A Little Time

"Green Sun?" Director Fu asked.

"Impossible." Ai Qing shook her head. "Even if Green Sun knew Huai Shi killed Red Glove, they wouldn't bother picking on some nobody. Those lunatics are always focused on causing trouble for the Astronomical Society. They haven't sunk that low."

"The Savior Society?"

"Even less likely."

Ai Qing shook her head. "He was only a victim too. Even if they wanted revenge, they should come after me. Huai Shi's file is still classified. Apart from you and me, nobody else even knows he's an Ascender."

"..."

For a moment, neither of them could continue thinking.

"That kid really knows how to cause trouble."

Director Fu sighed unhappily. "Might as well lock him up for half a year first."

"He is currently an official employee of the Astronomical Society." Ai Qing stared directly at him. "If you insist, then I'm afraid we'll only meet again in Jinling."

Ai Qing's meaning could not have been clearer: if Director Fu remained stubborn, then they would only meet again in Border Court.

Director Fu frowned. "Are you really going to protect him at all costs?"

"He is my subordinate," Ai Qing replied.

"No, he is a seventeen-year-old high school student. He'll be a senior tomorrow, and he'll take the college entrance exams the year after next."

Director Fu raised his voice slightly. "If you really don't want him to end up locked away at the border someday, then you shouldn't let him get involved in things outside school."

"..."

The look in Ai Qing's eyes turned strange. "You actually care about the healthy development of teenagers?"

"I just hate dead kids carrying weapons." Director Fu touched the scar on his neck, his expression growing darker. "The more troublesome they are, the more I hate them."

"He won't become the kind of person you imagine."

Director Fu did not answer. He merely fell silent, once again recalling the boy's eyes in the footage.

It was as though he had finally been enraged. The moment he clenched his fist, all those disguises scattered like mist blown away by wind and snow.

That unpleasantly shallow smile finally vanished, replaced by a cold, grim heaviness like iron and stone.

He had destroyed everything with such arrogance...

As though death were nothing more than insignificant dust.

That gaze was practically that of an executioner. It instinctively made Director Fu uneasy. No, disgusted would have been more accurate.

He hated people with eyes like that.

He hated children with eyes like that even more.

"Miss Ai, you're trying to put a chain around a beast and teach it the rules of a house dog, but Huai Shi is different from those things."

He frowned. "He is only mixed in with a pack of stray dogs. He may look like a husky, but his nature is that of an atavistic wolf.

"Once he has seen blood, no chain will be able to hold him."

Ai Qing calmly drank the cheap tea in the office, set down her cup, and remained unmoved.

"If you're that afraid, you might as well kill him."

"You think I haven't considered it?"

Director Fu asked in return, "On the night Red Glove died, when I first saw him in the rain, I had that impulse. I couldn't accept a potential lunatic like that existing in my jurisdiction.

"But what could I do? I'm forty-six this year. I have children too. Should I kill another child just because he might commit a crime someday?

"Miss Ai, he is only seventeen. Even the laws protecting minors stand on his side. He still has a chance to choose his own future... to choose a future that will not harm most people."

"Isn't that living like a house dog?"

Ai Qing asked coldly, "Plugging up your ears and pretending you can't hear anything? Covering your eyes and pretending nothing is happening? Enduring pain until you grow accustomed to it, submitting to whatever comes, accepting abuse, wagging your tail as you wait for a reward. Do you really think that kind of life is happiness?"

Director Fu was angered. "He has more choices than that!"

"He doesn't."

Ai Qing said, "His surname is Huai, just as mine is not Ai. Whether he struggles or not cannot change what happened in the past, just as you and I cannot decide someone's future."

She said, "It is destined."

Director Fu asked coldly, "What do you think he will think of you once he learns the truth about that year?"

"Who cares? Whatever choice he makes, I won't be surprised."

Ai Qing looked calmly into his eyes and told him word by word, "But before then, I will not allow anyone to touch him."

"Then what exactly are you doing?" Director Fu laughed. "Seeking redemption?"

Ai Qing was expressionless. "I'm only hoping someone will come and settle accounts with me."

"..."

In the silence, Director Fu said nothing more. He merely pointed toward the interrogation room, telling her to take her subordinate away.

.

Meanwhile, Huai Shi was eating with great relish in the interrogation room.

After finishing the late-night meal of some unknown employee, he wiped his mouth and shouted eagerly, "Another bowl!"

In the silence, several Special Affairs Department agents sitting there said nothing. They merely watched him with their arms folded, a trace of pity naturally appearing in their eyes.

Until Huai Shi turned around and saw Ai Qing behind him.

"Uh..."

"Could you stop making people think I don't pay you?"

"... Ah, sorry."

"Sorry for what? For eating too much?" Ai Qing shook her head. "The Astronomical Society has special medication for Ascenders going through developmental stages. Do you need me to buy some internally for you?"

"Ah..." Huai Shi did not know how to explain Crow's situation, so he could only scratch his head. "I already bought some."

"From Liu Dongli again?"

Ai Qing raised her brows, seeming displeased. "You should visit that detective less often. He isn't someone who gives people peace of mind either."

