Chapter 26 Tragic Ending

Chapter 26: A Wretched End

"A spatial storage device?" Shen Mo strode toward Chen Chen with a dark expression, standing over the disgraced man like an ant beneath his feet.

From this angle, Shen Mo could clearly see the necklace around Chen Chen's neck. He crouched down with disdain and roughly yanked it off. "So this is the treasure Commander Chen traded 70% of the Third Base's entire warehouse inventory for?"

Chen Chen's eyes burned red as he watched the necklace being snatched away. He struggled and roared, but all in vain—his protests only earned him more brutal punches.

Shen Mo inspected the necklace in his hands for a moment before figuring out how to use it. His Superpower easily suppressed Chen Chen's weakened abilities and erased the contract Chen Chen had left on the necklace.

In truth, Ji An had deliberately misled Chen Chen into using a reversible binding method. With this kind of contract, if the original owner died or someone with stronger Superpower or mental energy intervened, the original spiritual imprint could be effortlessly erased for a new binding.

Chen Chen had just retrieved the spatial device and hadn't had time to move much inside—it currently contained only meager rations for himself and his mother.

Shen Mo smiled in satisfaction. "Truly a remarkable artifact. No wonder Commander Chen went to such great lengths to obtain it."

His gaze shifted to Tang Tang, who was pinned down without any special treatment despite being female. Spinning the necklace in his hand, he asked, "This is how you obtained your spatial Superpower, isn’t it?"

Tang Tang’s eyes widened in terror, but she remained silent.

Meanwhile, Song Pengcheng, also roughly restrained, shrieked, "Chen Chen is a disgrace to the base! I knew nothing about what he was doing—I swear I wasn’t involved at all! If I had known, I would never have colluded with them!"

Shen Mo looked at Chen Chen with amusement. "Commander Chen, how does it feel to be bitten by the loyal dog you once raised?"

Chen Chen closed his eyes and said nothing. To the victor go the spoils.

Tang Tang’s eyes darted around. Seeing that Chen Chen offered no defense and seemed resigned to his fate, her calculating thoughts began to stir.

"Commander Chen, are you admitting your crimes without rebuttal because you know the weight of your sins?" Shen Mo stood up. "Very well. Then, according to base regulations, strip him of his Superpower."

Fear filled Chen Chen's eyes, but no matter how much he struggled, a strange silver helmet was placed over his head. One end connected to a specialized device.

When the switch was flipped, blue currents surged through the wires into the helmet. Chen Chen felt thousands of electric currents burrowing into his brain, rapidly draining his Superpowered Crystal Core.

The pain was unbearable—as if the sharpest blade in existence were scraping out his brains piece by piece. It hurt so badly he wanted to vomit.

It ended in mere dozens of seconds, yet to Chen Chen, it felt like an eternity. When the helmet was removed, he lacked even the strength to sit upright—slumping to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Song Pengcheng and Tang Tang were both petrified. Song Pengcheng screamed, "I didn’t know anything about this—you can’t do this to me! At most, I followed the wrong person—I’ll willingly leave the command structure! I can expose everyone Chen Chen secretly protected!"

Shen Mo smiled slightly, seemingly accepting Song Pengcheng’s plea. Then he turned to Tang Tang like a devil. "And what about you, Miss Tang Tang? What will you offer in exchange?"

Tang Tang was frozen in terror, a puddle of dark yellow urine spreading beneath her.

"I—I’m a Healing Superpowerer! As long as I retain my healing ability, I can level up! I can serve the base—I can serve you! I’ll do anything, be your servant, just please don’t kill me!" She wailed, tears and mucus streaming down her face, utterly repulsive in her desperation.

A Healing Superpowerer was crucial for the base’s development and stability. Shen Mo considered carefully and ultimately spared the lives of both Song Pengcheng and Tang Tang.

"Throw them out. Confiscate their homes. From now on, they’re ordinary citizens of the base, receiving no privileges whatsoever." Shen Mo wasn’t being merciful—he wanted to humiliate Chen Chen deliberately. Stripped of his Superpower, the once-mighty Commander-in-Chief would fall from grace, with countless people eager to trample him.

Shen Mo looked forward to witnessing his downfall.

"Oh, right," Shen Mo snapped his fingers as if suddenly remembering. "Also kick out that annoying old woman from Commander Chen’s house."

