"Zhang?! Why are you here? No, why am I here? I remember... right, we were fighting President X. I should already be dead. Don't tell me you're dead too?"
Pietro struggled to speak. His superbrain was practically exploding from all the scattered fragments of memory, and the flood of information left him with no time to process his current situation.
"Alright, calm down. I'm not dead, and neither are you. Just calm down, okay? We haven't reached a safe place yet." Zhang Ye swallowed what was in his mouth and grabbed another slice of pizza.
"We... didn't die?" Pietro froze. "How is that possible? No one can escape President X. No one. What exactly happened?"
Seeing how unstable Pietro was, Zhang Ye understood that if he did not explain things properly, there would be no way to finish this meal in peace. So he began.
"It's nothing much. President X still couldn't fully control Scarlet Witch's power. Although he could use that power to slaughter every prisoner in the Mutant Prison, his use of Chaos Magic was still crude.
"After I killed him, Chaos Magic and psychic power tore open a rift in reality. The entire Military Factory was affected by it and turned into a bizarre mirror world. Time and space there were both in a state of chaos. If you pushed open any random door, it would lead to some other random place.
"This left everyone there, dead or alive, in a state of mental confusion. They became half-dead creatures. I can't really explain exactly what that state was like—you can think of them as walking corpses. They attacked any living thing nearby on instinct.
"But that gave me a good opportunity. Before the Military Factory's space was completely torn apart, I carried you out. But honestly, your injuries were way too severe. I could only point a gun at another soldier who escaped and make him give you some basic treatment."
At that, Zhang Ye paused and looked at Pietro.
"I admit his medical skills were terrible, but under those circumstances, there was no way to get you to a hospital. That guy said your leg might heal crooked. I never studied medicine, so I don't know whether he was right. Later, he tried to ambush me, so I put a bullet in him. Even if you wanted to settle things with him, you couldn't."
"Wait, wait." Pietro could not stop himself from cutting Zhang Ye off. His eyes widened as he stared at Zhang Ye, his voice trembling slightly. "What did you just say? You killed President X! How did you do that??"
"Ah, right."
Zhang Ye shrugged and pulled out the pistol from his clothes. "With this. Remember it? You stole it for me. It was my first handgun—the one I used to kill Nick Fury."
"No, that's not what I mean. I'm asking how you managed it. That was President X! The entire Avengers had been fighting him for years without succeeding. How did you do it?!"
"To be honest, I don't know either." Zhang Ye looked away and stared seriously at the road ahead. "Maybe he saw something interesting in my mind and got so absorbed in it that he couldn't pull himself out. Then I shot him. Honestly, from another perspective, I can understand him."
"That was it?" Pietro could hardly believe it.
"That was it." Zhang Ye nodded.
"What else did you expect? That I had a last-minute burst of power before dying and unlocked unimaginable strength? Or that I suddenly discovered I was a mutant too, and incredibly powerful, then fought him for three hundred rounds without a winner? Then, when we both unleashed our ultimate moves, he suddenly understood everything, realized his mistakes, and finally gave up resisting so I could blast him to death in one strike?"
"Ah..." Pietro felt like he had a lot to say, yet had no idea how to say it.
"That's all there was to it, Pietro. We're not characters in a comic who have to put on grand spectacles and fiery battles to attract an audience. We're living, breathing people surviving in this miserable world. You are, I am, and President X was too. There's no difference."
"But... that was too simple." Pietro muttered. He still could not understand why President X, who had terrorized an entire nation, could be dealt with so easily.
"Simple? I don't think so. Maybe, in this world, I'm the only one who could kill President X that way." Zhang Ye said blandly, without a trace of emotion.
Hearing that, Pietro froze for a moment, then edged closer to the car door.
"Hey! I saw that. Don't tell me you're scared of me now." Zhang Ye rolled his eyes speechlessly.
"Heh heh. No, I've just been sitting too long and wanted to change positions." Pietro gave a stiff smile. Only then did he look down at his injured thigh.
Two wooden boards were tied to his leg, wrapped again and again with bandages. The originally white gauze had long been soaked through with blood, though it had dried by now, leaving behind dark stains.
Noticing Pietro's gaze, Zhang Ye said, "You were seriously hurt. That man said your leg had been forcibly snapped by immense force. The pain at that instant was enough to kill someone alive. And for ordinary people, an injury like that was basically untreatable. At best, they'd need an amputation. But your ability saved you."
"Yeah. My accelerated metabolism lets me heal much faster than normal people."
"That's true, but it wasn't so great when someone snapped your bones. Your ability only makes you heal faster; it won't make your bones grow back into the right position. So I had that soldier reset your leg bones. Otherwise, even after you healed, you'd end up with a deformed leg."
"Thank you."
"No need to be polite. We're brothers." Zhang Ye smiled. "Are you really not eating? I remember you burn through a lot of energy. If Nick Fury's Safe House hadn't had glucose, I would've been afraid you'd starve to death before waking up."
At that, Pietro finally took the pizza and began wolfing it down. His table manners were terrible, considering he only had one hand free, but no one cared about that now.
"Where are we going next?" Pietro asked between bites.
"Did you forget the address you gave me? 1407 Graymalkin Lane in the New York Suburbs. Honestly, if we'd known Professor X was in the Mutant Secret Prison, we wouldn't have needed to make this trip at all. We could've gotten the job done in New York."
Zhang Ye grumbled as he spoke, but he was not angry. They had encountered all sorts of unbelievable things along the way, but thankfully, it was all over now. This experience would eventually become an interesting memory on the road of his life.
(This book is contracted with Chuangshi, but its performance has not been ideal. Maybe it is because the story starts slowly, or because it is not a feel-good power fantasy.)
(It was eliminated in the first round of PK recommendations. My editor told me to prepare for premium release, and I felt pretty sad about it.)
(Maybe it is like the theme I write about—rather hopeless. But I will keep writing.)
(Thanks as well to readers on Qidian and other sites. I hope everyone will continue supporting it. I believe gold will eventually shine; it simply has not yet been noticed by more people before it does.)
Before you continue