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Chapter 1195: One Thousand One Hundred Ninety-Two: "【I had a happy childhood.】"

Noel was once a victim of human experimentation.

The criminal was finally caught by the police and sent to an orphanage.

In the orphanage, he met many bad kids. The kids who were jealous of his looks threw dirty water on him. The kids who couldn't stand his intelligence wanted to push his head into the water...

However, he designed some traps. The former was scratched by a cat, and the latter slipped into the river while playing. As long as he showed a sympathetic expression, everyone would think that it had nothing to do with him. After all, who would doubt a poor little thing?
If you want to protect yourself, let the perpetrator fall into the trap first.

This is the survival method of genius.

However, after being adopted, he no longer needed those intrigues.

His adoptive father is a well-known musician and his adoptive mother is an international jewelry designer. They treated him very well and gave him piles of books as long as he mentioned it.

In the deep night, he held the book in his hands, as if floating in a dark and sweet fantasy. He read the mirror figure in Jane Eyre who was sent to Lowood Orphanage. It turned out that this world really does not pity the humble and lonely people. Once docile, they will be docile every day. He read the perfect villain Thénardier in Les Miserables, who is the embodiment of all the dark forces in society, but because of his bad intentions, Jean Valjean was cleared of all charges, and he accidentally completed the only good in his life. He also read about Youqing's absurd death. The moonlight shone on the road, like salt.

"Noel, what kind of person do you want to be?" One day, the adoptive mother was watering the golden sunflowers in the backyard: "A writer? A mathematician? A physicist?"

"adventurer."

He answered under his fluffy golden hair.

"Adventurer...that's romantic too." Instead of saying anything like "you have no future" or "you must have a proper job", the adoptive mother was very supportive of him.

They talked about the world in books, the scenery of various places, and the sunflowers in the backyard... The precocious child and the romantic adoptive parents seemed to be peers.

My parents loved romantic activities, musicals, hand-tossed balls, puppet shows... There were many wooden dolls in the room, and the family would always perform dramas with silk threads in their spare time. My father played the male lead, my mother played the female lead, and Noel played the child.

Noel felt comfortable and even developed a slight attachment to this kind of life... Is this considered "love"?

Whenever he looked in the mirror and saw the hideous surgical scars on his body, he felt like a broken glass bottle that was slowly being filled with happiness.

One by one, colorful star candies fell into his chest, clinking and sparkling in the bottle.

When Noel was twelve years old, his adoptive father mentioned someone: "This time I went to Longguo for a performance and saw the famous pianist Ms. Lin. She was not in good condition. I don't know if it was because of her five-year-old child."

Noel didn't care about the strange Ms. Lin, and only asked: "Is the scenery in Longguo beautiful?"

"Our adventurer, if you want to travel around the world in the future, you must visit Dragon Country! It's very beautiful there." The adoptive father stretched out his hands and lifted him up high.

Noel fluttered in the air. How old was he, and he was still being lifted up like this!

The whole family burst into laughter.

The room was filled with the scent of lavender. Outside the window, the fields stretched as far as the eye could see. Windmills were embedded in the azure sky, like butterflies flapping their wings slowly. The golden sunflowers were swaying, as if the happy time would never end...

……

【Youqing was the first to die suddenly.】

[“Youqing will not come this way.” said his mother.]

[——《To Live》]

……

Noel has finished reading all the one thousand books on the bookshelf, but he has not asked his parents for new books because they had a quarrel.

The reasons for quarrels are nothing more than those: trivialities in life, differences in some concepts, and parents' nagging.

In the evening, his parents took him to the amusement park. Noel thought that they had not reconciled yet, so he refused to follow them and entered the Ferris wheel alone.

As the Ferris wheel rose, his parents waiting on the ground moved farther and farther away from him. He opened the book he carried with him and read attentively.

——So he didn’t hear the screams on the ground.

In the dim evening, he leaned against the small door of the Ferris wheel, curled up and read the translation in the book, like a cat half asleep and half awake.

The moonlight shone on his golden hair, like an eternal glow.

……

"[…I looked at the path that curved toward the city. I could no longer hear the sound of my son running barefoot. The moonlight shone on the road, as if it was covered with salt.]"

