CR CH48

Chapter 48: The Blade

The process of mental guidance was undeniably comfortable. A faint fragrance lingered around his nose, seemingly close yet worlds away.

Out of the darkness, a spectral blue light flickered like a swarm of fireflies. Perhaps because he had witnessed its dangerous, razor-sharp side before, Jiang Tianji was fascinated by it. His mental energy unconsciously chased the blue fireflies, trailing them like a shadow.

After Ling Kongmiao’s third attempt to brush him off failed, the blue fireflies wove themselves into a dense net, trapping Jiang Tianji within.

The dark green sphere of energy seemed to freeze for a moment, hovering quietly in mid-air. Just as Ling Kongmiao thought the boy had finally settled down, the stubborn thing began violently ramming into the net without warning, stretching the pliable energy grid until it looked like a taut rubber band.

“…”

Ling Kongmiao furrowed his brows. The hand supporting Jiang Tianji’s chin shifted, lightly tapping the young man’s cheek.

“Stop fighting it.”

Jiang Tianji opened his eyes blearily. Under the heavy haze of mental manipulation, his consciousness was entirely muddled, and he leaned obediently into the older man’s palm.

Yet, no matter how harmless he appeared on the outside, the dark green light—the raw reflection of his true personality—had been wreaking havoc ever since the guidance session started.

Recalling the bite he had received during their very first session, Ling Kongmiao gave a faint, half-amused smile and pinched the boy’s cheek. Then, his mental energy surged forward, completely invading Jiang Tianji’s domain with absolute, ruthless authority.

Jiang Tianji’s entire body jolted, but Ling Kongmiao pinned him down just in time.

The dark green sphere was suppressed so fiercely it couldn’t even budge. At first, it flared with jagged, defensive ripples like a threatened sea urchin, looking incredibly vicious. Eventually, however, it ran out of strength and slumped limply inside the net. Taking advantage of the truce, Ling Kongmiao released several times more blue fireflies. Once the guidance was swiftly completed, he snapped his fingers right in front of Jiang Tianji’s eyes.

“All done.”

The moment his mental energy withdrew, a rare trace of exhaustion flickered across the depths of his eyes. Ling Kongmiao raised a hand to massage his temples. Perhaps Irene hadn’t been exaggerating this time; compared to before, things did feel a bit diff—

Suddenly, something heavy leaned against his abdomen.

His movements froze slightly. He looked down.

A messy shock of curly black hair came into view. Having just learned the hard way that defiance yielded no rewards, Jiang Tianji still hadn’t fully recovered from the forced guidance. In his dazed state, he had instinctively sought out something to lean against, one of his hands tightly bunching up the fabric around Ling Kongmiao’s waist.

Heavy, warm breaths puffed through the cloth against his stomach. Ling Kongmiao tried to take a step back, only for the boy to wrap his arms firmly around his waist.

“Jiang—”

Before Ling Kongmiao could call his name, the office door was swung open with a resounding bang.

“Boss! Irene said you—”

Zhao Hengyi threw the door wide open with a sweeping motion, his face full of worry instantly freezing into an expression of profound shock and bewilderment at the scene inside.

Ye, who was right behind him, pushed him aside and said coldly, “Don’t block the—”

“…”

For a few agonizing seconds, the air in the room turned utterly rigid and bizarre.

Lunch had just ended, and now the entire roster of Special Support Team One stood huddled at the entrance, staring in dead silence at their Captain.

“What is it?”

Ling Kongmiao pushed Jiang Tianji away with seamless composure. Upon hearing a loud thud, he cleared his throat slightly and lowered his head to pull on his gloves.

“Ouch.”

Caught completely off guard by the shove, Jiang Tianji’s head smacked hard against the office desk, jarring him instantly awake.

“We’ll… come back later,” Wei Jiangming’s voice drifted in from the doorway.

“Wait, what exactly is going on here?”

“Don’t worry about it, just move, move, move…”

Rubbing his head, Jiang Tianji turned around in a daze, only to catch the highly nuanced looks on the faces of several senior officers. He instinctively started to stand up.

“Chie—”

Click.

The door shut completely in front of him, the soft click sounding like a definitive switch.

Vague, disjointed memories flashed through Jiang Tianji’s mind. As he began connecting the dots of what had just transpired, his movements to stand up became jerky and stiff, like a rusted robot.

Ling Kongmiao leaned against the wall sipping his water, quietly observing the boy’s reaction without uttering a word.

Jiang Tianji hesitated for a mere second before smoothly grabbing the takeout boxes off the desk. Acting as though absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, he addressed Ling Kongmiao.

“Chief, I won’t disturb you any longer then.”

“Mm,” Ling Kongmiao responded softly. His gaze didn’t waver, seemingly lost in thought. His face was entirely devoid of expression, instantly re-establishing a stark sense of distance.

The plastic bag crinkled sharply in his grip. Jiang Tianji loosened his hold, gave a polite bow in the Chief’s direction, and turned to leave.

