He’s actually been living here for so long...
Xin Zhu clenched his fists without aning to.
"You never thought about leaving?"
Even though this place was remote, it wasn’t like you couldn’t get out at all. The river they took to get in, according to Uncle Min, locals sotis passed by on boats.
"I can’t get out."
Can’t get out? They made it in, so how could he not get out?
"Why?"
Xin Zhu lowered his head, his hair hiding the emotion in his eyes.
"Yesterday afternoon, did you see ?"
Xin Zhu hesitated, then nodded.
Chuzheng ground her teeth. She knew it—she’d felt a black shadow flash by and it wasn’t her hallucination.
"So last night, the person who ca into the tent was you too?" Chuzheng didn’t bother with nas he wouldn’t recognize and just sumd it up as "the tent."
Xin Zhu nodded. "I found you, and you guys..."
They were different from the people in his mory. He didn’t know who they were, and out of caution, he’d wanted to check them out first.
"Then that Xiao Qiu... was that corpse brought there by you?"
Xin Zhu looked blank. "What corpse?"
"You never put a corpse in the camp?"
"Why would I put a corpse in your camp?"
"..."
Now that was weird. Then who brought the corpse there? It couldn’t have really walked over on its own, right?
The Space suddenly fell quiet. Chuzheng paced back and forth twice, then carefully chose her words. "How are you able to keep looking like this?"
Did the Good Person Card secretly beco so immortal cultivator?
"I don’t know."
"..."
What do you even know!
Xin Zhu answered most of her questions with those three words—"I don’t know." Chuzheng asked forever and still didn’t get much out of him.
In the end, Chuzheng could only have the Bastard give her Xin Zhu’s file.
-
Xin Zhu.
He ca here in 1988 with his professor, but when they left, he didn’t leave with them.
He’d been living here ever since.
Until Chuzheng and her group showed up.
After so long, when Xin Zhu finally saw a Human, his first reaction wasn’t joy, but vigilance.
But in the end he was still discovered, and his secret was exposed. At first, they treated Xin Zhu very well, asking him about all sorts of things.
When they left, they even took Xin Zhu with them. But once they were out of here, Brother Gao turned Xin Zhu over.
How could Xin Zhu live here for so long and still look like this?
Xin Zhu was imprisoned and used for research, and in the end he went dark, escaped, and hunted down Brother Gao and the others for revenge.
Chuzheng: "..."
Maybe because his background wasn’t the reason he blackened, the file only summarized how he turned dark.
What the hell is the use of that!
Chuzheng felt the urge to kick sothing in frustration, but everything here looked fragile. She could only turn and leave the cave, take a lap outside, and then co back.
The area around here had been set up, with quite a few traps.
Chuzheng even saw big white rats... about seven or eight of them, all squatting in one spot, each with an ankle ring like the one she’d seen before.
"They were lab rats from before. When I woke up, they were right beside , so I kept them. I didn’t expect them to grow this big."
Xin Zhu’s voice ca from behind her.
He was bracing himself against the rock wall, standing over there. The old, faded Zhongshan suit made his figure look as straight as a pine.
"Mm."
Chuzheng didn’t seem the least bit curious about why they could live so long and grow so big, and just jumped down from the rock.
"What are you doing out here?"
Xin Zhu pressed his cracked lips together. "There are a lot of traps around here. Don’t just wander around."
"I saw them."
"..."
No one ca here, so the traps were for the mountain animals. The disguise was pretty basic—if you paid attention, you’d see them.
Xin Zhu’s lips moved. "Can I ask you a few questions?"
"Ask."
Xin Zhu let out a breath. "Do you know what happened after my professor and the others left?"
"I don’t know them."
The disappointnt in Xin Zhu’s eyes was obvious. After a while, he asked, "Then why did you co here?"
"Adventure."
Xin Zhu probably didn’t really get that word. After a long ti, he just gave a quiet "oh."
"What else do you want to know?"
Xin Zhu thought for a bit and asked a few more questions.
Unfortunately, Chuzheng knew nothing about any of it, so all she could say was "I don’t know."
Karma, huh.
"Are... are you going back up there?" Xin Zhu asked her.
"Not for now."
"Oh." Xin Zhu paused. Having been alone for so long, he looked a bit ill at ease. "Then... are you hungry? I’ll make sothing to eat."
He didn’t wait for Chuzheng’s answer before heading straight over to the living area to start a fire and cook.
Chuzheng frowned slightly. "Your injury..."
Xin Zhu moved his arm. "It... it’s fine now."
Chuzheng: "..."
The speed at which Xin Zhu’s wounds healed went way beyond what Chuzheng imagined. That was absolutely not how a normal person’s injuries healed.
Of course, looking at him, he wasn’t exactly a normal person either.
"It’s wild greens and jerky again today, but at least I’m not eating alone this ti..."
"What are you mumbling about?"
Xin Zhu jumped in fright, almost dropping what he was holding. He scrambled to steady everything. "N-nothing..."
Talking to himself had already beco his habit.
He’d been here alone with no one to talk to, so he could only talk to himself—otherwise he might’ve ended up unable to speak at all.
"I never asked your na." Xin Zhu cald down and changed the subject. "What’s your na?"
"Chuzheng."
"Chu... Zheng?" The expression on Xin Zhu’s face clearly said, How does a girl end up with a na like that? You’re lying to , right?
Chuzheng used the twig in her hand to write the two characters on the ground.
"Oh, it’s that." Xin Zhu suddenly understood. "It sounds nice."
Chuzheng stayed modest. "Thanks."
-
What Xin Zhu made used wild greens and dried jerky. The staple was sothing like a potato, but it didn’t really look like one, though the taste and texture were about the sa.
Unfortunately, without salt, it didn’t taste very good.
"You only ever eat this?"
"Yeah."
"There are canned goods up there. You didn’t see them?"
"I saw them. I ate a lot. I got sick of them." Eating canned food all year round—he couldn’t take that.
There was plenty to eat in the mountains; he had no reason to keep eating that stuff.
Chuzheng: "..."
Pitiful.
-
After they finished eating, Chuzheng pointed at the table piled with stuff.
"Can I take a look at these?"
Xin Zhu’s dark eyes stared at her for a long mont without blinking, then he finally nodded.
One side of the table was stacked with books—old volus from decades ago, covering all kinds of fields and specialties.
He’d probably gathered up everything the previous group hadn’t had ti to take away.
After all this ti, every book showed heavy signs of use.
The other side was so manuscripts—journal-like entries that looked like they were written by Xin Zhu.
To save paper, the handwriting was tiny.
There wasn’t a single blank sheet left on the table. Every page was covered front and back.
Chuzheng didn’t find any information related to this place. She didn’t know if Xin Zhu had put it away sowhere, or if there just wasn’t any to begin with.
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