When Yu Jin was discharged from the hospital, Tang Yaoting was admitted.
His reasoning was that the hospital beds were more comfortable to sleep in than the ones at home, plus the nurses showed him care.
Yu Jin really couldn't be bothered with him, so he completed the discharge procedures on his own.
When Director Mei learned that Yu Jin was discharged early, she didn't rush him back to work as she had previously said she would. Instead, she granted him a long vacation to recuperate.
After all, the contributions the Post-Disaster Investigation Team could make in hunting down criminals were far inferior to those of the field agents and Special Response Squads.
Rarely, Yu Jin didn't refuse. He told the director that he would return after resting for a while.
Director Mei was highly relieved, feeling that Yu Jin was finally moving past the tragedy.
To this, Yu Jin merely smiled.
The next day, eight in the morning.
Even on vacation, Yu Jin didn't sleep in. His lifestyle remained as incredibly disciplined as ever.
Turning off the alarm, he washed up, cooked, and quickly tidied up everything. He then sat down at the dining table to enjoy his breakfast.
The dining table wasn't large, with only two seats, and two portions of breakfast were laid out.
Yu Jin sat on one side, eating slowly and deliberately. Only after swallowing all the food in his mouth did he glance at the other breakfast beside him, his eyes flickering as he spoke:
“Once you find him, don't be in a rush to kill him. We can't let him off just because his body houses a child.”
His tone was highly restrained, but the raw hatred dripping from it was so thick it was terrifying.
There was no movement beside him.
After a moment of hesitation, Yu Jin reached out to take the second breakfast.
Yet before he could touch it, another hand snatched it back.
It wasn't his other hand, but a third hand in the room!
The person in the neighboring seat squinted at him in dissatisfaction:
“This is my breakfast.”
Yu Jin withdrew his hand and curled his lip.
“You are me. Strictly speaking, it doesn't matter which of us eats it.”
“Tch, then why didn't you give me your portion instead?”
“I'm used to it. But isn't this your first time? I was worried you wouldn't be used to it.”
...
The person beside him ignored him and silently enjoyed his breakfast.
Yu Jin watched with keen interest.
It was an extremely bizarre sensation—watching another person eat right in front of him, yet feeling the soreness of his own masseter muscles chewing, the rich satisfaction of his own taste buds, and the fullness in his own stomach. It was practically no different from eating it himself.
The only difference was that there was only the sensation, with no physical action on his part.
It was like dreaming.
Only, the dream had been brought into reality.
After finishing, the person beside him grabbed a napkin, wiped his mouth, casually crumpled the paper into a ball, and tossed it onto the table.
Yu Jin helplessly picked it up, threw it into the trash can, and emphasized,
“Trash belongs in the trash can.”
The person beside him clicked his tongue and waved his hand dismissively:
“There are trash cans everywhere.”
Then, his face grew serious and solemn.
“But I will find that piece of trash and personally dump him inside.”
He plucked a strand of fiery red hair, crushed it, and let the remnants drift from his palm like blood.
“I swear it by the blood spilled on Qingniao Street!”
The two of them looked at each other, determination flashing in both of their eyes simultaneously.
Indeed, the second person in the room was the red-haired Yu Jin.
He had emerged from that Nightmare Disaster.
But it wasn't an awakening—it was something that even Yu Jin couldn't clearly explain.
To be honest, during the previous Nightmare Disaster, Yu Jin had harbored his own hidden agenda; he wanted to awaken.
Because only an awakening would grant him the power to personally slaughter the beast who had murdered all his colleagues in Group 4.
The prerequisite for awakening within a dream was cognitive clarity. Before the Special Response Squad found Yu Jin, he had not been lucid and hadn't realized that he was the true Dream Core.
Fortunately, when the Special Response Squad brought back the memories of that day's tragedy to him, Yu Jin, buried deep in the ocean of his memories, remembered everything in an instant and became completely lucid.
He remembered that he hadn't awakened, and that the red-haired Yu Jin was merely a split companion personality.
But he kept quiet about it. Instead, he pretended to still be confused, continuing to ask about the details of that tragedy.
Because he knew that if he wanted the red-haired Yu Jin—the only one capable of avenging everyone—to truly manifest, he had to exploit the rules of the Nightmare Disaster to materialize him in reality.
