CR CH64

Chapter 64: The Blade and the Flower

For a time, no words passed between them. In the prolonged silence, Irene looked at Ling Kongmiao, drifting off into her thoughts.

How long had they known each other? It was a stretch of years that required stopping to count carefully.

Their first meeting had been in a corner of the academy. She was still a top-tier assassin for a certain organization back then, taking on a special job by chance—she originally hadn’t wanted to wade into muddy waters, but the client’s offer had simply been too high.

The target person appeared frail and small, hiding alone in a corner to rest with a sketchbook in his arms.

“I can only buy you 3 minutes,” her partner’s voice came through the micro-device. “Hurry up; once the offense and defense systems here trigger, not even a fly can get out.”

Irene tapped the side of her ear: “Got it.”

She double-checked the information provided by the employer and prepared to act.

The process went smoother than imagined. The kid happened to be hiding in a blind spot without surveillance or people, saving quite a bit of trouble.

A gust of wind swept by. Sensing something, he was just about to look up when Irene hoisted him up like a little chick.

“Ngh… You! Who are you?”

Irene covered his mouth, her gaze scanning around as the detector in her hand flashed a red light.

“Mmh-mmh! Vhy a’you g’abbing me… mmh!” (Why are you grabbing me?)

A pair of black wings expanded from behind her. Hearing approaching footsteps from afar, Irene immediately moved closer toward the back door.

“Two minutes left,” her partner reminded again.

Irene spread her wings, her black feathers carving a sharp trace through the wind as she swiftly carried Ling Kongmiao away from the academy.

The child in her arms struggled gently the entire time. Realizing he was up in the air, his body froze visibly to the naked eye; he instinctively wrapped his arms around Irene’s neck, burying his head dead against her neck nook.

Irene froze for a second, then found it amusing, intentionally diving up and down to tease him. Ling Kongmiao clutched her outer coat tightly, trembling slightly like a small animal.

Successfully shaking off the pursuers, they returned to the private fleet to rendezvous with her partner. The moment this kid’s feet touched the ground, he darted right under a table to hide. His long silver-white hair remained draped outside; he quickly reached out his hand trying to pull it back, only to be held down by someone.

He looked up in panic, meeting a pair of radiant golden eyes.

“Hello, little guy.” Irene took off her mask, her smile bright and vibrant.

Seeing how friendly she was, Ling Kongmiao seemed dazed for a moment. Irene took his hand and gave it a gentle shake.

Kneeling on the ground, he tentatively crawled outward a little, his blue eyes blinking twice as he hesitated before speaking.

“…Hello.”

Everything felt like the blink of an eye.

The person before her was now dressed in a Commander-in-Chief uniform. His face was very young, but a deep indifference was etched between his brows.

A tall, slender shadow pressed against the wall, with a few strands of long hair resting on his neck and shoulders. He had fine bone structure, but upon looking at him, what one felt first was coldness and sharpness.

It seemed nothing could perturb him, nor was there anything worthy of his attachment.

Watching him like this, there was occasionally an illusion that he might vanish at any moment.

“Irene, we won’t become enemies.”

While she was zoning out, Ling Kongmiao took the initiative to speak.

Irene closed her eyes, emotions faintly surfacing. She wanted to ask, If you hadn’t been discovered back then, would everything have been a little better?

She wanted to ask, If the accident hadn’t chosen that interstellar fortress, would you have continued to live happily like that?

Yet those words had long since lost their meaning. She smiled helplessly and ultimately said nothing, returning to the previous topic.

“I just feel that your attitude toward him is very contradictory.”

“Given your personality, if it were only a period of childhood time spent together…” She deliberated her choice of words, “…you wouldn’t care this much.”

“There are too many blanks between you two; it should be almost no different from strangers. Yet the impression you give me is exceedingly composure-filled, perfectly certain of what choice he’ll make, without any sense of unfamiliarity.”

Ling Kongmiao: “For him, it really was just a period of childhood time spent together.”

Irene: “What about for you?”

Ling Kongmiao pondered: “Observation target.”

“After returning to the Federation, I entered another academy, and after secondary differentiation, I was sent to Z01.”

“My situation was the exact opposite of his; I differentiated at ten years old and awakened a rare mental-system ability, being sent directly to the Z01 base under my master’s jurisdiction.”

At that time, his stealth ability was also ready to awaken at any moment. Once he could freely master his concealment ability, he would go see a certain person whenever he had a holiday.

The first time he found him, he was a little nervous; even knowing the other person couldn’t see him, he still didn’t dare get close.

