Chapter 32 – The Bloody Giant
Qi Yuan’s steps were leisurely, measuring the city step by step. Xuancheng has a history of more than 100 years, and the ancestors of the Qi family were one of the founders at that time. The city is dignified and solemn, with open and clean streets, and most of the buildings have an all-black façade that absorbs solar energy to power homes. There were fewer pedestrians, but they were all well-dressed and healthy-looking, and three or two children were riding bicycles and ringing the bell as they slid down the hill.
It’s hard to imagine a scene where it seemed like the end had never come. After encountering two groups of patrolling soldiers, the scene gradually became lively, and it turned out that he had walked near the market. Qi Yuan pulled his hat and approached the long line curiously, only to find that people were queuing up to buy rice. The white rice was placed on the stall but no one went up to grab it.
In the wild, such a bag of rice can make three or four able-bodied people turn their heads and spill blood, Qi Yuan thought silently.
Walking in the familiar city, and looking at the lively scenes, he always felt out of place. It was as if he were just a stranger who had traveled from afar, watching everything coldly.
On the other side of the stall, several mercenaries were selling some sundries, each sitting on a small bench and chatting casually.
“You know what? I read in a book that they used to sell everything we used to eat in the supermarket,” said a red-skinned mercenary, “and you can just scan it with your phone and buy as much as you want.”
“How is that possible,” said the other mercenary, “if you sell it in the supermarket, it would’ve been robbed long ago.”
“That is because you can buy as much as you want so everyone does not have to fight.”
“At that time, there was a lot of food, and everyone could afford to eat, so why rob?” said the red-faced mercenary unconvinced.
“HAHAHA…” the other mercenaries laughed, “You are stupid, in that case, you must have been bought out by those rich and powerful people a long time ago, and it is your turn to spread such nonsense?”
“I saw it in the book!” “The red-faced mercenary was also a little unsure, “It says that people in the past were like this…”
“What kind of book are you reading, hehe, it can’t be a forbidden book, right?”
When they saw the guests approaching, they immediately shouted vigorously.
“Weapons, good weapons! Dragon’s tooth dagger! Leather armor! Everything is available, come and see!” A mercenary with a reggae head had the loudest voice, and when he saw Qi Yuan looking over, he smiled boldly, “Boss, do you want to take a look at the flying fish scales armor, you can be extremely heroic when you wear them! We also have a bird’s feathers that can prevent fire!” He saw that the person who came was dressed extraordinarily, and when he saw that he had money, he took out the better goods at the bottom of the box.
The customer took a few steps closer and slightly pulled up the brim of his hat. The enthusiastic mercenary suddenly fell silent, unable to say anything – when he met those cold eyes, the illusion of the peacetime around him was suddenly shattered. The mercenary smelled the fire and smoke of war again and felt the urgent danger of life in the depths of his soul.
“Is this an long-eared mouse?” Qi Yuan picked up a small cage on the stall, and there was a palm-sized gray mouse in it, it had a pair of eyes as bright as black beans, and long ears like rabbits, and its big tail wagged around, looking very cute.
When he was a child, he was particularly fond of this kind of furry thing, and once secretly raised a nest under the bed. Qi Yuan stared at the trembling little dumpling, and could still recall the feeling of “cuteness”, but now it was difficult for him to have such feelings again.
“The guest is very knowledgeable… “The mercenary laughed, “This is indeed an long-eared mouse, it is said to be able to cure diseases, detoxify, and eliminate disasters, even if it is not as effective as the legend, it looks very cute, isn’t it…”
“Give me this.” Qi Yuan said as he reached into his pocket.
The reggaeton-headed mercenary saw that he was reaching into his pocket as if he had some terrible weapon, and immediately held up the cage with both hands and handed it to him: “Here you go!”
Qi Yuan glanced at him inexplicably: “How much?”
“Uh, ten.” The mercenary immediately quoted a price at which he would lose money.
This reaction… Qi Yuan smiled silently, in the past few days, he had not been in contact with masters in different aspects, only the Betas in the research institute who couldn’t smell Alpha pheromones, and he almost forgot this kind of daily routine of being seen as a monster.
He took out a handful of coins from his pocket, exactly ten.
