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Chapter 337. When the Wind Rises

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of Black Eye Pharmaceuticals, in the thugs' living quarters...

In the corridor late at night, the incandescent light bulbs emitted a faint hum, making the smell of disinfectant, which was ubiquitous at Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals, even more pungent.

"Wow--"

Feng Shiman stood in front of the water dispenser, the sound of water being poured into the hard plastic cup was particularly clear in the silence.

The clear water reflected the leaden-gray night sky outside the window, and the heavy clouds, like cotton wool splashed with ink, weighed heavily on his brow.

"Hey, Lord of the Sky!"

Someone patted him on the shoulder from behind. Feng Shiman turned around and saw the sleepy face of the Lord of Drifting.

She rubbed her eyes, hugged her water bottle, and leaned against the wall. Her fluffy hair was like a bird's nest, the collar of her tracksuit was crooked, and the two pairs of makeshift loafers on her feet—black on the left and white on the right—made her look like a big tabby cat that had just rolled out of bed.

"Why are you only getting back now? Did you just finish a mission?"

She yawned, and the scent of minty chewing gum wafted over, mixed with the weariness of staying up all night.

The building where the thugs of Black Pupil Pharmaceutical lived consisted of single rooms for men and women, with more than twenty thugs living on each floor. Chi Piao and he both lived at the end of the corridor, in rooms opposite each other, so they would run into each other almost every day when they went to get water or use the toilet.

At this moment, Feng Shiman stared at the surface of the water in the cup. In that calm reflection, he saw the dull darkness outside the window, as well as his extremely tired eyes.

"Yes, His Excellency the Blind Master has sent me on a mission."

He spoke in a low, hoarse voice, as if he had just escaped from some kind of nightmare.

Chi Piao, who had been half-closing her eyes, was startled by what she heard and then subconsciously asked:
"How many people were killed?"

She asked the question so naturally, you could even say it was too natural.

After all, when a blind master takes action, bloodshed is inevitable. But this time, Feng Shiman's condition was clearly off—that suppressed, almost collapsing calm made her instinctively realize something.

"The blind master has found a refugee settlement."

Feng Shiman's voice was very soft, yet it carried a suffocating heaviness:

"There were thousands of people inside... they were all chopped into pieces."

Chi Piao's breath hitched slightly, and before she could say anything, he continued:

"...I killed them all."

Chi Piao fell silent.

At Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals, the War and Chaos factions have a pitifully low status; to put it bluntly, they are no different from slaves.

The kind of tasks thugs get largely depends on who their superior is—if they're lucky, they might occasionally get jobs like protection or surveillance; if they're unlucky, like Feng Shiman who's assigned to a blind master, they're basically walking meat grinders.

Blind Master is notorious for his ruthlessness within Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals. He usually appears shy and introverted, even a bit socially awkward, but once he goes out on a mission, it inevitably leaves a trail of blood and corpses.

The thugs gave her countless nicknames in private—"a devil among men," "worse than a beast," "a mobile slaughterhouse"... none of these insults were unjust.

"Don't feel too guilty."

Chi Piao scratched his head and said.

Although Xu Huan also had killing missions, the number of killing missions assigned to him was much less compared to that of the blind master.

Most of Chi Piao's tasks involved protecting the fragile strategist's personal safety, so she couldn't empathize with Feng Shiman's feelings and could only offer words of comfort:
"We have no choice but to do whatever our boss tells us to do."

She spoke in a relaxed tone, as if she were talking about today's meal:
"Just think of yourself as a knife, point it and cut wherever you want."

After she finished speaking, she reached out and patted Feng Shiman's shoulder, wanting to offer him some comfort.

Ke Feng Shiman's eyes remained vacant, as if her soul had been drained away. Chi Piao frowned, thought for a moment, and added:
"If all else fails, go to the hypnosis department and see Dr. Lin. Have him hypnotize you and you'll forget about it."

Seeing that Feng Shiman remained silent, Chi Piao cleared her throat somewhat awkwardly, raised her hand to scratch her messy hair, and tried to change the subject:
"By the way, since you live across from me, let me remind you—if you're going on missions these next few days, remember to wear more layers."

Feng Shiman seemed to finally emerge from the chaos, sighed softly, and reached out to turn off the still-running faucet.

