Zhang Yu's past

"Move aside!"

The words came not from Dongguan, but from Zhang Yu.

Zhang Gui turned to look at his mother, his face full of confusion.

"Move aside," Zhang Yu repeated, reaching out to push Zhang Gui away.

"What do you have to say?" Dongguan gradually calmed down as well.

"Did you think you really hid your secret that well?" Zhang Yu looked at Dongguan with a smile.

Dongguan froze.

"Ever since you reached War God Level, you've worn a forehead protector. Did you really think no one noticed something was wrong?"

"Someone else noticed?" Dongguan frowned.

"Yang Bei definitely knows. I didn't spend much time with you back then, but when I later compared photos of you from different periods, I noticed the difference. Yang Bei, who was always on your team, and even the other members of the Dragon Shadow Squad must have noticed too."

"A forehead protector isn't standard equipment. Unless it has some special function, it must be there to hide something."

"Besides, your seed of life was studied back then. Although the institute is gone, the abnormalities in your genes were recorded long ago. And your son started wearing a forehead protector after breaking through to War God Level too."

"With that many clues, anyone paying attention could make a guess."

"And as a Councilor, my records must be under scrutiny by numerous factions." Dongguan supplied that final point himself.

Things had been a little better when he was at War God Level. Now that he was a Councilor, his past was kept from ordinary people, but other Councilors and the upper ranks of major factions would undoubtedly study it closely.

With such a glaring abnormality, he had actually thought a forehead protector would be enough to hide it. How pathetic.

"So, can you tell me what's really going on?" Zhang Yu approached him, speaking gently.

She was a good deal shorter than him and couldn't even withstand a casual punch from him, yet at that moment, Zhang Yu gave Dongguan a peculiar sense of oppression.

"I'd like to know what's going on myself." Dongguan shook his head, recalling the past.

Before he recovered at the end of last year, most of his memories had been of training and fighting monsters. His earlier life in the base city had been monotonous too.

The banquet celebrating his becoming a War God had been one of the few lively occasions in his thirty-odd years of life.

Before that, before entering Northern Frontier Base City, all he remembered was seemingly wandering between refugee camps and receiving food from rescue teams. Even those memories were hazy. Anything earlier was beyond his recollection.

"I'm the mother of your child. Until you find your parents, Gui and I are the people closest to you. Is there anything you can't tell us?" Zhang Yu gently coaxed him.

"All right." Dongguan nodded and told her everything except the fact that he was a transmigrator.

"You don't remember anything before that?" Zhang Yu frowned in thought.

"That's right. I don't remember." Dongguan spread his hands.

"You said noise kept echoing in your mind. Is it still there? Any traces of it, at least?"

"No. It stopped after that incident at the ruins in the Death Desert. It's completely gone."

"Then have you considered going back to take a look?" There was a challenging glint in Zhang Yu's eyes.

"Go back? Those ruins have been sealed off now."

The Limitless Martial Arts Hall had sealed them off, just like the other ancient ruins.

"Could they stop you?"

"No."

Apart from Hong and Thunder God, who on Earth could stop him?

Even Ister and Mohanderson might not be able to defeat him with his Sky-Escaping Shuttle.

That would be even more certain in another month, once he reached the Third-Order Planetary Level.

And Hong couldn't possibly stand guard over those ruins forever.

Even if he forced his way in, the War God Palace couldn't put him on trial over that.

Dongguan nodded in agreement, then looked at Zhang Yu and spoke again.

"That settles my problem. What about yours?"

"Mine?" Zhang Yu looked puzzled.

"What exactly happened to you all these years? And how do you feel about me and Zhang Gui?"

Dongguan spoke seriously.

He had already told Zhang Gui those things. Even if he didn't tell Zhang Yu, she could learn them from Zhang Gui afterward.

He was being so open because he controlled the situation here.

No one in Northern Frontier Base City could withstand even a single exchange with him.

Zhang Gui grew nervous, afraid his father might actually attack his mother.

If that happened, being caught between his parents would put him in an awkward position.

More importantly, he had no way to stop whatever his father wanted to do.

If his father killed his mother, would he really have to kill his father to avenge her?

Zhang Yu, on the other hand, answered with a smile. "Of course there's no problem if you want to understand me."

