MCL CH8

Chapter 8: How nostalgic, it’s been a long time…

The gentle night wind stirred the curtains. The turmoil in the suburbs did not disturb the quiet night of the city.

A blood-stained shirt lay in a heap by the sofa near the floor-to-ceiling window. The man emerging from the bathroom wiped the water droplets from his hair with a towel. His gaze lingered on it for only a moment before he walked over, casually picked it up, and tossed it directly into the trash can beside him.

Fresh from a shower, Yan Xingzhou’s body was still shrouded in a thin layer of steam. His bathrobe was loosely open, clearly revealing the firm, sexy curve of his chest.

The deep night poured in from the floor-to-ceiling window, draping him in a layer of darkness.

A buzzing sound echoed in the room.

Yan Xingzhou pressed the answer key, and a clear holographic projection appeared in the center of the spacious room. “What is it?”

The man in the projection sat before the camera. Before he could even speak, he was met with that question and immediately wore a very hurt expression. “Director, it’s been so long. Do you have to be so cold?”

“Three days ago, you just harassed me.” Yan Xingzhou was noncommittal about the other’s statement. “And how many times have I told you, I no longer have any connection with the United Administration. Su Muye, you are the head of the Ninth Administration now. Don’t call me Director anymore.”

“Okay, Director.”

Su Muye had a pair of light gray eyes. Because the pupil color was so light, when you met his gaze, you always felt as if he was looking through you at some unreachable distance. At this moment, his smiling expression formed a sharp contrast with the impeccable uniform he wore.

He clearly didn’t have the guts to excessively challenge Yan Xingzhou’s patience. Before the other could impatiently hang up the call, he took the initiative to play the victim. “But I really have something very important to see you about this time! The news of the contaminant leak accident in N City has already reached headquarters. Because of this, we had a full day of meetings today. See, I just got back to the office and haven’t even had a bite to eat.”

Yan Xingzhou let out a silent laugh. “A C-class incident can alarm the headquarters? The United Administration is really getting more and more idle.”

Su Muye, hearing this cold sarcasm, also expressed his deep agreement. “Hah, isn’t that the truth! That group of people pretended to discuss it for half a day, making me almost fall asleep right in the conference room. It’s a good thing we received news that the contaminant’s whereabouts have been confirmed, otherwise it probably wouldn’t have ended even now.”

Yan Xingzhou: “Just give me the result. How many people are they planning to send over here.”

A trace of surprise appeared in Su Muye’s glass-like pupils. “You even know that?”

Yan Xingzhou slowly walked to the rosewood desk and sat down. “A good opportunity to make an issue of something, of course they have to take advantage of it and make some moves. They’re not stupid. You came to me right after the meeting ended, wasn’t it to talk about this?”

Su Muye was speechless for a moment, then returned to his usual casual smile. “Why else would you be the Director? I really can’t hide anything from you. If I had known, I wouldn’t have laid so much groundwork. I was even thinking about how to bring it up without making you too angry. On this matter, the Third Administration was very proactive. They assigned a person in charge and very generously sent five teams directly. Tsk tsk tsk, sending five high-level action teams for one city. This isn’t to maintain social order, it’s clearly to guard against…”

Yan Xingzhou: “Mm, they think quite highly of me.”

“…” Su Muye was originally very indignant, but under this nonchalant attitude, he finally sighed. “These people are just ungrateful. If you were still at the United Administration, where would they get the chance to show off? I’ll see if I can find a way to replace those guys from the Third Administration with our Ninth Administration people.”

“Don’t mind them.” Yan Xingzhou dried his hair and hung the towel around his neck. “Besides this, there should be something else?”

Su Muye rarely fell silent. It was a long while before he spoke again. “Today, people from the Evolution Research Institute also came.”

Hearing this, a subtle change finally flickered in Yan Xingzhou’s calm eyes.

He didn’t speak, waiting for Su Muye to continue.

A silent sense of pressure spread, and even though it was just a holographic projection, it still made Su Muye feel a distinct chill.

The long-lost sense of pressure actually made him feel very nostalgic. “The evolution research over there has been stagnant for a long time. It seems the progress is indeed very difficult, so naturally, they couldn’t sit still. They came to the headquarters today to deliberately exert pressure. It sounded like they were complaining, but in essence, they still want to get back—”

He silently glanced at Yan Xingzhou’s expression before continuing, “—Calamity’s crystal core.”

However, there was no imagined anger.

After a brief silence, Yan Xingzhou just narrowed his sharp eyes slightly. “As long as they have the ability, they can snatch it back from my hands at any time.”

