Pioneers

But she didn't have the original body's memories—she couldn't answer the questions on the electronic screen either!

Tu Ran realized the gravity of the situation, and also understood that she would have to hide her memory loss from everyone for now.

As the line moved at a steady pace, Tu Ran pretended to ask Xi Chunzhi casually, "Guess what my question is?"

"How would I know? It depends on what you wrote before you went in," Xi Chunzhi said, utterly uninterested.

Tu Ran turned away awkwardly. She'd gleaned another key piece of information.

So the questions on the screen were ones you set yourself.

But what good did knowing that do? Tu Ran's face fell. How could she possibly guess what the original body had written?

Thinking back on her near-death experiences today, Tu Ran gazed at the sky in despair.

Why? Why was her transmigration so damn hard?!

The shield drew closer, now only five people away from her.

No one could help her. Tu Ran decided to give up.

She turned to Xi Chunzhi, who had started chewing gum behind her. "If someone can't answer the question, and they don't mutate... what happens to them?"

At that, Xi Chunzhi raised an eyebrow. "You don't even know that?"

Tu Ran's heart clenched. She opened her mouth to explain, but Xi Chunzhi cut her off. "Right, you never cared about this kind of thing anyway."

Tu Ran let out a silent sigh of relief and laughed awkwardly.

"That situation is pretty rare. After all, the question was uploaded personally. If you weren't possessed, how could you not answer it? Of course, if you scrambled your brains in there, that's another story," Xi Chunzhi said, her tone flat.

"What if someone really did lose their memory in there?" Tu Ran asked weakly.

"In that case..." Xi Chunzhi pursed her lips, spat out her gum, "they'd probably have to hook you up to a memory reader to determine whether it's genuine amnesia."

Memory reader?

Just from the name, Tu Ran could tell what it was.

From that perspective, her ending wasn't too bad. At worst, she'd be exposed as someone not from this world.

She believed that a highly advanced technological society would be extremely tolerant—it could certainly accommodate an outsider like her.

But Xi Chunzhi's next words made her heart seize.

"However," Xi Chunzhi said, "unless you're a key member, they won't bother wasting resources on a memory reader. After all, guarding a potentially possessed person requires manpower and materials. And memory readers are extremely precious. If that person turned out to be possessed, and mutated on the spot, damaging the machine—the cost would be too great."

Xi Chunzhi shrugged. "So, people at our level would most likely be disposed of directly."

Tu Ran's heart plummeted into ice.

The shield had already reached Xie Xu. A fluorescent green light scanned him from head to toe.

A cold, mechanical voice rang out.

"Xie Xu, senior member of the Research Institute. Welcome home."

...

"Tu Ran, junior member of the Pioneers. Welcome home."

Tu Ran tried to muster a polite smile, but her fear of what was to come wouldn't even let her twitch the corners of her mouth.

The electronic screen simply followed its programmed sequence. A neat white font appeared on the black screen, like an epitaph on a tombstone.

When Tu Ran saw the line of text, she was briefly stunned.

"My favorite food is:"

Wasn't the original body's question a little too casual?

Tu Ran didn't dare let her guard down. Recalling how the woman behind her had mentioned "fried chicken she'd been craving for ages," she took a deep breath. "Fried chicken."