He tilted his head back and gulped down a mouthful of warm water. His Adam's apple bobbed as he spoke in a flat voice, as if asking for a briefing on today's tasks:
"what happened?"

"A cold wave is moving south." Chi Piao wiggled her feet, her loafers gleaming faintly under the lamplight.

“My boss specifically reminded me a few days ago that the temperature drop was particularly sharp this time, and told me to wear more clothes.”

She looked down and tugged at her cropped leggings, then stretched her ankles:

"So I switched from driving shoes to fleece-lined ones—look, the uppers are much thicker now."

Feng Shiman's half-closed eyelashes trembled suddenly, as if she had been pricked by something sharp.

He suddenly raised his head, his gaze fixed directly on Chi Piao's face:
"A cold wave? Isn't it summer now?"

Chi Piao was startled by his suddenly raised voice. She scratched her head, looking completely confused.

"How would I know... The weather has been unpredictable since the apocalypse."

She counted on her fingers as she recalled:

"Last year, it was summer for most of the year. It was so hot that the surveillance cameras were burning hot. As a result, the trees were still green during the Chinese New Year. There wasn't a single yellow leaf. We didn't see what autumn and winter should look like at all."

She shrugged, her tone carrying the numbness that the thugs were used to:

"Last year was already like this, so if this year spring, summer, autumn and winter suddenly come in order, that would be abnormal, wouldn't it?"

The white light from the overhead light in the corridor shone down, making Chi Piao's fleece-lined loafers glow with a warm yellow light.

As Feng Shiman gazed out the window at the leaden-gray night sky, the water in his cup reflected the swaying clouds, as if stirred more turbidly by an invisible hand.

When Chi Piao saw that he had finished getting water, she pushed him aside and put her own water cup under the water dispenser.

"Wow..."

A new stream of water gushed out, and Feng Shiman mechanically held the cup, then suddenly seemed to remember something and lowered his voice:

Why...didn't the TV station broadcast a weather forecast?

Chi Piao rolled her eyes:
"The weather forecast is issued by the weather channel under the TV station. The conspirator just ordered me to massacre the weather news building a few days ago. The meteorologist is still locked up in the water dungeon."

"There was also an eco-channel that was somewhat related... Your schemer had the blind master slaughter it too. With two channels that could participate in this area gone, what will the TV stations use to broadcast weather forecasts?"

Chi Piao turned off the water valve with a "click" and chatted idly:
"I estimate that only Mr. Schemer knows about the upcoming cold wave in the entire company. After all, the other members of the Light faction haven't studied meteorology. Only my boss has a wide range of interests and knows a little about everything."

She swirled her water glass, took a sip of the steaming water, and said excitedly:
"You're really lucky, kid. Living across the street and getting such rare information means you can prepare a down jacket in advance to prevent frostbite."

After saying that, Chi Piao hummed a tuneless little tune and went back into the house with her water glass.

Feng Shiman stood there, the water in her cup reflecting the flickering lights of the corridor, making her feel uneasy.

Fragments of words I had read in books before flashed through my mind:

A cold wave is essentially a large-scale southward burst of cold air... causing strong vertical air movement... which in turn forms...

[Strong high-altitude winds.]

Feng Shiman walked to the window as if possessed, and when his fingertips touched the cold glass, it was as if he was being drawn by some invisible force.

He slowly pushed open the window, and the night wind, carrying fine dust, rushed in, bringing with it the chill of an approaching cold wave.

"Waaaaah——————————"

Ten thousand meters above the ground, an invisible gale is sweeping across thousands of miles with devastating force.

Those invisible air currents, like surging waves, stirred up towering tides above the clouds, surging from north to south, as if the sky itself was collapsing and rebuilding.

The winds that lingered in the stratosphere were now sending out vibrations at the same frequency through the layers of atmosphere, like the waves of the sea.

Feng Shiman slowly clenched her fist, revealing a bitter smile:
"Wind, this time... take me away from here."

“Woo—woo—”

The wind outside the window suddenly intensified, and the windows of the entire dormitory building trembled, as if the wind was responding to the call of its child.

Meteorological phenomena have been embellished with literary elements based on reality; any bias is appreciated.