Naming Technique of the Night

Chapter 48: 48. Scapegoat, Liu Dezhu

When the darkness dissipated, Qing Chen was still drenched in sweat. He glanced at the night outside the window and his little house on Xingshu Road.

He had only been away for a second, yet he found himself already missing that eerie prison.

Qing Chen spat out the USB drive from his mouth, then took another look at his palm, where the gold orb that was supposed to remain in the Inner World was still in his hand.

This was a delightful discovery since it meant he had an advantage over others while traveling between the Outer and Inner Worlds.

He looked down at his arm, where the countdown read 168:00:00.

Another seven days.

The last return was 7 days, and this time it was a 7-day transfer, seeming as if the Time Traveler’s duration between the two sides was getting longer.

How long would it be in the future? Would a day come when he would stay there for a lifetime and never return?

He did not know.

Qing Chen smiled, not going to sleep but instead laying out a sheet on the ground, continuing the training Ye Wan had taught him.

Even without supervision, the practice was his own.

Having said that he would train until 3 AM every day, he should continue to do so even after returning to the Outer World.

Taking a deep breath, he followed the strange breathing rhythm, and the Fire Rune pattern on his cheek bloomed once again!

No matter if it was the Outer World or the Inner World, self-discipline was the greatest freedom.

Hold on, he seemed to have forgotten something very important.

After finishing his exercise, Qing Chen sat on the ground drinking water, letting his sweat drip continuously.

He took out his phone and found the simultaneous interpretation app, then tried to recall every word Jindai Kongyin had whispered.

The phrase, muttered softly in Japanese, always made Qing Chen feel that it must be hiding a lot of information.

It was like… if you went somewhere on a trip, and the locals wanted to curse at you, they would definitely use a dialect you didn’t understand.

Recalling from memory, Qing Chen spoke into his phone’s microphone word for word, “こんなに静かに座っているのもよさそうですが,この少年の沈黙ぶりは本当にきれいですね.”

The translation app quickly displayed the subtitles, “Sitting so quietly seems nice, and this boy’s silence looks really good.”

Qing Chen was stunned on the spot. What did the other person mean by this?

Moreover, didn’t the Jindai family also speak Mandarin? What was this Japanese all about?

Was she a Time Traveler from the Outer World? Or did the Jindai family still retain the Japanese language inheritance?

But if she really was a Time Traveler, how would one explain her fluency in Mandarin? Surely not many people from the Island Country could speak Mandarin so fluently.

The next morning, as soon as Qing Chen woke up, he saw non-stop flashing messages on WeChat on his phone.

He opened it and saw that Nan Gengchen had sent him a message, “Qing Chen Qing Chen Qing Chen! Do you know how amazing our classmate Liu Dezhu is?”

Qing Chen was momentarily dumbfounded and sat up straight from his bed, “What do you mean?”

“You need to come to school!” Nan Gengchen said.

Qing Chen put on his blue and white uniform and ran to school. Before stepping out, he checked himself in the mirror, reassured that the aftereffects of his fasting had disappeared, and then left with confidence.

Upon arriving at school, he saw the entrance to the class next door was packed with students; dozens of them were waiting outside the classroom of the second year, Grade 4, as if waiting for something.

“Over here,” Nan Gengchen’s short figure was tiptoeing and stretching his arms high in the crowd, trying to get Qing Chen’s attention.

Qing Chen squeezed through and asked in a low voice, “What happened?”

“Did you see the trending search?” Nan Gengchen flips open Weibo to show him.

To his surprise, upon looking, he was stunned.

A man from Sichuan, named Jian Sheng, traveled to Los Angeles City on a business trip and accidentally became a Time Traveler, transmigrating to Prison No. 18 in the Inner World.

However, he was soon recognized as a Time Traveler and detained in a secretive solitary cell.

Transmigrated for 7 days, locked up for 7 days.

According to Jian, there was already a Time Traveler in Prison No. 18 who had become a person of great importance, even able to move freely in and out of the cells, ordering Transcendents to serve him.

Jian Sheng hoped to find this Time Traveler, whether it was through negotiations or paying money, hoping that the person could persuade the authorities in Prison No. 18 to let him out.

Qing Chen was taken aback; he hadn’t expected Jian Sheng to be so bold as to seek out the media for help, attempting to reach out to him for assistance in getting out of his predicament.

It seemed that being confined to a solitary cell for 7 days had driven him desperate.

It must be said that Liu Dezhu and Jian Sheng were truly unlucky, having become Time Travelers, yet they were forcefully imprisoned.

