The wind was even stronger than the day before, and its temperature was much lower too. It now began carrying little bits of ice along with the windswept debris.
Ning Gu squatted by the broken wall, pulling his mask over the bridge of his nose. It was a balaclava Crazy Uncle had given him before; it was old and couldn’t quite withstand the strong wind. Normally, he would wear a large furry hat on top of it outside, but today, he was in too much of a rush to bring it.
Not far away from him, there was a small bonfire enclosed by a low stone wall. Due to its unique fuel, it flickered wildly in the raging wind but never extinguished. It could provide warmth, but Ning Gu didn’t approach it. Warm places tend to attract all kinds of strange creatures, which can be either dangerous or harmless, but he usually preferred to not take such risks.
Someone approached from behind the wall, their footsteps light, with only a few brief, crisp sounds cut short by the roaring wind.
“Did you bring it?” Ning Gu asked.
The footsteps stopped, and after a moment, Land King jumped over from the other side of the wall.
“Did you bring it?” Land King sat beside him, giving him a glance, “What’s up with this getup?”
“It protects my handsome face,” Ning Gu turned his head, “Did you bring it?”
“Aren’t your goggles damaged?” Land King tapped the goggles hidden beneath his balaclava, “I have a new pair, do you want it?”
Ning Gu removed it impatiently, “I’ll give you a chance to answer—did you bring it or not? If you don’t then I will give you another two seconds to run, but if you’re late, consider yourself dead.”
“I did.” Land King replied.
“Hand it over.” Ning Gu extended his hand.
Land King glanced at his hand, “Ning Gu, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but we can’t break the rules. An exchange is an exchange, one hand gives, the other one takes.”
Ning Gu also gave him a glance. His goggles were indeed leaking wind, and even with them on, it still made him squint his eyes to see anything. It was challenging for him to see Land King, his eyes tearing up from the wind. Trying to hold the tears back, he snarled, “Get the hell away.”
Land King stared at him.
“Then you’ll take it out and let me have a look,” He said, “It’s me who doesn’t trust you.”
Land King earned his name not because he owned a lot of land, but due to his vast knowledge about the Ghost City.
The name ‘Ghost City’ was coined by the masses of the Main City citizens. This drifting space was detached from the Main City, with no connection to it. They weren’t even able to assess the exact location of each other, and would only sporadically link during specific times unpredictable to anyone.
The Main City once considered calling this place Satellite City, but clearly, they couldn’t agree on it. Who would be whose satellite was yet uncertain, and for the people of the Main City, this elusive, boundless, perpetually dark and wind-swept space was more like a ghost city.
Fortunately, the people of the Main City didn’t follow this line of thinking and didn’t call its residents ghosts. Instead, they adopted the self-designated title of those people—the Travellers.
Land King was an elder among the Travellers, who had come to this place among the earliest group of escapees from the Main City due to their unauthorised by system power mutations, which led to them being hunted. No one was more familiar with this place than him, so if you wanted to find something bizarre or get their hands on the scarce goods, most of the time, he could help with it.
However, Land King was a cunning old merchant.
Very cunning.
Many had suffered losses at his hands, but Ning Gu wasn’t willing to be one of them. Even though Ning Gu was a rare specimen among the Travellers, currently manifesting no signs of any ability mutation, not even ability to create a spark, in his eyes, Land King was just as rare of a specimen as him.
For the people who possessed utterly useless abilities like having pink snot bubbles, Ning Gu, who grew up beating up the pink-snotted kids and kicking the human lighters’ asses, could be considered a local bully.
So, Land King didn’t hesitate and took a few steps back.
Ning Gu kept his gaze fixed on Land King’s hand. It disappeared into the pocket of his jacket, and Land King quickly retrieved a folded piece of paper, quickly waved it in Ning Gu’s direction, and just as quickly returned it to his pocket.
“Did you bring it?” Land King asked.
Ning Gu had no doubts that this piece of paper was fake. What he wanted was a genuine picture with colours, one that could clearly convey its subject, unlike Crazy Uncle’s crude wall scribbles made with some stick, which that old man claimed to represent a caracal.
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.
Snfc jujlcra atf iluta, tf mbeiv rff atja atf obivfv qjqfg lc Ojcv Blcu’r tjcv kjr yijcx, vfnblv bo jcs wjgxlcur. Vemt gjgf lafwr, yjrfv bc tlr ecvfgrajcvlcu bo Ojcv Blcu’r lix jcv tlr bkc fzqfglfcmf jr j ibmji yeiis, kbeivc’a yf tlvvfc lc j qbmxfa rb fjrlis jmmfrrlyif. Pa kbeiv yf wbgf yfilfnjyif lo tf abbx la bea bo tlr ecvlfr.
All of that because a certain bully could attempt to steal it.
“One hand gives…” Without waiting for Land King to finish, Ning Gu sprang forward.
He was going for a steal.
Land King’s reaction was swift—he turned around and dashed into the darkness.
However, Ning Gu was even faster. Before Land King could even take three steps, Ning Gu swung his arm against the back of his head, causing him to fall to the ground.
