translator: loop
proofreader: roki
Perhaps for a few seconds, or perhaps for a while, neither Chu Si nor Sa’e spoke.
Such a face-to-face silence had never taken place between them before, so it seemed to last a very, very long time.
However, it was wrong to say that neither of them felt anything. In that moment, the past few decades began to churn, like ash flying up after something fell onto a dusty ground.
It was indeed very surprising that Sa’e Yang would one day be influenced by others. In fact, just that “he took the initiative to express his own thoughts” was already surprising enough.
Regardless, even so, he still had a typical “Sa’e Yang” way of speaking.
I… I… I… I…, every sentence of his always had that many “I”s.
If he had heard this thirty years ago, and Sa’e Yang had looked at him with such a gaze, perhaps Chu Si would’ve been moved for a second and softened a bit.
But unfortunately, this was not thirty years ago.
The walls that he had polished for so many years, would, after all, be much stronger than they were when he was younger.
Chu Si lowered his gaze and lifted it up again a moment later with a calm look in his eyes. “So you stayed because you were unhappy.”
Sa’e Yang said, “Because you weren’t happy.”
Chu Si didn’t argue with him again over this sentence, and paused for a moment before speaking. “I haven’t been happy for a long time, Sa’e Yang. After I turned fourteen, I was basically never happy again. The things you did were only a handful of fire atop everything…”
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.
He wanted to say that if some problems didn’t have their roots resolved, then it would be impossible for them to change too much, and that there was no need for Sa’e to force himself to stay. But the words swirled around on the tip of his tongue, and for some unknown reason, he didn’t speak them out.
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Dea qfgtjqr la kjrc’a pera yfmjerf bo atja…
Vj’f Tjcu ibbxfv ja Jte Vl obg j ktlif, atfc revvfcis rqbxf bea. “Qtfc P rjlv P tjv j gfjrbc ab rajs, sbe kfgf j ilaaif tjqqs.”
Chu Si: “…with which eye did you see that?”
Sa’e Yang bent two fingers and pointed them toward himself. “With both.”
“…” Chu Si looked at him expressionlessly, threw out a “you didn’t,” and turned back. He directly zoomed in on the video frame, reconfirmed the blurry building was indeed what he recognized it to be, and pulled out his communicator to connect to Tang’s channel.
He looked very busy, busy to the point where he didn’t have time to pay attention to anyone.
Tang’s side connected very quickly. “Executive.”
“Where are you right now?” Chu Si asked.
“At the entrance of the East Tower. We’ve just sealed it, and the wanderers are taking turns greeting our various relatives, cursing everything in sight, quite tragic…” Tang complained, dragging out his words.
Chu Si: “You’ve worked hard.”
Tang: “As long as my body doesn’t work hard, I’m okay.”
Chu Si: “…”
“Oh right, Executive, you said before there might be some big movements.” Curiously, Tang asked, “What movements?”
Chu Si said, “I was just about to speak about that. In the video recording Carlos Black gave me, I saw—”
Halfway through, he felt the hair at the back of his head being poked twice by someone. Apart from Sa’e Yang, who was leaning behind him, who else could it be?!
Chu Si frowned, tilting his head away. “Move your hand.”
Tang: “Ah??? What hand?”
Chu Si spoke: “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Tang: “Oh.”
Sa’e Yang lazily added a sentence from behind him. “Executive, even your tone of voice is livelier. Obviously, you’ve become a little happier.”
Chu Si: “You shut up.”
Tang: “???”
Chu Si was so angry he almost laughed. He rubbed his brows and said to Tang, “Forget it, bring Le Pen and everyone to the Central Fort. I’ll connect to the group channel in a while, it’s not convenient for me to speak right now.”
“No problem.” Tang first replied to the previous request, and then ignorantly said, “Why isn’t it convenient for you to speak right now?”
Because there was someone behind him who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
Chu Si hung up immediately and turned to Sa’e Yang. “Get off, I need to close the hatch.”
Sa’e Yang supported his chin: “Then close it, I’m not getting off.”
Chu Si: “…”
He was too lazy to argue with this bastard and slapped the control button, causing the hatch to hum and close. He piloted the aircraft to lift off the ground, turned it around, and flew in the opposite direction of the Central Fort.
“Where are you flying, Executive?” Sa’e Yang looked at the cockpit’s screen.
“Your old den,” Chu Si said coldly.
“The Space Prison?” Sa’e Yang readily accepted the term “old den” and nodded, standing up straight and stretching his neck and shoulders.
His steps were still as quiet as before, but Chu Si could sense that he was walking deeper into the aircraft. “The aura of Sa’e Yang” permeating through the cockpit finally eased up a little.
Only when Chu Si moved did he realize he had been holding his shoulders taut.
He freed up one hand to rub his shoulder and called out that paused video frame again. As his gaze landed on that blurry building, he fell into a trance for the briefest second.
That had once been a place he was very familiar with. After all, he spent the ages of eight to fourteen there… that was the apartment Jiang Qi had once lived in.
But how could it possibly have appeared in this video?
That apartment undoubtedly did not exist anymore. Not long after Chu Si entered the sanatorium, that entire apartment building had been included in the new urban planning list and was demolished. Chu Si later went to see the newly constructed buildings, which were far from what was originally there, and definitely not what was shown in the frame.
When Chu Si first saw the frame, he almost thought he was hallucinating. After confirming several times, his confusion only deepened.
Perhaps it was just his illusion, but he felt that originally jumbled and unrelated events were slowly being strung together. Although he couldn’t find a clear connection between them right now, some things were gradually being revealed.
A strong intuition urged him to go find that fragment and take a look, to go take a look at the apartment that couldn’t have possibly appeared yet still did.
WOO Jiang Qi might still be alive!! Also, is Sa’e Yang showing signs of love for our Executive? 👀
I AM LITERALLY SO GLAD LOOP-NIM PICKED UP THIS GEM OF A NOVEL! GLAD TO SEE OFFICER CHU AND YANGYANG BACK TO ACTION!
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, EXECUTIVE LOOP!😙✨