the boy’s state changed to [uninjured].”
Director Wang blinked, suddenly recalling, “But both children were tested back then. The boy did show fluctuations in his abilities, but the girl didn’t.”
“That’s another mystery,” Director Fan said, flipping open another test report. “Xia Wang’an still shows no signs of ability fluctuations. We suspect that, just as she can bypass the [World Barrier] and travel between worlds, the detection devices designed to pick up [ability fluctuations] simply don’t work on her.”
“This child… truly has the power to change the world.”
With that, Director Fan glanced at the mechanical watch on his left wrist. “Time’s up.”
The moment the words fell, a crisp child’s voice came through both their earpieces:
“Little bunny, be good, open the door, open it quickly, I want to come in…”
Director Wang exhaled, unsure whether to feel joy or shock. “A special-level incident alert…”
“I thought I’d only ever hear this at the moment the world ends.”
Director Fan said, “But now, it’s sounding to save the world.”
At the same time—
Under the pitch-black sky, another officer blasted a cannon at a screaming, charging mutant. Wiping the blood smeared on his face without a care, he was about to press forward when suddenly a nursery rhyme echoed in his earpiece.
He froze for a moment; the calm, indifferent look in his eyes trembled slightly.
The adjutant hurried up behind him. “Sir, shall we continue the advance?”
The officer looked ahead. A flock of small, carrion-eating mutants flew over the desolate land, emitting hoarse, grating noises. Ruins and silence stretched everywhere—there was no sign this had ever been a human home.
“All units, listen up! Fall back to original positions!”
—
In the Central China region, an important meeting was underway. The elderly man seated at the head suddenly paused mid-speech.
“Meeting adjourned. We’ll discuss the rest later.”
Everyone else was baffled, wanting to ask why, but all they saw was the elderly man’s solemn face as he hurriedly left.
He was followed by several high-ranking officials.
—
On a vehicle bound for East China, a gray-haired elder signed document after document.
“Chief, the special-level incident alert has been issued.”
Someone beside her reported, “The Ability Research Institute has deployed troops for protection. All districts are now on Level One alert.”
“Good.” The elder paused her pen, massaged her brow, and asked, “What about the Western China border?”
“Personnel have already been sent. Absolutely no issues.”
Hearing the confident tone of her subordinate, the elder’s brows relaxed slightly. “Was it Taibai who went?”
“Yes. Taibai has arrived at the Western China border. She’s our only Level Nine ability user. With her there, you can rest assured.”
—
At the Western China border, a woman dressed in a Tai Chi uniform sat atop a vehicle. She was in her early thirties, wearing a pure white mask. Her hair was pinned up with a hairpin, and hanging from her waist was a talisman marked with the character “發” (Prosperity).
A voice came through her earpiece: “Boss, why did you run off to the Western China border?”
“Got a mission.”
“What kind of mission? How long will you stay?”
“Clearing mutants. Don’t know.”
“Aren’t you usually precise about mission timing?”
The woman glanced at the quiet, barren land ahead. “I mean, I don’t know when the mutants will show up.”
From the other end of the earpiece: “…What???”
The woman urged, “Hurry up.”
“Coming, coming. I’m discarding the eight of wan.”
The projection on the rooftop showed a mahjong table.
As the “eight of wan” tile was played, the woman’s eyes lit up and she immediately tapped the screen. “Pung!”
Meanwhile, the crisp nursery rhyme continued to sing “Little Bunny Be Good”:
“…I won’t open, I won’t open, I won’t open, mom’s not back, no one’s coming in…”
Ahead of her lay a barren land steeped in deathly silence, thick with the acrid stench of burning, a place where monstrous invaders could appear at any moment.
Behind her stood a row of dull, grayish apartment buildings—not particularly attractive—where residents, some just off work and others preparing to start their shifts, busied themselves with their daily routines.
She wasn’t sure if the monsters would come, nor if the prophecy would come true, and she certainly had no idea whether these residents played mahjong or how skilled they might be.
But she would remain steadfast on this borderline, never stepping away.
***
The nation believed in itself, and Xia Wang'an was pleased, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
Director Wang, watching the scene through the glass, exhaled deeply and turned to the white-haired man beside him, now dressed in his work uniform.
“She seems to be in a good mood. The conversation should go smoothly.”
“The operation code name is set as ‘Salvation.’ In other words, the person inside is the savior. When you go in, follow her lead, understand?”
“Understood.” The new recorder straightened his clothes carefully—a practiced move. Keeping tidy made the other party feel respected.
“The chief is on his way. Until he arrives, it’s all on you.” Director Wang’s worry lingered.
He gave a series of detailed instructions: “Remember, fulfill all her requests. Xia Wang'an has lived in another world for ten years. Her mental state is still uncertain. Even if what she asks sounds strange, just think of her as the savior. If she wants something, grant it immediately. Activate the emergency call at once, and someone will rush to bring whatever she needs.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve been a recorder for thirty years. I’ve seen it all.” The new recorder spoke confidently. “No matter what she asks for, I’ll keep a straight face and agree.”
He straightened up, saluted himself to relax, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Hello, I am—”
He first introduced himself, then explained the nation’s high regard for Xia Wang'an, going on at length. But Xia Wang'an’s attention only caught on the last sentence.
—“All my requests will be granted?”
The girl’s eyes lit up.
She looked genuinely hopeful, and the new recorder breathed a sigh of relief. This kind of situation wasn’t about fearing too many demands—it was worrying she might ask for nothing at all.
He wore a practiced, gentle smile:
“Yes, anything you want is possible.”
Whether it was sumptuous feasts until she was full, a prestigious military position, or the rarest of vegetables.
Even if Xia Wang'an now said she wanted to observe the monsters up close, someone would sprint out of the base at top speed, capture a fierce monster wandering outside, break its legs, knock out its teeth, and bring it back for her to see.
The new recorder maintained his warm, steady smile as he looked toward Xia Wang'an. Having worked as a recorder for three decades, he was ready to smile and agree to any request she made.
Xia Wang'an handed him a notebook, her face full of expectation. “I’ve already written it down.”
The new recorder smiled as he took it, but when he saw what was written inside, he froze.
Xia Wang'an didn’t even notice his expression and kept talking: “Crossing through these ten years, what I couldn’t bear the most was that every world I landed in didn’t have them.”
“Especially since before I crossed over, I was still with them. At that moment, I was just about to touch them, hadn’t even picked them up yet, and then—boom—I was transported.”
Xia Wang'an grew more and more upset as she spoke: “Just a little closer, just that tiny bit more, and I would have had them in my hands. You know how important they are.”
The new recorder stammered, “...Y-yeah, that really is unfortunate.”
“Isn’t it?” With that acknowledgment, Xia Wang'an brightened, a smile creeping up at the corners of her mouth. “Every single day of these ten years, I’ve been longing for them.”
She urged, “Can you hurry? I can’t wait any longer.”
The new recorder replied, “...Alright, I’ll arrange it immediately.”
He tapped his invisible earpiece: “Emergency call, emergency call.”
“The Savior wants the test papers. Repeat, the Savior wants the test papers.”
“Please arrange to send a set of ‘Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Simulations’ immediately to the top-secret room. Repeat, please arrange to send a set of ‘Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Simulations’ right away...”