Only it wasn’t ten coppers but ten Xuancheng coins, which is too much… The mercenary took the handful of coins and dared not say anything.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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This weak, fresh life, like a hairy heart, trembled slightly in his hands.
“You,” Qi Yuan’s finger poked at its nose and reprimanded it expressionlessly, “Don’t run, you know.”
“Squeak squeak!” the long-eared mouse’s eyes glistened with tears, and he curled into a hairball in the palm of his hand.
As soon as Qi Yuan released his grip, the mouse rolled down numbly and consciously flipped into the pocket of his coat. It took a long time before he dared to stretch out his two little paws and put them on his pockets, and looked timidly outside, and his long rabbit-like ears hung down.
“The cage is yours.” Qi Yuan handed the cage to the stall owner.
The mercenary looked at him, and then at the long-eared mouse in his pocket, became bolder, and asked, “For your girlfriend?”
Girlfriend… Qi Yuan thought of Ye Zhan and sighed, “He will probably steam and braise it, as he doesn’t have enough meat to stuff his teeth.”
After wandering around for another half an hour, Qi Yuan finally arrived at the headquarters base of the Dragon Scale Legion. After several failed attempts to escape, the long-eared mouse finally gave up on himself, lying aggrieved in his pocket, squeaking and sighing.
The Dragon Scale Legion has no data points on the city wall, the military camp is built around the city wall, the Dragon Scale Legion headquarters building is in the shape of “冂”, its main building body constitutes the main gate of Xuancheng, the appearance is non-reflective black, covered with forts and golden scale-like defensive walls.
Therefore, the Dragon Scale Legion headquarters building is also nicknamed the “guillotine”. Qi Chaiyuan was very happy after hearing this and specially asked someone to hang a 100-kilogram diagonal cutting guillotine on the doorway so that it could be hung on the top of the heads of everyone who entered and exited the door.
Whenever a strong wind blows in the wilderness, the guillotine sways slowly on the city gate, and everyone who enters Xuancheng can’t help but shudder in fear, as if standing on the judgment platform, and find that it is death that judges them.
Recently, Qi Chaiyuan has been busy patrolling, more diligent than Santa Claus at Christmas, busy bandaging horrors and bringing them to everyone. Qi Yuan specially calculated her time at the headquarters, came to the guillotine downstairs, and expressed his intention directly to the guards on duty.
The guards acted as if they were on the verge of facing a great enemy, one staring at him, and the other running in to report something. Qi Yuan waited patiently for a while, the door was pushed open, and a cute boy ran out, the boy still had some of his baby fat on him and looked very cute.
He was draped in an oversized military uniform, which was disheveled, revealing milky white skin and exuding an eye-catching omega aura on his body.
“Third Young Master, the general asked me to take you in.” The boy’s voice was sweet, too.
Qi Yuan glanced over and could see that although he had young teeth, he was probably not younger than himself. He followed the boy in and saw that he was brisk, jumping like a little rabbit, and leading without hesitation. The Alpha soldiers who passed by all turned their heads and couldn’t bear to look at them.
Although he had always known Qi Chaiyuan’s virtues, he didn’t expect her to play so excessively, Qi Yuan asked, “When did the military camp allow prostitutes to come in?”
“No, Third Young Master,” the boy smiled brightly with peach blossoms on his face, “I am called Lin Li, and it’s a little pet exclusive to the general.”
Feeling the scent of a cluster of flowers that came under his nose, Qi Yuan quietly pulled away, as if he was a cloud of poisonous gas.
Lin Li twisted his eyebrows, and said in his heart: I am a beauty after all, how is he still calm after all this, the rumor that the third young master is not good in that area, is it true?
As they walked forward, they saw a group of thin and dirty people who could not be determined by their age or gender in the wide hall and were noisily surrounding each other, confronting several Dragon Scale Legion officers. The officers had already drawn their guns, but they were still shouting and commanding without fear of death, and their bodies smelled of stench.
“Let me keep working, please, I can still do it, I only need half the salary!”
“If you want us to go, you might as well kill us, come, come, you kill me!”
“Hmm,” Lin Li covered his nose in disgust and shouted to the officer from a distance, “What are you doing, why are you letting the troublemakers in again?”
“It’s not the same batchas last time, the last one has been already driven away!” cried the officer, “they’re as endless as flies!”
