Sudden Change

Human experimentation on living subjects was, of course, no pleasant term.

But in this day and age, "drifters" carried even worse connotations.

In 2044, the Third World War broke out. In just five short years, it destroyed 70% of humanity's Living Space. Even fifty years after the war, the world's population of ten billion was crammed into eighty-eight mega-urban zones, living crowded, cramped lives. Things had only gradually begun improving over the past decade.

Beyond the cities lay the wilderness. Vast and empty, it had been ravaged beyond recognition by nuclear radiation and Aberrant Species, making it wholly unfit for human survival. Yet there was still a group of people who rejected modern civilization, or had been rejected by civilized society: extremists, fugitives, ambitious schemers... Gambling their lives, they roamed the wilderness and collectively formed the concept of "drifters."

The law of the jungle, the extinction of humanity, no bottom line...

One similar term after another popped into Xie Junping's head. In an instant, he had formed a standard image of Ronan's grandfather, whom he had never met:

An evil scientist! The kind that kept appearing in superhero movies.

"Because of this, Luo Yuandao and his son turned against each other. His son, Luo Zhongheng—Ronan's father—suddenly left home and vanished, with no news of him to this day. Luo Yuandao himself developed severe schizophrenia and was hospitalized for long-term treatment. But his condition has worsened recently. He probably only has a few days left."

Xie Junping's teeth ached just listening to it. He did not care about anything else; he only worried that Ronan might have inherited some bad habits or developed some kind of twisted personality in such an environment...

At this point, Yingying's tone took a turn.

"But the most interesting part isn't that. In academic circles, aside from that accusation, Luo Yuandao was a nobody. But another person connected to him was extremely famous—Yan Hong. You know him, right?"

Xie Junping nodded instinctively. Of course he knew him. Yan Hong had been a Well-known Professor at Zhi Xing Institute just a few years ago, renowned even internationally. But because of "academic misconduct," he had fallen from grace and disappeared from mainstream society. It was quite regrettable.

"Yan Hong's book, Prototype Neural Format Research, led to the emergence of the Burners. It was undoubtedly a revolutionary achievement; its significance could not be overstated. I used to admire him quite a lot."

There was not a trace of admiration in Yingying's voice, only excitement. "The problem is, during the academic misconduct scandal in '90, someone exposed that the firsthand data Yan Hong used for this achievement had come from Luo Yuandao's unpublished materials. That's right, the data obtained through human experimentation on living subjects in the wilderness... Your circle is really a mess!"

Screw your circle. This old man isn't even in academia!

Xie Junping complained inwardly again, but Yingying was not merely gossiping. She had already begun a more practical analysis.

"When Luo Yuandao's scandal broke in '83, Ronan was only three years old. His grandfather's disgrace and his father's disappearance must have affected his entire childhood. How would a child understand all that? What kind of personality would it produce?

"Now we can see that he speaks rather formally and acts very aloof, practically like a moral paragon. Setting aside the possibility that he's putting on an act, there are two possibilities here.

"One is moral compensation. He feels ashamed and guilty over his grandfather's actions, so he subconsciously holds himself to extremely high moral standards. Essentially, he's drawing a line between himself and his grandfather."

But Yingying immediately rejected that possibility. "Of course, if that were the case, Ronan wouldn't go on and on about his grandfather's notebook and old affairs. The origin of that flexible screen, though, may be a bit problematic. He was clearly avoiding something..."

Yingying did not elaborate further and jumped straight to the second possibility. "The other is a moral mission. If his grandfather possessed a certain personal charisma, or regardless of what he had thought before, the academic scandal in '90 was enough to overturn everything and make him develop certain conjectures or fantasies about his grandfather's achievements..."

Xie Junping could not help raising his head to look at Ronan.

Yingying's description continued in sync, rising and falling like a poetic recitation.

"Perhaps his grandfather was falsely accused? Perhaps the Burners should have been his grandfather's achievement? Perhaps that dying old man in the psychiatric hospital was actually a great man misunderstood by the world?

"Such thoughts transformed his destined loneliness into a tragic sense of standing against the world, into a sense of mission. So he became introverted, solitary, determined, and vigilant—like a dark hero, charging alone toward the world's shadowy curtain in a fight to the death... Wow, I'm moved myself!"

Xie Junping's mouth twitched as he listened. The beginning had been reasonable enough, but why did it increasingly sound like she was writing a screenplay?

Still, a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy like Ronan was exactly at the age of being full of heroic fantasies. Seeing how solemn Ronan looked, could he really think that way?

