A thunder like voice echoed in the arcade. Xuyun had heard this voice before. It was the gang that beat Sui last time.
Xuyun stared at them coldly, then took Sui’s wrist. “They beat you up last time. Let’s go”
But Sui was not moving. He stared at the gang. “Senior, I have things I always wanted to do and one of them is to fight like a man!”
Xuyun couldn’t understand his way of thinking. Fight like a man? You think you can put up a fight? You will be their punching bag instead!
Sui set up a fighting stance like before. Stubborn bastard, Xuyun cursed in his heart. Not listening to the boy, he walked slowly to the gang. Before he could do anything, Xuyun speed up his movement, knocking out the gang’s members one by one. They didn’t have enough time to even lift a single finger before being knocked out.
He only let off one weak looking person. “He’s yours. Now fight like a man,” he said to Sui. The particular boy looked shocked and pouted. “I’m getting help from number 1 fighter. How can I show my manliness to the angels now??”
This boy could still speak nonsense! You got no manliness anymore! “The angels had seen you came flying to them with swollen face.”
Sui instantly looked depressed. When he thought maybe he could still fix his image, he turned to look at the weak looking thug.
But the guy had gone, they could only look at his shadow which turned small and smaller. They could see him fell down, then got up, then ran again with all his might.
Sui still stared at him, dumbfounded. There goes one of his things list!
“Senior! You’re too much! I’m a wimp all my life, I’m trying to look like a man once, but you shattered it!”
Xuyun stared at him. Then, he walked back a few steps. “Sure, come at me anytime.”
“….”
Now, Sui didn’t feel like it anymore.
Seeing a submission expression on his face, Xuyun then said, “we go to colosseum now?”
“What are we going to do there?”
“You went there last time. What were you trying to do?”
Sui was making a realization face. He pointed at Xuyun, smiling, “watching you!”
“Me??”
“Yes! They made a statue of you there! You remember? The best fighter and all!”
Xuyun raised his eyebrow. That mean, he went there, ready to pay tickets just to look at his statue? He himself even forgot about that. He hadn’t went there since couple of years ago.
“Look! I even wear your merchandise they sold in the colosseum!”
Xuyun couldn’t hold back an expression of disgust when seeing his photo on that keychain. “Let’s go somewhere else!”
“Wait! Let’s go to the colosseum! That is also one thing in my wish!”Sui held Xuyun’s wrist and pulled him.
Xuyun wanted to say, ‘you got the real person besides you, what’s the statue for?’ but then he paused. Instead he asked, “why is your list so many?”
Sui laughed, “there’s a lot, I’m a greedy one.” His grip tightened on Xuyun’s arms. “But now that I’m with you, there’re a lot more. I want to go to colosseum with you, to the beach too, to the practice field seeing you play with swords, to the planetarium with you too, to your junior high, to the house you grew up in…”
Listening to all his chatters made Xuyun’s head hurt. But at the same time, his chest got tight too, somehow.
Like before, the colosseum filled with crowds of people. They waited for awhile in the queue, but Xuyun didn’t have enough patience. He pulled himself and Sui out from the line and went straight to the front gate. He got rid of the hoodie that covered his face. The gatekeeper immediately recognized him. They called the manager.
“Sir Xuyun! Long time no see! What business do you have here?” The old man greeted him in a wide smile. His bodyguards instead, tensed up before Xuyun’s strong presence.
Xuyun pushed Sui in front of him. The boy started sweating bullets. “This is my apprentice. Can you set up a stage for him? Level 1 is enough.”
The room instantly became quiet like a scene in horror movies. What is this monster talking about?? All the colosseum contestants waited almost half a year before they could debut on the stage!
Besides him, Sui gave him a morse code, I-only-came-for-your-statue-not-to-get-beaten-!!
Breaking the rules, in the end they gave in and placed Sui in a low level battle, which would be held in one of ten stages in low level battle. Before the battle began, they gave him an armour and a lot of weapon options. With trembling arms, Sui chose a thin sword. He secretly cursed the preparator of this sudden event. It was the first time he entered colosseum….. as a fighter.
