by <unknown>
"That's right!"
"Old Si" smiled even more brilliantly. "When it came to shooting the bottoms of girls, I was not as good as you, but when it came to shooting the lizards, you were no match for me at all, Brother Zhicheng!"
"Yes. You got dozens of lizards every time. Then, we would stab them with a skewer and roast them on fire. How succulent they were! The tasteless cans could not be compared to them at all!"
Xu Zhicheng closed his eyes while tears were flowing out. "Old Si, do you still remember where your slingshot went to in the end?"
"Old Si" shook his head and said, "It's been too many years. Who can remember that?"
"Yes, I've lost my slingshot, too."
Xu Zhicheng licked his dry lips and said in reminiscences, "But I can't forget the taste of the roasted lizards in my entire life. How greasy and enjoyable they were! I really would like to have a meal of them again, but it's a shame that all the mines and tunnels have been cleaned up during the decades of expansion of the Great Iron Plants. It's been a long time since any lizards were found, hasn't it?"
"Yes."
"Old Si" said, "The children today are truly unlucky. Living their entire life without having the privilege to enjoy a mouthful of roasted lizards, that's really… Well, Brother Zhicheng…"
Old Si was not sure what Xu Zhicheng meant.
After talking about his father, his slingshot, and the roasted lizards, Xu Zhicheng, the Grand Guardian of Nepenthe, was silent for a long time. He then coughed lightly and said, "Old Si, tell me the truth. Do you regret following Brother Zhicheng on this path?"
"Old Si" shook his head quickly without any hesitation. "I don't! I never have! We couldn't have survived the goddamn Immortal Cultivators after all, and we would die whether we fought or not. Right now, we have at least killed a lot of Immortal Cultivators before we die!
"Never in my life did I think that I would have a chance to fight the Immortal Cultivators to my heart's content before I die. It's certainly worth it even if I have to die a hundred times!
"Brother Zhicheng, I know what you are thinking. Just rest assured. Everybody knew that this was coming. None of the brothers here blame you. Even if everything were to restart from the beginning, we would've done the same and killed the Immortal Cultivators with you!"
Xu Zhicheng laughed. "Well said, kill all of the damn Immortal Cultivators! I know that nobody regrets doing that. I never have, either. But what I'm asking is something else—about Nepenthe. Do you regret establishing Nepenthe with me?"
The carefree smile of "Old Si" was frozen. He hesitated for a long time but managed to reply, "There… There's nothing to regret. What's done is done. Under the circumstances at that time, we didn't have a second choice at all. When an opportunity knocks on the door, you have to grasp it. If we hadn't done it, we would still be the mud under their feet in the next five hundred years!
"I don't regret it! I don't regret it!"
"But I am more or less regretful. No, I'm rather scared."
The cracks in Xu Zhicheng's eyes turned into glistening ripples as he mumbled, "I feel that I had a long, long sleep, but I did not have any dream, not even a nightmare. I was never scared until I woke up from the sleep.
"It's been… a very, very long time since I recalled my father and my mother.
"It's also been a long time since I remembered the things in my childhood. It's odd that, although our childhood was so insufferable, with barely any food and entertainment, and we had to help the adults with their work in the factories every day, I can't remember any of the exhaustion and sufferings now. All I remember are the happy things.
"There are also my two boys, the chaps who were as excellent as when we were little. I thought that the 'Serenity Arts' could help me completely forget the pain of losing them. But as it turned out, before I forgot the pain of losing them, I had almost forgotten all the happy times we spent together.
"Thankfully, the moment before I completely forgot them, somebody woke me and everybody up in time. It was really dangerous. So close. We were so close to forgetting everything. How to make slingshots, how to shoot the lizards… You haven't forgotten them yet, Old Si, have you?"
"No, even though I haven't done them for decades, I still remember it clearly."
"Old Si" said with great delight, "Brother Zhicheng, you might not know this, but shooting lizards is not just about watching and listening. There is a trick that I haven't passed on to anybody else yet. Let… Let me tell you about it today!"
Old Si leaned to Xu Zhicheng's ears and whispered for a moment. The more Xu Zhicheng listened, the wider his eyes became. He exclaimed in an epiphany, "Old Si, that's really something! You are really an evil boy!"
The two old men who were both more than fifty years old burst into laughter, confusing the other prisoners in the cell.
"Old Si—"
Xu Zhicheng laughed for such a long time that his dirty tears were running out on his face. He asked again, "Your daughter and grandson escaped, didn't they? Do you have their news?"
"Yes, they both did. There's no news about them. They must've evaded the Immortal Cultivators."
"Old Si" replied, "Nowadays, no news is the best news. We've stalled the enemy long enough here for them to escape to the places deeper where the Immortal Cultivators are unwilling to go. As for the future, it… it will all depend on their own luck!"
"That's good, that's good. Just rest assured. While it is not easy for a human to live, it won't be easy for them to die as long as they can grit their teeth. Our ancestors persisted below the ground for ten thousand years. Maybe our offspring can persist for another ten thousand years. Who knows?"