Ning Gu pounced on him, pressing his knee on Land King’s lower back, rendering him immobile. Land King could only turn his head to the side and shout, “What are you doing! Assaulting and robbing an old man? Just see me reporting this to Captain! To think such a virtuous and respectable man like him would raise such a bandit like you!”
A group of Travellers formed a travel party, and the one to lead it would be referred to as Captain. Captain was Ning Gu’s uncle, who also brought him up. Ning Gu had a healthy fear of him, but it only kicked in when he was face-to-face with him—which wasn’t the case right now.
He tore off Land King’s jacket and retrieved that folded piece of paper from his inner pocket. Although he already knew it was fake, as he opened it, he still felt some unexplainable anticipation in his heart. Perhaps he simply wanted a real picture too much.
So, when he discovered that it was indeed a blank sheet of paper, not even the wind could blow away his disappointment.
“You dare to try tricking me with this?” Ning Gu pressed his knee against Land King’s back, pinching his neck from behind, “Your bones must be getting stiff and itching for a beating, huh?”
“Don’t you complain to me, do you even have the thing I requested!?” Land King shouted with difficulty.
Ning Gu stared at him for a moment, then reached a hand to his boot.
“What! You even wanna try to knife me!?” Land King barked.
“Do I even need a knife for someone like you?” Ning Gu slowly retrieved a feather from the little secret pocket on the inside of his boot. It had a grey-to-white gradient, a dainty and beautiful thing.
“Hm?” Land King strained to glance at his hand.
“I have it.” Ning Gu pinched the feather, waving it in front of his eyes.
Land King didn’t speak, but his eyes widened.
“Don’t you have new goggles?” Ning Gu carefully placed the feather back into his secret pouch while feeling around for the leather pouches on the side of Land King’s waist.
“You’ll exchange the feather for the goggles?” Land King asked.
Ning Gu was suddenly overwhelmed with anger, grabbed his hair, and forcefully banged his head against the ground. Land King’s eyes immediately rolled back and he fainted.
Ning Gu opened Land King’s pouch and rummaged through it, finding a pair of goggles—sure enough, they were new. He removed his old goggles, hanging them on his belt and putting on the new ones. The old ones could be repaired and given to Nail. The recent winds were so strong, he was almost going blind without any.
However, when Ning Gu went back to the shelter and searched around for Nail, he didn’t find him. Instead, when he returned home, he saw Captain standing in his room.
“Uncle,” He greeted, quickly tidying up the things piled on his bed, “Sit.”
When he was younger, he lived with Captain. After growing up, Captain found him this small cabin where he usually lived alone. There wasn’t much in there, just a small metal cabinet and table. Even his bed was haphazardly assembled from various old pillows stacked together. Most of the single-person cabins in the shelter were similar, only married couples would try to keep their homes in order.
However, Ning Gu’s cabin was even messier than those of other singles’, filled with piles of all sorts of things, some useful, some useless… Although in Captain’s eyes, they were all basically useless.
“There’s nowhere to sit,” Captain remarked, “Didn’t I have someone bring you a chair? Where did it go?”
Ning Gu cleared his throat and sat at the edge of the bed without saying a word.
“Did you trade it for something?” Captain leaned over to look at him, “Can you even get anything for it?”
“Anything can be traded.” Ning Gu replied.
“Oh,” Captain continued to watch him, “I thought you only stole things?”
Ning Gu knit his brows, surprised that Land King, that old sly fox of a thief, had actually complained to Captain first.
“For the next few days, try to stay out of trouble,” Captain’s brow was also furrowed, and he didn’t mention the matter of stealing again, “I’ll probably be taking the people on the train tomorrow, so you better not cause trouble again…”
“Tomorrow?” Ning Gu raised his head.
“Mn.” Captain nodded in reply, “So you just stay at home and beha-…”
“I want to go.” Ning Gu interrupted.
Captain looked at him with surprise.
Ning Gu had always wanted to go to the Main City since he was a kid. He was probably the only one among all the kids at the shelter who was so hung up about it, even secretly sneaking onto the train board twice. But because he always remained in one place without wandering off to anywhere, Captain chose to turn a blind eye and pretend he didn’t know.
Ning Gu was well aware that Captain didn’t want him to go to the Main City, so he always just snuck along in secret without ever openly expressing his desire to go there. This was the first time Ning Gu had straightforwardly stated that he wanted to go.
For a moment, Captain didn’t know how to respond.
“Let me go,” Ning Gu insisted, “Even Nail’s big brother is going, and he’s around my age, isn’t he?”
“It’s not about your age,” Captain replied , “You can’t go. The Main City may appear pretty and neat, but in reality, it’s actually far more dangerous than here.”
“Is it because I’m just an ordinary human?” Ning Gu stood up. “Aren’t all the Main City’s residents ordinary people too? They killed all those with mutated powers, and those they couldn’t kill, they exiled here.”
“Shut it.” Captain frowned.
“I’m not afraid to die,” Ning Gu said, “I’m only afraid of dying without having ever seen or experienced anything.”
“You,” Captain pointed to all the bartered items in his cabin, “You’ve seen more than I have.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Ning Gu replied, somewhat irritated. He didn’t usually speak so bluntly to Captain.
