Split Zone No.13

Gaoqin Jiuye said, “There’s no need to ask. I trust Cang Ming since he said he’ll save Guan Nie. Isn’t Nie Zun’s face already healed?”

“Then where’s Guan Nie now?”

Gaoqin Jiuye shook his head. “Du Yue wouldn’t know if I don’t. Guan Nie... He likes to do things alone.”

I smirked. “Is he following you around secretly now? He’ll probably come out and protect you when you’re in danger.”

Gaoqin Jiuye stared at me in silence.

Crash.

I heard the loud brakes of a car right beside me.

“Goddamnit, why am I this unlucky. Hitting garbage in the morning.”

On my right, a woman dressed in black silk exited a sedan. She was the one who accidentally hit somebody on the road.

A teenage boy who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen was lying in front of her car. He was rather thin and he did not look tall either.

The woman was in three-inch heels and she was ranting all the way as she walked towards that boy. She then kicked him in the chest.

“What a lowly thing. How dare you hit my car when the value of your MF is so low it’s less than 20. Trash like you should go extinct in the Split Zone. Those from the Gate of Heaven wouldn’t dare be so audacious if it weren’t for garbage like you being everywhere in the Gate of Ghost.”

She was ruthless in her kicks, stepping on the boy’s chest so many times that he began to bleed.

The boy let her continue. He looked at her imminently with those dark eyes, not asking for mercy nor avoiding any of her kicks.

The woman got angrier as she saw that gaze of his. “What are you? How dare you look at me this way! I’ll blind you!”

She lifted her right foot, eyes shining.

This was bad. She focused her MF on her right foot. To the boy whose MF was less than 20, such force would damage his MF. Even if it wasn’t damaged, his eyes would probably never heal after this.

MF was everything in the Split Zone. If a body of consciousness with a low MF value receives an attack of high MF, it was not easy to heal at all.

With a light tap of my feet, I moved over to the woman in a second, grabbing her arm and stretching out one of my feet to stop her.

I smirked. “What are you then? Someone with an MF of only 30 being a bully here. You think you’re so worthy?”

I could tell how high her MF was as I grabbed her wrist where her split symbol happened to be. Activating my MF on her split symbol, I realized her MF was not very high either.

She was incensed. “Where did you come from? Mind your own business!”

Gaoqin Jiuye walked over as I was about to speak. “I’ve always heard that those in the Gate of Ghost were cruel. Seems like it really is true when even someone with an MF of 30 dares to be this audacious.”

The woman harrumphed. “You sound like you’re from the Gate of Heaven. That explains it then. You guys love to poke your noses into the affairs of others, acting high and mighty all the time.”

I realized why Gaoqin Jiuye stepped forward. I would definitely have said something like even a soul splitter with an MF of 30 dares to be this audacious. If I said that, my identity as an heir would have been exposed.

The woman whipped my hand away and retracted her foot.

The boy was spitting out mouthfuls of blood, but he seemed to have no intention of getting up.

The woman smiled cruelly at me. “Since you love poking your nose into the affairs of others, how about you help him out all the way? Bring him with you, or else I’ll torture him if I ever see him again. None of us can die here in the Split Zone. I’ll be able to torture him forever and ever.”

My heart tightened. What a cruel individual. This was a soul splitter.

Hate was apparent in my eyes, and this seemed to surprise the woman.

My left hand was already lifted, the light of Scorpion Ray glowing bright. However, Gaoqin Jiuye stopped me.

I looked at him in confusion. Without meeting my eyes, he turned to the woman. “He’s just a child with low MF, let him go. What do you want? I can satisfy you.”

The boy was struggling to get up now. He stood up unsteadily. His face was pale and emotionless, his eyes dark.

Lifting his right hand suddenly, he pierced his own eyes.

“Don’t.” I stretched out a hand, trying to stop him. But his actions were too sudden and I was too late. All I felt was warm blood on his hands.

“You...” I looked at the blood on my fingertips, unable to speak.

The woman laughed.

The thin boy, who was now bleeding from his eyes, bowed towards the woman. He sounded gentle and calm, as if he was free from all the desires in this world.

