Autophagy

Yan Zhiyuan looked at Shi Youchen, who had fallen to his knees after being knocked back by the force of the water. He sighed softly, stepped forward and offered his hand to help him up, saying, "Sorry, go back and change your clothes. It's so cold, so try to do less outdoor training in the future."

Shi Youchen waved his hand, indicating it was nothing. "It's nothing, it was my own carelessness. It's just a bit of experience. I'll just be more cautious next time." He lowered his head to adjust his clothes, his hair falling across his forehead, just enough to hide his slightly unfocused pupils. Yan Zhiyuan glanced at the sky and said, "It's getting late. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to another district for a week of exchange. Lin Zhouze will be tracking and recording your simulation training on my behalf."

"Yes, thank you." Shi Youchen turned around without stopping. Yan Zhiyuan invited him from behind: "Would you like to have dinner together?"

Shi Youchen paused and declined politely, "I have other plans. I'll treat you when you come back from your discussion."

"Okay." Yan Zhiyuan was happy to see his initiative and agreed easily, "Then you go ahead and see you later."

Shi Youchen stepped on the fallen leaves in the muddy soil and said in a low voice, "See you later."

After leaving the square, Shi Youchen headed west, passing groups of people in black. Winter's transition from dawn to dusk was short, so he quickened his pace, catching the cemetery administrator on his way to the cafeteria before the archives room locked.

"Hello, can I check anything else?" The administrator was still the middle-aged man with half-white hair whom he had met several times before. When Shi Youchen arrived with a light breath, he was yawning and closing the door to verify the fingerprint with sleepy eyes.

"Hmm?" The man pried open one eye and took a quick look at the young man before him. Logically, as long as they could get through the Association's base gate, entering the cemetery shouldn't be difficult. There were even signposts along the way. After all, the cemetery housed not only those with special abilities but also a significant number of Association workers, whose relatives and friends were allowed to mourn.

However, if the visitor does not know where the person he wants to visit lives, he can only come here to ask the administrator for help.

The man's eyes swept over Youchen's wrist, which was hidden by his sleeve, and his slightly red cheeks. His eyes suddenly became much clearer: "Oh! You are the one... I met a while ago! A friend of Miss Li!"

Shi Youchen's throat tightened and he responded with an evasive look: "Well... yes." He didn't expect that even though he worked in such a busy place with people coming and going every day, the other party would still have such a deep impression of him.

The man clapped his hands and unlocked the door again, saying, "Well, I told you, I rarely mistake people. Little Li was here a lot lately." Before Shi Youchen could speak, he asked, "Who are you looking for?"

The overly proactive and enthusiastic attitude was a bit overwhelming. Shi Youchen breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I wasn't sure if he was here, so I came here to ask for your help." The man smiled broadly and said, "Hey, this is my job. Don't be polite! Is he an association worker?"

Shi Youchen: "He is a registered superpower user, number 8461, named Lu Quezhi."

The man turned on the indoor light: "It will be easy to check if you know this. Just wait a moment!"

...

Ten minutes later, Shi Youchen looked at the blank stele in front of him, the administrator's muttering still ringing in his ears, "Strange, the share numbered 8461 has been claimed, but there's no signature. However, the numbers are unique, so it shouldn't be wrong. It's the person you're looking for, and his location is..."

The tombstones in the cemetery are of uniform size and style. The only difference is probably whether there are flowers in front of the tombstones, and if so, whether they are recent flowers.

There was nothing in front of the monument occupied by "No. 8461". A thin layer of dust had accumulated on the top of the monument, and it was mixed with the melted snow, leaving a winding mark on the top of the monument.

fraud.

Sometimes there is dust in my mind.

It would be fine if it was just someone else, but Lu Quezhi even lied to his own mother. He even had to write such a pompous will, saying, "I didn't ask the association to prepare a gravesite and a tombstone." Shi Youchen's eyes were filled with silence. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a tissue, and quietly wiped away the dirt.

Why didn't he want his mother to have a place to visit him? At this moment, Shi Youchen seemed to understand a little.

By this time, the sky had almost completely darkened, and the already sparse crowd in the cemetery had mostly dispersed. Even in a place like the Association's base, people were always afraid and wary of the deserted night.

Shi Youchen was wiping while recalling his brief contact with his colleague Lu Quezhi. In a trance, he thought of Lu Zhiqi's eyes again. Just as he was thinking about Lu Ming, the sound of collision behind him quickly brought him back to reality.

"Hey!" Shi Youchen turned around and saw a long-haired woman kneeling on the ground holding her knees in the middle gap of the back row. When the woman saw him turn around, her originally dull eyes lit up with hope and she asked, "Sir, do you know where my daughter is?"

"..." Shi Youchen squinted his eyes and carefully identified him in the moonlight, and found that this person was someone he had seen from a distance before -

"Mrs. Mo?" he asked in surprise, "Why are you here?" The commotion at the cemetery altar a few months ago still left a deep impression on him, but Lin Zhouze's nagging was probably a big part of the reason.

The light in the woman's eyes grew brighter. She hurriedly stood up and walked to Lu Quezhi's tombstone in two steps. At the same time, Youchen squatted gracefully at a distance of half a person. "You know me, so you must know where my daughter is, right?"

Shi Youchen wanted to take a step back and stand up, but her polite behavior stopped him, so he still maintained a half-squatting posture: "Sorry, I don't know."

