manynovel Chapter 110 : Chapter 110
Chapter 110 : Chapter 110
Chapter 110
Ji Qing had more or less sorted out his own situation.
He had deliberately forced himself into amnesia in order to avoid the admission records review of Third Ability Academy. All Ability Academies conducted routine divinations on students before enrollment. They would mark students whose divination results were unfavorable, keep a close watch on them, and in serious cases even strip them of their admission eligibility altogether.
As an Aberrant, Ji Qing would very obviously have become someone the school would guard against heavily.
Although he possessed the ability to evade a Seer’s Prophecy, that ability was useless when it came to enrollment. If anything, it only pushed his admission even farther out of reach.
As for “Ji Qing’s” purpose...
Things were exactly as Ji Qing had guessed before. It was for revenge. Although the current Ji Qing felt utterly estranged from that motive, the him from before the amnesia really had sought out the World Book for that very reason. Ji Qing could also read a complicated emotion in Emerald’s expression.
So Ji Qing said softly, “You do not look as though you want to support me in doing this.”
“In fact, I do not,” Emerald answered.
“Then why were you still willing to help me?” Ji Qing’s calm eyes reflected Emerald’s figure as he quietly pointed out, “Without your help, the Dawn Society would never have developed so smoothly, and I would not be sitting here talking to you today.”
The Tree Sea Restricted Zone had formed fifteen years ago. The Dawn Society had been established thirteen years ago. Raven’s earliest activity record dated back eleven years. And Emerald and Raven had risen at the same time. Which meant that, at the latest, Emerald had already accepted this absurd revenge plan eleven years ago.
Eleven years. Thirteen years. Fifteen years... What long, distant numbers they were.
The years piled up by those numbers were already almost equal to Ji Qing’s age in his previous life. Had he really spent all that time alone in a world he could never fully fit into, drifting from place to place, and finally planning revenge in solitude?
That was a little too miserable, Ji Qing complained inwardly.
“Perhaps it is because I am an Aberrant.” Emerald lightly hooked a strand of hair beside his ear with one hand, his tone complicated. “Because I am an Aberrant, I cannot remain uninvolved. You are the Crown Prince I chose.”
For some reason, an extra trace of sorrow crept into his voice. “In this war, I ought to stand on your side.”
Ji Qing fell into silence.
But the next second, he could not help letting out a soft sigh. “Sigh...”
Ji Qing could understand the situation.
Emerald did not support his revenge, yet he still supported his revenge plan. The reason was simple: the target of that revenge involved the Aberrants. Fifteen years was a very long time, almost half the average lifespan of a wasteland human, and yet those fifteen years were only the prelude to Ji Qing’s revenge plan.
With such a long span of years and such a meticulous plan, Ji Qing imagined that he must have hesitated over and over again before truly setting it in motion.
From the day he formally confirmed that he was an Aberrant, from the day he finished reading through the Dawn Society’s internal archives, Ji Qing had already understood that there had never been any code name succession, nor any so-called rise to power. The leader of the Dawn Society had always been himself, and it was he himself who had laid down this entire series of plans.
Fifteen years ago, Ji Qing had already been truly living in the wasteland.
Losing his memory might actually have been a good thing. Ji Qing thought with unprecedented calm: the nineteen-year-old Ji Qing and the thirty-four-year-old Ji Qing might think in similar ways, but the latter could never truly fool the former, who was still burning with the vigor of youth. Or rather...
Was he hesitating over something?
Ji Qing could not work out the exact connection, but he could roughly guess the reason. In the end, it came down to the conflict between humans and Aberrants, and to himself, whose position stood ambiguously between the two...
“Strictly speaking, this is not Licheng.” Emerald suddenly turned to look at the full moon outside the window and said softly, “My king, you were the one who named this abandoned town Licheng. The real Licheng was destroyed in the Black Tide long ago.”
Ji Qing lowered his eyes and listened quietly.
After a long silence, he could not help closing his eyes and sighing. “I know that. The archives mentioned the Fall of Licheng. Let me think... that was the Black Tide twenty-one years ago.”
“Yes.” Emerald nodded gently.
Silence spread through the dim room, and Ji Qing suddenly felt a trace of irritation.
Revenge had never truly been Ji Qing’s original wish. Even the fragmentary understanding he had now was already enough to make him feel unprecedented anxiety and unease. A vast span of years lay between him and that other self, and Ji Qing could no longer understand what he himself had done.
And yet, if he absolutely had to understand it, Ji Qing felt that he still could.
He had lost his homeland, lost his family, lost everything familiar to him, then awakened in an unfamiliar world, forged new bonds there, and just before finally accepting that world, suffered a catastrophic upheaval.
There was no way Ji Qing could have remained unmoved by that.
So he said softly, “Humans raised me? And I am investigating the Aberrant identity of the one who killed the humans who raised me?”
“Yes.”
Ji Qing muttered in silence, “That really sounds too absurd.”
He could not understand why he would cling so stubbornly to this, but when the faces of his classmates flashed across his mind, a trace of wavering truly arose in his heart. He could not even find a reason not to seek revenge.