“Sorry, I was blind. Please forgive me for offending your car.”

The woman looked at him nonchalantly, before giving me a sideways glance. “I wouldn’t dare be audacious when there’s a higher power helping you out here. You’re bowing to the wrong person.”

The boy turned to me. He looked cold and unfamiliar. “I don’t know her. She’s just poking her nose into the affairs of others. That’s her fault and it has nothing to do with me. I hope you can forgive me.”

I was stunned. The blood on my hands was already caking up.

The woman glanced at Gaoqin Jiuye and I, lips turning up in a smile. “Let her kneel and kowtow to me then. I’ll forgive you with that.”

“You...” Gaoqin Jiuye stopped me again as I was about to attack.

The woman seemed to have taken an interest in Gaoqin Jiuye. Her eyes were shining as she looked at him.

The boy’s gaze remained calm and collected, kneeling immediately when he heard the woman.

He put both his hands on the ground and started kowtowing to the woman once, twice, three times. As he did that, he said, “I don’t know her at all. It has nothing to do with me. It was me who had offended you, so I should be the one kowtowing to you.”

His fingers were pale against the ground.

Thud, thud, thud.

That was the muted sound of his head hitting the ground.

His forehead started to bleed. The blood flowed into those blood-red eyes of his. I couldn’t bear to look at this, but I couldn’t shut my eyes to this scene either.

The woman’s anger seemed to have been appeased now. She looked at Gaoqin Jiuye. “I’m not someone who cares about these things. I’ll forgive you since you’re sincere in your apology. I’m in a bit of a rush so I’ll make a move now.”

As she walked back to her car, she lifted a pale, white thigh and used it to brush against Gaoqin Jiuye.

Gaoqin Jiuye had that usual look of evil malice on him. It didn’t look like he was annoyed at all.

“If fate permits, we’ll meet again. I like people like you. Remember whatever you’ve said today. I let him go, so you’ll have to ‘satisfy’ me in future.”

She left in her car after that.

That made me want to vomit. For some reason, I felt disgusted by it.

There wasn’t anyone nearby when the woman started picking on the boy, as if everyone was used to these things happening here. However, many of them began to look at me with suspicion in their eyes when I stood up for the boy.

The boy stood up slowly, looking unhurried.

“Why?” I asked as I looked at him.

He had never looked at me once. Even now, he simply wiped the blood away from his forehead. “You’re from the outside? If you’re from the outside, then there’s no way you’d stay in the Gate of Ghost forever. If you make an enemy out of her today, she might look for me to take revenge in the future after you’re gone. After you’re gone, there’d be no one left to protect me. I’ll then be left here and continue being insulted by her. Have you ever thought of that?”

A sudden realization hit me. That’s right, have I ever thought of that?

I’m not a soul splitter, and I’ve always felt that my life had an expiration date. To them, however, life had no expiration date. How horrible and painful would it be if they had no power in a never-ending life?

If I leave, she’d continue harassing and bullying him. There’s nothing else for him to do but face the pain when he loses his protection. Is this what the soul splitters have to face? Is this why they’re looking for ways to shorten their endless lives?

How laughable this was. Those with limited lives wish to be immortal, but those who can be immortal are tired of living.

We’ll never be content.

After wiping away the blood on his forehead, he finally turned to look at me. His right eye was healing very slowly, and it was still a bloody hole. Luckily, he did not really mean to blind himself and from the looks of it, the wound should still be able to heal.

“You know what. If you don’t have the ability to save somebody, then don’t do it on a whim. Sometimes, these fake acts of kindness will end up killing more people. What you’re doing is simply giving them a false sense of hope when you have neither the heart nor the ability to save somebody. But there’s no hope here. Your help will turn into a fuse that will eventually lead them into the abyss.”

His voice sounded calm and faraway. “I’d choose to compromise instead of giving myself false hope.”

My heart sank. Whatever he said... might actually be true...

I’m not able to save my friends and I’m not even able to protect myself, so who am I to give him false hope like this?

How could my help be like what Li Qing described it to be? Kindness in the Split Zone? I don’t fit in here at all... I don’t seem to fit in anywhere...