When they called out the contestants, they got out of the waiting room. The outside arena was too bright. It was a full house, their loud voices filled all the corners of the colosseum. When Sui walked to his assigned stage, he passed by the middle arena. It was the place where they put all the important figure’s statue, including Xuyun’s statue. It was three times his height. Sui looked at it in awe. If he were in the spectator’s seat, he wouldn’t have got the chance to be this close to the statue, let alone to touch it. He felt really happy.
Sui glanced into the spectator’s seat. He noticed a large, special area with transparent protection shield at the top middle, and he found Xuyun, who sat on a fancy, king-sized seat. The colosseum manager stood beside him like a family butler. His dignity might have dropped to the ground.
Sui raised his middle finger and stuck out his tongue. Why am I even here but you can sit comfortably there??
At the highest point of the spectator’s seat, Xuyun could see his middle finger clearly. He grinned. How cute, giving your beloved senior a middle finger now?
Besides him, the manager tried to hold back his fear. This monster youth next to him had never smiled at all! Something bad was gonna happen, something bad was gonna happen! He might be planning something!
At first, Sui trembled like crazy, but when he got up on the stage and met his opponent, he felt a lot better. His opponent was a teenager like him, looked all weak. He held a long sword too. Looking at his nervous face, Sui felt there was hope for him.
When the referee made a start signal, each of them held their sword tightly while looking at each other. There was no movement at all, but then, the opponent shouted loudly and raised his sword. Sui was prepared to defend when the opponent started to ambush him. Pictures of movement was clear on his head — lower his body to avoid the slash, then attack the opponent’s stomach.
But his plan failed as his opponent fell into the ground before he got close to him.
“Slip!” the referee announced. Sui stared at him, dumbfounded. His luck must be so high this time! He quickly knocked the opponent’s head with the flat of the blade before he could stand up.
The battle ended in one minute, just like his play time in the arcade. He lifted his hand and waved to Xuyun on the spectators seat.
Xuyun, of course, had seen all from the beginning until the end. He couldn’t believe this junior’s luck at all. What kind of battle was that?? As a fighter, Xuyun couldn’t tolerate this. He said to the manager, “this year’s contestants’ levels are too low. Next time make the test harder.”
“Ah, yes..” The manager wiped his sweat. Of course the level was low! The opponent wasn’t a fighter after all! He was his own crew! How could the manager put in a real fighter against the weak looking boy! Even though the manager wasn’t a fighter, he had seen so many that he could tell that Sui wasn’t a physical type and his supernatural ability wasn’t that high either. If his so-called apprentice got beaten up in the fight, who could tell what would this monster youngster do? Who could guarantee that he wouldn’t destroy the arena to save his face??
After that, the manager immediately lead Sui to the special seat next to Xuyun. Seeing them talking to each other intimately, he could finally breathe in relief. He told his crew to serve them a high quality tea he just bought overseas.
“The battle is divided into 7 levels. The one you participate in is the first level. You win once, you got into the next level. When you pass the level 7, you got a chance to face the colosseum masters,” Xuyun explained, because the idiot junior was getting annoyingly arrogant only from one lucky win.
“Is the colosseum master… you?” Sui asked with sparkles in his eyes.
Xuyun hummed. He gave Sui the tea they served, maybe he would talk less.
“Does it mean that you’ll got a chance to battle today when they got the winner?” Sui sipped his tea fast, not giving away the chance to ask further.
Xuyun raised his eyebrows. “Why should I? There are other masters.”
“I saw their eyes, senior. They want to see you fight.”
Xuyun fell silent. “What’s the point of demonstrating strength?” His eyes darkened as he recalled that humans couldn’t fight against their own fate. “We are weak.”
Sui didn’t say anything, he just stared at his face. It was a short quiet moment, before he said, “senior, you’re so cool. I fell in love with you all over again.”
