Chapter 20 / Chapter 21
He clenched his fists, breathing faster and faster. His eyes were red, and his shoulders rose and fell slightly, as though he were enduring some immense grievance and pain.
"...A press conference will be held in one hour at the newly renovated 'Vault' building in the capital, where specific details about the suspect will be released."
The host on the television continued her report.
The Vault had been chosen because it was a newly renovated, high-tech military prison that had yet to be put into use. Its unusual debut was also meant to show the criminal that this would be his future home.
The irony could not have been more pointed.
But the next piece of news left Mindy, who was beside him, utterly devastated.
"However, one piece of good news we can share is that an accomplice of the suspect has been shot dead while attempting to flee justice."
PS: We're getting to the main story now. From the start, I planned for this story to have a dark turn. Of course, in a typical Feilu novel, the protagonist would basically leave the lab and start slaughtering people to vent his anger.
But I can't write that, and I also know that the former approach can easily make the pacing fall apart, as I'm sure everyone can see. So the protagonist is a thirteen-year-old local-born Chinese boy, who will fully turn dark as he struggles with himself and grows.
Speaking of which, when I watched Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki suffered even more bullying and really should have turned dark himself...
Chapter 20
"...An accomplice of the suspect has been shot dead while attempting to flee justice."
As the television station reported the news, Big Daddy's photograph was also displayed prominently.
At that moment.
Mindy could finally no longer contain the pain in her heart. The tears pooled in her eyes poured out as though a floodgate had opened.
She sank to her knees in anguish, then lay facedown on the floor and cried out loudly.
As she grew older and more rebellious, Hit-Girl Mindy had come to harbor some resentment and frustration toward her father, Big Daddy Damon.
Other girls' toys were Barbie dolls.
Her toys were guns of every kind.
Other girls traveled the world from a young age and enjoyed happy childhoods.
Her childhood, however, had been spent undergoing arduous training to become a top female assassin.
Once she grew up, she finally understood that she was nothing more than a tool for her father's revenge, a killing machine he had painstakingly forged because of her mother's death.
Sometimes, she couldn't tell how much love Damon had for his daughter. Perhaps Big Daddy wanted her mother back more than he wanted her.
So when she reached her rebellious years, Hit-Girl had felt some resistance. She wanted to truly return to school and fit into the student life she should have had.
But now...
All it had taken was an impulsive decision to take a photo and a willful search of an internal network to bring about a horrific tragedy.
And the reason for it all was the boy beside her!
"It's all your fault, all your fault..."
"If it weren't for you, none of this would have happened."
"I hate you!"
Hit-Girl sprang up in a rage and struck Su Chen again and again with both hands.
Su Chen had no answer. He merely lowered his head, his face gloomy, and no one knew what he was thinking.
He wanted to comfort her, but when he thought about how much she blamed him, he figured they probably couldn't even be friends anymore, and might even become enemies someday. At that thought, Su Chen lowered the arms he had intended to wrap around her.
Tears soaked his black hoodie.
Her hands had long since stopped hitting him. The little girl assassin who had been so lively when they first met now looked so helpless and pitiful.
Mindy reminded Su Chen of his younger sister. After their mother died, Su Shan had also broken down in tears like this.
Mindy lay against Su Chen's chest, sobbing desperately.
He didn't know how long had passed before she fell asleep in his arms, her face streaked with tears. It seemed the pain that had built up had left her so overwhelmed that she had drifted off.
"It's good that she's asleep..."
Su Chen glanced at the clock on the wall. There wasn't much time left before their press conference.
The Vault was in the capital. Although it and Manhattan were both on the East Coast, they were some distance apart, and even driving there would take at least a few hours.
At that moment, all tenderness had faded from Su Chen. His face was expressionless, as though reality had dealt him a crushing blow.
No...
By now, countless turbulent feelings had risen in his heart, rolling like the waves of a sea beneath a stormy night sky.
Boundless hatred surged through his mind, like a bottomless abyss gradually giving off an aura of evil and despair.
A globally wanted criminal!
A pitiful lab rat had been transformed into a Mutant member of a terrorist organization.
His aggressive enemies gave him no chance to breathe.
The peaceful life he longed for was gradually becoming an impossible dream.
Even the one person in all of Manhattan who had treated him well had been dragged into it and met with misfortune.
Why did it have to be me?