"Senior Xie?" Ronan asked, sounding more like a reminder.

Only then did Xie Junping realize that he had been so absorbed in Yingying's "script" that he had made a complete fool of himself in front of Ronan. If Ronan really misunderstood him, that would be disastrous.

He hurriedly returned the notebook, then made a token comment. "These drawings are very good."

The moment the words left his mouth, even Xie Junping thought they sounded dry, stiff, and painfully awkward.

"They hardly count as drawings. They're just sketches."

Ronan remained polite, but after taking back the notebook, he courteously said goodbye. "If you don't have anything else, Senior, I'll be going."

"Huh?"

While Xie Junping was still dazed, Ronan nodded to him, set the functional drink on the Central Control Console, and got out of the car without hesitation.

This... He had clearly become suspicious!

Xie Junping truly felt guilty. He hurriedly asked Yingying for advice. "Uh, should I show some kind of goodwill?"

"So all my saliva was wasted!" Yingying's tone carried the frustration of someone disappointed by another's failure to meet expectations. "You..."

A faint burst of noise suddenly entered his ears. Yingying's voice became blurry, and he could no longer hear her clearly.

"Hello? Hello?"

"Bzzzt, bzzzt..."

Damn it, something had to go wrong now!

Xie Junping instantly broke into a cold sweat. Seeing that Ronan had already gone far away, he stopped caring about anything else, rushed out of the car, and shouted, "Junior, I'll give you a ride!"

Ronan turned back. "I can just run there. Isn't it inconvenient for you, Senior?"

"Uh, right." Xie Junping was embarrassed. Right now, he would die the moment he was exposed to sunlight. The most urgent thing was to hurry back to Mangzhong and nip the problem in the bud. He had actually needed Ronan to remind him. He really was stupid beyond measure.

In his embarrassment, he could only try to close the distance as he usually did. "Then I'll host a special dinner to thank you in the next couple of days. I'll find a place and let you know."

As he spoke, he walked over to exchange contact details. Ronan did not refuse. The two tapped their wristbands together, completing the exchange, and then shook hands as well.

Xie Junping was considering saying a few more nice things when the area to the side suddenly lit up. He instinctively turned his head. Beneath the gray, dim sky, an azure streak of electricity leaped and flickered. At first glance, it looked like lightning, but judging from its direction, it was clearly shooting from the ground into the sky, slicing straight into the clouds.

Perhaps because the contrast was too intense, the buildings around the electric light seemed to be twisting.

Almost at the same time, the phantom car sounded an alarm.

"What's going on?" Xie Junping turned around and walked toward the car. But after only a few steps, a piercing shriek suddenly rang through his built-in earpiece, like the feedback of an old-fashioned microphone. Caught off guard, it felt as though the sound waves would tear apart his eardrums.

He cried out and reflexively reached to cover his ears. But before his fingers even touched his ears, a sharp pain shot through his eyes. The temperature of his Light Membrane contact lenses instantly rose. Detecting an abnormal condition, the Light Membrane's melting safety mechanism activated automatically and shut down all functions.

Xie Junping's vision blurred, and the world spun around him. This was no illusion—it was real shaking, surging, twisting!

The solid ground beneath his feet instantly became a small boat rocking atop stormy waves. Within his field of vision, high-rises and bridges twisted and warped. Farther away, he could even see drifting sparks, staining the still-dark sky red.

"An earthquake! A huge earthquake!"

For a moment, that was the only thought flashing through Xie Junping's mind. But before it could fully take shape, the ground vanished beneath his feet. His entire body plunged downward, along with the greenery at the bridgehead, railings, chunks of stone, and his phantom car worth five hundred million.

The bridge had collapsed!

The bridge, which supposedly could withstand a level-nine earthquake, crumbled like overturned building blocks. Half the bridgehead suddenly collapsed.

Xie Junping's mind went blank. He screamed instinctively, flailing both hands as he tried to grab something for support.

He actually caught hold of something hard—a chunk of rubble that had fallen alongside him.

Holding that thing did nothing but add weight!

Xie Junping's eyeballs nearly bulged out of their sockets as his vision spun.

"Ah..."

His scream had barely begun when agonizing pain tore through his shoulder joint, followed by his wrist. A tremendous force ran through his whole body. The direction of his fall seemed to reverse in an instant, and his entire body swung violently.

"Ahhh!"

Xie Junping screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking high as tears streamed down his face. By then, the collapsing bridge had already slammed into the buildings below with a dull boom. Dust billowed, pedestrians cried out and screamed, and the situation was chaotic beyond measure.

