Chapter 20 Part 2

The chat window showed a long list of reminders and tips sent from the other side, dense walls of text that made one’s head ache just looking at them. He’d expected many more messages today, but… nothing?

“…”

Ignoring that faint odd feeling in his heart, Li Zhuo fished out his Bluetooth earbuds, put them in, and closed his eyes to feign sleep.

The bus trundled on, stopping and starting, picking up more and more students from their school attending the same camp along the route, the empty seats gradually filling.

Deng Yuliang came aboard not long after Li Zhuo.

Through the window, Li Zhuo saw Deng Yuliang’s parents. Blood ties are truly a magical thing; traces of similarity were evident just from the brows and eyes.

Deng Yuliang had his mother’s eyes and brows, his father’s bone structure. Both were of a sturdy, healthy build, neither fat nor thin.

Whatever the middle-aged couple was nagging him about, Deng Yuliang was clearly distracted. His roaming eyes quickly locked onto Li Zhuo inside the bus.

“Hey!!”

Once aboard, he made a beeline for Li Zhuo’s seat.

“Gotta tell you, I was gaming way too late last night, overslept this morning, almost missed the bus. Got chewed out by my mom the whole way here…”

Li Zhuo nodded knowingly. “Makes sense. Sent you messages, you didn’t reply.”

“Ah? You sent messages? Let me check…”

The bus continued its rumbling journey. With Deng Yuliang there, silence was practically impossible. Only Li Zhuo stayed quiet the entire time, participating in none of the chatter.

After picking up all the students along the route, the bus steadily headed for the eco-base. The first half of the ride, the students inside were noisy and boisterous. The latter half was considerably quieter.

Others fell asleep. With no one left to talk to, Deng Yuliang buried his head in his games. Having no habit of gaming, Li Zhuo adjusted his seat back, closed his eyes to listen to music, and drifted off.

“Hey hey… we’re here.”

~

【How can he be so rough!】

Through the system’s display, Mo Liang frowned with displeasure.

The Ball of Light pulsed, as if scanning something. Shortly, it produced a report. On the force Deng Yuliang used to shove Li Zhuo.

【The force used did not exceed safety parameters…】

Mo Liang seemed not to hear it at all. Obviously, he held little fondness for this primitive human who was constantly around his child.

Especially since last time, an inadvertent action of his had triggered Li Zhuo’s emotions, causing the memory blocks Mo Liang had painstakingly blurred to sharpen once more.

—In the Psychological Counseling Room during their first talk, Mo Liang had discreetly shielded a portion during their conversation, making Li Zhuo less mentally listless. He did gradually recall things later, but by then Li Zhuo no longer bottled it all up. With Mo Liang as his Psychological Counselor, Li Zhuo would constantly monitor his own mental state.

Of course, besides Deng Yuliang, Mo Liang felt utter loathing for every student and teacher at school who had ever spoken poorly of Li Zhuo.

It was just that, hindered by the restriction clause signed to unlock Li Zhuo’s past memories—no harming other human lives—and the fact that he himself was not yet a complete form, which really hampered his abilities…

Mo Liang couldn’t truly eradicate them in whatever way he pleased. But he could still make their lives just a little more miserable.

【He’s still sleeping. Why couldn’t they let him sleep a little longer? This is mistreatment of my child!】

System 0255 gave a very human-like sigh: 【…Because they’ve arrived.】

~

Li Zhuo had a dream.

A bizarre and dazzling dream.

The scenes within it constantly shifted, completely disjointed between different images. Usually, before one scene could even be processed, the next had already yanked his consciousness ruthlessly into a new setting.

The first image in the dream was a blur. He seemed to be in some kind of giant’s country, everything in his eyes appearing astonishingly large.

“Zhuo for excellence, meaning outstanding, surpassing the ordinary, exceptional and uncommon. How about Li Zhuo?”

A blurry figure poked Li Zhuo’s cheek with a finger. “You absolutely must not disappoint my expectations.”

The frosted-glass-like blur shifted instantly the moment Li Zhuo blinked.

This time the image finally cleared. Li Zhuo was a skinny little child, wearing a dusty old shirt, sitting alone on a hillside in Pingshan Village. He silently watched the orange sunset be swallowed bit by bit by the distant mountain peaks. Beside him were a back basket and a sickle. His pinky finger was welling with blood.

Birdcalls echoed from the deep forest. A gust of wind passed.

Did someone call his name?

Li Zhuo turned his head, and suddenly he was in a lavish custom-made suit, exchanging polite, hollow pleasantries at a party alive with clinking glasses. The middle-aged man speaking with him was all smiles, fawning and obsequious.

“President Li truly is young and accomplished…”

When Li Zhuo wanted to listen more closely, he felt his entire body grow cold. He found himself in pitch-black river water. The water’s resistance gradually reached his chest. Breathing was difficult, but he resolutely marched forward, single-mindedly seeking death.

