SSSG Chapter 13: Whitebird

A Wild Organisation Has Appeared!

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“You’re…” Du Yixin’s survival instincts kick in, or rather, misfire, as he continues, “a minor?”

“…”

“Or you’re clinically insane?”

Ying Sheng chokes on his words as he yet again fails to follow the logic of this damned jumpy guy. Then he threatens him again, “one last chance, give it to us!”

Then, Du Yixin knows his gamble has paid off. Ying Sheng is never someone to just keep threatening over and over again. Therefore, as long as this key is on him and he doesn’t want to open up the ‘game,’ he can’t actually do anything to him. So he just yells, “a man never goes back on his words, so no way!”

‘Bang!’

Suddenly, there’s sounds of people kicking at the door from outside. They both pause and look towards it, and sees the door shaking with every kick. It seems the person outside is quite determined to do whatever it takes.

Ying Sheng ‘tch’s, then backs off from Du Yixin to open the door.

There’s two men outside. One seems to be sturdy but is hunching. He has long bangs, and along with his hoodie, they can’t really see his face. The other one, dressed in suits, with a pair of gold-lined glasses, looks quite the part himself.

The man with glasses walks in first, and looks about the room, and orders, “explain.”

Ying Sheng rolls his eyes at him while leaning on the wall, “it’s exactly as you see.”

It seems they know each other.

Du Yixin sits back up from the bed, nonplussed, as the man in glasses walks over and says gently, “apologies for causing such distress. Are you alright?”

The sudden gentle tone makes Du Yixin rather uncomfortable, but he nods.

“I’d like to introduce myself first. My surname is Pu. I am the leader of Team One under ‘Whitebird’s subdivision.” the man says as he takes a business card out, and hands it over respectfully.

Du Yixin looks the business name over. While there is the name of the company on there, besides the person’s name and position, he can’t recall the name at all. He hasn’t heard about it.

“These are my team members,” the team leader introduces the ones behind him, the very annoyed-looking Ying Sheng and the silent man in the hoodie.

“Woah, you seriously offer work to people like him? For real?”

Ying Sheng snaps, “oi, what the hell did you mean by that?!”

“Ying Sheng,” the team leader furrows his brow as he stops him, then apologies to Du Yixin, “my apologies, but because of the unique circumstances surrounding the work of our organisation, we tend to value our employees’ fighting strength over their ethics or morals.”

Ying Sheng seems displeased at that remark, as he ‘tch’s again.

“Though he is rather… unorthodox in his actions, but we mean no harm. We only wish that you would transfer your ‘key’ to us. We will be able to provide monetary, or if you prefer, any other kinds of compensation.”

Despite the very sincere tone, Du Yixin has decided to stay on guard. He has just revealed his goal now – it’s still the same.

“I ask nothing. No money or anything. Just let me go.”

“I need you to understand that if such a thing befell a normal person, it causes severe endangerment to both the person and the people around them. According to what we’ve gathered from the news, your friend has already caused the deaths of three innocent, unrelated students. It is to prevent these tragedies that we collect ‘keys.'”

It sounds well and pompous enough of a reason, but, they’re not the police, and they certainly don’t seem affiliated with the country with that organisation name that doesn’t have ‘Chinese’ or ‘National’ anywhere in it. What are they in this for?

“… What kind of organisation are you, really? How many of these ‘keys’ even are there?”

The team leader sighs, then says, “I understand your concerns. I will happily provide an explanation, and hope that you understand our noble goals after listening.”

That is when Ying Sheng ‘tch’s again, at exactly the wrong timing. The captain turns to ask him, “what, did I say something you find funny?”

“If there’s nothing else for me to do, I’m leaving.”

“No. You have to come back with us.”

Despite looking like he might set off at any time, the young man does not talk back.

The team leader then asks Du Yixin, “this is certainly no place to talk in any case. Would you mind coming with us for a while?” Well, rather than asking, he’s more ordering.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To the Whitebird subdivision.”

They leave the motel, and team leader Pu leads him to a black business van.

As for the other two, the hoodied man takes a seat at the passenger’s seat as Ying Sheng gets back onto his motorcycle with his helmet on.

Du Yixin can’t help but feel like he’s going to some gang’s underground base than to some proper establishment.

He sits in the car. Although he is quite suspicious of them all, he does want to know the truth. He doesn’t know what the mark is, or does, or if it might just suddenly pull him into some strange space and he’ll be unable to escape so easily the next time.

When team leader Pu gets into the driver’s seat, Ying Sheng has already started his engine, with his motorcycle flashing and disappearing in the distance like a shooting star.

The car leaves the city centre and gets onto the highway. Traffic is quite smooth as it’s the early hours of the afternoon. Du Yixin asks, looking at the cars passing by, “is it far away?”

“It’s in the countryside. As you know, our organisation has its quirks and it is ill-advised to have it near population centres,” he replies as he drives, “but please do not worry. We are a proper company, with official licenses as well,” the man explains as he keeps an eye on the man sitting in the backseats through the rearview mirror, and continues, “perhaps you might have heard of ‘the X’?”

“The X? Of course.”

The X is the richest private conglomerate of the entire country. They’re the leaders across many fields like finance, real estate, retail and even entertainment. Their name is already a household name now.

Even someone who only knows to have basketball games and skip lessons and be a little dummy like Du Yixin would dream that one day he might be able to work for them; even if only as an intern for a little while, it’ll be a brilliant stroke on a CV.

“Whitebird operates under the X.”

