Qing Chen asked, "Is it because you knew that there was a phased array radar hidden by the Qing Clan near Forbidden Land No. 10 that you agreed to let me go there?"
The air raid was so swift that even with radar monitoring, everyone only had two minutes to react.
If it weren't for the Shadow Gate, they would all have surely died.
However, the shadow's expression remained calm and composed, as if it had just been a minor incident.
The shadow said, "More and more people want to kill you now... Speaking of which, you're quite good at attracting hatred. I heard from Si Nianhua that even people from across the ocean in the real world want to kill you."
Qing Chen, who was lying on a chair next to him, looked at the Jingshan Tea Garden in front of him and said, "There are definitely more people who want to kill you than people who want to kill me. It's just that you are too strong, so they don't dare to show it."
Qingchen looked at the sunflowers that were always in bloom next to the Jingshan Tea Garden, and in that sea of sunflowers, there was a delicate tombstone.
"Who is that?"
The shadow gazed intently at the tombstone: "When I was little, I often went to play on the streets of City 5, pretending to be a poor boy and experiencing the so-called hardships of life. I would fight with my gang, and sometimes when I ran out of money, I would rely on dancers for help. Fortunately, you and I inherited the looks of our ancestor Qingzhen, so we never lacked food wherever we went."
Qingchen listened silently, realizing that Shadow had such an absurd and unrestrained history.
Shadow continued reminiscing, "She was the most beautiful dancer in the fourth district at the time. She didn't know who I was, and she was three years older than me. I sneaked into her dressing room to sleep, and when I woke up, I found myself covered with a coat. I got up to look at her and saw her putting on makeup in front of the mirror. I think this was probably the first time I had ever seen such a beautiful person."
"And then?" Qingchen asked curiously.
Shadow chuckled as if remembering something, "Then, when she saw I was awake, she lectured me for two hours, saying I was too young to be doing anything productive, that even someone like her was working hard to make a living, and that I, with hands and feet, shouldn't find a job. She even found me a job as a porter, making me work myself to the bone on construction sites for six months..."
“I had nowhere to live, so I would still sneak into her changing room to shower and sleep every day. She never seemed to mind my body odor, and would even secretly bring me leftover food from other customers. She said that as long as I worked hard to support myself, I could stay with her forever.”
“Once, I was spotted by the security guards at the nightclub. They were going to beat me up and throw me out, but she protected me like a little lion, like an older sister,” Shadow reminisced about that time. “A woman stood in front of me, doing things that even my family had never done for me. She didn’t know who the person she was protecting was, and she never asked me who I was or where I came from. It seemed that as long as I could muster the courage to face that world, she was satisfied.”
Qing Chen asked, "Is it because of her that you're unwilling to become a beta tester in the surface world?"
“Yes,” Shadow nodded, “Every day after work, I would secretly hide on the steel frame above the nightclub backstage and watch her dance. The dazzling dance dress and the lights, she was proud and beautiful, confident and self-loving. I felt ashamed in the darkness, and even my identity as a member of the Qing Group could not give me the confidence to match her.”
Yangyang squatted to the side, supporting her chin with both hands, listening intently.
Chapter 625, The Missing Century
"Her name is Ning Xiu, a very beautiful name."
“Later I started writing her cheesy love letters, copying paragraphs from here and there online,” Shadow said with a smile. “I was so busy during that time. During the day I was moving things at the construction site, and at night I would sneak into her dressing room, lie on the table and write love letters, and then leave them on her table before dawn.”
"After writing the love letter, I didn't even dare to see her. I would wait until she got off work and went home before sneaking into the dressing room, because I was afraid she would reject me. I was afraid that she would be disappointed in me after seeing the love letter, and then we wouldn't even be able to be friends anymore."
"We wrote love letters for three months, and during those three months, we didn't see each other once. Finally, one night, I sneaked into the dressing room and found her waiting for me in the dark. She only turned on the light when she saw me. I was terrified. What if she couldn't take it anymore and wanted to reject me? I felt like a child who had done something wrong. She asked me with a stern face why I was avoiding her. It turns out that even when she was angry, she was so beautiful."
Shadow laughed and said, "At that moment, she asked me how much money I had saved. I panicked because I had only saved two thousand eight hundred yuan. You have no idea how outrageous this world is. Starting from the conglomerates, they exploit everyone layer by layer. I barely make enough to eat after a month as a porter. If I hadn't lived in the locker room to save on rent, I probably wouldn't have been able to save even eight hundred yuan. I thought she would think it was too little, but she said that I used to be a playboy, and being able to save some money meant that I had really changed."
"And then?" Yangyang pressed on.
