Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 20: Yi Ning
At eight in the morning, Zhu Yanchen woke up groggily.
He hadn’t slept so well in a long time. It wasn’t due to mental tranquility but rather a real physical change—in order to hide the lesions that had accumulated over the past decade, Ai Xiaoxiao had removed countless tumors and growths from Zhu Yanchen’s body.
She had kept them as research material, and according to Dr. Ai, there were enough of those things to make another adult.
Zhu Yanchen was well aware that, after countless surgeries, his body was like a patched-up puppet. It looked shiny and polished on the outside, but inside it was already in a state of disrepair.
Therefore, the pain had always been constant—not unbearable but endless, slowly crawling in every corner of his body. Because of this, Zhu Yanchen’s sleep quality had always been poor. He was more accustomed to fragmented sleep than to sleeping soundly. If he could sleep, he would continue sleeping, but if the pain woke him up, he would simply get up and work.
Zhu Yanchen had almost forgotten when he had last slept so long.
His diet hadn’t changed, and neither did the environment by much. It was possible that Shu Jun had done something, but if the other party had made any major moves, he wouldn’t have been completely unaware of it.
This was information worth recording.
Zhu Yanchen looked up at Shu Jun—Shu Jun hadn’t squeezed into his bed but was lying on the sofa next to the purifier. The sofa was a bit narrow, forcing Shu Jun to curl his body awkwardly, barely managing to lie himself down. He held the greatsword in his arms, his mouth half open, and his sharp canine teeth were visible from between his lips as he slept soundly.
The purifier was still running, making a buzzing noise, and there was a scent of pancakes in the air. Zhu Yanchen sat quietly for a while, then put on his coat and got off the bed.
The greatsword was fixed to the purifier by Shu Jun’s body, and it was extremely miserable. At this moment, it didn’t care whether Zhu Yanchen was a friend or foe, and it opened its mouth pitifully. “Help… Help…”
Zhu Yanchen: “……”
Zhu Yanchen ignored the sword’s plea and went to the briefcase on the table. With a light click, the metal buckle made a sound, and the next second, a cold wind blew over his skin, and the blade stopped close to Zhu Yanchen’s two fingers.
Zhu Yanchen didn’t move.
“It’s you.” Shu Jun yawned and put away the sword. “Sorry, I was half asleep. Are you feeling better?”
“Much better.” Zhu Yanchen took out a needle for collecting blood from the box. “Give me your arm. I need to take a blood sample.”
“Let’s have breakfast first. I bought pancakes and baked them on the purifier all night. They are still hot. The boss also gave me a bag of rock sugar, which I baked with them. I’ll mix it to make some sugar water later.” Shu Jun yawned again and released Monday, who was still shouting “Help!” in a rough voice.
Zhu Yanchen nodded politely while holding the blood-drawing needle still.
Shu Jun scratched his messy hair and sighed, extending his arm. After a few days, there was no sign of his physical mutation disappearing.
“Open your mouth,” Zhu Yanchen requested as he placed the blood sample into the testing machine.
But this time, he hesitated for a few seconds. “If you don’t like me wearing gloves, I can take them off.”
Having fabric put in his mouth wasn’t very comfortable, but Shu Jun firmly declined. “Wear them. I’m afraid that if I get hungry, I might bite your finger.”
Zhu Yanchen pulled off his gloves expressionlessly.
Five minutes later.
“…Everything is normal.” Zhu Yanchen looked into Shu Jun’s mouth and touched his mutated teeth for a while. The examination took much longer than last time, and Shu Jun’s jaw was a bit sore, but he could only endure it while looking at Zhu Yanchen’s focused examination.
“Your body has initially stabilized.” Zhu Yanchen took out his wet fingers. “If you feel uncomfortable, remember to tell me at any time.”
Shu Jun rubbed his chin and said sincerely, “The pancake is getting drier, and I’m feeling hungry. I had one last night, and it was really delicious. It also has sauce.”
He didn’t know if he was seeing things, but Zhu Yanchen’s gaze softened a bit. He packed up the briefcase and sat down obediently to eat breakfast. Ignoring the erosion marks, the room was still pretty well decorated. The two sat across from each other and ate breakfast, with a little bit of warmth.
There was a vague sense of déjà vu, and Shu Jun shook his head.
Zhu Yanchen knew nothing of Shu Jun’s psychological activities. “We’ll buy a large sled and go to X City in about ten days. With your physical condition, you don’t need protection to go to X City.”
Shu Jun stared at Zhu Yanchen’s eyes—his brow furrowed as he absentmindedly replied, “Mm.”
“I plan to survey X City for three weeks,” Zhu Yanchen continued. “Then we’ll continue east and walk all the way to the seaside. Finally, we’ll come back… as far as we can go.”
Shu Jun stirred his sugar water with a spoon. “Mm.”
“When I die, you don’t have to worry about the body. Just go back to Y City and find a female doctor named Ai Xiaoxiao. She’s my subordinate, and her research level is top-notch. Although she can’t treat you like me, she can still do a good job of wrapping up loose ends.” Zhu Yanchen spoke calmly, as if he weren’t talking about his own death.
Shu Jun stopped stirring his spoon.