Whether intentionally cruel or not, the enforcers first dumped Chen Chen into the most squalid slums far away—where ragged homeless wanderers roamed aimlessly.

Only afterward did they evict Chen’s mother, coldly informing her of her son’s true fate. No matter how desperately she wept and begged, they refused to tell her where her son had been discarded.

The Third Base wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t tiny either—over a thousand square kilometers. For Chen Chen’s mother, trying to find someone here was like searching for a needle in a haystack. It wouldn’t be easy.

Song Pengcheng and Tang Tang knew exactly where Chen Chen had been dumped, but neither of them wanted anything to do with him.

Tang Tang was like a parasitic vine—she couldn’t seem to survive without clinging to someone else.

Without Chen Chen, she had no choice but to find another person to rely on. She was broke, young, beautiful, and completely powerless. If she stepped outside the safe zone alone, her fate would be all too predictable.

“Brother Pengcheng,” Tang Tang threw herself into Song Pengcheng’s arms, boldly dropping any act of hesitation she’d once feigned. “You’re all I have now—you’re the only one. Don’t leave me, okay?”

Song Pengcheng had always had lustful thoughts about Tang Tang, and the fact that she had once belonged to the top commander gave her an allure he couldn’t resist. Sleeping with her felt like crushing the formerly untouchable Chen Chen beneath his feet.

His eyes filled with desire and malice, Song Pengcheng roughly pulled her close. “You’re mine now!”

“Mmm,” Tang Tang replied, nestling against him like a fragile sparrow.

Song Pengcheng took her to a dingy inn—no private rooms, just a communal sleeping area packed with the lowest of the bottom-feeders. But it was cheap—twenty credits a night per person.

They didn’t have any credits, but Song Pengcheng had hidden away a Level 1 superpowered crystal core. The owner agreed to let them stay for a month.

Since living with Ji An and Chen Chen, Tang Tang had never experienced such squalor. Worse still, this place wasn’t split by gender—or rather, nearly everyone staying there was male.

Seeing a bare-chested man with greasy hair already sprawled out snoring loud enough to shake the walls, Tang Tang felt both disgusted and terrified.

“Brother Pengcheng, there’s someone already here… how am I supposed to sleep?”

Song Pengcheng shot her a glare. “This is as good as it gets. I’m out of money—take it or leave it.”

His attitude had done a complete 180. Gone were the days when he groveled at her feet. Now, he acted like he was finally reclaiming every ounce of humiliation he’d ever endured.

His eyes gleamed with malice. “You know what? The moment you step out of here, those homeless men in the slums—who haven’t seen a woman in ages—will rape you right in the street.”

Tang Tang understood her situation perfectly. That’s why she clung so tightly to Song Pengcheng. He was the most opportunistic bastard around—if you were winning, he’d kiss your ass. If you fell, he’d not only kick you down but also make sure you were buried deep enough to see how bad it hurt.

Even with women he liked, it was the same. Before the apocalypse, no woman had ever given him the time of day. Song Pengcheng carried a deep-seated hatred toward women—he despised them, wishing they’d all crawl in the dirt for his amusement, yet still craved their attention.

Tang Tang had no other options. Chen Chen could barely protect himself—staying with him might mean depending on someone who needed protection just as much. At the moment, Song Pengcheng was the highest-level superhuman she could latch onto. With him, she’d suffer only his abuse. Alone? She didn’t dare imagine what awaited her.

Song Pengcheng smirked. “Relax. As long as I’m here, no one’s touching you.”

He yanked Tang Tang onto the bed, ignoring the stranger already sleeping there, and started tearing off her clothes.

She struggled, and he slapped her across the face. “Either take it or get out!”

When the woman beneath him stopped resisting, Song Pengcheng sneered. “Women—always such sluts.”

Never before had Tang Tang felt such humiliation—being violated by Song Pengcheng while another man watched.

Afterward, Song Pengcheng shoved her naked body aside and spat angrily, “Damn it, acting all pure like some virgin. I thought you were untouched, but you're just another worn-out whore!”

With that, he rolled over and began snoring almost instantly.

Tang Tang huddled in her torn clothes, enduring the leering gaze and wandering hands of the other man, tears streaming down her face.

Outside, lightning lit up the sky, thunder cracked, and rain poured down in torrents.

Tang Tang couldn’t understand—how had her life fallen apart so suddenly? Just that morning, she had been a pampered princess, adored and fawned over. How had everything collapsed so quickly?