“No matter what you mean, you still can’t go.” Captain concluded and walked out of the cabin.
Ning Gu wanted to follow him and say more, but the door closed in front of his nose with a bang. He grabbed the handle and tried to open it, but didn’t manage to.
It was Captain’s job. He had to wait for him to walk a certain distance away before the door opened again.
In reality, it was kind of pointless, but what it conveyed now was that Captain didn’t want to continue talking with Ning Gu. Perhaps he knew that if they kept talking, Ning Gu might say something he didn’t want to hear.
“You won’t be able to stop him like this,” Li Xiang walked over from behind a lantern and glanced at Ning Gu’s cabin, “He’s not someone you can convince with just a few words. It’s already remarkable that he waited so many years before telling you.”
“He can’t go this time.” Captain said in a solemn tone.
“Is it a cargo run?” Li Xiang asked.
Captain didn’t respond immediately. He took a few steps and then paused, gazing at the two rows of red lanterns stretching out in front of him, extending into the darkness like a bridge suspended in the void.
The lanterns were all made of glass, their flames flickering in the strong winds but managing to endure without going out for a long time.
The shelter used those lanterns to mark the paths leading to various locations in the darkness, and there were designated individuals responsible for lighting them, jokingly referred to by Ning Gu as ‘human lighters’.
“Can you feel it?” Li Xiang stood there for a moment and then asked.
The earth was trembling. It wasn’t all that rare—another quake would come soon enough. However, what those tremors signified, nobody knew.
Once, there was a person who speculated that these tremors might affect the abilities of some people, but it was just a guess. This person possessed the ability feared the most by the people hiding in the deepest parts of the Main City. However, he disappeared after one of those tremors and was never seen again.
Abilities and the possession of them were unpredictable. Whether someone would have them, what they would be, how strong they would be—nobody knew that. But these abilities were all precious to them, a part of their identity and their body—like a hand, or a leg. Every disappearance of an ability was a rip Captain couldn’t tolerate.
“Confirm it with them one more time.” Captain continued walking forward.
“I did,” Li Xiang said, “There’s only one.”
“I’m not talking about this.” Captain looked around, then followed the lanterns into a small road, walking all the way until outside of the shelter before he finally stopped and turned to look at Li Xiang, “It needs to have a self-destruction system. We can’t have any more mistakes.”
“Understood.” Li Xiang nodded.
“It’s not easy to keep this place safe,” Captain adjusted his collar, “We need to eliminate any potential disturbances. Tell them that if they can’t guarantee that, there won’t be any further collaboration.”
Li Xiang glanced at him and nodded softly, “We’re still looking for that one, but we still shelter found it yet… Maybe the self-destruction system is just delayed?”
“Don’t entertain such fantasies,” Captain said, “We need to be prepared for the worst in all matters.”
“The worst…” Li Xiang furrowed his brow, speaking in a small voice, “It was intentional?”
“We have no allies.” Captain glanced at him and then turned, walking into the darkness.
.o0o.
Ning Gu held a cold light flask as he walked on the cold, uneven, and hard ground. He headed to the junkyard, planning to pass through it and continue on to the other side.
When he was a child, he asked Captain how big the Ghost City was. Captain didn’t respond.
In the eyes of the others, the Ghost City had no boundaries. Or rather, it wasn’t like it had no boundaries, but that no one could actually return from beyond them.
Since the day the Ghost City appeared, it had been constantly battered by the winds and shrouded in thick black fog. Beyond the black fog, there was only more black fog, and the parts where it was the thickest and the blackest marked the ‘borders’ that even Travellers wouldn’t cross.
The nearest ‘border’ was on the other side of the junkyard. When Ning Gu and Nail were young, they had gone there, sat in the highest spot, and watched the banks of black fog being swept over by the wind.
It looks like a tongue—Nail had once said.
Later, Ning Gu learned that this place was indeed called Tongue Bay.
Under normal circumstances, Ning Gu would never venture here alone. Travellers rarely entered the junkyard alone, and the normal Travellers living at the shelter wouldn’t even go there at all, let alone to Tongue Bay on the far side.
Everyone knew well that the aborigines of the Ghost City weren’t Travellers—the real Aborigines lurked deep in the darkness.
Crazy Uncle once said, “You know, they don’t have shape, they don’t have sight, nor hearing—however, they can sense everything warmer than the wind…”
And then they devour it.
Ning Gu often visited Tongue Bay, staying there for a long time. Rather than fearing the danger of encountering the Aborigines, he was more curious about what lay inside Tongue Bay.
Crazy Uncle held a cup in his hands, squatting on a pile of old scrap metal that looked like a spire. He watched Ning Gu as he slowly walked into the depths of the darkness.
There was also a distant flash of a shadow, well beyond the distance where Ning Gu could notice.
Crazy Uncle drank a sip of now-cold water, “Well then, let’s see whose luck holds out.”
Спасибо за перевод! ❤ Ли Сян такая заботливая мачеха. 😊 С нетерпением жду первой встречи мальчиков.🙃
Thanks for the update ❤️
Thank you for the chapter 💕
Ooohhh things are getting interesting!! 😆😆