164: Chapter 164 Kindergarten Key Seizure

The Child Health Handbook hung in mid-air.

The baby photo on the first page glowed with a blue light.

Behind the photo, that line of text was still seeping out.

[Record of the Eighth Key's Custody.]

[Time: Three years old.]

[Location: Dongjiang City Hongxing Kindergarten.]

[Event: First time leaving the mother's sight.]

[Executor: Kindergarten Teacher, Code Name—Qingni.]

The delivery room fell silent.

Li Yan was the first to look at Shen Qingni.

Shen Qingni stood at the door, her ice sword lowering, her face turning pale bit by bit.

"Me?"

Her voice was very soft.

"When I was three... I was also at the Hongxing Kindergarten."

Zhang Changlin frowned.

Xiao Zhenjiang looked at Jiang Feng and said in a deep voice, "This matter might not be her herself."

Jiang Feng closed the handbook.

"Let's go see."

Shen Qingni suddenly looked up.

"I'm going too."

Li Yan was about to stop her.

Jiang Feng glanced at her.

"Follow."

Shen Qingni gripped her ice sword and said no more.

She wasn't afraid of death.

What she feared was that she had been harming people for others even since she was a child.

The next second.

The Old People's Hospital was empty.

...

Hongxing Kindergarten had long been abandoned.

The iron gate was rusty, and the colorful slide at the entrance was broken.

A few faded large characters remained on the wall.

[Grow Happily, Progress Every Day.]

Li Yan glanced at it and sneered.

"This place looks more hellish than a dungeon."

The Dragon Girl had also come along.

Holding a bag of potato chips, she nodded seriously.

"This place doesn't taste good."

Liu Cuilan didn't come.

Jiang Feng let her rest in the Wuji Source Realm.

Before leaving, the old lady only gave one instruction.

"Come back early, don't wander around outside."

Jiang Feng agreed.

To him, these words were more effective than any higher-dimensional decree.

The kindergarten gate opened on its own.

Creak—

Children's laughter came from the gap in the door.

A group of three and four-year-olds were running around on the playground.

They had no shadows.

Each had a small blue tag hanging on their chest.

[Observable.]

[Replaceable.]

[Cultivatable.]

Li Yan's face darkened on the spot.

"Even labeling children?"

Zero Seven whispered, "First Blue Star has never treated them as children."

"In its eyes, these are all early samples."

Shen Qingni stared at one of the little girls and froze.

The little girl was wearing a blue and white dress and had two small pigtails.

It was her at three years old.

Little Shen Qingni stood in a corner, holding an ice crystal building block.

A Faceless Kindergarten Teacher squatted in front of her.

"Qingni, remember."

"In the future, you must be more outstanding than that boy."

"You must stand in front of him."

"You must let him see the gap."

Little Shen Qingni blinked ignorantly.

"Why?"

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher patted her head.

"Because you are the light."

"Only when he sees the light will he want to chase it."

Shen Qingni's eyes instantly turned red.

So it turned out that since then...

...her position had already been set.

Not a Genius.

But a lamp.

A lamp specifically meant to shine for Jiang Feng.

Li Yan cursed.

"This is so damn wicked it's making their ancestors' graves smoke."

Zero Seven looked at Jiang Feng.

"This is the initial record of the control sample."

"The executor's code name is Qingni, but it's not Shen Qingni herself."

"The First Blue Star used her name to establish an entire set of stimulation protocols."

Jiang Feng walked onto the playground.

The children all stopped at the same time.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher looked up.

"Parents have not arrived; picking up children is prohibited."

Jiang Feng looked at it.

"I'm here to withdraw from the kindergarten."

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher's voice was steady.

"The kindergarten has no withdrawal procedures."

Jiang Feng raised his hand and pressed it onto the sign-in book at the entrance.

[Warning.]

[The rules for leaving the kindergarten cannot be broken.]

Jiang Feng's tone was flat.

"Plunder."

[Plundering the rules for leaving the kindergarten.]

[Gained all attributes: 8 Ji.]

[Current basic six-dimensional attributes: 320 Ji.]

Bang!

The sign-in book exploded on the spot.

The small blue tags on the playground shattered into pieces.

A bit of light returned to the eyes of many children.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher stood up.

"Jiang Feng's childhood record, activated."

In the center of the playground, an image emerged.

Three-year-old Jiang Feng sat on a small stool.

Liu Cuilan stood at the classroom door, leaning over to coax him.

"Be good, Xiao Feng. Mommy will come pick you up in the afternoon."

Little Jiang Feng pursed his lips and didn't cry.

He just kept looking at the door.

Liu Cuilan looked back with every step, but finally walked out of the classroom.

The moment the door closed...

...blue light crawled out from under the floor tiles, entangling little Jiang Feng's feet.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher wrote in the record book.

[First time leaving the mother's sight.]

[A window of vulnerability in maternal protection has appeared.]

[Attempting to implant First Blue Star belonging.]

Shen Qingni's breath hitched.

Three years old.

They wouldn't even let a three-year-old child go.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher continued writing.

[Deploying the Qingni sample.]

The next second.

Little Shen Qingni walked up to little Jiang Feng, holding the ice crystal building blocks.

She placed the blocks on the table.

"Don't be sad."

"You can play with this."

Little Jiang Feng glanced at her.

He didn't take it.

He continued looking at the door.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher in the image paused.

[Emotional stimulation failed.]

[Target has not developed dependency.]

[Target continues to wait for the mother.]

Li Yan was amused.

"Jiang Feng, were you this hard to win over even as a kid?"

The Dragon Girl munched on potato chips with a crunch.

"Master has been amazing since he was little."

Jiang Feng ignored them.

He looked at his younger self in the image.

