Chapter 159 Painted Body Swallowing Charcoal (8)
The trembling figure beneath the cloak slowly moved closer, reaching out to carefully grasp her wrists.
Those hands were completely black and as dry as pieces of charcoal.
Shu Ningmiao let go of his hand, and without the support from her hand, he suddenly lost his strength and knelt on the ground.
After a long while, the boy convulsively raised his hands and grabbed the edge of the hood, pulling it open.
His uneven red hair was visible beneath the shadow of the cloak; he had clearly neglected his appearance since parting ways with Gaber, as the ends of his hair had drooped down to his shoulders.
He finally spoke, his voice so rough it was almost grating, like the noise of frosted glass being scraped.
"It's okay...no one will recognize me."
You An raised his head, his face exposed to the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees.
Shu Ningmiao's pupils contracted.
This could not even be called a face; the dark red skin clung to the jagged bones like it had been burned, and there wasn't a single patch of intact skin to be found.
The exposed facial muscles looked as if wax had melted and then solidified again, taut and pulling at the surrounding skin.
One of his eyes was thus displayed in an odd half-open, half-closed state, with carbonized marks on the edge of the eyelid.
This was not the face of You An she remembered; that face, perhaps carrying the spirit of youth, was no longer there.
You An's hand, which had been holding up his hood, fell limply down as if he had used up all his strength.
The wind in the forest seemed to have stopped, leaving only his heavy breathing, his violently heaving chest pulling at the taut scars on his face.
Shu Ningmiao took a deep breath: "What do you want to do, assassinate the representative?"
You An gave a soft "hmm" and stared at her intently; the burning gaze she felt then was indeed from him.
"Why?"
“It’s all because of him.” A strange light flashed in You An’s intact left eye, as if she had asked an absurd question: “He destroyed Canaan. If we kill him, everything will go back to the way it was before. They, they can’t come back. But if we stop now, no more people will die.”
"You'd better leave now," she said bluntly, closing her eyes slightly.
"Why?" You An's pupils trembled, and he suddenly crawled a few steps on his knees, grabbing her sleeves with both hands: "You think he shouldn't have died? You also think I'm wrong?"
Shu Ningmiao bent down slightly to look him in the eye, not softening her tone because of his vulnerability: "Because you can't kill him."
She paused, then finally added, "You will die."
You An's expression shifted repeatedly as he stared blankly at her: "Everyone else is dead, shouldn't I be the one to die?"
Shu Ningmiao was silent for a moment, her mind racing with thoughts: "...Where is You Gua?"
"I……"
You An uttered a single word, then fell silent for a long time.
After a long silence, his body twitched slightly: "I jumped down and only found his arm."
You An bit down hard on the dark red scar on his lower lip, his face twitching, yet his voice carried a chilling calm: "Shu Ningmiao, I saw what blew that small boat apart. It wasn't a bullet, it was a shell. It exploded... It was so hot, incredibly hot. I couldn't see anything. That blue light was burning my eyes. I didn't even feel my skin melting. Such a terrifying thing, Phineas will make hundreds and thousands more, and they'll explode in countless places..."
“Really…” He suddenly trembled as he grabbed his messy red hair and tore at it forcefully: “It’s really terrifying.”
Shu Ningmiao quickly reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping his self-harm. Her mind was in turmoil. The regenerative abilities of superhumans were different from those of ordinary people. Normal burns would not leave such a cruel scar, unless the weapon that exploded in front of him was targeted at superhumans...
"I don't care if I die."
You An gasped for breath, his eyes meeting hers as he looked at her pleadingly.
“What else can I do? My home is gone, and I can never go back to my hometown. Pigne is looking for me. They must be afraid that I will become evidence in the military tribunal. I have no right to live in Pigne. What else can I do!”
His voice was broken: "I just want to kill Lucicolay. Just kill him and the war will stop. Everything will be over. I don't want Pigne to continue destroying Intori. The children of Intori wanted to save my brother, but my country killed my brother. For us, for them, I will kill him!"
Shu Ningmiao placed her hand lightly on his shoulder, a gesture that calmed his agitated emotions slightly. You An stared unfocused at the ground, no longer speaking.
In the long silence, the boy seemed to finally calm down, and his reason gradually returned. He realized that Shu Ningmiao's appearance here could not be for the same purpose as his.
Why do you protect Lucicolay?
All the expressions on his face were replaced by a tremendous, despairing collapse of his faith: "Are you... going to kill me?"
“If I wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
His emotions seemed somewhat unstable. Shu Ningmiao frowned imperceptibly, but still said, "I won't stop you, but I can tell you that even if you kill Lucicolai, the war may not necessarily end."
You An had too many naive and deadly fantasies about "killing the representative".
He seemed to think that with Lucicole dead, all problems would be solved.
She certainly wanted to deal with Lucicolay, but not now. Her goals were not aligned with Yuan's; what she needed was the temporary internal strife caused by Lucicolay's sudden death. She knew the best outcome she could gamble on was a temporary ceasefire, and even if a ceasefire wasn't possible, it could at least delay the Cherubim Project, giving the Intori's ability users time to react.