"Okay."

Huai Shi readily agreed.

Only after those observers left did Ai Qing ask, "What happened today?"

"Sorry, I caused trouble again."

"Don't always apologize for other people's mistakes—"

The girl rubbed her brow irritably and sighed. "Honestly, I don't care what you turned that pile of social garbage into. As an employee of the Astronomical Society, the standard response procedures when you are attacked even include lethal force. Understand?

"Don't underestimate the Astronomical Society's privileges. Even if you pulled out a gun and killed all of them, there would be no procedural problem. At most, after going through the process, you would receive an internal reprimand.

"I'm just curious—what was your reason for doing that?"

"Hm?" Huai Shi did not understand.

"Normally, wouldn't you run away?"

She said, "Shamelessly begging for mercy, running when you can't win... facing them head-on isn't your style."

"..."

Huai Shi was speechless. "Is that really how I seem to you? A coward who fears trouble?"

"What do you think?"

"... Fine, I think you're right." Huai Shi sighed and scratched his head, not knowing how to explain it. "If I had to say it, I guess I got angry? Then I lost control a little and went too far, ending up like this myself."

"Was it related to Old Yang's funeral?"

"..."

Huai Shi froze for a long time, then smiled awkwardly. "How could it be?"

Ai Qing said nothing. She only looked at him, as though waiting for him to continue. After a long while, Huai Shi was ultimately the first to yield.

"Fine... maybe a little."

He lowered his head to look at the wounds and bandages on his body, sighing helplessly.

"I got scared."

"No matter how nicely I talked, when I was surrounded by a group of people in an alley, with knives in their hands, saying they wanted my life, I couldn't help being afraid.

"I always thought I could be Iron Head enough not to fear even death, but only when I saw my friend lying in the crematorium did I realize that not only was I afraid, I was terrified."

Huai Shi sighed. "After being a happy idiot for so many years, I suddenly couldn't be happy anymore. I couldn't even keep being an idiot, but what could I do?

"I can't even manage my own life.

"Even when I'm just out walking around for no reason, people from who-knows-where come to take my life... No matter how annoying I am, isn't that going too far?"

"Yeah."

Ai Qing nodded, seeming to agree, though it was impossible to tell which part she agreed with.

Was it the annoying part, or the going-too-far part?

Huai Shi smiled bitterly, braced himself against the table, and forced himself upright. Blood seeped through his bandages once more. This time, he really had been badly hurt.

He had also discovered another bad habit he had developed after reading records.

Being reckless and getting himself killed in records was certainly convenient, but doing so in reality came at a terrible price.

Taking on seven people alone sounded impressive, but being beaten by seven people made it nearly impossible not to get hurt.

"Want me to give you a hand?"

Ai Qing suddenly asked, seemingly implying something.

Huai Shi smiled and shook his head. "No need. I can do it myself."

"You have to live your own life yourself, right?"

He finally steadied himself on his own.

He put on the coat hanging in the corner. The old suit was still spotless, covering the bloodstains. He looked as though he had returned to how he once was, gentle and harmless again.

"Should I have the driver take you home?"

"I'll just call a car." Huai Shi waved his phone and raised his brows happily. "I got a ride coupon on the way here today. If I don't use it, it'll expire."

Watching him support himself against the wall and stagger along in a slightly comical manner, Ai Qing fell silent.

"If you have no yearning for anything beyond the everyday, then there is no reason to become an Ascender..." she suddenly asked. "Huai Shi, do you regret it?"

"No." Huai Shi grinned. "I just haven't gotten used to it yet."

As he spoke, he patted his chest and made an everything-is-okay gesture.

"Just give me a little time for this minor problem."

The boy smiled, nodded goodbye, and pushed open the door. As though speaking to himself, he murmured softly, "Just give me a little more time..."

Ai Qing watched him go downstairs.

She did not try to comfort or persuade him again, even though deciding to face everything alone was far too foolish.

At worst, she could keep digging deeper herself. When necessary, she could save the situation. Maybe she could even make his years of serving the Astronomical Society last a little longer.

His pride and Ai Qing's ambition were both satisfied.

Double satisfaction, double happiness.

It was simply the best of both worlds.

Yet in the silence, as she looked at the quietly increasing bounty on the Myriad Sins Collection page, her expression darkened.

Two hundred thousand dollars?

For an official employee of the Astronomical Society, wasn't that a little too cheap?

For once, she decided to fulfill her responsibilities as a superior.

The page closed. Her finger swiped, opening the complicated symbol at the top made entirely of triangles and perfect circles—Metatron's Cube.

A sales platform established by three major neutral conglomerates at the border: Tomorrow News, the Stone Kiln Society, and the Workshop Alliance. They corresponded respectively to intelligence, border technology, and weapons and tools, the three necessities for Ascenders.

Soon, the page kept jumping until it entered the Alchemy Workshop page of the Cavendish Laboratory, known for combining cutting-edge technology with border techniques.

Recalling the bounty money in Huai Shi's account that had not even had time to cool, her mood became unusually cheerful.

Three million dollars.

That should be enough to buy something good, right?