Chapter 163 - The Corridor of Time (XIX)
Editors: Kitty & Humu
The negotiation ended.
Luo Jian kept his umbrella and looked at Duan Li and Ah Lan, who was in his arms.
The secret chamber’s will had left Ah Lan’s body, so Ah Lan laid in Duan Li’s arms as if he was asleep. However, the poor child had previously been shot in the arm by Luo Jian, and the impact of the bullet made his wrist appear twisted and stained with blood. Duan Li felt so sorry for him. He pasted his face on the child’s. He felt that would not be able to meet the child again for a long period. When he thought of that, Duan Li felt a burst of pain in his heart.
The results of this were still rather lamentable; it was a pity that Luo Jian didn’t get any valuable and specific information about the city of lawlessness, such as the most important information: how could he enter the city?
Luo Jian unconsciously licked his lips with his tongue. Forget it, the secret chamber would neither expose its cards to him so quickly nor make it so easy for Luo Jian to find out about this. Luo Jian had to seek out another way to find the secret chamber’s will’s weakness. Only by grasping the weakness of the enemy would Luo Jian be able to defeat him.
Its trump card, the city of lawlessness. That was the key.
Now, Luo Jian must cooperate with the secret chamber’s will and act under the other party’s instructions. There were advantages and disadvantages, but as a whole, there was nothing bad about it. At least for now, Luo Jian only needed to pretend to listen to the secret chamber.
So he approached Duan Li and Ah Lan. Duan Li noticed the sound of Luo Jian’s footsteps and turned back to look at him.
“Are you going to do your duty?”
Duan Li was ready for what would happen next. The conversation between Luo Jian and the secret chamber’s will had been going on in front of Duan Li since the beginning. Although Duan Li was still confused and did not understand what they were talking about at the beginning, he finally figured out roughly what they were saying and was shocked by the truth.
Their lives were placed into the hands of a mysterious intelligent will, and they were wantonly tortured and played around with by ‘it.’ However, it was very careful, just like it was playing with and making elaborate and wonderful toys. ‘It’ crafted players with the care and precision of a sculptor, perfected them, and destroyed them.
However, Luo Jian was talking to ‘it.’ In a certain s.p.a.ce-time, he used some abnormal means to have face-to-face contact and a confrontation with it. They both held some secrets and wanted to make the enemy dormant, but similarly, both of them felt helpless against the other.
Only Duan Li was caught in this gap; he may have become the one closest to the truth at this moment, but it was only at this moment. Now, Luo Jian had approached him, and he had to fulfill the agreement with the secret chamber’s will to eliminate Duan Li’s memories. Duan Li would forget everything he had seen and heard, but maybe……
In the long future, Duan Li would recall everything today—at the cost of Luo Jian’s death.
“You must abide by the agreement to keep the secret,” Luo Jian said to Duan Li.
Duan Li shook his head in agony: “But everything that happened was something I could not control. I don’t want to be a witness.”
Luo Jian stroked the edges of his red umbrella. That was a habit he had formed for a long time. He said, “You have to do this, or you will die todayk2026;k2026; along with the child in your arms.”
Duan Li clenched his teeth and showed an expression of suffering. He looked at Ah Lan, who was in his arms. The child frowned in his sleep.
“I may be at your mercy at this moment, but it doesn’t mean that I will be the same in the future.”
Duan Li seemed to show some determination. And Luo Jian realized later that Duan Li seemed to regard the secret chamber’s will and Luo Jian as the same kind of person. Although it was clear that Luo Jian and the secret chamber’s will were at odds, he felt that they stood as a united front after the negotiation was established. Therefore, Duan Li also regarded Luo Jian as the enemy and thought that Luo Jian stood on the same side as the secret chamber’s will.
Luo Jian sighed in his heart. He had known that from the moment he set foot on this road, he would not be understood by anyone. This was probably destined to be a lonely journey. Following that, Luo Jian did not spare unnecessary time to sigh sadly. He said to Duan Li, “I’m going to make you forget all this now. If you have anything you want to say, you’d better say it as soon as possible.”
Duan Li said, “Can I make a request?”
“What is your request?”
“Your skills to make others forget will make me forget what happened today, right? And what happened to me previously when I accidentally went into the city of lawlessness. After that, the secret chamber won’t send anyone to hunt me down, right? I’ll get back to my normal routine, right?”
“Yes, that’s right. You don’t have to carry too much of a psychological burden,” Luo Jian stated.
“Can I request that you…” Duan Li said, lowering his head downwards to look at the child in his arms, and continued, “Please let us both forget each other. Cut off the connection between us and eliminate the karmic ties between us. From here on, I will hit the high road, while he will cross his log bridge.”
At this moment, Luo Jian suddenly understood why Duan Li and Feng YuLan appeared like strangers when they met in the future.
Was I the cause of everything?
Although Luo Jian admitted that the cause of everything was him, he still felt guilty and uneasy. He knew that history would still head towards a similar path. Time was like a fierce, flowing river. No matter how you made waves, the river still rushed towards the end. Things would always return to the origin, and the end was a vast and broad ocean.
Everything in the world was destined…… Could we really not break away from the cycle and our fates?
No! This was impossible!
Luo Jian knew that people would inevitably make mistakes in their lives, but they would not always constantly make mistakes. Everyone would only understand how to take detours and know how to turn around after they had stubbornly insisted on their own ideals and thus experienced all kinds of setbacks and torments. Then would they be able to realize their mistakes and correct everything.
Now, Luo Jian was in the process of correcting his mistakes. In this process, everything he had done was not too late.
