He attacked the wrong mountain (3)
When he was eight years old, his parents decided that they had to send him away from his hometown, which had no future, no matter what.
Pollution, serious illness, and fewer and fewer people in his hometown—his father and mother took him and used up all their savings just to cross the border.
They initially traveled in a dilapidated small boat with a simple tarpaulin covering it. At night, the boat rocked violently in the wind and waves, and rain and seawater poured into his collar. He still remembers how cold it was.
He is very afraid of the cold.
The sea was really cold and dark, not at all like the peaceful and cheerful scene described in Pinheis's textbook.
Later, when I read the textbook in Pines, the illustrations showed a calm sea, a clear blue sky, people lying on the beach, and children playing and jumping around.
The sea he saw was not like that at all—the ceaseless surging of the sea was like a man-eating beast, mercilessly taking away everyone's life.
The indiscriminate darkness covers everything; if someone falls in the night amidst the turbulence of the sea, no one will notice.
At dawn, several sailors rolled up the cold, lifeless body and pushed it into the sea.
His mother held his head and covered his eyes with her arms.
He heard his mother's muffled and suppressed sobs.
His head felt cold, and he hugged his mother tightly in a daze. Only then did a thought pop into his mind: Where is Dad?
They said that Dad crashed into the half-broken mast at the bow of the ship in the night waves, breaking his head. The sound of the wind and waves was so loud, and the complaints rose and fell, easily drowning out his painful groans.
The next morning, they turned the motionless man over and discovered that this short, middle-aged man, who always had a sorrowful expression on his face, had been dead for a long time.
He was in a daze, feeling as if he were having a nightmare. His mother's sobs felt like needles piercing his heart. He walked lightly and climbed ashore with his mother. The two of them had only a few days' worth of cheap food and still had to cross nearly dozens of miles of no-man's land.
The areas undeveloped by the military region are almost entirely cliffs and precipices, and there are many others like them who risk everything to escape Pingyi.
Along the way, the number of people decreased from more than twenty to more than a dozen, and finally only a few remained.
After running out of water and dry rations, they could only drink the dirty water on the ground. But soon, Rennagi found that his stomach was starting to hurt unbearably. As a child, he was originally just thin, but in just two days, his skin had become sunken and his face was so yellow that he was no longer recognizable as a human.
Experienced people knew he had a parasitic disease and told others that when he died, the worms in his stomach would crawl out and burrow into other people's bodies.
His mother and he were abandoned.
The food was taken away.
His memory began to blur after he fell ill. His mother carried him on her back for a long time, but in his blurred vision, why did his mother's face look so sallow and thin?
When he opened his eyes again, there were clean walls, a clean hospital bed, and a well-dressed couple sitting in front of him. The man told him that he was his father's cousin and that they could take care of him from now on.
He asked where his mother was, and the man said that the woman had led him to a new place and finally made contact with them, but he died before they reached the hospital.
Or rather, it was a miracle that his mother survived to that point, because they hadn't had any food for so many days.
The starving mother, carrying her unconscious child, arrived in Phineas, already indistinguishable from two corpses.
There are no proper hospitals in the new town. When people get sick, they go to the church to drink holy water and chew herbs. Whether they live or die depends on God's will. A few thugs couldn't stand it and lent a woman a terminal so she could call her so-called relatives.
The couple had a child who was about the same age as him, who had recently passed away and hadn't had time to close the account.
Rennagi is a troublesome problem for them. A hundred thousand relatives came to seek refuge, but she was a Pingyi person who had illegally immigrated. Even if she stayed in Pingyi, she would only be able to stay in Xindi, a place full of unregistered people.
The woman couldn't say a word before she died; she just pleaded and held their hands. As parents themselves, they couldn't possibly not understand what she meant.
Already grieving the loss of their beloved son, they were moved by the woman's tragic death and decided to give Rennagi a chance to live, allowing him to take their son's place.
