Once there was a naughty kid. He was laughed at by a group of naughty kids, so he started to act like a middle school student.

Du Ze is a silly and cute boy, and he has always been. Before his ears got worse, he was silly and cute inside and out; after wearing hearing aids, he began to look mysterious on the outside, but he was still hopelessly silly and cute on the inside.

The silly and cute ear was not born bad, but started to deteriorate little by little after entering middle school. Because it was so slow, even Du Ze himself did not notice it. He just felt that sometimes when others talked, he seemed to have a harder and harder time reacting. So Du Ze could only ask the other party to repeat it again. After repeating this, Du Ze found that no one seemed to like talking to him anymore.

Du Ze began to reflect on himself. If he interrupted others when they were talking and asked them to repeat themselves several times, he would also feel annoyed. But what should he do if he couldn't react? A cute kid summed up a rule: At this time, just smile.

Du Ze never thought that there was something wrong with his ears. When his parents found out something was wrong and took him to the hospital and found out he was hearing impaired, Du Ze felt an unprecedented panic when he looked at the hearing aids his parents had prepared for him - in just a blink of an eye, he was disabled?

So Du Ze escaped. He was unwilling to wear a hearing aid and pretended that nothing had happened and returned to his life. When he couldn't hear clearly, he smiled; when he couldn't react, he smiled; when others smiled and said something to him, he kept smiling. He didn't know that his words were becoming more and more unclear, and he couldn't control the tone and volume.

Because of the worsening of his hearing loss, Du Ze finally had to wear a hearing aid one day. Then, that day, he stood outside the classroom, in the long-lost world of clear sound, listening to his best friend joking with others in the classroom.

"Aze is just an idiot. He always likes to giggle and his words make people laugh to death."

My friend seemed to be imitating something. The maliciously drawn-out sound was funny, harsh and unpleasant, causing everyone in the room to burst into laughter.

"Yes, yes! I told him he was an idiot in front of him, and he just smiled foolishly."

“Again!”

"You are such a fool! Didn't the teacher tell us to take care of the 'disabilities'?"

…

Du Ze opened the door, and the laughter in the room stopped abruptly. Everyone stared at Du Ze at the door in a daze. Du Ze walked to his seat as if no one was around, and sat down with a calm face. The people who had gathered looked at each other, unsure whether Du Ze had heard what they had just said.

My friend came over and said, "Aze, you're here... Hey, is this the new MP3 headset you bought? So cool!"

Du Ze looked at his best "friend" and felt a breath of air blocked in his chest, choking him to the point of suffocation. He suddenly felt that making a sound was an extremely embarrassing and terrifying thing. The funny imitation just now kept lingering in his mind, maliciously laughing at how stupid his previous escape behavior was.

The boy raised his hand and pressed the earphone of the hearing aid. Under the gaze of everyone, he nodded silently and forced a stiff smile: Yes, this is an earphone, just an earphone.

So he didn't hear anything just now.

——That was probably the last time Du Ze smiled in front of others. From then on, a certain stupid cute boy started to pretend to be cool, insisting on "having nothing and one thing" until he went to college, and became addicted to the Internet and stayed at home until his myopia was about to break through the sky.

Then, Du Ze met Yi Ye Zhi Qiu.

So the author equipped the cups, the protagonist became the tableware, and the reader prepared a tea table.

***

Du Ze leaned against the stone wall in a daze, then suddenly woke up and hurried to see the protagonist in his arms. Xiu An was sleeping soundly in his arms, and her cute and well-behaved appearance was like the perfect human figure that some otakus were ardently pursuing. Du Ze reached out to touch Xiu's forehead, then breathed a sigh of relief.

Yesterday, Xiu's wound broke open again when he went out to look for him, and he started to have a fever and fell into a coma after returning. Du Ze toiled for most of the night and finally rested at dawn. Although he could survive without food, water or sleep due to the zero-point recovery, the tense spirit still made Du Ze very tired. After settling Xiu down, Du Ze also fell asleep with his eyes closed, and dreamed of the unpleasant past.

