Note: This is the second chapter of today’s double update. Don’t skip chapter 18 accidentally!

Fu Yucheng was silent.

For a while, the dark space stayed surprisingly quiet.

Fu Yucheng didn’t feel hurt by Bai Mo’s accusation. He saw Bai Mo as just a kid that wasn’t worth arguing with.

The only thing he was hesitant about was whether it wouldn’t have been better to just agree with Bai Mo’s assumptions, instead of explaining himself, in order to break his spirit, so that he’d eagerly go to live with Fatty Wu.

It’d be the easiest and most effective way.

It was just rather hurtful.

Fu Yucheng felt a little uncertain.

Seeing that Fu Yucheng didn’t say a word, as if he had admitted it, Bai Mo’s mind cooled off. His strong feelings from a moment ago popped like a balloon pricked by a needle, and suddenly he felt dispirited.

What was he expecting?

After all, he was just a monster created in a laboratory, not even good enough to keep as a pet. Was he expecting Fu Yucheng to actually accept him and to live together with him for a long time?

“You don’t want me, right?” He whispered, his voice trembling imperceptibly.

In his heart, Fu Yucheng knew that, if he agreed with Bai Mo in that moment, the matter would be settled.

Simple, fast and efficient.

“You don’t, right?” Bai Mo stubbornly asked again.

Fu Yucheng closed his eyes and dragged his hand down his face tiredly, suddenly feeling as if he didn’t have the heart to do this.

Why bother? Bai Mo was just a child.

After mulling it over, he attempted to explain again. “Little Mo, it’s not like that. Fort Hurricane is too dangerous, I can’t guarantee your safety. You are still so young, and I don’t want you to run into problems. Do you understand?

“I’m doing it for your own good.” After Fu Yucheng finished speaking, he couldn’t help but curse that fucking line in his heart. He really hated that phrase. He felt like an awful, hypocritical guardian.

Bai Mo was silent for a long time before he muttered to himself, “Is that true?”

After that night, an invisible barrier appeared between them.

The barrier could neither be seen nor touched, but it was there all the same.

Fu Yucheng had always been stubborn, so, of course, he wouldn’t change his mind so easily. Meanwhile, Bai Mo went directly from a slightly awkward snow doll that was still well behaved and sensible, to an ice statue of a hedgehog, covered in prickly thorns.

And in the blink of an eye, the day when Fu Yucheng was scheduled to enter the factory arrived.

That morning, Fu Yucheng drove his off-road vehicle to drop Bai Mo off at Fatty Wu’s place first, and then he would turn around and head towards Fort Hurricane.

He turned the steering wheel and glanced at the boy, who was in the passenger seat.

Bai Mo’s small snow-white face was tense, his lips pressed in a thin line, and he didn’t spare Fu Yucheng even a glance.

Fu Yucheng felt exhausted. This brat was so stubborn, how was he able to spend two entire weeks without speaking to him?

“Little Mo, do you plan on staying like this forever?” Fu Yucheng asked helplessly. “It’s been two or three weeks and you still won’t say a word. What do you want from me?”

Bai Mo stared at the landscape outside of the car window, expressionless and silent, his lips pressed together tightly.

“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know what’s going on inside Fort Hurricane. It’d be easy to bring you in, but it’ll be hard to get you out. Brat, what do you not understand about that?” Fu Yucheng sighed. “That Mo Ziwei is so devious, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Damn, he’d picked up a kid, but it was like trying to please one of his ancestors. Fu Yucheng didn’t have a lot of patience and he didn’t like explaining himself, but the boy’s fragile appearance was simply pitiful.

Bai Mo was silent for a long time before he coldly spat out, “I don’t care about that. I just know that you promised me to take me with you.”

Fu Yucheng couldn’t help but dramatically roll his eyes. Honestly, over these last few days he’d just been wasting his breath. This brat had a one track mind.

“Whatever you say.” He shook his head and slammed the accelerator.

