‘Logic won’t appear out of thin air”

-”Must-Read Guide for APP Users With Brains.”

　　***

“Whenever someone hears the two words, ‘logic skill’, it is normal to not understand. If I explain it in a way so that you can understand, a logical skill is a type of superpower.” The short-haired woman revealed a meaningful smile, she turned her head and looked at her partner, saying, “Alright, you just got tricked a bit but you’re still sulking?” 

The boy in the baseball cap scowled, “Who’s sulking?!”

The short-haired woman blinked at him, “Have this him take a look at your right hand.”

The capped boy stilled, “Right hand?” In the next second, he oddly giggled and said languidly, “Oh, right. The right hand.” Then, he walked in front of Xiao Jinyu, lightly humph-ed, and lifted his own right hand, “See, this is a right hand.”

Xiao Jinyu, “Right hand?”

Under the infirmary’s bright light, the five fingers slowly swayed. Xiao Jinyu followed it’s movements unconsciously. So when he wanted to ask the capped boy what he was doing, suddenly, during the swaying, the five fingers changed. Xiao Jinyu’s eyes widened, looking in surprise at those common, ordinary fingers.

He quickly looked down at the boy’s left hand.

There was a left hand there.

He raised his hand to look at the boy’s ‘right hand’.

No, that was still a left hand!

In the room, where no one was speaking, the air was deathly quiet.

This was completely out of a person’s understanding. There were two left hands on one body, weirdly swaying in the air,

The boy in the baseball cap laughed creepily, “Right now, is it still a right hand?”

Xiao Jinyu was silent for a moment before lifting his head towards the boy, asking, “Is this your logic skill?”

Seeing that he didn’t even scare the young man in front of him, the boy in the baseball cap stopped. The short-haired woman slightly raised an eyebrow and pulled her partner behind her, saying, “This is his logic skill. We won’t tell you what it is specifically, but it’s the same as the skill that pulled you into the White Garden space. In simple terms, it's a type of superpower.”

The short-haired woman became serious as she said, “In 2021, Type-A radiation spread across the whole world. In 2022, that Type-A radiation suddenly disappeared, leaving no residual effects afterwards.”

Xiao Jinyu, “This is the same as the history books in class,” implying he already knew about these events.

Eh? The short-haired woman laughed, “Everyone thought that the radiation doesn’t affect the human body anymore. But did you know, in 2029, the first logic skill appeared?”

Hearing those two words again, Xiao Jinyu’s pupils shrank and calmly looked at the two in front of him.

The woman smiled, “Rule one, logic won’t appear out of thin-air. Just now, did you think it was weird, when we asked if you’ve encountered anything weird in your daily life.” Changing her words, the short-haired woman continued, “Or have you ever thought, ‘There were so many people on the subway train’, why was it just you and the man in glasses that got pulled into the White Garden space?”

Xiao Jinyu nodded, “I did think of that, but I didn’t think of an answer. In the White Garden space, Zhao Zhixin, who was the passenger in glasses, and I talked. He and I were both normal, ordinary people, we’ve never encountered anything weird. Entering the White Garden space was the only weird thing we’ve had happen to us.”

The short-haired woman and the boy in the baseball cap glanced at each other.

Capped boy: “Just now, Sister Min just said, logic won’t appear out of thin air. Because when one wants to awaken their logical skill, they must first be triggered by an existing logic skill. Like a catalyst.

“Maybe you have the potential to awaken a logical skill, but if you never encounter another logical skill in your life, you will never awaken your logical skill.

“In other words, only with one logical skill, can another logical skill be awakened.”

Xiao Jinyu digested these words in his head and then asked, “What does this have to do with me being pulled into the White Garden?”

The short-haired woman, “That involves another rule of logic skills: logic skills attract other logic skills. So we thought that before entering the White Garden space, you already awakened yours.”

Xiao Jinyu’s expression didn’t change. “I didn’t.”

The woman didn’t deny it, “Yes, there’s also that possibility. You and that man in glasses didn’t awaken before, but in that subway station, you did awaken your logic skill, so the White Garden space chose you two. This type of situation has happened before. Right, White Garden is that person who committed suicide on the rails, ‘White Garden’ is his User ID.”

User ID?

