CH 132

Zhong Chengshuo lay in silence in the void.

His spirit was hazy and trance-like, approaching a state of seventy-two hours without sleep, and it seemed like his thoughts could stop at any moment. His surroundings were like an ice cave, making it difficult to breathe…

Wait, it seemed like he wasn’t breathing.

Zhong Chengshuo lay there motionless, with both his “heart” and “brain” destroyed, thinking he was as good as dead.

What is the situation now?

Were those previous memories just illusions or dreams?

Zhong Chengshuo struggled to move his arm and gradually touched his own body. His skin was cold and stiff, but fortunately, it had been cleaned, and there was no blood, brain matter, or shredded flesh. However, he was also subjected to the standard treatment of a corpse, with all of his clothing missing.

The scar on his chest and abdomen was still in its old position, with his chest blown apart by a bullet. His ribs were broken, and his heart had turned into a mass of rotten flesh. Zhong Chengshuo poked the wound with his fingers several times, but his fingertips didn’t touch the normal body temperature of a human being. His sense of touch was also numb, and he felt no pain.

The memory of his attack earlier wasn’t an illusion.

Could it be that his body was healing itself?

Zhong Chengshuo tried to bend his stiff joints and solemnly touched his neck.

Collarbone… sternocleidomastoid muscle, the Adam’s apple…up higher…

He felt around but found nothing.

The section of his neck was rough, with typical blast marks. Zhong Chengshuo felt the positions of his “chin” and “top of his head” with disbelief, as he only felt the cold air.

…His head was gone.

Realizing that his brain was absent, Zhong Chengshuo was stunned for a full two minutes.

He still had vivid memories and tactile processing abilities, but his thinking was slow. Among his countless speculations, there was no such wretched and bizarre “death.”

Zhong Chengshuo tried to tense his toes and spread his fingers, measuring the surroundings with his four limbs.

The space he was in was extremely small, resembling a rectangle, but the corners were made of convenient rounded structures. The material of the walls was some kind of metal, hard and smooth.

He was particularly careful when touching the door above his head… That door was tightly sealed, heavy to the touch, and not something he could open barehanded.

The sealed space was very cold, and considering his situation, he was probably in a specially made morgue.

Zhong Chengshuo struggled to turn his thoughts.

After his head was blown up, he completely lost consciousness. When he “woke up” again, he was already in this place… According to the regulations of Shian, his body would be placed in Haigu Municipal Hospital, waiting for his adoptive parents to dispose of it.

This was definitely not Haigu Municipal Hospital.

So his body was taken away by the enemy, from…in front of Yin Ren; taken away by the hostile forces.

Thinking of this possibility, Zhong Chengshuo’s already fleeting thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

If Yin Ren’s abilities couldn’t keep his body…

[What would Yin Ren do?]

This showed that the attacker’s strength was very…

[What would Yin Ren’s reaction be?]

His mind was almost torn in half, one half sitting fragmented and deducing, the other half thinking hard about Yin Ren’s possible reactions. Under normal circumstances, this level of mental intensity would have been a breeze for him. But without a brain, he was almost crushed by the pressure of dual thinking.

He couldn’t even choose between the two; he could only subconsciously consider the problem he cared about more—

Yin Ren…

Would Yin Ren be angry? He was angry enough when he acted without permission before. Now that he had “died” in front of him, would he be even angrier?

Would Yin Ren be sad? When he kissed him, his actions were so gentle.

He couldn’t respond properly, Zhong Chengshuo thought vaguely.

…Strange, he shouldn’t be thinking about this. Why couldn’t he stop?

In Zhong Chengshuo’s previous expectations, there was indeed a possibility of dying early. Therefore, Zhong Chengshuo made careful plans. If he didn’t update the schedule for 48 hours, a care plan would be automatically sent to his acquaintances’ emails.

His backup account, a library of voice materials, would also be open for this purpose. His adoptive parents were old and only needed a little bit of a good-natured “business trip” lie to spend their remaining years with hope and prosperity.

Other than that, there was almost nothing else to deal with. Whether he wanted to pass on the information he wanted to pass on or not was up to him. After death, everything was empty, and he wasn’t interested in the so-called “posthumous fame”.

As for death itself, he didn’t seek it, but he didn’t reject it either.

Dying early for him was just an ordinary ending… This was what Zhong Chengshuo used to think.

But now he was a little annoyed.

Zhong Chengshuo rubbed the metal surface with his fingertips, trying hard to maintain the continuity of his thoughts.

He didn’t know what Yin Ren would do.

This thought lingered in Zhong Chengshuo’s mind as soon as it appeared. This unknown made his chest particularly heavy. Zhong Chengshuo had never thought that “caring to the point of being unable to breathe” would physically manifest itself in his body.

