A Little Life Story, Ninety Percent True and Ten Percent False

"Wait, your wound needs to be bandaged, doesn't it?" Nan pointed at the spot on Zhou Yang's chest where the kunai had pierced him earlier. During his episode, the wound had been torn open even further.

Zhou Yang looked down and jumped on the spot. "Damn, why am I bleeding so much?" But he only cried out for a moment, because he saw that the blood had already clotted. Otherwise, with how violently he had thrashed during his episode, he would have bled to death.

He ignored the wound. Filling their stomachs was the priority, so Zhou Yang continued pulling Nan along to search for food.

The goddess of luck finally smiled on Zhou Yang. This hunt went smoothly; after just twenty minutes, they spotted prey. It was even a rabbit with little offensive ability. But even a rabbit was still a rabbit of the Ninja World. Though it lacked much ability to attack, its agility and speed were anything but ordinary. No wonder it had managed to grow so large in such a harsh environment.

That rabbit put Zhou Yang and Nan through the wringer, leading them in circles again and again until their scalps tingled. Fortunately, Zhou Yang had the better stamina, and he finally caught it.

"Damn, this thing wore me out." After stabbing the rabbit to death with his kunai, Zhou Yang dropped onto the ground and panted heavily. At the same time, he was glad he had eaten that last skewer of roasted mushrooms. Otherwise, the rabbit would have escaped.

As for Nan, she had given up the chase more than ten minutes ago. Zhou Yang did not mind. She was younger than him and a girl besides, so having less stamina was normal. He had only lasted this long by taking advantage of his Saiyan physique.

Of course, she had not been idle. She immediately went off to gather dead branches. It seemed she had complete faith that Zhou Yang could catch the rabbit, though she did not know why she trusted a boy she had known for less than half a day so much.

Though Zhou Yang considered all this basic stuff, Nan did not. To her, this child, who was half a head shorter than she was, was far too mysterious. Her first impression of him could be summed up in one word: ruthless. He was ruthless toward others, and even more ruthless toward himself. Then there was his illness, which caused him immense pain. He seemed difficult to get along with, yet his heart was gentle. His appetite was also astonishingly huge; in all her life, she had never seen anyone eat so much, not even adults. Finally, his physical constitution was absurdly strong. In her experience, not only children his age, but even youths much older than him could not match his speed and endurance. Most terrifying of all was his recovery ability. Among everyone she had ever seen, no one possessed anything like it. He was practically a humanoid monster. All these traits wrapped around the boy before her like a fog, leaving her unable to understand him or see through him.

She desperately wanted to know more about the boy before her. So, while Zhou Yang cleaned out the rabbit's organs, she asked the questions in her heart.

"Where is your home? Where did you come from? Where is your family? Why is your stamina so good? Why are you so fast? And your recovery ability—why is it so incredible?"

The barrage of questions hit Zhou Yang. He paused, then continued working as if he had not heard her. Looks like my behavior has made Nan suspicious after all. But that makes sense. Right now, I really don't seem like a normal person. In truth, Zhou Yang had always been deeply resistant to having a Saiyan spine implanted in him. If his life had not been at stake, who would want to become half Earthling and half alien like this? How was he any different from those alien hybrids? Perhaps the only advantage was that he looked more human.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

"Me? I'm just someone without roots."

"Someone without roots?"

"Yeah." Zhou Yang skewered the cleaned rabbit meat on branches, then placed it over the fire Nan had just lit and began speaking as he watched the flames.

"I never saw my parents from the day I was born. I was taken in by an orphanage after my birth. Then the wars between the great nations began. The orphanage was destroyed, and I lost my home. While fleeing, I was captured by some strange people and taken to a strange building. They fed me and clothed me. I thought that even if I had lost my freedom, being able to live like that was already perfect. But when our bodies reached a state of perfect health, they bared their fangs.

They put me on a table and gave me some anesthetic. But when I heard them say the experiment was beginning, I realized that I was an experimental subject.

Then, while I was still conscious, they cut open my back and replaced my spine. I will never forget that process for the rest of my life. I don't know whether there was something wrong with the anesthetic or whether the dosage was too low, but I was unusually awake throughout the entire operation. The pain was so horrifying that just hearing about it would make your skin crawl.

When they discovered that I still had vital signs after the operation, those researchers were overjoyed. From what they said, it seemed this was their first success.

On the way back to the room where I was locked up again, I saw many boys and girls around my age being stuffed into bags. Their expressions varied—some looked peaceful, some terrified—but without exception, their backs had all been cut open. It looked like they had undergone the same experiment as me, except they had all failed.

But just when they thought the experiment had truly succeeded, my body began rejecting it. The meridians throughout my body started going berserk uncontrollably, and there was nothing they could do.

Then, by chance, I overheard a conversation among their people. Their secret experimental base had been discovered, so they needed to evacuate immediately and take away the necessary data and documents. When someone asked what they should do with me, the leader pondered for a while before saying, 'Since this base was created for him, let him perish together with it.'

Once I learned that, I knew they intended to erase me. Later, I found an opportunity to knock out the person delivering food and escape. I kept running, kept running, and then I collapsed here."

Zhou Yang's story was long and detailed. His tone was so calm that it was as though these things were as ordinary as eating and drinking. But Nan, beside him, understood the hardship and pain within it. She too had lost both parents, but she still remembered what they looked like. Compared to his life, although she often went hungry, she had rarely faced any real danger to her life. Yet this child seemed to have spent the first half of his life fighting simply to survive. Thinking of it that way, she truly had been far too fortunate.