Chapter 413: Chapter 246: Tomorrow, Uproar, Bell Chimes
On August 4th, the heavy rain continued deep into the night.
After Gu Zhuo and Gu Qiye had a fight in the hallway, Gu Zhuo turned and walked into the storm, leaving no trace behind.
The old father, already in a poor mental state, was further provoked and went berserk like a raging bull, impossible to stop him unless he was beaten crippled, caught, and locked in the basement. Otherwise, Gu Wenyu couldn’t think of any way to stop him from courting death.
And Gu Wenyu indeed had the capacity to do so: all it took was teaming up with Cezar and Yaguba, along with Black Cocoon, to capture Mr. Ghost Bell without any losses, it would be a piece of cake.
After all, the synergy between Machine Number Three and Cezar was able to take down the captain of the Royal Court Team, a Catastrophe-Level powerhouse comparable to Li Qingping.
No matter how powerful the Time Series abilities were, they couldn’t change the fact that Mr. Ghost Bell was merely a Quasi-Catastrophe Level threat. Seeing a 300-meter shark descend from the sky, all the father could do was tremble.
This was what Gu Wenyu thought, and he did plan on following Mr. Ghost Bell to see if the old man would indeed do something astonishingly foolish, like going alone to challenge several Rainbow Wing Members.
But then he reconsidered, realizing the Salvation Society members had been lying low in this city recently.
Li Jing, for Gu Wenyu, was now fraught with danger, crisis lurking at every corner. Since the Salvation Society killed Lin Zhengquan, they might also send someone to seize "Black Cocoon" and take the flapping big moth active in Li Jing back to the Salvation Society as well—after all, in the Mentor’s eyes, Black Cocoon was still suspiciously linked to Ji Minghuan.
Even in the extremely unlikely case that the two were entirely unrelated, with Black Cocoon’s unique abilities on display, being captured and taken back to the Salvation Society a hundred times would still leave no grounds for complaint.
With these thoughts, Gu Wenyu refrained from making any rash moves.
In the end, he simply released a restraint incarnation outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
The inky black incarnation wandered aimlessly like a restless spirit, drifting here and there across Li Jing.
The restraint sensing swept through every street and alley, not even sparing the ferris wheel’s cabins in the amusement park, even rescuing a worker attempting suicide from a skyscraper.
Yet still, he couldn’t find a trace of the old man.
Gu Zhuo seemed to have drowned in the sudden downpour within a single day.
Even addressing him as Black Cocoon for a question, Gu Wenyu still received no response. It appeared as though Gu Zhuo had thrown his phone tens of thousands of miles away.
The man had completely lost his mind, and the cost of madness could very likely be death.
Helpless, Gu Wenyu had no choice but to take out his phone and send Mu Long a message.
[Black Cocoon: Have you seen our beloved old father, Mr. Ghost Bell?]
[Mu Long: No.]
[Black Cocoon: Could you help me look for him?]
[Black Cocoon: I don’t know that many people in the gang, maybe Mr. Ghost Bell went to their territory. You’ve known Mr. Ghost Bell for so long, you should know some of the local gang members at least.]
[Mu Long: I said, his decisions have nothing to do with me.]
[Black Cocoon: Alright then, continue playing your cold and aloof avenging knight, I won’t bother you anymore.]
[Black Cocoon: Do you feel like the whole world has isolated you?]
[Black Cocoon: Do you feel like you’re the aloof flower on a high peak, the protagonist of a tragedy, the melancholic little prince in a fairy tale? Witnessing the night of annihilation, about to awaken the beautiful eyes with tomoe in your irises.]
[Black Cocoon: Yes, that’s right, Mr. Mu Long, you’re correct.]
[Black Cocoon: You’ve won, cold man!]
[Notification: You’ve been blocked by the other party.]
In the dead of night, Gu Wenyu lay on his bed with his arm as a pillow, gazing at the rain outside the floor-to-ceiling window, and sent a message to Su Zimai on his phone.
[Gu Wenyu: Tomorrow is the old man’s birthday, will you come back?]
He waited for a long time, and after ages, Su Zimai still hadn’t replied to him.
In the darkness, Gu Wenyu silently watched the phone screen, its glow illuminating his dark eyes. With nothing better to do, he scrolled up the screen and found numerous messages from Su Zimai that he hadn’t really responded to.
Su Zimai often threw tantrums and blocked other family members, but she had never blocked or ignored Gu Wenyu, so Gu Wenyu could tell that this time his younger sister might truly be at the brink of collapse.
When she suddenly sought out Gu Wenyu yesterday at dusk, holding him and telling him not to forget her, his sister’s psyche was already close to its breaking point.
And this morning, Lin Zhengquan’s death’s impact on her was naturally not less than on anyone else, especially with such a beheaded corpse hung on a lamppost.
Gu Wenyu mulled over it, suspecting that the Salvation Society’s design of such a method carried somewhat of a warning.
After all, Lin Zhengquan had enraged the Salvation Society by investigating things he shouldn’t have—"The Past of the Red Traffic Light," so the Salvation Society beheaded him and hung his head above a "traffic light," warning them to not cross that line again.
Gu Wenyu stared at the ceiling, pondering:
"Rather than blaming the Salvation Society, isn’t this more of a personal act by the Mentor... Logically, the other higher-ups of the Salvation Society shouldn’t know that the Mentor had hypnotized the Red Traffic Light to expose the existence of the Salvation Society years ago, hence the Mentor wouldn’t want others to investigate the truth of the Red Traffic Light."
