Not a teammate
07 looked down at Lu Ming, who had turned into a puddle of mud at his feet, and suddenly said, "For the sake of these two bottles of medicine, I might as well tell you something so that you can understand the truth."
All the muscles, bones and meridians in Lu Ming's body had been completely broken. Now the only part of his body that could move was his left eye, so he moved his eyeball with difficulty and looked in the direction of 07.
"Do you know why some people dared to rescue you from the Association, but no one wanted to use you in the Maintenance Bureau?" 07 pulled out his hair tie; his hair seemed to have grown a bit longer. "Because they all know the method you used to get to level 8, and they all look down on it."
Tears began to well up in Lu Ming's eye.
07 was not moved at all: "Why are you crying? Are you regretting it? Do you know that you did something wrong?"
"No, you just know you're going to die."
Finally, Lu Ming's left eye was crushed and he completely lost his sight.
——
On the day when autumn officially began in the new calendar year 175, Shi Youchen and Mollier were called by 07 to the room where Shi Youchen had been sleeping.
"What? You asked us to come over but you are late. That's really too much." Molly was very unhappy. She was at the critical moment of training and improvement!
Shi Youchen's training had been stagnant recently, so he didn't have much of an opinion. He also happened to have something to ask 07, so even the waiting time seemed very meaningful.
Finally, 07 stepped into the room. As usual, he turned off the entire building's fluorite lights, then turned on the wall opposite him. Two man-sized culture media, each one magnified hundreds of times, jutted out from the wall.
The culture medium on the left contains blue liquid, while the one on the right is red. Although the colors are different, they both contain a mass of components that look like machine wreckage.
"What is this?" Morrill asked 07.
Shi Youchen vaguely sensed something was amiss. 07 had always given him conflicting feelings: sometimes like a fierce enemy, sometimes like a cold and stern teacher, and even sometimes like the head of a household.
But 07 was different today. He didn't have the usual carefree look that made him take no one seriously. He felt particularly cold and heavy-hearted today.
Just as Morrill curiously reached out to touch the transparent shell of the culture medium, 07 spoke.
"This is the person you've always hated the most. You wished he would die, didn't you? I made it happen for you."
07's voice came faintly from behind Morrill, and the content of his words made Morrill shudder, followed by a burst of uncontrollable retching.
Shi Youchen's limbs began to stiffen. Only then did he clearly see what was immersed in the two culture media—several pieces of bones, some fragments of clothing, several clumps of biological hair of varying sizes, and a head with its eyes gouged out.
07 ignored Mollier's discomfort and continued, "He's been ruining my plans time and time again, and I've reached the limit of my patience. I happened to run into one a few days ago in a place where bedbugs were congregating, so I took advantage of it and took care of it."
Then he looked at Morrill: "Didn't you make a contract with me to take his life? Now that the conditions of my contract have been fulfilled, it's your turn to pay."
Molly vomited for a long time, only to vomit some acid. She wiped the stains from the corners of her mouth, her eyes becoming determined: "Okay, you can take my life."
07 said, "Your life is worthless to me now. Leave it for now. I will take it when I need it. Just remember it."
Then he turned to Shi Youchen: "This person must have caused you quite a bit of trouble, right? Do you hate him?"
"..." Shi Youchen said silently, "It's not hatred, I just feel it's not worth it for some people." Ying Yungui has always respected his Uncle Lu and mentioned him many times when they were still on a team together.
Shi Youchen guessed that he originally wanted to become a powerful psychic like Lu Ming.
Unfortunately...
07 glanced disdainfully at the head still bubbling in the culture medium and said, "Having died in my hands, he still has some value. This is an energy absorber manufactured by the Maintenance Bureau. It can extract all the energy in the body of a mutant, convert it and store it. This waste energy is of no use to me, so I'll give it to you."
"The blue one is his spiritual energy, and the red one is his physical energy. Divide them as you see fit."
"But he is at least a Level 8 psychic recognized by the association. It will probably take some time for you to absorb all his energy, given your level. There will be people in this tower to protect you, so just do it without worry."
07 said and prepared to turn around and leave, leaving a sentence before leaving: "Don't let me down."
Molly looked at Shi Youchen somewhat bewilderedly. She certainly would not doubt the truthfulness of 07's words, because there was no need for 07 to deceive them. Therefore, the thing in this culture medium must be the real Lu Ming, and it could only be Lu Ming.
"What should we do?" Mollyer had already made up her mind, but she wanted to know what Shi Youchen really thought.
Shi Youchen actually felt a little ridiculously naive at this moment. How could he have thought that 07 was some kind of teacher who loved to teach and answer questions?
On the night when the Maintenance Bureau officially declared war, when 07 and Frovich faced off and escaped unscathed, he was truly shocked by this person's actions.
He is obviously a man who will do anything to achieve his goals.
Shi Youchen clenched his fists and finally made up his mind - even if he had to follow the path given by 07, he would become stronger. Because only by being strong enough could he not be used as a pawn by others and could he protect the people he wanted to protect.
