qizi / 51
Tip: Tianxiu has two large influential and evenly matched adversaries——the military and the church.
When Xing Lou saw the words on the screen, a smile escaped his lips. After pondering for a bit, he promptly sent a reply.
——Your conjecture is correct.
As expected! Heng He’s eyes lit up. He never imagined that one day, he’d be able to communicate with his idol in such a “face-to-face” manner. This was much more exciting than earning the highest honor for scientific innovation!
Yue Ying, in the form of fiber strands, felt his way over, saying, “You scammed someone again.”
“How could you say I scammed him? All of the info I gave came from Tai Yin, I’m just in charge of passing on the word. If any of it were wrong, then that’d be rather strange.”
“Good thing this man is a science nerd who admires Tai Yin, so everything went smoothly.”
“Indeed. After this, we only need to be patient and wait for them to resurrect your body. A pity though, that after toiling away for so long, they’ll discover they’ve only recovered a mindless husk at the end. I can’t wait to see how the military will react.”
As they were talking, Heng He replied back with a wall of text.
Xing Lou shook his head with laughter, “This person is really so gullible, it’s pretty fun.”
——Good luck.
“I really don’t understand, what’s someone like him got that’s worth knowing about? Fine, forget it, I’ll do it.”
“Thanks,” said Xing Lou, now satisfied.
Zhu Yue’s “friendly” school classmates once stopped him for a heart-to-heart chat. In these ten years since, this situation became nothing out of the ordinary for him. Not only seniors, but even juniors often partook in looking for him to stir up trouble.
And so, for many years, he accumulated much of this sole experience—of shutting his eyes, staying silent, and enduring—waiting for the other party to finish venting and go away. However, to this day, he was still waiting.
Following a few muffled sounds, his surroundings became peaceful again. He secretly peeked, and his eyes reflected a pair of shoes. Next to them, the few bullies lay scattered all over the ground.
“It’s you?” Fearfully raising his head, he never would’ve guessed he’d run into Zhen He here. “Aren’t you from that store that…why are you here?”
Zhen He dodged his question and instead asked, “You don’t dare to fight back even when they’re at this level, no wonder everyone torments you. Can’t you toughen up a little?”
Standing in front of the Zhu Yue like this, he really didn’t see anything that merits reporting to Xing Lou.
“I-I can’t beat them.”
“You didn’t even hit back, so how could you beat them?”
Zhu Yue was anxiously looking at the ground. This person just easily 1v3ed. Although the opponents were three grades behind him, their abilities were still elicited respect.
“You, you seem very strong?”
Zhen He snorted, “What do you think?”
“Have you met Ying Feng from our class? He’s also very strong. Compared to him, I don’t know who’d be stronger.”
“At present, the odds are definitely not in my favor, but if he were still a Nestling, it’d probably be a tie,” reckoned Zhen He.
Zhu Yue buried his head deeply, and murmured, “You’re so strong and so rich, it’s really envious.”
As he was about to leave, he heard Zhu Yue say, “I want to buy something.”
On hearing there was a business opportunity, Zhen He immediately perked up, “You’ve spent a good sum on two deals with me already, are you sure you still have the money?”
Zhu Yue warily surveyed their surroundings and in a low voice, said, “Come with me.”
Zhen He followed Zhu Yue back to his dorm room and watched as he nervously locked the door.
“I’m here already, just say what you need to say.”
“I’ll say what I want first,” Zhu Yue bit the bullet, blurting out, “I want what Ling Xiao stole from the Base, it has to be exactly the same!”
Zhen He looked him up and down, amused, “There’s nothing difficult about getting something like that. But, do you really think you can afford it? Not to mention a whole month’s worth of living expenses, even a whole year’s worth might not be enough.”
“Wait here.”
Zhen He watched his every move as he opened a box by his bed, his expression growing increasingly surprised, up until Zhu Yue took out the calming soul stone inside.
“This…should be enough to buy what I want, right?”
Seeing that thing in Zhu Yue’s hands, his eyes never moved an inch away as he said, “No problem, just give me a day and I promise I’ll have what you want.”