"What is the Mentor’s real goal? Could it be that he is also a victim threatened by the Salvation Society, striving to destroy it from within?"
Gu Wenyu shook his head, pulling back from his chaotic thoughts, and picked up his phone to continue sending a message to Su Zimai.
[Gu Wenyu: Are you alright, little sister?]
After sending the message, Gu Wenyu stared at the chat interface, waiting for quite a while. Su Zimai still hadn’t replied.
Finally, he decided to open the SMS interface to bother Ke Qirui instead.
[Gu Wenyu: Les sister, is my little sis at your place?]
[Ke Qirui: Yes, we are in Hai Fan City. Don’t worry, Lake Hunting is with her, she’s very safe.]
[Gu Wenyu: Then why isn’t she replying to my messages?]
[Ke Qirui: She needs some quiet.]
[Gu Wenyu: Did something happen?]
[Ke Qirui: She doesn’t want you to know, and I shouldn’t tell you these things either. It’s getting late, get some sleep, high school students are still growing, don’t stay up late.]
Amidst the pitter-patter of rain, Gu Wenyu put away his phone, rolled twice on the soft bed, and landed on the floor.
He stood up, eyes downcast, slipped on his slippers, then pushed the door open and went downstairs, leaning on the stair railing, turning his head slightly to look at the entryway.
The lights weren’t on on the first floor; it was so dark that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Gu Qiye was still leaning against the wall by the entryway, sitting quietly. His eyes were closed, and he tilted his exhausted head back, resting the back of his head against the wall.
He had been sitting there for a whole day.
In his memory, Gu Wenyu had never seen Gu Qiye this exhausted.
In the past, no matter how tired he was, Gu Qiye would never show a defeated side in front of his younger siblings, like a robot unaffected by emotions, never missing a task.
"Did Dad being Mr. Ghost Bell hit him too hard? Wasn’t big brother planning to retire anyway, won’t he just bounce back like this?"
Gu Wenyu sighed, quietly going back upstairs, pulling out a small quilt from the bed, dragging it on the floor, sweeping it down to the first floor.
Then he walked quietly towards Gu Qiye, gently draping the quilt over him.
Gu Qiye’s eyelids quivered slightly, slowly opening his eyes.
He looked down at the quilt on him, then looked up at Gu Wenyu.
"Brother, sleeping here will make you cold," Gu Wenyu said, "Just a reminder, don’t think you’re superhuman and can do everything, won’t superhumans get sick?"
He shrugged, "Well, maybe they really won’t."
"I’m a bit tired, resting here for a while," Gu Qiye said after a moment of silence.
"I can’t reach little sister, and Dad too."
"I see... It’s okay, things will be better tomorrow."
Gu Qiye said softly, seemingly not wanting to think anymore, just closed his eyes and murmured:
"Tomorrow, things will be better."
His hoarse words lingered, and leaning his head against the wall, he fell asleep again.
Amidst the rustling of the rain, Gu Wenyu remained silent for a while, no longer bothering Gu Qiye, and moved to the refrigerator in the living room. Opening the fridge door, the interior light illuminated his face.
He took out a bottle of cola from the freezer, frozen there by Su Zimai the day before yesterday.
Back then, little sister had specifically warned him not to mess with it, or she would use a magic dove to hang him upside down. But since she won’t be back for a while, it didn’t matter.
Gu Wenyu closed the fridge, sat down on the sofa with the cola.
Listening to the dark rain, he opened the bottle cap, cool white vapor hissing upward, brushing against his face.
Bringing the bottle closer, he took a sip of cola; the chilled carbonated drink was always so disorienting with the first sip, burning his throat like fire.
Gu Wenyu exhaled, feeling much more relaxed.
He glanced at the gray, misty world in the rain curtain; the billboard flickered, and the neon texts above seemed dim, like candles ready to be extinguished.
"Things will be better tomorrow..."
Gu Wenyu stared at the ceiling in a daze, softly repeating the self-deceptive phrase.
How many times had his brother fooled himself with this sentence, and this time when he opened his eyes would things really get better? Thinking of this, Gu Wenyu glanced sideways at the deeply sleeping Gu Qiye at the entryway.
He suddenly felt tired too, after all, searching for someone all day wasn’t an easy task.
So he rested his head against the sofa back, in a lazy posture, slowly closing his eyes.
But in the late night, Gu Wenyu suddenly awoke from the sofa.
He opened his eyes, staring fixedly at the dim ceiling like a programmed machine.
Because his restraint belt embodiment suspended in the city center suddenly heard a loud noise.
The noise came from an amusement park nearby that had already closed.
The embodiment moved. Dragging the fluttering restraint belt, it floated between the tall buildings, but the closer it got to the amusement park, the more it could feel an icy coldness, as if the world was frozen in winter. The heat and the dullness in the air were swept away.
The earthquake-like noise came intermittently, as if awakening the sleeping city. The originally dark buildings gradually lit up, people everywhere opened their windows, gazing towards the amusement park.
And the restraint belt embodiment kept drawing closer to the center of the amusement park, gradually hearing a deafening bell toll.
Just like London’s Big Ben suddenly sounding at midnight.
Not long after, Gu Wenyu closed his eyes again, leaning his head against the sofa back and went back to sleep.