Chapter 113 Perfection Through Refinement (12)
Shu Changyan's hoarse, soft call jolted her thoughts, which had been drifting in the silence. Shu Ningmiao's nerves twitched, and she suddenly felt very uneasy.
The world quieted down in his embrace, and everything felt so far away from her.
Her memories should have ended here, so why is she still stuck in this darkness?
After a long, long time, Shu Changyan hugged her tightly, gently patting her shoulder as usual, lowering his head to kiss her forehead, moving slightly down until his forehead touched hers, and softly calling her "sister" in a dreamlike voice, while caressing her cold palms.
She felt that Shu Changyan was acting strangely. Should a normal person react like this when faced with a dead person?
The man's taut, spasming arms pressed against the back of her neck as he bent down and carefully lifted her body into his arms.
Shu Ningmiao leaned against his chest, feeling his hands trembling slightly, so tight it seemed he was going to crush her bones. He held her like a handful of sand; the tighter he held her, the faster it slipped away.
After an unknown amount of time, Shu Ningmiao finally felt him take a step.
Unable to see or move, even his embrace was as steady as if she were nestled in a sofa; she could only guess at possible movements based on the subtle sounds around her.
The long-neglected office door opened and closed once again.
Shu Ningmiao was stunned. He was planning to carry her body out like this. Wouldn't he be riddled with bullets by the people of Pine?
It turned out she had underestimated him. The man switched to putting one arm around her, while holding his sword in the other, and they walked smoothly through the streets as if they were in an empty neighborhood.
She didn't hear anyone else's voice.
Logically, Pinhes would have sent someone to monitor her, and judging from the "plot" provided to her by the game system, this day was not a rest day.
The dull, deathly silence around him made the surroundings seem even more oppressive and eerie, and everything seemed to be heading in the wrong direction.
The abrupt silence lasted for a long time, until a warm breeze brushed past her ears and through her hair, and Shu Changyan's slender hand naturally rested on her waist.
Boom!
Sparks flew out, scattering tiny wisps of white smoke. The man's hand brushed across her face, casually brushing away the debris.
As her body temperature dropped, the sensation on her skin became particularly dull. A momentary feeling of weightlessness washed over her, and after a while, Shu Ningmiao suddenly realized what the sound was.
bullet.
The suffocating smell of gunpowder and damp smoke lingered around the edges of her drooping fingers. The voice that had been muffled by Shu Changyan became clear again, and the buzzing of the circling helicopter almost drowned out the sound of gunfire.
A crackling sound of electricity spread rapidly through the darkness. Other superhumans were nearby, and their indistinct voices, mixed with the strong smell of blood, said: "...He's insane. Don't let him go."
The whistling bullets, the overwhelming superpowers, the almost frantic shouts—all these intermittently drilled into her ears. Shu Ningmiao understood only one thing: Shu Changyan had betrayed her in front of everyone.
She tried to open her eyes to take a look, almost forgetting that she was now a corpse.
If she could still be saved, he might be overjoyed at this moment, but her body is indeed dead, because the remaining consciousness of the lingering Pandora will soon dissipate. Even if he takes her away, he will still have to continue to face her death.
Shu Ningmiao felt confused.
It sounds absurd and ridiculous to betray one's country for someone who is already dead, but what's even more bizarre is that he actually managed to escape from the center of the world's attention and leave this place with her.
He took her away, but he didn't intend to bury her. She didn't know how far Shu Changyan had gone or where he was going—because she had nowhere else to go.
Shu Ningmiao reasoned rationally: even if she survived this ordeal, she would still find it difficult to survive the country's encirclement and suppression. Was it worth it for someone who could not possibly come back to life?
Through her thin eyelids, she glimpsed a sliver of light, as if warm drops were dripping onto her face. A faint bitterness welled up in her heart, as if a breath was stuck in her chest, unable to be swallowed or exhaled.
She had been waiting to leave this dream, but now she realized that things wouldn't end so easily.
Throughout the entire ordeal, apart from calling her name, Shu Changyan didn't utter a single word. All she could hear was his panting, his bloodied fingertips constantly wiping her cheek.
The surroundings quieted down, and somehow he had shaken off the people who had followed him and silently walked into a secluded place.