Zhu Yue placed the calming soul stone back in its original place, “Once you have what I want, I’ll hand it over to you. I do have one condition, and that is that the transaction must take place offline, right in this room.”
“Why?”
“Whether it’s yours or mine, both items are classified as prohibited goods. It’s possible that dimensional transportation will be blocked by the system’s safety checks.”
“If that’s what you are worried about, it’s not a big deal. I know the main person in charge of Tianyuan very well, there’s never been an issue with the goods I’ve brought out!”
“No, I can’t afford to take any risks,” insisted Zhu Yue, “This is my requirement. If you want the calming soul stone then you must personally deliver it for this exchange!”
Zhen He helplessly nodded, “Fine then. I’ll go prepare what you want, please take good care of my reward in the meantime. I’ll personally come retrieve it.”
Ling Xiao had loitered around the principal’s office for a good half hour already. The principal guessed there must still be some other purpose for his sudden visit.
“If you have something you’d like to ask, just ask it.”
Since the principal said it that way, Ling Xiao went for it.
“Principal, do you know someone called Ling Xing?”
The principal’s heart tightened, “Why do you ask?”
The principal slowly paced about, getting lost in his memories, as he recalled, “I know this name very well because Ling Xing was among my first class of students when I first arrived at Bikong. Back then, I wasn’t a principal yet, and they were still new Nestlings. I watched over them from first to tenth grade, reliving the school days with them.”
“In that first class of students, many of them awakened at only nine years in Nestling stage, and by ten years, only Ling Xing had not awakened. Although their bodies awakened early, they collectively tried to resist the Adult Ceremony, so much so that they even formed an Anti-Adult Ceremony Coalition. Furthermore, their efforts extended to the school’s internet platforms, tirelessly enticing even more Nestlings to join their party.”
“There was once a time when they snuck behind the adults, looking for a hide-out to host their so-called ‘Anti-Adult Ceremony Coalition Convention’. Ling Xing was dragged into it as well. So on that day, just like that, a mishap occurred where one person’s hormones went out of control, affecting one, then another, until every single one of them were out of control. Taking up whatever weapons or fists they had, they turned to kill their fellow comrades.”
“Ling Xing miraculously wasn’t affected. However, trapped in a corner, he witnessed this scene unravel. On the second day, when the adults finally found them, half of the group was dead, and Ling Xing was the sole Nestling who survived.”
“In the aftermath of this, the principal and several others in management resigned out of taking responsibility for it, and it was from that moment on that I was to serve as the stand-in principal. Ling Xing, too, was also no longer my student.”
Ling Xiao had personally seen the departure of two souls; both left a very deep impression on him. It’s hard to imagine what it was like for Ling Xing who was hiding in the corner, watching his good friends and long-time classmates pull out their knives to face one another, blood splattering, a constant stream of souls departing—how must he have felt? But he also didn’t understand the principal’s last few words.
“No longer your student? Why is that?”
“The survivors of the incident all had varying degrees of psychological shock. Ling Xing was no different. He could neither accept the Adult Ceremony, nor face his former classmates, therefore not long after, he dropped out.”
“Dropped out?” As a Nestling who lived in school their whole life since waking up, where else could he go after quitting school?
From the top of the bookshelf, the principal pulled out a worn-out book, its cover coated in dust. He lightly wiped it off.
“This is that year’s graduation album, this copy is his but he never came back for it.”
The principal flipped to the first page. Compared to the photos of the deceased that Ling Xiao saw at the library, the group photo on this page was even more heartbreaking. In the photo, each and every person was holding a photo frame, and inside each frame was a black and white photo of another person—this was the only way their class graduation photo could be complete.
The principal pointed out the only empty-handed youth at the edge, “This is Ling Xing. The photo was taken the day before he dropped out. When the photoshoot finished the day after, he left right away. Of the people who are in this photograph, very few are still alive.”
“And Ling Xing?” asked Ling Xiao eagerly, “Is he still alive?”
Falling silent for a moment, the principal slowly shook his head.