Jiang Tianji had grown taller than before, but standing beside him, Ling Kongmiao was basically at an equal height with him.

He liked small animals very much, but animals were all sensitive; they could vaguely sense the hidden danger on his body and were unwilling to draw near.

The boy slumped his head dejectedly while holding his backpack, half a sausage still in his hand. Ling Kongmiao sat by his side, looking toward the nearby bushes.

Very soon, a stray cat poked its head out and walked over, slowly crouching by his feet.

He tapped Jiang Tianji’s hand, and the stray cat got up to nuzzle against the boy’s hand.

He saw the boy’s eyes light up; it was the first time Jiang Tianji had encountered a small animal willing to play with him, acting cautious and unable to put it down.

In the end, he novelly held the small cat and sniffed it all over, asking why it smelled like jasmine—of course, Ling Kongmiao didn’t say that sentence out loud.

“…”

Hearing this, Irene was speechless, unsure of how to comment.

Though if it was Ling Kongmiao, nothing he did felt all that surprising.

Finally, she asked a nearby question: “Animals naturally reject him, so what did you do when you weren’t around?”

“I gave them instructions,” Ling Kongmiao said. “They would even report his daily routine to me.”

Irene couldn’t help but laugh: “Has anyone ever told you that your jokes are very dry?”

“Is that so,” Ling Kongmiao raised an eyebrow. “Then pretend I didn’t say it.”

“So, without anyone knowing, you ran out every few days just to follow him along the way?”

How is this any different from a ghost? Irene double-checked.

“And you didn’t do anything else, just followed?”

Ling Kongmiao clearly didn’t see any issue with this: “Mm, back then there was nowhere else to go, nor did I know what to do.”

“After awakening my beast form, it became much more convenient; shrinking down to sneak into his backpack meant I wouldn’t be discovered either.”

“One year, it happened to coincide with a trip to a remote star. He wore a thick hat, and I shrank down to stand on top of his head to catch the breeze. Just as I was falling asleep, it started raining, and we fell into a pit.”

“He was in a bad mood, lying in the pit wiping his tears, while I crouched on the side taking photos.” Ling Kongmiao chuckled lightly. “When I had taken enough, he still wouldn’t get up. The rain was pouring heavily then, and I was afraid he’d catch a cold.”

“I went to find the administrator; the other party didn’t even question why someone would be sleeping in a pit, running all the way over to tell him sleeping wasn’t allowed here.”

As he spoke, he pulled out his device, skillfully flipping to a photo.

Irene looked at the wretched youth in the photo, yet not a single trace of laughter could condense in her eyes.

Leaning against the sofa, her fingertips lightly tapped the armrest.

Ling Kongmiao had a relaxed expression and a smile at the corner of his lips when recounting these things, but once he put the device away, those emotions vanished like an illusion, leaving not a single special trace on his face.

“If this single-choice question is given to two people, then both of them are free.”

She rubbed the center of her brows, seeming to vaguely understand the meaning behind those words.

“Your indulgence is a net.”

Ling Kongmiao glanced at the time.

“It’s late.”

Irene stood up, but still asked before leaving: “Aren’t you afraid you’ll regret it?”

Ling Kongmiao gave no response, his gaze dropping to a certain corner. Irene followed his eyes.

Inside the trash can was a bloody piece of clothing.

Click. The mechanical door emitted a quiet sound.

After Irene left, a flicker of fatigue flashed through Ling Kongmiao’s eyes. He leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes to rest.

“For a split second, I felt hatred coming from you,” Irene’s words had been sharp.

Unlike Tang Min’s mental-body split regeneration ability, Ling Kongmiao’s ability leaned toward mental control, lacking combat capability and positioned as guidance and restraint.

In the beginning, blue fireflies could only serve to guide and illuminate.

He had once loathed everything sharp in this world, feeling unwilling and resentful.

Most descriptions of him from others were: pretty, harmless, mental-system.

His beast form was soft and elegant, and even his pheromones were flowers.

Space-time rifts, domain construction, mental control—these abilities were extremely rare, yet just like himself, they possessed zero aggressiveness. As long as he was in a greenhouse, his abilities were sky-defying existences.

However, the place he lived in often rained heavily. At first, he merely wanted to endure and persevere, but later it turned into hysterical resistance.

As flowers and leaves withered, sharp thorns grew; when those thorns squeezed out from the body, piercing others would first stab through himself.

His roots were torn apart and swallowed by abnormal creatures, forcing him to abandon his former underlying colors to regrow anew.

