Chapter 50 - 2#
When he thought of nothing at all, it was like gently swaying with the soft waves. The most important thing was that the moment he woke up, he could clearly feel the solid sensation of touching the ground.
All the unease and restlessness were smoothed away in an instant.
Ever since the cataclysm struck, his precognitive abilities had vanished without a trace, and the heavy memories in his mind had been carefully sealed deep within. Chu Chenli gradually managed to get a good night’s sleep, but between life and death, he had little leisure to go stargazing every night.
Years of habit were easily erased in a crisis environment. When he returned to reality and looked up again, it was a different state of mind.
“Everything has changed, but this place is still the same as before.” Chu Chenli reached out his hand, aligning a faintly visible star through the gaps between his fingers, and murmured softly, “I wonder how many people can still see it…”
Though they came from different places and might not have known each other before the cataclysm, they were all born under the same starry sky.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know how many people could still see this sky again.
Mu Yanshen read the look on his face and knew he was thinking about the other teammates.
Judging by Shen Xuanyi’s earlier reaction, Su Xingyun probably wouldn’t be coming back. What about the others?
Driven by some invisible impulse, Mu Yanshen grabbed Chu Chenli’s hand and asked, “Li Ge, do you want to know about the others…”
Chu Chenli turned his hand and gripped Mu Yanshen’s wrist, exerting a little force as he interrupted him: “No, I don’t.”
Mu Yanshen opened his mouth, then swallowed his words back.
Chu Chenli’s reaction clearly showed he knew what Mu Yanshen was about to say.
In a way, Mu Yanshen’s ability could be considered a life detector. Among their teammates, there were ability users he hadn’t successfully “copied,” but among those on the existing list, he could clearly sense the borrowed abilities vanishing one by one due to death.
He couldn’t be sure how many were still alive, but he could clearly know how many were definitely gone.
The fact that Mu Yanshen only spoke now already made the answer obvious.
Chu Chenli reached out and ruffled his hair, a little helplessly, and said, “It’s better to hold on to a little hope…”
Mu Yanshen didn’t press further.
After a brief silence, Chu Chenli released his grip, apologetically rubbing the red mark on Mu Yanshen’s wrist while poking at the campfire.
“What about you?” Chu Chenli asked. “Is there anyone you want to see? Before you met us?”
“No.” Mu Yanshen answered curtly.
He wasn’t deliberately avoiding the question; he just didn’t know how to answer it on the spot.
“I don’t have a family or friends,” Mu Yanshen slowly recalled, staring into the fire. “Every day I only saw certain teachers and directors. They usually wouldn’t stay with me for long.”
“Why?”
“They said they were afraid I’d develop feelings for them.”
“…” He almost forgot—this guy was actually a villain NPC.
Chu Chenli didn’t know how to comfort him. His outstretched hand hovered in midair before finally gently stroking Mu Yanshen’s back.
Mu Yanshen caught a glimpse of his expression from the corner of his eye. It was clearly etched with concern and reluctance.
Being treated as a tool always seemed like a cruel thing.
Mu Yanshen knew that a casual remark could deepen Chu Chenli’s sympathy, perhaps even earn him more indulgence and care. For example, his only “friend” had been a bunny plushie—the sole kindness the lab staff had ever shown him.
Until a certain ability experiment, when the plushie was torn apart in a pool of blood.
After that, he never had a “friend” again.
Chu Chenli had personally seen the illusions he constructed in the game levels—half real, half fake. But even if only one part in ten was true, such an experience would already be enough to move anyone.
The original intention of that game was not to erode the softer parts of human nature, but to teach them to stay vigilant, sharpen their combat skills, and learn to take responsibility…
When Mu Yanshen played the villain NPC, he simply exploited that weakness in them.
But if asked whether he had really suffered that much…
His honest answer was “No.”
The truth was the opposite. Seeing unrelated people shed tears of sympathy and pity for him only amused him, but he quickly grew bored.
He didn’t suffer, nor did he hold a grudge against his past.
As for the bunny plushie, he only kept it out of habit. When it was torn apart, he soon forgot about it.
It wasn’t until the game officially started, when he gained freedom within the game’s bounds, that he found inspiration from an old movie just before his own scene began.
In fact, he couldn’t even remember whether the plushie was actually a bunny, or a little pig, or a bear.
Before that, his emotions, desires, motives, goals… were all blank. He wanted nothing, so naturally he felt no pain.
Until the first time he saw Chu Chenli.
