Chapter 16
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Today is March 21st, the ninth day after the anomaly resurgence.
The weather was clear, windless, and cloudless.
Lou Yan’s hand holding the rifle butt was steady, his gaze indifferent.
He had experience with guns, being a member of a shooting club, and his marksmanship was accurate, not necessarily hitting every shot but definitely hitting most of them.
The only thing he needed to overcome was the urge to kill, but for Lou Yan, this was the least thing he needed to overcome.
Because as long as Lou Yan lived, Fu Xuezhou had to die.
Here’s a bullet for you, Fu Xuezhou.
—Go to h*ll.
Perhaps it was that men couldn’t help but feel excited when they saw guns. Just as Lou Yan was about to pull the trigger, Duan Zege couldn’t help but lean over curiously and ask, “So, can you aim?”
His breath tickled Lou Yan’s ears, and Lou Yan frowned, his mind slightly distracted. In the next instant, he saw Fu Xuezhou suddenly lift his head and look directly in the direction of the scope. His pitch-black eyes seemed to meet Lou Yan’s through the scope, as if he could see Lou Yan through it.
Lou Yan’s heart sank, and he instinctively pulled the trigger, and the bullet shot out like a violent storm!
F*ck.
After the bullet was fired, Lou Yan felt something was wrong. Sure enough, the bullet that was originally aimed at Fu Xuezhou’s brain only grazed his face, leaving a bloodstain on Fu Xuezhou’s face before hitting the ground beside Fu Xuezhou’s feet.
Lou Yan cursed under his breath and immediately used his anomaly power to rewind time by one minute.
[Spiritual Power 40/50]
A burning sensation spread throughout his body like fire.
“Don’t come near and disturb me, damn it!” After shouting at the restless Duan Zege, Lou Yan immediately aimed again at the position where Fu Xuezhou was. But after the muzzle moved, Lou Yan found that Fu Xuezhou, who had just been there, was nowhere to be seen.
Where did he go?
Lou Yan frowned tightly, feeling a sense of unease rising from the bottom of his heart.
He had previously speculated that his time reversal would affect Fu Xuezhou’s physiological state, but Fu Xuezhou would not lose the memory of the reversal. And now, this speculation was likely true…
[Spiritual Power 35/50]
A sense of crisis suddenly emerged, and Lou Yan subconsciously looked towards the door of the private room. The next moment, the door was knocked three times.
Inside the room, two people remained motionless.
Fu Xuezhou’s voice came from outside, with a strange calmness, “Since there are people inside, why not open the door?”
***
After Fu Xuezhou said this, the private room fell silent, without any sound.
His pitch-black eyes, resembling those of a monster, moved slightly, and he reached out to push open the thin door. Inside the room, there was only one person with messy hair like dry grass, wearing headphones and playing games at the computer desk, looking like a sloppy internet addict.
Seeming to have just noticed someone coming in, Duan Zege took off his headphones and looked back, sounding full of doubt, “Who are you?”
Fu Xuezhou’s eyes swept around the room, finally resting on Duan Zege’s face again. “Not you.”
Duan Zege acted very realistically, even the question mark above his head seemed to become tangible: “What?”
But Fu Xuezhou didn’t answer his question. Instead, he walked to the window and looked down.
This was the second floor of the internet cafe, and outside the window was a hotel. Between the two buildings was a narrow alley. After giving it a brief glance, Fu Xuezhou raised his hand, opened the window, and gracefully leaped onto the windowsill like a black panther, then jumped down.
Duan Zege’s face changed drastically, his chest pounding. He quickly ran to the window and looked down.
The gust of wind from the jump blew off Fu Xuezhou’s hood, and his silver hair danced in the air as if it had come to life. The distance from the second floor wasn’t significant for this person, and Duan Zege watched him land in the narrow alley behind the internet cafe without any noise. Then, he watched him confidently walk out of the alley in the direction Lou Yan had left.
“Oh no!” Duan Zege turned and ran downstairs.
Fu Xuezhou reached the street in front of the internet cafe.
The street was bustling with people, as it was dinner time. The snack street was exploding with people, and various aromas tempted the crowds, making their mouths water. Occasionally, people passing by Fu Xuezhou would look at him in surprise, then blend back into the crowd.
Everyone looked ordinary, but each seemed like a murderer who had just attempted to assassinate him and failed to escape.
Fu Xuezhou pulled up the hat on his coat, covering his silver hair again, then took out a piece of candy and put it in his mouth. He walked into the crowd. The shadow of the hat covered his eyebrows, but not his sight. Fu Xuezhou’s eyes scanned the crowd, and soon, he saw a figure carrying a long wooden box, almost buried in the crowd.
