Seven days had passed. Locked in a small room on the top of the clocktower, Ning Gu could only measure the passage of time by the amount of meals he got. He received three meals a day, and he counted them all. He had had twenty one meals in total, marking the end of the seventh day.
If it weren’t for the people bringing him food, Ning Gu would have started to question whether the Ghost City people had forgotten about him. No one came looking for him during those seven days, and there was no sign of anyone around the clocktower.
“Aaaaah—!” He stuck his head out of the window, shouting against the howling wind, “Aaah—! Nail—! Naaail—! Li Xiang—! Liiiiiii—, Xiaaaang—!”
The wind was too strong for him to be heard, especially high up on the top of the clocktower. His voice seemed to dissipate in the blowing wind before its sound could escape his lips. He gazed at the thick fog, its texture sculpted by the wind.
Was the train coming again? If it really was alive, then it would probably be the most whimsical train in existence.
In the short twenty-odd years of Ning Gu’s life, the train had arrived countless times. The longest gap was the duration between his two birthdays, and the shortest was just a day. At that time, even the craziest among the Travellers weren’t able to embark on the next journey right after a single night’s sleep.
If the train was coming again, then how could he escape from here? How could he leave the clocktower, slip out of the surveillance of multiple abilities, and leave the shelter grounds to board the train?
“Aaaah—!” He shouted again, “Liii—Xiaaang—!”
With his experience, the only one capable of rescuing him right now was Li Xiang, who had already done so countless times before.
“Li Xiang and Captain went to Tongue Bay.” A sudden voice came from behind him.
Startled, Ning Gu turned hastily and saw half of Lin Fan’s face in the door’s small window.
“Why are you here?” He asked cautiously.
“To see if you escaped or not.” Lin Fan replied.
“How long ago did they leave?” Only then did he react to Lin Fan’s initial words.
“A few days,” Lin Fan’s face slowly moved to the middle of the small window, looking at Ning Gu, “Feeling down?”
“Nope.” Ning Gu sat back on the ground.
He usually didn’t interact much with Lin Fan. This man lived a secluded life, it was normal for him to lock himself away in his hut for a month or two without showing himself. But if it weren’t for his experiences in the Main City, Lin Fan’s thorough questioning, and desire to search him all the way to his shoes, Ning Gu wouldn’t have thought much of him appearing here.
However, at that point it felt a bit shady to him.
“Have you reflected upon yourself in those few days?” Lin Fan asked.
Ning Gu glanced at him. With Captain and Li Xiang gone, it made sense that it was Lin Fan coming to question him whether he behaved well and reflected on his actions.
“Nope.” He replied truthfully.
Lin Fan frowned, “Captain told me that you’re only allowed to leave when you promise not to go to the Main City without permission.”
“Let’s wait then,” Ning Gu leaned back, “I may as well never leave.”
Lin Fan watched him in silence.
Ning Gu felt tense for a moment, then glanced back at him. The window on the door was small, just enough to frame Lin Fan’s face. After a long pause, he couldn’t help but say, “Is your face stuck?”
“Hm?” Lin Fan was momentarily surprised, then, after a moment, he chuckled.
It was the first time Ning Gu saw him smiling. It wasn’t particularly pretty, and revealed all of his usually invisible wrinkles—but no matter how it looked, it still startled Ning Gu.
So he could smile.
“You’re just like your father.” Lin Fan said, putting away his smile.
Ning Gu still had to recover from the previous shock before getting hit with another one, causing him to feel as if he got choked, and he only recovered after his throat bobbed a few times.
“What did you just say?” He sprung up from the ground and walked over to the door.
Lin Fan didn’t say anything; his face moved away from the window.
“Lin Fan!” Agitated, Ning Gu pushed his head out through it, only to see Lin Fan turn and walk down the stairs.
He gave the steel door a few hard kicks, the metal plates of his boots clanging against it loudly.
“Don’t leave! What did you mean by that?!” Ning Gu yelled.
“When the train arrives, there will be a gap in the security,” Lin Fan’s voice grew distant. “Whether you’re able to go depends on you.”
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.
“Lin Fan!” Ning Gu pulled his head back into the room and wrenched the window, shaking the door a couple of times.
Yo mbegrf, atf vbbg vlvc’a yevuf ja jii, jcv Olc Mjc’r nblmf vlrjqqfjgfv jr kfii.
.o0o.
“A new day welcomes you.”
Llr tfjvjmtf vlvc’a jiifnljaf, jcv ktfc Oljc Jtejc tfjgv atf rsrafw ugffalcu, tlr fjgr kfgf ralii glculcu.