“After he left school, he went on to live at the church. I would occasionally hear news about him through others. Apparently, he managed to escape the haze from those years and lived pretty well. But in the end, he never became an adult.”
“So how did he die?”
“He was executed.”
Ling Xiao was startled, “He was executed?”
“Because he committed a crime.”
“What crime?”
“The crime of treason.”
Ling Xiao was shocked speechless. He clearly remembered Yao Tai once said that it has been many years since anyone had been served the death penalty at the Hall of Nightmares. Moreover, for treason, the most serious criminal charge in Tianxiu—it was absolutely unpardonable.
“The news was a hot topic at the time, though sadly, by the time the truth was revealed, the situation was long over. I also didn’t get the chance to see him one last time.”
The principal let out a sigh and closed the book.
“About the matters that concern him, I only know up to here. If you still want to learn even more, you can only visit the church from those years to seek answers.”
With a heavy heart, Ling Xiao hugged the graduation album from the principal’s office as he stepped out. He took the initiative to call Ying Feng to avoid violating one of his conditions.
“I need to take a trip to the nearby church for some matters, so I might return later than usual tonight.”
“What are you doing at the church?”
“Helping the principal deliver something,” he said, only telling half of the truth.
Ying Feng couldn’t trust his piloting skills, so he asked, “Did you forget what happened yesterday?”
“Those were special circumstances yesterday, I’m in great shape today,” said Ling Xiao grudgingly.
“Wait for me. I’ll bring you there.”
Because they paid a large sum of money towards the traffic incident, Ling Xiao put on a surprisingly trustworthy face, and when Ying Feng arrived to pick him up, he perfunctorily sat down on the passenger’s seat, clasping an old book to his chest.
“What’s that?”
“Ah, it’s the thing the principal asked me to deliver.”
This was the first time either of them have visited a church. Although the church where Ling Xing was living was definitely not big, it had a very beautiful courtyard. In it grew a wide variety of flowers and plants; some of these were Tianxiu’s native species, but many more were ones they have never seen before. It was as if every planet’s exotic plant species were gathered here, in this very small courtyard.
They followed the small trail passing through the courtyard and stepped into the church. In front of them, at the very top, an image of God was hung up. Colorful stained glass blocked the sun’s rays from entering, and it was only through the small pane behind the image of God that rays of light could penetrate, showing off its original golden yellow color.
Ying Feng never came to this place before, and he never talked to God either, but at that very moment he set his foot in, he felt an overwhelming peace, a type of feeling so indescribable and so beautiful that any restlessness in his soul settled down. It was like no anger, no sadness, no hatred—nothing—in the world deserved disrupting this repose, and all that remained was tranquility, hope, and everything good.
As he quietly absorbed these feelings, time seemed to have slowed down; it was no longer one second followed by another second, but rather the dust that leisurely danced in the sunlight, the hourglass that someone tilted at a 60 degree angle, the ding dong of bells obscured by the sound of the faucet head that had been too loosely screwed on, leaving a small aperture that made time flow outwards drip by drip; the past, the present, the future, all of it was converging into this single moment—the same could be said for the person in front of him who also stayed motionless for a long time and still had yet to move, as if he were pleasantly sharing in this prolonged moment in time with him.
Ying Feng suddenly felt Ling Xiao’s stillness was somewhat long.
“Ling Xiao,” he called out.
The rays of light that passed through the window pane must detour around God, so they hit the spot behind Ling Xiao, causing his smiling expression to be half hidden in a mist.
Yet, because they had superior vision, he was able to capture each and every minute detail.
Because Ying Feng was relaxed, his soul fragments were carefreely drifting through his whole body, but at that moment, they abruptly and intensely gathered together; they striked, ramming into his heart—a long, long, very long time ago, it seemed like someone else also used to show him this same sort of smile, and also said these words to him:
——If you aren’t capable of understanding human emotions, at the very least try to trust God. God who loves everyone will also love you. As long as you believe in him, his love will definitely reach the depths of your heart, letting you be just like an ordinary man who can learn how to love.
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