Chapter 19

"You really are a good person, Carlos."

Su Lin murmured, then clutched his neck and slowly walked into the examination room-it was probably where he was about to die, too.

The examination room was very, very quiet.

The Security Committee's executioners had yet to arrive. Under a robot's guidance, a dazed Su Lin sat down beneath an examination chair. Thanks to the pheromone solution, his fear and despair felt somewhat distant. Otherwise, Su Lin would probably have tried to kill himself before those terrifying lunatics arrived-after all, a quick death was far better than prolonged torture.

Su Lin lowered his eyes and thought of a thousand and one ways he might die. As he did, he involuntarily huddled deeper into the oversized coat Carlos had left him.

He was so scared...

At that moment, the young, unlucky human suddenly felt an intense gaze fall upon him.

Su Lin instinctively turned toward it. Only then did he notice that, at some point, a slender figure had appeared at the other end of the examination room.

The Security Committee's inspector had arrived silently some time ago.

As Su Lin watched in panic, the inspector stepped out of the dim shadows. Facing imminent death, Su Lin had been so frightened he was on the verge of fainting, but when he saw the inspector's familiar face clearly, he froze.

"Senior He?"

he called out instinctively.

But he quickly realized that no, that wasn't right. This wasn't the person he knew.

Because the person in his memory was human, not Zerg, and he certainly didn't have long silver hair or such pale eyes.

The inspector's face showed no expression when he heard Su Lin's voice.

Like all the higher Zerg, he had a beautiful face in human form. Compared with Carlos and Hill, however, his features were much sharper and colder. He looked as though he had been sculpted from the coldest frost and snow. When his pale cyan eyes turned toward someone, he was like a snow demon from a fairy tale, capable of freezing a person forever with a glance.

Yet his face looked so much like the person Su Lin knew that, when he saw him, he couldn't control his guilt and apprehension.

He Zisen.

Many, many years ago, at a high school on a chaotic, backward border planet, where the strong preyed on the weak as though in a jungle, that name had been Su Lin's protective charm.

Back then, Su Lin had struggled for a long time to earn a place at the border high school. But when he arrived, he found that its environment was hardly any better than the public orphanage, where he had needed to fight desperately for resources to survive. A frail, slight orphan like Su Lin, with no one to rely on, would end up at the very bottom of the food chain if he made a single mistake. Naturally, Su Lin didn't want that to happen. His hard life at the orphanage had taught him a thing or two about survival, and the moment he learned about He Zisen, he knew He Zisen was the "thigh" he had to cling to.

At that school, He Zisen was the uncrowned king.

He was strong, but he was also exceptionally indifferent.

People who could survive on the frontier all had something of an animal's instincts. Even the most arrogant and foolish troublemakers couldn't help trembling when they met He Zisen's eyes.

"I keep feeling like he'll kill me if I make one wrong move..."

Hiding in a toilet stall, Su Lin had once heard the punks who threw their weight around in front of him say that in trembling voices.

So, braving the chilling aura that said he "might be killed at any moment," Su Lin approached He Zisen. After all, if he couldn't get He Zisen's protection, his life in high school probably wouldn't be much better than death.

Looking back on it later, Su Lin's attempts to curry favor with He Zisen had actually been rather clumsy. He simply flattered him every way he could, making him the world's number one bootlicker.

At the time, it wasn't as though no one had tried to compete with Su Lin for a place at He Zisen's side. Unfortunately for them, none had skin as thick as Su Lin's. In the end, he alone endured He Zisen's terrifying chill for three whole years: over those three years of blood and tears, Su Lin fetched water for He Zisen, carried his bags, and took a bullet for him...

Yes, he really had taken a bullet for him.

The kind fired from a gun that could kill people.

They had already entered their third year of high school by then, and the final off-campus practical exam at the end of the school year counted for a significant portion of their university entrance exam scores.

And Su Lin had shamelessly tagged along with He Zisen to the same off-campus practical exam.

All right, he had to admit that he'd had somewhat ulterior motives. At the time, he had already begun to suspect that He Zisen was someone important; even the principal was sometimes exceedingly respectful toward him. So he had wanted to earn some favor with He Zisen, thinking that if he failed the exam, he might have to rely on dear Senior He to give him a hand.

So when that bullet came flying toward them, Su Lin had thrown himself in front of He Zisen to block it.

He'd thought it was a dummy round used for training. Who the fuck knew it was real?!

Only when the bullet blasted a hole in his chest and he saw blood gushing from the wound did Su Lin suddenly realize that, when someone like He Zisen, whose origins were unknown and whose status was extremely high, ran into trouble, it really was a matter of life and death. It was nothing like a petty scuffle between high schoolers...

The wound hurt more and more.

More and more blood poured out.

As his body grew colder, Su Lin truly thought he was certain to die-because the young man who was always cold as ice was holding him, his expression changed and his hands shaking with panic.

"Don't die. I order you not to die!"

Even his voice had changed.

And the more Su Lin saw He Zisen's panic, the more he felt he really was done for. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been such despair in the young man's eyes.