TL: Hua
—
The heat wave was rolling, and the sound of the explosion was earth-shattering, setting off a turbulent wave like a tsunami!
Wen Zheliu’s windbreaker fluttered in the bursting golden-red light, floating into a hazy silhouette in the twilight. Thick smoke was accompanied by splashing fire, like beautiful but cruel fireworks, spewing up into the thick ink-like sky and igniting a cluster of eye-catching coordinate points in the darkness of several kilometers in radius.
He Qin raised his eyebrows; his handsome and deep features seemed to be brightened by the light, and he murmured and laughed, “That little thing…..”
The headlights are like the dazzling pupils of a wild beast opened at midnight, with white gas roaring and spewing, shooting towards the distant flames!
Wen Zheliu faced the blazing flames with his back, raised his hand to wipe the sweat that was smoldering from the heat, and said proudly, “A real man never looks back at an explosion!”
But… Are you sure the ghost is gone?
To be sure, he covered his eyes with his hands again and looked back at the thick and choking black smoke carefully. Even if it were still alive, it wouldn’t be as difficult to deal with…
Except for the continuous crackling sound in the flames and the burning sound of the fire swallowing and licking the air, there is no movement inside. Wen Zheliu felt relieved, turned around, and walked a few steps forward. Seeing two bright headlights approaching on the horizon, his heart couldn’t help but tremble.
Is it He Qin?
He panicked and pulled out the communicator he had just ripped off from his pocket and realized that there was already a signal on it, so he quickly put it on his ear and dialed the team channel.
The sound of the connection rang three times, and He Qin immediately picked it up with a smile, saying, “Baby? I saw you; there was a lot of noise.”
Suddenly hearing his doting address and gentle voice, Wen Zheliu felt like he was reborn. He finally relaxed completely at this moment, wishing he could collapse on the ground immediately, and roared recklessly.
“Brother, did you drive here!” He shouted excitedly, “I saw you too!”
“Stay where you are and don’t move.” He Qin said lazily and at the same time with heart-wrenching reliability, “Brother is here to pick you up.”
“Yeah!” Wen Zheliu smiled with crooked brows and eyes, the tip of his cane dangling on the sandy ground, waiting for He Qin to pick him up.
A burnt beam broke from the roof and fell into the seething fire with a loud crash. He Qin’s car was speeding over from the end of the winding road. The headlights were getting closer and closer to him. Wen Zheliu waited intently, but he didn’t notice a burning figure staggeringly standing up in the raging flames behind him. The chainsaw was turning in its hands, making intermittent buzzing sounds.
It stepped forward, step by step. The carbonized and decayed leg bones struggled to support the weight of its body and its murder weapon, the sound of its footsteps masked by the burgeoning and exploding fire. Leighton Owen’s flesh was bare and charred, half of his mangled cheekbones hanging from his face, tethered by disconnected facial tissues, the other half dangling below his upper dental bed, swinging precariously on his chest. His only remaining eyeballs emitted a venomous and bloodthirsty light, and he slowly approached Wen Zheliu, who had his back to him, and slowly raised the chainsaw in his hand.
Wen Zheliu’s attention was completely on He Qin, feeling only a wave of heat coming from behind. He counted eagerly; at this time, He Qin’s car was still 600 meters, 500 meters, and 400 meters away…
Owen’s carbonized flesh came off in large chunks and fell to the dry ground. His bones creaked, and the chainsaw, which turned intermittently, was raised high above his head.
Three hundred meters, two hundred meters… Wen Zheliu was about to jump up and wave, but He Qin’s expression changed drastically!
One hundred meters.
The cold hairs on Wen Zheliu’s back stood up instinctively in the climax, bringing a wave of chills and fiery shudders to his whole body. He turned his head suddenly, and the knight’s cane collided with the chainsaw violently, stirring up a cluster of radiant sparks!
Fifty meters.
He Qin slammed on the brakes. The tires on the empty road made a sharp and piercing friction sound, spinning and flying over the ground. Before the car could stop, he leaped out of the window like a streak of black lightning. By passing Wen Zheliu’s body, he rushed forward and landed an extremely fierce roundabout kick on the fierce ghost, sending it flying more than ten meters away and crashing into the burning ruins!
Wen Zheliu was still in shock, trembling and shouting, “Brother!”
The car kept going and continued to slant several meters on the asphalt road. He Qin’s eyes were red, reflecting the fire in front of him. He stared at the screaming and struggling ghost in the firelight. The strong muscles on his shoulders and neck tensed up, slowly rising and falling under his clothes. He immediately strode forward, and the soles of his boots crushed the scorching sand and stone into countless pieces of scattered debris. Before Wen Zheliu could stop him, he saw him stomp on the ghost’s charred wrist bone into pieces!!
