A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 116 Deserted City and Tomb
As dusk deepened, the wasteland-like city sank into a magnificent orange-red. Quinn looked at the girl in his arms, and his trembling hands slowly clenched into fists.

He took a deep breath.

Quinn, calm down. Calm down.
This is not her.

She spoke Tamil, and my cognition was disturbed by the abyss. This world is fake, it is my imagination.

"Celia, wake up."

"—Celia?"

Even the playful tone is so similar.

The girl raised her head from his arms in dissatisfaction: "Who is Celia?"

"who are you?"

Quinn asked calmly. His face was expressionless, neither happy nor surprised.

"--ha?"

Celia slipped out of Quinn's arms, her pretty face slightly wrinkled.

".I'm going to get angry."

Quinn already knew the answer. Without saying anything, he walked straight past Celia and headed out the door.

"Hey, why are you so cold?"

Celia's voice was already tinged with anger, but the girl who grew up in the Eastwell Music Tavern would never react in such an arrogant way.

"Hey- Quinn!!"

Quinn laughed. It was an illusion.

Although my name was taken away by the system, my name is not Quinn on Earth.

He walked up to the Rolls-Royce parked at the door. This industrial luxury car worth tens of millions was burning with flames. It would not be long before it was burned to a frame.

There was no one in the driver's seat and the driver was nowhere to be found.

The scorching heat wave rushed towards him, but Quinn was not afraid at all. He continued to move closer until the heat became unbearable. Then he raised his hand and slowly explored -

Then it quickly shrank back.

Looking at the layer of skin on my fingers that was burned off by the flames, I felt the stinging pain very clearly in my brain. This flame was not fake.

Quinn frowned. It wasn't entirely an illusion.
He looked around and walked towards the high school.

"Hey! Quinn! Are you listening to me? Why are you being so cold and violent—"

Celia chased after him angrily and tried to grab his clothes, so Quinn simply took off the tuxedo that he had bought for 80 yuan on Taobao with free shipping. She grabbed the clothes and stomped her feet hard.

"I'll count to three! If you don't come back, we'll break up!"

"3!"

"2!"

"1!! 1 bastard Quinn!!!"

In front of Quinn were empty streets and roads.

The overpass collapsed, blocking the way ahead, but he flipped over lightly. The Transcendent's physical strength was still there, and the reinforced concrete ruins were no obstacle.

The high-rise buildings on both sides collapsed or became dilapidated, and the prosperous city looked like a doomsday scene. The setting sun leaked in from the cracks in the China World Trade Center, shining warmly on my back and stretching my shadow very long.

The world is clean and lonely.

The steel beams fell diagonally at the intersection, and the traffic lights were half submerged in a pit of water. Although the power lines were broken, the lights were still flashing, switching between red, yellow and green, illuminating the weeds that were breaking out of the cracks in the asphalt.

Quinn walked slowly, looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar street scenes while silently calculating the time.

thirty minutes.

Quinn once privately asked Amamiya Ningning what would happen if her cognition was disturbed, and she replied that she had never experienced it.

The little witch was already a magician when she came to Grindelwald. Her mental strength was far beyond that of ordinary people, enough to resist the interference of the first and second layers of the abyss, but she had never been to the deeper levels.

But as far as she knew, this interference was like a dream, full of illusions, memories, bizarre things, and incoherent experiences.
Just like the world before his eyes.

If you sink into disturbed cognition and suffer mental trauma, you will be polluted by the abyss.

psychological trauma
Quinn turned around and looked at Celia who was stumbling over the ruins of the overpass in the distance.

"Tsk."

He shook his head and continued walking towards the school.

Although this Celia was wearing her clothes, she spoke Tamilan and her appearance remained unchanged.

Quinn couldn't be sure if this was a fantasy or the real Celia.

The best way to deal with it is to just leave it there and ignore it.

It's only half an hour anyway, so just get through it.

When he saw the armor and the gray fog, Quinn was still wondering whether a demon castle would appear in the abyss.

Finally, I was sent back to Earth.

Occasionally, vehicles can be seen on the roadside. Those that were not burned have become rusty scrap metal. The gaps between the windows and hoods are filled with dust and flowers.

Quite romantic, Quinn thought.

It feels like a wasteland, yet vibrant. The city feels abandoned by humans yet reclaimed by nature. Drinks and creepers can be seen in the convenience store windows, while the mall's electronic screens are covered in snow, partially obscured by long-untrimmed landscape trees.
The setting sun was exceptionally large, taking up half the sky and painting everything a crimson crimson. There was no moon or stars in the sky, only the desolate and vast sunlight.

"Quinn, Quinn—"

Celia caught up.

Her knees were bleeding, and she seemed to have fallen while climbing over the rubble, and she was panting.

"What's wrong with you? Did Brother Chen scold you at work?" His voice was no longer angry, but became cautious instead.

"It's my fault that I didn't notice you were unhappy."

Quinn still didn't look back.

