Shen Siwei followed the tracks in the snow, coming to a place fifty meters away where a person lay on the ground. He asked, “Hey, are you dead?”
klet slowly sat up from the ground and tapped the ice shards on his head. “You’re quite violent, you know,” he said.
“Well you asked for it,” Shen Siwei replied, turning his head to look in the direction of the setting sun. “How do we get over there now?”
The newly formed crack in the ice was about ten meters wide, so jumping over it wouldn’t be a problem. However, there were still several hundred kilometers ahead, and the two of them couldn’t possibly walk there.
“I’ll have someone come pick us up,” klet said.
As they waited, the sun gradually sank below the horizon. Due to the reflection, the light on the ice sheet remained much brighter than in the city. But the two of them sat side by side, idle, waiting for the sunset to turn them into two oranges.
The mountains at the end of their sight were no longer covered in ice and snow. The setting sun flickered like a dim light bulb and eventually disappeared below the horizon.
“How much longer do we have to wait?” Shen Siwei asked.
“It won’t be long,” klet replied, tilting his chin and pointing to two distant red dots approaching in the sky, the lights of the aircraft.
Shen Siwei waited blankly for the aircraft to approach when suddenly Klet asked, “did you like it just now?”
He didn’t react much. “What?”
klet said, “The kiss.”
Shen Siwei didn’t like how klet defined that act so clearly, because he didn’t know how to describe it as “he and klet kissed” or “he was forcibly kissed by klet.”
“You call that a kiss?” he said lightly. “It clearly felt like a bear gnawing on a tree.”
klet squinted his eyes and made a gesture as if he was about to pounce again.
Shen Siwei immediately warned, “Next time, it will be a hundred meters.”
He then asked , “Did I hurt you?”
“It’s bruised,” klet rolled up his short sleeve, revealing a large bruise on his side.
It didn’t seem to be a big deal. Shen Siwei replied indifferently, “Oh.”
“You have to rub it for me,” klet suddenly grabbed Shen Siwei’s wrist. “You don’t know how much it hurt when you kicked me.”
“That’s your own fault,” Shen Siwei picked up a handful of cold snow from the ground and pressed it mercilessly against the bruised area. “Cold compress is more effective.”
“Hiss,” Klet frowned unhappily, “Why are you so heartless?”
“I specialize in dealing with brats,” Shen Siwei casually withdrew his hand, tapping off the remaining ice shards in his palm.
“Who’s the brat?” klet’s voice became deeper, “you are more of a brat that i am, at least you were before”
Shen Siwei narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?”
“I’m stating a fact.”
“I think you’re just asking for a beating.”
The sound of the approaching aircraft interrupted their conversation. A little girl stuck her head out of the window and waved to klet. “klet, I’m here!”
Klet raised his head at the sound and also waved. “Sasha.”
Shen Siwei looked at klet in disbelief. “How did you let a minor fly the aircraft?”
klet said, walking towards the aircraft. “She’s the only one willing to come.”
Sasha was a little girl in her early teens, with thick braided hair and a seemingly clever look in her eyes.
She looked at Shen Siwei and asked, “klet, is he your friend?”
“Yes,” Klet sat in the pilot’s seat of the aircraft. “Don’t steal his things.”
“Hehe,” not feeling embarrassed at being seen through, the little girl turned to Shen Siwei and said, “Hello, I’m Sasha.”
Shen Siwei nodded in response
“Oh, by the way,” Sasha said, “The Duke is trying to steal our money again. Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”
“I can’t do anything,” klet said.
“He’s your foster father, shouldn’t you take care of him?”
klet fell silent for a moment and asked, “How much did he steal?”
Sasha replied, “Others don’t know, but he took twenty yuan from me.”
“Then I’ll give it to you later.”
Shen Siwei couldn’t help but find this conversation quite strange.
He knew the Duke, a person who had committed all sorts of crimes in the Tree of Life decades ago and was banished indefinitely outside the Tree.
It was surprising to think that such a notorious figure had become Klet’s foster father, and even more strangely, he had stolen twenty yuan from a little girl.
Approaching midnight, the three of them finally arrived at the underground city, and the aircraft’s power was running out.
klet transferred a large sum of money to Sasha. It was only then that Shen Siwei realized that Sasha wasn’t just kindly picking them up; she was also collecting fees.
After bidding farewell to Sasha, Shen Siwei followed klet into the complex underground alleys.
Although it was late at night, the underground city was lively. Whenever there was a slightly larger space, there were always refugees gathering to play cards or drink.
But Shen Siwei quickly noticed that most of the refugees remaining in the desert underground city were elderly, likely because the young refugees had gone to the western city of Z for better opportunities.
Compared to the desert underground city, the environment in the western city of Z was more difficult and not suitable for retirement.
“Don’t look around,” klet grabbed Shen Siwei’s wrist, “The rule here is to mind your own business.”
“Your file says you’re the leader of the refugees,” Shen Siwei allowed klet to pull him down the stairs, heading to deeper floors, “Are you afraid of them?”
“I’m not afraid, but there’s no need to look for trouble,” klet said, “The desert underground city is a refuge for the refugees because everyone follows the rules and minds their own business.”
“But there are still people who rob others,” Shen Siwei thought of the Duke mentioned by Sasha.
“Well they are still criminals though aren’t they?,” klet said.
As soon as klet finished speaking, a hunched figure appeared at the corner of the corridor below, and without hesitation, fired a shot at klet.
His aim was off, and the bullet missed klet, hitting the sandy wall instead. Shen Siwei quickly reached for his gun, but klet held his wrist.
