CH 54

[Extra] 54 - Ye Lan x Ye Xiao - «Daytime Sleep» 01

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Gui Mao had originally planned to go to sleep early today, taking off his bloody clothes and carelessly rushing into the waterfall, being the first to walk back to the bunks.

But when the others returned to the room after the trials had finished, the continuous stream of moans, cries, and insults created endless noise, making even he, who had the best temperament in the cycle, feel moody just by hearing it. They were all wounded, each one was also simply a youth of eleven or twelve years, and it could be said they had almost no endurance, so every day there was someone who yelled and cried bitterly, unable to bear the torment. Compared to the ruthless Killing Arena during the day, this revealed the weakness and unwillingness of a habitat that seemed more like purgatory instead.

It wasn’t that he looked down on them.

It was only that, these youths that wailed and caused trouble due to their injuries generally didn’t last several days before meeting their Maker, and were replaced with new people to fill the vacancies when the moment came. Gui Mao was one of the sixty youths that made up this cycle, and, of the people that came in at the same time as him and were able to survive until this day, there remained only ten.

Gui Mao considered himself a heartless person, he had long gotten used to smiling while helping his brothers collect corpses, but after hearing these sounds of weeping for a long time, his heart was also at a loss. Every single one of these youths were risking their lives to survive, but he didn’t have any hopes, so much so that he didn’t cling to surviving in the world, and he didn’t know what on earth he was trying to achieve every day.

Gui Mao couldn’t stop himself from fidgeting in irritation, he still hadn’t put on a garment, so he got up and walked out the door with a bare upper-body.

As usual, there was a person sitting by the doorway in a daze, Gui Mao greeted him with the usual wave of his hand. As he walked towards the courtyard, he leapt into the air and jumped towards courtyard's Eastern Head Pavilion, climbed up layer upon layer until he reached the roof in the topmost layer, and sat down on the ivory eaves with one leg slung over the other.

He gazed into the distance, towards the East, and caught sight of a familiar figure.

The sun was setting on the sky, and the clouds reflected the glow of the sun, that person was sitting upright, cross-legged on some stone steps under a veranda, polishing a sword.

The neighbouring courtyard was for the Seniors one cycle older than Gui Mao, he had asked about this person’s ranking, and found out he was Geng Chen.

Geng Chen’s actions were extremely regular, he would come here practically every day after training, and would either meditate or polish his sword. He sat there like a boulder, unmoving, and spoke very little, his movements were calm and steady, not fitting for someone his age.

At the Nightrunner, very few people used swords, and even fewer practised internal breathing. The daily trials were all life-threatening, surviving today did not necessarily mean one would survive tomorrow, and internal cultivation2 was extremely time-consuming, seeing its effects was also very slow, and people were unable to bear practising asceticism. It’s always easy to avoid clear shots, but hard to guard against hidden arrows, so everyone wished they could meticulously study all kinds of shady means and ruthless methods, to catch others by surprise and gain victory to continue living.

That was why, the first time Gui Mao looked down into the neighbouring courtyard from the high building and saw there was someone using a sword, he viciously thought about when this person would die.

However, as his own colleagues were replaced in wave after wave, that neighbouring youth holding a sword seemed as though he would never fade away.

It was only after he asked around that he found out that Geng Chen’s skills in concealed weapons and poisons were also the most outstanding in his cycle.

That person was truly strange, both tenacious and fearsome but also open and candid, simply incompatible with the Nightrunner.

Gui Mao gradually discovered that that steady figure had the power to captivate and pacify him, so whenever he felt irritated, he only had to climb to the top of the building and look down for a short time, then his heart would be able to settle down.

Geng Chen meticulously finished polishing his sword and began to meditate, Gui Mao watched him, accidentally falling asleep.

After a brief and boring dream, he woke up and wiped away some drool. That person was still meditating in his original spot, not having moved a single bit, and it seemed as though no time had passed for him.

A sense of guilt arose involuntarily.

6 A phenomenon in which a person with severe mental deterioration suddenly regains their clarity of mind just before dying. Top.