A trace of desolation flashed across Madam Mo's eyes, and then she tilted her head and saw Lu Quezhi's inscriptionless tombstone: "You are commemorating the person beneath this tombstone." Hearing this, You Chen felt something was wrong, and as expected, she continued, "Then you must have a way to find my daughter."

Ignoring the stinging pain in her knees, the woman dropped her knees to the ground: "Please, help me." Shi Youchen hurried forward, stretched out his hands and clenched them twice in the air, then gritted his teeth and grabbed her sleeves, "You get up first." But the other party pulled Shi Youchen's arm and pressed it down heavily, not at all like the polite girl she had just been.

"You will only delay important matters if you stand there stiffly like this." Shi Youchen said with a determined look in his heart. Madam Mo was overjoyed. "You will help me? Really?" All her strength that she had forced herself to hold on to was gone at that moment, and she could only be carefully helped up by Shi Youchen.

Shi Youchen said, "I need to know your daughter's name, or your superpower registration number before I can help you." After seeing Mrs. Mo stand firm, she loosened her hands and stepped back a distance.

"Mo Lian! Her name is Mo Lian! Lian means compassion." Madam Mo rubbed her hands together, intertwining her slender fingers. She looked around uneasily and then said softly, "Number...what number it was, I forgot."

Shi Youchen checked the time and the surroundings, feeling somewhat worried. "How about you come with me to find the administrator for help?" Unexpectedly, Mrs. Mo suddenly reacted strongly. She said in a panic, "No, we can't let them know I'm here, otherwise I'll be arrested."

Her limbs were shaking more and more, and Shi Youchen couldn't help but wonder if she had suffered some kind of harm at the Mo family. "Then you wait here for me?" However, it was already late, and leaving a frail woman alone in the howling cold wind of the cemetery was not a good idea. "Or you can come back another day, and I'll help you again?"

Mrs. Mo's clothes were a little thin, and she began to shiver all over, with her fingers noticeably stiff. Only then did Shi Youchen notice the cotton slippers half-hidden by her outer robe.

Was this... a last-minute, hasty departure?

Just as Shi Youchen was feeling doubtful, Madam Mo spoke up, "Not in the near future. He's coming back, and I have to stay home." She began to pace anxiously, muttering, "Not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, nothing."

"You can come to the Mo family to find me! Just say you are my guest, they won't stop you!" Suddenly she understood, took off the red Nanhong bracelet on her left wrist and stuffed it into Shi Youchen's palm, looking at the young man in front of her pleadingly.

The bracelet still had the warmth of the human body, but lying in Shi Youchen's palm, he felt as if it was burned by magma. He couldn't accept it with peace of mind. He wanted to return it but was blocked by the other party. In the end, he accepted this sudden and inexplicable "job".

"You must come. Please." Madam Mo gave Shi Youchen's wrist a firm squeeze, then turned and walked away, propped up on her aching knees without waiting for a response. Shi Youchen couldn't stop her from leaving, so he could only look with a complicated expression at the bracelet in his hand, which had lost most of its warmth in the cold wind.

...

On the 16th floor of Building 7, Shi Youchen sat by the window with a heavy heart. There was a soft towel on the table, which he had found and borrowed from Ying Yungui's basket. On it was the bracelet that Madam Mo had left for him.

Each red bead of the bracelet emits a faint fluorescence under the light, which comes from the "Mo" pattern engraved on the inside of the red bead.

Just when he was lost in thought, the bracelet prompted new information—

"Have you rested? — Ying Yungui"

Shi Youchen clicked the message box and was about to reply, but his fingertips hovered above the screen and stopped moving. However, the other end seemed to have noticed that he was still awake, and a voice call across several regions was made.

Shi Youchen's fingertips trembled at the sudden ringing of the phone, and he just accepted the call invitation.

Ying Yungui's voice came out as if it was ready at any time: "What are you doing? What did you eat tonight? I encountered something magical, do you want to see it?" A series of questions came over like a flood, and Youchen was speechless for a moment, not knowing how to answer.

However, his attention at this moment was not on the conversation with Ying Yungui.

Shi Youchen felt a little tight in his chest. He didn't know how to talk to this "pursuer" who trusted him 100%.

"Shi Youchen?" Ying Yungui on the other end waited for a long time without receiving a reply, and his tone was filled with worry. "Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

"Yes." Finally, the familiar cold voice responded, "I'm a little tired after overtraining today." Although it was just a voice call and the other party couldn't see his expression at all, Shi Youchen still reached out to cover his eyes.

"Well, then you should go to bed early, and I'll tell you next time!" Ying Yungui said generously, "Good night, Shi Youchen!" and then hung up the call.

Shi Youchen let go of his hand and stared quietly at the call time of less than a minute displayed on the interface for a long time.

He thought that since he had become a traitor, he could easily reject all of Ying Yungui's care and admiration. However, the truth was that while he was ashamed of his own incompetence, he was enjoying all the emotions that Ying Yungui brought him.

Mixed between these two sides, the intense pain and unwillingness swept through Shi Youchen's body like a storm.

Every inch of his body was mocking him. "Are you trying to use external forces to deny us? Ridiculous clown, traitor, incompetent waste."

Shi Youchen buried his face in his palms.

He failed to reject Ying Yungui when she confessed her love to him before. He thought that showed his generosity and maturity, but it was not the case.

He simply couldn't refuse Ying Yungui.