……

"Who are you——!"

"——Where are your children?"

"What kid, I don't understand what you are talking about."

"——I thought he could be easily taken away from the orphanage, but you adopted him. It seems that you really love him. Poor parents... You don't seem to know what happened to him. He is our most outstanding experimental subject."

"What kind of experiment...you guys..."

"——What a pity, your kindness has brought you into a big trouble. Your mistake was that you shouldn't have adopted him."

"Tell Noel to run! Fanny, shout—"

"Bang! Bang!"

There were two soft noises, like the sound of a silenced gun.

Then, there was the sound of two bodies falling to the ground, not heavy nor loud.

……

"[…It was time to bury Youqing, but I couldn’t bear to do so. I sat in front of my parents’ grave, holding my son tightly in my arms and refusing to let go. I let his face rest on my neck, and Youqing’s face looked frozen…]"

……

The Ferris wheel reached the top and began to descend.

Noel was reading a book while building triangular blocks on the table.

He felt a little regretful. Shouldn't he be angry over such a small matter? After all, the veal stew with white sauce last night was delicious, and his mother also made strawberry pudding...

Just count to yourself, one, two, three.

After counting silently, the grid of the Ferris wheel landed, and he opened the grid door and told his parents: "I forgive you. It doesn't matter even if you always leave me at home to read books. I am not a naive child who cannot understand your busyness."

Counting silently in mind.

One,

two,
……

“[…When I thought about Youqing never speaking again, never running away with shoes in his hand, my heart ached so much that I couldn’t even cry.]”

……

three.

The Ferris wheel touches the ground.

He stopped reading, and like a brave man about to step into the forest, he pushed open the lattice door with a click.

He looked towards the door, his lips slightly parted.

He wanted to tell them - I forgive you, Mom and Dad, let's continue the puppet show, okay? Last time we played it to the point where Fantine sold her hair, now it's time to move on...

What greeted him was not his parents, but a gun.

"Click".

The black muzzle of the gun was stained with blood, which was left by the close-range shooting. At the last moment, the father rushed towards the gangster with his bare hands, leaving the mother a chance to survive.

But it didn't work.

No one succeeded.

Two cold bodies fell to the ground, blood gushed out, staining the blue rose cane that my father used on tour red.

The Ferris wheel was still turning slowly, the blocks on the table collapsed, and he maintained the action of opening the door, as if frozen.

He was pulled away from the Ferris wheel and faced two cold corpses. The strange man in the white coat said with interest: "Say something. Beg for mercy, roar, cry bitterly... We finally caught you."

People held up his arms, and his blue eyes turned into a coldness that gradually sank into the sea.

Perhaps he should have understood that this is the world's preference for geniuses. Whatever is given to you, something will always be taken away.

Whenever his parents touched the scars on his back, he would tremble slightly - this was the legacy left on him. But he always felt that the pain had passed and happiness had arrived. Tragedy would not follow him like a shadow, and he would live happily, like a normal child.

But this seems wrong.

Reality is not a fairy tale.

These criminals who conducted human experiments were from a certain evil cult. They had dug up information about "eternal life" in the polar regions and speculated that this information might be a gift from outer space. So, they began to capture orphans from all over the world and conduct crazy human experiments. They had an experimental city, and among the countless children who died, Noel was the most successful experimental subject - but he was rescued by the police.

But there is more than one den, and the darkness of the world cannot be washed away by justice. People who pursue "eternal life" exist even at the top - how can the justice of ordinary people be demonstrated?

So, even after they chased him back to his adoptive parents, these people did not give up and were determined to get Noel back.

He never thought that these people would be so lawless.

It is wrong to be greedy for "love".

“[…I know dusk is passing away].” Facing everyone, he did not cry or beg for mercy.

They looked at him in confusion, not understanding what he was saying.

"【Night fell from the sky】." He looked at the blood flowing on the ground.

——I saw the vast land revealing its strong chest, which was a gesture of calling.

——Go there, the leaves will wave to you, the stones will smile to you, the river will greet you. There is no poverty or wealth, no sadness or pain, no hatred or resentment... There everyone is equal in death.

He asked, “What is that place?”