Foul, murky river water rushed greedily into his ears, nose, and throat. The suffocating sensation overwhelmed him. Instinctively he wanted to struggle, but the vestiges of consciousness in that body were lifeless, continuing to sink with resolve.

Li Zhuo’s vision went black. When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer in the river. He had actually appeared in a pitch-black, eerie world.

Was there no light in this world?

Oh no, it was completely blocked.

A “skyscraper,” as he’d thought, slowly squirmed under Li Zhuo’s gaze. This thing was actually alive! It had life!! It could move!

Li Zhuo’s existence before such a colossal thing was far too minuscule, like a tiny grain of rice.

And with the “giant mountain’s” movement, Li Zhuo finally saw this world’s sun. Its shape was strange, its halo a weird, reddish hue. The entire world was barren.

And the monster before him, rather than a giant mountain, seemed assembled from some indescribable black material. It was hard to describe just what it was at the moment.

It communicated with Li Zhuo in a language completely unintelligible to him. Black tendrils thick and thin covering its body constantly vibrated, each seemingly alive. One gently brushed past Li Zhuo’s face, and he felt a fleeting coldness, then a constant temperature matching his own body heat.

And “it” was wiping his tears?

Wait, when had he started crying?!

Li Zhuo shouldn’t have understood those soundwaves. Yet, strangely, the dream consciousness seemed to grasp that the sludge-like thing was actually comforting him.

“…danger… go back…”

“…don’t cry… child…”

“my… child…”

“protect you…”

“love you…”

“always…”

When he woke up, Li Zhuo’s ears still seemed to feel that infrasonic wave unlike any other. He stared blankly at Deng Yuliang, who had shaken him awake, then slowly looked around at the faces, both familiar and unfamiliar.

Oh, he wasn’t in Pingshan Village, not at a banquet, not in some bizarre world. He’d joined the summer camp, and he should be on the bus right now.

“We’re almost there. What’s up with you?” Deng Yuliang waved a hand in front of Li Zhuo’s face. “First time seeing you so out of it. Sleeping that deeply?”

A classmate from Class 10 who rarely interacted with Li Zhuo quickly chimed in: “I always thought his face only had one expression, didn’t you?”

Someone in the front row laughed first. Others followed, a chorus of chatter. Some echoed agreement, some teased, some wondered if Li Zhuo was actually in Class 10.

“Come to think of it, that transfer student’s been here half a semester. Seems like I only ever see him in class, never during lunch break…”

“Think he’s the same as us? He’s got connections up top…”

Seeing the murmuring turn increasingly sour, another voice spoke up: “…Alright, enough. Are you all just going to clog up the bus? Hurry, the team leader outside is calling. Grab your stuff and get off!”

Li Zhuo looked at the final speaker. It was the class academic monitor, Liao Guang. Sitting in the very front row, once the bus stopped, he began orderly directing everyone to disembark.

“Check your seats before you get off. Don’t leave anything behind!”

~

Perhaps he truly had slept out of it. As Li Zhuo stepped down the last stair from the bus, the tail of his bag somehow snagged something. His entire body pitched forward uncontrollably.

“Careful!”

A classmate behind him grabbed his arm firmly. Li Zhuo looked back—it was Deng Yuliang.

“Thanks a lot.”

“Hey! No problem.”

That little incident didn’t affect anything further. But whether it was psychological or not, during the subsequent dorm assignments, and while eating in the communal hall listening to the team leader explain base rules, Li Zhuo remained distracted.

He kept replaying that moment of weightlessness disembarking.

Maybe in others’ eyes, Deng Yuliang behind him had caught him just in time, saving him from a fall. But Li Zhuo knew that wasn’t quite right.

Before Deng Yuliang grabbed him, he had distinctly felt a force at his waist supporting his entire weight. He had actually experienced a brief sensation of suspension in mid-air!

The object supporting him was like a soft vine, or something else indescribable. Its touch was very gentle, and through a layer of fabric, he could feel its chill.

Was it… an illusion?

Probably not. This wasn’t the first time he’d experienced something like this. Back at school, he’d also felt a basketball hurtling toward him change trajectory in mid-air, an inexplicable buoyancy steady him when his foot slipped…

Were those all illusions?

Teacher Mo had once said, no matter what—troubles, questions, anything—he could tell him everything. But about this matter, Li Zhuo hadn’t asked.

By now, the students had finished lunch and were being led by summer camp staff on a tour of some historical and cultural relics near the base.

Li Zhuo slowly drifted to the back of the group. The students ahead were either following the guide listening to the explanations, huddled with close friends chatting away, or staring down at their phones…

Everyone was busy with their own things. No one was paying attention to him. Li Zhuo scanned them one by one, finally letting his gaze linger on an empty patch of ground behind him.

~

【The Host reacted so fast just now…】

Almost the instant the system’s warning signal went out, Mo Liang had already moved. Pure instinct-driven protective behavior.