Zero's World

"Woke up?"

He turned his head and saw the soul, wearing a half-mask, sitting in the seat, speaking weakly to him.

"Where am I...?"

"Transport plane, transport plane to the Fifth Branch." Soul's condition was also bad. Himiko no mercy, and her facial bones were almost shattered. However, she was still much better off than the Speaker, who was missing an arm and a leg and was half-dead.

"Fifth Branch... Heh... So it turns out, we failed." The Speaker murmured, looking at his charred arm.

"There's nothing surprising about it. You had a plan, and so did everyone else. You just lost," Hun said calmly. "Everyone loses eventually. You just happened to lose this time."

"Hahaha... Yeah, I didn't expect you to say that..."

The speaker laughed nonchalantly, but soon coughed and lowered his head, his face contorted in pain. After enduring the pain for a while and waiting for it to subside, he continued, "Can I have a cigarette?"

"At this time?"

"I'm about to die, so please grant me my last wish."

"..."

"..."

Soul suddenly stopped all movement, his scarlet and cold-blooded eyes, unlike any other, staring indifferently at the smiling Speaker.

"'Is it really keeping you waiting?'" Soul slowly recited the words the Speaker had said before boarding the transport plane.

Did you hear it?

"No, you figured it out." Soul stood up, searched the speaker's body, found the pack of cigarettes, and said with a sneer after picking them up, "As expected, you yourself are one of those to be eliminated in your purge plan."

"Isn't this normal? A massacre means leaving no one alive." The speaker smiled indifferently. "You actually wanted to kill me a long time ago, but you didn't rush to do it because of Lin, did you?"

"..."

"Don't worry, Lin is being taken care of where he is. He'll probably spend the rest of his life in a beautiful illusion, unlike us..."

The speaker pointed to his battered body. "Sober."

"Your parents were killed by Poisoned Cocoon on my orders, and the Fifth Branch was destroyed under my instructions. You already know that."

"I thought you would believe that I had completely let go of these things."

"How could that be? If people could let go of hatred so easily, I wouldn't have attacked Doctor Mei, or those guys who wanted to modify humanity." The Speaker smiled. "Didn't you also say that you're not on my side? I'm one of the scum too."

"... I will take you to the Fifth Branch and kill you there."

Soul coldly announced.

Chapter Sixty-One: The World of Zero

"That masked freak is here again... Don't mess with him, he knocked someone unconscious last time they tried to fight him..."

A whispered malice came from beside him. Zero walked alone in the corridor, wearing a baseball cap and covering his face with a mask. The students who were bullying others changed their expressions as soon as they saw him.

However, Zero ignored them and went straight into his classroom to find a seat.

Knocked unconscious?

Zero just happened to witness their bullying and then stepped in to stop it. He was simply retaliating when someone tried to lay a hand on him. That person wasn't even injured; he just fainted.

After that, he became even more lonely, since he already had no one to associate with, because no one could understand what he was thinking.

But he didn't care about any of that; he just listened quietly.

"Let me go..."

A woman's scream came from the dark alley, along with the smell of alcohol. Even though Zero couldn't see what was happening inside, he could tell from this information that a group of drunkards were harassing women.

Men who are completely drunk are impotent, but they don't care whether they are or not.

There are hundreds of ways to do things that are far inferior to sexual ability, even if an ordinary person just thinks about them, let alone a group of people who have no self-control.

He stood at the intersection, carrying a shoulder bag, staring into the dark alley.

The road home is on the left, and a dark alley is on the right.

"What? Hesitating?"

A voice came from behind him, and a hooded man wearing a mask walked past him, scoffing.

Hesitate?

Zero had to admit that he hesitated. His memories told him that he was a time traveler, and logically, he should protect himself and not do anything unnecessary.

But my body involuntarily wants to stop what's happening, for no reason at all.

So Zero wanted to know why, was it simply because he was born with a sense of justice?

Wrong...

He still managed to stop the group of drunkards from humiliating the woman, who fled without looking back. He stood in front of the group of drunkards who were looking for new amusement, still deep in thought.

The monotonous traffic lights, day after day, year after year.

Fifty-nine seconds... fifty-eight seconds... fifty-seven seconds...

The pulsating bytes, the pedestrians with their heads down, the unchanging world—this is how Zero sees it.

He could see perfectly clearly which muscle each person raised when they laughed, but Zero never felt that they were laughing.

At least in front of us, they were just flexing their muscles, an action distinct from "laughing".

The red light turned green, and the countdown stopped. He glanced at the timer, which was exactly the same as the countdown timer he had silently recited.

"Oh dear... oh dear..."

A groan made Zero stop in his tracks. He turned around and saw an old woman lying in the middle of the road. She looked to be in her seventies or eighties, with white hair and a face that was about the same color as her hair. She was slumped helplessly on the ground.

Zero watched as countless people passed by her, and after thinking for a moment, she decided to leave with the crowd.

