Chapter 8: Text Message

The next day, another meeting, but moved to a hotel with heavy security.

Yang Yi had stayed up all night reading novels; when her phone alarm rang twice, she silenced it, telling herself she’d get up in ten more minutes, but half an hour later, Feng Liancheng came to call her for breakfast, and only then did she realize she’d overslept again.

She finished washing up in five minutes, yawned, followed Feng Liancheng to the buffet for breakfast, then went up to the hotel’s top floor to continue yesterday’s unfinished meeting.

The meeting hall had been set up overnight; yesterday’s announcement of Awakened Ones and alien invasions had sparked massive global controversy, dwarfing even the bombing of the United Nations headquarters, and today there were even more reporters.

As Yang Yi stepped out of the elevator, a wall of flashbulbs blinded her, startling her.

Today, Yang Yi did not sneakily read novels to pass the time—though she’d been closely following events yesterday morning, other Awakened Ones had shared the spotlight, but after yesterday’s explosion, she was now a global celebrity, and countless eyes in the hall silently watched her; she had no choice but to pretend to be fully focused on the meeting.

The meeting announced the alien classification system, similar to that of Awakened Ones: D, C, B, A, S, with SS and SSS above S—but no corresponding lifeforms had yet been found.

Even among D-class aliens, their strength was clearly far greater than that of D-class Awakened Ones, because most discovered aliens had extremely low intelligence, some even acting purely on instinct—this gave humans considerable room for strategy. After all, no matter how powerful a species, if it never developed wisdom, it could only be caged like a lion or tiger for human amusement.

Humanity did not believe the alien invasion signaled the end of the world. For example, the giant crab rated S-class in the ocean had sunk several ships from Xia and Akka, but that was due to human arrogance—they’d even tried to capture it alive for study. Had they simply aimed to kill it from the start, a single hydrogen or nuclear bomb would have easily resolved it.

Humanity had great confidence in its technology.

Visible dangers were not true dangers; far more harmful and potentially devastating were aliens like the “Smiling Mushroom.”

The truly terrifying were the strange, unknown, horrifying phenomena—where the source of danger could not be found, the mechanism unknown, the solution unattainable, and people died inexplicably.

Some regions had even seen eerie events resembling “ghost sightings,” causing widespread panic and remaining unsolved to this day—though such incidents were relatively rare.

The international community’s primary concern remained the impact Awakened Ones would have on society, and how society should treat these new humans who were both like and unlike themselves. Especially after Davis’s broadcast of human experiments targeting Awakened Ones, the divide between them had widened further.

Not all nations, like Xia, had secretly established the Awakened Ones Bureau and enacted the “Awakened Ones Management Regulations.” Many small countries didn’t even know about Awakened Ones or alien invasions, treating them as folk tales or murder cases.

And some major powers? Their domestic racial tensions were already severe; ordinary people were already divided by race, skin color, gender, faith, culture, and appearance—let alone Awakened Ones. Like the “mutants” in their famous comics, Awakened Ones had not received fair treatment upon their emergence.

Most of the laboratory footage Davis broadcast came from behind-the-scenes actions by certain corporations in this major power—or perhaps even more boldly, from enterprises secretly funded by the government.

Thus, one could say the United Nations building bombing was indirectly caused by this major power. Despite objections from many world leaders, the incident was buried due to this nation’s dominant global position.

Yang Yi sat through the entire morning meeting honestly—no sneaking novels, no mobile games, no social media scrolling. Though she often drifted off, she was very satisfied with her performance that morning.

As noon approached, her growling stomach kept making her light up her phone to check the time, muttering why the meeting hadn’t ended yet.

Suddenly, an unknown text appeared on her phone screen; Yang Yi’s brow furrowed slightly, her lips tightening unconsciously.

“Little Yi, it’s your uncle. We saw you on the News Broadcast yesterday. The whole family is thrilled—you’ve finally become someone important! Just now, the town mayor came to our house, so friendly—he said the city wants to honor us, and the mayor himself will visit this afternoon, and provincial TV will come for an interview! After you finish the meeting in Akka, hurry home. Your grandparents keep talking about you, your aunt, your cousins—they all miss you terribly.”

Yang Yi’s gaze traced over the words “our family,” “come back,” “grandparents,” finally lingering on “miss you.” Her lips twitched slightly—a faint sneer, or perhaps just a tight clench.

She leaned back in her chair, her eyes unfocused, fixed on some distant point, expression cold.

Not far away, the Akka delegation noticed a faint gaze; Daniel Davis turned his head and met Yang Yi’s blank face.

Nearby, Helen Baker noticed this and suddenly smiled, whispering to Daniel Davis, “Be careful—she might already be targeting you.”

Daniel Davis felt the breath on his ear and pulled away. “Doesn’t matter. Good chance to test an A-class’s abilities.”

“Oh~ Men who only know how to fight are so dull. Maybe she’s not thinking of fighting you at all—maybe she’s interested in you? After all—” Helen Baker flashed a flirtatious glance, “you’re quite attractive to women…”

“You’re imagining too much,” Daniel Davis replied coldly.

Helen Baker laughed and returned to her seat, casting a long, meaningful glance back at Yang Yi.

Yang Yi’s eyes remained vacant, unaware of the small incident her unintentional expression had triggered.

After staring blankly for a while, she pulled out her phone and deleted the message without hesitation, tossing it onto the table.

Feng Liancheng had been watching her since she first read the message, and now, as she deleted it, he asked casually, “What’s wrong? Anything happen?”

“Nothing,” Yang Yi replied flatly.

Seeing she didn’t want to elaborate, Feng Liancheng smoothly changed the subject. “The meeting ends tomorrow. Any plans after? If not, let’s book tickets for tomorrow afternoon.”

“No.”

She’d originally wanted to visit Times Square before leaving to see Chris filming, hoping to catch a glimpse of her idol—but now she’d lost all interest, like someone starving and ready for a feast who suddenly sees a pile of feces and instantly loses all appetite.

“Alright then, we’ll head back tomorrow afternoon,” Feng Liancheng smiled. “The first thing we’ll do when we get home is your rank assessment. Hope you don’t get too scared…”

Yang Yi frowned deeply and sighed long and slow.

Outside, sunlight and cloud shadows shifted. She gazed out for a long time, as if sensing her life could never return to what it once was.