So far, Tian Zhu couldn’t say what the best way to view the situation was.
Was the thread bound to snap, no matter how carefully he moved?
Would he be devoured by the monsters below if he was too slow in fleeing?
Was this a path that could only take the weight of one person…
Or was he fated to escape only with the help of another and to fall if he decided to be selfish?
His stomach lurched with worry. Hope was a curse to some people – the larger the despair one was in, the brighter the hope to escape.
And the brighter the hope, the darker the hole you would fall into if it failed. He wasn’t sure he had enough strength to allow himself to hope.
As he thought so, his thoughts began to crack and slowly fall apart into pieces, like glass shattering.
…What did it even matter?
………Whether he managed to make it out of his personal hell or not, was it going to make a difference?
If it didn’t work, he would continue on as before or die. That was all it was.
His feet slowed, almost coming to a halt. On the phone screen, Aspen frowned deeply and sat up straight, reaching for his own phone and holding it closer to his face.
“Hey! River?”
“Hm?” Tian Zhu blinked a few times and looked down at the phone.
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.
Aspen opened his mouth but did not say a word. He exhaled slowly, his raised shoulder lowering and slightly turned his face away. “It’s… nothing. Are you looking forward to the next game?”
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The call had fully triggered Aspen’s desire to stick to Tian Zhu, even if not physically. It was only a phone, but it wasn’t any different from having the slender guy hang off his arm and talk endlessly.
Tian Zhu got much more illegal knowledge about the world’s best prison than he had ever expected to acquire. That started with Aspen telling him its location, what it looked like from the outside, the inside, the people… Tian Zhu felt like Aspen grew increasingly more joyful the more Tian Zhu answered. And that, Tian Zhu thought, despite his rather unusual answers. But maybe that exactly was the point.
According to Aspen, most people were freaked out by him, which was very annoying. The occasional outside visitor passing by on their way to other cells was worse, as he’d sometimes hear them talk to the staff about buying Aspen in hushed voices.
The nicest visitor was the professor. He didn’t regard Aspen as a normal person, which was okay, because Aspen also felt like they weren’t the same species.
He also told Tian Zhu a lot about how he spent his days.
Not much better than Tian Zhu himself, in fact.
At least Tian Zhu could play multiplayer games, but Aspen was locked inside all day. He’d mostly read, watch series or play games like a lazy person. Once a day he’d train – because it felt comfortable – and walk around a bit. It explained a lot about his desire to talk.
There were high tech tools that were an evolved version of the early Virtual Reality lenses, but Aspen didn’t get those. He did have a simplified, older tool though that allowed him to simulate outside for a while.
So that he wouldn’t go insane.
Which would be acceptable for most prisoners, but people still wanted Aspen the way he was.
Aspen laughed about how he was treated like a specimen. That made Tian Zhu feel better – he felt less weird himself.
“Your grades are terrible”, Lawrence said, snapping Tian Zhu out of his thoughts. The man looked and sounded pleased, rather than annoyed at the realization. Funny that this was the closest Tian Zhu could get to praise. “Your brother is too busy with the company and other people. He can’t teach you right now.”
“It’s fine”, Tian Zhu said obediently with his eyes turned to the ground. “The company is more important.”
Lawrence nodded in satisfaction.
His older son was joining high society and doing very well. Most people weren’t even aware that he had a little brother, which the whole family tacitly accepted.
No respected person who knew would ask about where the family’s second son was, either.
Lawrence liked making Tian Zhu stand in front of him when he called his son for a conversation. Tian Zhu remembered being confused why his father would do such a thing as a kid. The whole scene – his father on his chair, Tian Zhu standing, them talking about his performance – felt more like an employee being called by their boss than father and son.
Tian Zhu couldn’t be sure, but he often had a feeling that Lawrence simply wasn’t treating him like a son. In the most literal sense. His gaze was tinged with suspicion and estrangement, like a bird regarding a cuckoo chick in its nest.
Tian Zhu highly doubted that his biological mother would have ever cheated on her husband. She wouldn’t take such a risk.
It was, however, highly possible that Lawrence considered that possibility and directed all of his discomfort about it towards his son.
To be fair, neither of his parents were especially intelligent. Average memory, average skills, some areas better and some worse.
Compared to them, Tian Zhu stood out like a sore thumb.
It could be easily solved by doing a DNA test, but either Lawrence didn’t want to do one in fear of people finding out, or in fear of the result not being what he wanted. Stupid.
“Well, do your best to raise your grades. We can’t have someone saying that we aren’t teaching our children right”, Lawrence said in a perfunctory tone.
“Of course. I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”
Like a broken machine, Tian Zhu spit out the monotone words he didn’t mean.
If this was a dream stage, it’d be all about finding out whether the child was truly illegitimate or maybe helping them flee. There’d be a paternity test to be found somewhere, servants pacing around like guards, maybe a pet that’d serve as an interruption…
Tian Zhu stared into nowhere again.
“When you’re a bit older, we will find a store that you can have. I’ll add a manager so that you don’t have to do anything. That should be enough for you to live.” Lawrence’s finger tapped on his table.
Were they actually going to allow him to move out someday?
He could imagine that none of them wanted to see him, but it was like a spider in your room. Seeing it was bad, but not seeing it was much more troublesome.
If they didn’t know where he was, it’d give him the opportunity to change. That was unacceptable.
“We have a little house in an area to the south. You’d like it. You can live there when you move out.”
Oh, so they’d imprison him. Fair enough.
“Thank you. That sounds nice.” Tian Zhu raised his head to meet his father’s eyes for a short moment. Just to make sure he wasn’t scolded for zoning off or anything similar.
The smile on his father’s face was emotionless and calm, his eyes cold.
Tian Zhu shivered, feeling cold.
Author’s Note
I know that a lot of people insist on family relationships being important but… a child does not need a reason to hate their parents, and a parent doesn’t need a reason to hate their child. It would be nice if every family was intact or if there were just misunderstandings, but sadly that’s not the case.
Ugh the family members are so annoying
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
This chapter went kinda deep that I’m not prepared for it.
It’s frustrating to know how he can’t just leave. His family is capable of finding him anywhere, he has no one to rely on and his genius (which should have helped him) brings him even more despair because he knows there is not a way he can take :< I hope badly that he can come out of this hole