The automatic metal valve was pried open with a click, and the carefully adjusted temperature was completely different from the outside. She could almost immediately tell that she was indoors. But where was she?
Shu Changyan had no desire to own property, had never bought a house, and had no home. After leaving the military, the only place she would go was the house she bought, but at this moment, that house must be in the surveillance area.
As she pondered, she felt her body sink into something soft, and her drooping hand seemed to touch the edge of a piece of paper.
There was a tactile sensation of paper gently drifting down at my feet.
It's a report that's been tossed on the sofa.
The image flashed through her mind inexplicably; the layout was clearly the one she had just visited... the operative's lounge.
What exactly does he want to do?
"sorry."
Shu Changyan sat down, gently holding her cold fingers, nestling half his face against her palm to transfer warmth to her, staring at her for a long time before speaking in a low voice.
He lowered his head, his hot breath brushing against her ear, his tone as gentle as ever: "Shall I take you to see other places?"
Where to go? Shu Ningmiao wondered in surprise, she might be going to the ground now.
Another voice approached from afar, coldly asking, "Are you crazy?"
Zhao's familiar and distinctive voice rushed over, suddenly rising in pitch, reaching out to touch the nose of the girl on the sofa with her eyes tightly closed, only to be gently pulled away before it could reach her.
Their eyes met, and there was no emotion in those clear blue eyes. Zhao staggered back a step.
Zhao had never been so out of control before; he was completely dumbfounded: "...You're insane, you're really insane—are you sick in the head? You betrayed me in front of so many people, and now you dare to come looking for me."
Shu Changyan took off his coat and draped it over her, covering the bloodstains on her dress. He held his finger to his lips and shook his head slightly: "I need your ability 'property' to grant her the property of 'stillness' in her body."
Zhao coldly replied, "What if I refuse? What do you plan to do? Kill me?"
Shu Changyan didn't speak, his fingertips resting on her slightly disheveled temples.
“Of course I know you came back because of my superpower.” Zhao raised his voice: “Do you think the Pandora within me has no limits? If I freeze her corpse—just to preserve a corpse, I won’t have the energy to go on missions for almost a year!”
"She's not dead."
The overhead light cast a silhouette of his calm, expressionless face. Only when he gazed at that lifeless, pale face did his eyes become bright.
"Can't you be a little more sensible?" Zhao stood there, staring at him as if he were a real madman for a long time. "So what if you keep her body? Where are you going to take her? Go back to Xindi to hide and live with a corpse for the rest of your life?"
"She's dead, can you please stop being so twisted!"
"I can feel that she's still here." Shu Changyan raised his eyes, his pupils a pale blue, radiating a distant and dim light.
Zhao collapsed and slowly squatted down in front of him, grabbing her hair: "You've gone mad, you're insane, you know that? Of course you can feel it when you're sick. Can't you see the Pandora on her body is overflowing? Only the Pandora of the dead flows away... There's only a tiny bit left, and this tiny bit of loss foreshadows that her 'existence' is about to disappear completely!"
Zhao paused for a moment.
“…I forgot.” He lowered his hand and remained silent for a long time before speaking: “Ordinary people like you without superpowers can’t see Pandora at all.”
Shu Changyan lowered his hand and gently covered her ear, seemingly not wanting her to hear.
The automatic metal door malfunctioned because of Shu Changyan's violent opening method. A faint "beep" sound came from afar, and a light breeze swept in, brushing against her cheeks. Shu Ningmiao felt a little cold.
“Sometimes I really wonder why you want to be an Actor. You don’t even have any special abilities. Aren’t you just looking for death?” Zhao forced a smile.
Shu Changyan stood in front of her, grasped the hilt of the sword, and silently drove the blade into his side.
After a long pause, Zhao gave a bitter smile, raised his hand, and then stopped in mid-air: "Former military minister Sun Yucheng went to great lengths to protect your genetic data. I thought there was some kind of relationship between you two, but now it seems that although he was confused by the church's incense, his sense of smell is still sharp. Whether you have awakened or not is irrelevant. As long as the weapon can hurt people, that's enough, right?"
"Fine, I'll fight you here, but I'm not confident."
