Chapter Eleven Ruins

The outskirts of London's East End are areas that are so small that even maps don't bother to mark them in detail.

This place is filled with abandoned factories, the ruins of houses destroyed and beyond rebuilding, and a network of sewage ditches that crisscross like scars on the city.

The air is perpetually filled with the pungent smell of burning industrial waste and the acrid stench of rotting garbage. This is a legal gray area, a gathering place for the homeless, criminals, and the desperate, and a "frontier" where the tentacles of the Xuyue organization need to be constantly cleared and controlled.

As dusk fell, the light faded in a bleak manner, tinging the leaden clouds with a sickly orange-red hue.

West Asia, codenamed "Whale Shark," has just ended an unpleasant but necessary and efficient operation in his view.

The target was the leader of a small gang who foolishly tried to rip people off on the moonlit liquor route controlled by the Sumerian Organization and ignored several polite warnings.

The operation took place in an abandoned slaughterhouse on the verge of collapse. The process was brutal and direct.

West Asia didn't even use firearms, only a heavy steel pipe that he picked up on the spot, covered in rust and dried blood.

His movements were as swift as lightning, his power was ferocious, and each strike was accompanied by the dull thud of bones shattering.

He gave the other party no chance to beg for mercy or negotiate, because Xu Yue had said that the only response to such provocation was complete and devastating destruction, enough to deter other potential imitators.

As the last wailing faded into the empty, windswept slaughterhouse, Sia stood amidst several twisted corpses, breathing slightly heavily.

A few dark red bloodstains were splattered on his face, and his red eyes, like burning lava, gleamed with a cold, almost inhuman light in the dim light.

He ripped off his leather gloves, which were covered in sticky blood, and threw them casually on the ground, as if he were just discarding a useless tool.

He was already accustomed to death, and even derived a twisted peace from it—a necessary means to maintain the order established by Xuyue, and a way for him to prove his own worth.

"Clean it up." He ordered the two men who had followed him, his voice slightly hoarse from the exertion he had just exerted, but without any emotional fluctuation.

His men nodded silently and began to skillfully handle the situation. They both revered and feared Mr. Whale Shark's efficiency.

Xiya walked out of the slaughterhouse alone, the cold evening wind blowing against his face, carrying away a trace of the stench of blood. He needed to walk a distance to the agreed-upon location to catch a ride back to headquarters. He habitually chose a shortcut that passed through vast ruins.

These ruins and overgrown weeds are so similar to the environment in which he struggled to survive in his childhood, always reminding him of those days when he scrambled for scraps like a wild dog, shivering in the cold and fear.

It was Xuyue who freed him from that fate, giving him strength, dignity, and... a place he called "home".

Whenever he sets foot in such places, his loyalty and dependence on Xuyue become even stronger, while he also becomes more vigilant in examining any threat that might disrupt the existing order.

His tall figure moved swiftly through the shadows of the ruins, his steps steady, like a true predator surveying its territory.

However, just as he was about to pass through an area that might have once been a church or school, now reduced to a few tall, dilapidated walls, a very faint sob, almost drowned out by the wind, reached his ears.

Xiya stopped abruptly. Her muscles tensed, and her sharp red eyes swept towards the source of the sound—a gap formed by collapsed bricks and twisted steel bars.

It wasn't a wild animal's voice, but a human voice, and... very young. Was it a trap? A survivor? He approached silently, his right hand already on the dagger hidden at his waist.

He held his breath and leaned closer to the crack. With the last bit of daylight, he could see what was inside.

It was a boy, huddled in a small space, his body covered in mud and blackened scabs.

He was horribly thin, his ribs clearly visible beneath his thin skin, and his tattered clothes barely covered his body.

What's most striking is his messy yet exceptionally soft blue hair, and his face, which, even covered in dirt and scars, still retains its original delicate features.

The boy seemed to be in a semi-conscious state, his body trembling incessantly from the cold and pain, and the intermittent sobs were unconsciously escaping from his cracked lips.

