Chapter 46: Saving Unpermitted Chapter 45

Chapter 45: The First Night 

After the Mirror Erosion Marsh collapsed, the place became a little brighter as the light source could illuminate the surrounding area. The faceless human skin balloons’ limbs went stiff and their pale skin dotted along the pitch-black marsh, molding the whole scene into an eerie sea of ​​corpses.

Shu Jun knelt in the marsh, supporting his almost naked body with the broadsword. The fragments of the marsh’s brain gradually recovered, and the viscous erosive substance condensed into strands that slid across his cheeks and neck, slowly slipping onto his collarbone and chest. Unlike the human skin balloons around him, his slightly dark skin and grey hair became exceptionally conspicuous at this moment, as if it was the only life force in this whole world.

But that wasn’t the only thing.

A strange-looking net-like material was hanging down Shu Jun’s back, linking his back to the ground like a cobweb. The marsh on the ground submerged his calf and wrapped itself around his ankle. The whole scene, coupled with Shu Jun’s handsome face, exuded a bizarre but beautiful air.

Zhu Yanchen almost deluded that he was caught in a trance — it was as if the entire idea of ‘natural disasters’ had morphed into the person in front of him.

There was only one thing that didn’t quite fit.

Seeing Zhu Yanchen come close, Shu Jun laughed. He didn’t seem to be in a very clear state of mind. There was no maliciousness in that laughter; it was so pure that it was baffling. He stretched out his hand and pressed Zhu Yanchen’s chest, and the skin where he touched felt as though it had been touched by a soldering iron.

“Long time no see.” He said.

Then Shu Jun’s whole body turned into mush. Zhu Yanchen caught him in time and hugged him into his chest. Shu Jun’s breathing was even, and his eyes were tightly closed. He probably suffered from exhaustion after his powerful burst.

Sitting firmly on the ground while hugging the person in his arms tightly, Zhu Yanchen didn’t move even an inch. The surrounding Erosion Marsh spread out into a circle and completely avoided him, as though he was a poisonous snake.

The wind gradually rose around them, and the Erosion Marsh started boiling, accompanied by the continuous popping sounds from the human skin balloons. Monday, which was leaning to one side, let out intermittent mumbles, most of which didn’t contain any ‘decent’ words. Zhu Yanchen wrapped his jacket around Shu Jun’s back and closed his eyes.

“Go to sleep.” He whispered to Shu Jun. “I’m waiting for you right here.”

Shu Jun sighed lightly.

He was completely worn out and his spirits felt like they had shattered. His eyelids were as heavy as two fishing sinkers, and Shu Jun couldn’t even tell whether he was sleeping or not. He tried to control his limbs but couldn’t even move his fingers. His thoughts were turning more and more chaotic, and the fear of being unable to control his own body slowly overwhelmed him.

Luckily, the erosive substance around his legs might be cold, but Zhu Yanchen’s hug was so warm his body felt heated up. Being hugged by the man, Shu Jun finally found some relief from the fear of losing his control.

Half asleep and half awake, he finally felt that the battle was over. The Mirror Erosion Marsh left them with more puzzles, but at least one thing was clear —

This time, Shu Jun didn’t need to look for memories in his dreams. The moment he developed a splitting headache during the battle, the memories came back by themselves. Regarding his dream earlier, Shu Jun remembered what followed after —

[Then I’ll call you A Yan.]

That night, sixteen years ago, he said that to the lost child.

Immediately, he found that the child in front of him was a bit familiar — he seemed to have met a similar-looking NPC before.

“Have we met before? The mission of saving Yu Jin, I remember you were one of the NPCs? It’s me, my name is Shu Jun. I’m S-001 in [Erosion]!” Shu Jun asked straightforwardly.

Back at that point, he was wearing a protective mask, so it was normal that the child couldn’t recognise him. Even though they weren’t inside [Erosion] now, this kid might be just a prototype for NPCs, thus there would be no harm if he asked more. Shu Jun was the type who never held back his curiosity.

