Chapter 476: Chapter 288: Bookstore Conference / Gu Qiye’s Revenge
Gu Zhuo Case kept his hands tucked in the pockets of his tattered jacket, standing motionless at the entrance of the bookstore. His mood was oppressive and heavy, as if all the air had been drawn out of his lungs.
Despite just standing still, the surroundings felt like towering walls pressing down on him.
Tall power poles, the intertwined electrical grid above the city, row upon row of shuttered shop doors—everything in view was ordinary, yet it left him breathless.
In the early morning, a cool breeze swept by, carrying the faint sounds of cicadas.
After a moment, he took a deep breath, slowly lifted his head to face the bookstore in front of him, glanced at the sign of "Broly Bookstore" overhead, and then looked inside through the glass door.
The silhouette behind the counter gradually overlapped with his memory of Su Wei from the side.
It might as well be the same person.
More than ten years had passed.
Among the few times they’ve met, the man always squinted his eyes, a smile hanging from the corner of his mouth, hands behind his back, making him hard to read. But Su Wei never smiled when facing Gu Zhuo Case, because in his eyes, he was the one who took his daughter away from him.
"Come in," the man suddenly said. His voice was light but clear to the ears of a Superhuman Species.
Hearing Su Wei’s permission, Gu Zhuo Case finally mustered the courage to take that step.
He walked into the Broly Bookstore, looking at the man behind the counter reading a book, feeling uneasy, like a student entering the classroom after the bell rings, unsure of where to put his hands.
"Gu Zhuo Case," Su Wei raised his head, expressionless, and asked, "How have you been these years?"
"I..." Gu Zhuo Case said, "I’m sorry to you. I couldn’t protect her."
"You don’t need to be sorry, you were just an ordinary person then," Su Wei said, "I heard you’ve done quite a few things these past few years, care to share?"
"I became a criminal, trying to catch Rainbow Wings’ attention, so I did a lot of wrong things," Gu Zhuo Case said, pulling out a silver-black breathing mask from his pocket. The mask was broken, with a corner still stained with fresh blood.
"Ghost Bell?" Su Wei glanced at the familiar mask, furrowed his brow, and murmured the name.
"Yes." Gu Zhuo Case’s gaze hollow, "I became the Ghost Bell... that infamous criminal, destroyed many relics, killed many superpower users, but in the end, rainbow wings were right in front of me, I lost... and watched helplessly as my own son joined Rainbow Wings."
Su Wei was silent for a long time, his brow slowly relaxing.
"So it was you..." he shook his head, sighed, and suddenly laughed, "I wondered, what you’ve been doing all these years abandoning your kids, turns out you’re still not grown-up... at this age, still so stubborn, insisting on me, an ’outsider’, to look after your kids."
"Thank you for these two years," Gu Zhuo Case said softly, "Black Cocoon told me, if it wasn’t for you secretly protecting Xiaomai and Qiye, they might have been in trouble long ago."
"It’s alright. It hasn’t been easy for you these years," Su Wei said softly, "Put the mask away, it’ll be troublesome if seen by someone with ill intentions... Now the outside world believes you’re dead, your child joined Rainbow Wings, revealing your identity at this point would be very detrimental to him."
"I know."
Gu Zhuo Case said, silently stuffing the breathing mask into his jacket pocket.
"At first, I thought you’d abandoned those kids, and retreated outside by yourself, but now I know, this son-in-law of mine isn’t as useless as I thought."
"I really am useless." Gu Zhuo Case shook his head, whispered, "Looking back now, I ultimately couldn’t achieve anything these two years, and failed to properly accompany my children."
Su Wei was silent for a moment, "Did Su Ying ever talk to you about a girl named Tong Zizhu?"
"She did, back in college, she left a girl at home, that girl seemed to be around five or six at the time, a stray child," Gu Zhuo Case said, "What about her?"
"Calculating, Tong Zizhu should be in her twenties now." Su Wei said, "The past couple of years, she falsified her name and age, disguised herself as a nineteen-year-old girl, joined the Exorcist Association and roamed around, all the while searching for Su Ying."
After speaking, he lifted his hand, picked up the coffee cup on the table, and took a sip.
Gu Zhuo Case was silent for a moment, "I should have let Su Ying take her away then, I could have let her live with my children."
"At that time, Su Ying had already decided to cut all ties with the exorcists." Su Wei said softly, "From her perspective, she saw that Tong Zizhu had the prototype of the Celestial Driver, certain that the child would become an exorcist eventually, hence she left Tong Zizhu in my care. After that, I secretly arranged Tong Zizhu’s life so she could grow up normally, and eventually, just as Su Ying predicted, she became an exorcist."
He paused: "While deciding to entrust Tong Zizhu to me, Su Ying hesitated for a long, long time. My daughter is kind-hearted, but ultimately she did it, she left the child behind."
"Why?"
"Because Su Ying’s greatest, yet most selfish wish was for you all to live a simple, happy life without involving the exorcists."
Gu Zhuo Case’s mouth twitched slightly, his head lowered, his heart aching. Suppressed emotions like breaking dam water, poured out.
"But I... couldn’t protect her..." he said hoarsely, "Nor could I protect the life she desired."
