Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
Roland spent the whole day searching every TV channel.
He watched several martial arts fighting programs. Different from the traditional fighting matches, this kind of competition was held in an arena as large as half of a football field. With no judge in the arena, the fighting was extremely intense. It was not a rare thing to see the fighters break the floor in the heat of a match, and loud sounds like muffled thunders could be heard when the fighters exchanged blows, which were like special effects added to this match.
In terms of competitiveness and charm, it was indeed better than boxing and freestyle fighting. All the martial fighters fought in a literal sense, with no rounds being counted for them and no half-time intervals interrupting the competition. No wonder the audience would get so excited watching this kind of fighting. Roland could not help but knit his eyebrows whenever he saw a martial fighter spit out blood or get massively injured, thinking,
these martial fighters really go too far. Aren’t they worried that they’ll die before they get the chance to spend their competition bonuses?
Those matches aside, what he was most interested in was still the martial fighters themselves.
They obviously had much greater physical strength than the common people, and the Force of Nature seemed to give them some special abilities other than just improving their power or speed.
Each of such abilities would be given a special title which would be promoted as the martial fighter’s nickname. For example, in the show Roland was watching, there was a man named Hurricane. His nickname was Mighty Storm, as he could punch numerous times at a super high speed in a second.
Roland was surprised by this propaganda method which would clearly show the trump card of a fighter to his or her opponent before the match began.
He was even more surprised when he saw a demon in this fighting match.
It was a typical Mad Demon which was tall and had big arms. As it wore no mask nor iron gloves, all the audience could see its fangs and three-fingered hands, which were obviously not human features. However, no one seemed to be scared and the commentator referred to him as a foreign martialist.
Roland was amazed by this weird and powerful Dream World again.
To rationalize the existence of the demon devoured by Zero, this world even made it a racial minority. Roland could not help but wonder what would the hybrid demonic beast become in this world, and then quickly thought of Lifts-her-tail who was full of vigor.
When he heard his own stomach growling, he suddenly noticed that the sun was setting.
He could not help frowning.
Zero usually came back long before this hour.
He had read her diary and knew her school was located at Zhongshan Road. It was only three kilometers from this apartment building. If she took a bus, she could get home in 10 minutes. Her cram school was over at 5:30 pm, but now it was 6:15 already. He got a little worried,
anything happened in her school?
After a thought, he decided to get out to buy something to eat first.
He thought she might be hanging out with her friends right now. As in a summer day, it was not going to get dark until 8:00 pm, she probably went to a park or some game room to play with her friends.
Given that, even if he came to her school right now, he would probably not meet her there. As her landlord not her nanny, he did not want to be nosy.
She’s just a little girl. No matter how hardworking she usually is, sometimes she may also want to relax.
So I’ll cook… no, I’ll buy today’s dinner for us.
Right at this moment, the image on the TV flickered and the martial fighting broadcasting was changed into The News Studio.
Good evening, viewers. Now, we interrupt our programs for a newsflash.
Holding a stack of papers in hand and with a worried look on face, the host said,
a No. 29 bus was hijacked at Zhongshan Road. The hijacker had a knife. Now traffic police have sealed the road. We warn all the city residents living in that area to avoid going out for now. We’ll broadcast follow-up reports on the most recent progress of the case.
After that, it was swiftly switched to the crime scene on the TV. Roland saw a big crowd gathered outside the police cordon, who showed no inclination to leave.
Wait, isn’t this Zero’s regular route?
At this thought, his heart sank in a sudden. Is she abducted?
That was not good news to him. He was worried what would happen after the death of a key figure of the Dream World like Zero. Based on his other dream experiences, when subconscious failed to rationalize a thing, it would stop working. To avoid causing such a touble to the subconscious, he was even reluctant to delve into Zero’s family background.
He was afraid that when the subconscious stopped working, he would wake up and forget everything happened in the dream.
He did not want to finish this dream before he dug out all the information in his deep memory.
More importantly, he would be able to know more about the real world if all the residents of the Apartment of Souls had doors connected to their memory fragments as he guessed.
It was also possible that Zero’s death would not change the Dream World, but he did not want to take this risk.
Now that he had this strange power surging inside his body, he decided to go to the crime scene to help.
After he left the Tongzi Street, he ran all the way through the busy roads, feeling a warm flow circulating inside his body. Surprisingly, he did not feel tired and could easily control every part of his body while running at a high speed. He dodged all the pedestrians with agility and arrived at the spot in merely eight minutes. He felt this three-mile long-distance running was like a 100m Sprint.
Out of his expectation, when he finally squeezed himself into the crowd, he found that the hijacker was already captured. In a flood of tears, he was telling the reporter that he just did this on the spur of the moment. The crowd responded with boos and catcalls and then quickly left. Traffic police began to clean up roadblocks, getting ready to restore the traffic.
With his mouth corner twisted, he complained in his heart,
who says that policemen always come after the problem is solved.
Besides, he did not see Zero in the hijacked bus. He sighed inwardly,
it looks like I’ve run all this way for nothing.
When he was about to leave, he heard a vague call for help coming out of a narrow lane on the side of the road.
He was startled and looked into the lane. At this moment, the sun did not completely fall behind the mountains, but the lofty buildings on both sides of the lane blocked all the light. It was dark inside. He saw nothing in it.
Was that an illusion?
After several minutes, when he slowly walked past the entrance of the lane, he heard the weak voice again.
There must be someone inside!
I should ask the police for help.
He turned around, only to find that all the policemen had got into their cars with the hijacker and were driving away. It was too late to stop them now.
Should I pretend that I’ve heard nothing?
However, he clearly felt something inside the lane was attracting him.
The moment he had got near to the entrance of the lane, the warm flow in the body had started to surge. It felt like an uproar or an excitement, which urged him to get in.
He stepped into the narrow lane.
After his eyes quickly adjusted to the very weak light inside, he saw nothing but a man who stood with his back toward him.
Are you calling for help?
Roland asked, frowning.
The man did not answer or turn around. Instead, he rotated his head 180 degrees to look at Roland. Seeing this movement, he sucked in a breath of cold air.
He was even more shocked seeing the man’s face.
With black skin and lots of blisters, it seemed as if it were burnt. A dark red cyclone shining in the dim light was twirling on his forehead.