The child named ‘Haze’ was stunned, and the gaze he gave Shu Jun slowly turned complicated. A long moment later, he opened his mouth: “I remember you. But I’m not an NPC, that’s…… it was a role-playing mission.” 

When he said this, Haze kept twisting his fingers, as if grappling with something.

“Sure enough, it’s you!”

Shu Jun instantly became happy. Although he had never heard of any role-playing mission, he defaulted it to be a new kind of game for the rich and decided not to care. “Where do you live? I’ll take you back. Can I play with you in the future? You were really cool back there!”

Haze’s ears reddened. He was lost for words for a long while, his voice very low: “Thank you.” 

After a few seconds of silence, he raised his head and looked at Shu Jun earnestly: “I live a bit far away. I have to ride in a car. You won’t be able to take me home.”

“Ouch? There’s no bus at this point though, or I can take you to the nearby management office —”

“No.” This time, Haze’s refusal was rather firm.

“You can’t go home, and you don’t need the people from the management office, but you can’t sleep outside.” Shu Jun scratched his head: “Why don’t you come to my house……”

“Can I go to your house for the night?” At the very same time, the other boy also asked, trying to test his chance.

“I was just asking that. Of course you can!” Shu Jun’s eyes arched cheerfully. “By the way, you’re so far away from home, but it doesn’t look like you got lost. Are you running away?”

Haze shook his head but didn’t explain any further. Biting his lip, he changed the subject: “I…… I just don’t want to spend the night at the management office. And even if I’m sent back, I’ll only be alone.” 

Saying so, his eyes revealed a stronger hint of pleading, like a wounded animal.

During the mission of saving Yu Jin, Shu Jun already had a very good impression of Haze. Besides, it was easy for children to grow a liking for good-looking people. Although Shu Jun considered himself an eleven-year-old ‘grown’ man, he still couldn’t escape the other boy’s eye ‘attack’.

Not to mention, he knew what it felt like to live alone.

“Come on, follow me.” Shu Jun stopped asking more questions. He grabbed Haze’s hand and led the boy home, himself in a very good mood — Everyone preferred voice or video communication. This was the first time he got to entertain a person his age at home.

Shu Jun’s place had one bedroom and one living room. It was neither too big nor too small, at the same time quite neat and comfortable. The kitchen was semi-partitioned, and the refrigerator contained simple cooking ingredients whose shelf life was so long it might be scary. The hot water in the bathroom would never be cut off, and the scenery outside the window was pleasing to the eyes.

After bringing Haze into the house, Shu Jun opened the refrigerator and took out some milk to heat it up: “You can use my communication device. If that’s not convenient, I can also help you contact your family or management office. Hey, A Yan, do you want to add sugar to the milk? “

Finally getting a visitor to his place, Shu Jun acted like he was the head of the family. After heating up the milk, he happily turned on all the lights in the house and activated the communication device.

Haze held the hot milk in both hands and spent a while in front of the communication device.

“It’s fine.” A long while later, Haze still didn’t touch the floating screen in front of him, and his voice remained very low. “I can go back tomorrow and explain to them.”

Shu Jun’s eyes suddenly became sharp. He understood now. This kid must have had a conflict with his family, and he had run too far, so he was embarrassed to be sent back. Anyway, over here, criminal activities had long become history and the whole city was very safe. Haze probably was just trying to make a small commotion.

He understood. He understood very well.

“Okay, if you don’t want to contact them, let’s not. In any case, in my house, if you want a quilt, you’ll have a quilt; if you want a pillow, you’ll have a pillow.” Shu Jun gulped down the milk and clanged the cup loudly on the table. “Let’s play!”

Haze took a small sip of the milk, wearing a perplexed expression.

“What do you usually play with your friends?” Shu Jun activated augmented reality, and a lot of scrollable game icons appeared in the living room. “It’s not that I’m showing off, but I have all the games here.”

 “……I don’t know.”

“Ah?” This answer was quite strange. How can he not know?