The house remained untouched. Like a clone, he accepted all the child's likes and dislikes without question, allowing his new parents to treat him as a substitute.
Only when he lifted a corner of the curtain and saw the bright blue sky and the dazzling golden sunlight outside the window did he feel like shedding tears.
He had never seen the real sun.
The sky over Pingyi was shrouded in a thick layer of smog from pollution. The thick particles of pollution acted like a dome, obscuring the sun but leaving its heat on every inch of the land.
Unable to cultivate the land or raise livestock, they could only resort to fishing for mutated sea fish and trading with countries they found novel, helplessly consuming their suffering.
His mother's skin used to be very fair, but in his last memory, she was all emaciated and jaundiced with sunken skin and flesh.
He wanted to remember his mother's most beautiful appearance, but he could never forget that memory.
With the atmosphere damaged, the ultraviolet radiation in Pingyi is particularly strong. My father, who works away from home, always buys my mother many bottles of sunscreen when he comes back.
My mother always says, "If it were a real sun, I wouldn't use these things and would just have a good sunbath."
The sun was so dazzling.
Did Mom see the real sun when she arrived in the new land?
His adoptive parents never mistreated him materially. In order to prevent Rennagi from being exposed, they burned all the photos and videos of their biological children.
Perhaps feeling guilty about what they did to their deceased child, his adoptive parents rarely came home after he started school, often leaving messages saying they were working overtime and their interactions were cold.
The older Rennagi got, the more confused and out of place he felt. The law gave him the identity of a Pine, but he could never forget the memories before he was eight years old.
He was not a carefree child who grew up in Pines' utopia. He despised the naivety of others who were spoiled by society and their parents. His bloodline was his greatest secret. He carried this heavy secret and dared not tell anyone a word about it, let alone make close friends with them.
The monotonous daily life made him feel guilty for the path his parents had paved with their blood; he could no longer continue down this path.
This uneventful period ended on the day he awakened his supernatural abilities.
His adoptive father looked serious and told him to modify and polish his ability before reporting it. The "neural connection" ability was very special, and if it caught the attention of the authorities, they would thoroughly investigate his information and might expose him.
Of all those words, he only heard two: special.
His confusion was dispelled by the special ability, and the awakening of his superpower gave an answer to the emptiness that kept welling up in his heart.
The long-standing loneliness was somewhat relieved by this answer.
Because he was from Pingyi.
"I want to do it for everyone..."
Those who remained in Pingyi, those who remained at sea, those who remained in his memory.
For that barren land.
For his parents.
"To take revenge on the Pinheid government."
Rennagi stopped speaking. The room was as quiet as a graveyard. He breathed heavily, suppressing his violent sobs. After speaking, he felt inexplicably relieved.
He revealed this huge secret, which could lead to his adoptive parents being expelled from the Benedictine register.
Shu Ningmiao closed her eyes slightly and heard his faint sobs. She thought to herself that the effect of "submission" was too fast, and she should use it less often in the future.
The moment she withdrew her killing intent, she used the [Lust] state on Rennagi without any hesitation.
The main function of [Lust] is to transfer a state of being in her body to another person.
Generally speaking, positive status effects are transferred to teammates; there's no concept of giving status effects to the enemy.
In a sense, submission is merely a side effect of lust.
However, it's not impossible for her to reverse the state and use it on Rennagi.
There's no need to worry about what Rennagi will do after obtaining her superpower, because the [Jealousy] state she currently holds is the one that has stolen Rennagi's superpower.
She transferred the state of "jealousy" to Rennagi, which is equivalent to transferring the ability of "neural connection" to him. It's the same as not transferring it at all, except that Rennagi now has a state of "submission".
To maintain the transfer of [Lust], she can no longer use the state of [Jealousy], but she believes that she can handle most situations without [Jealousy], and it's time to increase the intensity of her physical training.
Compared to the hassle of relinquishing a status quo, the benefits of subtly influencing Rennagi's thoughts are clearly greater.
