Chapter 3

Chapter 3

In the late apocalypse, children who could barely move were required to undergo training.

Enduring rain and mud, barely scraping by with enough to eat—expecting to find soft, pampered kids among them was simply unreasonable.

So what if they were kids? Their hands would still grow calloused, their bodies scarred, their baby-soft skin toughened like leather.

Ning Chan couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a child with such a good complexion. He didn’t even know if a child like this could exist in Dawn City.

Raised with care, not living in constant fear, not forced to abandon their "childhood" too soon just to survive.

Under Ning Chan’s dazed gaze, Kane’s tense expression softened slightly. At least he was awake.

"You’re awake. Do you want more water?" Kane stepped to the bedside, set the wooden cup aside, and straightened the slipping cloth on Ning Chan’s head, standing on his toes. His soft, childlike voice made Ning Chan’s chest tighten.

"Thank you, I’d like some."

Before his transmigration, Ning Chan would have refused. With his Wood Element ability, no matter how severe his injuries, as long as it wasn't fatal, he could recover on his own. He never needed others’ care, let alone trusted them.

But in this new environment, with this new identity, the refusal died on Ning Chan’s lips. He guessed it was because of the child’s earlier "care" that this body had grown accustomed to it.

Still, he was an adult at heart—he couldn’t just let a child do all the work.

Ning Chan tried to prop himself up to drink on his own, but his body was weak, lacking strength. After several failed attempts, he gave up.

Like watching a turtle stuck on its back, Kane curled his lips in disdain, tsking to himself.

Kids were so fragile and troublesome. He must have been out of his mind to show such pointless kindness this time. Better to keep his distance in the future.

"I’ll feed you." Despite his internal complaints, Kane didn’t hesitate in action. He fetched a wooden spoon and carefully fed Ning Chan, even wiping his mouth afterward.

Stuck lying there and "enjoying" the child’s care, Ning Chan’s ears burned as he sipped the water.

With his thirst slightly quenched and his Wood Element ability circulating through his body a couple more times, Ning Chan finally felt a bit more alert. Now he had the energy to study the person before him carefully.

In the original host’s memories, this child named Kane Xiao had arrived here a month earlier than "him."

Two months ago, the original host’s parents had suddenly fallen gravely ill and died, leaving the young noble boy without protection.

At first, relatives had pretended to be willing to care for "him," but once they seized control of "his" family’s assets, they sent "him" to Lis Church, claiming "his" soul was holy and that "he" had been chosen by the Lord to be a prospective saint.

The seven-year-old original host, unaware of the schemes, was easily fooled.

When "he" arrived here last week, "he" didn’t complain, thinking it was better than being someone else's burden. Besides, there were other children around "his" age here.

Apart from "him," Lis Church had seven other prospective saints. They weren’t much older than the original host, but they seemed standoffish, nothing like the lively playmates "he" had before.

Aside from a brief greeting upon meeting, they hardly paid "him" any attention afterward.

But the original host didn’t find this strange—"he" assumed it was just the pride of saints.

This child named Kane wasn’t one of them. Rumor had it he was only staying here temporarily and wouldn’t become a saint.

Due to certain special reasons, Kane Xiao had always had his own room. The original host wouldn’t have been assigned to share with him, but because the church had recently taken in some believers and run out of space, "he" was placed in Kane’s room as a "temporary" arrangement.

The first time the original host saw Kane Xiao, the boy was staring up at the sky, his face filled with melancholy and sorrow.

Those blue eyes shimmered with tears, his reddened eyelids making him look like a rabbit with puffy eyes.

About "his" arrival, this person clearly wasn’t happy about it, but for some reason, ultimately agreed.

Moreover, the other seemed immersed in his own sorrow, completely ignoring the original host. If not for hearing him cry under the covers several times, the original host would have thought his roommate was mute.

Later, the original host couldn’t spare the effort to care about Kane’s attitude or thoughts, because misery was contagious. With no one to talk to, "he" was also drawn into his own grief.

The two of them cried separately. While the other seemed unaffected—still able to get up and practice swordplay during the day—the original host made himself sick from crying.

His already frail body, weighed down by sorrow, succumbed to sickness like a collapsing mountain, burned the original host’s life away and leaving behind an empty shell that Ning Chan took over.

Ning Chan thought this child named Kane was gruff on the outside but kindhearted. Seeing "him" sick, he was still willing to lend a hand. Look at him, working up a sweat, sweat beading on his own forehead.

After thanking him again, Ning Chan closed his eyes, focusing his energy to absorb the sparse wood and fire elements in the air, recharging his spent Superpower.

With the help of his Wood-element Superpower, Ning Chan’s cold quickly improved, but he still kept up the sickly act.

After all, this body was inherently frail—he couldn’t go from nearly dying one day to suddenly healthy without meds the next. That wouldn’t make sense! (Though having Superpower itself wasn’t exactly logical.)