Shu Ningmiao admitted her selfishness. Human energy is limited. She wanted Shu Changyan to return safely, which was a much higher priority for her than saving Yintori and world peace.
Now, the Pieters army has a clear advantage and is about to achieve its goal. Lucico is dead, and the next representative, even if he is a member of the Liberal Party, will have to consider whether an unconditional withdrawal is worthwhile.
—In fact, she felt that the possibility of Pinhes surrendering voluntarily was zero.
The damage already inflicted by war and international reputation cannot be stopped simply because one person dies.
If You An takes such a desperate gamble, he will inevitably suffer an even more devastating blow.
You An choked back tears, her expression one of utter despair: "How could this be?"
“You’re overestimating Lucicolet. In politics, everyone else is a nobody.” Shu Ningmiao paused. “If you kill him now, can you guarantee that the next parliament will make the decision to end the war? Lucicolet’s decision passed because he has overwhelming support in parliament. A representative dies, but another will take his place. Piedmont has over a billion people; this position will never be vacant until victory. You can be ruthless enough to kill one person, but can you kill everyone sitting in that position?”
“I can do it,” You An said. “Then I’ll keep killing.”
He seemed to have figured something out, and stiffly repeated, "Keep killing."
He knew, of course, how naive and unrealistic his ideas were, but if he didn't do it, he would have no power, not even the right to "speak." As a superhuman, how could he, alone, change the world's mindset?
He stared at the flames rising in his palm due to his emotions, and suddenly revealed a smile that was uglier than crying.
Perhaps humanity awakens to become superhumans in order to break free from a powerless system and gain a chance for change: "As long as I live, I will continue to do this. Why not just kill everyone who wants war? Kill every single member of the council... until they completely give up, until they realize their mistakes!"
You An nervously dug at the bleeding dirt below her knee with her fingers, already prepared to be rejected by her.
He himself knew it was a pipe dream, but Shu Ningmiao listened to him and said nothing.
She seemed to freeze there, as if she were held captive by something, unable to move.
A chill ran down her spine to the top of her head, making her scalp tingle instantly and causing cold sweat to break out.
"Regarding what you're talking about," Shu Ningmiao said, standing still with a completely expressionless face, "wasn't someone already doing that three hundred years ago?"
She stared blankly into You An's eyes.
Parliament... a great purge.
What You An couldn't do, someone else could, and has already done.
Shu Ningmiao never expected that she would suddenly have a flash of inspiration at such a moment and capture Wei Shengqianheng's seemingly insane intentions.
but.
The three-year-long bloodbath in parliament, with all members of three consecutive terms dying, ultimately proved only one thing: people have extremely short memories and never learn from their mistakes.
One stood and the other knelt, and You An could only look up at her. She lowered her gaze, her voice sharp as a blade, shattering his illusions: "It's no use."
In an instant, all the expressions on You An's face vanished.
Tears flowed silently and violently from that empty eye, rolling down the grotesque furrows of her scarred face.
Quiet, infinitely quiet.
There were no shouts, no questions, and even the broken breathing stopped.
In the deathly silent forest, only the uncontrollable, violent trembling of his body could be heard.
Time seemed to freeze for a few seconds in the overwhelming silence of the world, and then You An's tense body suddenly collapsed.
He used all his remaining strength, like a drowning person grabbing onto a piece of driftwood, his hands, as stiff as withered wood, gripped her tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.
Shu Ningmiao did not break free, letting him hold her tightly. Regardless of the hazy feelings she once had, she was like a young beast rushing towards its only support. The boy's shoulders heaved violently, causing his entire face to show a painful and strange spasm.
A suppressed sob escaped from deep within his chest.
"Uh—uh ah." You An bit his lower lip, trying to suppress his voice. Large, turbid tears dripped onto the back of Shu Ningmiao's hand that was gripping his collar, hotter than fire.
He squeezed out incoherent words from between his lips, buried his burned face in her shoulder, and the layer of composure he had been forcibly maintaining crumbled under the impact of fear and pain, and his sobs suddenly became uncontrollable.
"Aaaaaah—!"
His mournful cries echoed through the woods.
"What should I do?!" You An clung to her tightly, like a wounded, dying beast, as if she were the only straw he could grasp in his boundless darkness and pain, wailing with heart-wrenching despair: "What else can I do..."
Shu Ningmiao stood frozen, feeling the trembling and coldness emanating from his body... Her hand, which had been gripping his collar, finally loosened little by little.
You An's fingertips slipped from her sleeve, but he didn't come closer. He just knelt stiffly on the ground, his fingers unconsciously clutching some withered leaves at his feet.
His eyes were never fully focused, and his face wore a half-smile, a mixture of crying and laughing.
Shu Ningmiao felt increasingly that something was wrong with him, but since she wasn't a doctor, she had to get him out of there first.
“You should leave here first and go to the New Land.” She pressed her index finger against his drooping palm, subtly tracing a straight and crisscrossing street route. Thanks to the map Liang Siyan had given her, she remembered the layout of the New Land fairly well. The New Land did not require an identity and would not help the Pinecarts; it was the only place where he could find refuge right now. “Go to this orphanage and find Erigie. She is rebuilding Prometheus. If you really want to do something, go and help her.”
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