Shadow said, "Then she actually dragged me to get our marriage certificate, used my 2,800 yuan to take wedding photos, and then treated a few of my coworkers to a meal. That was it, we were married. She gave up her job, sold her house, and moved to a small apartment in the Fifth District, and started to settle down and live with me. Later, she found a low-paying clerical job and we lived frugally together. She seemed different from other women. Others would buy the most beautiful flowers, but she would buy whole pots of sunflowers. She said sunflowers are flowers too, and you can pick the seeds and eat them when you're bored. I said I would buy her flowers, but she said not to waste money, that we still need to save money to raise a baby, and that sunflowers are very pretty, that she loves sunflowers the most... We spent about half a year together, which was the most ordinary yet most beautiful time of my life. The battle between shadows began."
Qing Chen's mind sharpened.
He knew how brutal the Shadow Contest was for every candidate, and that Kyung Joon, as the son of the family head, would be the target of everyone's attacks.
Kyung-jun's life was destined to be anything but ordinary from the moment he was born.
The Shadow said, “I was one of the candidates. On the second day of the Shadow Competition, she started vomiting, falling into a coma, and becoming sluggish. I took her to the hospital for a checkup, and the doctor said that her body was contaminated with hundreds of neurotoxins, and that she was beyond saving. This is one of the most vicious toxins used for decapitation assassinations. You need to know what these hundreds of neurotoxins are to concoct an antidote; missing even one will not save her. But there is no time left; she only has one hour left.”
The shadow said calmly, "That day I awakened. Awakening makes one a demigod."
The shadow's voice was calm, but Qing Chen could sense the surging killing intent beneath the calm sea.
When he said that, it was as if he were talking about something trivial.
Qingchen also understood that it was because the shadow needed time to stop for his lover that it awakened the ability to control time.
Shadow: "I see time stand still before me, and the world is conquered by me. I see that the ocean will not turn into mulberry fields, and the world will no longer change."
“I need to use my time to save people, but to save people, I must first find the person who poisoned me and know the formula for the neurotoxin. I started investigating all the neurotoxin experts in the Federation during the time freeze, going to them one by one. I was bloodthirsty at the time, so over the long years, I dragged them out from the shadows one by one, searching for every clue.”
“Even if I eventually prove that they were not involved in the poisoning, I will still kill them one by one and bury them in this tea garden.”
The shadow continued, “It took me 49 years to find 37,112 neurotoxin experts and practitioners, and then I discovered… a very famous neurotoxin expert had disappeared. At that moment, I understood that the neurotoxin in Ning Xiu’s body must have been developed by this person, and he had probably been murdered to silence him.”
"I spent another year searching for this neurotoxin expert, but to no avail. It seemed like nobody in the world knew where he had gone. At that moment, I was desperate. I would break down for a short period every day, and then force myself to pull myself together and find a solution."
Shadow: "I spent another 40 years searching for a forbidden object that could bring the dead back to life, even crossing oceans for it, but ultimately to no avail. There is a forbidden object on the Western Continent called the Poison Cup, which was once in the possession of the Roosevelt royal family. A person who fills the cup with blood and drinks it will enter a state of suspended animation until his/her blood relative fills the cup with blood and drinks it, at which point he/she will awaken. This object could be used to delay Ningxiu's death until I found a way to save her, but this forbidden object has been lost, and the Roosevelt royal family cannot find it."
Shadow: "There are two in the Eastern Continent. One is called the Forbidden ACE-023 Heart Lock, which is in the hands of a demigod. Its usage is complicated, and Ning Xiu does not meet the requirements for its use. Even if I kill this demigod, it will be of no use."
Qing Chen: "Is the other one the Undying Brooch? It's the forbidden item that Qing Yi found in the first round of the Shadow Battle. He gave it to Qing Wen to show weakness. I heard that this forbidden item can save a life."
Shadow nodded: "Yes, the forbidden item ACE-90, the Immortal Brooch, a single-use item. This Immortal Brooch can use the souls of ten people to bring one person back to life. Once used, the Immortal Brooch will disappear and reappear ten years later in a random brooch shop, bought by an unsuspecting person. But it was used up the year before Ning Xiu's accident, and only reappeared in recent years."
The shadow said, "I tried many, many methods and traveled many, many roads, but in the end I found that even if you are a demigod, you can't keep the person you love."
"I spent the last 10 years with her. I sat by her bedside, watching her face grow younger every second. But I knew that the moment of parting would eventually come."
Qingchen could imagine that Shadow had spent decades trying to find a way to save Ningxiu, only to face despair again and again after having hope.
For a long century, the other party was alone for a century.
Others didn't even feel that time had stood still.
Time seemed to surge and flow only through him.
The shadow floats and sinks in the sea of time, yet even as a demigod who controls time, he is powerless to save his beloved.
He finally watched his beloved die.
Yangyang squatted on the ground, crying her heart out. Xiaomengqian, who had already finished picking the tea leaves from Jingshan, kept handing her tissues.
Shadow looked at Qingchen and said, "Actually, if it weren't for waiting for you, I might have already started a massacre."
Qingchen said in a low voice, "Why are you so good to me? Even if I am your own brother, we haven't seen each other for more than ten years. I have never really believed in family ties and blood relations because the family relationships I have experienced are not trustworthy. My father stole my money, and my mother didn't even visit me once after my house was attacked and bombed."