When had things started going wrong? Thinking back, her downfall seemed to have begun the day Ji An left.

But Ji An was clearly the burden crushing her on her path to happiness. Without him, she could have married the Commander-in-Chief of the highest base and become the most powerful woman in the Third Base—holding power second only to the Commander-in-Chief, yet above everyone else.

Why, after all the effort she put into removing Ji An, did her good days not only fail to arrive but instead come to an end?

Had she known Ji An’s departure would turn her life into the unrecognizable mess it was now, she wouldn’t have gone to such lengths against him.

Still, the thought that Ji An might be suffering just as much—or even more likely, already dead—brought her a perverse satisfaction.

Since the Space Necklace had been taken by those masked men, Ji An, as its original owner, must have met a terrible fate—perhaps even worse than hers, ten thousand times over. Even in death, he wouldn’t have died peacefully.

At the same time, Chen Chen lay motionless in the pouring rain like a dead pig. Just moments ago, the homeless men beside him had all scrambled for shelter when the downpour began. Only Chen Chen couldn’t move, left to be pummeled by the rain.

He had thought Tang Tang would have at least some affection for him—that even if she couldn’t help much, she’d at least find him a place to take cover. But Chen Chen was disappointed. In the storm, that familiar silhouette never came.

At this moment, Chen Chen couldn’t stop thinking about Ji An. Suddenly, Ji An’s kindness seemed so clear, as if it had all happened just yesterday.

For him, Ji An had given up the safety of the capital to accompany him back to his hometown in search of his parents.

For him, Ji An had killed zombies, humiliated himself begging strangers for scraps…

If Ji An were here, even if he could do nothing else, he would have stayed by Chen Chen’s side in this storm.

No—if Ji An were here, he would never have let them fall into such a wretched state in the first place.

Chen Chen thought carefully. It seemed that no matter how difficult or hellish things got when he was with Ji An, his life had never been truly miserable—just a little hard at worst.

Ji An always seemed to forge a way forward against all odds, unlike Tang Tang, who always expected him to protect her.

Chen Chen regretted it. He truly regretted abandoning Ji An.

Chen’s mother also thought of Ji An. Unable to find her son, she cursed the heavens, the earth, and Ji An.

But no matter how much she cursed, deep down, she knew—if Ji An were here, he would have found a way to solve everything. He would never have let them fall into such a state.

Battling the storm, Chen’s mother walked street after street, praying that in the next moment, she would see her son.

Ji An thought his grievances with Chen Chen and Tang Tang had ended here—that they would never cross paths again. Without needing to see it firsthand, he knew that after the video was released, their lives would be miserable.

But he never expected someone would actually record the fates of Chen Chen, Tang Tang, Song Pengcheng, and Chen’s mother and show it to him.

Though he didn’t see Tang Tang following Song Pengcheng into that shady inn, Ji An could guess it wouldn’t be good. Those kinds of places didn’t discriminate.

Watching Chen Chen lying motionless in the storm, unsure if he was alive or dead, and Chen’s mother struggling through the streets, Ji An knew—his ties with them were finally severed.

"The new Commander-in-Chief of the Third Base is quite shrewd. He knew exactly what we wanted to see and even specially recorded it to send over," Kong Zhongcheng remarked, pleased with the miserable ends of these lowlifes.

But this wasn’t Shen Mo’s deliberate doing—it was sheer luck. He had no idea Ji An was the one behind it all.

Even if Ji An was a rare psychic-powered individual, in Shen Mo’s eyes, he had only been a level-one superpower when he left the base—too low-level to matter. He might’ve been a decent fighter, but only in their small corner of the world. In the elite Capital Base, he was nothing.

Shen Mo had sent the recording over, thinking it might have been Chen Chen’s own stupidity—perhaps he had said something idiotic during his time at the Capital Base, pissing people off enough to set this up as payback and a lesson. They might have wanted to see Chen Chen’s misery, hence sending it over.

Even if the Capital Base had no such intentions, sending it was harmless—at the very least, it showed Shen Mo’s willingness to avoid bad blood.

As for Ji An, in Shen Mo’s mind, he was dead for all intents and purposes. If not dead, he had likely become some high-ranking Capital Base official’s plaything—with looks like his.

"Fine. We’ll overlook that moron ex-Commander’s mistakes," Kong Zhongcheng said approvingly. "Since this new Commander is so shrewd, slip him an auction invite. Let him get a taste of real power."