Chapter 25: Punishment

The weather outside howled with cold wind. Xie De was too lazy to talk back to Gibberish anymore. He struggled to stand up and walked into the bathroom in the dark.

He hadn't brought anything with him this time, only his phone and gun. Not even a change of clothes.

Fortunately, the hotel provided bath towels and bathrobes, so at least he wouldn't have to be naked.

By the time he finished his shower and came out, the voltage outside had stabilized. However, Gibberish hadn't turned on the lights. Instead, it was controlling the hotel's TV to play a horror movie. It was a very classic American horror movie. The female lead was tied to a cross by a murderer, screaming in terror. The screams startled Xie De so much when he came out that he almost thought he had transmigrated into a scenario again.

Taking two steps at a time, he ran over and shut off the TV, gritting his teeth.

"What are you doing?"

"Training your courage," Gibberish said matter-of-factly. "So you won't always get frightened."

Xie De remained expressionless.

"Jung [1] said that any forced change to a person's nature is harmful."

Gibberish was speechless.

"When did you become so philosophical? I'm helping you desensitize."

"Ah, couldn't you wait a bit? Do you have to do it when I'm tired to death?"

Xie De was even more speechless than Gibberish.

The curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows weren't drawn. The lights reflected from the high-rise buildings pierced through the layers of rain and spilled into the hotel room. Half-dry, long silver hair scattered around his waist, still dripping with water. Xie De wore the longest style of bathrobe, which draped straight down to his ankles. He liked to keep himself tightly covered when he dressed, with only his collarbones exposed on his upper half.

As he spoke, he collapsed into a corner of the sofa in a very relaxed posture, yawning. If he didn't have to wait for Wei Yanchi, he reckoned he could fall asleep right now.

"Host, we need to use every minute and every second to become a qualified overachiever. Otherwise, how can we keep up with the big shots? If you fail the scenario mission when the time comes, you'll only end up dead."

"But we still need to strike a balance between work and rest."

......

Xie De half-squinted his eyes, waiting to hear what other shocking quotes Gibberish was going to spout.

But after waiting for a long time, he didn't hear Gibberish say anything.

Strange.

He stood up, walked over to take a look, and found that a bunch of garbled text had actually appeared on his phone screen. His heart skipped a beat. His hand had barely touched the phone, and before he even had time to call out to Gibberish…

An immense pain, like being electrocuted, instantly swept through his entire body. When a person is in extreme pain, they cannot even scream. Xie De fell onto the carpet with a heavy thud, the phone screen cracking from the impact.

Physiological tears instantly welled up in his eyes, the corners of his eyes turning red. The smell of blood kept rising in his throat. His hands gripped so hard that his veins bulged out. He opened his mouth but couldn't make a sound. It hurts so much.

Xie De's vision went black in waves, he felt like he might actually die.

He didn't know how much time had passed before the pain in his body finally, slowly subsided. The sound of the door opening reached his ears.

"Mr. 39?"

"Mr. 39!"

Wei Yanchi's originally smiling expression instantly turned to panic. He immediately rushed forward and dropped to one knee. The master who was normally incredibly composed was now unexpectedly at a complete loss.

Xie De's condition was awful. His fingers were trembling slightly. Lying prone on the ground, gripping the carpet deathly tight, he slightly raised his head. A drop of physiological tear flowed from his wretched eyes before he fiercely closed them again, like a trapped beast momentarily in distress.

"What happened to you? I can help you."

"Get out."

The previously tightly-wrapped bathrobe Xie De had been wearing was now more than half torn open, revealing a large expanse of bare skin.

Wei Yanchi didn't listen to him and get out. Instead, he froze in place, clearly seeing that the exposed skin was completely covered in scars.

Scars left by burns or electric shocks covered the beautiful muscles. It was terrifying, and it imbued Xie De with an even more ruthless, brutal aura.

This was not a body meant to elicit pity, nor was it meant for people to admire.

Yet, Wei Yanchi suddenly felt his throat run dry. The hand that wanted to reach out simply couldn't move forward. He was a very smart person, smart enough to possess a lot of obscure knowledge. For example, he knew that these irregular scars had only one simple origin: torture.

For electrical burns like these, the only thing that came to mind was the tasers specifically used to torture prisoners in interrogation rooms.

The existence of the scars manifested the severe punishments Xie De had endured, as if he had been brutally tortured until he was half-dead. The current situation was likely because he hadn't received timely treatment after the torture, leading to lingering aftereffects that suddenly flared up at irregular intervals.

His hand gradually clenched into a fist. Wei Yanchi had never been so desperately eager to understand Xie De's past. What exactly had he been through? Or rather, what was he going through now?

What kind of organization existed in the darkness?

And whose life was he risking his own for?

"I can help you."

This was the second time Wei Yanchi spoke, and it was the only thing he could manage to say.

"Get out."

He was rejected once again.

"No." Wei Yanchi's jade-like eyes were pitch black, even more oppressive than the dark clouds outside.

He decided to make a very bold choice. He thought, even if Xie De shot him dead the next day, he still wouldn't leave. He absolutely refused to make a choice he would regret.

Wei Yanchi gathered the man into his arms, as if holding a handful of cold, fragile snow.

Xie De pushed against him with his hand, his voice carrying a bit of irritability, "I told you to scram."

Can't you understand human language?

Helpless, Xie De wanted to give Wei Yanchi a kick right now. He wasn't hurting as much anymore, he just didn't have much strength left. What he cared about most right now was, what exactly happened to Gibberish?

Why did such a fierce electric current suddenly burst out?

This was definitely not Gibberish's intention.

That little piece of trash didn't electrocute itself into a malfunction, did it?

With the protagonist here, it wasn't easy to investigate Gibberish's situation. Xie De gritted his teeth and used all his remaining strength to push the man away. Consequently, he overestimated himself. With his strength depleted, his vision went dark, and he collapsed once again. Fortunately, this time, someone caught him.

He saw Wei Yanchi's reddened eyes.

Xie De had one final thought: I'm the one who got electrocuted, so why is the protagonist crying?

The next day, the morning light was faint. The rain had passed, and the sky had cleared.

Eight o'clock in the morning.

The first thing Xie De saw upon waking up was Wei Yanchi sleeping pitifully curled up on the sofa. Meanwhile, he was sleeping on the bed, perfectly covered by the quilt. The parts of his body that were aching yesterday had no trace of pain at all. He felt thoroughly refreshed, much more comfortable than the day before.

Xie De could guess that Wei Yanchi must have done something last night. Not wanting to wake him, he quietly got out of bed, picked up his phone, and silently waited for it to power on.

"Wuwuwu, Host, I'm sorry, (；′⌒`), I'm sorry. I admit I'm a little piece of trash now. Wuwuwu, yesterday I just wanted to absorb a little more electricity, but I didn't expect to absorb too much. The moment the hotel's breaker tripped, my mainframe exploded!"

Gibberish cried heartbreakingly.

"Alright, as long as you're okay."

–

[1] Jung - Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology, a field that emphasizes the importance of the individual psyche and the personal quest for wholeness. He is widely recognized for introducing terms that have become part of everyday language, such as introversion, extraversion, and the complex.