“Hurry up and let them out, is the gun in your hand used for looking cool?” Lin Li scolded them with raised eyebrows, and when he turned his head to look at Qi Yuan, the spring breeze blew again,” Third Young Master, let’s go here.”
Qi Yuan asked, “Who are those people?”
“It’s just a group of homeless people, they don’t do their work but they want to eat in Xuancheng all day long and wait for death, and we can’t seem to get rid of them like kraft candy.” Lin Li complained.
In Xuancheng, people do not have their own land and real estate, and once they graduate from school, they must immediately find a job to be allocated housing. Most ordinary families are very vulnerable and if one person becomes seriously ill or cannot find a job for a month in a row, he or she is at risk of being reduced to the bottom of the population and evicted from the city.
Qi Yuan suddenly thought of the people who were queuing up to buy rice just now.
Strong giants will not hesitate to cut off the diseased and old parts of their bodies, leaving only those strong and healthy organisms to maintain a blood-drenched brilliance – but unfortunately, people will not always be healthy and strong, people will always be sick, injured, and old.
Qi Yuan looked over, there were about twenty people in this group, most of them were in their fifties, they had been devastated by years of hard work, and they looked far older than their actual age. A sick young man, coughing incessantly, and a mercenary on crutches was whispering to an impatient-looking soldier. Tremblingly, he took out a long-cherished cigarette from his bosom and tried to offer it, but was slapped to the ground by the soldier, and his shiny leather boots trampled on the cigarette of great hope.
“Please, we can still work, let’s go dig a hole!”
“My wife is sixty years old, look at her, look at her …tonight if she is kicked out, she will not survive tonight.”
“Dig a hole?” Qi Yuan couldn’t remember when there was such a project.
“Ah, that,” Lin Li lowered his voice, “Aren’t there many holes under Xuancheng, many of which can bypass the guards and lead to the outside of the city, which is very unsafe, and we’ve been trying to find a way to plug them all recently.”
Xuancheng is a city that existed before the Flood Era and was formerly a large shelter with intricate secret passages and chambers built underneath, like an anthill. In its nearly 200-year history, it has been occupied by mutant beasts three times, and each time humans have survived through underground facilities and successfully fought back.
At the moment, the underground shelter is in official hands, and the passage is closed to the outside world and is only opened at the most critical moments. Some of the chaotic tunnels have fallen into disrepair and have either been abandoned or collapsed and have been left unattended for a long time.
When he was a child, Ye Zhan often took him to run around in secret passages and they played adventure treasure hunts. Ye Zhan has a special talent for treasure hunting, and can always take him to find many strange things, such as hundreds of years of old wine, cans that are a hundred years old, banknotes of the last century that have been mostly corroded, and the ubiquitous skeletons of dead people.
“Then why don’t you let them dig a hole?” Qi Yuan asked.
“The project is almost over, what else do you want these old and sick people to do?” Lin Li muttered, “And they were originally outsiders, either born in the wild, or from the countryside like Haiwangcheng, they are dirty and smelly, which lowers the average quality of Xuancheng.”
As he spoke, the group of soldiers moved seriously, brandishing their guns and forcibly driving out a group of homeless people, “Go, go, the convoy to Akagi is about to start, now get in the car, you can get to Akagi before dark, you can collect all garbage in that place, as long as you are willing to work, you can always live.”
“How can we afford to buy a ticket!”
“Murder, this is murder, Dragon Scale Legions are murdering people!” The displaced people were weeping and fussing, and the screams and filthy smells were driven out of the solemn hall and slowly disappeared.
“Well, the general is going to be impatient.” Lin Li patted the non-existent ash on his body, “Third Young Master, let’s go up quickly—Third Young Master?!”
Qi Yuan walked quickly to the door, crossed the wide gate where the guillotine was hung, and saw that several trucks had been parked at the station outside. There were several guards armed to the teeth in the car.
12 coppers can buy a ticket to Akagi and get the protection of the guards along the way.
However, if they could not afford a ticket then they would have to walk in the wild for three days to a strange city. During this long journey, they are undoubtedly pieces of very aromatic fat that can become a delicious meal for mutant beasts at any time.
“If you can’t afford a ticket, get out of the way!” the guards sat in the car, shouting at them like they were livestock.