The length and width of that box could perfectly accommodate a sniper rifle.
Fu Xuezhou squinted his eyes and gradually approached the figure in the crowd.
As if sensing something, the figure turned his head and glanced back at Fu Xuezhou from a distance of about two hundred meters.
The crowd was bustling, obscuring half of the person’s face. He seemed to have noticed Fu Xuezhou chasing after him, so he smiled with a hint of mockery. After laughing, he turned his head back and continued to move forward in the crowd.
The distance of two hundred meters was short, but it seemed difficult to approach as if separated by mountains and rivers at this moment.
Fu Xuezhou licked his candy and whispered, “Interesting.”
He followed, his pace neither fast nor slow. Although he seemed to be moving slowly, the distance between him and Lou Yan visibly shortened.
Lou Yan walked faster and faster ahead. He didn’t look back at Fu Xuezhou, but not long after, his sense of crisis alerted him that Fu Xuezhou was within 200 meters of him.
[Spiritual Power 30/50]
Lou Yan’s expression was indifferent, and his long legs moved swiftly. He skillfully used the crowd to delay Fu Xuezhou’s approach. When he reached the next intersection, a low-profile black car suddenly rushed over and braked sharply in front of Lou Yan. The window rolled down rapidly, and Duan Zege sat in the driver’s seat, saying simply, “Get in!”
Without hesitation, Lou Yan got into the back seat with the long wooden box. “Let’s go.”
Duan Zege turned the steering wheel sharply, stepped on the gas, and the car made a turn into a nearby underground parking garage. After a few turns in the garage, it successfully exited from another exit onto the road.
This road was deserted, and the car sped up immediately. Lou Yan looked back and didn’t see Fu Xuezhou’s figure catching up. Both he and Duan Zege breathed a sigh of relief.
“Is that the person you want to kill?” Duan Zege hit the nail on the head, “Forgive me for being blunt, but he gives me a dangerous feeling. The two of us are nothing in front of him, even if we team up, we can’t beat him.”
“I know,” Lou Yan said.
Duan Zege’s voice became tense, as if he was shocked that Lou Yan actually knew, “You know and still want to kill him?”
“Whether the enemy is strong or not and whether I want to kill him have nothing to do with each other,” Lou Yan said expressionlessly, “If I don’t kill him now, it will be even harder to kill him in the future.”
Duan Zege felt like he couldn’t reason with Lou Yan anymore. Lou Yan was obviously a smart person, so why was he so stubborn about this matter? Duan Zege asked with a headache, “What exactly do you have against him? Risking smuggling a gun into the country just to kill him.”
Lou Yan’s mouth curled into a chilling smirk, saying nothing.
Before killing Fu Xuezhou, Lou Yan had already prepared for the worst. He knew that the chances of him killing Fu Xuezhou were slim, but he couldn’t just sit back because of fear of failure.
Although perhaps today the bullet missed Fu Xuezhou’s brain by just a little, Lou Yan knew that success was success, and failure was failure, without the need for other excuses. No matter how close he was, if he didn’t kill him, then he didn’t kill him.
Whether he could kill or not, he had to try to find out, right?
Lou Yan wasn’t afraid of danger, nor was he afraid of being resented by Fu Xuezhou. From the moment of his rebirth, he had prepared to be enemies with Fu Xuezhou. As long as he appeared in front of Fu Xuezhou in this life, even if it meant injuring himself to hurt the enemy, he would keep trying to kill Fu Xuezhou.
If his actions today could bring Fu Xuezhou a moment of crisis, making him realize that there was someone in this world who had escaped his control, thus making Fu Xuezhou start to worry and be anxious, then Lou Yan would wake up laughing even in his sleep.
Duan Zege knew that Lou Yan didn’t want to say more, so he changed the subject and asked, “How did you get this sniper rifle?”
Lou Yan pressed the button to lower the rear seat window. The spring breeze, still carrying a hint of chill, tousled his slightly curly short hair. Lou Yan looked at the passing scenery outside the window, squinting comfortably, and casually said, “I got this gun from an old friend.”
Duan Zege asked, “Is it safe? Although the anomalies have revived, the social order hasn’t collapsed.”
Lou Yan reached out his hand to feel the wind outside the car window, his fingers carrying a lazy scent. “That guy is thriving in the southwest sea area. It’s safe to do this kind of dirty work with him, but in order to get this thing, I also gave him a lot in return.”
“I didn’t expect you to have such a friend,” Duan Zege clicked his tongue. “Did it cost a lot of money?”
