Who says those who retire at the speed of light are not heroes?

"Go to the bathroom."

"Oh……"

Lin Cheng walked out of the bathroom and looked at the girl lying on the sofa. "Why aren't you asleep yet? Why don't you go to bed?"

But Xu Linglan did not answer Lin Cheng's question. She sat up from the sofa and looked at Lin Cheng in front of her. He was hidden in the darkness in front of her. Perhaps it was because of this that the girl gained some courage.

"I...have something to apologize to you for."

"apologize?"

"Um……"

"what's wrong?"

"When you don't know, I often use my ability to trace back your past..."

"what?"

"I'm sorry." Xu Linglan's voice was serious.

Lin Cheng scratched his head, "Why apologize for something like this?"

"It is very impolite to pry into other people's privacy..."

"It seems so." Lin Cheng thought for a moment, "If you cook me green pepper and shredded pork noodles tomorrow morning, I will reluctantly forgive you."

The girl in front of him was speechless for a long time. Lin Cheng felt helpless. Looking at the girl who was sitting obediently on the sofa with her head lowered, he said softly, "So you should go to the bed. I promised your sister that I would take good care of you. It's not right to let you sleep on the sofa."

"No, no need..."

"Be obedient." Lin Cheng came in front of her and stretched out his hand towards her.

....................................

"I... am scared alone." Xu Linglan's voice was very soft. Lin Cheng turned around and smiled helplessly, "Scared?"

"Well, I woke up from a nightmare before, and I always worry about having another nightmare when I sleep alone..." Xu Linglan hugged the quilt and looked at Lin Cheng standing beside the bed. Lin Cheng hesitated for a few seconds, "Then I'll accompany you."

He still slept next to Xu Linglan, covered with the air-conditioning quilt, with the classic striped cat between them. Xu Linglan wrapped herself tightly and closed her eyes, but after a while she opened her eyes again and asked softly, "Are you cold?"

"No, it's okay."

"Let's change the quilt. Your bed is too thin."

“It’s not cold at all.”

"I'll give you half."

Xu Linglan still gave him half of the quilt, and now the two of them huddled in the same quilt. There was still heat in the quilt, and the girl beside him had a faint fragrance that was hard to describe.

Girls who love cleanliness are all sweet and soft creatures, and they always have all kinds of pleasant scents on their bodies.

Lin Cheng always felt something was wrong. He had promised Xu Wanyue that he would solve the problem properly, but now he was sleeping in the same bed with Xu Linglan. What was this? But how could he refuse the little request of the girl who was worried and scared at midnight? Lin Cheng thought so and just closed his eyes when he heard Xu Linglan whispered, "Can I... hold you while you sleep?"

This soft tone is totally different from that of the arrogant girl who was bullying at home before.

"Hold me." Lin Cheng answered weakly.

Sure enough, people's bottom line is broken step by step. Since they are lying on the same bed, it's okay to think about hugging. Since they are hugging, then... Sure enough, the next second Xu Linglan's legs clamped him like a little crab.

"You and your sister look alike."

"Ok?"

"Your sister likes to hold me like this when she sleeps."

"Because... I feel safe." Xu Linglan pressed her cheek against his arm, rubbed her little face against his shoulder, and her voice was filled with sweetness.

Lin Cheng could only close his eyes helplessly.

....................................

The next day.

When Lin Cheng woke up, there was no one around him. He was not used to it. Xu Linglan kicked the quilt several times last night, and Lin Cheng had to keep pulling the quilt to cover both of them. But even after kicking the quilt, she still held him tightly, with her soft breasts against his arms, and the fragrance on her body almost seeped into his body.

He got up from the bed and went to the kitchen, where he saw a girl in a black nightgown and apron carefully stir-frying shredded pork with green peppers in a pan.

"It will be fine in a moment." Hearing the footsteps, Xu Linglan turned around with a sweet smile.

"Oh, OK." Lin Cheng went to brush his teeth and wash his face, and when he came out, he heard a knock on the door. He curiously asked Xu Linglan if she had bought anything. Xu Linglan shook her head, so Lin Cheng walked to the door, opened it, and standing outside was a completely unfamiliar... woman?

In a flash.

Lin Cheng's energy core was fully activated by him, and the ability to analyze fate emerged in his eyes. He began to deconstruct the woman in front of him.