Thirty-seven seconds... thirty-six seconds...

He silently counted down the time until the green light turned green.

This is something that has no benefits and many drawbacks.

Ling could list a hundred cases of people being falsely accused after helping elderly people, but he couldn't help but think of the fewer and less noticeable cases of people being praised for helping elderly people.

That's a minority.

Zero told himself this.

He considered himself very rational and an exceptionally intelligent person, probably more so than most others.

"What's wrong? Are you scared?"

Familiar faces passed by, but when Zero looked, they had vanished without a trace.

He walked over to the old woman, helped her up, and stayed with her while she waited for her family to come and pick her up.

Soon, the old man's family arrived. They berated Ling, saying that he had knocked the old man down and that he needed to compensate for the damages.

Zero has only one question.

He asked the roaring crowd, "Why didn't you take care of her? Letting her cross the street alone? Isn't that dangerous?"

Zero didn't see the astonishment on their faces as he left.

Sure enough, his case wasn't the special one.

"Has anyone seen my concert ticket?"

Zero waited with his eyes closed for the concert hall doors to open. After hearing those words, he saw a person anxiously searching everywhere for his dropped ticket.

Did it fall?

Eden's concert tickets are very rare, especially for limited tours like this. Although her music is popular with all tastes and she rarely does limited tours, as a singer, she can only decide on a small portion of the tickets.

He managed to buy the tickets, which were so hard to get, with just a little effort. He will come to the concert, but Eden's songs will give him a brief moment of peace and reduce his overthinking.

He felt like there were two consciousnesses fighting in his head, but at the same time they seemed to be in perfect harmony, almost to the point where they could work together to control each hand to copy a homework assignment.

But Zero doesn't think this will bring any convenience to his daily life. He won't copy two sets of homework, nor will he let two consciousnesses fight in his mind.

Besides these two consciousnesses that occasionally make different decisions, there is another voice that often appears, saying some inexplicable things.

Tell Zero to make his own decision and not to listen to either of these two ideas.

"Have you... excuse me, have you seen my ticket?"

With a sliver of hope, the man asked Zero, his eyes fixed intently on the ticket in Zero's hand. Everyone before Zero impatiently chased him away, believing him to be a fraudster trying to scam tickets.

"...Do you really need it?" Zero asked.

"I fought for so long to get it..." His eyes dimmed. "Although attending concerts isn't a necessity in my life, when will I see Eden up close again..."

"Do you have money?"

"What?"

"I'll sell it to you if you have the money." Zero raised the ticket in his hand. "At the original price."

Concerts are not a necessity for his life, so there is no problem with giving them to others.

"You... you sold it to me?" He was very surprised. The tickets had been wildly popular online, and selling them at the original price, especially on the eve of the concert, was simply impossible.

Therefore, naturally, he suspected Zero.

"You didn't find this ticket and then try to extort money from me, did you?"

"..."

Even Zero didn't expect him to say that.

He silently lowered his head to look at the ticket in his hand, then at the man whose face was full of anger and who was about to decide to check the surveillance footage.

Whose fault is this?

Tickets? Men? Or zero?

He didn't know.

Then, he suddenly wanted to do something.

"Here you go." Ling handed the ticket to the man.

"As expected, it was you! Humph! Since you've shown some remorse, I'll let it slide this time!" The man's smiling face appeared.

"..." Zero watched his muscles twitch and asked, "Aren't you going to check the surveillance footage?"

"I won't go. I forgive you."

"What if this isn't your ticket?"

No one answered zero, and the man walked away happily.

He remained where he was, gazing at the diverse yet colorless world.

New Year Special: Lin Yingban

On the first clear day of the new year, a cat under the damp eaves let out a soft, childlike meow and leaped into the warm sunlight.

A man with long, ink-black hair cascaded down onto the wooden floor. He sat cross-legged in the quiet courtyard, wearing a cloak. His well-proportioned arms were covered by a white cloth robe. His elbows rested on the wooden table. His lazy eyes were casually fixed on the small lake. The babbling water and melodious birdsong paused for a moment with the crisp sound of a deer startled.

The tea stems have been boiled in the teapot for more than six minutes, releasing a delicate and lingering fragrance that draws people into the alley.

Two wisps of cloud drifted across the distant, clear blue sky, casting the shadow of the sundial before quietly dispersing.

Like birds scattering, spring joy follows.

The man flicked his sleeve, picked up the teacup, and brought it to his lips. He skipped the formalities of appreciating the color and aroma, neither needing nor interested in them; he simply wanted to enjoy a sip of hot tea on New Year's Eve.

"Hoo..." He swallowed a cup of tea, its flavor rich and mellow, with a sweet aftertaste and a refreshing sensation on his tongue. He put down the teacup and exhaled a leisurely fragrance.

"No idlers please... No idlers please..." Perhaps the meaning of this phrase could be changed?

A chirping sound pulled him back from the spring chill.