The evening clouds were sinking low on the horizon. A lone figure sat by the lake, his fingers gently swirling through the water. The ripples blurred his reflection, mimicking a warped, parallel world.

A rustling sound came from beside him, but Jiang Tianji didn’t look up; he merely stopped swirling the water.

“You’ve been coming here a lot lately. Having a lot on your mind?” Ji Yandong sat down right next to him.

“Not really.” Jiang Tianji drew his knees up, resting one arm casually over them. “It’s just quiet here.”

Ji Yandong smiled faintly. “Are you saying we’re too loud?”

“I just don’t want people worrying about me.”

Ji Yandong’s smile faded slightly, leaving him at a loss for words for a moment.

“How much do you know?” Jiang Tianji suddenly asked.

The question lacked context, but Ji Yandong knew exactly what he meant—he was asking how much Ji Yandong knew about his past.

Seemingly reading the answer in Ji Yandong’s silence, Jiang Tianji pondered for a moment.

“Among the elders who were close to my mother, none of them carried the surname Ji. Yet, you give me a feeling very similar to Aunt Liu. When I was little, she loved carrying me up to the rooftop to look at the stars.”

Liu An was Jiang Yan’s closest confidante, and one of the very few who knew the entire truth. She had always been incredibly good to Jiang Tianji.

“Once I reached school age, I left Planet Lixin. Back then… the family dynamics were a bit chaotic. My parents sent me to live with my grandparents, and I didn’t return until after my awakening.”

Predictably, Ji Yandong didn’t deny it. “We harbor no ill will, and our attention on you doesn’t stem from any hidden agenda.”

“I know.”

Jiang Tianji lay down flat on his back, absentmindedly tugging at Ji Yandong’s sleeve to pass the time. “It’s really not fair. You know absolutely everything about me.”

Hearing the implicit meaning behind his words, Ji Yandong replied frankly, “If we reintroduce ourselves simply as friends, you’ll gradually learn everything about me too.”

Jiang Tianji spread his arms out, lying star-fished by the lakeside. His eyes locked onto the top floor of the distant officers’ building, falling silent for quite some time.

“My trip to that remote planet wasn’t just a sudden whim. I managed to crack a portion of an encrypted file and found some information regarding my biological parents. The data was incredibly fragmented—a severely damaged, highly specialized transmission.”

“I only managed to extract three useful pieces of information: the timestamp, the point of origin, and the identification code assigned to me.”

The moment he uttered the first sentence, Ji Yandong froze.

Seeing the man’s brows gradually knit together, Jiang Tianji smiled. “I take it my mother never mentioned any of this?”

He let out a soft sigh. “Actually, once I arrived at the location and saw the small, cramped houses built over a land that had once been utterly decimated—and the energy lake formed in the crater where the disaster had struck—I finally realized what she was doing. My mother probably just wanted me to relax.”

“She knows me too well. She knew I would crack the files she left behind, and she knew I would be curious about that place.”

“It was a pretty magical place, honestly. No skyscrapers, just a dense cluster of dilapidated, low-slung houses. There were street snacks I’d never seen before, and the people weren’t nearly as reserved as those on Planet Lixin—they’d yell to each other from across the street. It was very lively.”

“I went to Cape Lake, which was supposed to be beautiful. But when I got there, it started pouring rain and a thick fog rolled in. There wasn’t a soul in sight. I was getting ready to head back, but I wasn’t used to such rugged paths. I tripped and fell right into a ditch. I figured since nobody was around to see me, I might as well just lie there for a while.”

“Who would’ve thought that place actually had a caretaker? He crouched right above me in his raincoat and told me that sleeping wasn’t allowed there.”

Hearing Ji Yandong chuckle, the corners of Jiang Tianji’s lips curved upward as well. Only when the trace of amusement had entirely faded from his eyes did he speak again.

“In reality, I really was just curious. I wanted to know what roles they all played, what their relationships were, and… what exactly am I?”

He didn’t seem particularly accustomed to opening up; his words sounded more like a solitary monologue.

“I’ve never obsessed over bloodlines. My mom is my mom. She thinks I’m just acting out, and I was too embarrassed to tell her that, deep down, I was actually terrified.”

It was a rare moment of vulnerability for Jiang Tianji. Airing these thoughts out loud turned out to be far simpler than he had imagined.

“I wanted to use my reckless behavior to test her boundaries, yet I was terrified of pushing it too far and having her genuinely abandon me. Every time I said something overly dramatic, I didn’t have any grand scheme—I just wanted things to go back to how they were when I was a kid.”

“In truth, I don’t even need answers. I just need her to pat my head like she used to.”

He vaguely recalled a day when the weather had been quite pleasant. He and Liang Chong had parted on terrible terms, and he had been so incensed by a few of Liang Chong’s parting words that he ran all the way home.

The moment he opened the front door, the sound of an argument reached his ears. Knowing that the children were usually at school at that hour, the study door had been left slightly ajar.