Seeing that the two in front of him had no intention of explaining this term to him, Xiao Jinyu quietly repeated this term in his heart. Right now, he has something else he wants to know more, “I roughly understand what you’re saying. Logic skill is just a type of superpower, a type of skill. But it has two rules, one, in order to activate the skill, they must encounter another existing one like a catalyst, or else they can’t activate it. Two, the skills will be mutually attracted.”

Waiting a moment, Xiao Jinyu’s eyes swept across the pair in front of him.

“But I still want to know why it is called ‘Logic Skill’.”

Superpowers, powers, mutants…

These terms have all appeared in the media and accepted by the general public. If it was just the radiation causing people to awaken, they could just call it superpowers and be done with it. Why are they calling it ‘Logic Skills?’

The short-haired woman and boy in the baseball cap didn’t immediately reply, only after a silent exchange with their eyes, did the woman open her mouth, “You haven’t awoken a logic skill so we don’t have to explain too deeply for you. There is no good reason for us to tell you. You can completely regard it as a superpower. But because of your potential, I suspect that as soon as you encounter another logic skill, you will immediately awaken. So, I can give you a simple explanation.”

After a while, the short-haired woman asked, “Have you ever eaten roasted-pork?”

What does roasted pork have to do with logic skills?

Xiao Jinyu was confused but still nodded.

The woman: “We call all people who have logic skills, ‘Users’. However, I won’t explain why we call them users. In Haidu City, there’s a user called ‘Meat King’. His logic skill is that, as long as he eats roasted pork before 24:00, for the next whole day from 00:00 to 24:00, it will be sunny.”

Xiao Jinyu, “After eating roast pork, for the entire next day, it will be sunny. That’s also a superpower?”

He thought that all superpowers must be related to fighting and killing, or at least something flashy.

Also…

“What kind of logic is there between roasted pork and sunny days?”

The short-haired woman, “Does whether or not they follow logic matter?”

Xiao Jinyu stopped. 

She continued, “You must always remember something: don’t use normal logic to understand a user’s logic skill. You never know how one’s logic skill is formed, nor do you know why it formed. But once the logic skill has formed, even if he makes other people unable to understand, it will always follow logic. Other people can eat roasted pork, but won’t cause the second day to be sunny. But if Meat King eats roasted pork, the second day will always be sunny. This is a causality logic skill.”

Causality....

Logic skill.

Like clouds breaking in the sky, his mind was cleared.

Xiao Jinyu;s eye widened and he slowly understood the difference between logic skills and superpowers.

Looking at Xiao Jinyu’s thoughtful expression, the short-haired woman continued to say, “If we compare a logic skill to a flat line, then the start of that line would be the cause of the logic skill. Therefore, anything afterwards would be the ‘result’. As soon as someone triggers the ‘cause’, then this line would start to move. This person will walk on every point on the line, eventually arriving at the logic skill’s endpoint. Without a cause, there is no effect, this is a one-way line.”

So it was this simple!

Xiao Jinyu was speechless.

The short-haired woman explained in a complicated manner, but Xiao Jinyu understood the difference between a logic skill and superpower: a logic skill must be triggered first. Only when someone enters a logic skill, can one’s own logic skill be activated and can one walk towards this ‘result’.

But...

“Didn’t you just trigger that cause just now?” Xiao Jinyu looked at the boy in the baseball cap.

Just now, the boy’s right hand had changed into a left hand, but he didn’t do anything. Would not doing anything with their logic skills still count as ‘entering a logic skill’? Or in other words, was his logic skill, ‘raising his right hand’? 

The boy pushed down his cap, pretended to be mysterious, and said, “Ah, my logic skill is very complicated, even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand.”

The short-haired woman looked at her partner, too lazy to expose his lie. She said to Xiao Jinyu, “If you have the misfortune to awaken, don’t tell anyone about your logic skill. At least, don’t tell them the whole thing. Likewise, don’t ask other people what their logic skill is, even if they’re your closest friend, they won’t tell you.”

Xiao Jinyu caught her point, and said, "Why is it my misfortune to awaken the logical skill? Also, if I expose my logic skill, will it cause anything bad to happen?”

Without immediately answering the question, the short-haired woman said: "Introducing myself at this point is a bit late. My name is Qi Yumin, and his name is Li Xiaotong.”

Xiao Jinyu gently nodded, “Xiao Jinyu, the Jin from reserved, the Yu from giving.”

The short-haired woman lightly similed, “Your name sounds nice. Xiao Jinyu, what do you think we came to this subway station for?”

