Bonus Chapter 4/4
Chapter 27: The Secret of the Fifteenth Floor
“You should know what I’m here for, Xiao-Yuan has been by your side for a month, and I think it’s time to take him home.” Qi Zhen softened his tone as if he was really a junior worthy of care.
Qi Yuan didn’t want to go back, and Ye Zhan remembered that the guard had said that Qi Yuan must not be allowed to go home.
“I know that he has a hard time coming out, and he likes the outside world and you very much. But his health is not good so he must come back to continue his treatment.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Qi Zhen didn’t hold back, telling him about Qi Yuan’s innate weakness and how they tried to use dragon blood to continue his life.
In the end, Qi Zhen said, “Xiao-Yuan grew up alone, he was always lonely, and you are his first friend. So I thought, would you like to go home with us? I will take care of you as if you were my child, and I hope you can accompany Xiao-Yuan well as you both grow up. ”
“…… You just said that Qi Yuan won’t live to be 20 years old, is this true?” Ye Zhan couldn’t help but ask. He thought of Qi Yuan’s pale and weak little face and felt a little regretful. An older version of Qi Yuan sat across from him as if he could see him at a glance at the age of sixty, so calm and reliable. However, he will never be able to realize this possibility, and he will die as soon as he ages.
“That’s what the doctors say,” Qi Zhen’s expression darkened, and he lowered his eyes, “I can only try to give him the best so that he can live his life happily.”
It turned out that he was also one of the “best” things Qi Zhen could give Qi Yuan, Ye Zhan could feel his deep fatherly love, but it didn’t feel like he was being given away as a gift. He thought about it, and still said, “Then you can take Qi Yuan back, as a friend, I will also often come to see him.”
“No, don’t get me wrong, I don’t just want you to be a playmate, I’ve been watching you these days and I’ve found you to be a very nice kid.” Qi Zhen smiled, “Think of it as one of my quirks, when I see young people with potential, I always can’t help but want to teach and cultivate, and I will feel a special sense of accomplishment when I see them grow up.”
This kind of generosity and kindness made Ye Zhan feel that something was wrong all over his body, he was like a seed that had been camping in the soil for many years, once he broke through the mud shell, and saw the sun for the first time, only to find that the world was so vast and bright. He looked at Qi Zhen with wide eyes, his teeth gently biting his lower lip, and he didn’t say a word, full of expectation but not daring to be gullible.
“Are you literate?” Qi Zhen suddenly asked.
“I know a bit, I lived in the library when I was a kid.” Ye Zhan was a little embarrassed, “But my handwriting is not very good.”
After all, this is a skill that is not very useful, and most people in the world are illiterate nowadays, and they can come out to roam the rivers and lakes by mastering the three core words “fuck”, “kill” and “run”.
“Xuancheng has the best basic education, we teach not only literature, but also mathematics, physics, chemistry, art, music…… We have textbooks from the Common Era. If you present into an Alpha, you can also learn combat techniques and military strategies from experienced soldiers, so that even if you go out on your own in the future, you will become a good hunter.”
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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Ye Zhan was still a little hesitant, since he had accepted the guard’s gold, he should fulfill his promise to him.
“Did Tingwu say something to you?” Qi Zhen asked kindly, “Tingwu, he is the man you burned down, he was once Xiao-Yuan’s personal guard.”
“Hmm……” Ye Zhan nodded hesitantly, he didn’t expect Qi Zhen to understand his worries so deeply.
“He’s a good guard, loyal, and kind to Xiao-Yuan,” Qi Zhen sighed, “but blind loyalty hurt him and made him believe some unrealistic rumors.”
“He seems to have sensed some danger,” Ye Zhan said, “that’s why he risked his life to bring Qi Yuan out.”
“Yes, danger has always existed,” Qi Zhen’s broad palm rested on his thin shoulder, “but please believe that as a father, I will do my best to provide him with the best environment for his growth.”
Ye Zhan was moved by his sincerity, he jumped off the high-backed chair, stood in front of Qi Zhen with his waist straight, and said solemnly, “Okay, I promise you.”
The broad palm suddenly fell on his head, rubbed it gently, and Qi Zhen’s voice with a smile came from the top of his head, “Actually, you’ve always wanted a home, right, Xiao Ye Zhan?”
“The temptation was too great, it was impossible for me not to agree,” Ye Zhan says this even now, ten years later, “Even if I wanted to take you away, it was impossible to run out of your father’s palm.”
Qi Yuan said, “I understand, from the beginning, you didn’t expect me to live past the age of 20, you were meant to leave.”