It was not too late. It was not too late.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Luo Jian lowered his head a little and asked Duan Li while seeking his final opinion. “I will practically erase the memories of both of you. You will completely forget everything about each other, and it is very likely that it will be difficult to retrieve your memories in this lifetime…… I think that everyone’s memories, whether they are sad, painful, or happy, are worth cherishing. So I ask you again: are you sure you want to do this?”
Duan Li hesitated for a while. After a long time, he seemed to have made up his mind and nodded firmly to Luo Jian: “I’ll entrust this to you.”
“So…” Luo Jian took a step forward and continued to whisper, “Can I ask why you made this decision?”
Duan Li pulled out a helpless smile and said, “I’m just afraid that I’ll bring more trouble to this child because I’ve never been a lucky person.”
“You’re going to go through a lot of tragic things,” Luo Jian said, “When you go on a lonely journey, when you are in danger, no one will come to save you; when you drown in darkness, no one will guide you; when you fall into h.e.l.l for eternity, no one can pull you back to heaven…… Even so, do you really not mind?”
Duan Li replied firmly: “I don’t mind.”
After hearing what he had said, Luo Jian took a step back. His tone was still low and gentle without undulations. He said, “Well, I wish you good luck, Duan Li.”
Luo Jian held up the red umbrella in his hand. At this moment, his heart seemed to be somewhat at peace. Although feelings of sadness and pain were not always shrouded in his world, Luo Jian found that he has never been so calm. Because the friends that once stood in front of him, whether in the past or in the future, whether they remembered or forgot, Luo Jian vowed that he would protect all of them!
Protect everyone that was in front of him!
Luo Jian reached out and placed his hand on the shoulder of Duan Li, who was still kneeling on the ground. He stretched out the edges of his red umbrella. Duan Li keenly noticed that the bright red edge seems to be permeated with some sort of mysterious scent, which spread from the edges to Luo Jian, covering his entire body…… Like the scent of the red blood of a hunted prey, it seemed to be luring Duan Li to do something, causing him to lose focus for a moment.
At this time, Luo Jian said gently: “To end all this, you know what to do, Duan Li.”
Luo Jian’s tone was too gentle, but the gentler the tone his tone was at this moment, the more alluring Luo Jian was. He seemed to be emitting a sweet and fatal scent all this time, which made people blindly follow everything Luo Jian commanded and made people instinctively act according to his words. The feeling was akin to his falling into a big web carefully knitted by spiders, and no matter what, he was unable to extricate himself from it.
So Duan Li obeyed the order of Luo Jian, and he nodded dully: “I know what to do.”
“Yes…” Luo Jian slightly bent down close to Duan Li’s face. He unconsciously turned the handle of his umbrella with one of his hands and pressed the other on Duan Li’s shoulder. He looked at the other party’s eyes. This body had a pair of dark grey eyes, which made Luo Jian look as if he was in a daze, but miraculously, the way he looked caused others to feel that he appeared much more alluring.
“Forget all this; everything you saw today, and the people you love, forget it all. Take this memory out, put it in a sealed box, and put it behind a door deep in your heart that can never be opened. However, when my body dies, my strength will no longer be able to close the door in your heart. At that time, you will find all the sealed memories together with your lost feelings…”
Luo Jian repeated the words beside Duan Li’s ear. After determining that Duan Li was indeed affected by this amnesia, Luo Jian said with a voice as light as feather: “Sleep.” Duan Li then closed his eyes and leaned on the ground. He was suddenly unconscious.
But it was not known whether it was because of Duan Li’s obsession or what was wrong with Luo Jian’s abilities again; Duan Li still held the child in his arms instinctively. Little Ah Lan curled up like a baby who had returned to his mother’s side. He could not bear to part with Duan Li’s warmth as he greedily absorbed it. When Duan Li fell to the ground, he seemed to be aware of it and opened his eyes in a daze.
The secret chamber’s will left Ah Lan’s body. Now, he had recovered his senses. He was still a very young child. He knew nothing about danger. He simply glanced at Luo Jian strangely. He did not understand what happened, but he can still feel the strength of Duan Li, who was holding him tightly.
“Big brother…” Ah Lan found that he was being tightly held by the sleeping Duan Li and could not help but touch Duan Li’s chest. Duan Li’s warm embrace and strong heartbeat gave the child a sense of security.
It was only when Ah Lan started to move that he noticed the pain. One of his hands had been hit by Luo Jian’s anesthetic gun. The bullet fired by that gun was very special. It was a long and thin dissolving needle. When it entered an organism, it would automatically dissolve and quickly play its role as an anesthetic. However, even if it was a slender needle, the force of the impact it brought could still make the bone of a child’s hand crack.
So the child’s eyes were red with pain. He could not lift his right hand. Duan Li held him tightly as he looked around in a daze. When he saw Luo Jian, he shrank his head in back fear and began to drill into Duan Li’s arms.
Luo Jian carefully looked at the eight or nine-year-old child in front of him. Ah Lan was very cute when he was a child, and his face was a little chubby. But the blood stains on his face somehow destroyed this innocence, much like how a clean, white paper was stained.
“Don’t be afraid,” Luo Jian said to him, and the tone he used was similarly gentle.
“Are you a friend of my Big Brother? On your body, there’s something scary…” Feng YuLan shrank his head back and opened his dark eyes as he gazed at Luo Jian. His eyes were mixed with innocence and fearlessness. What made Luo Jian more surprised was that Feng YuLan seemed to have a strong sense of perception since he was a child.
Luo Jian could not help but laugh strangely. “What’s the scary thing on my body?”
The child just shook his head and said, “I don’t know, but it’s a scary thing.” After a long time, he said, “Like the man-eating monster in the legends…”
After Luo Jian heard this, he immediately fell silent.