Su Muye had been grumbling for a long time, but at this moment, he finally laughed out loud, muttering to himself: Who are you putting on this indifferent act for? If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t have that—’I’m going to kill someone’ look in your eyes.

“Alright then, there’s nothing else. I’m going to eat first, Director! See you when I have time!”

As Su Muye’s voice fell, the call ended.

The room returned to silence. Yan Xingzhou sat in the chair for a while, opened a drawer, and took out a square black box.

He played with it in his hand. The transparent liquid in the center flowed slowly, and the tiny crystal core floated quietly in the middle.

As usual, today’s reaction was also fleeting, so fast it was almost like his imagination.

But once or twice was one thing. In the past three years, there had been nearly fifty such “fleeting moments.”

Was it all an illusion?

He shouldn’t be so neurasthenic as to reach this point.

Calamity.

Did that emperor-class contaminant get devoured and then turn to ash in that explosion, or… But no matter what, as long as it was something that he wanted to disappear from this world, then he would not allow any possibility of its existence.

The night deepened.

Inadvertently glancing at the electronic clock on the wall, Yan Xingzhou seemed to suddenly snap back from his distant thoughts.

Unconsciously, it was already past midnight.

Yan Xingzhou locked the black box back into the special metal case, stood up, and walked towards the room deeper inside.

He had undoubtedly exceeded his usual routine.

In three years, this was the first time he had been late for the appointed time.

Can’t let him wait too long.

It’s time to go see him.

After a whole night, the contaminant leak incident was finally considered to be completely over.

The C-class contaminant was eliminated by Qi Xian’s team before it could evolve, and the entire quarantine zone was liberated before it officially became a contamination zone.

This was what Lin Xi heard from the medical staff after he woke up.

It turned out that yesterday was not his illusion.

The two quarantine zones in N City were separated by dozens of kilometers. It was impossible to arrive so quickly. The reason the ambulance arrived at its destination so quickly was entirely because he had not been sent to another quarantine zone, but—directly to the action team Qi Xian was in.

The ward Lin Xi was staying in was usually used for the treatment of wounded members of the action team. Because everyone in the action team was an ability user, there was no fear of contamination. Looking around, some were in uniform, some in their own casual clothes. It actually felt more like a normal human living environment than the quarantine zone.

[Achoo—!]

After the umpteenth sneeze in his mind, Lin Xi finally couldn’t help but ask, “You’re a contaminant without even a physical form. Can you still catch a cold?”

[Who knows.]

If it had a body, one could vaguely imagine a certain contaminant rubbing the tip of its nose: [It’s really strange. Since last night, I’ve been feeling inexplicably cold. Could it really be because I used too much energy creating this body for you that I’ve become so weak?!]

Lin Xi sneered, “Useless contaminant.”

[???]

[You have to have a conscience. If it weren’t for me, you would probably have already become a pile of rotten mud decaying in the ground, just like those blasted-apart corpses!]

“So what?” Lin Xi turned to look out the window. The pale sunlight fell into his eyes, and a playful smile touched his lips, making his mismatched eyes seem as if he had heard the funniest joke. “Although we’ve been getting along peacefully since I woke up, you don’t really think I’d be moved to tears with gratitude for this kind of ‘resurrection,’ do you—Calamity?”

The slowly uttered name plunged the surroundings into a long silence.

Finally, the voice in his mind chuckled again: [How nostalgic. It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.]

“To be devoured by me just like that back then, completely unable to resist. Even now, you should still be very unwilling.”

Lin Xi turned a deaf ear to this flippant attitude, but his face still held a faint smile as he tore down the last layer of pretense, word by word. “It’s precisely because you’re unwilling that you tried every means to recreate this body. It’s true that our current state is symbiotic, but what you truly want has never been just to live. What you want is the real right to use this body.”

“So from beginning to end, we’re just using each other.” He smiled lightly, concluding in a pleasant tone, “Just like when you instigated me to lose control back then, to take over my body at any time. As long as you can actually do it.”

The laughter in his mind started out light, but gradually became more and more distinct.

[Executive Lin, you really are a very interesting person.]

[But don’t be so cold and heartless. After all, we can indeed be considered to be in the same boat now.]

“Alright, you don’t need to play the emotional card with me here. It has no real meaning. I know what you want,” Lin Xi said. “When I get out of here, I’ll go and get some more crystal cores.”

The voice in his mind instantly became cheerful: [I’m so glad you’ve finally thought it through!]

“No, I just want to recover my own abilities as soon as possible.”

As he spoke, a flicker of movement at Lin Xi’s fingertip produced a minuscule flame, which vanished like a tiny firework in less than a second, leaving only a wisp of ethereal smoke.