In this world, the strong survive and the weak die. It was the same whether in the Maintenance Bureau, in the Association, or before awakening to become a mutant.
"I want to absorb his energy." Shi Youchen said.
——
A month later, on November 10th, 175th year of the new calendar, it was the second anniversary of Shi Youchen's death. Luo Zhao and Jiang Yu brought 16-year-old Li Sen to the association's cemetery to visit his grave.
Li Sen is well taken care of by the elders of the Luo family. He is now at an age of rapid development, growing rapidly like a shoot, and seems to be making up for what he owed in the past ten years.
Since the association recognized her as possessing supernatural powers, she was quickly trained as a key target. Of course, this was largely due to the exposure of the relationship between the Luo and Ying families, a strategy used by the then District 9 Association managers to curry favor with the Ying family.
However, no one expected that the continent of District 9 would encounter an accident and disappear from the world. The original people of District 9 also scattered to various districts to start a new life.
During the years when she was the focus of attention and training, the person Li Sen missed most was Shi Youchen, who brought her out of the mountains. She always remembered the promise that Shi Youchen and Ying Yungui made when they left, that they would come to pick her up when she grew up.
But what she waited for was not her brother coming to pick her up, but the news of her brother's death.
For the past two years, because Li Sen was still young, Luo Zhao had deliberately kept this a secret from her, and naturally, he wouldn't bring her along when visiting Shi Youchen's grave. But this year, Jiang Yu persuaded her, "She can't remain weak forever. We need to tell her what she needs to know as soon as possible. She's a psychic, and she needs the courage of a psychic."
So today the three of them went to the association cemetery together.
Li Sen had been crying for a while while hugging the tombstone, and now, tired of crying, he lay on the cold stone. Jiang Yu wanted to ask her to get up, thinking that the weather was getting colder and it would be easy to get sick, but Luo Zhao stopped her.
Seeing her so sad, they both felt bad, a little regretful that they had restricted her studies and not let her see Shi Youchen more often. As a result, now they could never see each other again.
The atmosphere was still sad. Li Sen suddenly stood up and was about to run outside, but was quickly stopped by Jiang Yu.
Luo Zhao asked: "What's wrong? Where are you going?"
Li Sen had already learned to speak fluent Area 8 dialect: "My brother is not dead! I want to go find him!"
Is this because he is heartbroken or has lost his mind? Luo Zhao and Jiang Yu looked at each other and both felt that this matter might be a bit troublesome.
——
At the same time, on the other side, Ying Yungui just returned home and saw his busy father Ying Xiangze who rarely showed up.
Ying Yungui: "Do you have something to talk to me about?" He just glanced at the person sitting at the tea table, quickly looked away, and walked into the kitchen to make himself something to eat.
Ying Xiangze put down what he was doing and started talking. He knew that Ying Yungui could hear him clearly at this distance.
"I just thought that the things that happened before were just you being angry, so I turned a blind eye and let it go. Later, as long as the things you proposed were reasonable, well-founded, and well-organized, I helped you eliminate unnecessary trouble. You were able to win the case against Lu Ming, which is indeed your ability."
"But now it's different. He's clearly connected to the Maintenance Bureau and can even abandon the entire Lu family. Who knows what else he might be doing behind the scenes."
"Yun Gui, are you really not going to let go? Have you ever thought about how you would deal with him if he defected to the Maintenance Bureau and fought you to the death?"
Ying Yungui indeed heard it very clearly, every word he heard.
So he turned off the stove, walked out of the kitchen, leaned against the door, looked at his father, the head of the decision-making group who had obviously aged a lot this year, and said, "That's perfect, let's fight to the death."
Ying Xiangze almost gasped for breath. He glared at his son, whose personality had changed drastically in the past two years, and said, "Where do you put your mother and the others by doing this? He's just your teammate. Is it really necessary to go to this extent?"
"He's not."
Ying Xiangze didn't react immediately after hearing this and asked, "What?"
Ying Yungui began to fiddle with the ring again, his tone surprisingly softening: "Dad, he's not a teammate."
"He is the one I recognized, and he is also the one who recognized me."
"We must be together. Even if I have to be in the form of ashes, I want to be with him."
...
After Ying Xiangze left, Ying Yungui collapsed on the bed exhausted, not wanting to cook anymore. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and then he felt strangely relaxed.
"Heh...hahaha." Ying Yungui laughed softly, and then laughed more and more wildly, "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!"
After a moment he finally quieted down.
"Dad, you don't have to worry, because Lu Ming is dead enough and can't threaten Mom and the others anymore."
The reason was simple. Ying Yungui had used his newly developed abilities to seal a part of himself within Lu Ming's body.
For more than a month, the missing part of him has been suffering from long-lasting pain such as burning, cold, and tearing.
Just now, after the severe pain, that part of his body was finally completely empty, and he no longer felt any pain.
Ying Yungui knew that his real plan had succeeded.
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