He closed his eyes and opened them again, as if making a firm decision, he hovered his hand above the girl's pale face, his slender fingers, studded with gemstone rings, radiating a Pandora's halo: "I will report to my superiors that I had no choice but to submit in order to save my own life. I hope my life is worth more than yours, so that the days ahead won't be too difficult."
The radiance enveloped her body, freezing the flow of time through her for a long time.
From this moment on, the corpse will remain forever frozen in time, never changing. The last bit of Pandora in the body will also be frozen by time. Even if Zhao thinks this is a futile effort, what can others do but obey when a powerful madman wants to play house?
“After returning from Mengdan, I thought that only you and I were the same kind of people.” Zhao’s mouth moved, with bright red blood mixed between his lips and teeth. He was completely still, even a corpse was far beyond his limit. Exhausted pain surged up, and his internal organs trembled as he spoke: “People who will not hesitate.”
His voice was still squeezed out from between his teeth, word by word: "I thought that we gave up so much and lost so much for something more important. Pinne has billions of citizens. No matter how trivial or ordinary their lives are, at least I protected their right to wake up under the sky. But now, I think I understand. For you, nothing matters except her. You are not a superhuman, nor are you human. You are just a pure monster."
Zhao gazed at the quiet girl and sighed deeply.
Shu Changyan placed his hand on the hilt of the sword and slowly turned the blade.
The heavy, blunt greatsword made a dull sound, more like a stone tablet pressing down on him than a weapon. Anyone with eyes could see that this weapon was not easy to use. The real weapon is not the sword, but the master who holds it.
A slightly concave inscription runs along the smooth blade of the sword. Zhao lowers his eyes and stares at the blood that has congealed into a line on the blade, dripping from the groove of the inscription.
"CUSTODIA (Guardian)".
Shu Changyan softly read the ancient Pinhian inscription on the sword: "This sword is called the Executioner's Sword. It was the weapon of the first generation of Executioners. After that person died, the council at the time voted to keep it in the highest beam of the United Building. After my teacher betrayed us, he took it with him and gave it to me before he died."
“Before leaving the new land, I always imagined what Pinheit would look like.” He turned his head to the side, casting a small shadow in his eye socket, a faint smile not reaching his eyes: “Later, I stood here and found that there was no difference.”
Before coming to the Shu family, he had a nickname given to him by his parents, which, translated from ancient Pinhian, means "hero." This simple meaning is more like a prefix to a number than a name.
After entering the military, his teacher praised him as a born weapon, possessing the indifference of a sword and few ties with others.
He has no superpowers, is isolated from Pandora, and is a "mortal" deliberately created.
Under the overwhelming shadow of fate, he looked up and glimpsed some clues, but all he found was a quiet solitude.
The naivety of youth was swept away by reality, and all his confusion, affection and longing from his youth were given to the vibrant, unrestrained girl standing there.
He will love her as long as she is there.
“Compared to protecting Phineas… I want to protect something more concrete.” An inexplicable, immense sorrow welled up in his blue eyes. Shu Changyan silently looked up, the gaping wounds of weariness expanding, pulling him downwards: “Why become an agent—my barren dreams belong to her. That snowy night, I decided to become a powerful brother, someone she could be proud of, her hero.”
Shu Changyan slowly drew the sword, released his grip, letting the sword fall heavily to the ground, turned and left. He didn't take any weapons with him, and picked her up with both hands.
“You’re right.” He smiled and said in a gentle voice, “If it weren’t for protecting her, raising my sword would have no meaning for me.”
After a long period of cold winds, warmth is finally beginning to ferment again.
Her death, along with Shu Changyan's, vanished under the sun of Pigne. The former envoy fled with her for a long time. Perhaps Pigne felt that losing so many men was not worth it, or perhaps he felt that he had died with her, so fewer and fewer people came to hunt him down.
Shu Changyan somehow acquired a car. During the period when he was a key wanted target of Pigne, he drove west of Pigne. Beyond the border was a no-man's land left over from the war. The barren and desolate land had once been inhabited. Due to the large-scale destruction caused by supernatural abilities during the resistance war, the former residents had retreated to a small area further north, living at the mercy of the surrounding major powers.
The boundless land stretches out in undulating lines, stretching as far as the eye can see, with no beginning in sight, as if one end connects to the past and the other to the future.