After speaking, for a long while, he stood like a child who made a mistake, silently waiting for the elder’s reproach.
"It’s not just your fault, I didn’t do well either, I wasn’t a competent father." Su Wei said softly, "I’ve always regretted, always wanted to tell her, ’No matter what you decide, you’re always your dad’s daughter’, if only I woke up earlier, but... there’s no chance now."
After a moment of silence, Su Wei took off his glasses, "I’ve avoided for many years, trying to convince myself, that my daughter deserved it, that her death wasn’t such a pity..."
He suddenly laughed at himself, "But I can’t fool my own heart. These three years, I’ve resigned all my duties at Lake Hunting, came here alone to start a bookstore, to look after that clumsy girl’s reckless kids."
Su Wei took a deep breath, rubbed his nose, and the depth of his eye sockets suddenly made his gaze sharp.
"So, while there’s still a chance, before I grow too old to wield a weapon, while that feeling in my heart hasn’t dissipated yet, I don’t want to deceive myself anymore. I want to seek justice for that foolish daughter of mine."
He lifted his head and directly looked into Gu Zhuo’s eyes, "We all need a chance, a chance to say goodbye to the past and start over. I will help you remove those people from Rainbow Wings, but once this is over, let’s really let go... My foolish daughter certainly wants to see your family live an ordinary life."
Gu Zhuo silently watched him, tears had unknowingly fallen from his cracked eye corners.
He didn’t even know he still had the capacity to cry, thinking he’d long since become numb. Yet, the tears flowed uncontrollably from his eyes.
A moment later, he self-mockingly lowered his head, his disheveled hair covering his eyes.
"I’ve been a truly disgraceful son-in-law," he said, "In all these years, never once could I stand tall before you."
Su Wei smiled silently, raised his hand, gently patted Gu Zhuo on the shoulder, and put his glasses back on.
.....
.....
At the same time, in the United States, New York, in the underground parking lot of the Empire State Building.
The parking lot was empty, with dim orange light falling from the ceiling, half of the parking spaces enveloped in a halo, while the other half was swallowed by shadow.
And at this moment, a black Maybach was parked in the corner of the shadow.
In the driver’s seat, You Ruirui lowered her head to check the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting, hearing that even as the White Crow Travel Brigade jail incident ended, the Light-Eating Bee investigation in Osaka, Japan, had also concluded.
The three Rainbow Wing members involved in the investigation were—"Last Sword Ghost" Oda Ehgo, "Polar Scholar" Kalina, "Overloaded" Garfield.
Under their investigation, the task was completely resolved within less than a day—they found out the island where the Light-Eating Bees were located and obtained a series of important information regarding the ecology within the Light-Eating Bee clan.
Thus tomorrow, Rainbow Wings will hold an emergency meeting revolving around the issues of "White Crow Travel Brigade" and "Light-Eating Bee."
The seriousness of both cannot be ignored.
After all, Hokkaido Prison’s "New Leaf Village" warden, Julius, was a Catastrophe-level Superpower User, yet such a competent and formidable superpower user got tragically killed by a bunch of bandits.
This sudden news shocked the United Nations high command, drawing significant attention.
But the danger level of the Light-Eating Bee incident skyrocketed as the investigation proceeded.
In terms of handling priority, the Light-Eating Bee exceeds the White Crow Travel Brigade, classified at the highest priority—a crisis at least of a country-ending level.
You Ruirui, flipping through meeting arrangements, said, "Tomorrow at noon, all Rainbow Wing members on vacation and those out on missions will return to New York. The documents state the meeting must not be missed; this issue is very serious."
Meanwhile, Gu Qiye sat silently in the backseat, hunched over, his black bangs covering his eyes.
Before getting in the car, he told You Ruirui that he wanted to lie down and rest, which is why he wasn’t sitting in the front passenger seat.
Without a sound, a flash of pitch-black electricity appeared in the dark, his fingers curled upwards, emptily gazing at the arc flickering at his fingertips.
Black dissolved into black, like water melting into water, everything seemed as if it had never existed;
The usual thunder of lightning was now dead silent, for the sound had no time to spread before being engulfed by the obliterating electric light itself.
Gu Qiye knew that in front of him was a perfect opportunity, the person who killed his father was sitting unguardedly in front, back to him.
All he needed was to penetrate the seatback with lightning, which would effortlessly pierce through the opponent’s chest from behind, crushing her heart.
This would be easy for him.
Simpler than anything.
No one can survive with a shattered heart. She would have no opportunity to resist;
Gu Qiye would also destroy her brain, trying his best to let her die without feeling pain, nor even realizing her death.
In the rearview mirror, You Ruirui’s head remained bowed, quietly watching her tablet computer, unaware of the murderous intent surging in the darkness.
Yet in the next moment, a sudden "ding-dong" alert sounded in the car.
You Ruirui looked up, glanced at the rearview mirror, only to see Gu Qiye’s phone on the car seat suddenly light up, a message popped up on the screen.
"Friend?" she asked.
Gu Qiye blinked, took a moment to react, then lowered his eyes to look at the sender’s name on the phone.
"No, just a junk message," he shook his head and softly said.