“What? An organisation as suspicious as…” He suddenly feels as if the hoodied man has glared at him. Odd, even though his eyes have already been covered up by the bangs already. Must have felt it wrong.

The team leader doesn’t seem offended at the remark, as he chuckles and says, “you’re correct, given the nature of our work. Compared to the other companies managed that earn money, we’re more like a public charity. All we do are work for no return.”

“…” ‘No return’? From what he has seen already, ‘keys’ have the potential to be exceedingly powerful, even just considering it as a tool that can kill someone and leave absolutely no evidence. Such an extraordinary power can surely easily secure wealth and power if used correctly. It’s just that there also seems to be quite a lot of drawbacks to these ‘keys’ that limit their use.

Over 20 minutes after they leave the highway, they finally drive through a well-guarded entrance. After the security has confirmed the leader’s identity and registered Du Yixin, they finally let them through.

The paved road is lined with trees and looks quite properly designed, and definitely not the dingy place Du Yixin thought he might be taken to. Team leader Pu parks the car in the parking lot and then tells him, “we have to walk the rest of the way.”

About five minutes on foot and they arrive at a building that requires more key card and identity checks. Du Yixin gets yet another registration.

Then they take the elevator to ‘5,’ and walk into a conference room. Soon enough, the secretariat has arranged for three cups of coffee.

“Let’s begin,” the leader crosses his arms on the desk, “what questions you might have, I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”

The prelude really was way too long, Du Yixin disses inside, and then asks frankly, “what actually is the ‘key’? How did it come about?”

“Nobody knows exactly when it came, but, we do know that once the key has marked someone, which physically leaves a Roman numeral on their body, they will acquire immense power and be able to open a gateway to other realms. They are able to exercise essentially absolute control in that world. Therefore, we call this mark the ‘key,’ and call the realms it connects to a ‘room’ or an ‘instance.'”

“Absolute control? My junior… The one with the key at first, didn’t seem to be able to control it much.”

“It is a matter of the level of the ‘key.’ The higher its level, the more level of control it has in those realms. And if you don’t mind me asking, the level of your key is…”

“One,” Du Yixin answers, “Roman numeral I.”

“I see. One is the first level. According to our organisation’s research efforts, level one key holders have the ability to open the gateway to ‘rooms,’ and be safe from the room’s dangerous elements. They’re no different from normal people otherwise.”

That explains it. No wonder Ai Le never ended the game. Not that he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t.

“You said you’re collecting ‘keys.’ From what I have seen your organisation do in the game, does it mean you’re hunting down… killing, people with keys?”

The team leader then shakes his head, breaking eye contact several times while answering, “not exactly. Or rather, that is not what we wish for. If possible, we wish to conduct a peaceful transfer; however, more often than not, people with keys are all violent or generally people not conducive to any sort of negotiation. We do suspect that the keys might tend to either pick people of that category, or influence people to turn that way. We do not know for sure. In any case, once that is the case we would have to employ more forceful means.”

“Yet, that person started a killing spree without discrimination immediately after entering the game.”

“I presume you’re referring to Ying Sheng,” the team leader furrows his brows, “we’re also troubled by that, to be honest with you. We have no way of constraining his actions, but, solely in terms of the results he produce, he is the highest achiever across our entire subdivision. So it’s been hard trying to come up with anything that might restrain him but also wouldn’t affect his results.”

People with the key is hidden among the regular folks dragged into the game. Rather than spend time identifying them, they might as well kill them all on sight. What a simple, direct, and brutal solution.

Perhaps he could see how uncomfortable Du Yixin is with that, and the team leader adds, “seen from another perspective, though, most of the time, even just people holding level one keys opening rooms would spell disaster for normal people. It is rare they could even escape at all without any intervention.”

“So, what you’re trying to say is that, even if Ying Sheng did nothing, those people would still have died, is it?”

The leader doesn’t reply, and is probably implicitly agreeing. Then, Du Yixin tries to confirm what he thought the ‘key’ did.

He is entirely correct as well. The keys are just marks in the real world, and apparently even surgically removing the piece of skin does nothing. It is only open for grabs in the games. That is when Ying Sheng tried to threaten him into opening a room.

And a final question, “is Ying Sheng also a key holder?”

The leader nods, hesitant, “I believe you have also seen him use it in the instances already. His power is explosion; a key holder would be granted a superpower if they have entered a room once.”

Superpower?

Suddenly, Du Yixin recalls his ability to turn back time. Was it also a superpower? But, he didn’t have any keys at that time, so why would he have such a power?

Although he’s confused, but, it seems a good idea to hold that information back for now. Instead, he asks, “so, if I enter the game again, I would also gain a superpower?”

“Game, huh,” the leader mulls on his wording and chuckles, “is that how you also see it in the end?”

“Huh? Um, I’m just calling it that because that’s how everyone is referring to it…”

“Right. I do suppose it makes better sense than ‘instance.’ In that world, there’s set rules, which overrides every single law or ethics code of the real world. People have to survive by revealing their most innermost, hidden selves and even desires. It can certainly be said to be the most cruel, most real ‘game.'”

Du Yixin clears his throat while looking away from the rather unsettling, ‘peaceful’ smile he has, “I think most of my questions are answered now. Only one more thing,” then he asks, with a stern expression, looking sharply in the leader’s eye, “you said Whitebird collects keys in order to stop people from commit inadvertent, or heaven forbid, premeditated mass murder. How do I trust that your organisation isn’t trying to collect and abuse the power yourselves?”

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TL’s notes: I just noticed that the whole story doesn’t actually have a lot of instances. That’s a shame.