The woman had medium-length hair and wore a loose white robe that completely covered her body. Her cheeks were incredibly beautiful, but Lin Cheng suddenly realized that he was wrong. He was not a woman, but a man. No, to be precise, he was a man before.

His body was covered with many marks of rules, which were forcibly added by the distortion of reality.

"Hello, Siming." Yun Qiu looked at Lin Cheng in front of him, the corners of his mouth slowly curled up, revealing a gentle smile.

..........................................

"You, are Yun Qiu?" Lin Cheng quickly guessed his identity.

"Yes." Yun Qiu nodded gently, "Please allow me to explain why I'm here. I want to take the girl who is in the kitchen away."

"Impossible." Lin Cheng shook his head.

"How about using the lives of all the ordinary people in City A to exchange for it?" Yun Qiu's expression was very calm, and he didn't seem to have much desire to take action. Lin Cheng looked at his face, "Why?"

"If you hand her over to me, everyone in City A will survive. If you keep her... everyone in City A will die. I'll only give you ten seconds."

"ten."

"Nine."

"What are you going to do?"

Yun Qiu simply raised his hand, and a small ball of black liquid soon appeared in his hand. He looked at Lin Cheng in front of him and said softly, "Humans are very fragile. Their existence is as fragile as white paper, and only a tiny bit of energy is needed to destroy it. The virus in this small ball can easily stop an adult's heart within ten seconds. It can spread through the air, divide and reproduce infinitely. It only takes ten minutes for everyone in City A to die."

"Of course, you can also try to kill me, but I have already placed this virus in a corner of the city and wrapped it with energy. Once it loses my energy supply, it will be activated immediately, and the ending will be the same."

"What do you want her to do?"

"Her abilities are the same as mine. Don't worry, I don't want to kill her or do to her what humans did to me. I just want to teach her to become a qualified reality bender. I'm just... too lonely and want someone like me to be my friend."

"She won't agree to go with you. Is this how you make friends?"

"These things are unimportant. When she sees the boring truth of this world, she will also feel lonely. At that time...she will understand that we are the only kind of people, and only we are eternal."

"You have the opportunity to be a good person, why do you want to be a madman?" Lin Cheng took out a sparkling core and fed it into his mouth in front of Yun Qiu.

"It seems that he refused... What a pity, but speaking of it, I am indeed curious about what the power of destiny is... Why can you replicate my reality distortion, but I can't replicate your destiny?"

"You will know the answer soon."

Lin Cheng's eyes suddenly flashed with purple light, and in an instant the dazzling purple light enveloped the two of them, and their bodies disappeared instantly at this moment.

Lin Cheng was still mumbling something.

"This is my duel!"

..........................................

Yun Qiu looked around.

Lin Cheng brought him to a dark space. The two of them were suspended in the space. Yun Qiu sensed it for a moment and suddenly understood, "This is... the world you created by distorting reality, right?"

"Yes." Lin Cheng answered his question patiently.

"Once it loses my energy supply, the virus will explode directly." Yun Qiu reminded kindly.

"The world here has nothing to do with the outside world. When we return to the outside world, only one second has passed. At that time, I only need to trace back everything about you and find the location of the virus."

Yun Qiu thought for a moment and nodded slightly. "That makes sense, but among reality twisters, as long as they deliberately block it, you can't trace back to my past, so you need to kill me first before you can trace me back. So... how are you going to kill me?"

“Just try them all.”

The moment Lin Cheng said this, the knife in his hand had already pierced Yun Qiu's chest, but the blade passed through his chest very easily. Not to mention the blood, Lin Cheng didn't even feel the slightest touch, as if he had pierced only an illusion.

"I am a pure energy body without flesh and blood." Yun Qiu replied calmly.

"You're so generous as to tell me?"

"To prevent you from making any more meaningless attempts. After all, it looks stupid." Yun Qiu replied softly, "Since the time here is infinite, does that mean we have a lot of time to chat?"

"chat?"

"Yeah... I like chatting with the same beings like you."

"We are different."

"That's not much different. From what I can see, you are not a human either. You are a solid entity made of the flesh and blood of the abyss. You only have human thoughts and consciousness, and all your emotions are simulated. You and I are very similar."

"Like?"

"That year, the people who imprisoned and tortured me died, and I finally regained consciousness, but I had already gone mad by then. All I had left was the most instinctive desire to attack as an animal, so I began to indiscriminately destroy everything I saw around me, and at the same time began to absorb their memories. Only then did I gradually feel part of being a human again, and joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and desire began to surge in my body again."