Why was I always the one who suffered?
His mother's death, his sister's disappearance—a series of hardships seemed to torment him.
Su Chen didn't understand!
At thirteen, he didn't want to understand, either.
Now...
All he wanted was revenge, to kill!
The enemies who had brought him all this despair, the enemies who stood in his way, should all go to hell.
In this moment of despair, the boyishness gradually faded from Su Chen's somewhat delicate, handsome face, and a cold, merciless killing intent became increasingly apparent.
He didn't want to back down anymore.
"I'll pay them back for what they did to you, too..."
After looking at the sleeping Mindy, he walked straight out of the safe house.
Destination: the Vault.
If Su Chen simply traveled there, he probably wouldn't make it in time for the press conference.
But Su Chen's face was utterly cold, and he was on the verge of an emotional collapse. Having completely turned dark inside, he recalled how he had teleported from the snowy plain to Manhattan, hundreds of kilometers away.
Understanding suddenly dawned on him, and invisible ripples spread around his body.
A power that altered reality opened a spatial gateway before him. Su Chen stepped through, and the street scene before him changed abruptly. In an instant, he had arrived in a distant city, the capital.
He glanced at the magnificent Vault building not far away, towering into the clouds like a sharp sword. Without a flicker of emotion in his cold expression, Su Chen walked forward.
Tap!!
His footsteps sounded on the ground.
He pulled up his black hood. His falling black bangs couldn't conceal the chilling killing intent in his eyes.
Soon...
His footsteps fell silent.
He continued forward, but now every step landed on air. It was as though an invisible stairway to heaven had appeared before him, allowing Su Chen to walk through the air as if on level ground.
"My God, look! Who is that?"
"Oh God, that boy is walking in the air..."
"That's way too flashy."
A crowd of reporters had already gathered outside the national defense headquarters building, and one by one, they witnessed the strange, astonishing sight.
"Damn it, isn't that the wanted criminal from that terrorist organization?"
"My God, you're all really relaxed about this! Isn't that the wanted boy from this morning's report?!"
Those words jolted everyone awake!
Hearing that, they grew even more excited, and the DSLR cameras in their hands began to flash.
Unlike the reporters, who were eager for a spectacle, the security personnel outside the building all turned pale. They took the safeties off their guns one by one, and every barrel pointed at the figure in the air.
"Damn it, he's come to attack us!"
No one had expected Su Chen, who had only been declared a global S-class wanted criminal that morning, to appear so brazenly in full view of everyone and use a mysterious power to climb a stairway into the sky.
Bang!!
Bullets flew into the air in a continuous stream.
Su Chen paid them no heed. A ripple of telekinetic power surrounded him like an invisible barrier, deflecting every bullet.
Without a trace of fear, he strolled through the air as if on level ground, calmly climbing one step at a time until he was high above the ground.
From there, he could easily look down over the entire building and the land below.
"Now, let me make you feel the pain I suffered before."
Hum!!
A clear light streamed from his body. Gradually, a terrifying surge of energy rose up, like a volcano poised to erupt, creating an utterly horrifying spectacle.
No one knew where the nuclear blast that had erupted at the large experimental base had gone.
In fact.
It hadn't disappeared.
Su Chen's body had absorbed the energy of the entire nuclear explosion.
So, during this time, he had been walking around Manhattan like a humanoid weapon.
He had been too merciful.
This time, he decided to do something big.
It was time to let them feel the pain of being baptized by a nuclear blast!
Chapter 21
Mm...
Hit-Girl Mindy, who had drifted into a dazed sleep, suddenly jolted awake from a nightmare.
She had dreamed of her father's death.
But soon, the scene in her dream shifted again, becoming a hellish picture of Su Chen bathing the world in blood.
"Su Chen..."
Mindy's expression changed.
But Su Chen was nowhere to be seen in the safe house before her.
She suddenly remembered that she had said many hurtful things when she lost control of her emotions. Now that she had regained her senses, she realized she had gone too far. After all, Su Chen was neither the root of it all nor the one at fault.
He was a victim too, and her words could only have pierced his heart like sharp swords.
Suddenly.
She turned to the television beside her. The screen was showing live coverage of the upcoming press conference, but no one had expected the boy who had just been declared a globally wanted criminal to appear out of nowhere, hovering above the building.
"Su Chen..."