Tap, tap, tap. His fingertips lightly tapped the cold metal.

This was an absolutely sealed, narrow space, and he was naked, mutilated, and had no knowledge of his surroundings. There was almost no chance of escape.

In the past, he would have quietly slept here. Whether he woke up decades later or was processed while in a coma, he didn’t particularly care, nor did he have any special thoughts.

But now, once he thought of “possibly being sealed here for decades, until true death, and he would never be able to confirm Yin Ren’s status”, Zhong Chengshuo produced a new feeling.

His chest was heavy, his limbs were numb, and his internal organs were twisted into a ball, as if being slowly crushed by a cold stone mill.

Compared to the “worry” he had tasted before; it was more depressing and sharper. There seemed to be the claws of a beast in Zhong Chengshuo’s chest cavity, scratching and tearing, making it unbearable.

He didn’t want to stay here.

He didn’t want it to end like this.

He wanted to see Yin Ren. He had to confirm Yin Ren’s status as soon as possible. He cared too much.

…He thought, ‘I’m probably “afraid”.’

Zhong Chengshuo’s fingertips tapping the metal wall trembled, and he didn’t know if it was his illusion, but his thoughts became clearer for a moment.

He had to escape…

Even if this were really a theoretical “hell”, he must figure out a way to escape.

……

Ping’an Manor, Room 601, Building 4, Zhong Chengshuo’s home.

“Creak.”

Yin Ren pulled his luggage and pushed open the door to the living room.

Everything in the familiar living room with lush potted plants was just the way they left it.

There was still a small dish of apples on the table in the living room, with the apples looking a bit wrinkled. Near the table, Zhong Chengshuo’s apron with the words “Dangerous Person” hung on the hook, stained with the color of the sunset.

Yin Ren stood by the table for a long time. After a long silence, he released the handle of his luggage, opened the fridge, and took out some fresh apples.

The fridge was also the same as before, with Zhong Chengshuo carefully sticking dates on the egg carton, and his own and Zhong Chengshuo’s milk neatly placed on opposite sides. Yin Ren’s side was filled with some small snacks, while Zhong Chengshuo’s half of the space was reserved for larger vegetables, which made cooking more convenient.

Unfortunately, Yin Ren didn’t have time to learn any of that person’s recipes.

He picked out a bright red apple and replaced the withered one on the table. With this bit of red, the whole room seemed to have a little more vitality. But it was still too quiet, lacking the breath of another person.

Yin Ren didn’t go into Zhong Chengshuo’s bedroom.

After arranging the apple, he took out the tablet that Zhong Chengshuo gave him and randomly played a third-rate romantic drama. Amid the exaggerated music and dialogue, Yin Ren lay on the sofa with his face turned to the back of the sofa, trying to grasp the faint shadows of the past.

Just like in those previous days, every time he did this, there would be a person standing quietly at the table, reading a book.

The sofa was still the same, and the smell was also familiar. Yin Ren lay there until the glory of the sunset disappeared and the night gradually descended. He didn’t move and didn’t turn on the light. The whole room seemed to sink into a deep sea, gradually falling into darkness.

It was already past dinner time, and no one came to ask him what he wanted to eat.

He didn’t want to eat anything anyway.

He had lived too long, so Zhong Chengshuo’s “departure” didn’t crush him suddenly. But this fact was like a faint but never-ending tinnitus, making Yin Ren unable to be at peace.

Time gradually passed, and the tablet’s battery ran out. The laughter and joy in the living room disappeared in an instant, and the room became silent.

Yin Ren sat up with disheveled hair, casually threw the wrinkled apple into the trash can, and then opened WeChat, selecting the red apple avatar that was pinned at the top. Their last conversation was still stuck on the choice of seasonings when buying groceries, and the last sentence was Zhong Chengshuo’s “Okay.”

[Fruit Knife: Zhong Ge, I’m home.]

[Fruit Knife: Just letting you know.]

[Fruit Knife: Can I borrow your room and look for clues?]

[Fruit Knife: I’ll clean up.]

He clicked the lock button and pushed open the half-closed bedroom door.

Yin Ren’s gaze quickly swept over the two pillows on the double bed. If he looked for too long, his eyes would burn. He walked to the computer desk that Zhong Chengshuo had mentioned and took a deep breath before opening the locked drawer.

The fragile mechanical lock surrendered instantly to the Ghost King. The small drawer was almost empty, with only an envelope addressed to Yin Ren inside.

Did Zhong Chengshuo come back?

For a moment, Yin Ren’s hair almost stood on end. With unrealistic hope, he quickly opened the envelope.

Inside, there was only an old key and a small note. Yin Ren’s heart skipped a beat, as if he had just fallen into an abyss.

