Naming Technique of the Night

“I wonder if he’ll be as rude and barbarous as the other people from the Inner World.”

This was the second time Jindai Kongyin had quietly spoken in Japanese.

As soon as Qing Chen returned to the Outer World, he translated it immediately.

To be honest, he couldn’t quite understand what this girl’s intentions were.

“I really need to learn Japanese properly,” Qing Chen sighed.

The other party always played these little games right under his nose, yet he had to return to the Outer World to understand what she meant, which made Qing Chen feel somewhat passive.

From what the news suggested, it seemed that only people from the Island Country and Goryeo had traveled to the Federation where he was located.

People from other overseas regions had directly traveled to the other side of the great ocean in the Inner World.

The Forbidden Sea lay between them all, with no possibility of ship travel.

So far, there have been no cases of foreigners traveling through time in China, and some self-media have reported that many foreigners are planning to return to their countries, perhaps in time to catch the ‘public beta’.

Qing Chen searched for news about Jindai Kongyin, and for the time being, nobody in the Outer World had discovered she was a Time Traveler.

This was somewhat inexplicable; the girl was a celebrity in the Island Country, after all. Even a small-time celebrity was still a celebrity.

How could nobody have noticed her?

Or was it that she had always kept a low profile in the Inner World and ordinary people never had the chance to encounter her?

At that moment, the bedroom was just about the same size as the visitation room.

He always felt that she didn’t seem very happy in the Inner World, which might be why she chose to visit him.

But the primary reason for her visits wasn’t for him; it might be that she wanted to escape the outside world.

And suddenly, Qing Chen felt that sitting opposite the girl in the visitation room was also a rare moment of relaxation for him.

They didn’t need to say anything, nor did they need any camaraderie or scheming.

No need to think about how to survive in the dangerous Inner World. The half-hour in the visitation room was unrelated to the outside world.

It was like finally having a chance to catch his breath.

Perhaps, that’s what she was thinking too.

Qing Chen glanced at his arm, countdown 47:55:01.

Another two days, and the countdown to his next journey jumped around erratically, with no discernible pattern.

The broken kitchen knife still lay on the ground; it was the handle he had taken to the Inner World on his last trip, leaving behind the broken blade.

Qing Chen remembered that he hadn’t completed his training for the day, so he searched for a Japanese language course video online and trained while listening.

In the early hours after 3 am, he had just finished showering and walked out of the bathroom when he opened his phone and felt like the world had exploded. All platforms were continuously refreshing with news.

“Liu Dezhu returned to the Outer World late at night, only to scream in his home!”

“The screams lasted for 3 hours. What exactly happened to the boy many see as the protagonist of the Inner World!?”

By dawn, Liu Dezhu’s doorway was already filled with paparazzi.

Liu Dezhu felt like walking to school was like walking the red carpet, surrounded by cameras large and small.

In the past, the paparazzi were somewhat restrained, but now, they seemed to wish they could cram the lens in his face.

But he wasn’t dressed in a sharp suit; instead, he pushed an old bicycle.

The rear wheel of the bicycle was a bit bent, a consequence of being ambushed under the overpass that night, lacking any imposing presence whatsoever.

A reporter intercepted Liu Dezhu’s path: “Hello, I am Xue Shuanglong from the Los Angeles Daily. Can you tell me what exactly you experienced last night, and whether you were injured in the Inner World?”

“No,” Liu Dezhu said hastily, pushing his cart and heading out.

“If you weren’t injured, then why the screams?” reporter Xue Shuanglong pressed on.

Liu Dezhu shut his mouth and didn’t utter another word, straining to push through to the outside.

More and more onlookers gathered, not just reporters and paparazzi but also neighbors from the community.

While watching the excitement, they commented, “Look at that guy, he was howling until five in the morning. Heard he was pretty formidable in the Inner World.”

Liu Dezhu’s face flushed with heat until, no longer able to bear it, he shoved forcefully and saw the reporters and paparazzi blocking his path tumble down, several of them falling over, with someone’s camera even getting smashed.

The onlooking crowd was stunned, and so was Liu Dezhu himself.

At least seven or eight people were standing in front of him, and even if they were completely unprepared, the force of his casual shove was too great.

Liu Dezhu panicked a bit, and seizing the moment the crowd parted, he quickly mounted his bike and rushed to school.

However, once he broke free from the crowd, he fell into deep thought.

Actually, he wasn’t as panicked as he imagined, because the Time Traveler wearing a Cat Mask had already told him in advance what might happen today and taught him how to display his strength seemingly unintentionally.

To display strength was to tacitly admit that he had indeed received the inheritance of Uncle Li Dong.

As for what exactly the inheritance of Uncle Li Dong was, no one really knew anyway.

Or perhaps it wasn’t the inheritance he received, but just acknowledgment.

Liu Dezhu thought to himself that the Time Traveler always seemed to act flawlessly, no wonder he received Uncle Li Dong’s acknowledgment and not he.

He had seen many Time Travelers claim that the Genetic Potion was very hard to find, but all he did was make a request, and the Time Traveler with the Cat Mask found it for him.

In one day.

This kind of extraordinary ability suddenly gave Liu Dezhu a new confidence.

Just like playing a game, it didn’t matter if you were bad at it, as long as you clung to a strong player and could cheer them on, you could level up!

Still, Liu Dezhu couldn’t quite determine the extent of how awesome this big shot really was.

Confined to a cell almost completely cut off from the world, he couldn’t get any news from outside.

Although the transformation from the Genetic Potion had left him in such pain last night that he almost died, in just an hour, Liu Dezhu was revitalized as if he had been fully healed, brimming with energy.

Upon arriving at school, Liu Dezhu walked into class and immediately sensed that the atmosphere was off.

But this time, it wasn’t him people were looking at; they were staring at their phones.

Someone had shared a news item in the group chat — a Douyin user with the ID “Charger King” had suddenly posted about a piece of news regarding the Inner World:

Uncle Li Dong stepped out of prison after 8 years and went to dine on the top floor of the Eternal Building with a man wearing a Cat Mask.

Uncle Li Dong had a serving of braised pork, while the man in the Cat Mask had a serving of zhajiangmian.

It was reported that on the same night, Chen Yehu, the eldest grandson of the Chen Clan and an A-Class expert, personally went to persuade them, hoping they would return to Prison No. 18.

At the same time, reactions came from Qing’s Family and Li’s Military Base, with eyewitnesses claiming to have seen Qing’s Family’s Airship, “Land Cruiser,” take to the sky.

As everyone knows, the Land Cruiser has always been used by Qing’s Family to contain the Taboo item ACE-009, but no one has ever seen what this Taboo actually is.

Thus, Qing’s Family likely wanted to activate this Taboo to deal with the suddenly reemerging Uncle Li Dong.

To date, the identity of the man in the Cat Mask remains a mystery, as is the reason Uncle Li Dong stepped out of prison, and this incident has already caused an uproar throughout the Federation.

Liu Dezhu silently watched the news item, or to be precise, he was transfixed by the sentence “went to dine on the top floor of the Eternal Building with a man wearing a Cat Mask.”

He finally understood that his knowledge of the big shot was still far from clear.