Editor: Junyans
The water in the God of War Temple looked endless, but in fact, it had a precise volume—equal to the volume of the Yingkong Lake.
Fans claimed that the beauty of that lake was equally present in this place. A sweeping glance revealed the rays of the brilliant sun cascading like golden streamers across the vast expanse of water, crafting a scene of picturesque allure. The bones resting at the bottom were indistinct like pebbles.
The police had not yet unraveled who was responsible for sinking the lake, but they were originally just a marginal institution, in charge of the civilian affairs. Their hands didn’t stretch to the matters related to the Floating Gold Group.
The floating city had its own vast dark underbelly, with powerful people ruling the order with bloody hands. Only, this rule had no laws and regulations, and no one knew the details of punishment. It was very dark, copious amounts of money blocking the light.
Bai Jingan whispered, “I cannot get through to Minkov Jr.’s number.”
Xia Tian nodded with a cold expression and said, “He had to suffer a lot this time.”
They were silent for a while. Xia Tian remembered a time at a party when he heard some important-looking man talking to Mr. Minkov.
The party’s entertainment, as usual, involved showing some highly pornographic and violent programmes. One blockbuster movie featured people posing unmoved like statues, ostensibly aimed at expressing the concept of objectification.
The man had said, “He doesn’t look sixteen.”
Mr. Minkov had replied, “I don’t want him to grow too fast.”
When he had spoken, his son, Minkov Jr., had been standing behind him, his eyes downcast and expression wooden. Those words… had made Xia Tian’s hair stand up.
For a moment he wanted to ask Minkov Jr., how could they do such a thing?
But without asking, he realized, of course they could.
“This time,” said Bai Jingan, “sinking lakes will not comfort him anymore.”
“What do you think Minkov Jr. wants to do?” Xia Tian asked.
“What he wants has always been simple. Either destroy the world, or destroy himself.”
Bai Jingan thought for a moment and added, “Since he is our backer, we should try our best to ensure that it’s the world that’s destroyed.”
Xia Tian let out a laugh.
The rays of the setting sun burned across the surface of the water, blazing it with a reddish hue. Although it had become an area filled with water, the temple seemed to burn even more fiercely, as if what Minkov Jr. had sunk was not water, but fuel oil.
At that moment, a message came through, an orange-red icon jumping in the corner of his field of vision.
Xia Tian glanced at it; the message was from the assistant, stating that Wei Xi and Eric’s treatment had concluded. They needed to prepare to return from the realm of “death” to the bustling city of the living.
The message also mentioned his attire, the name of the newly appointed makeup artist, prepared questions, and a preliminary outline of his image. Attached to the message was a densely packed schedule for the upcoming events, enough to make one dizzy just reading it.
Bai Jingan didn’t even bother to check it. Xia Tian pressed the icon off, thinking, I had been badly injured, and had just come out of the treatment cabin. How could I have such a dense schedule? But his words didn’t count.
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.
The two gazed at the water, their expressions restrained, neither wanting to move. Since they were this famous, throwing their weight around probably wouldn’t be an issue.
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His wrists were empty. Those people were going to hold a ceremony to return the Marshmallow and the God of War Scepter to him in front of the camera.
When he had first signed the contract with them, they had told him that his life belonged to the TV station and he was a money-making tool for the Floating Gold Group. He would have to do what they wanted him to do.
And he knew what the company wanted from him. Just like when he had first come here and they had given him a countdown and asked him to kill, now those people wanted him to be the God of War, to stand at the peak, be the center of attention, be the object of masses’ obsession, and be the Floating Gold Group’s golden goose.
In the end, they would orchestrate an ending for him that maximized their benefits.
“They’ll kill me, won’t they?” Xia Tian said.
Speech eluded Bai Jingan momentarily.
After a while, he said, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“How can you say that?” Xia Tian smiled. “This is an overly optimistic and unrealistic statement.”
However, Bai Jingan did not say anything, not even answer with a joke. Xia Tian turned to look at him, and Bai Jingan also looked at him… Xia Tian could hardly describe the look in Bai Jingan’s eyes. It was exactly like when he was looking at his hometown, depressed and sad, but also full of stifling darkness and murderous aura.
He couldn’t speak for a moment. He just stretched out his hand and patted Bai Jingan’s arm. Their wounds had healed and the battle was over, but the pat felt like pacifying a seriously wounded comrade in the battlefield.
It was indeed a battlefield, too. A different kind of battlefield, but a battlefield nonetheless.
Their assistant sent another message, which Xia Tian ignored. He stared at the box of cream-covered strawberry cookies by his knees. They were something beyond imagination for the people in the Lower City. When he had been down there, he had never known that there were so many kinds of treats in this world.
“When I signed the contract, the person in charge told me that I would be the property of the Floating Gold Group from now on,” Xia Tian said, “Sen Lan was right next to me, yelling at his dad that I was his possession and he couldn’t just give me away to others without his permission like that.”
He unconsciously touched the back of his neck.
“After I came to the Upper City…the people from Honey Pavilion, the planners and the producers, those porn commercials…a lot of people have said something like that. I never thought I was someone’s property, but there were always so many people who wanted to put a chain on me.”
He suddenly burst into laughter.
“You know, on the last day, Sen Lan had come to see me—in the past, he used to talk a bunch of shit every day about what he had eaten and who he had slept with, like anyone really cared—and on the last day, he suddenly asked me if I would like to sleep with him… I was injured and still in pain, but I just couldn’t hold back my laughter.”
He seemed to find this incident particularly funny.
“He was furious. I knew he would be furious and he would kill me,” Xia Tian said, “but I still kept laughing.”
The fiery sunset of the God of War Temple reflected in his eyes, murderous intent seeping through them.
