Chapter 74

Chapter 74

Yue Xuanli was transported to a room on one of the floors.

The room was chaotic, but not from neglect—it looked as if a fight had occurred. The sofa was overturned, fluorescent tubes were shattered, and a few dusty, unknown insects crawled on the floor.

However, this seemingly abandoned room still had its uses. Yue Xuanli efficiently rummaged through it and found a map.

It appeared to be a map of the testing grounds. It wasn't severely damaged and was barely usable.

The room door was locked from the inside.

Yue Xuanli didn't rashly opt to force it open. He still needed to find someone, and he didn't want to make too much noise to avoid alerting others.

The black-haired Alpha took a while to get out of the room.

When the miniature camera focused on him, the live-stream audience saw him open his device without a hint of hesitation.

"Is he trying to reach someone in a hurry?"

"Handsome guy, we know you're anxious, but don't be. There's no network at the exam site."

"...Huh? Why does it look like his device still works?"

"...Looks like it?"

"Hmm, the rules didn't mention contraband at the site. A little tech isn't out of the question, but this style... must be Jiang Yuanfen's rules, right?"

...

Yue Xuanli had indeed rigged his device with some "tech." Although this "tech" couldn't get an outside signal, it allowed communication within the same map.

Soon, as Yue Xuanli worked it, his device pinpointed Meng Shijiu's location.

— Not very close.

Yue Xuanli probably never imagined he would resort to such tricks during an exam, but his face showed no change, his movements smooth, like he'd done it a hundred times.

— There was some truth to Meng Shijiu teasing Yue Xuanli for being autistic. In front of acquaintances, he wasn't overly quiet, but when acting alone, he always had a sense of isolation, like he was in his own bubble.

Moreover, in front of Meng Shijiu, he was even quieter than usual.

Especially once he knew how he felt.

Yue Xuanli quickly snapped a picture of the map and sent it to Meng Shijiu.

Meng Shijiu didn't reply.

Looking at the moving marker on his screen, Yue Xuanli guessed that Meng Shijiu had probably fallen asleep on the tram.

That sleepy cat. A slight smile touched Yue Xuanli's lips.

Yue Xuanli compared Meng Shijiu's location with the map and could basically confirm that Meng Shijiu was on a certain tram.

There were many modes of transportation displayed at the site, but after a brief investigation, Yue Xuanli found that the only one that actually worked was the tram.

He quickly plotted his course, put away the map, and left the level.

When Yue Xuanli got on a tram, there was already someone on it.

Yue Xuanli's first instinct was to kick them out, but as he turned his head, he realized the person sitting in the carriage seemed familiar.

An Omega. Gray-blue hair.

Yue Xuanli wasn't one to memorize faces. Some people carried themselves with a quiet arrogance; even after meeting several times, he might not truly remember them.

But this time, he recalled.

— Ye Lingxi.

That Omega who was always bugging Shijiu to have meals with him.

Yue Xuanli hesitated for a step, then coolly looked away.

...If this were just a chance meeting at the very beginning of the competition, it might not have been a big deal.

...Until.

At the same station, Yue Xuanli got off, Ye Lingxi got off.

On another route, Ye Lingxi got on, Yue Xuanli got on.

One turned left. The other turned left.

One went straight. The other went straight.

...

— When Yue Xuanli noticed Ye Lingxi's routes matching up with his once again, his patience finally ran out.

When Yue Xuanli turned around, he found Ye Lingxi also looking at him expressionlessly.

"Is this... about to turn into a fight?"

"Are they heading to the same destination... This is hilarious, how are their routes exactly the same?"

"Quite persistent indeed. If it were me, I'd just get off at any random stop."

...

The fight didn't happen, mainly because...

Yue Xuanli glanced at his device. On the screen, Meng Shijiu's coordinates were slowly moving, about to enter the station where he was. He suppressed the impatience at the corner of his lips.

Ye Lingxi stood gloomily to the side, holding a cup of pomegranate juice as if it were a fragile item, his brows furrowed so tightly they could probably crush a fly, but he didn't move.

"This guy is something else. Everyone else brings weapons, and you bring a drink?"