While other Time Travelers led lives full of variety, enjoying holographic images in the cities and wandering through Cyber Cities, these two ended up squatting in prison instead…

They might as well have stayed put and not traveled through time at all.

And at this moment, Qing Chen suddenly realized why everyone had gathered at Liu Dezhu’s classroom door.

Even though Liu Dezhu had not arrived at school yet, everyone was willing to wait for him.

Last time he returned, Liu Dezhu admitted to save face that he had traveled to the 18th Prison and also told everyone that he had spoken with Uncle Li Dong!

When classmates asked later, Liu Dezhu kept a mysterious face and said nothing, as if to say: It’s confidential, don’t ask.

The less he said, the more everyone liked to speculate.

Consequently, many believed that Liu Dezhu was about to receive Uncle Li Dong’s legacy and become a Transcendent.

After the incident with Jian Sheng came out, classmates who saw the hot search on Weibo immediately thought of Liu Dezhu!

Because in everyone’s minds, the only Time Traveler in the 18th Prison besides Liu Dezhu was nobody else!

As the hot search climbed higher, a student finally replied in the comments, “My classmate is the Time Traveler he mentioned, he’s about to receive Uncle Li Dong’s legacy!”

Originally, Jian Sheng’s hot search ranked just over forty, but with that comment, the search shot into the top ten within three minutes.

The heat was even still rising.

In the current opinion of the Outer World, barring mysterious figures like He Xiaoxiao, there are not many known Transcendents.

And that’s Uncle Li Dong we’re talking about, the career path with the highest potential in He Xiaoxiao’s strategies.

Now, virtually everyone who saw the hot search and comments was convinced that Liu Dezhu was the mysterious big shot Jian Sheng mentioned…

Just as everyone was whispering amongst themselves, Liu Dezhu arrived upstairs with his backpack. He had just turned into the corridor when the sea of people in front of him turned his face pale with fright: “What’s going on?”

The crowd was resigned; it seemed the main character himself didn’t know what was happening.

“Didn’t you see the hot search? Even if you didn’t check the hot search, at least look at your phone,” said a classmate.

“Someone named Jian Sheng said he met you in the 18th Prison and hopes you could put in a good word with Uncle Li Dong to get him out of solitary confinement.”

Liu Dezhu’s mind buzzed at that moment. He had been in solitary confinement for seven days, and he was so exhausted after returning that he barely managed to get to sleep in his soft bed. Waking up late, he had ridden his bike to school without looking at his phone.

He hurriedly turned on his phone to check the hot search.

But the more he read, the more something seemed off. According to Jian Sheng, that mysterious big shot had visited him alone and asked several questions.

But that person was not him.

So, besides himself and Jian Sheng, there was a third Time Traveler in the 18th Prison, and that person was the genuine big shot. He was just the fall guy!

“I would sure love to beg that big shot to let both me and Jian Sheng out, okay?!” Liu Dezhu cried inwardly.

Now he wanted to deny his identity, as the situation had blown up.

Liu Dezhu tried to say, “Actually, the person Jian Sheng mentioned isn’t me, it’s someone else.”

A classmate asked, puzzled, “Didn’t you say yesterday there were no other transmigrators in the 18th Prison?”

To Liu Dezhu, who had traveled for seven days, yesterday in the Outer World was already seven days ago.

Qing Chen silently watched this scene. He thought it wasn’t bad having someone draw the attention away from him.

Still, it wasn’t good for the two of them to be cooped up in solitary confinement for so long. Perhaps he should let Uncle Li Dong transfer them to another prison.

At that very moment, four news vehicles pulled up outside Los Angeles Foreign Language School, and the reporters rushed towards the school.

The two security guards at the school gate tried to stop them but couldn’t do anything about it.

Seeing this, Qing Chen immediately grabbed Nan Gengchen and turned to head back to class. The last thing you wanted at times like this was to be caught on camera.

Time Travelers maintained the same appearance in both the Inner and Outer Worlds; once you’re on TV, you’d be remembered.

…

There’ll be more tonight! First day of May, asking for monthly votes, I want to be in the top ten!

…

Thanks to Hu Erniu for becoming a silver patron of this book, the boss’s generosity is much appreciated!

Thanks to silver patrons: Little Piggy Treasure Be Happy, Fu Hei comma Dali, Liuyun Sui Feng, Fengxiao, Book Friend 20210301106583826684, Hua Bilui for becoming major patrons of this book. Thank you, bosses, the bosses are generous! May the bosses make a fortune in May!