A-Cheng narrowed his eyes and glanced at the bearded man. “Are you really a psionic manipulator? Or are you just pretending to be one to trick the girl?”
The middle-aged bearded man was stunned, and then he retorted angrily, “What did you say?! Are you looking for a fight?!”
Lu Na1 also said anxiously, “A-Cheng, don’t talk nonsense! Of course he’s a manipulator!”
A-Cheng smiled and picked up the bent spoon. “Your spoons and forks are all prepared props, right? This kind of trick has been outdated for ages.”
The man cursed him out. “You’re just spouting bullshit!”
“I just made a casual guess. Won’t we know if it’s true or not if we test it out?” A-Cheng shrugged indifferently, then called a bartender over and asked him to bring them a spoon.
He held the shiny stainless steel spoon in his hand, and smiled. “If you can bend this spoon, I will kowtow to you three times as an apology right away. If not, you are not allowed to set foot in this bar ever again.”
Although the bearded man was just an I class manipulator, the lowest level, he had practiced his spoon bending technique for many years specifically to trick young girls. It could be said that he was extremely proficient at it.
He narrowed his eyes and smiled in contempt. “Very well, three kowtows, keep that in mind!. Don’t go running off when the time comes.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t go back on my word.” A-Cheng smiled, holding the spoon firmly. “Okay, let’s get started.”
The bearded man stared at the stainless steel spoon from up close, secretly using his power.
But one second went by, then two seconds, five seconds, ten… After one minute had passed, the spoon was still intact and showed no movement.
“Ugh…” His face was flushed, his cheeks burning, yet the thin handle of the spoon remained motionless, completely ignoring the efforts of the I class manipulator.
He shook his head in disbelief, and muttered as he collapsed, “What’s wrong? What’s going on? Where’s my psionic power?”
A-Cheng snorted and threw the spoon on the bar, then turned to look at Lu Na. “I told you, he’s just an impostor.”
Lu Na stayed quiet for a while, then stomped her foot, bowed her head and rushed outside.
“Ah, little girls these days are a lot of trouble.” A-Cheng shook his head helplessly, having to speed up his pace to catch up.
When stepping out of the nightclub, eyes would be flooded by a field of strange neon lights.
It wasn’t possible to see the stars in the sky, nor grass or trees on the ground. Both sides of the road were full of strange buildings, large holographic walls and a variety of exposed pipes and wiring, with antigrav vehicles speeding by high up in the sky from time to time, barely skimming over close enough to catch a glimpse of them.
In order to facilitate the maintenance of Dyson Cloud, the Industrial Region was built inside the huge celestial body, and all the buildings and streets were built along a variety of immense mechanical structures.
The two of them walked on the deserted street, like two small ants crawling along the circuit board of a huge computer.
They passed a small square on their way. In the middle of it, there was a bronze statue representing a handsome, melancholic young man riding on a tall mechanical horse. The horse had its front hoof raised up high, about to stomp down, as the young man looked down pityingly at a rebel under his horse’s hooves.
The bronze statue was an imitation of the famous sculpture, ‘Counter-revolt’, that was located in the White Rose Palace’s square. It represented the Imperial Prince suppressing the rebellion.
A-Cheng secretly rolled his eyes and sped up.
Lu Na walked ahead angrily. Suddenly, she stomped her foot and fell to the ground. She had borrowed her stilettos from an older girl she was neighbours with, and they didn’t fit her size.
For a while, the girl felt angry, aggrieved, and ashamed. She didn’t get up, and simply sat on the ground, sobbing.
A-Cheng squatted down next to her helplessly and tried to comfort her. “It’s okay, don’t cry. Let’s head back quickly. It’s eleven o’clock, and the curfew is about to start.”
Lu Na sobbed. “That man, he clearly said, he clearly said… that he was a manipulator…!”
A-Cheng patiently explained, “There’s lots of scammers nowadays. You should be less trusting.”
