5
Who"s the Weakling?
With my bow on my back, I started running across the top of the Westside Residence.
The residential buildings were too big, stretching on as far as you could see. I clenched my teeth and added 5 MF to increase my speed.
Like a red phoenix, I ran, leaving behind the illusion of a blazing trail.
After running for who knows how long, all I could feel was the dark, gloomy sky above pressing down on me.
Then, I felt another tunnel of wind beside me. Of course. I glanced to the side, and there was Nie Zun, effortlessly running after me.
Even while running this fast, he still had on that loathsome smile hanging on his face.
Nie Zun’s annoying voice rippled through my ears, “Hey, Li Zhen, are you trying to kill me by running this fast? You clearly know that we can’t be more than 500 meters apart. Is this you asking me to elope right now?”
“I need to find You Ji. Is she at the school right now?” I asked coldly.
“You really must have liked that little girl. I’ve never seen you so serious before.” Nie Zun’s voice was calm, at ease, as if a major event hadn’t just occurred. “What? You’re not planning on laying in bed all day long anymore?”
He pushed aside his bangs with his hand. In that same lazy and indifferent tone, he said, “I’ve been running after you a long time. Slow down.”
That’s what I hated most about him. He was a devil that lacked any sense of humanity. There was never anything that could bother him.
I glared at him.
“Stop glaring at me. You’re going to fall off soon.” Nie Zun suddenly stopped in his tracks.
I, on the other hand, was still running fiercely. I turned my head back when I heard him. Because I’d been so angry, and because I’d run so quickly, I’d made it to the edge of the residential building in just over ten hours. The school building ahead was ten stories lower than the residential building.
And so, because the dignified Westside commander didn’t have any brakes, she fell with an anguished wail.
Like someone without a parachute, I dropped down the gap between the thirty story residential building and the twenty story school building.
Thirty stories wasn’t a short distance. As I fell, I got to thinking. While I wouldn’t end up dead, I already started to recall the painful feeling of my body being smashed to pieces.
Living in this place, we grow accustomed to feeling pain that we wouldn’t have been able to withstand while we were alive. You didn’t die here after all. But the memory of the pain of my limbs being broken off when I last fell off of a thirty story building seemed to still exist within me. Previously, it had taken more than ten minutes to completely heal.
I had only one request. When I fall today, I just hope that my b.r.e.a.s.t.s were left intact.
The wind rang in my ears.
And suddenly, I felt something grab onto my ankle. My entire body was being held up as I floated in the air.
Floated… in the air…
Whoa!
I turned to look up at him. “Nie Zun, since when could you f.u.c.king fly?!”
Holding me in midair, Nie Zun slowly descended. During the frightening experience, his lazy expression remained unchanged.
He tossed me to the ground and responded lightly, “That trick, stopping in midair, cost me 30 MF, you know?”
30 MF seemed worth it… After all, even if we were able to jump very high, being able to suspend yourself in midair wasn’t something a human could do. Having a large mental force wasn’t enough. One had to train extremely hard to manage something like that.
Of course, being able to expend 30 MF at once wasn’t something that many people could do either. Though your mental force would be replenished once you landed, even something as ordinary as jumping a little higher than normal required MF.
And every time you had to use MF, you were also “charged” 1 MF. In other words, you had to pay to use your mental force.
And this 1 MF wouldn’t be replenished until the next day.
That’s why there was a limit to how often we used our MF in a day. And honestly, there were just too many things that required using MF in our daily lives.
Moreover, using up 30 MF for a single action left you vulnerable in that time.
I knew all that, but I wasn’t the least bit thankful to him. Had he called to me just a bit sooner, I wouldn’t have even fallen in the first place.
He was obviously just trying to show off.
Tch… What’s the big deal. I shot him a look of disdain.
He wasn’t looking at me though. Instead, his attention was drawn to the school building.
I followed his gaze and saw You Ji coming over to us.
Seeing her head of green hair in the light of day left me feeling quite stuffy.
“What kind of wind was blowing to bring you all the way to the school so early in the morning? You even dropped down in such a stunning fas.h.i.+on. While you were falling, I even caught a glimpse of your panties.”
You Ji looked at me with a mocking expression.
“Drop it. How much MF would you have had to use to see my panties while I was falling that quickly?”
You Ji swung her tail, covering her mouth with one hand as she laughed. “Come on then. What kind of wind was able to push you out of bed?”
Recalling that I’d come here for official business, my eyes narrowed. “Laurel’s died. Cruelly.”
You Ji’s smile stiffened. She looked at me with an incredulous expression. “What?”
I nodded gravely and motioned to Nie Zun.
Nie Zun pulled out a cellphone from his pocket to show You Ji the photos he’d taken of the scene.
You Ji took a look and frowned. “The death isn’t a question of cruelty. Rather, it’s just very strange. Why would someone do this to a child? Laurel just arrived to the Split Zone. She shouldn’t have any enemies… unless they were targeting you?”
She looked at me suspiciously.
I was about to speak when a shadow blocked the light around me.
A large boom! sounded in the air. It seemed to have originated about 50 meters to our left, near the entrance to the school. Something had fallen and landed on the ground.
I soon realized what it was.
Because this scene was very familiar.
Something fell from the top of the school building, landing with a loud crash, splattering blood all around.
It was a person.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I rushed over.
The head of the figure in front of me was bent crooked.
The lower half of his body was covered in blood.
Without any obstructions in the way, ending up like this from a twenty story fall wasn’t so bad.