Bai Mo kept looking out at the ample landscapes passing by outside the window. He had no expression on his face, but his nails were digging deeply into his palms.

Driving fast, the vehicle quickly arrived at the front of the recycling station.

Fu Yucheng jumped out of the off-road vehicle. Bai Mo, sitting in the passenger seat, turned his head to look at the windmill out in the distance, and remained motionless.

Seeing him continue to act like this, Fu Yucheng got a bit impatient. He opened the co-pilot’s door and said, “Get out of the car.”

When he heard him, a slight tremble went through Bai Mo’s body. Then, he glanced at Fu Yucheng with his pitch-black eyes.

Even though his face was clearly expressionless, and there definitely weren’t tears or any such thing, Fu Yucheng’s heart trembled inexplicably.

This brat was heartbroken.

He opened his mouth, but he wasn’t able to say anything else to urge him along.

Bai Mo closed his eyes and, without waiting for the other to speak again, jumped out of the car, walking to the recycling station without looking back.

The recycling station was built out of hundreds of ancient containers. The entrance at the bottom, a pitch black hole, was like a monster’s mouth. Perhaps it also was just like the mouth of the space incinerator failed experiments were sent to. That incinerator that should have been his final home.

It seemed like his destiny was to get abandoned like garbage after all.

If that was the case, why did he give him hope?

Why did he pick him up from the desert, twice over?

He even allowed Bai Mo to have expectations, to make him feel that they’d always rely on each other like they had so far and survive on this barren land.

It was a pity that, no matter how beautiful a dream might be, one eventually had to wake up from it.

Standing behind him, Fu Yucheng watched his small and lonely figure slowly walk away. There was a painful knot in his heart.

At one point, he almost wanted to say, “Come back here!”

But he didn’t open his mouth.

After entering Fort Hurricane, he wouldn’t be able to guarantee Bai Mo’s safety. Moreover, he still had something very important to do, something that might even cost him his life. Fatty Wu’s recycling station was the safest, most reliable place he could leave this teenager.

Bai Mo looked ahead, moved his legs one after the other, and, without thinking, he walked to the recycling station.

He did not notice that a faint layer of frost gradually appeared on the ground he stepped on as he made his way there.

The frost spread extremely quickly and, within a couple minutes, it climbed up the huge containers ahead of him. As the frost spread, the hundreds of containers began to tremble slightly, producing a terrifying creaking sound, as if there was an earthquake.

Bai Mo looked up in a daze. He stared blankly at the dangerous containers, but didn’t think of moving away.

A huge container shook violently right in front of him.

“Little Mo, watch out!”

Before Bai Mo could react, he was violently pushed to the ground, rolling over several times with a pair of arms holding onto him.

‘Bang!’ right at that moment, the huge container crashed down, scattering pieces of ice everywhere.

Bai Mo lay on his back on the ground. He looked at the man above him, still feeling a little confused.

What had just happened?

“Pfew.” Fu Yucheng sighed with relief, and glared at the boy on the ground. “You little bastard, are you an idiot? Did a dog eat your brain? Don’t you know when to run away?!”

Bai Mo stared at him blankly, as if he still didn’t understand.

Fu Yucheng rolled over and sat up. He glanced at the smashed container, looked at the large plaques of ice on the ground nearby, and scratched his head, annoyed. “Fuck, kid, you’re a manipulator. And a newly awakened one to booth. This could be a problem.”

Bai Mo looked at the frozen ground, his thoughts in disarray.

What was going on?

He had done this?

What was Fu Yucheng talking about? He said something about newly awakened manipulators.

Suddenly, Bai Mo got a vague idea.

He wasn’t a failed psionic manipulator.

After staying frozen for a long moment, he took a deep breath and slowly raised his head. “I want to go to Fort Hurricane with you.”

“Why are you bringing this up again?” Fu Yucheng rubbed his eyebrows, feeling a headache coming.

How can this kid be back on that same old topic again, at a time like this?