"After absorbing so many memories, will you still be you?"

"Those things are no longer important. Everything in the past is always there, but it can no longer hold me back from moving forward. After finally coming to my senses from madness, I began to think about my place in this world."

Yun Qiu's expression was very gentle from beginning to end, and there was no sign of madness at all.

303 Madness

"Location?"

"Yeah." Yun Qiu nodded gently. He snapped his fingers, and two chairs suddenly appeared in the dark space. He sat down, and Lin Cheng sat down as well. Then Yun Qiu continued, "What role should a being like me play in this world? I thought about it for a long time but couldn't come up with the answer to the question."

"So I went into seclusion and tried to carry on as a normal person."

"and then?"

"I failed." Yun Qiu's voice finally showed some emotion. "I can no longer live as a human being like before. I can no longer be controlled by emotions or carried away by desires. I don't know why I was born or why I died, so I started to play various roles. I used to like playing a game where I killed a person, took away his memory, and then lived his life in his place."

"What's so interesting about this game?" Lin Cheng didn't quite understand.

"I don't know. I did find it very interesting in the past. I killed a middle-aged man who was doing nothing, had accomplished nothing, and was only a drunkard and a domestic abuser. I took over his life and suddenly he became nicer to his wife and gentler to his daughter. I made a lot of money to buy expensive jewelry for his wife and gave his daughter a lot of pocket money. After a year or two, his wife felt that she was the happiest woman in the world, and his daughter changed from being inferior and timid to being confident and proud..."

"And then?" Lin Cheng began to wonder about the ending of the story.

"Then I told them the truth. They were shocked at first, but soon they accepted the reality and me. The wife still thought I was her husband, and the daughter still thought I was a good father. They soon forgot about the middle-aged man and accepted me."

"It would be nice if the story ended here." Lin Cheng said lightly.

"But then I got tired of it, so I left."

"It seems good to just leave like this."

"No." Yun Qiu shook his head. "Before I left, I killed the mother and daughter."

"why?"

"Because I have a sadistic fetish, I get excited when I see them begging for mercy. This is one of the few things that can make me feel the ups and downs of emotions."

"It makes sense that people who have been abused for a long time in childhood would want to become abusers when they grow up."

"I first defiled my daughter in front of her mother, and then begged for forgiveness from them, but my mother and my daughter actually forgave me. Unfortunately, I didn't need their forgiveness. I killed my daughter in front of my wife, strangling her to death when she was at the peak of her excitement. Later, my wife begged for mercy, and I told her that as long as she was willing to eat out my daughter's eyes, I would let her live..."

"Stop." Lin Cheng interrupted Yun Qiu's narration, "I don't want to hear your narration of your perverted fetish."

"Doesn't this make you more determined to kill me?" The hint of mockery on Yun Qiu's face returned, and his features became gentle again.

"Whether you tell this story or not, I will kill you today. People like you should not exist in this world."

"Then why do you want to protect that girl? Because she is your girlfriend's sister, right? You are always unwilling to accept your true existence. It is clear that you have lost your human heart just like me, but you keep choosing to deceive yourself with lies. What can you gain from this? Peace?"

"What is the purpose of protecting her? Is it because of your love for her sister? How ridiculous! Have you ever told them the truth? You said that you are no longer human, but a creature of the abyss. What an interesting secret! Siming, who once faced the abyss to protect humans, has now become the same as the abyss."

"What's important is not what I am." Lin Cheng looked into his eyes calmly, "but what I think I am."

"How long can you deceive yourself with your lies?" Yun Qiu said softly, "I originally prepared a way to kill you, but now it seems that method doesn't seem to work."

"Oh?"

Yun Qiu snapped his fingers again, and a small black ball appeared in the air in an instant and merged into Lin Cheng's body. The small ball contained human despair, the sum of the fear, hatred and pain of the 60,000 people killed by Yun Qiu before...

He gathered all these emotions together, but unfortunately, as long as Lin Cheng turned off his senses, these emotions would not affect him at all. However, this trick was indeed a good way to kill people. If this small ball was integrated into a normal human body, his senses would completely collapse at that moment, and he would become a madman. Perhaps in the next second, the only thing left in his head would be the thought of dying.

"So this is the purpose of killing those 60,000 people?"