Du Ze looked at the purple sky outside. The sky was as gloomy as ever, and he couldn't tell what time it was. Du Ze suddenly shuddered.

Would he miss out on the deal with Dan?

Du Ze took out his earphones and checked the battery level. The half-bar of battery told him that if he rushed over now, it would be exactly the time when he met Dan yesterday.

What are you waiting for? Let's go ┏（゜ω゜）=

Du Ze carefully put Xiu down from his arms, and looked at his tightly grasped robe with a look that showed he was enjoying it but pretending to be helpless and annoyed: Sick children are so clingy~ (very foggy)

A certain cute guy didn't want to wake Xiu up, since he would be back soon after the deal anyway, so Du Ze began to carefully tear off the part that Xiu was holding. Fortunately, the black robe was already tattered, so Du Ze got rid of it without much effort. Because of tearing the clothes, he was delayed for some time, so Du Ze hurried to Harpas City without thinking much.

A pair of amber eyes quietly watched Du Ze's leaving back, with a dark and unclear look in his eyes.

When Du Ze arrived outside Harpass City, he suddenly realized that he didn't seem to have agreed on a specific time and place with Dan yesterday. Outside Harpass City were all high and low rocks, and he couldn't see all of them at a glance. How could he break through! ?

"Ah, you're finally here."

A voice came from above Du Ze's head. Du Ze looked up and found the man in green sitting on the rock, smiling at him very earnestly. Dan jumped down from the rock swiftly and bowed slightly to Du Ze: "I have been waiting here for a long time."

Dan held the book in his right hand as always. He clapped his hands and a box fell from the air into his hands. It was the box that Du Ze had chosen at his stall last time.

"Your clothes are really amazing." Dan exclaimed, "May I ask how you did it?"

This is the golden finger, you don’t understand.

Seeing that Du Ze had no intention of speaking, Dan could only sigh regretfully and then handed the box to Du Ze.

“This is what you wanted.”

Du Ze took the box. The small gray box was very inconspicuous. From the appearance alone, no one could guess that it contained a highly lethal weapon. When Du Ze was checking the box, Dan's eyes seemed to accidentally scan a corner behind Du Ze, and his smile became more attentive and brilliant.

"You want to sell him to the Lord Mayor, right?"

Du Ze paused. Since the box belonged to Dan, it was not surprising that Dan knew what was inside, so he nodded.

"The city lord will be very happy to get such a precious variety." Dan showed an ambiguous smile: "You can get a lot of money, and even get the city lord's appreciation."

The Demonic Blade Fenyu is a divine weapon and is indeed very valuable, but Du Ze feels that there is something indescribably strange about Dan's words, although he cannot find any problem with it.

"Excuse me, when are you going to sell him? Do you need me to introduce him to the city lord?" Dan suggested, "Or you can hand him over to me first, and I will deliver him to the city lord. In this way, your identity will not be discovered by him."

Du Ze was shocked. It seemed that Dan had discovered that he was a human. In order to prevent his human identity from being discovered by the city lord, he planned to help him? Such a good person? Du Ze recalled the plot of "Mixed Blood" again. Although Dan was mysterious, he was indeed on the side of the protagonist. Du Ze began to hesitate. He had no money now and couldn't even pay the entrance fee. Moreover, meeting a city lord who fed on humans was really cruel to a socially handicapped loser.

So Du Ze nodded and said, "Help me sell it."

"Please rest assured, I will definitely give you a satisfactory price." Dan saluted exaggeratedly, with a happy arc on the corner of his mouth: "I will never let him know that you betrayed him - huh?"

Du Ze was stunned. At that moment, he had no idea what Dan was talking about. He could only watch the man in green frowning and looking in one direction: "There is a little mouse... Come out, I found you."

Du Ze followed Dan's gaze and saw a scene that he would never forget - Xiu was standing in the shadow of the rock. No one knew how long he had been standing there. There was no expression on his face, as if he was dead. Only his eyes were looking over coldly. The bright color was like a spring leading to hell. It looked warm, but if you touched it with your hand, you would feel the coldness that penetrated deep into your bones.