"When I was twelve, I lost my father, our family's only pillar of support. Fortunately, his former teammates-you and Yang Bei-looked after us, so we managed to get by."

Dongguan fell silent. He remembered all of that. Losing a father at such a young age was something no inheritance, however large, could make up for.

"Because my father died as a martial artist, I was always terrified of becoming one. Even when tests later showed I had the physical fitness of a Quasi-Martial Artist, I still refused, even though my talent was very good."

Zhang Yu was still smiling, but sorrow tinged her smile.

"Since I didn't want to become a martial artist, I took the college entrance exam and went to university. There, a professor recognized my potential, and I became a biological researcher studying monsters."

Dongguan nodded. He knew all that.

"While I was in graduate school, I got an opportunity to take part in more advanced genetic research."

"As you know, the Great Nirvana Period was caused by the worldwide mutations brought on by the RR Virus. Both humans and monsters underwent fundamental genetic changes. Although martial artists emerged, it all remained rooted in those genetic changes. Back then, I believed that by studying genes, we would eventually open a new path, one that addressed the root of the problem. As for martial artists, I thought they were merely struggling to hold on. I couldn't see any hope in them."

Dongguan began to understand.

To ordinary people, that did seem to be the case.

How many humans were there, and how many of them were martial artists? What about monsters?

They were endless. Even those on land alone far outnumbered humanity.

Beast Soldier Level monsters outnumbered humans, Beast General Level monsters outnumbered martial artists, lord-level monsters outnumbered War Gods, and king-level monsters outnumbered those beyond War God Level.

Compared that way, humanity really did seem hopeless.

That was indeed the case. In the original story, if the Golden-Horned Behemoth and Nolan Mountain had never arrived, and Luo Feng had never obtained the Yunmo Star Inheritance or come into contact with the universe, who would have had the greater chance of winning in the end—monsters or humans?

The monsters, of course. Even though Hong and Thunder God were strong enough, the Beast Emperors possessed a higher level of power and could break through to Star Level more easily.

Although Hong and Thunder God were formidable, even if they sacrificed themselves to take down Emperor Level monsters that had reached Star Level, the remaining Councilors couldn't deal with the king-level monsters, and the other martial artists couldn't handle the endless monster tides.

After a pause, Zhang Yu continued.

"That research institute was very mysterious. When I joined, they gave me a test."

"A test?" Dongguan frowned.

"Yes, just as you guessed. Obtain your seed of life-or, more precisely, the seed of life of a War God. You were the only target I had any chance of succeeding with." Zhang Yu watched Dongguan for his reaction.

"And then?"

"You should know how I obtained it. I got you drunk at your War God banquet. I was the one who pushed for you to hold it. I told Yang Bei and the others it was a good thing, and naturally, they didn't object. I also spiked the wine."

"Spiked it?"

"Yes. A War God has a very strong constitution, so ordinary alcohol can hardly get one drunk. That's why I used an item the institute gave me for the assignment: Drunken Orchid Fragrance powder."

"They certainly spared no expense," Dongguan said mockingly.

Drunken Orchid Fragrance was a mutated orchid, and also a type of spirit of plants and trees.

Its flowers could be harvested to brew wine potent enough to intoxicate War Gods and even those at Planetary Level. It was extremely valuable.

They had been willing to use even that as a tool. No wonder he had passed out drunk. Whoever stood behind that institute had certainly been willing to invest.

Zhang Yu ignored Dongguan's sarcasm and continued.

"Only after entering the institute did I learn they were researching human genes, though I'd already guessed as much from the test."

"The researchers there were rather fanatical. They believed humanity's future lay in their genetic research. They thought that if they succeeded, they could realize the dream of turning all humanity into War Gods, or even beings beyond War God Level."

As far as Dongguan was concerned, humanity really did all reach War God or Planetary Grade in the future. But that happened not through genetic research, but through generations of accumulated progress and the use of all kinds of treasures.

Genetic research wasn't necessarily incapable of succeeding. Bloodline evolution elixirs existed in the universe, for example. But clearly, these researchers had failed.

"After I entered the institute, I was put in charge of researching the seed of life I'd collected during my own test. Yours, in other words."

At that point, Zhang Yu glanced at Dongguan.