What anchored him to this world, what distinguished him from other living beings, were precisely the friends he had met.
“My king, allow me to confirm one thing with you here,” Emerald said, gazing at Ji Qing with a complicated look. “Are you truly certain you want to do this? Humans are not our kin. Even if they really did raise you, in a hundred years, the only sapient species left on this planet will be us.”
“That sounds like species annihilation.” Ji Qing let out a long sigh.
He did not find that thought especially absurd, nor had he ever felt that there was anything inherently wrong with the war between Aberrants and humans. Since childhood, Ji Qing had known that the laws of nature were cruel and beautiful, and that wars between species on opposite ends of the food chain were, in themselves, perfectly legitimate.
The only one who would feel sorrow over such a thing was him, caught between the two species.
Ji Qing sighed deeply, then said as gently as he could, “You do not need to tell me that, Emerald. Since I decided to do this, then naturally I will keep walking this path. This preparation has already cost too much time and too many people. It cannot simply stop halfway. And besides...”
“You still have not told me everything.”
Ji Qing suddenly lifted his head and coolly examined the Aberrant before him. “If this were only revenge, you would not have deliberately brought up the issue of stance. Let me guess... hmm. It must be related to the identity of the Aberrant I intend to kill, correct?”
Emerald could not help curving his lips into a smile. “My king’s intuition is as sharp as ever.”
But before entering the real topic, Emerald could not help lowering his eyes and sighing, “Strictly speaking, I belong to the Land Faction. And Qing, you have always belonged to the Sky Faction. That may also be why our ways of thinking have never aligned.”
Ji Qing smiled bitterly. “No, I think that may simply be because of our species.”
Ji Qing had never once imagined that he could feel resonance with a green plant. The moment he thought that Emerald’s true form might once have been an ornamental green plant he had kept in a flowerpot, Ji Qing felt an indescribable sense of guilt.
Before he had ever sat down with the System to talk at length about returning home and keeping pets, he had already done something this utterly unconscionable.
This was even worse than the version of himself who wanted to treat the System like a house pet.
After hearing that, Emerald blinked playfully. “Please do not discriminate against plants. Although most of my kind are slow-witted most of the time, we still occupy an entire continent and have developed a complete social system.”
“That is impressive.” Ji Qing sounded genuinely surprised.
This was a story that lay beyond the Federation, something the current him knew nothing about. Ji Qing had wondered before about the world outside the Federation, but he had never expected that the him from before the amnesia had already traveled to other continents on Earth.
Well, so be it, Ji Qing thought calmly.
The levitation granted by Gravity Control, the Aberrants’ long lifespans, and his own formidable strength... all of those things were more than enough to support him leaving familiar lands and traveling alone. Since that former self was still himself, then naturally anything Ji Qing had once wondered about, that other self must have thought through as well.
Crossing oceans and mountain ranges was hardly much at all.
“It has already been a very long time since we descended upon this planet,” Emerald said suddenly. “Most of our kind have long since taken root and multiplied here. As the lineage that carries the King’s Gene, we have already begun the War of Succession.”
“This war will affect countless species and last for a very long time, until at last the King truly recognized by the Aberrants is chosen.”
Ji Qing fell silent, yet he could not help asking curiously, “...And then?”
“That depends on what the new King wants.”
Ji Qing said with mixed feelings, “I more or less understand now.”
He had always believed that the war between humans and Aberrants was about to begin. The Manga Forum had reached much the same conclusion. But what Ji Qing had never expected was this: before humans and Aberrants even began warring against each other, the Aberrants themselves were already divided among rival powers, leaderless and fragmented.
They first had to decide who the true King would be.
And once the new King appeared, the fighting among the sapient Aberrants would also come to an end. By then, Ji Qing would find it very difficult to act according to his own will. So this also amounted to a kind of hidden time limit.
Ji Qing said, “But what does that have to do with the identity of that Aberrant?”
Emerald replied with a complicated expression, “According to what you once told me, the other party is also a Crown Prince. That is precisely why, my king, you are participating in this War of Succession.”
“That sounds terrible.” Ji Qing paused, then suddenly asked, “But before that, let me ask one thing first. Emerald, why do you not want to take part in the War of Succession? This war does not seem to restrict participation to some predesignated set of candidates.”
“That touches on the rules within our own species.” Emerald smoothed his hair and answered gently, “The War of Succession itself requires supporters. I was not supported by my own faction. The species I belong to also chose to stay out of it, and I myself have no desire to become King.”
...In truth, Ji Qing did not have that desire either, he added helplessly in his heart.
But having already reached this point, withdrawing now was difficult in itself. A stray thought suddenly crossed Ji Qing’s mind: by the way... just who was supporting him? He did not even know. Did the Deep-Sea Monarch know about that?
Ji Qing’s brow twitched.
Once he connected that with the fact that he had “once flown away from the continent where the Federation was located,” Ji Qing sharply realized that he might have quite a few unexpected romantic entanglements outside the Federation. His scalp immediately went numb, but fortunately, he would not be leaving the Federation anytime soon.
That counted as a disguised blessing too, Ji Qing comforted himself inwardly.