First, if Rennagi hadn't died, his words would have been more credible to Prometheus.
Shu Ningmiao originally planned to rely on the current closed nature of Cornunos and the supernatural power she stole to make it seem as if Rennagi was still alive, thus creating a delayed death time for Prometheus.
It would be better if he were alive. Shu Ningmiao's mind was now filled with ideas of what she could do with him, much like a poor person who had suddenly won hundreds of millions in the lottery; her imagination was practically overflowing.
The sound of sweeping came from the doorway. Shu Ningmiao pulled herself out of her reverie, squatted down slightly, sighed softly, grabbed Lian Nagi's arm, and snapped his dislocated arm back into place.
She can't cure it; Rennagi's leg is broken, and she still has to go to the infirmary.
Shu Ningmiao reached out and gently supported his shoulder, helping him to his feet: "I'll take you to the infirmary."
Rennagi looked up at her, her eyes bloodshot, staring at her. She shook her head silently, yet dared not let go of her hand.
He subconsciously felt that she was an enemy, yet he also felt uneasy because of her sudden gentleness and thoughtfulness.
Shu Ningmiao's face when she resumed her usual social demeanor was truly deceptive.
He had just had his leg broken by her and was threatened with a knife to his head, yet she was now acting as if nothing had happened...
A subconscious fear flashed through his chest, mixed with rising shame. He lowered his head, and inexplicably, he couldn't muster any resistance. A chill ran down his spine.
“I’ve never been omniscient,” she said. “My power was really plunder, and now we’re even.”
Shu Ningmiao felt that this opening was very sincere.
Even with the advantage of being in good form, she didn't act recklessly.
Her goal wasn't to completely control him with her state of mind—that would be ridiculous.
Regardless of whether her superpowers have such a strong ability to change people's hearts, she will definitely use the "Jealousy" state again in the future, and when Rennagi wakes up, she will be a hidden danger.
What she wanted to do was to use this state to make Rennagi believe her words amidst the chaos, and to implant the concept of "trust" into his subconscious.
As long as he believes her lies, it doesn't matter if the "submission" state expires later.
This is hardly a tie.
Rennagi turned her head away, biting her lip lightly.
"I'll take you to get your leg healed, and then we'll pretend nothing ever happened," Shu Ningmiao said slowly, a fingertip lightly hovering to her lips. "This is our shared secret."
The dim light from inside the room shone on her graceful profile, highlighting her delicate eyelashes. This was a stark contrast to her previous cold demeanor, as if the person who had broken his leg was a completely different person: "Is that alright?"
She said those things again.
Rennagi's heart skipped a beat for a moment as he instantly recalled the biting cold of the knife tip pressed against his temple.
His abnormally beating heart made his head feel dizzy from the rush of blood. Shu Ningmiao filled his thoughts. The combination of psychological suggestion and his current state made it impossible for him to think about anything else. The girl's indifferent face and gentle face were superimposed in a chaotic way, like the sea in his childhood memories, sometimes calm and sometimes turbulent, but in the end, it would swallow him up completely.
My chest was spasming slightly, a feeling of both relief and discomfort.
She had been silent ever since he recklessly spilled the beans about the past.
Even now, Shu Ningmiao hasn't said anything to comfort him.
She gently supported him, helping him to stand up steadily. Shu Ningmiao's wrists were slender, yet they seemed to possess inexhaustible strength. That hand could easily break his shinbone, and it could also support his body as firmly as a mother's.
Because of her consistent cruelty and indifference, even this ordinary gesture seemed like a tender care.
Rennagi's tears fell with a soft thud onto her dusty clothes.
At that moment, he actually wanted to believe her.
"I understand." He closed his eyes. "I won't let them come looking for you again."
Only when they were so close did the delicate fragrance reach her nose, causing Rennagi's heart to tremble slightly, and she felt inexplicably uneasy and at a loss.
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