Qizhou X Noah X Song of the Four Seasons

Chapter 2: Qi Zhou X Noah X Song of the Four Seasons

There was a one-eyed old man in District 8 who sold a kind of badge that could enhance a person's abilities for a certain period of time.

As long as the badge was pinned to one's body, it could strengthen one's speed, strength, and stamina. If the person being strengthened already possessed the ability of Nen, that Nen would also be boosted.

The leader of the Spider, having obtained this intelligence, grew very interested in this ability, and so spent some time locating that shop, and a little more time disguising himself as a customer with money but no brains, becoming a regular patron of the shop.

The one-eyed old man had no name, but after a period of observation, the Spider boss perceived that those "badges" were not created by the old man at all.

The Spider boss, who had originally intended to just "borrow" the ability and leave it at that, changed his plan of taking and going when he saw the boy disguised as a fool, viewing him like an interesting toy.

Yet after releasing the boy from the box, he discovered that this ability was truly not easy to "borrow."

The boy was injured far too severely-his limbs were fractured, his right hand was almost crushed to pieces, and his chest bore the traces of having been sliced open and sewn back together. He had about thirty-odd wounds on his body, and having been soaked in filth for a long time, he was already rotting and smelling foul. Fortunately, that ball of fire had burned away the hopelessly rotten, corrupt flesh, so at least he no longer stank.

Yet the boy's appearance of closing his eyes and sleeping quietly was peaceful and serene-like an angel whose wings had been clipped, submerged in hell with only its head exposed.

Considering his sunk costs, the Spider boss had no choice but to swallow the bitter pill with anguish-if the target whose ability was borrowed died, it would be as good as borrowing for nothing. He had no alternative but to use Nen to immobilize the boy's broken hands and feet, grudgingly strip off a piece of clothing to wrap him up, bundle the boy around, and carry him away.

Laughing to death, the Spider boss went out for once without killing anyone, and instead rescued a person and took him back.

Who... am I?

I do not know, but I should have the surname Qi and the given name Zhou. I am an ordinary person who was not ordinary, having originally lived on Earth-the unordinary part being that I inherited my family's ALS and was forced to accept my fate at an early age. I could not do a single thing that ordinary people could do, and could only lie there watching myself rot away bit by bit, dying before I was even twenty years old.

Where... am I?

I do not know, but it is certainly not in a hospital. Judging by the number of times the scene has changed, the first time I woke up was in a box, and the second time I woke up-this place seems to be an abandoned... building?

Why am I not dead?

I do not know, but I should be dead-I watched the electrocardiogram monitor connected to that shell turn into a straight line and then disappear a good while later. As for how I saw it, perhaps it was my soul?

What kind of place is this world, here?

I do not know. There are words I can neither understand nor read, strange abilities I can neither understand nor comprehend, and-a body that has never been felt before, one that is full of strength despite being gravely injured and on the verge of death.

The boy opened his eyes slightly, testingly moving his hands and feet. Excruciating pain engulfed him, yet this pain was something he had never felt before.

He grew somewhat happy.

Next, he saw the young man he had seen before closing his eyes, sitting in the corner of the room with white candles lit around him, flipping through a book.

Right now, no one was bothering him, and there were no matters of life-or-death or imminent peril. He opened his eyes wide and carefully scrutinized that person's appearance.

He was no longer wearing the suit from last time, but instead a leather overcoat with a black body and a white collar-only he was not wearing it properly, leaving his chest exposed. His hair was styled into a slicked-back pompadour, and there was an inverted-cross tattoo on his forehead. It looked a bit better without it styled like that.

Last time he looked like a student somewhere between college and high school. This time... I do not know if it was because he was not deliberately holding back-or rather, not disguising himself-just looking at his eyes and the tattoo on his forehead made one feel a chill rising from the bottom of their heart.

He was not a good person.

Perhaps his gaze of staring nakedly at the person was too excessive, as the reading young man slowly raised his head, locked eyes with him, and then curved the corners of his mouth, closed the book, and walked over to the boy's side.

Qi Zhou-let us call him Qi Zhou for now-listened as the young man opened his mouth and uttered a sentence in which he could not understand a single word, wearing a blank expression.

The young man frowned.

He slowly raised his hand, and smoke appeared in his palm. Then, that smoke condensed into a book with a black cover and a bloody handprint painted on it.

Qi Zhou opened his eyes wide in astonishment.

This ability...

He-this body also seemed to possess such an ability, only it worked sometimes and failed at others. The usage was somewhat like imagining that there were a book in his hand; when it worked, he could really summon a book, but when it failed... well, nothing happened.

Inside the book were written characters that only he could recognize and that he could see clearly without any need for light-standard Songti black text from a Xinhua dictionary in his memory, and standard piano numbered musical notation. Laughing to death, no one knew that someone in his past life who could not even sit up was actually quite good at music, and that his biggest dream was to be able to sit up and personally play the piano pieces he had composed countless times in his mind. It matched the title of his book so well that it made one want to laugh-"Imaginary Musician".

Composed of four fragments: the "Song of the Whirlwind", the "Song of Clear Water", the "Song of Blazing Fire", and the "Song of the Earth"-the "Song of the Four Seasons".

It was a slightly adolescent-sounding musical title, and also a dream he had wanted to experience his whole life, yet never had the chance to.

Opening the book and singing it once in his heart could summon a single badge. If he sang it a few more times, he could still only summon a single badge, but if he strung multiple songs together and sang them, the badge summoned would have one more color.