“In the first year I came back to the Upper City, I killed three people in total outside of the arena,” Bai Jingan said.
Xia Tian turned to look at him, and he continued, “It all happened by chance. One of the planners during the Zone N massacre kept referring to Zone N as ‘the studio down there,’ saying that Bai Lin was a gold star. He also said that the synchronous sex service was his idea… you know the one, with a whole set of script and plot. He wrote the script himself.”
He stared at the sparkling water for a moment before carrying on, “It’s like we’re some kind of backyard caged pets! It was all over the place for a while, and I knew I should keep a low profile, but—”
He had started the story with self-deprecation, but eventually a vicious killing intent began to surge forth from his bones, and he couldn’t even organize his sentences clearly. The hatred had never receded.
Xia Tian smoothed the other person’s hair.
“You did it so neatly that I didn’t hear a word of wind,” Xia Tian said.
“It was not difficult.” Bai Jingan turned his head to look at Xia Tian before saying, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Xia Tian nodded, smiled at him, and rubbed his hair.
Bai Jingan had always found Xia Tian’s habit of getting handsy very childish, but he was indeed comforted, as if his wounds were finally starting to heal and he was himself again.
He stood there while looking up at the statue, letting Xia Tian mess up his hair.
In the God of War Temple, the lake spread out over the skeletons, the sunset dying its surface reddish-gold. It looked beautiful and magnificent, just like hell.
But this was not hell, just the Floating Gold Group, a floating city, a website.
Huitian said Xia Tian couldn’t meet Dee Dee now. He was arranged by the company to meet her in the medical hall, where there was a full shooting team and already arranged set planning.
Wei Xi, who was standing next to him in a light-colored gown and wearing patient makeup, said, “Back to the circus again.”
He looked so frail that one wondered if the medical department had cut corners when treating him. But his assistant explained to Xia Tian that he originally had a rosy complexion, but the publicity department felt that he shouldn’t look healthy and active when he appeared on camera. He needed to look vulnerable and helpless for the audience to feel close to him.
He was indeed unusually active. He had messed with the camera twice along the way to the meeting hall—turning it off, saying he didn’t like the model. He also had a quarrel with the publicity assistant.
Their team’s network logistician had experienced death once, but after he came back alive, he shed the previous silent repression he had before. He started to behave like a typical 19 years old, the age where one couldn’t wait to stir some trouble.
“I can’t believe I missed the finale scene,” he said to Xia Tian, “There’s got to be a bigger show later to make up for it.”
“There should be,” Xia Tian said.
“I’m not really looking forward to it,” Eric said.
As they were talking, they arrived at the medical hall.
As they walked in, everyone suddenly stopped talking and stared at Xia Tian.
This strange silence lasted for a while, as if people didn’t know how to face him or how to talk to him. Then all of a sudden, the voices of people rang out at the same time, and the cameras all focused. It felt as if a huge wave was coming at them and they would be swallowed by it.
“Do you know how many ‘executions’ there have been so far?”
“Sure, most of them deserved to die, but no one had ever really taken any action against them before. You gave people the courage to resist—”
“Will you make some kind of declaration? Is the Yingkong Lake incident a declaration of war against the monopoly of resources by the rich and cruel?”
“Are there any other people you want to kill?”
“Will you date An Xiaoyin again?”
“Do you have a sexual relationship with Bai Jingan?”
Xia Tian opened his lips twice in between, but couldn’t get in a word. However, he caught himself rushing to say “No” to the Bai Jingan-related question—these people kept asking questions anyway, so he didn’t have to worry about facing awkward silence. Hence, he just listened.
“Do you know what Angus had done back in the 175th session? Did you kill him because of that?” A reporter asked.
Xia Tian certainly didn’t know, but he knew at this moment that what he thought or said was not important.
In the midst of this chaos, he stared at the door and counted the minutes.
At that precise moment, everyone gave way and Dee Dee stood at the end of the frenzied crowd.
She was clad in an expensive branded outfit, dressed like a delicate cake at a party. She was led by Miss Qian Ju, who was holding Xia Tian’s gun in her hand.
Xia Tian thought that the scene looked chaotic, but actually it was very logical.
—This was a clear symbol. It told him that they would give him formidable force. He could kill as much as he wanted, but he didn’t live in a vacuum.
He belonged to this world, and the Upper World had its rules, and he had to play his part.
He flashed a big smile at Dee Dee. Despite the current predicament, not a hint of trouble showed on his face.
The girl took a deep breath, smiled at him, and walked without wasting time towards him.
Xia Tian was familiar with this expression of hers. She would be like this when there was a big trouble at home. He was sure she wanted to cry very much and would certainly do so when she got home later … But now she was smiling adorably and walking over with steady steps, as if every step had to be calculated so as not to make things worse.
Xia Tian crouched down and opened his arms towards Dee Dee. She rushed over without control in the last two steps and hugged him. She was shaking.
“It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m back,” Xia Tian said.
She gave a small choked sob, so low that only he could hear it, and then immediately acted as if she was okay.
“I saw Yingkong Lake sink, and I thought it was an earthquake.” She turned toward him and said, “Huitian took me to see the ruins, it’s so beautiful!”
“It’s for me,” Xia Tian said.
“I want it, too.”
“When you get a little older.”
Xia Tian kissed her hair, and everyone was busy taking pictures of this touching scene and sharing it in the digital public space.
With a sweet smile, Miss Qian Ju came over, holding a pitch-black tray with his gun in it. Inside, gold and black were placed opposite each other, with the Doomsday Beast looking like a metallic black hole, while the God of War Spectre resembled a piece of fallen sun.
Xia Tian, holding Dee Dee in one hand, stretched out his other hand and picked up the gun.
good girl…you are so strong.i wish i had her mental and emotional strength and maturity❤