That night, Senior Brother Mentor rushed over from Chengdu to Shanghai. Jasper Xiao and Bobby Brooks were right there at the door to greet him. But thanks to a two-hour flight delay, Senior Brother Mentor showed up fashionably late—like he was trying to make an entrance.
"Flight was delayed, took off late and landed even later!" Senior Brother Mentor explained, "The plane circled over Shanghai for like twenty minutes before finally landing. For a moment, I thought we’d get rerouted to some random city nearby!"
"Circling?" Flight delays were nothing new, but Jasper Xiao and Bobby Brooks were on edge—researching electronic jamming had turned them into full-time conspiracy theorists. "We barely saw any flights coming or going; the runways weren’t even crowded. Did the navigation radio go haywire?" If even the aviation radios were acting up, then this mysterious electronic interference probably wasn’t some government operation.
"It was the clouds," Senior Brother Mentor replied, totally out of left field. "Thick clouds and turbulence—real pain in the neck. The plane was shaking so much, I was actually getting nervous!"
"Clouds?" The two of them glanced up at the sky, confused. "It’s been clear and sunny for days—where’d these thick clouds come from?"
"Huh?" Senior Brother Mentor looked up too. The moon was bright, stars scattered everywhere. "You’re right... Maybe it’s just dark and hard to see. Things look different from the ground than from up in the sky. All I know is, up there, those clouds were so thick it felt like we were about to warp into another dimension!"
"Another dimension..." Jasper Xiao and Bobby Brooks exchanged a look, both of them baffled and a little amused.
Well, chalk up one more bizarre phenomenon—mysterious thick clouds.
Alright, add one more thing to the list of weird stuff—mysterious thick clouds.
There’s been way too much weirdness lately—even Yang Shu’s been acting mysterious, having a long, secret talk with Maggie Monroe. Of course, nobody really cares. After their marathon chat, neither of them would say a word about it, and everyone was nice enough not to pry. Right now, the real priority was finding Jack Young, wherever he’d disappeared to, and snapping him out of his Two-Faced Psycho mode.
Everyone was pulling overtime, brainstorming and drafting plans. But honestly, tracking him down wasn’t going to be easy.
Because right now, Jack Young didn’t want to be found.
He wasn’t hiding—just walking like a normal guy. But deep down, he really didn’t want anyone to notice him, and his mental power made sure of it. He blended right in, totally unremarkable. Sure, he couldn’t match Two-Faced Psycho’s crazy stealth skills yet, but he was at least on par with the Blade Attendant from the Phantom Sword Saint’s crew. Jack trudged along, legs heavy, moving through the crowd like he was wading through mud. No one gave him a second glance.
Why’d I leave the concert hall? Why’d I run off and make everyone worry?
He couldn’t even figure it out himself. Actually, it’s more like he didn’t have the concept at all anymore. Jack’s mind was in a weird place—almost like a block of wood, but not quite. Kind of like the Cold Jade Demon God, but also different. If you want a comparison, it’s like his brain switched to safe mode: all the drivers shut down, but he’s immune to most crashes.
It was his self-protection instinct kicking in.
His sharp mind and wild emotions were tangled up like two snakes fighting, sinking down into the muddy depths of his memory. Instinctively, he’d shut off both logic and feelings—turned off the left and right sides of his brain. Jack slipped into a bizarre, extreme mental state: his psychic power was cranked up to the max and yet so locked down it was practically frozen.
He was smart and clueless, sensitive and numb, curious and indifferent—all at once.
More self-aware than a blank mind, less passionate than a child.