Ning Chan felt life in the apocalypse had been too harsh. Now, he just wanted to live peacefully and quietly, lying low as a lazy bum.

Every day, he’d sing hymns, eat porridge and hard bread, and later find some land to farm—steering clear of trouble.

But saying that sounded like asking for trouble. Before long, he changed his mind. Instead of avoiding trouble, he charged straight into it.

After milking his "recovery" for over a week, Ning Chan finally decided to take a walk and explore the local customs.

Well, damn—this little excursion didn’t teach him much. Instead, it made his blood boil.

Perhaps due to the limited perspective of a child, the original host’s memories were somewhat naive. Now that Ning Chan observed things for himself, he realized many people and events here differed from what the original host had remembered.

Take, for example, the so-called "revered" Bishop Harry Chickent before him. Wearing a holy and benevolent expression, he spoke of divine mercy while passing off ordinary river water as holy water, "bestowing" it upon believers whose families had sick members.

Calling it a "gift" was a stretch—after all, gifts usually don’t come with a price. Here, not only was payment required, but it was outrageous.

They called it a demonstration of devotion and reverence to the gods. The more you gave, the more sincerity the gods would feel.

But if it were just these money-grubbing scams, Ning Chan felt he could endure it.

After all, in this era where divine and imperial authority held equal weight, such things were all too common. He could stop one or two, but could he stop the countless ignorant masses who placed their hopes in the divine?

As for whether ignoring it would weigh on his conscience—those who survived the long apocalypse had hearts of stone.

True, he had once sacrificed himself for an entire city, but that didn’t mean he was some pure-hearted do-gooder.

By the late stages of the apocalypse, high-ranking powerhouses all had their own infamous titles, and Ning Chan was no exception.

He was called the Salvation Monk Ning Chan—the kind who delivered people physically, sending them straight to the afterlife.

And those who died by his hand weren’t just zombies. Anyone who crossed his bottom line or violated his principles met the same bloody fate.

So, when it came to others, he really didn’t have much empathy to spare.

Right now, he was just a child, and his Superpower wasn’t fully restored. Why rush to stand up for others and disrupt his own life?

That’s what he thought—until this time, what he saw struck a nerve, making him disregard all caution.

Bishop Harry, under the guise of comforting a female believer, let his wrinkled, gnarled hands slide over hers while his creepy eyes ogling her body.

Ning Chan sneered inwardly and prepared to head back to his room with his hymn book. The excuse was ready—he was feeling under the weather again, and he wasn’t feeling well.

Just as he was about to step forward to "make an application," he saw another bishop, Mephi Cot, pinch Dōngmí Buri's buttocks while delivering the "holy water" and whisper something in his ear.

If Ning Chan hadn't been standing behind them, and if he weren't so small and short, he wouldn't have seen this clearly.

Mephi's lips just now were saying: Wait for me in my room later!

Damn it, what kind of nonsense is this old pervert spouting? Dōngmí Buri is only twelve years old; what does he intend to do?

The first rule of Dawn City: No child shall be harmed in any form!

Regardless of being a guardian of Dawn City, Ning Chan knew this rule by heart. As a human being, anyone with a shred of humanity would find such acts intolerable.

Before the apocalypse, Ning Chan had an intense aversion to human traffickers because he almost got kidnapped when he was a child.

Though he managed to escape, the pain of families who lost their children and the tragic fates of those abducted haunted him for days in nightmares.

Later, in the post-apocalyptic world, he witnessed too much darkness, making him cherish the innocence and purity of children even more.

Though his own heart was like stagnant water, it didn't stop him from having the desire to protect that purity and hope.

Now, someone dared to harm a child right under his nose, and Ning Chan felt his fists clenching tightly.

Seemingly thinking of something, Ning Chan rolled up the parchment in his hand and ran over to the other prospective saints.

His eyes never left them, observing the faint, lurid marks on their raised necks and exposed wrists, his jaw tightening.

If his Superpower were fully restored, this place would already be engulfed in flames. It was infuriating that he couldn't quickly apprehend and judge these inhumane individuals.

When he noticed Dōngmí leaving, he glanced down slightly and quietly followed him.

But until Dongmi returned to his room, until night fell and the bedtime bell rang, what Ning Chan had expected still hadn't happened.

Ning Chan rubbed his cold-numbed arms, frowning at the tightly shut door before finally turning away.

Since the nuns would conduct bed checks at night and he hadn’t found concrete evidence here, he figured he'd better handle the bed check first.

That night, Ning Chan tossed and turned, obsessing over whether he'd been wrong.

The harder he thought, the more it ate at him. In the end, he gave up on sleep altogether, wiped his face, sat up, and threw on some dark clothes, determined to check again.

When he quietly opened Dongmi’s room, however, he found it empty.

Not only was Dongmi missing, but his roommate Jie An was gone as well.

Recalling the lip-reading he had done earlier, Ning Chan’s expression darkened as he rushed toward Maifeipu’s room.