My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 289 Bookstore Meeting: Gu Qiye's Revenge (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Gu Zhuo stood motionless at the bookstore entrance, his hands tucked into the pockets of his tattered coat. His mood was heavy and oppressive, as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

Even though he was just standing there, the scenery around him seemed to be pressing in on him like huge walls.

The towering utility poles, the intertwined power grids above the city, and the rows of tightly closed shop doors—everything that came into view was ordinary, yet it made him feel suffocated.

In the early morning, a cool breeze blew in, carrying with it the faint chirping of cicadas.

After a moment, he took a deep breath, slowly raised his head to face the bookstore in front of him, looked at the "Broly Bookstore" sign above his head, and then looked inside through the glass door.

The figure sitting behind the counter gradually overlapped with the profile of Su Wei in his memory.

Rather, it's more accurate to say that it was the same person.

More than a decade has passed.

In the two instances where he had only seen the man, he always had narrowed eyes, a smile playing on his lips, and his hands behind his back, making him unfathomable. But Su Wei never smiled when facing the Gu Zhuo case, because in his eyes, this was the man who had taken his daughter away from him.

“Come in,” the man said suddenly. His voice was soft, but it was clearly audible to a superhuman.

Having received Su Wei's permission, Gu Zhuo finally mustered the courage to take this step.

He walked into Broly Bookstore and looked at the man sitting behind the counter reading a book. He felt uneasy, like a student who had just entered the classroom after the school bell rang, not knowing where to put his hands.

"The Gu Zhuo case." Su Wei looked up and asked expressionlessly, "How have you been these past few years?"

“I…” Gu Zhuo’an said, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t protect her.”

“You don’t need to apologize. You were just an ordinary person back then,” Su Wei said. “I’ve heard that you’ve done a lot in the past two years. Tell me about it?”

“I became a criminal, trying to get Hongyi’s attention, so I did a lot of wrong things.” Gu Zhuo’an said, taking out a silver and black breathing mask from his pocket. The mask was tattered, with a corner revealing dripping blood.

"Ghost Bell?" Su Wei frowned as she looked at the familiar mask and murmured the name.

“Yes.” Gu Zhuo’an’s eyes were empty. “I became Ghost Bell… that notorious criminal, who destroyed many cultural relics and killed many superhumans, but in the end, the people of Rainbow Wing were right in front of me, and I lost… and I even watched helplessly as my own son joined Rainbow Wing.”

Su Wei remained silent for a long, long time before her brows slowly relaxed.

“So that was you…” He shook his head and said with a sigh, then suddenly laughed, “I knew it. What have you been doing these past two years, abandoning your child? You still haven’t grown up… You’re so old, yet you’re still so stubborn, insisting that I, an ‘outsider,’ take care of your child.”

"Thank you for these past two years," Gu Zhuoan said softly. "Hei Yong told me that if it weren't for you secretly protecting Xiaomai and Qiye, they might have already met with some trouble."

“It’s alright, you’ve had a tough time these past few years.” Su Wei said in a low voice, “Put the mask away, it would be troublesome if someone with ulterior motives saw it… Right now, everyone thinks you’re dead, and your child has joined Rainbow Wing. It would be very disadvantageous for him if your identity were exposed at this time.”

"I know."

As Gu Zhuo spoke, he silently stuffed the breathing mask into his coat pocket.

"At first I thought you abandoned those children and went out into the world to give up on yourself, but now I realize that you, my son-in-law, are not as useless as I thought."

“I’m just so useless.” Gu Zhuoan shook his head and said in a low voice, “Looking back now, I haven’t accomplished anything in the past two years, and I haven’t even been able to spend enough time with my child.”

Su Wei was silent for a moment, then asked, "Has Su Ying talked to you about a girl named Tong Zizhu?"

“We talked about it. When she was still in college, she left a girl at home. The girl was only five or six years old at the time, and she was a homeless child,” Gu Zhuo’an said. “What happened to her?”

"I've come to realize that Tong Zizhu must be in her early twenties by now," Su Wei said. "A couple of years ago, she lied about her name and age, pretending to be a nineteen-year-old girl. She joined the Exorcist Association and spent her time searching for Su Ying's whereabouts."

After saying that, he picked up the coffee cup on the table, brought it close to the rim, and took a sip.

Gu Zhuo paused for a moment, then said, "I should have let Su Ying take her away back then. I could have let her live with my children."

“At that time, Su Ying had already decided to sever all ties with exorcists,” Su Wei said softly. “She saw that the child Tong Zizhu had the rudiments of a Sky Exorcist within him and was certain that the child would become an exorcist in the future, so she entrusted Tong Zizhu to me. After that, I secretly arranged Tong Zizhu’s life so that she could grow up normally, and in the end, just as Su Ying had predicted, she became an exorcist.”

He paused for a moment: "When Su Ying decided to entrust Tong Zizhu to me, she hesitated for a very long time. My daughter is very kind, but in the end she still did it; she abandoned the child."

"What's the reason?"

"Because Su Ying's biggest, and also most selfish, wish is that your family can live a peaceful and happy life without having anything to do with exorcists."

Gu Zhuo'an's lips twitched slightly, his head lowered, a sharp pain shooting through his heart. Long-suppressed emotions burst forth like a collapsing dam.

“But I failed to protect her…” he said hoarsely, “and I failed to protect the life she wanted.”