"Truly, each generation surpasses the last in talent. :)"

...

*

Meng Shijiu couldn't sleep for long.

Or rather, he never really fell asleep.

In Meng Shijiu's original world, when the apocalypse had just begun, there was a period when trams hadn't completely stopped running. Back then, Meng Shijiu would repeatedly miss his stop.

That feeling wasn't pleasant—a bit annoying, a bit numb—but it wasn't anything particularly special either.

Just like being sick, it's nothing out of the ordinary.

Everyone's living with some kind of sickness.

Growing up is just a process of getting sick.

He opened his terminal and saw the map sent by Yue Xuanli.

Judging by what Jing Shu said, he was probably planning to go to a nearby shopping center. After all, there were no buildings that seemed of any use around here, and the mall was still two stops away.

Meng Shijiu glanced at his wristband.

His stamina points hadn't increased, indicating that his recent sleep wasn't "qualified sleep."

Although he hadn't actually fallen asleep either, Meng Shijiu figured that he probably needed to sleep in a specific location, similar to a safe zone, for it to count as qualified sleep.

Meng Shijiu tugged on Jing Shu's sleeve and smiled lazily: "Captain Jing... I wanna sit by the window."

Jing Shu had the window seat. Hearing this, he looked at Meng Shijiu. His move to get up suddenly halted, and he frowned slightly:

"What's wrong with you? Your face looks a bit pale."

Meng Shijiu shook his head.

Jing Shu gestured to the backpack next to him: "Are you hungry? I brought some food."

Meng Shijiu shook his head again.

Jing Shu and Meng Shijiu switched seats.

Meng Shijiu looked out the window. In fact, he could probably guess that he wouldn't be able to sleep.

As the tram crossed the overpass, the dim scenery outside the window seemed to suddenly shrink. The glass reflected the face of the silver-haired Alpha, overlapping and intertwining with the fleeting lights, alternating between brightness and darkness.

The glass also reflected a pair of blood-red eyes, calm and unblinking, as if they were staring at Meng Shijiu, or perhaps it was just an illusion.

Meng Shijiu didn't notice; he was only looking at his own face.

The last time he observed his own face this carefully was on the first day he arrived in this world: he looked at the face in the mirror and shattered the glass.

The carriage lights were very bright. The ferocity in his eyes from when he first arrived had already melted away. The nightscape made his lips look paler, which made his eyebrows and eyes stand out more.

His eyebrows and eyes were actually very similar to his father's.

But his father's brows were perpetually furrowed, like mountain ridges that could never be smoothed out.

In Meng Shijiu's heart, his father had always been a very complex figure.

Powerful and aloof, arrogant and self-assured—his need for control was so strong everyone around him secretly resented it.

A noble air hidden behind silence, yet occasional gentleness and patience were like a sliver of sunlight leaking through a gap in the dense, overcast clouds.

Half of his soul was unrestrained and arrogant, the other half was adrift and lost.

Such a person was destined to be neither understood nor to understand others.

...

By the time Meng Shijiu reached university, his relationship with his father had deteriorated to a breaking point.

But Meng Shijiu didn't expect that he wouldn't be the first to break.

—It was his mother.

Not long after Meng Shijiu came of age, his mother suddenly left home one day, and after that, there was no further word from her, a decisiveness that was unbelievable.

She left nothing behind, only a letter for Meng Shijiu.

There was only one sentence in the letter.

"Shi Jiu, I can't let go of you."

In his memory, his mother was always like that.

Words were only true the moment they were spoken.

Meng Shijiu told her again and again that not loving wasn't wrong, that not loving enough wasn't wrong either.

No one said you had to love the child you gave birth to, and whether you love them or not isn't something you can decide yourself.

You hate him so much, isn't it normal to hate me too?

After his mother left, Meng Shijiu never returned to that home again.

The last time he contacted his father was on a train much like this one, on an evening much like this one.

...Back then, the apocalypse had just begun. Although no one could predict the developments to come, people were panicked, yet life carried on with a facade of normalcy. But a restless tension already hung faintly in the air.

That day.

The news playing on the train was still all reassurance, but his father's call suddenly came through.