However, what truly struck Xiya like a thunderbolt, freezing her in place, was the boy's eyes.

Just as the shadow of West Asia loomed over him, the boy seemed to sense a threat and struggled to open his eyes.

Those were extremely rare eyes, like the finest amethyst.

At this moment, those beautiful eyes were filled with immense fear, helplessness, and... a desperate plea like that of a dying animal.

But none of that is the point. The point is that the shape of those eyes, the pure vulnerability revealed in them, is like a rusty yet incredibly sharp chisel, brutally prying open a wound deep within Sia's heart that he had sealed away with layers of violence and loyalty, a wound that had never healed.

Yanni... his younger brother who died young.

Many years ago, in that equally bitterly cold winter, his negligence and incompetence prevented him from protecting his only family member from illness and hunger.

When Yanni died, he was just as thin and small, and he looked at him with clear eyes filled with dependence and pain, as if asking him, "Brother, why couldn't you save me?"

At that moment, time seemed to flow backward.

Ruins, London, the Xuyue Organization, the recent massacre... everything has vanished.

All that remained before Xiya's eyes was this unfamiliar yet so familiar it made his heart clench, and those pleading purple eyes that overlapped with the eyes deep in his memory.

Immense grief and overwhelming guilt instantly engulfed this man, who was known for his ruthlessness.

His hand, which was resting on the dagger, trembled uncontrollably before falling limply to his side.

His tall frame even swayed slightly, needing to grab onto the broken wall beside him to steady himself. His breathing became heavy and labored, as if countless hands were choking him.

He failed to protect Yanni. That was the biggest failure of his life, an irreparable and eternal pain.

His joining the Xuyue organization and desperately trying to become stronger is, in a way, a crazy compensation for his past incompetence.

He thought time had dulled the pain, but now, the dying boy in the ruins easily tore it open, exposing it to the light of day.

"No..." A suppressed, almost sobbing growl escaped from the depths of Xiya's throat. He couldn't bear to see those eyes extinguish before him again. He couldn't bear to lose them again.

Almost instinctively, an impulse that transcended rational thought and stemmed from the deepest trauma, Xiya suddenly crouched down, disregarding the filth on the ground, and carefully reached out to touch the trembling boy.

“Don’t be afraid…” His voice was unusually hoarse, even carrying an awkward tenderness that he himself was unaware of, completely different from his coldness just moments before, “…I won’t hurt you.”

The boy seemed startled by his actions, shrinking back and hiding in fear, his purple eyes filled with even greater terror.

Sia stopped, realizing how horribly he might look—covered in dust, bearing the stench of a recent killing, with blood still wet on his face. He took a deep breath, trying to soften his expression, though it was incredibly difficult. He slowed his voice and repeated, "Don't be afraid, I'm here to help you."

He stopped trying to touch him, and instead quickly took off his black leather jacket, disregarding the expensive material, and gently covered the boy's cold, trembling body with it.

Then, he looked around and found a worn-out tin can. He ran to a small puddle nearby and carefully filled the can with water. He returned to the boy, knelt on one knee, and held the can to the boy's chapped lips.

"Have some water." His movements still carried the stiffness of years of fighting, but he was unusually patient.

The boy hesitated for a moment, but his survival instinct eventually overcame his fear, and he sipped the cold rainwater slowly.

As Xiya watched the delicate lines of his neck as he swallowed, a protective instinct surged within her like wildfire.

"Can you stand up?" Sia asked in a low voice.

The boy tried to move, but let out a painful groan, and tears welled up in his purple eyes. His leg seemed to be seriously injured.

Without the slightest hesitation, Xiya turned around, her back to the boy, and said in a deep voice, "Come on up."

The boy was stunned, his purple eyes filled with disbelief.

"Hurry, it's not safe here." Xiya's tone was commanding and left no room for argument, but the urgency to save them was clearly evident beneath.

After much hesitation, the boy's will to survive and a strange sense of trust in the red-haired stranger in front of him finally gave him the last of his strength to climb onto Sia's broad back.