Du Ze was pinned to the spot by the cold gaze, unable to move. He had never seen Xiu look at him like that before, and his heart was frozen to the point of stopping. Dan, who was standing by, showed a helpless and regretful expression under Xiu's cold gaze: "Oh no, I've been caught."

Du Ze thought back to the previous conversation and finally realized that he had been misled! What he said just now seemed like he was selling out the protagonist to Dan!

"This is a mistake—"

Dan chuckled, but interrupted Du Ze forcefully: "He's already found out, so stop pretending."

Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!!!

For the first time, Du Ze had the urge to strangle someone to death. When he saw Xiu's expression, countless explanations filled his mind and he was stuck and couldn't say anything. At this time, the dead earphones gave Du Ze a fatal blow.

Du Ze was instantly in despair. He looked at Dan and said something again, and then Xiu in the shadows finally responded.

——Are you angry about being betrayed?

Xiu turned his gaze to Dan. The green-clothed man's malicious sarcasm did not change his expression at all. The dwarf's voice was very light, but it was heavy as if it was filled with endless fatigue.

He said, “I’m used to it.”

Du Ze couldn't hear what Xiu said, but every inch of his voice revealed his fatigue and numbness - there was no despair, but it seemed more like there was no hope at all.

Being betrayed once will make you angry.

Being betrayed many times will make you sad.

Being betrayed countless times will lead to despair.

When I realized this was not the end, all that was left was exhaustion and despair.

Du Ze's throat was dry. He knew the pain of being betrayed. Just because of the teasing of his "friends", he was too timid to face the world again. When he saw the protagonist of "Mixed Blood" being betrayed by his best friend, Du Ze, who was sitting in front of the computer, felt that he was about to suffocate. Because of the protagonist, he cared so much about and liked "Mixed Blood". When he met the real protagonist, Du Ze was very grateful to the existence that allowed him to travel through time - fortunately he could still make amends. So it didn't matter if he was signed a blood contract, was used as an experiment, was suspected, or was exposed to acid rain. He was not a masochist. Du Ze really thought that if this continued, the protagonist would always be touched and gradually return to his original gentleness.

But now because of Dan's misleading, he has also "betrayed" the protagonist.

So explain it quickly. Du Ze looked at Xiu's eyes that were obviously not black but deeper than black, and opened and closed his mouth several times: If he didn't explain, it would be too late——

——Aze is just an idiot, he always likes to smile foolishly and what he says makes people laugh to death.

...I am just an idiot! I love whoever I want!

"...I didn't...betray you."

It was a very laborious speech. The speaker seemed to have not spoken for a long time and was very stuttering and difficult to speak. His voice was a little off-tune and his volume was not well controlled as he was not sure of the tone. Xiu turned his gaze back to the black-haired young man, and Dan's smile beside him also became playful.

No matter how many explanations he gave, they would all seem guilty and hypocritical. Du Ze no longer cared whether Dan had exaggerated anything or not. He just stared closely at Xiu in the shadows, repeating again and again in that awkward and even funny voice: I didn't betray you.

Trust me...okay?

******

******

Daniel seemed to be aware of Xiu's gaze and gave him his usual innocent smile, just like the smile of gratitude he showed to Xiu after Xiu helped him fight off the senior student who bullied him.

"Xiu, I'm sorry, it would be best if you died."

Xiu knew that he had been betrayed again. Strangely, this time he no longer felt hurt and sad like before. Even his anger had cooled down. His heart seemed to have ceased to exist and would never hurt again - that's not right.

The skeleton opened its mouth and began to cackle.

His heart had already melted away, hadn't it?

The dark blue soul fire dancing in the black hole's eye sockets was so cold that it no longer had a trace of warmth.

——Excerpt from "Mixed Blood"

The author has something to say: Reader: I didn't betray you. QAQ Author: Prove it with your actions, kid. Protagonist: Take the initiative to sit on it. Reader: ...I'll betray you. =皿=