“I don’t usually play, um, games. My family only has adults…” 

He means that he doesn’t have many friends, Shu Jun immediately sighed. No wonder he has conflicts with his family. In contrast, at least I enjoy lots of freedom.

“This is a Virtual Fighting game, I really like this! But it requires us to move around quite a bit, playing it too late will leave you sleepless. This is Chess, I feel it’s a little boring though. This is Monster Shooting, ah, yes, do you want to play shooting?” Shu Jun’s eyes lit up.

This boy was very interested in his gun last time. It seemed that he hadn’t gotten to play much shooting.

Sure enough, Haze eagerly responded and, before he even wiped off the milk on his lips, he jumped down the chair with a slightly struggling posture. Shu Jun could see that Haze’s movements were not very coordinated. He didn’t seem to have done lots of physical activities, let alone formal training.

No wonder he seemed so fragile.

What a pity, Shu Jun thought. If Haze had been a standby combatant, he wouldn’t have had such a tough time trying to stop the attack last time. He acted very cool and all, but the biggest obstacle was his physique. Shu Jun stroked Haze’s arm with a regretful expression.

Haze completely froze: “……”

Shu Jun walked around Haze two more times, many thoughts running rapidly through his head. It wasn’t surprising that this boy didn’t interact with many people his age and that he lacked self-confidence. Perhaps there was a good reason why he turned against those child NPCs and was unable to communicate with them. Since Haze took the initiative to ask for an overnight stay, Shu Jun and he could be considered at least semi-friends.

Even if it was just a semi-friendship, Shu Jun wanted to do his best.

Feeling an inexplicable sense of responsibility, Shu Jun handed the console to Haze: “Don’t worry if you haven’t played it before. I’ll hold your hands and teach you how.” 

The game began. Under the effect of enhanced reality, the floor of the living room turned into a small guard post, and from both the land and the sky, hideous mutated monsters were rushing towards them.

The two’s consoles turned into two guns that glowed brightly.

Shu Jun took the lead: “This is a mini-game officially developed by [Erosion]. The operating principles are similar. You see, the gun has to be loaded like this…… Yes, yes! Are you really using a gun for the first time?”

Being praised, Haze almost turned into a tomato, his gaze once again lowering at the ground.

“To shoot, your stance should be like this. Pay attention to the movement of your shoulders. The grip will recoil, be careful to not suffer any injuries.” Shu Jun helped him adjust his posture. “Don’t be nervous, this is just a game. Come on, three, two, one, shoot!”

As the mutated monster’s long arm was shot down, it wriggled at the two boys’ feet for some time before turning into a flash of light and completely vanishing.

Since Shu Jun wanted to help Haze build some self-confidence, he specially led Haze to shoot down a monster during their training. Although it was only a game, the sense of reality was very strong. Haze stared at the gun and his hand trembled a little.

“It’s only your first time. It can’t be helped that you’re nervous. Don’t worry, you’ll soon experience —” Before he could finish his words, Haze fired again.

For a beginner, Haze’s precision was rather amazing. The monsters weren’t any friendly targets, for they moved extremely fast. But even when Haze never made any headshot, not one of his shots missed.

Moreover, his shots were getting more and more accurate by the second.

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Shu Jun couldn’t help looking at Haze’s face — at this moment, Haze was exceptionally focused, and that vague sense of restraint and timidity had disappeared, his dark eyes seemingly ablaze. He looked as though he was rooted to the floor, so much so that even when the monster spewed blood as it charged towards him, Haze wouldn’t budge even an inch.

As expected of his friend. The more Shu Jun thought about it, the more he was convinced that he had such good judgment of other people.

After observing for a while, Shu Jun withdrew his gaze from the boy’s face and turned to stare at his body movements, for fear that he would accidentally hurt his shoulders. Shu Jun didn’t marvel much at Haze’s terrifying progress — he himself was quite talented in combat, so this only made him feel even closer to Haze.

After confirming that Haze had mastered the correct posture, the two began to shoot happily.

“Do you know that there’s small equipment that can be unlocked later in this game? But they’re only minor weapons, nothing too special.” Shu Jun introduced the details to Haze as he fired. “When I officially enter the team, I must choose a super cool and big weapon.”

