Chapter 98: CH 98

Only half a month had passed, but it was enough for some earth-shaking changes.

For example, Edward and Wang KeMing initially blamed themselves when Zong Yan disappeared. Eventually they leaked a bit of information about him.

When the incident was over, there were reports that a senior member of the British royal family had been in danger. Then the world discovered the British king was hospitalized and in ill health.

As crown prince, Edward saw through the smoke and mirrors.

According to rumors, by now the old king was hanging by a thread. Edward’s older brother and sister knew he wasn’t in the country and began thinking certain thoughts they shouldn’t have. They made a concerted effort to get rid of the crown prince.

At that point, the occult world intervened. Because the country of Great Britain was now under martial law, certain forces secretly stepped in and tried to drag Edward back to the United States. If they had their way, Edward wouldn’t have been allowed to return until the ashes of the funeral were cold.

But it seemed that Edward somehow found his own way back.

Of course, he faced incredibly difficult circumstances on his arrival. Edward and the Spire Council reached some kind of agreement. Neither Zong Yan nor Wang KeMing were able to contact him, so all they could do was wait anxiously for news.

Aside from that, Zong Yan once again resumed his ordinary high school life on campus.

If you had to point out the biggest difference, it was probably that whenever he walked around the school, an increasing number of students followed him around and came up to him asking him to sign things.

The Internet was crawling with marketing materials about the new special effects-packed Hollywood blockbuster. Everyone firmly believed that Zong Yan was going to shoot a movie after graduation and become the next person to break into Hollywood. They all wanted to get the autograph of the future superstar.

Zong Yan: …

These days Zong Yan was busy. He reported to his superiors, and then the American side sent a film crew and said they wanted to shoot the posters. As soon as he went back to school, he was running all over Jiangzhou shooting on location.

The movie couldn’t be delayed. It was February now, and after Zong Yan finished the college entrance exam in the first week of June, he had to join the movie set immediately. They said the supporting actors had already begun to film. When the time came, all he had to do was shoot his own scenes.

But that wasn’t all. After he finished verifying his identity with MU, he also had to return to the Dragon Group in China.

And this time He Yuan and Si Yan were especially irate. The latter had always been bad-tempered, but now even He Yuan, a pleasant-natured man who liked to smile, revealed his anger.

“I know you have ability and a terrifying level of talent, but you’re still a kid.” He gazed steadily at Zong Yan for a long time. In the end he couldn’t say much about Zong Yan’s behavior and just let out a sigh. “If you’re going to do something dangerous, you have to tell us.”

Zong Yan wasn’t sure exactly how the Lord of the Gate had tampered with reality. The entire occult world knew Zong Yan possessed staggering abilities, the kind that were powerful enough to tear an Elder God apart.

But the Lord of Time and Space’s distorted reality was in force. Not a single person went after Zong Yan or even treated him with fear.

Such an incredible amount of power would normally inspire suspicion, wariness, and intense surveillance. It wouldn’t end just with drawing his blood like in MU. They’d try to perform experiments on him.

Zong Yan wouldn’t ever regret saving the world, but he might feel a chill from some of his fellow citizens’ behavior.

Fortunately, the Lord of Time and Space had no intention of letting his human be subjected to the dark side of certain people.

He personally stepped in and modified reality.

When Zong Yan noticed this, he had mixed feelings about it.

Lately Yog had been helping him too much. It wasn’t just bringing him back to modern times and helping to preserve his body. The evil god also helped Zong Yan by changing reality. He felt a little flattered.

But he wasn’t exactly thrilled, either, and the reason was the future he’d glimpsed in the timeline.

That was why, after returning to Jiangzhou, Zong Yan never went back to the small villa. Partly, he wanted to avoid Nyarlathotep and Shub-Niggurath. He’d rather commute a bit farther and use the Dragon Group apartment, standing on the subway for part of an hour every day, traveling to and from school.

Curiosity really killed the cat, he thought wearily to himself.

In addition to these tasks, there were miscellaneous things to do.

He visited his grandma’s grave in the countryside to sweep her tomb, then went back to the tube building again.

He didn’t know how the Dragon Group handled the aftermath of the incident in New York. The grandparents in the tube building all thought he was adopted by people in the community. They didn’t know anything else.

Although he had a lot of things on his plate, they didn’t occupy much of his mind. Most of his focus was on the college entrance exam.

He’d wasted his entire winter vacation.

All the other students put in long hours during winter break, cramming for their classes, using this short period of time to overtake the curve.

But Zong Yan was a bit different. He hadn’t even touched his winter homework, but that wasn’t all. He traveled to another continent to save the world, signed up for a movie, and spent countless months on a limited prehistoric evil god world tour.

By the time he returned to class, he was grieved to discover he’d forgotten a lot of knowledge points.

Of course, that didn’t include physics. Yog-Sothoth’s forced teaching methods were really too profound. After all, not everyone was able to experience the pain of suspending time for almost a hundred hours just to get a perfect score on a physics practice test.

Time was running out. Zong Yan spent the entire month of February going over what he’d forgotten.

By that point, he reviewed pretty much all the subject areas he’d mastered before. But he still had trouble with some small areas where he wasn’t especially solid. There were even signs of losing ground.

He’d missed the monthly exam, but the second mock exam was on its way.

The second mock exam was the most difficult of the three mock exams in senior year. The second exam was generally used to combat the self-confidence of senior three students. The difficulty was much higher than the college entrance exam.