After he finished speaking, he stood there for a long time, like a child who had made a mistake, waiting blankly for his elders to scold him.

“This isn’t just your fault, I didn’t do a good job either. I’m not a good father,” Su Wei said softly. “I’ve always regretted it and always wanted to tell her, ‘No matter what decision you make, you’ll always be Dad’s daughter.’ I wish I had realized that sooner, but alas… it’s too late now.”

After a moment of silence, Su Wei took off her glasses. "I've been running away from this for many years, trying to convince myself that my daughter brought this upon herself, and that her death is nothing to regret..."

He suddenly laughed at himself, "But I can't lie to my own heart. In the past three years, I resigned from all my positions at Lake Hunting and came here alone to open a bookstore, to help my silly daughter keep an eye on these unruly kids." Su Wei took a deep breath, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and his deep-set eyes made his gaze suddenly sharp.

"So, while I still have the chance, while I'm not too old to take up a weapon, while the anger in my heart hasn't dissipated, I don't want to lie to myself anymore. I want to get justice for that foolish daughter."

He raised his head and looked directly into Gu Zhuo'an's eyes. "We all need a chance, a chance to say goodbye to the past and start over. I will help you get rid of those people from Hongyi, but once this is over, let it go... My silly daughter also wants to see your family live an ordinary life."

Gu Zhuoan looked at him silently, and before she knew it, tears had already streamed down her face from the corners of her eyes.

He didn't even know he could cry. At his age, he thought he was so numb that he couldn't shed any more tears, but he couldn't stop the tears from streaming down his face.

After a moment, he lowered his head with a self-deprecating smile, his disheveled hair obscuring his eyes.

“I’m such a disgrace to my son-in-law,” he said. “In all these years, I’ve never once been able to stand up straight in front of you.”

Su Wei smiled silently, raised her hand and gently patted his shoulder before putting her glasses back on.

At the same time, in the underground parking garage of the Empire State Building in New York, USA.

The parking lot was empty, with dim orange lights shining down from the ceiling, bathing half of the parking spaces in a halo of light while the other half was swallowed by shadow.

At that moment, a black Maybach was parked in the shadows.

In the driver's seat, Yuriel looked down at the meeting schedule for tomorrow. She heard that at the same time as the White Raven Brigade's prison break incident ended, the investigation into the Light-Eating Bees in Osaka, Japan, had also ended.

The three Rainbow Wing members who participated in this investigation mission are: "The Last Sword Demon" Oda Hideaki, "Polar Scholar" Karina, and "Overloader" Garfield.

Thanks to the three's investigation, the mission was successfully completed in less than a day—they located the island where the Light-Eating Bees were located and obtained a series of important intelligence about the internal ecology of the Light-Eating Bee colony.

Therefore, tomorrow, all members of Rainbow Wing will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the issues of the "White Raven Brigade" and the "Light-Eating Bees".

The severity of both is not to be ignored.

After all, Julius, the warden of the Hokkaido prison "Shin-e-no-kyo," was a Calamity-level superhuman, and such a superhuman with both experience and strength was tragically killed by a group of bandits.

This sudden news shocked the UN leadership and drew their close attention.

However, as the investigation progressed, the danger level of the Light-Eating Bee incident increased dramatically.

Even in terms of priority, the Light-Eating Bees are a whole level higher than the evolved White Raven Brigade, ranking at the highest priority level—which means a crisis of at least national annihilation.

As Yuriel flipped through the meeting schedule, she said, "Tomorrow at noon, all Rainbow Wing members who are on leave, as well as those who are out on missions, will return to New York. The document states that absence from the meeting is not permitted; this matter is very serious."

At this moment, Gu Qiye sat silently in the back seat, his back hunched, his dark hair obscuring his eyes.

Before getting into the car, he told Yuriel that he wanted to lie down and rest, which is why he didn't appear in the passenger seat.

Without a sound, a flash of black lightning appeared in the darkness. His five fingers curled upwards, and his empty eyes stared silently at the arc of electricity dancing on his fingertips.

Black melted into black, just as water melted into water, as if everything had never existed.
The lightning, which used to roar, was now deathly silent, because the sound was swallowed up by the all-consuming lightning itself before it could spread.

Gu Qiye knew in his heart that a golden opportunity was right in front of him; the man who killed his father was sitting in front of him without any suspicion, his back to him.

He only needed to use lightning to pierce through the back of the chair, and then pierce through her chest from behind, crushing her heart in one fell swoop.

This was easy for him.

It couldn't be simpler.

No one survives a broken heart. She wouldn't have any chance to fight back;

Gu Qiye would also damage her brain, making her die in a way that prevents her from feeling pain or even death.

In the rearview mirror, Yuriel was still looking down at the tablet, unaware of the murderous intent lurking in the darkness.

However, the next moment, a "ding-dong" notification sound rang out in the carriage.

Yu Ruier looked up at the rearview mirror and saw that Gu Qiye's phone, which was on the car seat, suddenly lit up and a message popped up on the screen.

"Friends?" she asked.

Gu Qiye was startled, and it took her a moment to come to her senses. She glanced down at the sender's name on her phone.

“No, it’s just spam,” he said softly, shaking his head.

　Asking for a monthly ticket.

　　Tomorrow is the last day of the monthly pass event! If you have any monthly passes, feel free to vote. If you win, you can join the group to claim your prize! Okay!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)