He did not want his book to be stained with filth or blood, so he attempted to skip the step of summoning the book. On the thirteenth day after waking up, he succeeded in directly materializing a badge-although doing this was twice as tiring as going from the book to the badge.

Yet he did not know the use of the badges, nor had he been able to test it out. Wearing them on his body also seemed to result in nothing happening-he had woken up in a box right off the bat, and then it had nearly hurt him to death and disgusted him to his core. The only people he could see were that one-eyed old man. He spoke words the boy could not understand, and the boy spoke words he could not understand, leaving them only able to stare at each other with big eyes.

Then one day, after the box was opened, he saw the one-eyed old man standing at the side holding a knife. Just as the man was preparing to slash down with it, the boy on a whim manufactured a badge right before the old man's eyes.

The old man picked up the badge and examined it for a long time, and then put down the knife.

After that, every day he manufactured badges of various colors according to the number of times the old man knocked on the box, sometimes even exchanging them for a bit of spoiled food or water that tasted terrible.

He was living a life even worse than before when he used to lie in bed watching himself rot. He cursed a hundred profanities in his heart yet had no target to check them against, thinking that in this lifetime he could only ever be a boy trapped in a box. Every day the only things he could do were materialize badges, materialize badges, materialize badges, until amidst the long and endless despair of waiting, he saw this young man.

This young man who also had a book in his hand was currently flipping through the book in his hand-could it be that everyone in this strange world had a book? What kind of world was this, where everyone studied to build the nation?

One really could not blame Qi Zhou for letting his imagination run wild; anyone who had to lie in bed staring at the ceiling all their life would let their imagination run wild too.

Perhaps the young man had finally flipped to what he wanted to find, as he glanced once at the book and once at the boy lying on the ground, purple light condensing in the depths of his pupils.

Qi Zhou, watched by that purple light, felt as though he were being seen straight through to the bottom of his heart.

"What is your name?"

He heard the words the young man spoke. They were still words he did not understand, yet he eerily understood them all the same.

Qi Zhou felt as if his whole worldview had been overturned. A string of possibilities flashed through his mind: "aliens," "xenomorphs," "DoraeXmon," "telepathy," "quantum entanglement," and the like. But the young man standing beside him closed his book again, glanced at him, and walked out.

Before long, he returned with a woman.

The pretty girl who came in with the young man had golden hair, but for some reason, Qi Zhou felt that she wasn't looking at him very kindly.

The girl walked over to Qi Zhou, leaned down, and put a hand on his shoulder. As an aside, Qi Zhou was finally no longer naked. He had on an oversized shirt, the kind that covered him from top to bottom. Although the open space underneath was embarrassing, as long as it couldn't be seen, it was fine... right...?

Sorry, he was getting carried away with his thoughts again.

But maybe it was just his imagination: he saw the girl's gaze flick down to his lower half, then a cold smile appeared on her face, one that might have been mocking, disdainful, or something else.

She looked back at the young man, as if waiting.

The young man started flipping through his book again. Purple light shone in his eyes, then he looked at Qi Zhou.

"What's your name?"

It was that same thing he couldn't understand, yet could understand.

Qi Zhou answered honestly, "Qi Zhou." Then he paused and continued, "Thank you for saving me."

At that moment, a blond boy appeared in the room from who knew where. His sudden voice startled Qi Zhou.

The blond boy said something, but Qi Zhou couldn't understand him.

Qi Zhou felt dejected. So he could only understand what the young man in front of him said. He'd thought he'd suddenly gained the special ability to understand every language.

The blond boy said, "It's not any of the fifteen most commonly used lingua francas on the continent."

The young man looked at the girl and asked, "Pakunoda, can you read his memories?"

Qi Zhou couldn't understand that either. He felt dejected again-so the ability he'd awakened was like Schrodinger's: he wouldn't know whether he could understand something until he heard it.

"Mm, I can read his memories from when he was in the box," the girl said. Perhaps the contents of the box were too disgusting for her to describe in detail. She paused, then continued, "But the part you mentioned, Captain-the part where he used four abilities to kill the one-eyed man-isn't in his memories."

"Oh?"

The young man let out an interjection full of interest. This time Qi Zhou understood it. It probably meant "oh."

He felt a little thrill of delight.

The young man looked at the blond boy and said, "Go investigate whether we can find any clues from his appearance."

The boy acknowledged him and left.

Qi Zhou thought the boy's response probably meant "Okay."

Memories and thoughts didn't need to be recorded in words or sounds. The silly boy's muddled thoughts and ideas, along with his sunny disposition despite having no idea what was going on, brought another smile to the girl's face as she kept one hand on him.

After giving his order, the young man walked over and crouched in front of the boy.

"Qi Zhou."

The young man pronounced Qi Zhou's name with a slight stumble.

Qi Zhou realized he was saying his name, but couldn't help thinking: He sounds a bit like a Japanese person trying to read Chinese.

"My name is Chrollo Lucilfer."

Qi Zhou thought it sounded a little like an American name. Chrollo was his first name, and Lucilfer was his surname.

Polite as ever, he said, "Hello, Mr. Lucilfer."

"Mm." Chrollo nodded.

That probably meant something like "Mm." Single-syllable words were easier to guess.

"Do you remember what happened before you passed out?"

Qi Zhou thought it over and nodded.

"Then I'll get straight to the point. What is your ability?"