It wasn't that Meng Shijiu refused to answer his calls, but at that time, his condition was already very poor. He was exhausted and had suffered some injuries.

He had no desire to speak.

His father kept calling, probably just to confirm he was safe.

Meng Shijiu suddenly felt very sleepy.

A message from his father followed the call—just one, which was rare—

"Kid, I'm very worried about you. Can you send a message back?"

This was the last message his father sent.

Meng Shijiu didn't even open it at the time. As the phone vibrated, he watched the sky outside slowly darken.

And then he missed his stop once again.

By the time he realized something was wrong, his father had already been dead for three whole weeks.

Meng Shijiu suddenly understood.

In that instant, it hit him.

—Family is different.

He wanted the love of his family.

Then, suddenly, tears started falling.

People can't cry when overcome with extreme grief, but these tears came far too late.

They didn't spill out when the conflicts first arose, weren't released during all those years together. After waiting a long, long time, they finally fell silently on the street, on a calm, normal, gloomy afternoon in the apocalypse.

The backdrop of the apocalypse is numbness, sorrow, and grief.

Meng Shijiu's tears were ordinary, commonplace in such circumstances—after all, tears are a dime a dozen here.

So on the empty street, the occasional passerby would at most steal a glance, just thinking to themselves how moving this person's crying was.

So silent and beautiful.

…

"Ding—"

The tram arrived at the station.

This station was called Thousand Voices Station—quite a coincidence, sharing the same name as the night market Yue Xuanli had taken Meng Shijiu to.

The tram doors opened again.

But no one appeared in the doorway.

A tense atmosphere seemed to emanate from the entrance.

"...I'm really starting to get curious: are these two going to take the same path next?"

"Fight! Fight! I love watching this."

"Are they going to the same place?"

"No, from what I've observed, they should be specifically waiting for this tram."

"Yeah, another tram passed by earlier, but neither of them boarded it, didn't even give it a glance."

"Huh? Still no fight?"

…

Knowing Meng Shijiu was inside the carriage, Yue Xuanli naturally didn't want to waste time fighting.

By now, he had long since understood—Ye Linxi obviously also knew Meng Shijiu was on this tram too, otherwise he wouldn't be chasing so relentlessly.

The two exchanged a tense glance, then entered the carriage with forced restraint.

Yue Xuanli walked ahead, having thought only Meng Shijiu was there. Upon seeing two extra third wheels, he immediately stopped in his tracks.

Ye Linxi followed him.

The aisle of the tram car wasn't very spacious, and his view was almost completely blocked. Ye Linxi was already at his limit—unlike some slow-witted person, he had disliked Yue Xuanli since seeing him in the auditorium and was now on the verge of exploding.

Before he could do anything—

"Ding—!"

The sound of the doors closing was sharper than usual.

"—Bang!!" A loud noise came from Meng Shijiu's direction.

The other four in the carriage immediately looked toward Meng Shijiu.

Meng Shijiu, seeming unaware, was holding his wristband and putting it back on.

It appeared the loud noise just now was because he had slammed his wristband against the window.

The action was sudden, but what was even more unexpected was that the window glass, after such a heavy hit, remained completely intact.

Meng Shijiu showed no expression, simply explaining: "Reflex."

Seeing Yue Xuanli's worried gaze, Meng Shijiu paused: "I'm fine."

After speaking, he withdrew his gaze, but the expressions of the others in the carriage instantly became inscrutable.

—Family is different.

When two people are alone together, it might not feel like much, but when a group is together, certain special treatment becomes obvious.

Meng Shijiu ignored it: "The tram is locked."

"??? Ah!"

"Regardless, if No. 32 says it's locked, then it's locked!"

"Seriously?... That was a fast reaction."

"Reflex?? What kind of reflex is that?"

"Actually, he probably heard something off about the door closing sound..."

Soon, everyone in the carriage realized Meng Shijiu wasn't wrong.

Because the tram, which should have departed for the next station after the doors closed, suddenly stopped and remained motionless.

"Click"

—The carriage lights suddenly went out, plunging the surroundings into darkness.

"...Holy crap"

"Watch your language"

"Why did it suddenly turn into a horror show"

"Oh my god..."