The shadow said, "That's why I feel like I owe you something. No one has ever sheltered you from the wind and rain. That's what I regret the most."
Qingchen lowered his head and gently wiped his eyes: "Actually, it's pretty good. Now I have no worries and don't need to look back."
Shadow smiled and said, "You were quite cute when you were little, but you're not cute anymore now. You're stubborn and as hard as a rock. Even a master as resilient as Shendai Yunhe was killed by you. Back then you were a crystal, but now you're more like a gallstone."
Qing Chen was stunned. Why tell such a lame joke at such a heavy time!
Qing Chen asked, "Do you know who poisoned it?"
“I don’t know,” Shadow shook his head. “We can’t find out. The other party did it extremely discreetly. What I blame most is that the neurotoxin was probably meant for me, but she died in my place.”
“But they’re still people from the Qing family,” Qing Chen said. “The families behind the other candidates will all benefit from this event, won’t they?”
"Could it be that someone else instigated internal strife within the Qing family?" Shadow laughed. "Blindly speculating is useless. I can't possibly kill everyone in the world. There were people I regretted killing all the neurotoxin experts back then, and I blamed myself for it for a long time. Xiao Chen, I'm not a good person, but I'm not a bad person either."
Qing Chen nodded: "Understood."
Looking at the delicate tombstone in the sunflower field, Shadow said gently, "I should go and keep her company, but I need to send some people down with me; that would be more fun."
At midnight, Qingchen had Zard prepare all the plants to be transplanted.
This time travel taught him too many secrets, and also some hatred.
If given the chance, and if he were to find the culprit in this poisoning case, he would make them pay the price.
Time resets to zero.
return.
The world was plunged into darkness.
Chapter 626, The First Batch of Labor at the Agricultural College
Countdown 168:00:00.
Seven days.
Ma Jingjing sat up in bed as if in a dream. There was a knock on the door. Xiaoyu and Li Mengyun pushed the door open and pulled up a chair. The four of them looked at each other in bewilderment.
"Who do you think is the person next to Qingchen?" Li Mengyun broke the silence.
Yi Wenbo said in a deep voice, "I do have a guess, but I think it's a bit too bold..."
As she spoke, Xiaoyu looked at her phone and said, "That Zard just posted a thread that charges 88 yuan per view."
“What are you waiting for? Pay up,” Ma Jingjing said.
Now that Zard's identity is clear, Ma Jingjing guesses that he is probably a secret member of Daylight, a master of mastery.
How could I not read this post?
Xiaoyu linked her bank card to pay the fees, but the first sentence of the post was completely devoid of substance yet brimming with hatred: Do you all still remember the fear of being dominated by me at the ski resort?
"Are you crazy?" Ma Jingjing said, both amused and exasperated. She had tricked everyone into paying 88 yuan, only to receive a sarcastic remark in return?
“There’s more to come, we’ll get down to business later,” Li Mengyun said.
Zard wrote in the post: "According to reliable sources, the Qing Clan's Shadow Force attacked all the black markets in the Federation on the first night of their transmigration, seizing all the ancient documents and books from the civilization two generations ago. Using this as bait, the Shadow Force also located the locations of the materials hidden by the Kamishiro, Kashima, and Chen Clan, and seized them separately. As for why they seized these materials, there is no accurate answer at the moment."
This matter was not a secret to begin with, so Zard made up his mind to make a fortune before others could.
Ma Jingjing and the others fell silent after reading the post.
shadow……
It really is a shadow of the Qing family!
There are already quite a few replies to the post.
An ID named 'Sassiness Isn't Wrong' commented: "Holy crap, it was the Qing Clan who made their move! I was working in the black market in City 19 when suddenly a few powerful figures stormed in and beat my boss to a pulp. Now my boss has run away with his mistress, and I'm the new boss. Thanks to the Qing Clan's shadow..."
An ID named 'Seven Thousand Games of Yasuo Unrivaled' commented: "This event caused a huge sensation in the Federation. The black market, which the entire Federation had been trying to manage for hundreds of years without success, was almost wiped out overnight..."
An ID called 'There's Always an Idiot Playing Yasuo' commented: "The key point is, even conglomerates like Kamishiro and Kashima got robbed... Don't these conglomerates have any way to counter Shadow?"
Ma Jingjing said in a low voice, "Now that we've been sent back to City 10, can anyone tell me what to do next to get back on our good side?"
As they were talking, Yi Wenbo suddenly said while looking at his phone, "It seems like the opportunity to curry favor with someone powerful has come..."
Everyone looked at their phones, and there was a new pinned post on the forum, which was also an official post highlighted in red: "The College of Agriculture is now open for enrollment. All students in their second year of high school and above can apply voluntarily."
"College Introduction: Farming and planting will provide some supplies and agricultural products to the college. All students who love labor are welcome to volunteer."