It wasn’t that he was bullied as a child, but rather that he had been bullied ever since he was little.

“I just don’t get it, why give up? If you never admit defeat, there’s a chance you can win!”

Of course he didn’t understand. The power of destruction was innate to him; even if he knew nothing, his talent made him fearless against anything sharp. Facing it directly was the instinct of a “blade”.

The first time seeing him lose control at the academy, Ling Kongmiao had been stunned for a long while; there were many emotions in the depths of his heart, except for fear.

Crouching behind the bushes, his blue eyes sparkled as he stared at the child out of control. Several adults nearby couldn’t fully restrain him, dark shadows blotting out the light like a patch of heaven and earth changed because of him.

Back then, he felt that boy was incredible. The image of him easily flinging everyone away was reflected in his eyes, allowing him to see another possibility.

When he was very small, his mother had taken him on the run continuously to hide, offering no other choice. The scene of Jiang Tianji losing control and that single questioning sentence paved another path for him.

A seed of resistance was planted in his heart, rapidly sprouting in the heavy rain; he gradually began to feel unwilling and grew wild.

Even when he grew up and knew that was merely an unintentional comment from a child, he still yearned for the ending in those childish words.

“By the time these scars disappear, we’ll both be happy.”

If one truly never admitted defeat, they would indeed win.

The road he walked wasn’t considered long, but to him, it was far too long.

There were moments when it hurt so much he didn’t want to move, having entertained thoughts of giving up, but every single time he would remember those words.

Perhaps that was no longer a sentence spoken by someone, but had become the voice and obsession deep within his heart.

He made the blue fireflies condense into chains and blades, turning rifts into abysses capable of devouring all energy.

The first time he condensed the shape of a blade, he was happy for a long while, only for a passing ordinary team member to wave a hand, instantly shattering his energy.

That person and their companion seemed stunned for a moment as well, immediately followed by doubling over in laughter on the spot.

And they were merely the most ordinary C-rank combat users.

Ling Kongmiao had fought more ring matches than official combat missions—during one period, he would even fight two or three matches a day like a tireless machine. He had gone to underground arenas to fight slaves and fierce beasts, signed life-or-death waivers, and had genuine moments of facing death directly.

There was a shadow deep in his heart that kept pulling him forward.

This path of near-sacrificial devotion brought him a completely different life. Yet in the end, when he truly touched that shadow, he heard a genuine, concrete “give up”.

Every time Ling Kongmiao went to see him, Jiang Tianji would always be a bit taller. Sometimes he would gently measure with his hand on the side.

At some unknown point, he had begun looking down at him.

He still retained a portion of innocence; even as the shadow beneath his feet grew increasingly dense and strong, it couldn’t break free from his control.

Ling Kongmiao watched Jiang Tianji little by little learn endurance and restraint. Grown-up as he was, he no longer relied on a certain emotion.

He liked animals because he yearned for that purity and softness.

A person’s life is very long; its true beginning is the moment one accepts oneself.

Ling Kongmiao grew recklessly without regard for consequences, almost forgetting a certain self, yet one day while watering flowers, he realized that he still liked flowers.

The place he lived always had flowers. Pretty things bought casually during downtime made his dormitory look like a home.

The shadow lingering around Jiang Tianji grew stronger and stronger. After his abilities awakened, the destruction, annihilation, and possessiveness in his instincts would gradually erode his will—a person’s mental domain often displays everything they have.

And that thick mass of blackness was everything he possessed.

It was having nothing at all, yet also infinite possibilities.

Facing it directly, seeing it clearly, possessing it, and making it his own hidden card and tool—that was his only chance to survive.

Whether to squat down to grip that blade, or have one’s will severed to become that blade, rested entirely in a single thought.

Buzz buzz.

The device suddenly vibrated once. Ling Kongmiao opened his eyes and called up the small screen.

Complex code flashed rapidly across the screen, shielding out all surveillance systems.

A file coming from a special channel—upon opening, it was a string of scrambled code. In the top right corner was a comical and seductive flower doing a passionately vibrant dance, while the blank central area displayed a countdown—five seconds.

After five seconds, the file automatically self-destructed.

Ling Kongmiao casually grabbed pen and paper, deciphering according to the recorded code content:

Flower, long time no see.

Coordinates: 03, A-091, N89, 001 (Code language: Beast Clan Planet A-091, Northern Border, near the First Interstellar Fortress).

Ersai, Code 7 (Code language: E07 Experiment related).

H89 (Code language: Lifeform experiment remains).