"Shut up!" A deep voice pierced through the noise and reached his ears.

Out of habit, Xie Junping screamed twice more, then suddenly came to his senses. He jolted violently and raised his head, seeing Ronan's face and half his chest protruding above the bridge.

Of course, what mattered most was the arm stretched out with all his strength. It was slender and long, not especially strong-looking, yet it had forcibly snatched him away from death's giant scythe... No, they were still locked in a struggle.

Whether it was Xie Junping's good fortune or bad fortune, he did not know.

The impact the elevated bridge had suffered was absurdly severe. Although the bridge had warped badly, only the edge of the bridgehead had broken away. It happened to enclose Xie Junping within it, while Ronan, only five steps away from him, remained unharmed.

But because of that, Ronan had been able to rush over in time and grab his arm, preventing him from being smashed into paste.

The crisis was not over. Ronan had caught him, but he was clearly not strong enough to pull him back up.

Worst of all, the collapsed bridgehead had formed a slope. The angle was slight, but under these circumstances, Ronan himself was slowly sliding down as well. There was nothing around them that he could use for leverage.

The feeling of having one's life end at any moment was truly awful. Xie Junping tried desperately to grab onto something else, but his struggling limbs nearly made the fingers gripping his wrist slip free.

Xie Junping slid lower, frightening him into screaming and struggling even harder.

Ronan's expression turned ugly as he spoke with difficulty. "Don't move. Hold onto my hand."

Xie Junping had been blinded by fear. How could he listen? He continued struggling.

"Do you want to die?!"

The furious roar blasted into his ears, making Xie Junping jolt. He threw his head back and happened to meet Ronan's eyes.

Yingying had previously mentioned that Ronan's eyes glowed while he trained. But from Xie Junping's distance, Ronan's eyes were not clear at all. They were thick with bloodshot veins and tinged with faint bluish-yellow hues. Yet those mottled colors seemed, in an instant, to form an abstract, uncanny image that seared itself deep into his heart.

Xie Junping could not describe what it was, but his heart inexplicably tightened, and his whole body froze.

Ronan's roar had already consumed much of his strength. His voice lowered now, rough and hoarse.

"Look at your hand. What are you doing?"

Xie Junping glanced over and saw that his right hand—the one Ronan was holding—was curled tightly into a fist, stiff as dead wood. In his palm, he was clutching the stone that had fallen with him. Its sharp edges had pierced his palm, blood pouring out, yet he had not even noticed.

It was probably some kind of stress reaction. He had completely lost the ability to feel pain. Flesh and stone seemed fused together—fear was the adhesive.

"Let go!" Ronan ordered.

Xie Junping wanted to let go too, but his usually nimble fingers had gone completely stiff. No matter how desperately he sweated, they would not obey him. "I-I... Don't let go! Don't let go no matter what!"

Ronan drew a deep breath and stared fixedly at Xie Junping. "Don't look at your hand. Look into my eyes."

As long as Ronan did not let go, Xie Junping would obey without question. Like a puppet on strings, he did whatever Ronan told him to do.

Xie Junping looked directly into Ronan's eyes once more. The mottled structures of color resembled a pair of murky whirlpools, locking his attention firmly in place. The next moment, Ronan's voice exploded directly inside his skull.

"Let go!"

It was not just his fingers that relaxed. In that instant, all the strength drained out of Xie Junping's body. His fingers loosened, and the bloodstained stone fell straight down. It first struck his shoulder, then continued falling.

The pain jolted Xie Junping awake. His body felt limp and heavy, as though he were slipping downward again. In the midst of his scream, his hand reflexively grabbed back, this time successfully clamping onto Ronan's wrist and refusing to let go again.

With Xie Junping sharing the burden, Ronan was finally able to make slight adjustments to his fingers and exert force more effectively.

After some adjustments, the tense situation eased slightly. Xie Junping's blood-rushed mind began to clear, and he became aware of more around him.

The cold morning wind blew against him. His body swayed in the air. There were other sounds in the wind: explosions, the rumbling echoes of collapsing buildings, and shrill sirens...

Even without using his eyes, he could understand the chaos all around him.

Thank the "dark hero"—Xie Junping now completely believed Yingying's analysis. Otherwise, he would surely have become a puddle of mangled flesh amid the rubble.

But he hoped the "dark hero" could put in a little more effort and pull him up...

Just as he opened his mouth, an inexplicably powerful sound thundered in.