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.
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“How is it?” He Qin pulled Wen Zheliu up. “Did it scare you?”
“No, no…” Wen Zheliu shook his head in a daze. “You’re too fast, really.”
He Qin was patting the dust off his body; upon hearing this, he couldn’t help but look up at him strangely.
“Little baby,” his chest was still heaving slightly, and his face was still full of hostility, but the flirtatious brows were full of affectionate sarcasm. “Even if you want to praise me, you can’t just praise a man’s speed, understand?”
Wen Zheliu was taken aback for a moment, then he realized in a second, blushed, and almost kicked him: “F*ck you!”
He Qin smiled softly, reached out, and pulled him to the car. “Let’s go; it’s time to go back.”
The two got into the car. He Qin started the engine, and the wheels simply retreated, turning the slanted body onto the right track and then speeding up instantly. The giant steel beast let out a dull roar, rolling forward in an instant. Wen Zheliu could only feel his seat bumping a bit, and the still-rotated chainsaw was finally crushed and shattered into fragments that splashed all over the ground.
Wen Zheliu took a deep breath, then slumped his shoulders, and immediately felt a deep exhaustion sweeping over his mind and body. The belated soreness made him paralyze in the stale-smelling seat, just wanting to have a good sleep.
“Tired?” He Qin said softly, “If you’re tired, just sleep for a while. There’s still time.”
Wen Zheliu pinched the bridge of his nose and replied vaguely, “Forget it… Actually, I’m not very tired. Maybe there are still messy things in the center of the city. Let’s endure it first.”
He Qin put one hand on the car window and nodded slightly. “Everything in the center of the city has been slaughtered… But it’s okay if you don’t sleep. The window was smashed by me when I came, and now the cold wind is pouring in. It’s easy to catch a cold when you sleep in the car.”
“Can I still have a cold in the game…” Wen Zheliu laughed weakly. “What’s wrong with the world?”
“Aren’t people always like this?” He Qin chuckled, “Pursue illusory beauty in the real world, but strive for reality in the game—what you can’t get is the best. This is the deep-rooted bad habit of human beings.”
“It makes sense.” Wen Zheliu pulled himself together and told He Qin what happened just now. He Qin listened intently. When it reached the part where the ghost imitated his voice to talk to Wen Zheliu, he couldn’t help but stroke the corner of his lips across thoughtfully. “It seems that the blow just now was still too light, wasn’t it?”
“Anyway, it can’t do evil now,” Wen Zheliu sighed. “I don’t know what happened to the others.”
“City D, where Chen Feiluan and Lin Miao are located, is the safest place,” He Qin said. “They met each other with almost no injuries and are now rushing to Melios; Xie Yuanyuan and Li Tianyu can’t be contacted, and the same goes for Du Zijun, Xi Ling, and Bai Jingxing; it’s still not clear what their current condition is.”
Wen Zheliu said enviously, “What good luck to encounter a bye.”
“This is fate.” He Qin shook his head, “The difficulty of this world has increased exponentially. Compared with this time, the first world is nothing more than a small fight… It is really lucky to have a bye.”
Wen Zheliu nodded wearily, and faint dark circles gradually appeared under his eye sockets. He Qin took the time to look at him and hurriedly said, “Baby, hey! Don’t sleep; you will be sick if you sleep now. Do you want some alcohol? Here, cover yourself with this blank and have a drink.”
As he said that, he took out a thin cashmere blanket from the inventory and put it on Wen Zheliu. “Cover up and drink some alcohol to warm yourself up. We’ll be there soon.”
Wen Zheliu struggled to wrap the blanket tightly. He took out the spirits that could be used for heating and disinfecting from his inventory, tried his best to take a small sip, and squinted his eyes drowsily in the cold wind. He Qin said with concern: “Drink another bottle of strength supplement; have you bought it? If you didn’t, take mine.”
“I bought it… ” Wen Zheliu nodded slowly, opened a bottle and drank it. After his physical strength recovered by 70%, his mental state finally looked better.
“Say something, baby.” He Qin said, “For example, what happened to you in the past? Is there any impressive story? Or those people you’ve met in life, including your family and your parents….”
He Qin suddenly stopped talking, as if he realized that he had a slip of the tongue, and quickly added, “It’s okay not to talk about these things. But you can’t sleep, understand? As long as you relax now, you will definitely get sick tomorrow.”
But it was too late; those two sentences immediately caught Wen Zheliu’s attention. His eyes turned red from fatigue, and he said in a low voice, “I have no family, and my parents are long gone.”
“…your guardians,” He Qin followed his words, “they treat you badly, don’t they?”