"But during my research, I discovered that your genes were extraordinarily unusual. I even made inquiries about the genes of beings beyond War God Level, and theirs weren't as unusual as yours. It was as though you and everyone else weren't the same species."

"After the Great Nirvana, the whole world evolved, but even mutation had its limits. Your genes had already exceeded what those limits should have been."

Dongguan narrowed his eyes and kept listening.

"I disliked the atmosphere in the institute, so I altered and deleted some of the data. But one thing was true: creating life with your genes as the paternal contribution was genuinely difficult."

If Dongguan's were difficult, there were always others that were easy.

He had resented having his seed of life stolen and ending up with a child he hadn't known about. Now he let that go.

The other War Gods of that period, and even those at Planetary Grade, might have ended up with large numbers of children.

"But I succeeded. The only time I created life using your genes as the paternal contribution was, of all things, when I paired them with my own genes and succeeded inside my own womb. What an irony."

"Why did you do that? For love?" Dongguan asked something he didn't believe himself.

Zhang Yu gave him a startled, exasperated look. "Of course it wasn't for love. Because it was so difficult to create life from your genes, my laboratory had produced no results, and our resources were cut. At the same time, a theoretical finding was published in the laboratory: ordinary genes had a high success rate when used to create life through techniques such as in vitro fertilization. But the more advanced the life-form-a Councilor compared with a War God, or either compared with an ordinary person-the higher the success rate of natural conception instead."

"So I thought, I'm a woman myself. I could perfectly well experiment on my own body."

"That's insane. And it worked on the first try?" Dongguan asked.

"Of course not. There was only one of me, but that didn't mean I could only run one experiment. If it failed, I could just try again. And eventually, it really succeeded."

"When was that? If I remember correctly, you gave birth more than a year after leaving the institute."

"Who told you a pregnancy necessarily lasts ten months?" Zhang Yu's expression turned somewhat strange.

She continued, "After I became pregnant, I was desperate to leave the institute, but I couldn't leave right away. Fortunately, I discovered that even after seven or eight months, I still wasn't showing. That was good, but it couldn't last forever. One day, I'd be found out."

"I wanted to conduct research, but that didn't mean I wanted to become someone else's experimental subject. If things continued, that would be almost inevitable. Even leaving the institute wouldn't help. They monitored researchers who left to prevent them from leaking secrets, especially someone like me, who wanted to leave voluntarily while still young."

"So I came up with an idea. I collected a lot of material and finally exposed what the institute was doing anonymously, particularly the fact that they'd stolen a Councilor's genes as well. As I expected, the institute was ultimately destroyed, and I escaped that disaster. As for the ten-month pregnancy, I fabricated it."

Zhang Yu laughed. "In fact, I was pregnant for a full two years and three months. At first, I didn't show. Later, I hid it with loose clothing. In the end, when I gave birth, people would at most think I'd been promiscuous. How could anyone know it had lasted that long?"

"I've kept all this buried inside me. Speaking openly about it feels much better. If you want to do something to me, go ahead. But Zhang Gui really is your son. That's easy to see, isn't it? Perhaps you should change his name. Dong Gui?"

Zhang Yu closed her eyes, looking ready to accept whatever he chose to do.

"My name is Dongguan, but Dong isn't my surname." After saying that, Dongguan pulled Zhang Yu toward him with his Spiritual Force.

This time, Zhang Gui was so shocked that he actually forgot to protect her.

As Dongguan's Spiritual Force seized Zhang Yu and brought her before him, despair welled up inside her.

Well, if I die, I die. For all those years, she had lived on sheer obsession alone. Only after having a child had her desire to live been rekindled.

Dying now would be only fitting. Someone would look after my child too, wouldn't they?

"Don't kill my mom!" Zhang Gui snapped out of it and tried to pull his mother back with his newly awakened Spiritual Force.

But how could his fledgling ability compare with Dongguan's?

"Who said I was going to kill her?"

"You're not going to kill me?" Zhang Yu opened her eyes. "Now that you know everything, don't you want to keep your secret?"

"If the secret gets out, it gets out. I can handle it. As for you..." Dongguan gently stroked her cheek. "These years have been hard on you, haven't they?"

"You know my secret, and I know your past. We're even."

Tears streamed from Zhang Yu's eyes.

This time, they were genuine.