Starting from Zero

Chapter 22

Book 3, Chapter 22
Investigation

    I don"t really like these options but Iaccepted anyway, for I don"t have much choices now. However I specifically turned down that "hero show" plan. Getting admired by Rose is a goodthing alright, but I don"t feel like achieving that one by cheating her.

    Aunt Cloudia a.s.sembled a whole group of people the nextmorning, who will be looking into Rose"s ident.i.ty. We first collected all dataof female college students in New Nanjing City. The job is simple but tiring. Thegroup entered all the information into a computer and started filtering themout according to their photos. I said Rose is astonishingly beautiful. ButCloudia said something about "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" andasked to pick out any girl that "looks okay".

    It took almost a day. Now I"m looking at the pile offiles in front of me.

    "What are these?"

    "These are files of all female undergraduatesrecorded in New Nanjing City, who have outstanding appearance."

    "Hold on aminute." I checked over several papers. "This is too many! You"vedone the filtering work haven"t you?"

    Aunt Cloudia explained: "There are more than fiftyuniversities of various types in this city, and several best known ones acrossthe world. 16 of them are super large ent.i.ties with over 100 thousand studentsin each of them. The total number of undergraduates is above 4 million if wecount all colleges in, and above 2 million after we removed all males. Yep, thereare more female collegers than males these years.

    We don"t know her name so wecould only try to search for anyone with a good look. We tried to find peoplewith those two names as well. Now the files on your left are the people who goby the two specified names, including those with similar p.r.o.nunciations, 2373 peoplein total. On your right are all students with other names whose looks are aboveaverage. About 400 thousand of them."

    "That"s still...a lot."

    "That"s thebest we can do. We already excluded those we can confirm as non-match. You"dprobably just give up if you see the original files."

    "Alright then. Give me some time to go over them."

    I reached for the 2373 files cause they"re obviously easier to deal with. But Iinstantly noticed something wrong. Is this...a foreign girl?

    "Hey auntie? Youguys even considered someone with blond hair and blue eyes?"

    "Oh. I...forgot to tell them to look for Asiansonly. I"ll go ask them do it again."

    "No nevermind. I don"t feel like waiting anymore, willjust get to it."

    The profiles are pretty simple, as one sheet of paperis enough to cover everything about someone. But... 2373 of them still looklike a freaking medical dictionary printed in large size. My eyes are crossedwhen I"ve read the 1700th file.

    "Auntie! Help!!" I slumped on thesofa and rubbed my temples. "Ow my eyes...and my head!"

    "Well I can"t do anything about that. You"re theonly one who knows her face right?" She stuffed more papers into my arms."Do it. You mother is itching to see what her daughter-in-law looks likeand she asked you to work faster."

    "My mother got too much free time." Icomplained while going through more files.

    "I GET IT! Aunt! Bingo!"I picked out my target. "Haha! Finally."

    "Lemme see it!" Cloudia rushed over ands.n.a.t.c.hed it from me. "Charon. Female. Birth date 11/11/2045. Wait, you twohave the same birthday? Even the same year? Aren"t you a genius girlfriendhunter."

    "She never told me that. This is pure coincidence."

    "She"s studying at...Neo-Dragon Academy, which is asubordinate organization of Dragon Fate...isn"t that the same college you"reattending? You never met her in there?"

    I took the file and read it. "I study advanced AItechnology in sector 6. While she is in advanced enterprise managementdepartment in sector 9. That"s pretty far for us to just run into each other. Hey auntie, I"m going to her dorm now. Comewith me would you?"

    "That"s your girl. Why would you need me?"

    I scratched my head. "Well I can"t just walk intothe lady"s living area! I"ll need your help for that."

    "It"s no use. The school got nothing to do withZhong Hua Company, I don"t have privileges there. Ask your father."

    This is embarra.s.sing. But I need tofind Rose.

    I made a call. "Hey dad!"

    "You found her?" He pushed his faceagainst the screen again. "How was it? Have you talked to each other?"

    "I just found her file. We"re in the same college! NowI"m going to her place."

    "Then what are you waiting for?"

    "They won"tlet me go into girl"s dorm right?" I can feel my face burning. "Canyou find someone and get me through the guards?"

    "Which sector does she live in?"

     "Nine. Why?"

    "That"s should be simple. You go to the gate ofthat sector and wait. I"ll send someone. And try your best, son!"

    What"s he planning?

    Sigh.

    "I"m on my way, auntie!"

    "Alright, I"ll leave it to you, be careful withyour driving!"

    I left the building and raced all the way to the gateof sector 9. The sectors are all connected with each other but each one gottheir own exits. It"s the most lively hour. I can see a great number of student pairsgoing in and out. I can also see something which is most disharmonious with theenvironment--a black old-school minivan-shaped maglev car, parked near theplaza outside the gate. The reflective color and the texture of the hull madeit clear that it"s military-grade vehicle. A good one.