Sia stood up steadily, the boy's weight painfully light. He adjusted his posture to ensure the boy could lie relatively comfortably, then started walking towards the rendezvous point, his steps more determined and hurried than when he arrived.

The last rays of the setting sun cast long shadows of them. The powerful red-haired man, carrying the frail black-haired boy on his back, walked among the ruins, creating a striking image.

Sia could feel the faint breathing and heartbeat of the boy on his back. A strange, long-lost sense of fulfillment mixed with immense panic surged through him. It was as if he was carrying not a stranger, but his own lost past, a possible, belated redemption.

He didn't know who the boy was, where he came from, or why he was dying in these ruins. At this moment, none of that mattered. Only one thing mattered: him, Xiya, "Whale Shark"—he had to protect him this time. He couldn't let Yanni's tragedy repeat itself.

As night deepened, the fog rolled in again. Xiya, carrying the unconscious boy, took a shortcut to the rendezvous point.

He was restless, his mind filled with the image of the boy's purple eyes overlapping with Yanni's gaze before his death, so much so that when he turned the corner of a dimly lit alley, he almost bumped into a figure coming from the opposite direction.

Xiya reacted quickly, abruptly turning to the side and using his broad shoulders to shield the boy on his back, preventing a direct collision. He looked up warily at the newcomer.

It was a young girl carrying an old cloth bag containing several records, seemingly having just come from the "Nocturne" record store not far away.

The dim light at the alley entrance outlined her slender figure and her unusual hair color, which, even in the darkness of night, resembled a mixture of haze and sunset.

It's that girl from the record store. Zhou.

Xiya's heart skipped a beat. This was the first time he had seen her so closely.

Zhou seemed startled by the sudden turn of events, but she quickly regained her balance. Her gaze first swept over the bloodstains and murderous aura on Xiya's face, then settled on the unconscious blue-haired boy carefully wrapped in an expensive leather coat on his back.

She didn't show any fear or disgust like ordinary people, nor did she scream. Her eyes, a peculiar grayish-blue, were staring directly into Sia's eyes.

In those eyes, Sia did not see the judgment or fear she had expected, but rather a kind of... clarity and profound compassion beyond her years.

That gaze seemed to have a penetrating power, instantly illuminating the chaotic emotions boiling in his chest—the lingering violence after the killing, the urgency brought about by the rescue operation, the immense pain from past traumas, and a kind of almost desperate tenderness that even he himself had never clearly understood.

What made Xia's heart pound even more was that, standing in front of this girl, he felt an indescribable sensation, as if she were surrounded by a strange halo or atmosphere, completely out of place in the dark world he was familiar with, carrying a color of unreal, almost divine tranquility intertwined with sadness.

This feeling was fleeting, yet it shook him violently, as if a crack had been pried open in a solid barrier.

Almost instinctively, he wanted to avoid those eyes that seemed to see right through his soul. Xu Yue's admonitions, the organization's rules, the blood tainted within himself... all of these clashed with the pure, otherworldly beauty before him.

"I'm sorry," Xiya forced out an apology, his voice hoarse with nervousness. Without waiting for a response, he practically fled, pulling the boy on his back even tighter and faster, disappearing quickly into the deeper fog at the other end of the alley, as if something terrifying was chasing him.

Zhou stood there, watching the tall, red-haired man's almost hasty retreat, her brows furrowing slightly. Her slender fingers unconsciously brushed against the cover of an old record in her arms.

In that man, she "saw" extremely strong and contradictory emotions—a dark anger like freshly congealed blood, a sorrow as turbulent as the deep sea, and... a blazing, almost scorching golden light that burned to protect the fragile life on his back, completely out of place in the darkness of the East End night.

“Strange person…” she murmured to herself, her voice as soft as mist. Then, she shook her head, suppressing the strange feeling, and continued walking towards her small record shop, warmly lit by lamplight. London nights are always full of untold stories.