Chapter 170 Holding the Tai'a Axe Upside Down (7)
Those people watched her movements with nothing but horror in their eyes.
The wind felt like needles piercing her bones, and her rapidly changing vision moved blurrily, like a camera panning to a paused state.
The surrounding high-rise buildings, railway tracks, and crowds all seemed to melt into this river.
In the almost stillness of time, everything in the world slowly collapsed and disintegrated until only the silent river remained in her vision.
She fell into the string current from mid-air.
The familiar, endless darkness enveloped her once more, and behind her unfolded a vast, ethereal clock face.
The pointer clicked and stopped moving beneath her.
A blurry, indistinct human figure floated in front of her, its outstretched hand covering her palm as she fell.
Shu Ningmiao hovered in the air amidst the flowing strings, the surrounding scenery blurring and shifting with her.
She saw in the photo the once spirited Wei Shengqianheng, arguing loudly with another white-haired boy whose face was blurred, going in opposite directions.
“Wei Sheng Qian Heng, all of this is your fault.”
Lanxi's figure was stretched infinitely in his memory, his face was not even clear, only his voice remained clear.
Is this another memory of Wei Sheng Qian Heng?
She closed her eyes: "You're really annoying."
Seeing him made me feel a little melancholy.
The blurry shadow grabbed her hand, but instead of passing through it as before, it had a damp, sticky texture: "I once longed for all that glory, even at the cost of breaking with my former friends. When I realized I had made a foolish decision, it was too late. So no matter how I try to change time, I can only push everything to a more tragic state. The human heart, like Manla disease, has an unchangeable predetermined ending."
Upon hearing this, Shu Ningmiao opened her eyes to look at him, thinking that Lan Xi had also had conflicts with him, but they were overshadowed by the news of his illness and impending death. He was truly being punished by heaven.
From the blurry shadow, flesh grew out from the bone, and a younger, more spirited face appeared before her, its compassionate eyes looking down at her.
“I once fought to protect my country and my people. Everyone thought we were heroes who liberated Pines, and I naively thought so too. I felt so noble, until Pines began to actively invade… The parliament said that resources are limited and need to be plundered.”
Wei Shengqianheng looked at his hands: "Edwina and Lanxi are no longer willing to fight as wielders, only I am still holding the sword."
As he once again beheaded the wailing children, he couldn't help but wonder if they were innocent.
Are these children as helpless as the Pinheites of old?
For the first time, the young warrior hesitated with his sword. Behind him lay the belief that had sustained him for over a decade, yet now it revealed a subtle crack in the sunlight. Ahead lay an unknown precipice, where every step could lead to a cruel abyss of no return.
He stood in the wasteland of truth, not knowing what he was fighting for, and could not even see a shadow to whom he could wield his sword.
What is correct?
What is wrong?
Many people are responsible for war or death, but only those who repent will suffer for it.
During the ten years he suffered in his hospital bed, he wondered countless times whether contracting Manla disease was a self-inflicted retribution—karmic retribution.
He purged Parliament, thinking that killing this group of people would be enough, but people kept changing, and desires and wars never stopped.
Three hundred years after his death, he watched as Piné came and went, and people died one after another.
These superhumans, like him, are proud, tormented, and confused, repeating the same mistakes time and time again. There are never any new stories in this world; it's just countless identical cycles in a flowing river.
"I know what humans are like better than any of you. Humans cannot be saved."
Wei Shengqianheng chuckled softly: "Heroes have never existed; only human imagination exists."
He placed his hand on his chest, and Shu Ningmiao watched as his fingers sank into flesh and bone, forcefully piercing the gaps between the bones, and grasped something.
A giant sword was slowly drawn from his chest. The blade was dark and dull, just like the executioner's sword in Shu Changyan's hand.
It is impossible for two identical swords to exist in this world at the same time, but he did it. Wei Sheng Qian Heng used the string flow to break through the limitations of the timeline and bring things from the past into the present.
“You always feel that I am the culprit who caused all of this.”
Wei Shengqianheng spread his arms, his fingers brushing against the blade: "Without me, this planet is still heading toward destruction. Lofty ideals are powerless in the face of desire. It endlessly exploits everyone, just like no matter how many times you start over, you will find that your desires will definitely kill you."
“For the past two months, I have done nothing as you wished—I gave you a chance and I gave you time.”
Wei Shengqianheng raised his head, his black hair cascading down, and leaped down from mid-air, raising his arm and brandishing his sword: "I'll take over everything from now on. You can rest assured and 'die'."
The white light before my eyes cleaved through the surrounding darkness.
Her body was suddenly pulled out of the string current, and she was still in the middle of the Union Building, continuing to fall.
This time, however, the murderous intent that came at them was tangible.
What she was seeing was not the persistent hallucination that had been tormenting her all along; Wei Sheng Qian Heng was reshaping her physical body!
With a clang.
The two Xi Jin longswords drew out a streak of sparks in the air. Shu Ningmiao raised her left hand to parry, but her wrist and the base of her thumb were so shocked that she lost all feeling.
The outer wall of the Union Building beneath him was shattered by the aftershocks of the sword energy.