Xu Zhicheng sighed and said, "Old Si, neither of us has forgotten our fathers and the good old days, and your children have successfully escaped, too. So, who says that we have lost the battle? In my opinion, we have won. At the very least, our children will no longer suffer the slavery and torment of the Great Iron Plants, will they?"
"Old Si" was stunned for a moment. Then he slapped his thigh and grinned. "Yes, you're right, Brother Zhicheng. We have won. Our children will never be enslaved and tortured by the Great Iron Plants and the Immortal Cultivators again!"
Hearing the answer that he wanted to hear, Xu Zhicheng closed his eyes in satisfaction and began to whistle something fuzzily.
His younger workmates did not know what exactly he was singing. Only the older generation, including "Old Si", after listening for a long time, finally recalled that the rhythm sounded like a song that their fathers used to sing to them a long, long time ago when they were still kids.
The lyrics had been lost in the river of time, but the familiar rhythm was still deeply buried in everyone's heart.
Huala!
The door of the dark cell was opened violently, and a cold voice barged in. "Everybody, out!"
What responded to the demand was the old lullaby that everybody was echoing together.
Chapter 2410: Arriving Attackers! |
In the square at the center of the Great Iron Plants that was facing the geothermal well, illuminated by the scorching flames and observed by countless workers, the hundred leaders of Nepenthe were escorted out.
After days of consecutive interrogation, their bodies had been damaged to different extents. Some were only able to stagger forward by supporting each other. Their heavy manacles left earsplitting noises and feeble sparks when they were dragged on the ground.
However, there was neither the fear for the upcoming death nor the nonchalance when they practiced the Serenity Arts on their faces; only vague delight and relief could be seen now.
Everybody whistled the old and warm tunes while they walked to their doom, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, leaving their final smiles to the workers around.
Different from the soul-stirring battle hymn that Li Yao played above the Great Iron Plants more than half a month ago, the tunes were extremely low and lethargic, like a piece of coal that had not entirely burnt out
in the amber, but they were filled with unimaginably touching power.
After the failure of the riot, the workers who volunteered to stay had already lost their hope. Dragging their tired bodies, they sent themselves to the assembly lines and the mines at the mercy of the Immortal Cultivators.
But what they were seeing before their eyes—the smile of Xu Zhicheng, "Old Si", and the rest of them, as well as their soft tunes—woke up the dormant minds of the workers again. It was almost like a handful of sugar mixed with salt, bringing back complicated feelings again.
There was no telling who started it first, but very soon, all the workers were whistling in a low voice, echoing with Xu Zhicheng and the rest of them.
Perhaps they had long forgotten the lyrics. Perhaps even the rhythms they remembered were blurred. Some of the young workers had even never heard of the rhythms before. However, the rhythms had been carved on their genes since a very long time ago, and all they needed to do was to summon their courage and stop constricting their throats. Then, the music would naturally flow out on its own.
The warm tunes, however, gave the Immortal Cultivators frigid coldness.
Li Minghui had never seen such a scene before. Even the captivating battle hymn in the riot of Nepenthe half a month ago seemed not nearly as creepy and terrifying as the workers' chant that bordered on murmur right now.
"No singing! No singing!"
The Immortal Cultivators waved their electromagnetic whips, raising dazzling balls of lightning in the midair, while they shouted at the loudest of their voices.
The tunes, however, were like a peaceful ocean that soon drowned the few tiny sparks.
Now that the workers already did not have any hope, they were certainly not scared of the threat of the Immortal Cultivators anymore.
Li Minghui, on the other, did not really dare to kill all of the disobedient workers. Most of the workers had escaped, and new workers and spiritual puppets were not so easy to be gathered. Those people were the only available labor in his hands right now. It was already terribly difficult to accomplish the production missions issued by Yue Wushuang. If he irrigated the workers, resulting in the failure of the missions, even he would get killed because of those lowly swine!
Li Minghui could only grit his teeth and ordered his subordinates and the battle puppets to try to separate the workers and not give them a chance to gather. Then, he asked the executioners to do their job as quickly as possible in case there was any more trouble. He had prepared an elaborate, thrilling speech, but it seemed now that he could only give it after the captives' heads were chopped off.
Such was exactly the situation in the Great Iron Plants, where desolation and chaos coexisted contradictorily like an ocean before a storm or a volcano that was about to have an eruption.
Everything was observed clearly by the ambushers who were hiding in an inconspicuous mine on the southwest side of the Great Iron Plants.
The locations of the new firing points in the Great Iron Plants, as well as the number and patrolling routes of the elites of the Imperial Guards and the devil huntresses, turned into waterfall-like data and glittering maps that popped up on the crystal processors next to the ambushers.
The young man with a headful of golden hair, who was carrying a heavy anti-shield sniper rifle, locked onto one firing point after another and set up the corresponding shooting parameters. With dense sweat leaking out of his forehead, he asked anxiously, "Sister Long, Grand Guardian Xu and the rest of them are about to be executed by the Immortal Cultivators. How much longer do we have to wait before rescuing them?"