As soon as this was mentioned, Lou Yan got angry. He gestured with his hand, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes on his face. “D*mn it, I gave him this amount, and he still raised the price on me.”
Duan Zege laughed, “You’re not old friends, so why did he raise the price for you?”
“He wanted to sleep with me, saying that if I slept with him for one night, he’d provide ‘door-to-door delivery’ service for free for a year,” Lou Yan’s beautifully sharp eyebrows revealed a mocking smile, without mincing words, “The scumbag, living in such filth yet thinking he’s so noble. I directly cursed him out, calling him a bloody scoundrel. This guy is petty, he swindled me out of a sum, not big but not small.”
Duan Zege fell silent for a few seconds, then sighed sincerely, “You rich people really play wild.”
Lou Yan raised an eyebrow, but didn’t explain. He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs, and when he looked out the window again, he suddenly saw a black spot in the sky following them.
Since merging with the strange anomaly, Lou Yan’s vision, hearing, and physical strength had all noticeably improved. At this moment, he stared closely and the more he looked, the more the black dot looked like… an eagle.
An eagle that should never appear in the city.
Lou Yan’s expression changed slightly, and he immediately leaned forward and grabbed the back of Duan Zege’s driver’s seat. “Turn right into the tunnel ahead. We can’t go home directly!”
Duan Zege was puzzled. “Why?”
Lou Yan said, “Turn right!”
Duan Zege subconsciously turned the steering wheel to the right, and soon, the car entered the tunnel, and the surroundings instantly darkened.
“What’s wrong?”
“We can’t go back directly,” Lou Yan’s expression changed constantly, the tunnel lights flashing across his face, “There’s an eagle watching us from above, and going back now will directly expose our location.”
Duan Zege thought he had misheard, “An eagle?! Are you sure it’s an eagle? Are you sure it’s watching us??”
Lou Yan gave a deep grunt in response, his eyes filled with anger and sharpness, even pulling out a smile tinged with hostility. He just knew that Fu Xuezhou wouldn’t let them off so easily. “I’m sure it’s an eagle, as for whether that eagle is following us, we’ll know if it continues to follow… but I know Fu Xuezhou has tamed an eagle.”
“Fu Xuezhou?” Duan Zege’s mind was quick, “The person you just tried to kill? He has an eagle too? No way, this is the inland plain area, a big city, how could he keep such a raptor?”
“He’s just crazy,” Lou Yan chuckled.
In his previous life, Lou Yan had seen Fu Xuezhou extend his arm to the sky, and a circling eagle would chirp and fly down to perch on Fu Xuezhou’s arm. Lou Yan didn’t know about Fu Xuezhou’s past, and he originally thought that the circle of rich kids driving luxury cars and yachts, and shooting guns was already uncommon in ordinary people’s eyes, but d*mn it, Fu Xuezhou went straight to playing with eagles.
No, Fu Xuezhou didn’t just play with eagles. Lou Yan sometimes really felt that Fu Xuezhou was just crazy. He had once seen a young male lion, which had escaped from the zoo, run into their territory. The more powerful and wild the beast, the more unwilling to submit to humans, the more Fu Xuezhou liked to tame it as his pet, and that young male lion was no exception. But when these beasts truly bowed down, Fu Xuezhou didn’t care at all.
It was as if what Fu Xuezhou truly enjoyed was the process of contending with wild beasts. After succeeding, no matter how much energy these beasts consumed him, they weren’t worth his attention anymore. Lou Yan still remembered the final outcome of that young male lion, who was severely injured by an anomaly and laid on the ground, bloody and pleading for help from Fu Xuezhou. But Fu Xuezhou summoned the eagle, letting the eagle king in the sky taste the king of the grassland.
The hungry eagle fiercely tore at the lion’s flesh. At that moment, Lou Yan couldn’t help but look at Fu Xuezhou standing beside him. He looked at Fu Xuezhou’s young, godlike, calm face and couldn’t help but shiver.
Suddenly, there was a bright light in front of him, awakening Lou Yan from his reverie.
They exited the tunnel.
Lou Yan raised his vigilance again and looked up at the sky.
Sure enough, he saw the male eagle that was staring at them without relenting.
“Duan Zege, drive the car to a place where there are no people,” Lou Yan calmly opened the long wooden box, once again taking out the shiny sniper rifle, “I’ll shoot it down before we go home.”
Author’s note:
PS: Everyone has a responsibility to protect animals (made a little correction ~)
Brother Lou: I’ll protect it right away, after shooting it down (smirks).
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