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Chapter 118. The Hive
It was already late at night when they got home after seeing the lantern festival, and Jiang Jianxin let Zuo Siquan stay at his house overnight.

The following morning, the latter received a phone call and then left in a hurry.

Jiang Jianxin lay on the bed staring blankly at the ceiling for a long time after her best friend went to work. Finally, she remembered Shen Ye.

That person didn't know she had been discharged from the hospital. Last night, he must have been stupid enough to go to the hospital again.

So she thought about it and decided to send a paper crane to carry her to Shen Ye's place.

Jiang Jianxin straightened his clothes and pushed open the door, first hearing the sound of rain pouring down.

She looked up at the sky above her.

—The sun shines brightly, and there is not a cloud in the sky.

She turned her head and glanced at Elder Yin's sky next door.

—A few small dark clouds, and a light rain is falling.

Wearing a white T-shirt and black sun-protective sleeves, Yin Ju sat cross-legged on the roof of his villa, with a small table in front of him and a set of ceramic teaware. He sat upright, calmly enjoying his tea in the rain.

Through the sparse rain, he caught a glimpse of Jiang Jianxin just stepping out, and waved in a friendly manner:
"The Sword Master has gone out on business."

Jiang Jianxin waved back and shouted to him from a distance:

"Stop drinking tea, buddy, there's that executive jacket hanging on your balcony—"

Before he could finish speaking, a teacup tumbled over on the roof.

Yin Ju, who had been calmly brewing tea just moments before, suddenly jumped up, his fur standing on end like a cat struck by lightning.

"My jacket that just dried!"

His clothes fluttered as he swept across the rooftop, stepping on the ripples in the rain and mist, and he tumbled directly from the rooftop onto the balcony.

"Oh dear, all that drying last night was for nothing!"

A sigh came from the balcony.

Jiang Jianxin couldn't hold back and mocked:

"Who told you not to bring in the laundry before it rained?"

After saying that, she released the origami cranes and followed the fluttering cranes to find Shen Ye's place.

……

She had heard Shen Ye describe how cozy her place was many times before, but this was the first time she had actually seen it.

Within the base, all C and D-level gifted individuals are housed in a densely populated residential area codenamed "The Hive."

The towers, built of lead-gray concrete, interlock and grow together, with countless honeycomb-like unit entrances swallowing and spitting out figures, and ventilation ducts twisting and turning into gray veins in the gaps between the buildings.

Jiang Jianxin's boots spun half a circle around the rusty turnstile at the entrance to the residential area.

Looking through the iron bars, the windows of the stairwell were filled with the heads of people coming and going. Suddenly, dirty water mixed with bandages was poured out of one of the windows, spreading yellow-green stains on the peeling paint.

"boom--"

As someone who had once earned the title of "Tears Behind Bars" at the start of his career, Jiang Jianxin looked at the rusty turnstile with no sense of following the rules.

She brazenly pushed herself up and flipped over the turnstile.

Security at the Hive was terrible. She blatantly climbed over the gate and no one paid any attention. Instead, people coming and going in the residential area saw her clean clothes and agile movements and realized that she might not be a resident of the Hive, so they looked at her with fear and envy.

"Click——"

The sound of plastic bursting echoed beneath his feet. Jiang Jianxin had just climbed over the turnstile when he stepped onto the trash.

The sanitation conditions at the hive were also poor; mountains of dumped garbage blocked the entrance, and rotten vegetable leaves and syringe needles floated in the sewage.

She lifted the sole of her boot, which was stained with some unknown sticky liquid, and the distinctive stench of medical rubber immediately filled her nostrils—the surface of the crushed mineral water bottle was covered with a blackened film of oxidized blood.

"Sister~ Would you like to come in and take a look~"

A heavily made-up head popped out from the doorway of the adjacent building. It was a thin, delicate-looking boy wearing a sheer dress with a window at the chest, revealing pink nipples and white flesh underneath. He was swaying his hips and waving at her.

Several good-looking young men and women, dressed similarly in revealing clothes, were huddled around him, timidly waving at him.

Jiang Jianxin knew he had encountered a pimp. In the post-apocalyptic world, morality had declined and desires had run rampant, so the flesh trade had a legitimate market.

Judging from the haggard appearance of the group of boys and girls, one could deduce that they had been doing this business for a long time, suffering from exhaustion and injuries. Jiang Jianxin pursed his lips, simply shook his head, and continued walking forward without answering.

"Wow..."

The origami crane fluttered its wings in front, the tiny crane dancing in the dusty air, and disappeared into a dark doorway in the blink of an eye.

Jiang Jianxin jogged a few steps and hurriedly followed, also entering the doorway where the paper cranes had last disappeared.

The building was dimly lit, and the broken windows, which were held shut with bricks, were wide open.

A draft blew through the room, lifting her hair and sending a chill down her back.

Jiang Jianxin couldn't find the whereabouts of the origami cranes.

The thing doesn't emit light and is extremely small; once it flies away, it's very difficult to find.

Carrying the Tangguang sword, she maintained a posture ready to draw it at any moment as she walked upstairs step by step.

"Da da da————"

Footsteps echoed, and someone came up from behind and put their hand on her shoulder.

"River"

"boom--"

Jiang Jianxin felt a chill run down his spine as someone grabbed his shoulder. He instinctively executed an over-the-shoulder throw and drew his Tangguang Sword with a backhand motion.

"Om————"

The three-foot-long sword gleamed sharply in the sunlight, and a chilling sensation emanated from it when pressed against the neck.

"Gululu..."

Jiang Jianxin's shadow on the ground became sticky, surging out and pulling and condensing, eventually turning into black chains that held the sword blade in place, preventing it from cutting down.

"Sage, please don't do it! I am Shen Ye."

The person she had pinned to the ground shouted.

Jiang Jianxin blinked, grabbed the man by the collar, and roughly pulled him towards the window. With enough light, she could see Shen Ye's face clearly.

The man had regained his youthful appearance, with short, slightly parted hair hanging down. He had a black eye patch over his left eye, while his right eye was wide open in a daze. He was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt with a cartoon sailboat pattern printed on it.

Jiang Jianxin sheathed his sword, and the black chains that had been stuck on the blade silently disappeared, merging back into the shadows.

Shen Ye sat up from the ground and heard the sage standing before him with his sword ask:
Why did you change your clothes?

Shen Ye coughed twice, choked by the dust in the stairwell, and said:

"The shirt I wore before got a hole when we were fighting. This black short-sleeved shirt is a new one I just bought."

Jiang Jianxin shook his head and said:
"That's not what I meant. I meant your black eye patch."

"Do you know what you look like now?"

Shen Ye shook his head, his face full of confusion.

"Like the Malabi pirates."

"..."

Shen Ye touched his blindfold.

He might not have understood the meaning of Jiang Jianxin's words in the past, but since he broke free from the blind master's control and regained his freedom, he spent his free time surfing the internet and made up for all the good things he had missed over the years in just one month.

At this moment, he touched his blindfold, and a genuine smile appeared on his clear face:

"That's pretty handsome."

"..."

This time, Jiang Jianxin fell silent. She admitted that she didn't quite understand the boys' thinking.

She asked:
"Aren't you blind in both eyes? Why are you only covering your left eye?"

Thank you, Abai, for the monthly pass! Thank you, Baozi, for your support!