Is this the only things you heard? Ye Zhan glanced at him dissatisfiedly, but he had to admit in his heart that what Qi Yuan said was the truth.
“I’ve tried to protect you, too,” Ye Zhan said, “but the Qi family was deeper waters than I imagined……”
This is what the 14-year-old felt as soon as he arrived in Xuancheng. Except for Qi Zhen, no one likes this favored illegitimate son, especially Kong Zhao, who simply regarded him as a thorn in the flesh, Ye Zhan is very sure that if it weren’t for Qi Yuan’s destiny to only be able to live to be less than twenty years old, he would have died in an “accident” long ago.
On the other hand, Mrs. Kong Jia is a good woman, she is the director of the research institute, and she is responsible for all the treatment of Qi Yuan, but she has never targeted him. In Ye Zhan’s impression, Kong Jia has always been a warm and cheerful old lady, always exuding youthful vitality. She is very affectionate with the city lord and they are a model couple. Of course, the more affectionate they were, the more embarrassing and redundant Qi Yuan’s position became.
In the past five years in the Qi family, Ye Zhan disguised himself as an Omega to avoid military service, and stayed by Qi Yuan’s side peacefully, while also absorbing knowledge like a sponge. He had almost forgotten about Tingwu and the mysterious 3/4 badge.
Every other month, Qi Yuan had to go to the headquarters of the research institute for treatment. For him, Ye Zhan’s arrival was simply a miracle, his acceptance of dragon blood was getting higher and higher, his body was like a crazy streak, and his body gradually became stronger, but in terms of his mind, because he was too well protected by his father, he was still like a child. Ye Zhan often suspected that the world in his eyes was made up of marshmallows and rainbow ponies.
Qi Yuan was 17 years old at the time and was undergoing treatment at the headquarters. Every time during the school lunch break, Ye Zhan would sneak out to see him. The headquarters is heavily guarded, and no one is allowed to enter, but they all know the relationship between the two, so they just turn a blind eye. The lunch break starts at 11 o’clock, and as soon as the bell rings, Ye Zhan will run out of the school gate, transfer to the bus twice, and take 20 minutes to get to the headquarters. He was panting, hungry, and had stars in his eyes, but as soon as he pushed the door open, he could see Qi Yuan’s big smile.
It’s not an exaggeration that the moment Qi Yuan saw him, he would be like a budding flower, blooming with a bang. His good mood came so purely, like orange soda in summer, and the air was full of his sweet happiness. Then the two of them would huddle into a hospital bed and share Qi Yuan’s lunch – the aunt who served the meal knew the slimy things between them and gave double the amount each time so that the lid of the lunch box bulged high.
They have a lot to say, and often before they have digested their lunch, the short happy hour is over. As soon as Ye Zhan said that he was leaving, he would see Qi Yuan deflating like a balloon with a hole, turning into a withered little cabbage in the ground.
“It’s okay, I’ll come back tomorrow.” Ye Zhan waved his hand, picked up his bag, and ran to catch the bus. Qi Yuan’s eyes would be glued to him as if from the moment he left, he began to look forward to tomorrow.
On May 17th, Ye Zhan clearly remembered that day was Qi Yuan’s birthday. In order to surprise Qi Yuan, Ye Zhan decided to skip the afternoon class, he stuffed the cake box in his bag, pretended to leave at noon, and then went back to the headquarters over the wall and ambushed into the equipment room next to the ward.
He knew that there was a routine injection at 1 o’clock, after which the doctors would leave.
He waited patiently and heard a busy stream of voices entering the next room, the voices of women talking, but they were all muffled by the humming noise of the instruments. Suddenly, Ye Zhan heard a scream that made his hair rise, it was Qi Yuan’s voice!
His beautiful voice became hoarse and sharp, like a trapped beast that was being pulled by a saw, accompanied by the muffled sound of struggle. Ye Zhan hugged the cake and was distressed. While he couldn’t see him, did Qi Yuan endure this painful treatment alone? But he never said anything and every time they met, he laughed, disgusted that the lunch was too light, complained that the new nurse couldn’t find the blood vessels, or told him jokes that didn’t seem funny at all in the book.
For two hours, the cries of pain sounded intermittently before they finally calmed down. Ye Zhan also seemed to have followed him through hell, and he couldn’t stop trembling.
Then he heard the sound of the medic leaving, and the sound of conversation in the hallway, Ye Zhan quietly approached the door, pricking up his ears.
A female voice asked, “Did he faint?”