Little Jiang Feng didn't cry all morning.

Nor did he play with the blocks.

He just sat there, watching the door.

Until the afternoon.

Liu Cuilan was the first to rush into the classroom.

"Xiao Feng!"

Only then did little Jiang Feng stand up and rush over to hug her legs.

The image stopped.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher turned to the next page.

[Belonging implantation failed.]

[Maternal anchor strength is abnormal.]

[Switching to the growth oppression route.]

Shen Qingni closed her eyes.

"So my later Awakening to S-rank was also part of this route."

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher looked at her.

"Qingni sample, you have performed very well."

"Your pride."

"Your contempt."

"Your invitation."

"All were used to stimulate the Pangu variable body."

Shen Qingni raised her ice sword.

"Shut up."

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher tilted its head.

"Samples are not permitted to resist the record."

Blue lines crawled out from the ground, coiling toward the space between Shen Qingni's eyebrows.

Shen Qingni did not retreat.

She slashed down with her sword.

Ice light sliced through the blue lines.

But more blue lines surged up.

"Sample recovery."

"Resetting to the Frost Empress control personality."

Shen Qingni's face was pale, but she gripped her sword tightly.

"I am not a sample."

Her voice wasn't loud.

But this time, it was very steady.

"I am Shen Qingni."

Jiang Feng looked up.

"Well said."

He stepped in front of her and reached out to grab all the blue lines.

[Touching the control sample recovery rules.]

[Plunderable.]

Jiang Feng said, "Plunder."

[Plunder successful.]

[Gained all attributes: 10 Ji.]

[Current basic six-dimensional attributes: 330 Ji.]

The blue lines all extinguished.

It felt as if something in Shen Qingni's chest had snapped.

The ice sword in her hand fully took shape.

It was no longer a crown.

Nor was it an empress's scepter.

It was just a sword.

A sword that belonged to her.

She looked down at the sword, and for the first time, there was no resentment in her eyes.

Only clarity.

"Thank you."

Jiang Feng said, "Thank yourself."

"You didn't kneel just now."

Shen Qingni was stunned for a moment.

Then she nodded.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher's body began to swell.

The children on the playground lowered their heads again and recited in unison.

"Leave the mother."

"Accept the collective."

"Belong to the school."

"Obey arrangements."

Their voices were so uniform they lacked any human touch.

The Dragon Girl was so angry she crushed the potato chip bag until it popped.

"They're bullying children!"

Jiang Feng raised his hand and pressed the seven earth keys onto the playground floor.

"If the kindergarten can't teach how to be human..."

"...then shut it down."

Boom!

The floor tiles of the entire Hongxing Kindergarten flipped over.

Underground, a small blue magic circle was revealed.

In the center of the magic circle, the eighth blue star earth key fragment was inserted.

Next to it was a line of text.

[Temporary Storage for Childhood Belonging.]

Li Yan's face was incredibly dark.

"They're checking in children like luggage?"

Zero Seven's voice was heavy.

"It's more than just checking them in."

"It's pre-filing."

"Anyone who might become a variable in the future is marked at three years old."

Jiang Feng grabbed the eighth earth key.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher screamed.

"Extraction prohibited!"

"Childhood files belong to the First Blue Star!"

Jiang Feng's fingers tightened.

"Now they belong to the parents."

[Triggered Profound Truth: Pangu Plunder.]

[Plundering the core of the childhood belonging files.]

[Liberating the early variable filings.]

[Obtained the eighth blue star earth key fragment.]

Blue light soared into the sky.

In the Hongxing Kindergarten, those shadowless children dispersed one by one.

They weren't lost souls.

They were stolen early records.

Now, the records were going home.

In many families across Dongjiang City...

...old photo albums opened on their own.

On the kindergarten graduation photos, the inexplicable blue dots on the children's chests vanished.

A mother suddenly remembered a strange thing her child had said when she picked them up from school years ago.

"The teacher said I might not be your child in the future."

That sentence had once been forgotten.

Now it returned.

Someone hugged their now-grown child, their eyes turning red.

Someone pulled out an old photo and stared at the child who had returned to normal in the picture, speechless for a long time.

It wasn't that there was a problem with the photo.

It was that their children had finally returned from someone else's files.

The System notification sounded.

[blue star earth key fragments: 8/9.]

[The prerequisite progress for the Thirteenth Transition is nearing Perfection.]

[Gained an increase in all attributes: 30 Ji.]

[Current basic six-dimensional attributes: 360 Ji.]

Jiang Feng held the eight earth keys.

The half-circle of blue light was nearly complete.

Only the last piece remained.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher knelt on the ground, its body breaking apart bit by bit.

It looked up.

A mouth finally grew on its face.

That mouth smiled.

"The ninth key—you won't be able to get it."

Jiang Feng looked at it.

"Where is it?"

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher's voice was intermittent.

"The ninth key... is not at school, not at the hospital, and not at home."

"It is on you yourself."

Jiang Feng's eyes flickered slightly.

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher's smile widened.

"The Thirteenth Transition trial is called 'Return to the Place of Initial Awakening'."

"But do you think the one who initially Awakened was the eighteen-year-old you?"

The playground floor cracked open.

A new photo floated up.

In the photo...

...three-year-old Jiang Feng sat on a small kindergarten stool.

But his shadow stood behind him.

In the shadow's hand, it held the final blue stone fragment.

On the back of the photo, a line of text emerged.

[Custodian of the Ninth Key: Three-year-old Jiang Feng.]

[Opening Condition: Make him admit—Liu Cuilan will leave him one day.]

The Faceless Kindergarten Teacher shattered completely.

Only one last sentence remained.

"Jiang Feng."

"Do you dare to go back and meet your childhood self?"