“Do you enjoy this kind of thing all the time? Aren’t you tired of it?” klet stopped on the stairs, impatiently looking at the person below the corridor.
“You heartless scum, give me the money!” The person who fired the gun was indeed the Duke.
But what surprised Shen Siwei was that the person in front of him, unlike the sturdy middle-aged man he had in mind, the one in front of him had white hair all over, a thin body, and one blind eye.
Some people were born early and didn’t enjoy the advancements in medical technology, aging at the same pace as people from before. Most of the people left in the desert underground city were like that.
“Ignore him,” klet pulled Shen Siwei further ahead, and the Duke fired another shot, once again missing.
Shen Siwei couldn’t help but be curious. He took a closer look and noticed that the Duke’s hands were covered in scars, indicating that he had suffered serious injuries.
That’s why his hands trembled when holding the gun, making it difficult for him to pull the trigger. Add to that his blind eye, no wonder he couldn’t aim properly.
“You ungrateful dog, I will kill you one day!”
klet effortlessly took the gun from the Duke’s hand and threw it on the stairs behind him. Then he continued to lead Shen Siwei into the alley.
“Is he really your foster father?” Shen Siwei asked.
“Not exactly,” klet said, “I can only say that he did teach me a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“How to survive, how to kill.”
Shen Siwei remembered that Klet mentioned he had been outside the Tree of Life since he was very young. He could almost imagine that a young boy couldn’t survive alone and had to desperately learn those survival skills.
No wonder his handwriting was so ugly because the Duke didn’t teach him how to write.
“So, what does he mean by ‘repaying kindness with enmity and calling you ungrateful’?” Shen Siwei asked again.
“Did you see his eyes and hands?” klet asked.
“Yes.”
“I did that.”
Shen Siwei was momentarily speechless.
“Why don’t I consider him my foster father? It’s because he never acted like a father. He only trained me to become his accomplice in his wicked deeds,”Klet said, stopping in front of a wooden door. “We’re here.”
The small room was cozy, with a table filled with strange trinkets, and an ugly SpongeBob SquarePants pillow on the couch.
Shen Siwei glanced around and then looked at klet. “I see, you haven’t been influenced by him.”
“That’s unbelievable, right?” klet shrugged.
As the saying goes, “Evil company corrupts good character.” but It was truly incredible that Klet grew up in such an environment and didn’t become a villain.
“Because I have a friend,” klet continued without waiting for Shen Siwei to respond. “He once saved me, and I don’t want to disappoint him, so I always remind myself not to become a bad person, or else he wouldn’t want to see me again.”
“You mean the person you mentioned, …” He paused , “the friend who looks a lot like me?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
“He’s dead.”
Shen Siwei pursed his lips. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, it’s in the past,” klet said. “Are you hungry? I’ll go find something to eat.”
The nutrition supplements in Shen Siwei’s backpack had long been used up. He nodded. “Okay.”
After klet left, Shen Siwei sat bored on the couch and played with the small objects on the coffee table.
In addition to handicrafts made from the bones of deformed monsters, there were many strangely shaped metal ores on the coffee table.
Shen Siwei had a thought and used his fingertip to hover over a black crystal, and the black crystal actually moved.
At the same time, his face mask fell off.
—Just as he suspected.
When klet was about to fall into the crevice earlier, Shen Siwei saw that klet was at least ten centimeters away from his fingertips.
That was a distance he couldn’t reach no matter what, even if he stretched his arm.
Now thinking back, he clearly felt an extra magnetic force in his fingertips attracting the metal on Klet’s belt, which allowed him to grab onto klet.
With that in mind, Shen Siwei opened his five fingers and used his fingertip to attract five small pieces of metal. Then he turned his palm, and the metals floated in mid-air.
However, when he tried to attach the face mask to his face with his other hand, it couldn’t be attached no matter what he did.
Shen Siwei had another thought, and the floating metals suddenly fell , while the face mask once again got attached to his face.
Dr. Chen had explained to Shen Siwei the principle of how the new oxygen mask stuck to his face. It was because his facial skin and nasal skin was implanted with a small amount of magnetic particles, which could generate magnetism and attract the oxygen mask.
Shen Siwei had always thought that the mask fell off because it had lost its magnetism. But now it seemed that it wasn’t the mask losing magnetism, but rather his face—more accurately, the magnetic particles in his facial skin had moved to his palm and fingertips.
Shen Siwei tried again. The mask fell off once more, and the metals floated in his palm. This time, he also discovered that he could control the height at which the metals floated.
In other words, he could control the strength of the magnetic force with his mind.
Shen Siwei lay back on the couch, looking at the ceiling, his brain racing.
In that case, there were many things that Moran hid from him.
If Shen Siwei had been somewhat skeptical about klet before, the matter of the magnetic particles made him fully believe that many things had indeed happened during his supposed sleep, and Moran didn’t want him to know.
As for the romantic relationship, Shen Siwei’s intuition was correct. Although he had memories of himself and Moran confessing to each other and being together, he always felt that it was unreal.
But the problem was, if even his own memories were unreliable, how could he judge what was true and what was false?
Would he always have to rely on his intuition?
This feeling was really frustrating, especially since Shen Siwei couldn’t recall any of the things klet had mentioned.
But as klet had said, if he recklessly confronted Moran, he might be forcefully taken away again.
Thinking about this, a message from Moran suddenly popped up on Shen Siwei’s communicator.
[Moran: I see you’ve arrived at the underground dungeon. Any news about klet?]
Shen Siwei looked at the communicator expressionlessly and replied with the word “No.”