Pa kjr yffo jcv fuur obg ygfjxojra atja vjs, yea tf mbeivc’a ajraf jcsatlcu. Cii tf mbeiv offi kjr atf ylaafgcfrr lc tlr wbeat.
A week had passed, his migraines got significantly less frequent. They should disappear completely in the next two days.
Lian Chuan changed into different clothes, preparing to go out and buy some daily necessities before visiting Lei Yu’s house for a moment.
He wasn’t very accustomed to wearing casual clothes, or walking on the streets, and he especially wasn’t used to being in a crowd.
In times like this, he wouldn’t feel stares full of hatred, hear malicious curses, or face the pressure of those desperate gazes time and time again. But he seemed to prefer being a hyena.
A hyena has goals, fears, and will struggle to survive no matter what. And as a not-so-ordinary individual with a second-grade citizen ID in the Main City, the only meaningful thing Lian Chuan could think of doing for the entire day was to purchase a toothpaste.
“Which flavour would you like?” The cashier took his ID for scanning. “This month we’re supplied with lemon, apple, green bell pepper and black pepper.”
“Apple.” Lian Chuan replied.
“Anything else?” The cashier took a tube of white toothpaste from behind her and put it into a machine next to her. After a few seconds, a tube of pink toothpaste landed from the dispenser into the small container next to Lian Chuan’s hand.
“…No.” Lian Chuan hesitated for a bit before taking the toothpaste, “Why is it pink?”
“The apple flavour is always pink,” the cashier replied.
“Aren’t apples green?” Lian Chuan asked.
“That’s the case with green apples. If you want a green colour, you can always opt for green bell pepper.”
“No need.” Lian Chuan took the toothpaste, then turned around to leave.
After buying this pink toothpaste, he had nothing else to do that would require being out in the streets. He looked around and decided to go to Lei Yu’s house.
Auntie Chun had already bought the ingredients beforehand, saying that she wanted to prepare something good for him to eat. She also had him invite Boss as well. He did as she asked, but Boss would always disappear somewhere unless there was a mission to complete, so Lian Chuan didn’t know whether he could come for a meal.
To reach Lei Yu’s house, he had to cross four vertical avenues of the district. Although it was all within District B, Lian Chuan residence was in the dormitory building provided by the Internal Defense Department, basically diagonal to Lei Yu’s house. Therefore, Lei Yu would only return home when he had free time.
Although they didn’t see each other everyday, the bond of this married couple remained strong. No wonder for a marriage born out of free love—though it wasn’t as perfect as a system-arranged relationship, it overcame all the imperfections with the passion sparked by a flutter of two hearts amidst a crowd.
Lian Chuan glanced around, finding everyone fixated on their feet. He proceeded toward the entrance of a tunnel.
The communication in the Main City was very straightforward, with no public transit on the surface and relying only on a couple of tunnels connecting the city’s four districts. Each underground station was enormous, and the grandeur of the Main City’s past prosperity was evident in their scale and the billboards all around the walls and floor.
Back then, ‘let the Main City’s sunlight wake you up every morning’ used to be a convincing slogan.
Right now, the grandeur of those stations remained the same, but the number of people going through it fell below half of what it used to be. Majority of the areas were already shrouded in black fog, the billboards long extinguished. The few remaining on the walls displayed announcements and restrictions issued by the City Affairs Department. Even the vagrants would rather choose to flee to the Lost Valley than seek shelter in their abandoned areas.
Lian Chuan stood on the platform, staring ahead aimlessly, but all of his senses were still functioning; habitually, he paid attention to everyone around.
He’d already noticed that man in a grey jacket behind him when he entered the station. Although the man looked like an ordinary citizen of the Main City, Lian Chuan sensed something unusual in his gaze.
He didn’t care about the man’s identity. Right now, he wasn’t a Hyena, so even if there was a Bug standing right in front of him, he still wouldn’t be allowed to do anything about it. In the Main City, law enforcement personnel could only operate as ordinary citizens when out of their uniforms.
He also didn’t really care about what this man intended to do—temporarily there was no person in the Main City that could endanger him under normal circumstances.
What concerned him was that this sort of clearly not ‘qualified’ inhabitants had begun to appear in District B.
The man in a grey jacket followed him into the train, always standing a metre away from him. Lian Chuan never looked directly at him, but always ensured to see him in the periphery of his vision.
When Lian Chuan got off the train, the man followed him.
District B Area A5 had two large-scale safety zones, so there were a lot of people getting on and off the train. After Lian Chuan got off, the man squeezed through the crowd to get ahead of him.
To reach the surface, one had to pass six turns, and it was quite a long distance. After the third turn, the man in a grey jacket glanced back. There was no one following him, just a throng of hurried passengers.