“Very bad.” Wen Zheliu smiled wryly. “It’s very bad.”
“Did they hit you?” He Qin said in a flat tone without any emotion, “Or scold you?”
“All of them.” Wen Zheliu replied listlessly, “When I was a child, I was beaten a lot because I was disobedient, and I often had conflicts with their son. Then once… I was beaten into the hospital. Afterward, they rarely physically punished me anymore, just scolding.”
He Qin didn’t speak for a long time. In the dark night, his profile was as sharp and cold as a cast steel statue.
Wen Zheliu was a little puzzled. The choking liquor began to take effect, making his whole body warm. He could only open his eyes a little bit, but he still asked softly, in doubt, “…Brother?”
“I’m listening,” He Qin said indifferently, like the surface of a frozen sea. But no one knows whether what rages underneath is an ocean big enough to swallow an island or lava that burns the earth. “They beat you into the hospital …… I heard it.”
Wen Zheliu seemed to wake up a little bit. On such a deep, silent, and distant night, he seemed to be walking in memory land and could pick up souvenirs of the past from the dilapidated scenes passing by the window at any time.
“Why don’t you apply for the civil affairs department to intervene?” He Qin asked in a low voice, “Whether it’s the Vulnerable Groups Protection Agency, a private self-help organization, or an officially opened safeguard department, all of them can quickly solve your problem, or you can come to…..”
He wanted to say, “Or you can come to me and find N-star company”, but when he thought of that unbearable secret, he still swallowed the words abruptly, turning into a short sigh in his throat.
Wen Zheliu smiled slightly, his facial muscles relaxed, showing a very peaceful trance-like state.
Why not ask for help?
He closed his eyes heavily, and the shadow of the electric pole passing by was like a powerful bat that knocked him into the depths of his memory in one fell swoop.
He went back to the afternoon ten years ago. The air smelled of medicine, and behind a regular line of pure white and blue light, he saw himself—the small, powerless version of himself.
“I want to sue you.” The little boy’s eyes were red, as if he had been quenched by fire. With tears streaming down his face, he said, word by word and almost exhausting all the vicious strength and determination that he could muster at his age, “I, will, definitely, sue, you, people.”
The two pale-faced adults glanced at each other. Wen Qian stood up and said in a low voice, “I’ll go watch outside.”
Then she took away Liu Tianxiong, who was sobbing, and planned to go outside the ward.
“What do you want to do?” The young Wen Zheliu asked vigilantly, pressing one hand on the light screen, “I can ring the alarm bell at any time.”
“No, no, no!” Liu Jianzhang, who stayed alone, quickly waved his hands, smiled carefully, and took out a velvet box from his arms and put it beside him. “Of course I have something to tell you, Zheliu.”
Wen Zheliu couldn’t stop crying, but his tone was still jerky and cold: “No matter what you say, it won’t affect my decision.”
Liu Jianzhang rubbed his fingers in embarrassment, as if he were considering his words. After a while, he said dryly, “Zheliu, do you still remember what your parents left you?”
Wen Zheliu let out a cough or a sneer from his throat and said in a hoarse voice, “Didn’t they all get snatched away by you?”
“No, there is actually one more thing…it is very important, so important that your parents can sign a paper document in person, saying that it will be left to you when you become an adult.” As he spoke, he lifted the kraft bag by his feet , bypassing the sealing line on the top and taking out a few sheets of snow-white paper from the inside. “You know… well, maybe you’re still too young to understand anything about what your parents did for a living before.”
Having said that, he gradually calmed down, and his eyes also carried the characteristic cunning of adults when facing children: “They did a good job of keeping secrets, and neither your aunt nor I know much about their specific circumstances, but—”
He paused, not surprised by Wen Zheliu’s increasingly stunned look.
In the past nearly ten years, Wen Zheliu still remembers the helplessness he felt when he saw the handwriting left by his parents.
They jointly signed a statement with strong words and a firm attitude: In case of accidents, the coming-of-age gift they plan to give Wen Zheliu will be kept by the designated guardian of the civil affairs department. It will not be handed over to him until the day he turns 18. During this period, Wen Zheliu himself did not have the rights and qualifications to hold it.
Seeing his bewildered expression, Liu Jianzhang smiled a little smugly: “Look, that’s it.”
Wen Zheliu gritted his teeth and stared at him fiercely, his cheeks surging with an abnormal halo of red because of his anger: “Then I’m suing you now; what my parents gave me can just as well wait until I’m eighteen years old to be handed over to me, but with a new custodian! I can hand them over to the government and seek help from the Vulnerable Groups Protection Agency…”
His immature and resentful accusations stopped suddenly, and his snow-white face showed consternation.
