2029

A Fly That Does Not Have a Choice

“I didn’t have a choice. Neither did Xiao Qin!” Every dried tear of blood on Xiahou Wuxin’s face was s.h.i.+vering. “She had to die!”

“Do not say my mother’s name!” Xin Xiaoqi shrieked. “You don’t deserve to say her name, you shameless old dog!”

“You’re right. I am truly a sordid, shameless, and a f*cking cowardly old dog. No. In front of the almighty ‘angels’, I am barely a dog but more like a fly that is caged inside an upside-down gla.s.s cup and cannot fly out however I try.”

Xiahou Wuxin smiled bitterly and miserably. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything at all. Xiao Qin and I met again after so many years, so many incidents, so many vicissitudes of life. I thought that it was a grace of the heavens. I only wanted to try my best to live a peaceful life with her and with you. No matter how hideous the world out there was, I only wanted to prepare a peaceful, comfortable home for you. I would rather be minced a hundred times or delivered to the foulest laboratory in the City in the Sky than see her wounded in the slightest.

“But… it was she who begged me to kill her. We didn’t have a choice!”

Xin Xiaoqi was shocked. Realizing that Xiahou Wuxin was probably not lying, she stammered, “What do you mean by ‘she begged you to kill her’? What are you talking about exactly?”

“We could’ve lived an illusionary but beautiful life like a normal family.” Xiahou Wuxin’s eyes were unfocused. A nonexistent world and a beautiful life that never happened glittered inside his pupils. “But Xiao Qin saw something that she shouldn’t have seen and discovered the secrets of the angels. One of the test subjects, probably because of the uncanny techniques that he had practiced, resisted the hypnotization of the high-intensity anesthetics and woke up on the way to Manjusaka. He also overheard the conversation among a few ‘angels’ and learned part of the truth of Manjusaka.

“The man was truly tough and brave enough. He killed a few ‘angels’ and struggled to fight all the way down from the top of the transmission tube. He was heavily wounded and bleeding hard when he fell right next to your mother. Then, he told your mother everything!

“The angels ordered that all the sinners who got in contact with the ‘experiment material’ be killed. I was made responsible for it! If I could not give a satisfactory reply, the most dreadful ‘Madmen Squad’ or ‘Heavenly Eye Legion’ in the City in the Sky would be deployed to deal with the situation. In that case, it would not just be the deaths of a hundred or so people but the complete demolition of Liberty City as an Elysian World!

“At that time, you were still a young and ignorant child, but the ‘angels’ couldn’t care less about that. So, your mother did not have a choice. Either she died, or both of you would be killed.

“I—I tracked her down and told her everything.

“After learning the truth of the City in the Sky, she cursed me aloud like you are doing right now in her panic and fury. She chastised me for not being a human but an animal, a beast, a worthless b*stard… I pleaded guilty to all those charges, but I also told her that she must not go back and find you. Once she got in contact with you, you would be equally doomed!

“In the end, she understood everything and knew what was best for you.

“She begged me to protect you in any case. I promised her.

“I did it myself. I smashed her skull and destroyed her brains and soul, making sure that she would not suffer any pain or have any value to be experimented on.

“As for the other sinners who were involved with the escaped test subject, they were all sent to the City in the Sky to bear insufferable torture.

“Do you know that she was smiling when she pa.s.sed away? Although it was a bitter smile full of worries and helplessness, I think it was much better than the two of you being sent to the laboratory in the City in the Sky to receive the inhumane experiments together, right?”

Xin Xiaoqi was dazed for a long time. She seemed to be both crying and laughing. In a trance, she shook her head hard, “I don’t believe it. You are lying. If my mother asked you to take care of me, why did you exile me for so many dangerous missions outside for twenty years instead of letting me stay with you, and why did you never tell anyone our relation?”

“It was all meant to protect you,” Xiahou Wuxin explained. “You think that dealing with the gangs and bandits was very dangerous, but the truth is, staying by my side would have been even more dangerous. If you stayed with me, you would have inevitably gotten in touch with tremendous secrets and entered the eyesight of the ‘angels’, who were certainly not willing to share their secrets with others.

“Have you never noticed that the disciples and subordinates around me were replaced every once in a while and the previous ones are all sent to the City in the Sky to ‘enjoy their life’? Do you wish to be one of them?”

Xin Xiaoqi shuddered hard, as if an invisible City in the Sky had covered her face tightly like bugs, making it impossible for her to breathe.

