Chapter 57: No Spoilers, Please!
Chapter 57: No Spoilers, Please!
Bella Astarina.
Born in Moscow.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the psychic research team that had belonged to the KGB—dismantled along with it—regretted letting go of the成果 they had built up. In most areas they lagged behind the United States, but in psychic research they overwhelmingly surpassed America. Their results were known only to an extremely small number of people even within the former Soviet Union, and after the empire fell apart, they barely kept the lineage alive with backing from Russian defense corporations.
Through various human experiments, they reached the level of cultivating humans with psychic abilities above a certain threshold—and one day, they discovered a miracle child named Bella.
Not an acquired ability, but an innate esper.
Thanks to her ability as a precog, the research team—who had previously only been barely hanging on with their sponsor’s support—successfully built an independent power base under Russia’s harsh political climate. For eighteen years, they learned firsthand that if they simply listened to Bella, there would be no danger and everything would go smoothly. With that certainty, the Russian psychic research team built an environment where they could freely pursue the research they wanted.
Then one day, Bella suddenly said she had to go to Korea, and everyone was deeply worried.
But there was no way to stop her.
Her words were truth, and if Bella said it had to be done, there was always a reason.
Bella felt her lower abdomen heating up.
Massive energies in the air gathered and condensed. They were continuously pressed and compressed like a lump of bread dough, and the heat made sweat break out all over her body.
She hadn’t expected much.
Asking Kang Chan to do to her what he did to Cheolmin was simply following what she had seen in her foresight. Because if she didn’t, the future would go off track.
Pressuring Kang Chan had been half a joke. It was funny watching him sweat and look troubled under her nagging.
But what started as a half-joke was no longer a joke.
When the energy filling her lower body ran out of space, it surged upward and created a second dantian in the center of her chest. Once the path opened and the pressure eased, the air’s energy surged in again. This time, it was several times more than before.
Energy that settled into the chest-center dantian through the lower-abdomen dantian compressed into a hard sphere. Bella felt something changing in her body.
When the qi gathered in the lower dantian and the chest-center dantian ran out of space, it extended in fine threads throughout her body, and turbid impurities sprayed out from her pores. Bella felt refreshed all over, and vitality flooded her body. That energy emanated from the internal power gathered in her lower and middle dantian.
The internal power leaking throughout her body under pressure could no longer endure—then, as if exploding, it surged upward again and began to gather between her eyebrows.
Bella felt as if thunder struck inside her head, and she came to know every truth and secret in the world. Her past, future, and present selves connected, and she realized where the source of her ability came from.
An amount of energy that felt like hundreds of times what had first gathered in her lower dantian rushed in from all directions, flowing through her lower and middle dantian into the upper dantian.
Even though the narrow motel office was indoors, a gale whipped through due to the qi waves, and file folders scattered through the air. Kang Chan watched Bella with a worried expression while using telekinesis to hold down the office furniture that looked like it might be torn apart.
While qi continued to densify and get sucked into Bella’s body, a short-stay customer came in. Kang Chan closed the office door so it couldn’t be seen from outside, took the payment, handed over the key, then returned.
The qi that had fully settled into her lower, middle, and upper dantian now freely communicated between them, harmonizing her consciousness, qi, and body. Like with Cheolmin, turbid impurities drained out and a layer of skin peeled away to reveal pale, baby-smooth skin.
The qi channel running like a massive pillar from Bella’s lower abdomen to between her eyebrows continued absorbing and compressing energy beyond what should have been possible. The fine qi pathways throughout her body quickly filled and thickened.
Around the time three more short-stay customer groups had come in, Bella finally began to stabilize. The qi flooding in gradually died down. The turbid impurities and dead skin turned to ash and vanished.
It was bone-and-body remaking similar to Cheolmin’s, but through a completely different route. Only Kang Chan could understand what had happened.
If Cheolmin had formed a pathway where internal power circulated along the front and back meridians, Bella’s qi surged like a fountain from the lower dantian to the chest and then to the head. In particular, the dantian between her eyebrows seemed permanently open, endlessly taking in and releasing the air’s energy.
He had devoured countless murim references while pretending to be an internal-power master, so he understood the result—but not the root cause of the difference.
Bella opened her eyes.
Her blue eyes glowed with a chilling, cold light.
“Miss Bella! You have truly excellent aptitude. Thankfully, you’ve even completed bone-and-body remaking today.”
I spoke happily, feeling the mission was complete.
But Bella tilted her head.
“What are you talking about? It didn’t smell like a septic tank. Today was supposed to be the 100-million-won one.”
Damn…
“No. During the procedure, it seemed possible to complete everything at once, so I finished all three stages. Look in the mirror. Your skin is different. It’s shining.”
But she examined herself with an unsatisfied look.
“No. This is just Bella’s face.”
“Miss Bella, look at your body. You’ve fully reached the realm of being remade and reborn.”
“Don’t gaslight me, Kang Chan! Bella’s face was always like this! If you keep insisting, refund me!”
I suppressed my irritation.
“Miss Bella. Rest today and observe your body. You’ll feel the change soon.”
“Whatever. Since you took today’s 100 million, prepare the 10-billion Stage 2 next. And keep your promises. Honestly, for a man you’re really stingy!”
After sending the grumbling Bella back, I calmed myself by thinking of the three billion.
Back in Room 102, Bella showered. There was no grime, but it felt right to wash anyway. She decided to throw away the clothes she had been wearing.
In the mirror, she saw a clearly changed version of herself. Her features were hers, but she looked like a different person. Symmetry, skin tone, the light in her eyes—even her lip color had subtly changed.
At this level, she felt she wouldn’t lose even to Chae Serin in a beauty contest.
After showering, Bella changed into a new pink tracksuit and lay on the bed.
It wasn’t just her appearance. Her overall ability had risen several stages.
Her precognition had once been hard to control and mostly appeared in dreams. Now, without dreaming, if she focused even a little, she could see from seconds to hours ahead.
The future is the domain of possibilities. At every branching point, countless futures coexist. Now she could see them if she wanted.
In front of Kang Chan, she had acted calm because she had already seen that it was the most suitable behavior. Some futures warped strangely if she showed gratitude. In one, she even married Kang Chan.
He wasn’t her type. She would pass.
She tested her limit by focusing on the upper dantian. She could see three to five years ahead. Beyond that, variables were too many.
The future three years ahead was bleak. Much of the world was destroyed, and fewer than ten million people survived. Five years ahead was worse—no living creatures remained.
She traced back to the branching point. It hadn’t existed when she left Russia. The divergence began three months from now—when Kang Chan bought the motel for 30 billion won.
After that, he hired Lee Chanhyeok as manager and started working as a delivery rider. That was where the future split.
Among the branches, she found one safe future for Earth.
This ability was convenient—but excessive. If she wanted, she could know everything that would happen in a day. It was godlike.
Life has meaning because you don’t know what will happen. Bella suppressed the energy in her upper dantian. The futures blurred.
She had the impulse to check tomorrow’s meal with Kang Chan.
But she held back.
If you get spoiled, everything becomes boring.