Chapter 1: Being Followed
Xue Yu was certain she was being followed.
By a man. To be more precise, it was a man with a large belly.
Last night, when she first noticed him, Xue Yu had ducked into a sewage-stained alley and hidden behind a massive steel dumpster. Peeking out, she caught a glimpse of the man tailing her.
The night was dark, and she couldn’t see him clearly. She could only make out his silhouette—he was an extremely tall man, over 1.9 meters.
He wore a black felt hat with a wide brim, casting a shadow that obscured most of his face. His shoulders were broad and square, and he was dressed in a knee-length black trench coat. The coat was so large it draped over him like a cloak, completely concealing his body.
The only reason Xue Yu saw his protruding stomach was because a gust of wind blew his oversized coat open.
As the hem of the coat billowed, it revealed the unnatural curve of his abdomen.
The wind blew his hat off. He bent his knees with difficulty to pick it up, one hand supporting his belly. That single movement confirmed it for Xue Yu—there was something unusual about this man’s stomach.
His posture reminded her of a pregnant woman.
It had been a long time since she had seen a pregnant woman.
The place she lived in was called the White Tower Safe Zone, the most successfully rebuilt sanctuary on Planet KM after the apocalypse.
The White Tower base was now suffering from severe overpopulation. After awakening their spirit bodies, the residents’ lifespans had increased exponentially.
To alleviate the population burden, everyone living in the White Tower had undergone mandatory sterilization twenty years ago.
The residents’ aversion to childbirth had reached an all-time high. If a newborn was discovered, Controllers would conduct DNA screenings one by one, and the child, along with its parents, would be exiled from the White Tower and permanently blacklisted.
Xue Yu had so many questions.
Why was this man’s stomach so big? Was it a mutation? Or was he a host for some kind of parasite?
What unsettled her more was, why was he following her?
Xue Yu was terrified.
Because she was a nobody. A complete and utter good-for-nothing.
It had been three years since she transmigrated from Earth at the age of twenty.
Three years, and she still hadn’t awakened a spirit body.
In the White Tower base, not having a spirit body made you a second-class citizen. You couldn’t even find a decent job; the only option was to work in the mines.
When she first arrived, she had stumbled her way into the base’s military academy.
The unwritten rule of the White Tower was: equality during school days, rigid class division after graduation.
During their time at the academy, most students had yet to awaken their spirit bodies, so there wasn’t a significant gap in their physical abilities or intelligence. After graduation, however, students were assigned to different posts based on the level of their spirit body.
For someone like Xue Yu, who had no spirit body, there was only one path: be sent to the mines outside the safe zone.
Transmigrated at twenty, graduated from the military academy at twenty-two, and now, at twenty-three, her profession was a miner.
That was the summary of Xue Yu’s unlucky transmigration story.
Xue Yu quickened her pace, but the tangible gaze from behind her clung to her like a shadow.
After a few steps, she stopped abruptly and spun around. The shadow quickly flattened itself against the side of a building. He was so tall and straight that, pressed against the wall, he looked like a section of a metal drainpipe.
He seemed to know she wouldn’t dare approach.
Even his attempt at hiding was half-hearted. He just stood there, pressed against the wall, making no other move.
And he was right. Xue Yu didn’t dare get any closer. Not only did she lack a spirit body, but she had transmigrated with her original body!
She had been dropped onto a planet where everyone had powers, but her body was still that of an ordinary human from Earth.
Even though she exercised diligently, and her physical fitness would be considered top-tier among normal people on Earth, the genetic gap in this world was utterly despairing.
She wasn’t even the same species as the people here. No amount of hard work could change her genes.
Xue Yu glanced at the shadow standing against the wall again.
Just from his silhouette, she could feel the power and wildness radiating from him. She guessed his spirit body had to be some kind of apex predator.
Why would such a superior specimen be following a nobody like her?
Xue Yu couldn’t figure it out.
She broke into a jog, heading for the dormitory area. She lived in the dorms provided by the mining company, located within the White Tower Safe Zone.
They were dilapidated and old, but for the most part, there weren’t any major security issues.
The dormitory was a massive, one-hundred-and-fifty-story building made entirely of metal. It gleamed coldly under the moonlight, like a blade thrust straight into the wasteland.
Miners, janitors, waste disposal workers, and other members of the lower class all lived here.
Xue Yu lived on the sixty-sixth floor—a very auspicious number—in a single room of less than thirty square meters. For this tiny patch of land, the rent was two thousand New Dollars a month, while her monthly salary from the mines was only three thousand.
As Xue Yu reached her hallway, she ran into her co-worker, Zhuang Xinzhang.
Zhuang Xinzhang was not only her co-worker but had also been her classmate at the military academy.
You could say they shared a bond forged in mutual struggle.
At the academy, Xue Yu’s grades were dead last in the entire school. Zhuang Xinzhang was second to last.
The only thing Zhuang Xinzhang had going for her was that she had awakened a spirit body: a slow-moving snail. It was the worst spirit body awakened by anyone in their graduating class and was practically useless.
Seeing Xue Yu return, Zhuang Xinzhang’s eyes widened as she shared some bombshell news.
“Xue Yu, did you hear? The Controllers found a fetal heart rate monitor strip in a trash can! It’s insane. They’re searching everywhere now.”
Xue Yu was confused. “What’s a fetal heart rate monitor strip?”
Zhuang Xinzhang’s eyes grew even wider. “It’s something pregnant women use to monitor their baby’s heartbeat. Do you know what this means?”
