Chapter 98 Reasons, Enemies
In the blast, there was a rumbling sound, and Baoer rushed over as if stepping on flames, hugged Rong Yuan and rolled down the concrete steps on the roadside. Rong Yuan's head hit the ground, and he felt dizzy, and the objects in his vision were doubled. A warm liquid flowed down his forehead.
Rong Yuan wiped it and found blood, but there was no wound on his head. He reacted and touched Bao Er's head with trembling fingers. There was a soft and sticky feeling under his fingers.
He froze.
The barely perceptible breath still sprayed on his face, letting him know that the girl was still tenaciously alive, but how could she be saved with such serious injuries?
"Why……"
He murmured, silently asking - why did she risk her life to save him? If it wasn't for protecting him, would she still have a chance of survival with her skills? He had helped her before, but that was just to survive. If she hadn't happened to be on that bus, and hadn't happened to be sitting next to him, he might have died now, just like the other passengers on that bus.
Time is life, and he didn't have much time to waste on shock and emotion. Rong Yuan was only frozen for a short moment, and immediately forced himself to focus on what he should do - find someone to help and send her to the hospital.
He carefully moved Bao'er's body to the side, trying not to touch her wound. Even so, more blood flowed out under his action, just like a faucet was turned on. Rong Yuan pulled his hands and feet out from under her body, propped himself up on the ground and looked around, and was immediately stunned.
This densely packed street was almost flattened. The tall, old buildings, the people, the cars honking their horns... all disappeared. All that was left were broken walls, blood, body parts, and flames. A deformed car was stuck on the wall of a two-story building in the distance. A few painful cries could be heard intermittently, but there was mostly endless silence.
The heat from the explosion had not yet dissipated, and the smoke and dust that was blown up into the sky by the storm slowly drifted down, and in a moment, a layer of white ash covered the ground. Compared to a minute ago, this was simply two different worlds.
But in the middle of the open space, there were still two people standing. The girl disguised by Baoer looked at everything in front of her with eyes as cold as ice, and the cold man called "Mr. Yan" protected her with his arms in his arms, not caring at all that his back was burned...
Rong Yuan was shocked—what was that?
Behind the man, his suit was burned, his skin and flesh were melted, revealing strangely shaped metal parts. A few broken wires emitted sparks from time to time, making a hissing sound.
"I didn't expect them to have this trick. I was careless." Xiao Xiao sighed and said in a low voice as if talking to himself: "If I hadn't terminated the contract, even if I didn't die during the previous attack on the manor, now with so many negative merits, I would have been implicated and killed. Don't you think so, A Ce?"
But Yan Ce's eyes had lost their luster, and his whole body was stiff, as motionless as a real machine, so it was naturally impossible for him to answer her.
Xiao Xiao took a deep breath and held back the tears that were about to flow.
…
When Rong Yuan came to his senses, he found that Bao'er had stopped breathing. He held the girl's still warm body, feeling dazed. At this moment, he seemed to have thought of a lot, but also seemed to have thought of nothing.
"Do you want to save her?" A voice suddenly sounded in my ears, carrying with it a wonderful mysterious temptation, just like the Siren in mythology who used her heavenly voice to tempt sailors to cause their ship to run aground and sink.
"Is there any way to save the dead?" Rong Yuan asked.
"some."
"What's the price?"
"What if you are asked to make a contract with the devil?" the voice asked.
"No." Rong Yuan said bluntly. He looked up at the girl who had stood beside him at some point, and said, "Although I'm sorry for her death, dead is dead, and it's foolish to sell yourself out to save the dead." Although he didn't believe in the existence of the "devil" and guessed it was just a nickname, it didn't stop him from immediately rejecting this seemingly good suggestion that actually contained many traps.
Xiao Xiao was stunned by his straightforwardness and ruthlessness, and was at a loss for words. She thought he would at least hesitate and ask if there really was a devil before speaking. She was stunned for a moment and asked, "Is there no one in this city that you care about?"
Rong Yuan's resolute expression fluctuated for a moment, although it was only for a moment, but it was enough for the people in front of him to see his hesitation.
Xiao Xiao continued, "The explosion range and power of this bomb are much greater than what you can see with your eyes. The number of people implicated is probably far beyond your imagination. There is only one chance to save everything, and the sooner the better. Even if you don't care about everyone here, if you go back and find that the people you really care about are also dead, what will you do? Hold their bodies and cry? By then, even if you regret your choice now, it will be too late."
Although Rong Yuan knew that this hypothesis exaggerated the threat far more than the real possibility, he really couldn't help but care. If what she said really happened, then...
"Don't leave yourself a chance to regret." Xiao Xiao said as if she could read your mind, "And this [Devil] won't ask for your soul. It will only make you bear some bad things - it will be a very heavy burden, but it is still possible to pay it off. By then, if I am still alive, I will help you get rid of it."