“……These are good enough.” Haze mumbled. “I only need these things.”

“Ah? You’re so simple.” Shu Jun felt a tad disheartened.

“……”

They played very happily, but after all, Haze’s physique had its limits. An hour later, his arm was so tired that he couldn’t raise it any further, so he had to come to a halt — Actually, it was Shu Jun who noticed that he was sweating profusely and his arm was shaking, so Shu Jun took the initiative to stop.

“My score is so much lower than yours…”

“It’s your first time playing, don’t worry. And your score isn’t even that bad.”

“That’s because you let me earn more points.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“If you fight for too long, your shoulders will surely get hurt.” Seeing Haze’s expression emanating a different kind of determination, Shu Jun squeezed his arm and pulled the topic away. He could see it; Haze really liked to care about small matters. “Let’s play something else, don’t just focus on one game.”

“Something else?”

“Uhm, although I also prefer combat. If you want a multiplayer strategy sort of game, it’s this game…… but I don’t play this very well.” Shu Jun brought two cans of iced drinks over, his voice getting lower and lower.

Haze wiped the sweat off his face with a towel, politely showing a puzzled expression.

Shu Jun clenched his teeth and started another game.

The barren land turned back to their room wall, and the cracked floor of the guard post turned back to their room floor. A two-square-meter wargaming table appeared in front of the two boys, and there were even tiny dark clouds hovering above the table.

“This is also a mini-game of [Erosion], which tests the player’s tactical ability. The rules and operating principles are very simple. You only have to eliminate the monsters in the field.”

There were thousands of strategy games, and Shu Jun chose the one he was least good at. If two of them started as equals, it might help Haze throw away his unnecessary self-pity.

Moreover, the effects of any games under [Erosion] are super cool, Shu Jun thought seriously.

“Let’s play together, we can set up two commanders.”

Haze’s movement came to a pause: “My mother won’t let me touch this…”

Are there really such strange parents? Shu Jun was a little dazed for a second. He had only heard that his classmates’ parents prohibited them from playing pure casual games. Strategy games were, in fact, officially recommended by the school. If the children were interested, the parents should be happy.

“You ran out away on your own, what are you afraid of — this is not a bad thing. In any case, if I don’t talk and you don’t talk, no one will know.”

Haze was a little anxious: “Actually, I like this kind of stuff, but the last time she saw me secretly read the tactics book, she got very angry.”

“Parents are not always right.” Shu Jun poked the small monsters on the wargaming table and said sternly: “It’s just tactical planning. Firstly, it won’t cost you money, secondly, you won’t learn anything bad from it, and thirdly, it won’t affect your study. Your mother may have her own reasons, but the skies won’t crash if you play for an hour.” 

After hearing a long prep talk, Haze was so moved that he felt a little giddy: “Uhm, uhm. Let’s play together.”

Ten minutes later, Shu Jun found that this could indeed bring Haze some confidence, and the impact was surprisingly good — unlike the shooting game just now, this time, Shu Jun could truly feel the other boy’s strength.

After Haze initiated the first game, he spent eight minutes familiarising himself with the game operations, then he cleared the game in two minutes. Since his scores were recorded under Shu Jun’s account, Shu Jun’s ranking suddenly jumped from below 3,000 to the top 100.

This result also took into account the first eight minutes.

Shu Jun’s face turned red. Embarrassed that he was so dazzled by another boy, he had to quietly shut down the uploading of this score.

The school had tested them before, and Shu Jun was particularly good at dealing with conventional battles that carried ascertained conditions. But once the situation got too big and complicated, he would fly into the sky like a reckless moth. Because of this, his overall result for commanding ability hadn’t been able to improve.

This strategy game examined the ability to predict and command the troops during complex situations, and every time he saw it, his brain hurt. He suddenly thought that he had brought home a monster — Haze’s mother wouldn’t let him touch this, was it because she was afraid that he would scare other people?

What a waste!