He hesitated for a bit before reaching into the pocket of his jacket, but before he could even take out the object hidden inside it, he felt something slamming into him, instantly causing his body to leave the ground.
By the time he realised what happened, his throat was already pinched against the wall of the maintenance tunnel on the side.
“No moving,” Lian Chuan pressed his thumb against the man’s throat, “No talking.”
The confusion in the man’s gaze slowly faded, replaced by fear, but he remained too tense to try moving or making noise.
Lian Chuan reached into the man’s pocket, retrieving his ID. He held it between two fingers and waved it before the man’s eyes before returning it to the inner pocket of his coat.
He was a bit careless when tucking his ID away after buying that pink toothpaste, so that’s probably why this guy caught sight of it and started following him.
“Don’t report me to the cops,” The man implored, cautiously anxious, “I beg you… I just wanted to buy something to eat…”
Lian Chuan applied more force with his fingers, silencing the man. “I told you, no talking,” He warned, “You can leave after I walk away.”
The man in a grey jacket blinked. Lian Chuan released his grip, then turned around and left the tunnel.
Even if someone obtained an ID, it couldn’t be directly used for purchases. The data wouldn’t match, leading to immediate disposal by retrieving. To use it, one would need to go to the Lost Valley and find a Bat capable of rewriting the ID data.
But before finding a Bat, you could lose yourself, get beaten to death, or starve to death, unable to find one in time. Finally, even if you managed to reach a capable Bat, without enough money for the service, there was also the danger of them stealing it, beating you to death, or letting you starve—after all, there were many things that could be done with an ID; even a single original copy costed an arm and a leg.
Lian Chuan didn’t want to listen to what people like this had to say, whether it was during a mission or in his daily life.
He didn’t want to hear any words of helpless despair. They could drag a person deep into an abyss, one from which there was no resurfacing.
.o0o.
“Boss got here even earlier than you,” Auntie Chun handed him a glass of beverage, “Give it a try.”
“I went to buy something before coming.” Lian Chuan took the glass and sipped it. It was quite tasty, with a hint of sourness in the sweetness, keeping it from becoming too cloying to drink continuously.
Lei Yu’s house didn’t change at all; it was still just as simple and comforting. Within their abilities, both husband and wife enthusiastically added various decorations inside the house. They even had a few sets of sofas and chairs made in different styles and different materials. Boss was currently occupying a soft single-person sofa, taking a nap there.
Lian Chuan actually didn’t know if he was really truly napping or just pretending, but either way, he was there with his eyes closed, paying no attention to anyone in the room.
When auntie Chun left to handle the food, Lei Yu sat next to Lian Chuan with a box of cigarettes in his hand, “Want one?”
“No.” Lian Chuan waved his hand.
“What did you buy?” Lei Yu lit one for himself and looked at him.
“Toothpaste.” Lian Chuan took the pink toothpaste out of his pocket and gave it a squeeze, “Cute, isn’t it.”
Lei Yu laughed, “You never liked pink since you were a kid.”
Lian Chuan chuckled along, saying nothing. The moment Lei Yu mentioned his days as a child, his bones started to ache. Even though he had a lot of other memories from that time, such as auntie Chun playing games with him, taking him to see little animals, making him food… the excruciating pain and fear remained the clearest among all of them.
Your laughter never carvers deep into your bones. Pain does.
Your joy will never get imprinted in your heart. Fear will.
“How’s everything going lately?” Lei Yu took two drags, remaining silent for a moment before suddenly asking.
“Great.” Lian Chuan said, studying Lei Yu’s expression. He rarely asked a question like that, and most of the time when he did, it was because of something that had more to do with Lian Chuan himself rather than some secret core information.
Boss was definitely faking his nap. When Lei Yu asked this, he opened one eye to look at them.
“That Ning Gu,” Lei Yu began, “If he comes to the Main City again, you might get assigned to deal with him again.”
“Will he though?” Lian Chuan frowned, “From what we know about him, he can barely even protect himself.”
“You can’t say that,” Lei Yu retorted, “He actually got away from you, even managed to escape with his companion.”
Boss closed his eye, snorting through his nostrils.
“He escaped me, so it’s my thing to catch him back,” Lian Chuan said, “Is that what you mean?
“That’s not it.” Lei Yu snuffed out the cigarette he only took those two drags from, staring for a long while at its burned end without saying any word.
Lian Chuan also didn’t speak, waiting for him to finish.
“This time he needs to get caught, alive.” Lei Yu finally continued, “Do it at any cost, no matter where he hides, as long as you can complete the mission.”