Xiao Jinyu didn’t forget this point, “Back on the platform, you said you were here to save us?”

“Not bad, we could be considered to have come here to save you. Of course, in the end, we didn’t succeed, instead you came out yourself. That man in glasses should have already died in that White Garden space.” The short-haired woman helplessly let out a breath, “But saving you two was just on the way, this isn’t our official work.”

“What’s your official work?”

The short-haired woman smiled, “I feel like you already have a guess in your heart.”

Waiting a moment, Xiao Jinyu said, “Before, I didn’t know what a logic skill was and have never encountered your group of ‘users’. But I thought, the country wouldn’t let this circle just… grow however they wanted? Are you special government workers?”

The boy in the baseball cap laughed, “Bingo, you guessed wrong.”

Xiao Jinyu wasn’t surprised: They weren’t?

Short-haired woman: “We haven’t entered the government system. We just took on a small mission, a way for us to earn a little money on the side. You can guess what our mission is.”

 “It has something to do with White Garden.” Xiao Jinyu couldn’t help but think.

The short-haired woman looked at him for a few seconds, before saying, “You really are smart. Xiao Jinyu, do you think that awakening a logic skill is something fortunate? Do you really want to awaken your logic skill?”

Not immediately replying, Xiao Jinyu closed his eyes, thinking of many answers in his heart. Finally he opened his eyes, “If no one in the world awakens a logic skill, I think that awakening is a bad thing. But if someone has already awakened, then I wish that I can awaken my logic skill.”

The young man’s eyes were clear and due to long-term dehydration, his face was a morbid white. But his eyes were bright, expression calm and wise.

He spoke seriously to the two who came from another world of ‘users’.

“Because I don’t want to be unknowingly pulled into another person’s mysterious space. Nor do I want to put my life into another person’s hands, becoming the food on a chopping board.”

The short-haired woman suddenly asked, “Do you know how many users die a year?”

“How many?”

“Eight thousand.”

Xiao Jinyu stared blankly. 

Short-haired woman: “Do you feel like this number is small? Then what if I told you that there are only 70,000 users in total?”

His head thumped. While Xiao Jinyu’s expression didn’t change, inside, there were numerous waves.

A total of 70,000 users, but 8,000 die each year!

In other words, for every ten users, one will die!

A ten in one death rate. Why was it this high?

“Do you encounter danger often?”

The boy in the cap said softly, “There might be danger, but Sister Min and I never take those high risk missions.”

Short-haired woman, “There’s of course danger. You’ve never gone to those radioactive-waste sites, it’s full of luck and danger. But half of those 8,000 people don't die in those sites.” She looked up, revealing a pained smile, “They die in their own homes, on their way to work, in the restaurants on the streets… and in the subway trains they ride everyday.”

Picking up that rectangular, black object that resembled a phone next to her, the woman said, “This thing is used to probe for logic factors. After a user dies, their logic skill won’t immediately disappear, a portion will be left in the air, becoming a logic factor that cannot be seen with the naked eye.”

While saying this, she calmly fiddled with a button on the black phone.

“We used this thing to find out that the White Garden logic factor was scattered in this subway station. If it was a normal scattering, using a normal phone would be enough. But this thing issued an alarm. Meaning, White Garden’s logic was broken down.”

Xiao Jinyu thought, “The user is dead, can his logic skill still break down?”

The boy in the baseball cap let out an outrageous sound, “Ha? You think that because he died first, his logic skill was broken?”

“Isn’t that it?”

The boy pursed his lips, “If the user dies first, their logic skill can’t be broken down, it can only disappear. He died because his logic skill broke down!”

Xiao Jinyu’s heart thumped. 

The short-haired woman’s expression contained endless sorrow, like she thought of herself. But soon after, she changed to a relaxed expression, lightly saying, “People who awaken at first will be excited, thinking they’ve become a superhuman. That they’ll be different from the common people, a higher-being. But they’ll find out soon after, that this was a trap, a trap that ate people.”

“Do you really understand your own logic skill?

“Why would it appear, why was it this exact power? What was its actual cause and what would the result be in the end?

“In the end, the stronger you are, the more you suspect your logic skill.

“You don’t understand, you don’t want to accept it, you’ll start to think…

“Does it follow logic?

“Until one day comes and your logic skill breaks down.”