“Since I’m like this now, if you leave me here, something like what just happened might happen again. Then what? I just awakened, I don’t know how to control my own abilities. Maybe one day, I would hurt that fat guy,” Bai Mo said coldly.

Fu Yucheng glared at him. He felt like the words ‘big trouble’ were clearly written on this kid’s forehead.

“Damn, what the fuck is this mess?” He tugged at his hair, intending to step away to walk around and think about things for a while.

But the moment he took his first step, a layer of frost spread over the ground, clinging to him from the base of his feet.

Instantly, half of his left leg was covered in ice, and he wasn’t able to take even a step.

Fu Yucheng looked back at Bai Mo in disbelief. “What are you doing? Are you trying to freeze me to death?”

Bai Mo was just as shocked. “I- I didn’t-”

When he saw him fussing and panicking, Fu Yucheng understood that the brat really didn’t mean to. He had just awakened his psionic power and he wasn’t able to control it yet. Subconsciously, he hadn’t wanted Fu Yucheng to leave, so he ended up in this mess.

At this point, the only thing Fu Yucheng wanted to do was look up towards the heavens and ask, ‘Who the fuck did I piss off up there?’

He tried to raise his leg, but he discovered that he couldn’t move at all. He said, “Little Mo, try to imagine stuff like melting ice and snow, spring blossoming, those sort of things, and release me now.”

Bai Mo looked at the floor and said nothing.

He was quiet for a while, and then he suddenly said, “Take me to Fort Hurricane with you, and I will let you go.”

Fu Yucheng smiled in anger. This little bastard, he’d already learnt how to threaten people at his young age?

Seeing his ugly expression, Bai Mo felt uncomfortable. “Yu-ge, I already know that you hate me, but I still want to go with you.”

Fu Yucheng looked at him, and sighed. “I don’t hate you.

“Besides, how can I safely hand you over to Fatty Wu, when you act this shady? Even if I did, would he dare to take you in?”

Bai Mo’s eyes widened slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I will take you with me.”

After freezing up for a moment, Bai Mo suddenly jumped and hugged Fu Yucheng’s waist.

“Yu-ge!” Fu Yucheng instinctively wanted to dodge, but one of his legs was encased in ice, and he couldn’t move an inch. The only thing he could do was endure the brat’s hug, which was about to cut him in half.

After being hugged tightly by the boy for a long time, at last Fu Yucheng couldn’t help but say, “Little Mo, you have to get rid of all this ice first. My leg is practically numb.”

Finally, Bai Mo seemed to react and let him go, a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

He squatted on the ground, touched the layer of ice covering Fu Yucheng’s leg, and raised his head in puzzlement. “I… I don’t know how to do it. I tried to imagine it melting, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”

Ah hell. Fu Yucheng would dare to say that this brat’s newly awakened psionic power wasn’t very bright.

Fu Yucheng rubbed his forehead, speechless. “Forget it, bring me the ice pick from the car.”

After they finally managed to break the ice, the two returned to the car. Fu Yucheng stepped on the gas, and the off-road vehicle sped away towards Fort Hurricane.

Bai Mo sat upright in the passenger’s seat. The corners of his mouth were slightly tilted up, and his eyes seemed a little brighter than usual.

Author’s note:

Someone asked about their age difference. In interstellar/sci-fi novels, average life expectancy is longer. In my novel, ordinary people have a life expectancy of about 100 years, and psionic manipulators between 120 and 150 years. After reaching adulthood, until their death, a manipulator’s appearance won’t change much. They will only get some fine lines and their hair will turn grey and white during their last years. Okay, I admit it, I’m a face con. Specific details will be mentioned in the future.

At the beginning of the novel, Chengcheng is 26 and little Mo is 14.

Pfew, and we’re back on schedule! I hope you guys enjoyed the double update, we’re nearing a new arc and everything! Special thanks to Wintery for her extra speedy editing this time!

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