Because the pain was fresh in his mind, when Zong Yan got to the science exam, he went through the physics questions swish swish swish. For the very first time he was able to fill in the answers from beginning to end without any sign of faltering.

This time the physics teacher happened to be proctoring the exam. When Zong Yan turned in his paper, the teacher couldn’t help but take a look.

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But this time the test paper wasn’t blank like usual. Instead there was a dense sequence of logic written all over it. Even the last question was filled out.

Mr. Liu just glanced at it roughly. He remembered the answer to the final question and unexpectedly found that Zong Yan’s result actually looked right.

‘That kid, did he finally have a change of heart? He went to a secret cram school during winter break?’

He turned his head and watched as the black-haired teen, who’d turned in his test paper, quickly sorted out the document folder on his desk. He picked up his school bag from the back then walked out slowly through the far classroom door. From the back he looked relaxed and elegant but lonely.

In the second semester of senior three, Ye JingMing transferred to the International Department of Qingyang High School. The International Department was across the street from the regular high school. Class times there were extraordinarily relaxed, and when school let out it was still early. After Zong Yan returned, Ye JingMing mysteriously found him and invited him to a meal at the food stand down the street, dancing around excitedly the whole time.

“No one else knows, but I know. It’s your superpower!” Ye JingMing chortled a bit. “Man, I already got an offer. As soon as the TOEFL’s over I’ll head over. When you get to the U.S. you have to contact me, Mr. Movie Star.”

Zong Yan carried his school bag. He glanced outside and didn’t see a lot of people, so he quickly took a mask out of his pocket and put it on.

School was dismissed a lot earlier than usual because of the afternoon exam. After Ye JingMing transferred, and after Zong Yan stopped living in the villa, he no longer had a buddy to walk home with. But that was normal for Zong Yan. He didn’t feel lonely by himself.

The second mock exam was over and tomorrow was the weekend. School ended early today, so Zong Yan thought about going back to the cottage.

He’d lived there for a long time at the beginning, long enough to buy a full set of household goods and school supplies. The location was a lot more convenient than the Dragon Group apartment, not to mention the fact the villa contained some of Zong Yan’s clothes as well as his homework problem sets.

That was the most important thing.

The head teacher advised them to make a “wrong answer” problem book. Zong Yan did this too, but he was lazy and usually just cut and pasted the incorrect questions directly from the test paper. That list of questions was like a treasure. It was too big a loss not to get it back.

These days Zong Yan didn’t encounter any otherworldly monsters or evil gods in Jiangzhou.

It seemed that with the departure of Ghroth, extra-dimensional creatures had slowly disappeared from the city, returning to its previous low-key state.

As for evil gods… Aside from Yog-Sothoth, the other two pillar gods probably still assumed Zong Yan was dead. Although Nyarlathotep had a lot of avatars, he wouldn’t waste time doing things that were meaningless after Zong Yan’s death was confirmed. As for Shub-Niggurath, he’d pretty much disappeared from entertainment news recently. He might be so infuriated he went to some unlucky region of outer space to destroy a galaxy or two.

As for the Lord of Time and Space… after leaving through the Gates of the Silver Key, Zong Yan hadn’t seen him either.

After thinking about it a long time, he decided to risk going back.

The black-haired teen in the mask sneaked past the crowd and walked to the villa.

He still had the key to the door. If he checked it out tonight and there were no evil gods, it wasn’t impossible to consider moving back in.

In the second semester of senior three, evening self-study hours had been added. The evening study session didn’t end until after nine o’clock, and Zong Yan took the subway back to the Dragon Group dormitory and didn’t arrive until just before ten. Then he still had to do whatever homework he hadn’t finished during evening self-study. It was a human tragedy.

The Black Goat with a Thousand Young certainly wouldn’t remember that he owned such a property, and Nyarla and Yog wouldn’t be bored enough to come back. What did that mean?

It meant Zong Yan had a three story villa all to himself—empty, silent, and godless—well-decorated and equipped with all appliances. An entire villa with a private garden and absolutely reliable security, located in the city center, in an elegant and secluded environment.

This plot of land was something Zong Yan wouldn’t be able to afford in three lifetimes. But now he could have it for free, wasn’t it beautiful?

He already had a plan. Today he’d test the waters and make sure there wasn’t a problem. After he was certain, he’d secretly move back in.

“Ker-klunk—”

Zong Yan carefully opened the door and reached over to turn on the lights.

Pressed the switch, no response.

“Strange, what happened? Did the light bulb go out?”

He put his school bag on the floor and stood on tiptoe, reaching up to remove the cover of the light fixture to check it, until he was surprised by a voice from the darkness.

“No, it’s because you haven’t been back for so long. The electricity bill wasn’t paid, so the power is out.”

The Lord of the Gate floated in front of the entrance door. There was the shadow of a smile on his face.

—

The author has something to say:

Zong Yan: Door – to – door  delivery

This time it’s the real cohabitation life—

TL Notes:

ashes of the funeral were cold – 黄花菜都凉 – daylilies were cold

dancing around excitedly – 手舞足蹈 – dance with joy [excitement]; cut a caper; dance for joy; gesticulating with hands and feet; gesticulate merrily; jump about joyfully; shake one’s hands and stamp one’s feet; wave one’s arms and stamp one’s feet in joy

offer – This word was in English in the raw

Mr. Movie Star – 大影星 – big movie star

test the waters – 探风 – explore the wind – inquire about sb./sth.; make discreet inquiries about sb. or sth.; fish for information

[ Project Page | Ko-Fi ✿ | Other translations by Confectioner ]

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