The short-haired woman’s voice was heavy, resonating in the room, “To combat your logic skills breaking down, there is only one way. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. But to get stronger, you must think. Only by understanding one’s logic skills can one figure out one’s worth and potential. Also..”

She looked at the dumbfounded Xiao Jinyu, “Not one user can resist not understanding one’s logic skill.

“Because, it is them.”

“Pa-ta”, the woman pressed down on a button on the black phone and faced the screen towards Xiao Jinyu, “See, the green dots on the screen display all the logic factors in the subway station. It’s White Garden’s logic factor. He was a really strong user, so when his logic skill broke down, he killed himself.”

Xiao Jinyu looked at the phone in front of him.

Just as he was about to seriously look at the green dots on the screen, he suddenly saw a flashing colorful dot abruptly fly out of the black phone.

What was this?

Suddenly clenching his hands, XIao Jinyu looked up without a change in expression, quickly scanning the two.

There was no reaction from them.

Then this means, they can’t see these things?

Xiao Jinyu calmly looked at the screen, but couldn’t help but latch onto the little light dots. He watched these lights slowly fly out of the phone, then, quickly heading straight for him!

What are these things?

Xiao Jinyu’s heart was beating furiously, but he didn’t dare make a sound.

He’s a person who hasn’t awakened his logic skill, before today he has never encountered another logic skill, and has never encountered anything weird.

...At least before he had confirmed his mom’s safety first, in front of these dangerous and illogical users, he is a normal person.

Right as the dots were about to touch him right between his eyebrows, Xiao Jinyu calmly raised his head, dodging the dots that were flying right at him. His movements were natural, like he had felt an itch there so he scratched his head, just so happened to dodge the light dot’s route.

Thankfully, the dots were just programmed like that, not actually needing to touch Xiao Jinyu’s forehead. After Xiao Jinyu dodged, they didn’t change directions, flying straight to the wall. After flying a short distance, they fly back to the black phone.

This all happened in a short second.

Xiao Jinyu kept on looking at the phone’s screen and the other two looked down at him, closely examining him.

After a few seconds.

The short-haired woman and boy in the cap let out a breath of relief.

The boy: “You really didn’t awaken, that’s really good, really lucky.”

Xiao Jinyu raised his head and looked blankly, “What?”

The short-haired woman laughed a bit, “Sorry, just now we didn’t tell you everything. We really don’t have a way of clearing people’s memory, but we do have a way of telling if someone has awakened. We just checked, and sure enough, you don’t have a single remain of a logic factor on you. This means, you didn’t awaken your logic skill.”

So that colorful white dot was a way to check for logic factors!

His heart beat fast in his chest, Xiao Jinyu frowned, coldly saying, “I really didn’t feel anything like a logic skill awakening. If you two wanted to know if I really did or did not awaken, just asking would suffice, why would I lie to you?”

The short-haired woman explained, “If a normal person awakened their logic skill, there really is nothing to hide, instead most of them would be extremely happy, unable to control themselves, wanting to show the whole world their power. Of course, we cannot remove those that are cautious, gaining a skill but hiding it. But this isn’t the real reason why we hid that test from you.”

“Then what was the real reason?”

Like she remembered something scary, a shadow passed on the short-haired woman’s face, “I’ve told you before, that only logic skills can awaken other logic skills. We’ve already confirmed that you’ve entered White Garden’s logic skill. And White Garden’s logic skill has already broken down. But we cannot confirm, before White Garden killed himself, whether his skill broke down by itself, or already went out of control!

“Out of control?”

“Right, out of control. A logic skill breaking down is from a user suspecting and not understanding their own skill. But if a logic skill goes out of control, it means the user was unable to stay on their logic skill line. It removed itself from his control. This is an extremely dangerous thing.”

The short-haired woman collected her expression, her voice steady, “Logic will not appear out of thin air, this is the most primitive rule of all logic skills. After this, the second rule is— 

“Anyone who enters an out of control logic skill is deemed to have been contaminated.”

The boy in the baseball cap had a cold expression, face grim, and slowly said, “The third rule is—”

“The polluted must be killed.”

The author has something to say:

Ai, this book is so hard to write.

The 3,000 words I wrote this morning were all trashed, then I wrote for the entire afternoon again, ending with 5,000…….

Babies, I’ll generally update in the afternoon. If not the afternoon, I’ll tell you the general time at the start of the novel.

It really is. Too hard….