“He’s unconscious, he’s expected to wake up at 6 p.m. but it doesn’t make a difference whether he is awake or not—as long as the boy doesn’t come, he’ll be like a dead man all day.” It was a male nurse’s voice.
At 6 o’clock! He doesn’t know if the cake can be sent out, so Ye Zhan was a little disappointed.
“No, it won’t be that long, his tolerance for ‘Vermillion’ is increasing at a rate visible to the naked eye.” The woman said.
For a moment, Ye Zhan thought that he had heard it wrong- the beast they mentioned was a mutant beast with fish fins on its back and looked like a fox, and once it appeared, it would cause panic. The medicine made from the beast is a notorious poison that, when used on the inhabited, causes madness and depravity.
Why did he use the ‘Red Deer’ on Qi Yuan? Wouldn’t this worsen his situation? Could it be that he screamed so fiercely just now, not to fight against the tyrannical dragon blood, but because he was injected with the extract of such a beast?
Ye Zhan was stunned, only to feel the blood all over his body becoming cold inch by inch. He’d been domesticated for too long, but once the switch was triggered, a beastly coldness and determination came back to him. As the medic walked away, he hid his backpack and cake and quietly followed, knowing where each surveillance was and how to avoid them.
He saw clearly that the woman who had just spoken was Qi Yuan’s attending doctor, Feng Cheng, who looked less than fifty years old, often smiling and looking young, with long hair combed into a bun at the back of her head, and a cloisonné agate hairpin inserted on it. Ye Zhan had seen her several times before, she was a student of Madame Kong Jia, a brain specialist, Beta, unmarried but seemed to have a son. She has an eccentric personality, an extremely high IQ, and is a workaholic, spending most of her day in the lab.
Feng Cheng took the elevator, her single office was on the fifteenth floor, it was a classified area, and she needed to swipe a card to enter.
However, this did not bother Ye Zhan, he took the stairs to the fourteenth floor, found an empty ward, opened the window, and climbed out. He stood on his tiptoes and stepped on the protrusion less than five centimeters, grasped the pipe outside the building, and jumped lightly to reach the window edge of the fifteenth floor. Then, with the strength of his hands, he lifted himself and, like a silent cat, sneaked into the fifteenth-floor window.
This is difficult for top Alphas to do, they may have more strength, but they will not have such a light size and flexibility, Ye Zhan has been pretending for so many years, and it is not without gain.
As a classified area, there are very few people with fifteenth-floor clearance. Mrs. Kong Jia’s office is also on this floor.
Ye Zhan listened intently, to the sound of soft-soled shoes stepped on the marble floor of the hallway, and then entered a room. Ye Zhan waited patiently, and at 5:30, that is, when Qi Yuan was expected to wake up Feng Cheng left the office.
Ye Zhan used the old method to climb through the window and enter Feng Cheng’s office. The room was bright and spacious, with an entire wall of bookshelves displaying glass jars containing small animals, malformed organs, and brains, two skeletons standing on either side of the shelves, one on the left wearing a fencing helmet and holding a foil, and the one on the right holding a rose, with a skull decorated with teardrop-shaped diamonds and fresh dew on the petals.
What a woman with a lot of weird collectibles…… Ye Zhan hurriedly swept his gaze over and unexpectedly did not find the surveillance. He walked lightly to the desk, Feng Cheng didn’t seem to be going to leave for long, the computer was not yet closed, and the screen had a bunch of open programs.
Ye Zhan’s hand was retracted into her sleeve, operating the mouse through a layer of clothing, and browsing her computer. However, he flipped through three or four documents, and the contents of them didn’t seem to have anything to do with Qi Yuan. There were only a bunch of incomprehensible letters on the last program, Ye Zhan glanced at it and suddenly seemed to be hit by a small burst of electricity, and he saw a familiar mark: 3/4!
The memory of that cold night was awakened, and he immediately tried to click to enter, but a page immediately appeared asking him to enter his password.
Sure enough, the level of secrecy is very high…… Ye Zhan sighed, he was not a hacker, it was impossible to hack into the system. Trying it out rashly may trigger an alert. It seems that this line of work made him destined to go home empty-handed.
Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly felt a cool breeze blowing on his back.
It’s May and summer is quickly approaching but the wind is still wrapped in a cool and wet spring, it blew on his back and instantly made him feel alert- he had obviously closed the window after coming in, why is the wind blowing in?!
Someone opened the 15th-floor window from the outside!
is qu zhen secretly a bastard or did he really allow something like that to be done? i don’t think it could have gone unnoticed to him
Oh shoot, I got goosebumps at the end