“Everyone who knows the secrets of Manjusaka has been condemned with a curse that can never be lifted,” Xiahou Wuxin said. “None of them will end well, including me. So, I did not want you to be too close to me.

“I cannot protect you forever. In order to survive in the Land of Sins, the key is to be strong enough on your own! In the past twenty years, I sent you to the Land of Sins to carry out all sorts of missions, but the difficulties of the missions were actually progressive and in order. Through such a special training method, you would boast the ability to survive independently. I can tell that you have been trained very well. Since you have escaped from such a battlefield without being injured at all, there is probably a one percent likelihood that you can escape the hunting of the ‘angels’.”

“You’ve been training me in such a way? Either I have lost my mind, or you have lost yours!” Xin Xiaoqi shrieked. Then she was somewhat stunned. “The hunting of the angels?”

“Exactly,” Xiahou Wuxin said bitterly. “Haven’t you noticed that the ‘angels’ have completely forsaken me? Perhaps, after decades of ‘loyal’ service for them, I know too much information right now, and my loyalty is now questionable. Or maybe the shocking anomalies of ‘Fist King’ Lei Zonglie on the battlefield entail some great secrets that must not be learned by us. The bottom line is, I can tell that Liberty City is doomed. Everybody on the battlefield in Liberty City is doomed. The ‘angels’ will not allow anyone alive to escape.

“That is why I asked you to come here. You will camouflage yourself and pick up some useful tools. Then, you will go to one of my secret warehouses to take the truly useful a.s.sets and find a way to fight your way out of Liberty City for the one percent chance of survival!

“This is the whole truth. Believe me, Xiaoqi!”

Xin Xiaoqi stared at Xiahou Wuxin in a daze for a long time. Her clattering teeth were clearly audible even for Li Yao.

In a clink, her short daggers fell to the ground.

“I don’t believe you. No truth ever came out of your mouth,” Xin Xiaoqi mumbled. From her pupils to her eyeb.a.l.l.s, from her eyeb.a.l.l.s to her eye sockets, and from her eye sockets to every muscle on her face, a twisted smile gradually spread out. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!

“Hehe. Hehehe. This is all false. This is too absurd to be true. You are lying to me. All of you have been lying to me. The whole world is lying to me!”

She staggered to her feet and shook hard as if she were drunk. With a look of fascination on her face, she craned her neck, and her hazy eyes seemed to have pierced through the roof and the rusty clouds into a nonexistent heaven.

“Mom must be still waiting for me in the sky. She said that she had saved a lot of money through hard work up there. After I go to the sky, we will live a carefree and happy life.

“Mom is not dead. Mom gave me a music box as a birthday present last year. What a beautiful music box it was. There were two figurines on it that embraced and danced with each other, and it could spin! The Land of Sins couldn’t have had such a finely-made item. So, it must be a gift from my mother!

“Mom, just wait. I’m coming for you right now. I am going to fly to Manjusaka for you…”

Standing on her toes, she danced forward to the door swiftly, as if she were not wearing a pair of ragged combat boots but dancing shoes with red diamonds.

Xiahou Wuxin gritted his teeth, dragged her back, and slapped her to the ground, staring at her without saying anything.

The cat-like woman was still wearing a frozen smile, but black mists were condensing inside her eye sockets quickly. Under her master’s gloomy eyes, she finally collapsed.

“Mom is dead! Mom is dead! Mom is dead!” Xin Xiaoqi s.n.a.t.c.hed her hair and wailed, her back as bent as a bow. “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

She cried so hard that she could barely catch her breath, with tears and snot spurting out at the same time. She also coughed hard and appeared to be seizing.

Xiahou Wuxin sighed in a low voice.

“If you really do not have the courage to run, I will send you to meet your mother right now,” he said softly. “Just nod, and I guarantee that you will leave this world comfortably. You will be spared the miserably torture, and your body will never be insulted. You will go exactly like your mother years ago. How does it sound?”

“Mother…”

Dumbfounded and overwhelmed, Xin Xiaoqi seemed to be considering Xiahou Wuxin’s proposal carefully.

Li Yao’s soul released tremendous waves.

He did not hate Xin Xiaoqi, who still had some kindness in her heart, in the first place. After hearing the story of Xiahou Wuxin and her, he was even more reluctant to see the poor woman die just like that.

However, it seemed rather awkward to cough and introduce himself after eavesdropping their family business for such a long time.

While he was still hesitating, Xin Xiaoqi’s unfocused eyes condensed again. She mumbled to herself, “No… I can’t die. I must avenge my mother!”