"It's only a possibility that the people I care about will be affected, but the people who died here are all your people, right?" Rong Yuan asked, "Don't you have the determination to sacrifice yourself to the devil in order to save them?"
"If I could, I would do it, but I have lost my qualifications now." Xiao Xiao said: "Only those who sign a contract for the first time and have good merits will be given a chance to pay on credit."
"Tell me what to do?" Rong Yuan decided to listen to her method before considering whether to accept this devil's contract.
What happened next completely overturned his worldview.
Instead of actually summoning a devil, Xiao Xiao took out a simple booklet from his body and asked him to cut his finger and write his name on the page with blood. He watched his blood melt into the white paper, and then like a drop of water falling into water, the page began to fluctuate in a circular pattern, and then his own photo suddenly appeared on the blank page, as well as data such as name, gender, age, ancestry, and merits.
"How much merit do you have?" Xiao Xiao asked with concern.
Rong Yuan glanced at her and asked, "Can't you see it?" He did not cover the pages of the book. Xiao Xiao was right next to him. If she could see it, there was no point in doing so.
"Only you can see everything in this book." Xiao Xiao said quickly, with an urgent tone, and asked, "How much?"
"One thousand and eighty-two." Rong Yuan said, not knowing whether this number was big or small.
"Positive or negative?" Xiao Xiao asked again.
“A positive number.”
"That's good." Xiao Xiao breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Go to the back and you'll find a [Merit Mall]. Use one thousand merit points to exchange for a [Universal Shield] to cover the two of us. Then use your credit points to exchange for [Time Reversal] to turn back time to before the explosion."
Rong Yuan searched for the two exchange items she mentioned. The [Universal Blocker] was okay, but the [Time Travel] was so expensive that it cost one million merits per second. Even if he didn't know how the merits were calculated, no matter which algorithm was used, one million would not be a small number.
He hesitated for a moment, but then realized that he had already made the decision and there was no point in hesitating, as it would only increase the merit points he owed.
"exchange!"
A huge metal cage dropped from the sky and covered their heads, and then... Rong Yuan couldn't tell what he felt, it was like a strong light pierced through his hands that were pressing on the pages of the book, and then shot through his body in all directions. A circle of bright circular white light suddenly enveloped the whole world, and the world seemed to be folded and stretched, and his body seemed to be broken into countless pieces and divided into different places. His pupils dilated, and countless stars were reflected in his eyes, as if the entire galaxy fell into his eyes.
The moment the white light dissipated, the shield turned into debris and disappeared, but its effect had been achieved.
Time travel will put a great burden on the contractor's body, but the fact that Rong Yuan became a contractor will not change, and his memory will not disappear. However, with his current physical fitness, it is impossible for him to be awake. If he goes back to the past and falls into a coma, then the meaning of time travel will be completely lost, and it will just repeat the current tragedy. Therefore, the one who can really change history is Xiao Xiao.
But she had started a battle with the enemy before. For more than a hundred years, the Xiao family and the enemy had a blood feud. The only way to resolve the grudge was to kill one of the parties. In order to avoid being erased from the Merit Book after her merits were deducted to negative values due to killing innocent people, she terminated the contract before taking action. At this time, she is not a contractor, which means that she will lose this memory like everyone else when time goes back, so Rong Yuan needs to exchange the shield to ensure that her memory will not disappear; at the same time, if she uses this surreal item, it will also be erased by the rules, so the shield needs to cover the two of them, so that when Rong Yuan uses the item, she happens to be within its range of action, and is not completely considered as its user.
Xiao Xiao opened her eyes again. She was still standing in the yard, and people around her were discussing the topic of the celebration banquet. She ran out and saw a man holding a box coming over. He couldn't help but be stunned when he saw her.
On the roadside, Baoer was saying, "I know you know what's the best way to do it. And this place has been exposed, we... Hey, what's wrong with you?"
She supported Rong Yuan's body which had suddenly fallen down, and suddenly she felt her hands were a little wet. She looked down and found that they were covered with blood.
…
The man's body went limp and fell to the ground, and the box was already in Xiaoxiao's hands.
She handed the box to Yan Ce who followed her out, kicked the man who was lying on the ground and said, "Deal with it."
Yan Ce looked down for a while and nodded. Through the obstruction outside, he had scanned the structure and principle of the object inside and said he could handle it. Although Uncle Geng and others were puzzled, they still carried the man in as instructed and explained a little to the neighbors who saw the scene.
People in the old street were accustomed to this kind of scene. No one paid special attention to them. At most, they glanced at Xiao Xiao and Yan Ce. In fact, they seemed out of place in this place.
Baoer was examining and giving first aid to Rongyuan. She originally thought that someone was sniping him from a distance, but when she found that there were no external injuries, she suspected that he had suddenly suffered some emergency. She could only call an ambulance and take routine first aid measures.