Lu Na sniffled, her mascara running and making her eyes look like a panda’s. “You- Why are you butting your nose in…?! My grandfather just took pity on you and picked you up from that garbage transfer ship, and now you just won’t leave! Not only have you been living at our place without paying a dime for months… you’re also meddling in my business…!”
She had drunk too much beer and it had gotten to her head a bit. She was half crying, half hiccuping. Then she felt ashamed and started crying even harder.
Seeing her acting like that, A-Cheng couldn’t help but shake his head with a smile.
He stood up and directly pulled the girl up. “Let’s go, I will carry you back… Grandpa must be getting anxious.”
He had no choice but to carry the crying little girl on his back, walking down the deserted streets for a long while until, finally, a dim yellow light appeared in front of them. It was a plain watch shop.
A fat old man in his sixties or seventies was standing outside the store, looking around with his head up straight.
A-Cheng waved at him from a distance. “Grandpa Lu!”
Grandpa Lu saw the two of them and heaved a long sigh of relief. “Ah, you’re finally back. I was dying from worry.”
The two walked into the store and A-Cheng set Lu Na down on a chair, handing her a rough roll of tissue paper with a smile. “Cry your heart out, there are enough tissues.”
Lu Na turned her head around and glared at him, but did not cry.
Grandpa Lu brought out two hot bowls of braised pork noodles. As he put the noodles on the table, he continued to talk. “Lu Na, why do you keep going to places like that these days? Nightclubs are chaotic places, what should I do if something happened to you? I have to trouble A-Cheng to keep an eye on you every time, ah…”
Lu Na ferociously picked up a piece of braised pork and said loudly, “He obviously just wants to go play mahjong!”
A-Cheng took a bite of noodles, and then blinked innocently. “Lu Na, didn’t you just complain that I was there to control you? Did I go there to play mahjong or to keep an eye on you, then? Can you tell me?”
“You, you are so full of yourself!” Lu Na didn’t know how to respond for a while, her face flushed with anger, but she couldn’t come up with any argument. She had to bow her head down and slurp up her noodles without a word.
“Lu Na, you…” Grandpa Lu sighed, took off his old fashioned glasses that had fogged up from the steam, and wiped them carefully.
He put on his glasses once more and picked up a yellowed plastic photo frame from a low cabinet. “If only your father were still here with us. If he hadn’t been a manipulator, he wouldn’t have joined the Pioneer Project and abandoned us. Your mother wouldn’t have fallen ill from grief…”
Lu Na lowered her head and slurped her noodles, replying vaguely, “I think manipulators are very cool.”
Grandpa Lu snorted. “Hmph, what’s so cool about them? Does being cool put food on the table? You tell me. You’ve been so obsessed with manipulators even since you were a child, and you haven’t learned from what happened with your father… If you want my opinion, I think it’s better to be ordinary. A peaceful life is a good life.”
A-Cheng glanced at the photo frame. In the photo, a family of four people were laughing happily: Grandpa Lu, a young couple, and Lu Na as a child.
The young man in the photo was obviously Lu Na’s father.
A-Cheng had heard Grandpa Lu bring up this topic in the past as well. Over twenty years ago, Grandpa Lu’s only son, Lu Na’s father, had passed the psionic power test and joined the training camp at the White Tower. Afterwards, he joined the Pioneer Project and went off to a new Dyson Cloud.
He never returned.
A-Cheng lowered his eyes and continued to eat the braised pork noodles without saying anything.
After eating the noodles, it had already gotten late. Grandpa Lu rushed Lu Na to her bedroom, and urged A-Cheng to go rest in the attic.
A-Cheng nodded and went up the ladder.
The watch shop wasn’t big, but it was well equipped. Besides the section facing the street, there were two small rooms at the back, Grandpa Lu and Lu Na’s bedrooms. Next to the kitchen, there was a narrow ladder made of iron with a small attic above.
A-cheng—or actually, Fu Yucheng, had been living in the small attic for five months.
Although the attic was small, the bed was still soft. However, Fu Yucheng turned over and over again, unable to sleep.