"I have told you countless times on the way here, and I will say it one last time. We are not here to rescue but to kill. If you want to rescue anyone, go down and do it on your own!"
Long Yangjun had piled and knitted her long black hair on the back of her head. Biting a bluish dagger in her mouth, her face was as cold as iron. "There are so many elites of the Imperial Guards and the devil huntresses that are supervised by Yue Wushuang, the leader of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils. How do you propose to rescue them?
"Don't ever underestimate Yue Wushuang. Although she has never been the most famous expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage over the past decades, it is mostly because of the feebleness of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils.
"Judging from her battle performance in the past few months, she is certainly a mysterious, unpredictable, and brutal warrior. The achievements of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils on the studies of tenebrum energy in the past hundreds of years have all been focused on her.
"How can you rescue so many workers and Nepenthe believers right under her nose?
"It will be the greatest miracle if we can find an opportunity to kill her. As to whether or not the Immortal Cultivators' control over the Great Iron Plants will collapse, and how many of the workers and Nepenthe believers can escape, it will be up to themselves!"
Li Jialing said in a hurry, "But—"
"No but!"
Long Yangjun glared at the young man. "Do you think that I like coming back to this place? Do you think that I've returned to the Great Iron Plants that is heavily guarded by the Immortal Cultivators because I have nothing better to do or that I have lost my mind?
"It's only because I'm heavily wounded and running out of supplies and with the two experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage tailing us closely that I have to come back here to try my luck!
"Listen up, we barely have any ammunition, fuel, and spiritual energy left right now. The best they can support is a quick battle. We absolutely can't afford a war of attrition with the Immortal Cultivators.
"Right now, only the Great Iron Plants has stored enough resources that can refill us effectively. Also, nobody expects that we are bold enough to come back here. So, this is actually the safest place. That is the reason why we are here. The only reason!
"Over the past few days, we did everything we could to slightly get rid of the pursuit of the two experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage and get us the precious opportunity, but the distractions we deployed cannot deceive them for long. Once it is seen through, they will immediately realize what is going on and come back to the Great Iron Plants with reinforcement as quickly as possible. We have only six hours at best. In the worst-case scenario, they will march out of our back in only five minutes!
"I stand no chance at all in a one-versus-three battle. So, we have to take down 'Moon Devil' Yue Wushuang before the other two experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage show up. Then, we will have enough supplies to prepare ourselves for the new enemies.
"After taking down Yue Wushuang, there will be chances for me to deal with and even defeat the two experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage. Otherwise, we can just hang ourselves now!
"All in all, now is not the time for petty kindness. Remember your mission and pray that I can kill Yue Wushuang smoothly. In that case, some of the people down there might still survive, but if you are still absentminded and hesitant, you will save none of them!"
"I-I understand. I'm sorry, Sister Long."
Li Jialing lowered his head in embarrassment. After a while, he asked earnestly, "Sister Long, how are your wounds?"
"Not enough to kill me."
Her face pale and expressionless, Long Yangjun said, one word after another, with dense coldness beaming out of her eyes, "Long Yangjun is certainly not someone that any random person can kill. Three of them are far from enough. Let it be ten!"
"I wonder where Brother Yao went exactly."
Hesitating for a moment, Li Jialing said in a low voice, "It would be great if he were here."
"Don't mention the name of the monster!"
Long Yangjun immediately burst into fury. "Had I not been… deceived by his fancy words, how would I have fallen into this damn swirl that is even drowning me now?
"At first, I kindly asked him to escape, but he stubbornly refused it and decided to fight. Then, after we were all involved in t
his, it was he who ran off stealthily first, wasn't he? What a scoundrel!
"Let me tell you, the greatest mistake of my life is getting to know your brother and even mistaking him for a good friend for a while, and the second greatest mistake was that I was idiotic enough to believe him! Damn it, I truly feel ashamed now that I think of it. What exactly got into me back then and made me exactly like him?"
"Well…"
Li Jialing thought for a moment and said, "It was not exactly Sister Long's fault, but mostly because Brother Yao was too cunning and maudlin."
"So, if he ever shows up again—"
Long Yangjun declared angrily, "I will never give him any chance to talk but will simply slash him into pieces. Then, the world will be in peace!"
Not knowing how to respond, Li Jialing could only focus his attention on the scope.
On the scope, the executioner wearing iron masks had already activated their chainswords. The coldly-shining sawtooth was revolving quickly.
Xu Zhicheng and the other captives were pressed to the ground by the battle puppets. In the competition against iron, their backs were even straighter.
Li Jialing swallowed hard, and his palms were wet. Every muscle all over his body was tightened, and he couldn't hold back the urge of shooting at the foreheads of the executioners.
For some reason, he thought of the picture where Li Yao fought ten thousand on his own in blood again.
Did Brother Yao really flee in panic?
Was the miracle of a one-billionth chance not going to happen after all, and they could not rescue anyone?
The executioners raised the chainswords high and aimed at Grand Guardian Xu Zhicheng first.
Seeing Xu Zhicheng's smile on the scope, Li Jialing felt that his fingers were screaming and exploding.