Xue Yu played along, feigning shock. “What does it mean?”
“It means there’s a pregnant woman in the White Tower Safe Zone! Someone got pregnant in secret! It’s terrifying. Everyone in the White Tower has been sterilized, so how could anyone get pregnant?”
I’m probably the only one in the White Tower who hasn’t been sterilized, Xue Yu thought to herself.
She had transmigrated here three years ago, long after the White Tower’s massive, all-encompassing sterilization campaign had ended. She was a fish that had slipped through the net.
Hearing Zhuang Xinzhang’s words, Xue Yu asked, “Are they going to search our area? Will it affect our work shifts?”
The mining company’s rules were strict. No matter what happened, you had to show up for work, or they’d dock your pay.
“They probably will search,” Zhuang Xinzhang said, “but our area likely isn’t the main focus. The monitor strip was found over by the Manster Building. That’s the priority search zone.”
The Manster Building was the administrative office for the White Tower’s management.
Xue Yu was surprised. It was incredible to think that one of the elites from the management level might be pregnant.
After chatting with Zhuang Xinzhang for a bit, they went back to their respective dorms.
Her thirty-square-meter room was just barely livable. Xue Yu took off her orange work uniform when suddenly, a black shadow flashed across the tempered glass of her square window.
She quickly pushed the window open and saw a black animal leaping away along the metal exterior wall. It looked like a black cat.
No, it was probably a black panther.
Xue Yu remembered now. Her ex-boyfriend, Zhou Siyan, had awakened a black panther spirit body.
She carefully recalled the man who had been following her for the past few days. He did bear some resemblance to her ex.
When she first transmigrated, she had a backpack with her that contained an ID card.
The photo and name on the ID were identical to hers, and there was also a military academy acceptance letter. A freshman receptionist had simply herded her onto a vehicle, and just like that, she had become the “Xue Yu” of this world.
Not long after starting school, she and Zhou Siyan started dating.
Zhou Siyan was clingy and seemed to have a bit of an… addiction in that department. As an ordinary human from Earth, Xue Yu was a different species entirely. Their activities nearly left her with kidney failure.
A year later, however, the ever-lustful Zhou Siyan initiated the breakup himself.
His reason was—he wanted to become an “extreme sexual conservative”!
The White Tower was very open-minded about relationships, and even marriage was open.
According to statistics, among the high-quality individuals in the White Tower who had awakened spirit bodies, the average person had more than five sexual partners.
While liberal attitudes were the norm, a small minority of conservatives had emerged. These were further divided into regular conservatives, extreme conservatives, and fanatical conservatives.
Regular conservatives advocated for a traditional one-on-one monogamous relationship.
Extreme conservatives refused to engage in any sexual relationships, remaining celibate and single.
Fanatical conservatives not only rejected sexual activity but also advocated for sterilization, leading by example and undergoing complete surgical removal of the relevant organs.
Xue Yu had no idea what Zhou Siyan was thinking; the guy had always been a little neurotic.
A breakup was a breakup. Aside from lusting after his broad chest and eight-pack abs, she had nothing to miss.
Swept up in the White Tower’s liberal atmosphere, Xue Yu went with the flow and had two more relationships.
To her astonishment, both relationships were short-lived, and both boyfriends ended up following Zhou Siyan’s path.
They initiated the breakups, claiming they, too, wanted to become extreme sexual conservatives!
Xue Yu was dumbfounded.
Did she have some kind of curse that turned men celibate? Turning all three of her boyfriends into extreme sexual conservatives?
She didn’t have time to investigate the reason. Graduation was upon her—the military academy program was only two years long—and as soon as she graduated, she was assigned to the mines.
As for her three ex-boyfriends, she heard they were all doing quite well and had become part of the management at the Manster Building.
Xue Yu tapped her head, still wondering if the person following her could be Zhou Siyan.
Being paranoid like this wasn’t a solution.
She decided to try and ask him.
She still had Zhou Siyan’s contact information. They had basically cut ties after the breakup, so she wasn’t sure if she could still reach him.
She took out her communication device—a Cloudsound Box, a small cube the size of her thumb. When activated, it unfolded into a thin screen whose size could be adjusted at will.
Its function was like a combination of a phone and a computer from Earth, but far more advanced and convenient.
Xue Yu opened the chat interface on the screen and found Zhou Siyan’s long-dormant contact, whose nickname was “The Handsome Guy I Have to Contact Every Day.”
Zhou Siyan had set the nickname himself when they were dating, and Xue Yu had never bothered to change it.
She typed out a message and sent it: You there?
An auto-reply came back instantly: State your business. Don’t ask if I’m here. I won’t reply to ‘are you there’.
Xue Yu thought for a moment. She couldn’t just come out and say, Someone’s been following me, I suspect it’s you, so I’m here to confirm.
After some deliberation, she sent a new message: Long time no see. Where are you making your fortune these days?
Half a minute later, she received a reply from Zhou Siyan: How much do you need to borrow?
Receiving his response, Xue Yu breathed a sigh of relief. Good, she could still contact him.
Xue Yu: I’m not trying to borrow money. I just ran into a small problem and wanted to ask you something.
Zhou Siyan: Go on.
Xue Yu: Someone’s been following me recently. Their spirit body seems to be a black panther. I’m not saying I suspect you, just wanted to check.
Zhou Siyan: It’s me.
Xue Yu: Why are you following me?
Zhou Siyan: The thing inside my body is thinking of you.
Xue Yu: ?