There was a small square window on one of the attic’s walls. From time to time, a beam of dream-like neon light swept across. Enough light would come through the old plain window pane to light up the opposite wall bright and colorful enough to cause insomnia.
Fu Yucheng rolled over again anxiously, still not feeling drowsy.
He gave up with a sigh and took out a blade from under his pillow.
It was a very strangely shaped scimitar, with a crescent moon-shaped blade, as thin as a piece of paper. In the night of lights and shadow interlacing together, it began to glow brighter, a cold blue light full of killing intent.
Fu Yucheng quietly admired it for a while, and then he threw the scimitar up into the air.
He had thrown this faintly blue blade casually, but, instead of falling, the blade continued to spin calmly in the air, as if there was no gravity.
Fu Yucheng stared at the slowly rotating scimitar, feeling a little lost for a while.
Four years ago, with the help of Mo Ziran, he had managed to recover his psionic power in secret. No one knew about it.
After that, he disguised himself and went from one place to another, collecting all sorts of information while working on the recovery of his psionic power. Finally, he had come to the Ninth Industrial Region.
He had plans: he would participate in the psionic power test that only happened once every four years.
According to the customs of the Central Empire, after the test, the manipulators who meet the standard would be sent to the Tower of Light for intensive training. The day before entering the Tower of Light, the manipulators would meet for a grand assembly to take the pioneer pledge in the Rosebud Square, in front of the White Rose Palace.
And in this assembly, the Prince Regent, Rong Yuan, and his six Light Knights would all be present.
Security in the Ecoregions was extremely strict, and it was very difficult for civilians from the Industrial Regions to enter. It was almost impossible to meet the Imperial Prince and his six Light Knights.
Fu Yucheng had considered his options many times and determined that the pioneer pledge would be the best occasion.
It was the only time when Rong Yuan and his six Knights would all be present at the same time, leaving no fish that could slip through the net.
Fu Yucheng quietly looked up at the blue scimitar slowly rotating in the air while emitting a faint glow.
Under its light, the faint dark green color in the man’s irises seemed like the cold fire of a ghost, chilling to the bone.
Fu Yucheng closed his eyes and thought of a certain person again.
Over the years, he had heard a lot of rumors from all sorts of people2 about an S level Dark Knight: the White Knight.
But rumors, after all, were just rumors, and they should not be taken seriously.
For example, everyone said that this White Knight had a bizarre personality. He would kill people ruthlessly without wavering, and he would never smile.
But the young man in Fu Yucheng’s memories had a very soft, sensitive heart, although he could seem a little cold and awkward on the surface, and would get shy easily.
I don’t know how he… might be doing now.
Back then, the boy had been seriously injured, and those words of his, ‘I like you’, had been so fragile and soft that they seemed like a snowflake that might drift away in the wind.
However, after so many years had gone by, this trembling and desperate confession often lingered in Fu Yucheng’s ears when he dreamed of the past in the middle of the night.
What must the boy have thought when he woke up to find himself in a cold laboratory?
Was he sad? Was he hurt? Did he resent me?
He must have.
I promised him so many things, and I failed to fulfill every single promise.
However, after four years, the teenager’s ignorant, youthful adoration, as well as his resentment after being heartlessly abandoned, must have faded little by little.
Love and resentment, when young, tend to be extremely sincere and enthusiastic, but they come and go easily, and they usually can’t be taken seriously.
I hope so at least.
Fu Yucheng closed his eyes.
If… if my plan goes well, after everything happens and all the dust settles, I will try to find the boy and explain myself to him.
Of course, if the plan fails… then there’ll be nothing to say.
However, before the psionic power test, there was someone he had to meet. It was one of the main, most important reasons why he had gone to the Ninth Industrial Region.
Over the years, he had gone through many channels and taken a lot of trouble to inquire about the whereabouts of a certain individual, someone he had originally thought was dead.
His senior and his teacher’s only son, Lin Su.
In which we see Fu Yucheng’s EQ hasn’t improved much.
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