The two men, one above and one below, locked in a stalemate with their swords, while simultaneously plummeting downwards due to the immense impact.
The drone turned and fired at both of them simultaneously, confirming that the Wei Sheng Qian Heng in front of her was indeed real, and that everyone here could see him.
His strength has finally returned since the day she injured him in the church of the Church of the Reverence.
Wei Shengqianheng looked at her indifferently: "I told you long ago, you might as well just die. Even without a body, we can still live forever in the String Stream. What are you still insisting on?"
"And then live a life of suffering like yours?"
Her eyes were reflected behind the longsword, burning with a terrifying ferocity in her anger: "Wei Sheng Qian Heng, you don't understand at all. Everything about a person has meaning precisely because they are human... It has meaning precisely because it is irreversible."
"I'm not like you!"
She gritted her teeth and slowly pushed the sword upwards, dark red blood seeping from her lips, yet she still managed a cold laugh as she mocked him: "You are nothing, you're just a coward."
Pushing the sword to its limit, Wei Shengqianheng suddenly let go. She immediately pulled the sword back and forcefully drove it into the exterior wall of the building. With one foot braced against the outer wall, the sword slid down along the inertia, clanging and clattering, sparks and gold flecks flying all the way, cutting a huge crack in all the fiberglass pillars on the wall.
In the final seconds before she was about to hit the ground, she perfectly stopped her downward slide.
The drone aimed and fired sluggishly, missing none of them and serving no purpose other than breaking the glass.
Wei Shengqianheng suddenly appeared and then disappeared in mid-air. Everyone was watching her movements. Unexpectedly, Shu Ningmiao rolled to the ground and did not run away. Instead, she rushed into the United Building.
The patrol team waiting to ambush her was caught off guard. After they rushed in with her again, she had already disappeared into the building.
The first floor was full of emergency evacuation staff, and the monitoring room was half destroyed by the fight between the two people in the air. Only then did Zhao leisurely take the elevator down to give instructions. His injuries had been quickly treated: "First, seal off the area and check it. She is such an obvious person, she will be recognized no matter where she escapes."
The military personnel sealed off the main gate and began checking each building from the first floor. Zhao turned and left for the underground area, as he still had to deal with the aftermath of Lucico's situation.
Everyone scanned faces and fingerprints one by one, from the ceiling to the power distribution room, but they couldn't find Shu Ningmiao's figure.
The high-pressure environment that lasted for several hours had driven the people inside the building to the brink of panic, and all sorts of outrageous opinions began to emerge outside.
The person in charge of the search reluctantly reported to Zhao: "What should we do?"
Zhao muttered into the terminal, "What should we do? Release them?"
"But... we haven't found them yet."
“We can’t just lock everyone up for days and nights just because we can’t find her.” Zhao smiled. “Make sure all the checkpoints are secure, and everyone who passes through has to have their fingerprints checked. If she doesn’t show up, she can just stay here and wait for her to come and kill me.”
The person in charge was speechless for a moment and could only agree.
While others could leave, they had to work overtime. To appear to be diligently searching for someone, he went to every floor, stopping for a coffee at each floor's coffee machine to kill time. Suddenly feeling the urge to urinate, he randomly picked a toilet on a floor and rushed in.
After he came out, he noticed a person standing in front of the sink, who seemed to have been standing there when he rushed in.
Although it was a bit strange, the other person was a tall man, so he didn't pay much attention to it, only glancing at him sideways while washing his hands.
I saw the man with one hand under the tap, letting it soak in the icy water, without moving.
Is there poop on my hands? It's so hard to wash off.
He stared blankly for a moment, then subconsciously said, "You..."
The man turned to look at him, his face displeased, which startled him for a moment before he recognized the gloomy face.
“Congressman Weston,” he smiled awkwardly, “you’re still here.”
Weston sneered: "Do I need to ask you for permission to leave later?"
He gave a dry laugh twice and pulled a portable fingerprint scanner out of his pocket: "Can I scan this?"
Fortunately, Weston didn't make things difficult for him. He finally pulled his hands out of the tap, slowly dried them, and handed them over.
The fingerprint scanner scanned his hand and matched Curry's data perfectly. He breathed a sigh of relief and put away the fingerprint scanner: "You should go back soon too. It's really not safe lately. The person who assassinated the representative hasn't been caught yet."
“Hmm,” Weston replied curtly.
This man was always like this, so he wasn't surprised. He simply said, "Then I'll continue my patrol."
Weston didn't say anything, straightened his coat, smoothed out the wrinkles, and calmly got off the elevator.
After passing through fingerprint, facial, and DNA scans, he smoothly got into the car parked downstairs at the Union Building. The person already in the car started the autopilot and glanced in the rearview mirror at the subtle expression on Weston's pale and handsome face, as if he had swallowed a few flies.
The man in the front seat turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow slightly: "What's with that expression?"
Weston had his eyes closed, legs crossed, and fingers clasped together, seemingly lost in thought.
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After a long pause, he suddenly spoke: "A man's body is disgusting."
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Author's note: I wasn't playing with stones; I was just using cold water to soothe the pain.
Weston achieved a commendable second place in the Weston Imitation Contest.
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