“No matter where he hides,” Lian Chuan laughed, and his expression instantly turned cold, “And that includes the Lost Valley, right?”
Lei Yu nodded.
Boss’s claws dug viciously into the sofa.
“Hey, it’s new! Will you compensate if you end up ruining it?” Auntie Chun entered with a food tray in her hands, glanced at Boss, and placed the tray in front of Lian Chuan. “Have an appetiser first; I’m still preparing the rest.”
“Mn.” Lian Chuan responded with a hum.
“Chuan,” Auntie Chun looked at him, “You’re the only one that managed to pass the synergising experiments.”
“No one can surpass your willpower,” Lei Yu said, “It would be best if you catched Ning Gu outside. However, if he enters the Lost Valley and gets caught by Jiu Yi, he’ll become a trump card for him. We can’t risk that.”
Lian Chuan didn’t say anything. The Lost Valley wasn’t some excessively scary place. In his view, the people living there didn’t seem much different in their circumstances compared to those in the Main City. But aside from the Bats, no one with Main City data had ever exited after entering the Lost Valley. That being the case, he didn’t know why Lei Yu and Auntie Chun were pushing him to do that.
“You must go,” Auntie Chun gripped his hand, her own hands slightly trembling as she said in a hushed voice, “It’s not just about catching Ning Gu.”
Lian Chuan looked at her, suddenly grasping what they implied. It wasn’t unusual for the higher-ups to necessarily bring back a Traveller with an unusual identity or power, those missions were nothing new for the cleanup squad.
However, Auntie Chun’s words were a reminder for him. If necessary, he had to enter the Lost Valley. He had to prove himself.
Just as before, when he had to prove himself capable of synergising with Betelgeuse, now he also had to attest that he could handle the Lost Valley, that he was irreplaceable.
After all, being irreplaceable was the only point of value keeping him alive.
.o0o.
In the approximately twenty years Nail had lived in the Ghost City, he had never experienced his days with such clarity. When he stepped out of the door, he glanced at the markings on the metal plate beside it, picking at them and counting again—sixteen in total.
Ning Gu had already been locked in the clocktower for sixteen days, and Nail didn’t get a chance to approach it even once. It was truly an insult to his friendship with Ning Gu.
He couldn’t wait any longer that day—Captain and Li Xiang went to Tongue Bay, as they regularly did. Each time, they would be gone for about twenty days, leaving everything for Lin Fan to handle.
Lin Fan didn’t usually show himself much. If Nail didn’t take this opportunity to try to get Ning Gu out while he could, by the time Captain and Li Xiang returned, they wouldn’t have any chance left. With the Captain’s strong personality, he might just leave Ning Gu to become a pile of bones.
“Where are you going?” Hammer asked at the entrance.
“I’m going to find Land King.” Nail said.
“You’ve already talked to him three times,” Hammer sighed, “If there’s nothing good in it for him, why would he help?”
“That old prick has been around for so many years, he has to have some tricks up his sleeve,” Nail frowned, putting on the goggles when he got greeted with the wind. They were passed to him by Hammer. Ning Gu got him those goggles at the Lost Valley. “I’ll trade something with him.”
Hammer grabbed his arm, “What are you going to trade?”
“That monkey talon,” Nail looked at him.
“It’s an eagle talon.” His brother corrected him.
“I think it looks more like a monkey talon.”
“Monkeys didn’t have talons.”
“Have you ever seen one?” Nail didn’t give in.
“Have you?” Hammer also didn’t yield.
Nail didn’t say anything else, pulling up his collar and walking forward.
“It’s the only one in the entire Ghost City,” Hammer followed after him, “It’ll be gone once you trade it.”
“There’s also only one Ning Gu,” Nail retorted, “Is he worth less than a monkey talon?”
“Fine,” Hammer nodded his head, “I’m going with you.”
“You don’t have to; it’s my problem.” Nail said.
“I’m afraid that he would cheat you for the goods and leave without giving you any help in exchange,” Hammer moved his arm to warm it up, “If he tries to play foul, I’ll give him a beating.
.o0o.
The time for today’s dinner should already have passed, because Ning Gu was hungry. Based on the degree of his hunger, he estimated that it was at least an hour past the lunchtime.
“Hey!” He kicked the steel door. “I’m going to starve here at any moment!”
T/N:
Lucilla: Do you guys think that Lian Chuan is pretty particular about colours? (Personally I like to believe that he actually liked that pink toothpaste…) And Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating! Stay warm, well-fed, and healthy <3
Thanks a lot for the translation! ❤
Can’t wait for Ning gu to get to main city!!
Thanks for the chap!❤️❤️❤️