"Yes...suddenly fainted...he was bleeding heavily...he was not pregnant, he was 16 or 17 years old, a male...I don't know...I don't know his medical history...please come as soon as possible, the address is..."
A hand suddenly took away her phone. Xiao Xiao ended the call and said to the surprised Bao Er, "He's fine. He will wake up in a day or two at most."
"But, Miss, he..." Baoer looked at Rong Yuan's face covered in blood. Although she had always trusted Xiao Xiao, she still couldn't feel at ease at this moment.
"Don't worry." Xiao Xiao pressed her shoulder and said with a very firm tone, and then said: "I will send someone to find out his identity and send him back. You have other tasks... That family and the people who escaped during the hunt, you can't be careless!"
…
Rong Yuan didn't know what happened after time went back because he immediately passed out, but he finally figured out where his more than 100 million negative merits came from, which solved a problem for him.
One million merits equals one second, and the 178.5 million negative merits means that he only went back a mere 178.5 seconds. But considering that the time of the entire world went back nearly three minutes, this price can only be said to be a bargain. Thinking of this, Rong Yuan's depressed mood due to the huge amount of negative merits finally improved a lot.
He supported his forehead and sat on the sofa to rest for a while, then asked Wandou to call Xiaoxiao.
"I remember it all," he said.
"Congratulations." The voice on the other end of the phone did not sound surprised, as if she had been waiting for this call for a long time.
"I have a few questions for you."
"Please go ahead, but I don't promise to have all the answers."
Rong Yuan asked directly: "Who were the enemies who attacked you that day?"
"Have you heard of the Maizi family in the Nut Country? More than a hundred years ago, they knew about the existence of the Book of Merit. Although they only deduced a little bit from clues, it was enough for these guys to flock to it. Over the years, they have never given up on getting the Book of Merit. The mastermind behind the investigation team that was chasing you before was the Maizi family."
The Wheat Family is what the people of Sugar Country call them. In fact, their surname is transliterated as Wheat. They are a new family that developed along with the rise of the Nut Country and are also a model of starting from scratch in the history of world economic development. The ups and downs of the development history, long-term vision, and broad-mindedness of the founder and several generations of leaders of the family have moved and impressed countless people. Every student who needs to take the Sugar Language Test in Sugar Country must have memorized several inspirational, honest, or humorous stories about the Wheat Family's entrepreneurship as writing materials, and Rong Yuan is naturally no stranger to them.
But he never imagined that one day he would need to regard this behemoth as a potential enemy.
"To what extent do they understand the 'basic' aspects of the 'Book of Merits'?" Rong Yuan asked.
"At least they know that it is an indestructible book. Moreover, they also know that it can create something out of nothing that does not exist in this world." She paused, then said: "Also, it's just speculation... they probably also know that the owner is soft-hearted and values human life very much. There was a time before, they thought that Xiao had lost the Book of Merit, and they relaxed their temptation and surveillance on us. But because of an inappropriate action, we saved someone who should not have been saved, and we became their target again. You have to be careful too. If you continue to hold the Book of Merit, you will definitely confront them in the future."
While Rong Yuan was talking, Wandou searched for recent news about the Maizi family and found that in early September , before Rong Yuan got the "Book of Merits", an unexplained explosion occurred during a family gathering of the Maizi family. Nine out of ten direct blood relatives died, and many of the survivors died suddenly afterwards. The police have always suspected that someone was murdering the family, but the spokesperson of the Maizi family insisted that it was an accident or a family genetic disease, and has been obstructing the police from getting involved. The outside world has speculated about their actions. If all the speculations are true, it will be enough to stage hundreds of episodes of house fighting, business wars, and spy wars.
However, in this world, all news will soon become outdated, and the tragedy of the Maizi family is no exception. After several months, this family has gradually recovered from the last heavy pain and the various blows that followed. The young family leader is smart and capable beyond his age, and has gradually reversed the family's decline. At the same time, probably because the voice of the entire family is concentrated in the hands of a few people, all kinds of obstructions and internal struggles that hinder and hold back have disappeared, so this family has burst out with unusual vitality and enterprising desire, like a beast with blood dripping from its fangs, eager to fill its stomach with more food.
Rong Yuan did not dwell on this future enemy for too long. He asked another very concerned question: "Yan Ce...what is he? Why is he still by your side?"
As long as one is a person of good merit, it is very easy to cancel the contract with the Merit Book. Rong Yuan has discovered this a long time ago. However, in the past records, the moment the contract is canceled, the Merit Book will take back all the exchanged items: gold, silver, props, basic value, special abilities and bloodline... Even a grain of rice exchanged will suddenly disappear as long as it is not eaten and digested by the person. The contractor will become "penniless, physically weak, weak and regretful".
So why is Yan Ce, the "person" who obviously shouldn't exist in this world, still here?
