Chapter 126 Integrating into the Past

Jin Cheng leaned against the earthen slope, casually asking the air beside him.

"You only show up once every two years?"

"What do you want that comic book for?"

"Your appearance this time was too coincidental. If it weren't for you, I'd probably be killed right now..."

Xin Que's head was throbbing from his incessant chatter.

Now that he had received no response, he glanced again at the crushed grass under his palm.

Jin Cheng casually plucked a blade of grass, then glanced at the empty meadow beside him. "Can't you write on my hand?"

"You write now, I'll talk, and we can chat about anything to kill time?"

Xin Que wanted to remove his battery.

Why are you talking so much!

Jin Cheng waited for a long time, but still received no response.

The cicadas' chirping grew increasingly noisy.

There were many mosquitoes in the woods. Jin Cheng waved his hand to shoo away the mosquitoes that kept getting close. Gradually, his voice, which he was trying to make conversation with, grew softer and softer.

Her hands also hung down to her waist.

Xin Que glanced down at the boy leaning against the earthen slope. His eyes were slowly closing, and his head was tilted to one side because he was sleepy.

As his upper body slid down the earthen slope, Jin Cheng was too exhausted to move.

Take a nap.

He slowly slid down onto the grass, but for some reason, his head didn't hit the grass as he expected.

It felt like he bumped into someone's body to cushion the impact, or maybe it was just an illusion. In his daze, Jin Cheng forced himself to open his eyes a crack.

In the blurry, swaying vision, a woman's figure flashed by, indistinct and untouchable.

Now, Cheng curled up on the grass, his consciousness completely sinking into sleep.

"Tick-tock".

When the dew fell on Jin Cheng's cheek, he suddenly opened his eyes.

The sky was just beginning to lighten.

Jin Cheng propped himself up on the grass. The woods in the height of summer were unbearably hot and humid. After a whole night, the sweat on his body was almost sticking to his clothes.

But he didn't have time to think about such trivial matters.

His stomach growled, and Jin Cheng stretched his stiff limbs, suppressing his gnawing hunger, and continued walking into the woods, his steps uneven.

"Which way should we go next...?" Jin Cheng tentatively asked the air beside him.

I wonder if that female ghost is still around...

After a while, the blade of grass he was holding between his fingers moved.

Xin Que watched the disheveled, limping boy walk away and led him toward the path they had found the night before.

The flow of time seemed to return to normal last night.

It wasn't until the sun was high in the sky that Jin Cheng finally saw the edge of the forest.

He dragged his heavy legs and continued walking forward.

"What a tragedy, a child wandering the streets..." A villager riding a tricycle noticed a little beggar at the village entrance and instinctively turned around to take another look.

Jin Cheng's eyes lit up.

"Huh?" The villager, sitting on the tricycle, was shocked when he heard Jin Cheng ask to borrow his phone to call the police. "Were you abducted by human traffickers?"

Xin Que stood beside Jin Cheng, observing the rural environment around them, when the sound of a door opening came from the courtyard next door.

Several well-mannered middle-aged men were saying goodbye to the elderly man and coming out of the courtyard when they saw Jin Cheng borrowing a mobile phone from a villager.

A new face.

Xin Que's gaze fell on the dark patterned shirts worn by the group, which looked somewhat familiar.

These people are...

"Sir," a group of people walked over, smiling at the two of them, "whose child is this? We didn't see him when we came to preach before."

Just as Xin Que was about to pull the weed from Jin Cheng's hand, her foot suddenly slipped.

Then... the surrounding scenery seemed to be fast-forwarding, constantly receding.

"Once this life-or-death ordeal is over and the substitute returns to heaven, Xiao Bao's fate of dying young can be completely reversed."

The flashback shows the Luo family discussing things with relief after Jin Cheng was kidnapped by the Eternal Life Society.

"Is 'avoiding disaster and achieving eternal life' a sure thing?" Madam Luo asked with some worry. "What if he comes back alive..."

Mr. Luo didn't care at all, only smiling as he looked at the little boy in his arms. "How many people who fall into the Eternal Life Society come out alive? Don't worry, he must withstand all the life-and-death calamities this time."

“I have already made arrangements with the Exorcism and Eternal Life Society. His bones will be processed and sent back. That way, once the human stake is driven in, even if he has a great deal of resentment, he won't be able to break through Master Zhen's formation.”

Suddenly everything went black, and the scene switched to the Luo family's company.

"I really underestimated this kid's luck," Mr. Luo gritted his teeth. "Are the 'Eternal Life and Dispelling Calamity' members all useless? How did they end up being targeted by the police at the border?!"

The assistant lowered his head and dared not speak.

The public relations team is already overwhelmed. "That boy named Jin Cheng is now refusing to admit anything, insisting that he is your adopted son... Moreover, he has been actively contacting reporters ever since he was rescued by the police..."

"President Luo, the internet is in an uproar, we have to step in and deal with it."

“Brother,” the silent man beside him looked up at Mr. Luo, “have you completed the adoption procedures? If not…”

Seeing the murderous intent in his brother's eyes, Mr. Luo interrupted him, "Don't think about it anymore. Back then, the director of the welfare home refused to be lenient on the procedures, otherwise I wouldn't be in such a passive position now."

Xin Que slumped down onto a row of chairs in the scene.

"Unrelated personnel, please leave!" The nurses and police officers finally managed to squeeze through the barrage of cameras and microphones in front of the ward to drag the hospital bed back into the ward.

The boy on the bed, covered by a blanket, was covered in bandages all over his body, with one eye exposed, staring blankly at the IV drip still dripping from the bedside.

"This child... is one of the few survivors rescued from that cult," the policeman sighed and explained to the nurse.

The nurse waved her hand in front of Jin Cheng's exposed eye to comfort him, "Don't worry, the surgeon said your eyeball is still intact, you just need to cover it up for a few days after the surgery... The scars on your face aren't a problem either... They can all be fixed with plastic surgery later."

“He’s already very lucky,” the nurse sighed, and after packing up her things, she chatted with the police officer for a bit. “Those people your colleague brought in a couple of days ago, they were so swollen from all the blood draws they were unrecognizable…”

The police officer and the nurse both sighed.

Xin Que walked to the bedside and looked at Jin Cheng.

Jin Cheng couldn't see Xin Que; he was staring blankly at the IV drip, lost in thought.

After a long while, another reporter sneaked in, and Jin Cheng finally managed to turn his head to look at him.

“Young man,” the reporter glanced at his colleague sheltering from the wind outside the ward and could only ask the most important question, “What you said about the rescue scene, is it really true?”

Jin Cheng's chaotic mind stirred.

Xin Que saw that Jin Cheng's eyes were bloodshot, but the emotions contained within them were something Xin Que could personally understand.

It is the anger burning in one's chest, the bloodlust of being manipulated by those in power, who try to devour one's flesh and drink one's blood.

"Yes." Jin Cheng's voice was rough and hoarse when he spoke, and each word seemed to have exhausted all his strength, but he still tried his best to use his broken voice to record his voice into the reporter's recorder. "I was sent by the Luo family to take the blame, as a substitute."

"Go check the records at the X City Welfare Institute."