I vaguely recognized this person. He was a math teacher at the school. They said that he’d loved mathematics when he was alive, so after coming here, he’d continued studying it.
Why would he have suddenly fallen this way?
His body still hadn’t started healing after a few minutes, so I crouched down and started examining his body.
Fortunately he’d maintained a human-like appearance. I quickly found a lightbulb symbol on his chest, a split key inserted into it.
I frowned. While this form of death wasn’t pleasant, this kind of situation also wasn’t out of the ordinary. We couldn’t connect it to the strange incident this morning, not yet.
But I soon changed my mind.
When I turned over the man’s body, the image I saw nearly made me vomit.
Despite all the blood, I could still see things squirming around on his back, like insects or something. They were white and oval-shaped, a bit larger than pupae. I’d never seen these creatures before. While they bit his back, you could see their black teeth gnawing.
His back looked to be nearly eaten off, as if these things had been feeding for a long time. There was an entire layer of skin missing, but you could still hear the sound of munching.
“What is this?!” Even You Ji couldn’t help screaming out.
In the Split Zone, there only existed humans and humans that had shape-s.h.i.+fted with their mental force. Animals and bugs, and things like this, didn’t exist here.
Moreover, these were creatures I’d never seen in the physical world either. They seemed to be some sort of bug, but even if they were, why were they here in the Split Zone? While the Split Zone a strange place, aside from our consciousnesses, nothing else was meant to exist.
“It’s most likely that he’d been tortured by the venomous gu insect in his past life, and since he couldn’t bear the pain any longer, he begged for someone to use their split key to put him out of his misery,” Nie Zun a.n.a.lyzed calmly. [t/n: about gu poison on Wiki]
This death was definitely intentional, but who was responsible for it?
Thinking of something, I got up to run.
But Nie Zun grabbed onto me. “If you’re looking for the killer, their corpse is on the roof. I just took a look, and the entire roof is covered in blood. After he pushed this guy off, he must have burst apart.”
While everyone had a split key, it would only be useful to themselves and their corresponding soul splitter. To anyone else, it would just be like a sc.r.a.p of metal. So, to kill another, they’d have to use their own key. That meant, if one person died, another one had to have exploded at the same time.
No matter how careless Nie Zun sounded, there was no reason to doubt his words, so I didn’t bother checking the roof. The murderer’s body would have already exploded to bits, and there would be nothing recognizable about it.
My heart was throbbing. Why had there been two murders in one day here in Westside? I hadn’t a single clue.
You Ji suddenly spoke up, “For such odd things like this to happen here, there must be a connection to Sly S.”
That’s right. These kinds of things could only occur if that strange woman had done something. Unlike our Westside, Eastside was a place where violence ran rampant and anything could happen.
The three districts (ESW) each had their own boundary lines, all located to the right of their marketplace building. And each district had the same layout, with the residential building beside the school building, and the school next to the marketplace.
During the day, the district boundaries weren’t in effect. In other words, for the thirty hours of day, you could travel freely between the districts of the Split Zone. But, when night came, you could’t leave the district you were in.
Despite the ability to freely travel across district lines, most people didn’t seem to ever leave their district, as each district had its own life style. As for those who tried to cause trouble in another district, just thinking about Mr Blond’s punishment made me s.h.i.+ver.
Mr Blond rarely made appearances. His Northside was also a very tranquil place, and nothing particular ever happened there, so I didn’t make it a habit going there. I only went there when he called for me.
Actually, there was a reason that I didn’t ever seek out the blond man. Only the three district commanders, as well as people he designated, could contact him. And the method to contact him made me shudder even more than thinking about how he punished people.
But, in such a situation, with all the strange things happening, I was forced to seek him out, using a method that made me want to kill myself.
So, I rolled my eyes, faced the sky, and cried out, “The most handsome, invincible, cutest, strongest, and greatest leader, I’m your fan! Please meet with me!!!”
That’s right. This was the one and only method that he provided for us to contact him.
In the past, You Ji had been the one to call for him, and I’d been overjoyed watching from the sidelines. But now, the roles were reversed, and she was quite enjoying herself.
While we waited, and I wanted to roll my eyes endlessly, an image of the blond man’s face appeared before me.
I didn’t care what form he took, since I didn’t know what kind of existence he led anyway.
But as I was opening my mouth, I realized that his blue-green eyes didn’t carry the same gentle and warm demeanor that they used to.
My words caught in my throat.
Since I didn’t say anything, he looked at me a bit indignantly. “Li Zhen, are you here to ask about the events in your district?”
I didn’t know why he was angry, but the difference from how he’d always joked around with me in the past caused me to simply nod.
“You don’t need to seek me out for such things. Why did I make you the Westside commander? In the past year, have you done anything to make Westside a peaceful place?”
“But Eastside…” As I started to refute, his expression grew furious, and I swallowed the rest of my words.
“I’ve told you before, that this place has its own rules, and every district has its own style of living. If Eastside was just like Westside, there would be no need for Eastside’s existence. This isn’t like the place you once stayed in. If you have time to concern yourself with Eastside’s lifestyle, why don’t you take care of Westside first?”
My stubborn temper was awakened now. “Why should I govern Westside? All I wanted was to find my soul splitter and leave this place.”
He looked at me coldly. “Then go ahead and search. You clearly know that your soul splitter isn’t in Westside, so why don’t you try searching in another district? Or are you afraid?” He spat out angrily, “I was really wrong about you, you weakling!” Then his face disappeared from in front of me
I bit my lip and remained standing where I was.