Like a leaky lighter.

This made Lin Xi frown in disgust. “But the energy efficiency of your contaminant world is a bit too low. The crystal cores I devoured before could only restore this little bit of power?”

[Ahem, it has nothing to in with cost-effectiveness.]

[After all, it’s a cross-species energy conversion. It’s normal for the loss rate to be a bit high. Think of it this way: when you humans buy a house, there’s all that shared public area you still pay for, right!]

Lin Xi: “…………”

No need to use such a vivid analogy.

Flexing his fingers and retracting them, Lin Xi suddenly remembered something. “By the way, I’ve had a question for a while.”

[Hmm?]

Lin Xi: “In the quarantine zone, those contaminants were chasing me so hysterically. Was it really just because I smelled good?”

[…]

After a long silence: [Hee hee hee, I guess so.]

Lin Xi: “.”

Don’t you think your few “hee hees” make you sound even more suspicious?

Just as he was about to say something more, footsteps came from the door.

Looking back, he saw Qi Xian walking in from outside.

As the person in charge of this operation, Qi Xian had clearly not slept at all, which made his expression inevitably filled with fatigue. After greeting Lin Xi, he glanced at the still very stable monitoring device on his wrist before asking, “Mr. Lin, how are you feeling?”

Lin Xi smiled slightly. “The wounds have all been treated. There shouldn’t be any major problems. Thank you for your concern, Captain Qi.”

Qi Xian stood by the hospital bed, looking at the pale face in front of him, which was smiling in a particularly harmless manner. For a moment, his emotions were also a bit complicated.

The incident at the quarantine zone was completely over, and it was confirmed that no one else had survived. In this way, this Mr. Lin in front of him was undoubtedly the only survivor of this accident.

Having a survivor was indeed a good thing, but looking at the man in front of him, he still felt a little dazed.

First, he was found at the edge of the rift’s opening, with no signs of contamination or lesions. Then, he managed to escape from a large-scale contaminant event like the one in the quarantine zone. Although the scene of his rescue was shocking, after treatment, it was found that they were all just seemingly serious superficial wounds. Since he was brought back, there had been no trend of his contamination value increasing.

And the one who had experienced all this was just an ordinary person.

Could someone really be so lucky?

“Captain Qi, why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?”

Qi Xian’s thoughts were pulled back by the voice. Meeting Lin Xi’s questioning gaze, he smiled slightly. “No, I was just thinking about the quarantine zone incident. In any case, it’s definitely a good thing that there’s no trend of lesion for now. You can rest assured and stay with our action team for these few days. Once your wounds are healed and the quarantine period is over, you can leave freely. If you need anything during this period, just let my colleagues know. They will try their best to arrange it.”

“Then thank you.” Lin Xi looked at Qi Xian for a while, thought for a moment, “By the way, Captain Qi, can I ask you a question?”

Qi Xian: “Go ahead.”

Lin Xi was still thinking about the quarantine zone incident. Considering a certain contaminant’s extremely suspicious attitude, he wanted to confirm further. “Do you think I smell good?”

As soon as the words fell, a subtle silence fell over the surroundings.

Qi Xian’s mind was still full of official business from the quarantine zone. Faced with such a jumpy question, he couldn’t react for a moment.

Huh? What good smell?

Before he could answer, someone at the door bumped into something. A clatter of things fell to the floor, and an extremely nervous voice sounded, “Presi-President Yan! I’m sorry for bumping into you. I didn’t notice you were here!”

Lin Xi: “.”

Yan Xingzhou?

Qi Xian, caught off guard by this, swayed and managed to steady himself by holding onto the nearby desk.

Looking back at the sound, he saw the tall figure at the door.

He didn’t know how long Yan Xingzhou had been standing there. Meeting Qi Xian’s gaze, he greeted him as usual, “Captain Qi.”

Qi Xian: “…President Yan, you’ve come to the action team at this time. Do you have business with me?”

Yan Xingzhou was noncommittal. He glanced up at Lin Xi sitting on the bed and said slowly, “Mm, but no rush. You two continue.”

The corner of Qi Xian’s mouth twitched slightly. He asked with some difficulty, “Continue… what…”

“Continue your conversation,” Yan Xingzhou’s tone was flat. “I happen to be a little curious too. Captain Qi, does he smell good?”

An extremely subtle, dead silence fell over the surroundings.

The few short seconds felt infinitely long to Qi Xian. His entire brain went blank under Yan Xingzhou’s seemingly calm gaze. After the pronunciation stuck in his throat had changed dozens of times, he finally managed to form a sentence: “…What… what do you think?”

The air grew even more solidified.