I said, "There is no place to bury the dead."

(——Yu Hua, The Seventh Day)
……

If I had not seen the light, I would not long for it in the darkness.

If I had never felt happiness, I would not miss the past in endless pain.

But, dear, tell me.

Why are those days gone forever?

……

Noel’s body is forever frozen in time as a teenager.

He did not tell anyone about the pain he endured.

His happy childhood lasted only three short years, and the rest was filled with long-term experimental torture. But when Su Mingan asked him about it, he just smiled and said -

——【I had a happy childhood】.

For him, those were just three short years.

That's all.

……

Su Mingan opened his eyes.

He had no memory of why Noel became a test subject before he was eight years old, how Noel grew from twelve years old to twenty-five years old... He wanted to save Noel but had no chance. The story ended abruptly when Noel was captured.

But he could complete the question on his own - why Noel saw his childhood self on the street.

At that time, Noel should be close to 20 years old and had escaped the clutches of human experiments. So Noel followed his father's words before his death and came to Dragon Country for a trip. Then, his future best friend accidentally appeared in his life.

Moreover, Noel knew how painful human experiments were, so when he picked up the scalpel and gave the children the ability to protect themselves, he had already mastered the least painful surgical method.

As for those painful and tortuous surgical injuries... he had already experienced them himself.

All the pain has been left to his childhood, and no new children will suffer from it.

"It turns out that long before the world game began, there were already high-dimensional forces spying on Zhai Xing... The information about immortality in the polar region was obviously not created by humans." Su Mingan said to himself.

Now it seems that Noel should have completed his revenge long ago, and the cult no longer exists. The fantasy of "immortality" has not been realized, it has only frozen the time of the body.

If Su Mingan could still help Lu Shu to take revenge and make up for his shortcomings, but for Noel... Su Mingan had no way to interfere with his past. Noel was already complete, and there was no place that could be made up. If it weren't for the memory fragments, Su Mingan would never have thought that Noel had actually suffered such a brutal experiment - almost the same as Su Wensheng when he was a child.

Noel looks extremely optimistic, like a typical child from a happy family. No one would doubt his cruel childhood.

"...Su Ming'an?" Xiao A's voice came from behind: "I found Lu Shu's fragments, do you want to see them?"

Su Mingan looked back at him.

After a moment, he asked softly:

"Little Aba, how did you manage to survive?"

Xiao A's pupils flickered for a moment, then turned into the deep blue of the overlapping shadows: "...That's not called 'support'."

"Ok?"

"It should be called... 'experience'. I don't agree that my childhood was miserable, nor do I need pity or sympathy."

"Would Noel think the same as you?" Su Ming'an said.

"I have nothing to do with him, so I don't know." As if touching upon an unhappy topic, the deep blue pupils quickly switched back to azure blue.

Su Mingan looked at the Ferris wheel in the distance.

Couples of parents brought their children onto the Ferris wheel. The soft colorful lights shone brightly and their laughter drifted far away.

Some of the children were wearing mechanical arms and skeletons, they were probably members of the New World Guild. There was no pain or silent despair on their faces.

No need to cry in personal space, no need to be treated like pigs by adults - thanks to Noel's surgery, they have the ability to protect themselves and will not experience the helplessness of being under the Ferris wheel.

——Let’s go over there.

There the leaves will wave to you, the stones will smile to you, the river will greet you. There is no poverty or wealth, no sorrow or pain, no hatred or resentment.

The blood shed by the predecessors, the scalpel that changed the direction, and the smile on the face of the genius.

——When Noel Akinni faced his painful past, took up the scalpel on the child who wanted to become stronger, and repeatedly recalled his own trauma and PTSD to gain surgical experience——He never cared——

Others judge him as an angel or a devil.

So, when he answered Su Mingan's question with a smile, he never cared -

——Should his past be classified as pain or "happiness" in the conceptual sense?

……

[I am immersed in imagination, but tightly controlled by reality. I clearly feel the split of myself.]

[The happy moment is to taste the good tea in front of you carefully, making the happy feeling at this moment more mellow, and you who are chatting with me in front of me are the source of my happiness. 】

[——《To Live》]

……

(End of this chapter)