Seeing that he didn't answer, the girl had no choice but to follow him in silence.

The two of them walked one after the other and arrived in front of a magnificent school.

Even in the dilapidated city, the gate in front of us still looks so imposing, more magnificent than a university, like the Arc de Triomphe moved from Paris, and we can't wait to hang the big words "Sacred Heart High School" in the sky.

The gate is intact, but there are some cracks on the reliefs on both sides. The left side is engraved with the earth, a rocket and an astronaut floating in space, and the crack runs through it, making people feel that the poor astronaut will never return to Earth.

Quinn raised his foot and kicked down the electric retractable door blocking the school gate.

Behind her, Celia was genuinely startled. Even though the iron railings were rusty, how could a normal person knock them down with one kick? The noise from the kick was like a car crash.

"How did you become so strong?" She tried to change the subject.

Quinn still ignored her, walking on the school road covered with fallen leaves, humming softly.

"I'm going to blow up the school. The teacher doesn't know. Once the string is pulled, I'll run."

A deflated basketball was stuck in the basketball net.

The pool was covered with moss.

The stadium looked like it had been bombed, with a deep, charred pit inside covered in grass.

The school's iconic old clock tower collapsed, crushing the tennis court that Quinn had never set foot on during his three years of high school. Big Ben on the top of the tower was still ticking, with only one lone second remaining, hitting the rubber surface of the tennis court over and over again, bouncing back, trying to move forward, and bouncing back again.
This goes on and on, as if time is trapped in this dusk.

There was a teaching building that was still relatively intact. Quinn walked in and found a notice wall.

The paper on the notice wall has faded, but fortunately it is covered by glass and has not been weathered. The handwriting on the paper can be vaguely recognized.

Congratulations to our 2012 student Liu Xinyu, who achieved a score of 634 on the Jianghai City College Entrance Examination (Gaokao) and was admitted to the Department of Mathematics at Tsinghua University.
Here are a bunch of famous foreign universities, including Toronto, Stanford, and Zurich.
Liu Xinyu is Quinn's senior from the previous class.

Like him, he was a top student specially recruited by Sacred Heart College. After winning the top spot in science, he received a one-million-dollar scholarship from the school.

Quinn didn't take the college entrance examination on the last day, but barely managed to get into a key university.

His eyes flickered. Was the timeline in the hallucination his senior year of high school?
Immediately, he looked at the commendation list of senior high school students.

The first place student's name has faded. 659 points, first in the grade.

Quinn knew it was him, maybe the color hadn't faded, but his name wasn't in his memory.

But strangely, the second place's name also faded.

After that, the names and scores of the students from third place up to the top 100 in the grade were all printed neatly on paper. The printers at Sacred Heart High School are high-end products, and even the ink is imported, so the quality shouldn't be that bad.

He stood in front of the notice wall for a long time, and finally turned and left.

Since it was a dream, he wanted to go somewhere and take a look.

He passed by Celia who was waiting behind him.

Celia tugged at the corner of her clothes tightly and smiled at him ingratiatingly.

As the harsh footsteps gradually faded away, the forced smile finally collapsed. She didn't understand what she had done wrong and cried out in grievance.

The two of them had never quarreled. Every time she got angry and Quinn came to comfort her. She had never cried so helplessly as she did today.

Quinn's pace remained indifferent.

The two of them were like complete strangers.

After a while, the girl finally caught up while sobbing.

"Why...why are you angry? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come to you when you were at work. I was wrong. Please don't use the cold violence, okay? I just wanted to see you."

"Where are you going?"

Quinn paused.

"Want to go on a date?"

The girl was stunned for a moment, then she wiped the tear marks on her face vigorously. Her makeup was smudged and she squatted down again, half of her face buried in her elbows, revealing her red eyes from crying.

".think."

"Let's go then."

Without saying a word of comfort, Quinn hummed a song and left the campus. Celia caught up with him slowly. She had stopped crying and had even fixed her makeup.

Celia never wore makeup in Grindelwald, and the girl didn't even seem to have any cosmetics.

But at this moment, she looked very delicate. Even though she cried for a while, it did not affect her foundation and eye shadow too much. It can be seen that she dressed up well for Quinn.

But where can one find cosmetics in this wasteland-like world?

The answer was self-evident. Quinn had already recalled the day it happened. She had been wearing the same makeup when she came to see him that day. However, he had not agreed to go on a date that time. There was a piano performance in the evening, and he didn't want to change shifts at the last minute to cause trouble for the manager.

Quinn, a senior in high school, has become an independent pianist, and his salary at Nordic Fantasy has reached 500 yuan per night.

At that time, he had a more lucrative tutoring job and was no longer so short of money, but because of Nordic Fantasy's manager Brother Chen, he continued to perform for the club. Even when he went to college, he would go back to help from time to time until Brother Chen left Nordic Fantasy to develop abroad.

He stopped at the school gate. About fifteen minutes had passed. If he wanted to take Celia to that place, the time was not enough.