It’s because Liu Tianxiong ignored his threat, put the document back into the kraft paper bag, then slowly entered the fingerprint verification code and sonic password in front of him before opening the velvet box at hand.
Mechanical and precise light waves flowed and glowed, like a slowly blooming star string, recreating the moment of destruction and birth in the very short instant from zero to one second at the beginning of the Big Bang.
The young Wen Zheliu had never seen such a scene before, so he couldn’t help being stunned.
When the lid of the box was opened to the maximum and the halo of light cleared, he saw tiny, stable dustless force fields forming inside, with a …… strange and beautiful object in the center.
It is composed of chips, and its body is engraved with regular and orderly dense patterns as thin as hair. The center part is as white as snow, as narrow as a shuttle, with smooth lines. Five exquisite brackets of the same amplitude are unfolded on both sides, with ten finely crafted black gold chips diagonally inserted.
It seemed to be the result of the extreme condensation of the highest level of technology and manpower—so much so that it was endowed with life, making it resemble a crane that would spread its wings and fly at any moment, with white feathers and black wings.
He was captivated by such a cold, inorganic, yet flowing beauty. The young Wen Zheliu stretched out his hand, and couldn’t help but want to touch the most precious treasure left to him by his parents.
Snapped!
Liu Jianzhang closed it mercilessly.
“…You!” Fantasy was coldly driven away. Wen Zheliu was suddenly startled and glared at him.
“Do you know what this is, kid?” Liu Jianzhang looked at him complacently and sneered, “To tell you the truth, I’ve been working for N-Star for eleven years now, and I have never seen this kind of craftsmanship and security measures, but I can recognize that these two sides are equipped with expansion devices!”
He lowered his voice, his eyes flashing with disbelief and contempt. “Whether you can understand it or not, let me tell you now, I have used all the analytical instruments I can use and all the contact methods I can find, yet I can’t decipher what’s really hidden in this storage array.”
“But!” He immediately increased his tone irritably. “But! Its capacity has greatly exceeded all storage containers available on the market, and this thing is full! There are ten expansion devices on the side; do you have any idea what that really means!”
Wen Zheliu didn’t speak. He watched as Liu Jianzhang pulled his own hair, walked around the ward twice, and concluded to him: “Although I don’t know what your parents left for you, I can be sure this has far exceeded the upper limit of information capacity stipulated by the government for citizens to carry. This thing is illegal! Thanks to this statement, your aunt and I will also be implicated!”
He took a breath, turned around, and said confidently to Wen Zheliu, “I didn’t lie to you, and I don’t have to lie to you about something like this. So you can go ahead and sue me. Sue me for embezzling your family’s property, for mistreating you and beating you up, but if you do—you’ll never see it again.”
He raised the box in his hand: “With its cost and the technology of making it, as long as I hand it over to the public or sell it on the black market, no matter who I give it to, I guarantee that you will never find this again in your entire life—a coming-of-age birthday present from your parents—an illegal coming-of-age birthday present. Think about it; it’s the last thing they left you!”
The young Wen Zheliu paled, silently looking at the black velvet box in his hand.
His family, his love, the hope he left behind…
…his father and mother.
Liu Jianzhang knew he had won.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, showed a smug smile at the gloomy child on the hospital bed, and said softly, “Okay, in fact, we are all a family; there’s no need to make such a mess, right? Uncle won’t hit you again in the future. Tell the police nicely, ok? Being an obedient child is better than anything else, you know?”
What happened later, Wen Zheliu couldn’t remember clearly; all he knew was that he kept silent during several consecutive questioning and chose to shake his head in denial.
“…Little friend, don’t be afraid. Tell Auntie the truth. Did they treat you badly? Apart from this time, did they abuse you verbally or physically? Don’t be afraid; just tell me the truth, alright?”
“…”
“…Really not? Little friend, nowadays many public welfare media and private media on social platforms can speak out for you. As long as you think that they intentionally hurt you, they can be isolated immediately and subject to corresponding legal sanctions. There are many people behind your back who are supporting and helping you. You really don’t have to be afraid; come on, look into Auntie’s eyes.”
“…”
He just lowered his eyes and pursed his lips together… then slowly shook his head.
Wonder whether he got back the black velvet box from his relatives already
Thanks for the chapter
Okay I have a theory that his uncle actually isn’t in possession of the original coming of age present. It seems a little too easy for him to just be able to open and close the box at his will. You’d think it’d be a little more difficult than that. If it’s not like this and he’s telling the truth then this is just even more sad.
Honestly, they should have removed him from his living situation even if he denied being mistreated by those dogs. Clearly he wasn’t safe with them. Also, why let his suspected abusers visit him in the hospital and give them an opportunity to coerce or threaten him in the first place? This child welfare system is really lacking.