This boy is so strong, yet he acts so ignorant and all!

Shu Jun rolled his sleeves up, his tone full of grievance: “Have you seen your score? Have you seen it? If you didn’t spend so much time familiarising yourself with the game just now, you would definitely be No.1. My god, I wonder why you’re lowering your head all the time. If I’m able to achieve this kind of score…… I…….” 

Saying so, his eyes began to feel sore: “I’m not convinced! Let’s continue to —”

An hour later, Shu Jun ran into the toilet and sobbed for three full minutes. As an eleven-year-old ‘grown’ man, he usually didn’t behave so shamelessly, but now, his head had malfunctioned. He had no idea if Haze had gained back some confidence, but he was sure that his own confidence was about to crumble.

Although it was Haze’s first time playing this game, he had such an easy time passing through the Hard levels, as simple as tying his shoelaces. Yet here Shu Jun was, baring his teeth and waving his claws left and right for one whole day, but his strategy score was only a fraction of the other boy’s. Regardless of his actual performance when it came to strategising, Shu Jun was, in fact, a top student. He had never received such a blow.

Even if he were to take into account the strategy scores, no one else in his school could be such a beast?

He cried so hard that it felt so real. This time, Haze must know that I didn’t go easy on him. With tears brimming his eyes, Shu Jun tried to locate the other boy’s face.

“Sorry, I…… I didn’t mean to win by so much, I’ll try to control……”

“What are you talking about?!” Shu Jun sniffed. “Listen to what you are saying!”

Unable to persuade him, Haze was at a loss of what to do: “Well, then your tactics are really good, there are many angles that I couldn’t think of. But they’re a bit, a bit fragmented. Just, just change them a bit, and the impact will be as good as than mine.”

Seeing Shu Jun’s runny nose and eyes full of tears, Haze was so nervous he started to stammer.

“Really?” Shu Jun blew his nose loudly.

“Really, I can show it to you.”

Shu Jun stopped crying at once: “You said it.”

Not expecting that this person could flip his attitude faster than flipping a book, Haze was stunned on the spot.

“I didn’t control my emotions well.” Shu Jun pulled another sheet of tissue. “In any case, I’m a little older than you, I shouldn’t be like this…… By the way, how old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“……” Another drop of tear slowly escaped the corner of Shu Jun’s eye. It turns out I’m the didi here.

“Hic.” He blew his nose, his heart overwhelmed with sorrow. “Ge, please tell me, how do I change my tactics earlier?”

Haze: “……”

Haze: “……Then, let’s review it together?”

Shu Jun’s sorrow came fast and went away even faster. The two kids played and talked until the early hours of the morning, and Shu Jun took many notes with glee. On the other side, Haze’s expressions and movements became more natural, and a smile even appeared on his face.

“Can you come and play with me in the future?” Shu Jun made room for Haze on the bed. “Or shall I come and play with you?”

“I…… I’ll go home tomorrow and talk to my family.” Haze grabbed the blanket. “It should be okay. I stay alone at night anyway. If it doesn’t work, I can run out by myself.”

“Okay.” Shu Jun let out a big yawn. “You said it, let’s make a pinky promise.”

After hesitating for a moment, Haze cautiously reached out his hand and pulled Shu Jun’s pinky finger.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

Shu Jun slept contentedly for the whole night. When he woke up the next day, he found that he was using Haze as a bolster — he was wrapping around the quilt like an octopus, and Haze had been rolled inside that quilt. Shu Jun was hugging the ‘bolster’ tightly in his chest. Haze frowned slightly, but his breathing was quite steady.

Shu Jun carefully let go of his arms and slipped out of the bed. He sent a message to the manager that he didn’t need breakfast, then began to cook noodles for two people — last night, he cried his eyes out in front of Haze, so he had to quickly save his ‘grown’, reliable image.

Haze was older than him, but the difference of one year old was completely negligible. He was taller than Haze anyway.

……And now that he thought about it, he did earn a super cool semi-friend.

No, they had so much fun together. They should be regarded as ‘real friends’.

That would be great.

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