    I pulled my car beside the armored vehicle. The dragonsymbol on the door is enough to tell me who they are. Two people got out of thecar as I left mine, a male and a female.

    The male is...big, strong, with lot ofmuscles and looks bada.s.s, which means completely opposite from me. The femalehas really impressive looks too. I"d say she"d have a place in any beauty contests.

    "Master Sairin?" She asked.

    "Yes." I nodded. "My father sent you?"

    "That"s right." She reached out her hand in acasual manner and shook mine. "Call me b.u.t.terfly. He is Big K. I alreadynoticed you when I saw your car. I was just wondering why master Sairin turnedinto lady Sairin."

    I forced a smile. "Let"s take my car."

    I drove ustowards the gate. When we"re near, the guards obviously turned to us. Asexpected, seven or eight of them stopped us in front of the gate.

    "Excuse--"

    Big K covered his entire face with just one hand beforethe guard can say anything else. Then he swiped a card on a device on the gate.

    Beep!

    "Dragon Fate Corporation, security clearance level S, ident.i.ty:confidential. Thanks for your visit and we"re looking forward to serving youagain."

    The gate split sideways and gave us enough s.p.a.ce to get our carthrough.

    Big K released the guard so we can head towards women"sdormitory. b.u.t.terfly complained: "Can"t you talk to them like everyoneelse?  Don"t just go push or grab people.You"ve made enough enemies!"

    Big K just smirk.

    "Say something!" b.u.t.terflyseems irritated.

    "I--"

    "Yes! Go on!Speak!"

    Is she...encouraging him?

    I observed the strange pair fromthe rear mirror without understanding what they"re doing. But there"s onething I"m sure: Big K can"t speak, or at least can"t do it like ordinarypeople.

    We reached the dormitory area soon. An electrical railschool bus blocked us. They deployed there things because they aresafe and don"t need drivers, plus the campus is just too big. We canonly walk from here because of the student crowds.

     Sector 9 belongsto the art and commercial departments. 20 buildings out of 27 are women"sdormitories.

    I see what my father meant by "simple"--thereare no guards at the dorm gates. Instead, four adorable robot dogs are sittingthere like statues. They look like pet dogs, but I know their bodies are madefrom advanced synthetic materials under those artificial fur. I don"t think anyliving creatures out there can take on one of these things. Well, dinosaursmaybe.

    The dog is actually a newly developed product--the Home Guardian 3K. Itscomputerized brain can register the appearance details and smells of allindividuals inside their responsible perimeter. They will alarm any strangersto go away, or commence attacks (to a certain extent, based on how strong thetarget is) if anyone chooses to ignore the alarm.

    To tell the truth I"m pretty terrified of these things.I spectated one of the experiments regarding the attacking capabilities of HomeGuardian 2K. The subject tore a whole car into tiny metal pieces.

    We stood atthe yellow line outside the gate. The dogs stared at us without moving. Big Kstepped over the yellow line, upon which all the dogs stood up in a unified formation and bared their teeth. Ouch, that look like military knives.

    Big K took out his card again. One of the dogs walkedover, and...something came out of its mouth. Is that a card reader?

    With theidentification part done, the dogs went back to their positions and startedacting as statues again.

    "Big K, stay here and wait for us."

    We knowhe will be scaring the h.e.l.l out of everyone if he goes in there.

    He didn"t sayanything (again), just nodded and went over to those dogs to...play with them?

    Istared at the strange scene of one really big guy playing happily with severalrobotic guard dogs. b.u.t.terfly noticed my curiosity and explained: "Big K is half-werewolf.Canine relationship I guess. He grew up in the labs so he doesn"t know how tospeak well. Now you"ve seen it."

    I nodded in understanding and headed for the dormitorybuilding. According to the files, Rose lives on...9th floor of the 11thbuilding. It took us some time to find it. And the antique look of it kindatold me Rose isn"t living a rich life. It"s a building specially meant for poorstudents. Only those in real poverty will choose to live in a room with 11 otherroommates. Ordinary people live in quad dorms, and rich ones duo rooms.There are no single rooms. To prevent isolation, as the school explained.

    We climbed onto the 9th floor by the stairs. We both gotsuperior physical builds but our breaths still became heavier. We tried at theelevator b.u.t.ton for a while before, when a pa.s.sing-by girl told us:  "Give up. It"s broken for years."

    Thereare actually buildings without elevators at such an age huh.

    At least my appearance became an advantage this time. Girlswalked by without properly dressed while no one paid any attention to me. Thiswould be a total different scene if they know I"m a guy.

    We reached Rose"s room.c.r.a.p! It facing the toilet. They"re even using public restrooms here?

    I tidied my clothes a bit and pressed the doorbell.

    1 minutedpa.s.sed, nothing.

    b.u.t.terfly leaned on the wall lazily and knocked at the door."Elevator is not working, do you expect the doorbell would?"

    Aw foolish me. 

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