And one of the methods to increase the probability of manifestation was to have sufficiently intense emotions.
Therefore, he chose to repeatedly relive yesterday's losses, hoping to trade that unhealed pain for an opportunity!
He had successfully waited for that opportunity:
Personality extraction surgery!
As an agent of the Bureau and a patient with split personality disorder, Yu Jin knew of this surgery.
This surgery could extract and materialize a personality, and materializing his personality was exactly what Yu Jin wanted!
As a member of the Post-Disaster Investigation Team, he couldn't chase Xia Jie on the front lines like the Special Response Squad. Even if he could, he didn't want to hunt down Xia Jie under the identity of a Bureau agent.
He didn't want to bring Xia Jie to justice; he only wanted to slay the man with his own hands to pay off the blood debt for the entirety of Group 4.
Zhou Li was correct; Yu Jin's mental state had indeed developed some issues after experiencing the Qingniao Street tragedy. However, it wasn't the kind of issue Zhou Li imagined, but rather an obsession with revenge.
And the only one who could carry out the revenge plan in his heart was the red-haired Yu Jin.
Only by materializing the red-haired Yu Jin would it be possible for someone to search for Xia Jie's tracks covertly, crush him, and dump him into the trash, all while Yu Jin himself went to work every day as usual.
Thus, to Yu Jin, the surgery he underwent during the Nightmare Disaster was not a personality extraction surgery at all, but an awakening acceleration surgery!
For he had already been awake!
He was only waiting for the Nightmare Disaster to end to see if he could bring the red-haired Yu Jin out of the dream.
And the method to bring him out was...
A stealthy deception!
Don't forget, the red-haired Yu Jin, who possessed Mrs. Xia's abilities, wasn't afraid of being shot in the head at all.
As long as he could deceive the entirety of Squad 172 at the final moment, he might be able to truly materialize the red-haired Yu Jin amidst his intense, grief-stricken emotions!
This was what Yu Jin had truly plotted at the very end of that dream.
In truth, he had indeed materialized the red-haired Yu Jin, but the method of manifestation... had a slight problem.
Yu Jin looked at the Sneering Revolver resting on the table, his expression highly peculiar.
This revolver shouldn't have existed!
When Yu Jin recovered his memories and gained cognitive clarity in the dream, he remembered that when he went to Changming Cemetery to pay his respects to his brother in reality, he had never met such a mysterious woman, nor had he been gifted such a bizarre handgun.
Therefore, that mysterious woman had only appeared in his dream!
Even more miraculous, the revolver that should have only existed in the dream had actually returned with him to reality.
Or perhaps, it had been materialized into reality.
In any case, Yu Jin could physically touch this revolver in reality, and he discovered a single crimson bullet inside the cylinder.
And the red-haired Yu Jin was fired from this very bullet.
When Yu Jin pulled the trigger of the revolver, the gun, which had never been fired before, successfully went off. However, what shot out was not a bullet, but a whole red-haired Yu Jin!
That personality residing in his mind was pulled out by a mysterious force and stuffed into this instantaneously formed body.
When Yu Jin fired the revolver again, the materialized, red-haired Yu Jin would be sucked back inside, turning back into a crimson bullet, and the personality would return once more to Yu Jin's consciousness.
Yet whether the red-haired Yu Jin was materialized or not, they could still communicate under the same conscious system and even share senses, no different from being a single person.
It was very strange; this was clearly a gun, yet it functioned more like a scalpel that could extract Yu Jin's personality anytime, anywhere.
This mind-boggling phenomenon left Yu Jin's brain completely muddled. He didn't know whether he had actually awakened or not.
Nor was he sure if his current state was a good or a bad thing. The only thing he could be certain of was that the red-haired Yu Jin was still here.
“As long as you're still here. As long as you're here, there is hope for revenge.”
Hearing this murmur, the red-haired Yu Jin clicked his tongue:
“I said, 'See you again, Yu Jin.'
I keep my word, regardless of how I did it.”
...
Yu Jin's lips twitched, leaving him speechless.
The guy really knew how to show off.
But...
As expected of me.
...
Rate on N.U.