Zhu Yanchen didn’t wait for that “Mm” and looked up. Shu Jun smiled at him and brought up a different topic. “The boss here just said yesterday that there were strange things happening near X City, telling us to stay away. You specifically want to go there, so what’s your goal?”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
“It’s because I don’t know what’s there that I want to confirm it in person. Anything could appear in the city ruins that humans haven’t set foot in for two hundred years.” Zhu Yanchen picked up his handkerchief and wiped his mouth elegantly. “What did the boss say to you? Please tell me.”
“He said my nails were too long and that young people shouldn’t follow this type of fashion.”
“……”
Shu Jun pushed the sugar water in front of Zhu Yanchen and said, “Just kidding. You can ask him yourself later. That uncle is quite talkative, but I can’t catch the main points. After all, I haven’t seen him for more than 200 minutes, so there could be new information that may appear.”
Zhu Yanchen nodded and hurriedly drank all the sugar water, planning to tidy up the cups and plates on the table. Shu Jun reached out his arm and directly grabbed his wrist.
“A’Yan.” Shu Jun’s tone was a bit unquestionable. “I would prefer it if you introduced Ai Xiaoxiao to me in person. To be honest, for the sake of your people, you’d better live longer.”
As he spoke, the smile on Shu Jun’s face disappeared. His vertical pupils shrank a bit, staring at Zhu Yanchen’s reaction.
“If my partner leaves too soon and there’s no more interest involved, I’m not sure what I will do.”
Zhu Yanchen stretched out his other hand and gently opened Shu Jun’s hand.
“I understand,” he said.
Only then did Shu Jun continue to nibble on his pancake, missing Zhu Yanchen’s silent whisper.
“…And I know what you will do,” Zhu Yanchen silently moved his lips.
In Y city.
Marshal Yi Ning’s mood wasn’t very good.
He just wanted to create a stumbling block for Zhu Yanchen at the stronghold, letting the mutant beasts invade from the outside to indirectly prove the necessity of “players” production—even the powerful Zhu Yanchen from a prominent family couldn’t protect himself, which demonstrated the shortage of troops.
If the plan went well, Zhu Yanchen wouldn’t have had any problems. At most, he would suffer some minor injuries and stay in the hospital for one or two months. Yi Ning had made adequate preparations and even reduced the defense of the stronghold, but something went wrong in the process.
They hadn’t released the mutant beasts from the outer circle yet, but one of them escaped from the inside and took Zhu Yanchen himself as hostage. It was like someone knew what they were planning and took the opportunity to act ahead of time.
After the incident, Yi Ning contacted the Tang family, who provided him with financial support. He only wanted ordinary the benefits of public opinion, not assassination.
However, the Tang family claimed they knew nothing about it.
Yi Ning sat back in his chair in annoyance and began to flip through the prepared speech. The rhetoric on it was impassioned, but it wouldn’t be used in the short term.
What is going on?
He came from a commoner background and his parents made a living by living on the edge of the erosion zone, where they licked blood from a knife’s edge every day. They died of chronic diseases caused by erosion when Yi Ning was only four years old. He survived alone, stumbling and suffering through countless difficulties, to climb to his current position. No one knew better than him what benefits the “players” production would bring to the people.
At present, “players”—synthetic humans—were only stationed at the strongholds and were under the jurisdiction of the United Government for purification and exploration outside. If his vision was realized, lower-performing synthetic humans could be stationed in the city as “life players”, contributing to labor. The less efficient ones could be sold in batches to wealthy people, and people wouldn’t need to venture into the erosion zone to mine for resources.
This way, people could completely get rid of jobs that have erosion risk, and the workload would be greatly reduced.
Truth management could be a hassle, but as long as the goals were established, the rest could be gradually resolved. Even if the synthetic people inside the city caused trouble, they could still be suppressed by the regular army.
The ordinary people quite liked this proposal. Not only did it reduce their workload, but no one wanted their loved ones to do risky work. On the other hand, Yi Ning, who came from a civilian background, was more likable than the young master of the Zhu family, thus his popularity among the people continued to rise.
However, Yi Ning didn’t relax his vigilance because of this.
Zhu Yanchen was able to hold on until now because of his deep and broad family connections, as well as his truly excellent tactical skills. Compared to those from big families who were all smooth talkers and focused on saving face, Yi Ning admired Zhu Yanchen as an opponent. In terms of ability, except for being too low-key, Zhu Yanchen had no other weaknesses to exploit.
Now that his opponent was gone, Yi Ning wasn’t happy.
On the one hand, he couldn’t understand—his plan was undoubtedly beneficial to the people’s livelihood. If Zhu Yanchen had a similar idea to him, he would even be willing to withdraw from the competition. Old Marshal Zhu had also expressed his appreciation for him in public, but Zhu Yanchen was like a stone that couldn’t be moved.
On the other hand, the loss of Zhu Yanchen was objectively a huge setback. Leaving aside the fact that they couldn’t find a replacement for him in terms of tactical planning, Yi Ning couldn’t find a suitable person to take over the management of the synthetic humans that Zhu Yanchen was responsible for.
Originally, he had planned to promote the production of synthetic humans as soon as possible, but now even cleaning up the mess had become a big problem.
Yi Ning pushed his speech aside and rubbed his forehead. As if things weren’t chaotic enough, the communicator began to beep and squeal.
“What is it?”
“Sir, it’s the synthesized human you’re directly in charge of, Captain Luo Duan of ‘Groundwater’… He wants to see you.”
Kinky Thoughts:
LMAO. So both marshals had similar plans?
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