As they walked, Shu Changyan carried her on his back, just like when they were children. She had a red rope tied to her hand, which was tied to his left hand.
Walking across the scarred land, the Milky Way stretched across the night sky, its brilliant starlight illuminating the ground as a pale silver vein, cruel yet grand.
Thanks to Zhao, when he helped her freeze, although he trapped her inside, the sudden influx of Pandora gave her the opportunity to react. She can now vaguely see some things, which is better than being a stiff corpse.
Even with that dazzling light in her eyes, she still couldn't understand what Shu Changyan was thinking.
During the months he was on the run, he slept very little, but he would still stop occasionally to look at her peaceful, closed-eye sleeping face, though he couldn't gaze at her for too long.
His hearing was so acute that as time went on, he could hear a lot of noise, but he couldn't hear her heartbeat or the sound of her pulse.
Even a corpse has the sound of life decaying, but her life, which was still, was completely silent and imperceptible.
After Pinhes gradually gave up, he took her back to Pinhes and they lived in the old building in the new land.
Although the environment was dilapidated, with black grime on the leaves and different colored clouds floating in the sky as if poisoned, the place where he landed was clean and new, and not lacking in anything. Shu Changyan always had a way.
Why would Shu Changyan risk returning here when he could have left Binnie? It's probably because of her.
If I were in her shoes, I would also try my best to find out.
Although the existence of the new land has long been criticized by the residents of Pines, they will only understand its benefits once they truly experience the convenience of not needing to verify their identities.
Shu Changyan bought a wheelchair and took care of her as if she were still alive. Even though her body was already still, he would still carefully comb her hair, wash her face, wash her clothes, and push her around in the sun.
What made Shu Ningmiao feel most that he had gone mad was that he actually insisted on making her go to bed at fixed times.
She could hardly see him resting. Occasionally, she could hear clanging sounds in the middle of the night. Moonlight streamed in through the window, and through her blurry vision, she could see him sitting in front of his wheelchair, calmly tightening a loose screw.
After staring blankly for a long time, he picked up his pen again and drew an ugly smiling puppy on his wheelchair.
Shu Ningmiao withdrew her gaze and silently closed her eyes.
Through the warm blankets, Shu Changyan leaned closer, gently holding her hand and stroking the protruding knuckles of her wrist, feeling the warmth of her breath: "This is the house I used to live in. It felt cramped back then, but now it doesn't feel small at all."
Unable to get the response he wanted, he looked straight out the window: "I jump out of the window and go to the cage every night... a kind of performance. Occasionally, nobles from Pinhes come to watch this performance of the lower classes tearing each other apart. Those who perform well may be chosen and have a chance to leave this place."
He explained the meaning of "gambler" in a cold tone, as if he were talking about something completely unrelated to himself, before a smile appeared on his face as he continued: "After being brought back to the Shu family, your mother led me to you and told me that this was your sister."
For Shu's father, this was just a spur-of-the-moment investment, but his mother was indeed full of emotions, gentle and sensitive, and had no ill intentions.
“You stood behind Mother looking at me, as if you were wearing a skirt that looked like a flower bud, very round… staring at me, your eyes were also round, like snowflakes.” He and she were face to face, his voice lowered, as if he were talking in his sleep: “I remember the day you called me brother, you asked me to eat the dessert that you didn’t like, the one with maple syrup on it, and I agreed.”
Shu Changyan chuckled softly, and as he laughed, his voice changed. He hooked his little finger around hers and gently shook it: "Little sister, I'm your older brother."
Shu Ningmiao remained silent, the familiar sourness swelling again until a faint metallic taste filled her throat before she suddenly came to her senses.
Even in the dimmed new land, a sliver of light pierced through, the soft moonlight falling sadly upon her like water-soaked paper.
He lay down beside her fully clothed, closed his eyes, breathed evenly, and held her hand tightly, seemingly asleep.
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Author's note: It seems perverted because it's too pure love.
For Shu Changyan, the identity of "brother" is the only chain that maintains their relationship. Because there are many arrows attached to the brother, he must hold on to this chain tightly to avoid drowning. Therefore, he only calls himself brother when he is uneasy.
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