Xuyun raised his eyebrows while looking at him. Sui looked down, so he couldn’t see his expressions. This guy sure had gone insane. He just refused to fight, he spouted words that sounded like giving up on life, and declared that he was actually weak. What part of it was ‘cool’? What part of him did he fell in love with? Did he actually confused ‘love’ with ‘pity’??
“What do you mean?”
Sui pointed at himself, then pointed at Xuyun, then he made a heart shape with his fingers. He repeated the shameless action a few times.
“….” Xuyun refused to look at him.
“What do you like about me exactly?” but he couldn’t help being curious. He was too powerful that a lot of people feared him. Despise him. Used him. There were people who worshiped him for his strength, but only few dares to come to him and started a conversation. They looked at him like a divine being, an entity one couldn’t touch.
Yet, this guy dared to confess to him, hugged him and gave him a middle finger, on top of that. This idiot treated him like a senior, a normal person. In his eyes, Xuyun wasn’t a war god, not a government’s dog, not a great killing machine. Who was he in this guy’s eyes?
This creature called Sui Shizi causing him a headache.
Sui smiled widely. He stared at Xuyun for awhile before saying, “senior, I’m a weird person. I love your…"
“What’s that??”
“A strong energy detected outside the colosseum!!”
A commotion suddenly occurred, covering up Sui’s words. Xuyun glanced at the sky north side of the colosseum, a black line formed a crack on the air, a familiar sight. Xuyun just remembered about the criminal he had killed last time. Usually, he would get out quickly to help get rid of the criminal, but, this time, he was not in hurry anymore. He was more curious about what Sui said earlier that he failed to hear. He was about to pull the boy out of the commotion, before he realized there were something wrong with him.
Sui’s hands got abnormally cold, his muscles twitching everywhere. He staggered and fell on Xuyun’s shoulder. His pupils getting narrower, his breathe became short and there was white liquid coming out of his mouth. He almost lost consciousness.
The appearance of the criminal marked as the time of death for Sui as well. Xuyun should have known this. He had seen him died three times already. This time, it was poisoning. But somehow, this time, he couldn’t help but noticing anger erupted in his heart. He grabbed Sui’s body tightly, protecting him from the raging crowds.
He wanted to interrogate each of the people there, who dares put poison in the tea? Which bastard have guts to do so?? Which one of you have medical knowledge? But the crowd that were busing protecting their lives, panicky ran away, shouting and pushing, irked Xuyun more and more. He got an immense urge to kill these people.
But, then again, would that help?
In the end, all he could do was just hold his body, which had turned cold and colder. Sui’s hands grabbed on his shirt tight. The white liquid flowing non-stop from his mouth, drenching his and Xuyun’s shirt.
At 6 PM, his hand loosen and fell.
Xuyun was still holding on his body. His arms were still locked tight on Sui’s shoulder.
At the first, second and third time Sui died, he was never at his side, watching him dying, so he didn’t know. This time, he was there.
But it was painful, it was painful.
Sui was the one who died, but Xuyun was in pain, too.
Was it because this time, he could see how Sui suffering until he died? Or was it because he had been with Sui all this day that he had got attached to him?
If he knew it was this painful, he wouldn’t have followed him to climb the school walls.
“Sui Shizi, you little punk….”
Was this what ‘growing affection’ like? Death had really toying with his feelings, to made he met Sui on his death day, to made him grew affection to a dying person. Death was really cruel, it was just as Sui had said. Now, it had hold another one of Xuyun’s weakness.
Affection was the greatest weakness, the basic rule in military.
What strongest fighter? What number one? He really was the weakest, he couldn’t even protect Sui. He could just watch him suffer and die slowly.
Sui said, time of death was definite. One couldn’t change their future. But Xuyun could, at least he could delay it from happening.
He just couldn’t give in to death. He just couldn’t give death what he wanted. He couldn’t give Sui to him.
“Sui Shizi, I won’t let you die.” You dragged me to this. Take responsibility.
When he opened his eyes again, it was morning, the next August 20. In front of him, a familiar figure bowed down.
“Senior! I’m in love with you!”
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