[To the person I currently trust the most:

If you are reading this, I am likely in serious trouble. Go back to the place where we had our first kiss and search carefully.

I hope you can find it.]

The place where they had their first kiss was Zhong Chengshuo’s secret base, as he had told Yin Ren before when they were renovating the hamster pendant. Wait, the hamster pendant?

“Emergency locator. We can check each other’s location at any time.”

His disappeared lover had once explained this. Shian had tried to locate Zhong Chengshuo’s phone, but it showed it was damaged. However, the enemy might only pay attention to Shian’s special phone and not notice the small hamster phone charm.

Why didn’t he think of this earlier?

Yin Ren quickly opened his phone and followed Zhong Chengshuo’s instructions step by step. He watched the loading animation on the map with hope, but after a few rounds, Zhong Chengshuo’s location didn’t appear.

The light in Yin Ren’s eyes gradually dimmed.

But he just stubbornly looked at the screen until—

“The signal is too weak. Temporarily unable to locate.”

The signal is too weak—not gone or damaged, just “temporarily” unable to locate.

He clutched the key tightly and flew out of the window instead of using the door. In less than ten minutes, he had returned to that dark underground warehouse. The design data for the hamster pendant was on Zhong Chengshuo’s computer, and he could hand it over to Fu Xingchuan. Yin Ren carefully wrapped up the notebook and then began searching for the keyhole.

For anyone else, it would take a long time to search here, and various detection devices would be necessary. However, with his scattered hair as a search aid, the Ghost King only needed a few heartbeats.

What would Zhong Chengshuo leave for him?

With the key inserted into the metal rack, Yin Ren forcefully pulled open the door to the hidden compartment. Immediately afterwards, he was overwhelmed by the books that came crashing down.

The compartment was filled with all sorts of books, with only a small portion of the pages yellowed with age, and the covers printed with cartoon rabbit patterns that only children would use. The vast majority were plain and simple in design.

The collision caused many of the books to flip open, and Yin Ren didn’t need to flip through them to see their contents.

Whether it was a cute children’s diary or a plain adult style, spanning more than 20 years, the font used to record was completely consistent, and the content was more or less the same.

[Year Month Day]

[Height: xxx.xx cm; Weight: xx.xx kg]

[I’m fine.]

The author has something to say:

This arc is over! (Probably)

I have thought about a lot of reactions from everyone, but I never thought that there would be a lot of dirty jokes (…)

Kinky Thoughts:

The arc is over. Summary below:

With Gengsheng Town mostly resolved, Fu Xingchuan deduced who Yin Ren really is. However, in order to confirm his suspicions and test Yin Ren’s motives, he decided to enter Shian’s Haigu branch in the most recent competition among the three largest branches of Shian.

The setting of the competition would be in his own family’s residence, where his ancient ancestor still lay. With the help of Fu Wuya, the ancient director of Huajisi from hundreds of years ago, they set up the setting for the competition.

Fu Xingchuan hoped to use this competition to test Yin Ren more and also use it as an excuse to promote Unit 9 to a B-level team without raising any suspicion.

Using a Corpse Cage, Fu Wuya shrank all participants down, and Shian inserted them into the body of a corpse.

While inside the corpse, Yin Ren encountered white filament monsters that had the “resonance” ability similar to Kong Wangqing. They managed to cover Yin Ren and amplify his emotions. Yin Ren’s fear of losing Zhong Chengshuo increased several folds, eventually making him unable to think clearly.

In the end, after a brief battle, Zhong Chengshuo was able to snap Yin Ren out of it, and Yin Ren was able to overcome the “attachment” feelings of those white monsters. He also managed to gain a new ability that allows him to “isolate” his senses, so he wouldn’t be affected by the “resonance” while inside the corpse cage.

Unfortunately, this backfired. Mr. Qin decided to make his move. Sensing abnormalities, the competition ended early, and everyone returned to normal. As they were leaving the underground area where the competition was held, sniper bullets, made from reality and not magic, assaulted them, killing two while severely injuring others.

Of the two that were killed, Zhong Chengshuo was one of the victims. Though Yin Ren tried, he was unable to save him and couldn’t even prevent his body from being stolen away. In order to not lose control, Yin Ren sealed his own memories and was only later able to piece together what had happened.

Meanwhile, to compensate Sunken Society regarding what happened in Gengsheng Town, the sniper gave Sunken Society Zhong Chengshuo’s body, which was now lying in a special morgue. Surprisingly, despite getting hit in the heart and having his head blown off, Zhong Chengshuo was still alive.

Yin Ren, on the other hand, gave up all pretenses regarding his identity and was determined to find the Sunken Society’s headquarters in Haigu. Using Zhong Chengshuo’s notebook and notes, he went back to Zhong Chengshuo’s secret base to find more clues.