The other voice belonged to Liang Chong’s father, who was standing face-to-face with Jiang Yan, trying to hammer some sense into her.

“Jiang Yan, you aren’t getting any younger. Tianji is exceptionally talented, yes, but he can’t stay by your side forever. After all these years, you’ve finally found someone suitable. If the Jiang family can’t accept the fact that you have a child, why don’t you take this opportunity to have a proper discussion?”

“Tianji isn’t even your biological son. You’re going to have to tell the boy sooner or later anyway, right?”

“What do the two have to do with each other? Jiang Xi and I broke up because our ideals clashed, not because of Tianji.”

“Always that same old excuse. Look at how many options you’ve had over the years. At first, you deflected by saying Tianji was too young. Now that you’ve finally met someone you actually like, you’re giving up again over some ‘clash of ideals’?”

“When he grows up, he’s going to have a family of his own. What about you? What are you going to do then?”

“Not everyone needs a family. Enough. This conversation is over.”

“Jiang Yan, you are incredibly stubborn…”

Their voices grew louder and sharper, both parties clearly furious. Jiang Tianji had stood paralyzed behind the door, staring blankly through the narrow gap.

His head had throbbed violently. He heard many things that day, and a few sentences automatically echoed in his ears even now without him wanting them to.

“He is nothing but a dead weight to you right now. That is the Jiang family we are talking about! Do you have any idea how massive of a backing that would be?”

“The database was destroyed, so his parents’ identities can’t be verified. However, the salvaged itinerary logs explicitly mentioned that this child would possess an incredibly high level of talent in the future. I thought you were simply cultivating a prime specimen.”

“Gambling on the humanity of a child once they grow up is nowhere near as practical as raising a pet, Jiang Yan.”

Jiang Tianji had been fourteen years old back then. Hearing the first half of the conversation had left his mind completely blank, rooting him to the spot.

But the moment Jiang Yan’s voice suddenly spiked in raw fury, his eyes had slowly welled with tears. He had never heard Jiang Yan use a tone like that before—it was entirely stripped of her usual cold, dignified rationality. She had violently flipped a table over and seized the man across from her by his collar.

“I am going to say this one last time: this has absolutely nothing to do with Tianji. If you ever target my child again, our partnership ends immediately.”

…

On that day, the wall he had spent his entire life leaning on vanished without warning.

He fell hard, left bruised and battered. He hadn’t cried because of the physical pain, but because he realized that for the rest of his life, he could never safely lean against that wall to sleep again.

Jiang Tianji spoke softly.

“They left me with a lingering thought and a lingering possibility. It made me ponder for a very long time, and I still don’t know: on that final day, were my biological parents protecting their child, or were they protecting a humanoid weapon?”

“Captain, tell me… why didn’t my parents give me a name? Why did they only leave behind a string of identification codes?”

He sounded entirely composed as he asked this. When his eyes met Ji Yandong’s, it was the captain who looked away first.

“Perhaps the truth is far simpler than we think,” Ji Yandong murmured, opening his mouth but finding himself utterly helpless to offer any real comfort.

“Perhaps.”

“Honestly, I wasn’t even particularly devastated that day. My mom has given me so much; those things aren’t easily shaken by a few nasty remarks. But later on…”

He looked as though he wanted to elaborate, but ultimately let the sentence fade into the wind, smoothly pivoting to another topic instead.

“I can sense that Commander Jiang wants me to accomplish something. But because she knows I overheard those words, she has never demanded results from me. In truth, I actually wish she would demand something of me. That way, we wouldn’t have drifted into this strained, polite distance.”

“She still loves me. Even if that affection is laced with a tiny, hidden purpose, it doesn’t diminish our bond. Yet, she has never spoken openly about it, as if she herself is caught in a bitter struggle.”

“Dr. He’s warmth, your care, Captain Ling’s constant attention… I know exactly why it’s all happening, deep down. I’ve just never asked.”

“We’re all locked in a silent tug-of-war. Just thinking about some things makes me feel exhausted and annoyed, yet when the time comes, I’ll still be forced to make a choice.”

“Someone told me the other day that most of the time, humans don’t actually need to know what they want—knowing what they don’t want is more than enough.”

“I am not going to become a weapon.”

Jiang Tianji sat up, the vivid colors of the sunset painting the profile of his face.

“Once that slightly spiteful thought popped into my head, things actually cleared up a bit.”

“I refused to become a weapon, yet I couldn’t bear the thought of just stopping either. For a very long time, I tried to spite them by making my own mental domain stop growing.”

“But who did I end up punishing in the end?” he asked, a self-deprecating smile touching his lips. “My deceased parents? Or my mom, the closest person I have left in this world?”

“I can’t bring myself to hate any of them. I’m drowning in debts of gratitude I can never repay. My life was granted by my biological parents, and this privileged upbringing was provided by my mom. I don’t even possess the right to complain. In the end, I could only loathe myself.”

“But looking back on it now…”

“If I was born to be a blade, then I refuse to let myself be held in anyone’s hand.”