“Let me go up! Let me go up!” the crippled old mercenary slammed into the car door, “What are you being so angry about? Sooner or later, you will become like me one day!” The
answer was a fist that swung down. The old mercenary’s eyes widened, and he didn’t have time to hide when he suddenly saw something golden flying in the air and slamming into the guard’s hand.
“AHHH-”
“These are their fares.” Qi Yuan took out a handful of coins from his pocket, some gold and some silver, and scattered them on the ground with a bang, and the long-eared mouse kicked his legs bravely, wanting to take the opportunity to fly away, but was quickly pressed back by Qi Yuan.
The guards’ swaggering faces vanished without a trace, and they jumped out of the car, crouched on the ground without dignity, and clasped their palms around the metal currency that far exceeded the fare.
The outcasts saw that the man was tall, with especially long legs, and a back as straight as a sheathed blade. The bridge of the nose and chin were faintly visible under the lowly pressed cap, and the lips were slightly curled in a gentle arc, but they could not dilute the fierce temperament.
They were grateful, but they didn’t dare to come closer, huddled together in the dark, probing their heads like a group of meerkats.
Seeing that the guards had finished picking up the money, Qi Yuan said, “Take out the ticket money and give the rest to them.”
“This …” The guards looked at each other a few times, and they all felt awkward, it was one thing to not be able to earn money, how could there be a reason to spit out the money in their hands?
“Don’t play tricks on us, the words of the third young master shall be taken to heart!” Lin Li came out at some point, and scolded sharply, “I’m going to call the guards when I go back and ask if you have done something wrong along the way. If anyone dares to do anything, be careful that the general doesn’t pick your skin!”
“Yes!” The guards all knew Lin Li, and they dared not to think about it, so they distributed the extra money to the homeless people on the spot. They grabbed the money and thanked each other gossipily, Qi Yuan nodded and didn’t say anything.
When the time came to set off, the guards lowered the tail of the truck and loaded the twenty or so homeless people onto it. Those heads hung down and counted the money, and even if there was a little joy on their wrinkled faces, they looked extremely sad, as if a few drops of painful puree could be wrung out by twisting those loose skin.
Qi Yuan’s hand was in his pocket, rubbing the head of the long-eared mouse- as its ears were rubbed crookedly, it only dared to be angry but not dare to speak.
Finally, he didn’t feel strange, Qi Yuan thought, this is the Xuancheng he knows.
He didn’t give money to those homeless people out of sympathy, in fact, it is difficult for him to have similar feelings now, but he was referring to his own behavior pattern in the past – if he was still that enthusiastic and innocent teenager, he would definitely draw a knife to help others when he was not happy. He was deliberately mimicking his past behaviors, piecing together fragmented emotions to fight against the erosion of blood.
After doing this, looking at the ragged homeless people, looking at their grateful faces, there was indeed some subtle touch in his soul: some sympathy, some compassion. These subtle touches accumulate and make up his humanity.
So there’s no need to be grateful to me, Qi Yuan thought to himself, I’m just using you.
Qi Yuan followed Lin Li upstairs when his mobile phone rang suddenly, he picked it up and saw the Peacock on the other side.
“Ye Zhan has fled.” Peacock reported, “There were secret passages in the bathroom.”
Robots have no feelings, and this particular model especially doesn’t. While waiting for the phone to answer, she had already forcibly broken the toilet sliding door and the secret passage door, tracking through the dark secret passage while waiting for the master’s reprimand or next order.
“Ha …”
However, instead of being angry, Qi Yuan laughed out loud, as if he had heard something very interesting.
Strange to say, he didn’t look for it seriously, but it seemed that every time Ye Zhan carefully planned to escape, he would end up unlucky enough to hit his palm. Isn’t this Dragon Scale Legion just blocking the entrance of the cave at the city gate, and Ye Zhan is drilling directly into his hands?
Peacock wondered why he was happy, she felt that her emotional system should be completely upgraded.
“Okay, you can run more and relax.” Qi Yuan hung up the phone with a smile, “Keep tracking him.”
In the mirror of the elevator, Qi Yuan saw the corners of his mouth raised and was suddenly stunned. It’s not a deliberate laugh, it’s not a painstaking emotion, it’s spontaneous, but it’s as miraculous as it gets.