That faint spark of curiosity was the first fluctuation in his emotions, stirred by something external.
Unintentional attention, ever-accumulating curiosity—even just a slight emotional tilt was enough to cause his completely blank scales to tip easily to one side, gradually building into an undisguised, naked preference.
If Mu Yanshen were to look back on his own life, he would feel that his life only truly began from the moment he met Chu Chenli.
As for the past before that, he didn’t think it was something that needed sympathy or pity from others. To him, it was merely a tool to exchange for trivial benefits and needs.
But Mu Yanshen inexplicably didn’t want to use such a tool to cheat something out of Chu Chenli.
—At least to himself, that would be deception.
So he hesitated, swallowing back all the embellished details.
“Nothing worth remembering. Mostly blank spaces, and I don’t remember them clearly myself,” Mu Yanshen said. “But maybe it’s because they were too boring—far less interesting than life now—so they gradually slipped my mind.”
“Do you think life now is very interesting?” Chu Chenli asked him.
“Yes. Does saying that upset you?” Mu Yanshen turned his head, using the firelight to read his expression. “Saying this might make some people want to punch me, but I honestly think the cataclysm was a stroke of luck for me.”
Chu Chenli shook his head and said softly, “That’s a good thing.”
Mu Yanshen asked, “What?”
Chu Chenli said, “If tragedy only ever piles on more tragedy, then it’s nothing but pure tragedy. Being able to encounter happy things lets you see a glimmer of hope.”
“As long as I can see you, I’m very happy,” Mu Yanshen said. “So Li Ge, no matter what, you have to survive.”
He stared at Chu Chenli’s face, the firelight making his eyes shine brightly. At that moment, Chu Chenli was startled to realize that a gaze could burn so hot.
Chu Chenli’s hand trembled slightly. A leaf he had picked up spun in circles before falling into the fire, quickly turning to ash.
Chu Chenli stared at the leaf’s “corpse,” let out a soft sigh, then picked up a new dry twig and added it to the flames.
“It’s not just me,” Chu Chenli said slowly. “You too—don’t do dangerous things. Death and parting… are both very painful.”
If it’s someone important, the pain is magnified a hundred, a thousand times.
…
In a certain dream, thunder and lightning raged.
An old, dilapidated hospital building stood in the wilderness, a streak of red visible between the broken windows—only half of a red cross remained.
Beyond the building stretched an endless graveyard.
A thin girl stood in the open space below. Whether from cold or fear, her whole body trembled uncontrollably, and the gun in her hands couldn’t aim steadily in any clear direction.
But in front of her, not far away, lay the body of a man.
His usually soft, doll-like face was still round but no longer cute. It was an ugly, bluish-purple color, his eyes rolled back as far as they could go, full of disbelief. A bloody hole, like a blooming flower, marred the center of his forehead—on a human face, it only looked horrific.
He died with his eyes wide open.
The lingering smoke from the gun muzzle had long been washed away by the rain.
Boom—
Another thunderclap, and the fine drizzle turned into a torrential downpour, crashing down ferociously from the gray sky.
The girl holding the gun didn’t dare move. She let the rain beat brutally against her face, the sharp sting forcing her to keep her eyes wide open. But she trembled even more violently.
«I’m sorry…»
She muttered to herself, then aimed the gun at a corner.
A moment later, a figure slowly emerged from the dead silence of the shadows.
«C-Captain?»
The girl’s voice trembled even more.
Shen Xuanyi, covered in blood, slowly walked into the pouring rain. The still-uncoagulated blood slid down his cheeks and hair strands with the rain, dripping onto his white shirt, merging into his dark coat, and finally blending completely with the large stains of blood.
Through the hazy curtain of rain, the usually gentle man had no trace of a smile on his face. His pitch-black eyes pierced straight through the downpour, making the girl tremble violently again.
His gaze paused on the corpse on the ground for a moment. He gripped his gun tighter but never raised it.
Then he lifted his chin slightly, looking down at the girl on the other side of the body, with a cold hint of puzzlement, as if seeing her for the first time.
«…Hua Yu?»
«Sorry, I’m sorry…» the girl muttered, then clenched her teeth, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
Bang—
The gunshot rang out.
The girl’s body stiffened, then leaned back slightly, crashing into the puddle behind her. Water splashed up toward the bloody hole at her temple.
Blood quickly pooled into a small puddle, merging with the tears that slipped from the corners of her eyes and vanishing into the torrential rain.
…
Hua Jin jolted awake from the dream.