So he looked at the shared bicycles that had fallen to the side, walked over and started picking them up.

Most of the bicycles had flat tires, but fortunately this was in the city center, and the shared bike company was very diligent in replacing bikes. Many of the bikes on the road were new with intact paint, so the frames weren't seriously rusted.

Finally, Quinn found a car with some air still in the wheel, broke the lock with his bare hands, and pushed it out.

"boarding."

Celia asked blankly, "Where do I sit?"

This shared bike doesn't have a back seat, so Quinn said calmly, "You sit on it, and I'll push you."

".ha?"

"I can run by myself. You can't catch up with me."

"Can't you just walk slowly?"

"In a hurry."

The girl murmured "Oh" softly and sat on the car mat with her legs together.

Quinn held the handlebars with one hand and the back of the bike mat with the other, pushed the bike sideways onto the road, and then ran towards the sunset on the empty road.

Her face flushed a little, and the hand holding the car mat would inevitably touch her when she ran and shook. Although there were many ambiguous actions between them because of her boldness, it had not developed to that point.

It wasn't because she didn't want to, but because Quinn wouldn't touch her. Even when they were taking extra classes in their room with the door locked, they would just use their hands when the mood was right. He had always wanted to wait until later, until the college entrance exams were over so they could go to the same university.

"Quinn, my dad agreed that you can go to London with me. Don't worry about the tuition, he will help you pay."

Quinn gave a neutral "hmm."

The wind wrapped around her. She didn't expect Quinn to be able to run so fast. The sadness of seventeen years old was always like the clouds in the sky, which turned into bright joy when blown by the wind.

The two of them shuttled through the bustling city center of Jianghai. The ruins of buildings and wildly growing green plants flashed before their eyes. The bicycle squeaked, the girl's hair flew, and her words gradually became more frequent.

"Zhang Zihan from Class 2 came to me again today to ask for my WeChat. I heard he dumped his ex-girlfriend after she got pregnant."

"Yesterday at dinner, my dad told me that if I didn't get a 7 on the IELTS, I'd have to pay a hefty sponsorship fee to attend that school. I asked him if I passed, and if he could give me the sponsorship fee as a bonus, he told me I was being naive. Hehe."

"My brother and the school team made it to the finals, but I heard the two foreign players we hired from the sports school can't play because city leaders are coming to watch and there will be reporters covering the event. I think they'll get beaten badly by No. 20 Middle School in the finals, but I still have to go cheer them on. If they can't win on the court, they can win off it. The girls in our school are much prettier than those at No. 20 Middle School. The student union said they're going to order uniforms and get autographs from CBA teams."

"Let's go together. My brother and you have such a good relationship. If we lose, you can go and comfort him."

She spoke softly, her eyes fixed on the man beside her. Quinn simply responded with a nonchalant "yes" or "hmm."

"Are you wearing a wig? You look so mature, like a great pianist."

"Actually, I think you should apply to the music department. You play the piano so well. If you study for another four years at university, you will definitely be able to shock Europe. Absolutely."

"Hey, my dad wants you to study market management and securities, and become our family's professional manager in the future."

"Don't worry, grandma. My mom has connections. She can get her an insurance policy. We can use the insurance to pay for the hospital stay when we go abroad."

"."

"Quinn, you're going to college with me, right?"

She originally wanted to say, "You will be with me forever, right?", but she still said it with a hint of shyness.

Quinn was panting slightly, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

The setting sun was about to sink into the earth. He did not answer. In the girl's expectant silence, the bicycle stopped at the entrance of a garden with dense vegetation.

"arrive."

Seeing that he didn't answer, Celia had to get out of the car in a depressed mood, but when she saw him panting from pushing her, her anger was replaced by satisfaction.

"Where is this?"

Quinn walked into the garden. Although he did not answer the question, he seemed to suddenly become talkative and said slowly:
"I specifically found this place. Although it's a bit far from the city center, fortunately, after the lights are turned off in the second half of the night, the surrounding light pollution is not that serious. When the weather is good, you can see the Summer Triangle and Orion."

He walked along the cobblestone path into the depths of the garden.

There were tombstones neatly arranged around, all covered with weeds. Even in the sunset, it looked a bit eerie. The girl followed Quinn nervously, listening to what he said.

"The air is pretty good. I come here once a month to sweep the floor and stuff. The annual management fee is over 3,000 yuan, which is a bit expensive, but it's not bad. It's pretty clean every time I come. It doesn't really need cleaning, but I always dream of you telling me it's dirty, so I come over."

As they chattered away, the two stopped in front of the only clean tombstone in the garden.

The half hour is almost over.

".Who the hell are you talking to?"

Quinn turned and looked at the confused girl.

"Who are you?" he repeated his previous question.

".Mi Yutong."

The girl whispered.

So Quinn stepped aside.

Let her see the name on the tombstone clearly.

"I didn't come last month because of something. Now I come to see you."

(End of this chapter)