He is a maestro
by M1zushi41
“Never reject the inexplicable kindness of a bigshot, or you’ll be in for trouble.”
At the time, little An Yu was only eight years old and had just woken up from a long sleep. Although he had already been in District 53 for almost a year, due to his drowsiness, he hadn’t acquainted himself Ling Qiu, so he felt a bit unfamiliar with the bruised and battered man in front of him.
Ling Qiu tore up a piece of old newspaper, stuffed it into his nostrils to stop the bleeding, and muttered, “All I said was that I didn’t want it. Besides, those loaves of bread were already moldy.”
An Yu finally recognized who he was. After a brief silence, his gaze landed on the coarse whole wheat bread thrown on the bed.
“You don’t want it?” he asked softly.
“It’s moldy, how could you still… hey, you!”
An Yu had already quickly rubbed off the green mold in his palm and took a big bite.
The dry, hard bread cut the corner of his mouth. The scent of flour mixed with the metallic taste of blood spread in his mouth. He strained his neck and forced it down.
Ling Qiu looked at him with a complicated expression and his eyes gradually softened.
“Stop eating that.” He grabbed An Yu’s wrist. “You’re like a little wolf.”
The wrist of an eight-year-old child was so thin it couldn’t even fill one hand. He lifted that skinny wrist and said helplessly, “I saved you some bread. Wait for me next time.”
“Your wrist’s too thin.”
Qin Zhilu’s slightly disdainful voice interrupted An Yu’s memory.
Through the bandage, An Yu couldn’t see the Commander’s expression and could only stare blankly in that direction.
Qin Zhilu continued, “You’ve been training for so long, but your body hasn’t made any progress. Looks like your physical training instructor is incompetent. We’ll find you a new one.”
Jiang Xiao immediately defended, “An Yu’s training volume isn’t small. It’s just that he—”
“Just that he needs a real mentor, not an admirer,” Qin Zhilu cut him off, then squeezed An Yu’s wrist again. “I’ll speak to Xide and have him train you. Even though he mutated into a bird, he’s always had a passion for muscle development.”
An Yu didn’t dare refuse the Commander’s inexplicable goodwill, so he nodded and gave a quiet “Mm.”
Qin Zhilu picked up the medical files from the examination room and took him by the wrist, leading him out.
Actually, the bandage didn’t completely block out the light—An Yu could still roughly make out the road and obstacles. But remembering Ling Qiu’s reminder from back then, he silently accepted this inexplicable kindness from his Commander.
Jiang Xiao followed behind, still trying to persuade him. “Your offensive skills are passively triggered. Your spatial abilities, and the temporal abilities that just showed signs of emerging, both align better with the role of a control-type support. There’s no need to train large muscles like Lord Xide…”
“You really aren’t suited to be his teacher.” Qin Zhilu interrupted again. “Corner’s role isn’t support.”
Jiang Xiao froze. “Then what is it?”
An Yu couldn’t help but be curious. “Do you have a clear definition of my abilities?”
As soon as he asked, he regretted it a little. He remembered asking Ling Qiu similar questions many times when he was younger. Ling Qiu would sometimes call him a white-eyed wolf, sometimes a piece of trash.
He had a feeling the Commander might give a similar answer.
But Qin Zhilu didn’t answer directly. He just gave Jiang Xiao a glance and said casually, “You think he’s a support only because he’s never learned how to properly use his abilities.”
The group continued walking forward. The more An Yu thought about it, the more wrong it felt.
How did it end up being his fault?
“Commander, you—”
“Shh—seems like some filth is chasing us.” Slade suddenly spoke up, then after sensing carefully, solemnly repeated, “Not just one. A lot of them.”
When they had just finished retrieving the data and came out of the examination room, the kids outside had already scattered. Those scarred and dirty little bodies quickly disappeared into the endless snowstorm, becoming impossible to track.
No one knew if it was the kids tipping them off, or if the snowstorm carried some unique scent too far. A familiar, twisted feeling was now closing in on An Yu from all directions.
Everyone resumed their earlier battle formation. Slade said hoarsely, “As much as I don’t want to offend you again, I have to say, your attraction to filth is getting a bit exaggerated.”
An Yu calmly responded, “And what counts as filth? Do you count?”
“…I sincerely apologize for previously offending you. I’m definitely not a virtuous man, but I also can’t accept being called filth.” Slade paused for a second. “Only those eternally distorted aberrants count.”
As his words fell, An Yu could make out the massive figures slowly approaching from afar through the veil of his bandage.
The ground began to tremble. The buzzing sounds were chaotic. Even the snowstorm seemed to take on a surreal, aberrant hue.
His instincts told him, there were at least a dozen high-entropy aberrants pressing in. Their hunger was even more intense than those old acquaintances in District 53.
An Yu was silent for a moment. “Is there any chance they might ignore me?”
“No chance,” Jiang Xiao replied honestly. “To them, we’re an unfamiliar group of aberrants… gathered around a blindfolded human.”
Slade added, “And this human seems to be emitting some kind of strange pheromone that’s driving them insane.”
An Yu: “……”
Just as the stench of the aberrants reached them on the wind, a decisive gunshot broke the silence and began the battle.
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Through the bandage, his teammates’ silhouettes had already flashed forward with agility. Pat, adept with melee weapons, charged into the behemoths in his human form. Jiang Xiao and Slade, on the other hand, ramped their mutation traits to the max, using their massive limbs to directly brawl with the aberrants.
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“Try to help,” Qin Zhilu’s voice suddenly came very close to his ear. “Don’t just stand there.”
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He paused, then said again, “If you’re just going to stand here and wait for your teammates to kill all these aberrants, you’ll waste the chance to trigger the Death Mirror Fracture.”
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But Pat ignored the pain completely, holding his massive cleaver horizontally above his head, crouching low in preparation to dodge and find an opening to counterattack.
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As if they shared a silent understanding, An Yu acted before he even realized it. He suddenly sensed a brief fold in space.
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Foul-smelling pus and blood sprayed out. Pat froze for a moment, then suddenly turned his head—
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A moment later, the largest aberrant finally collapsed to the ground, and right after that, Pat faintly heard the sound of a mirror shattering.
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“If you’re agitated, don’t hold it in. Let it explode, you won’t lose control.” Qin Zhilu’s deep voice came beside his ear. “Pat is seriously injured. Fengjian’s healing is too slow. If…”
If Pat’s time could accelerate too, that would be best.
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Then a more intense crashing sound rolled through his head, but he no longer had time to care. That unbearable agitation awakened something inside him, allowing him to clearly sense Pat’s shoulder wound within the hazy vision formed by the bandage.
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“Very well done,” Qin Zhilu said. “If you can control time and space once, you can attempt a second time. Just like in District 53, the mastery of power requires repeated trials. Though the process is painful, pain is the path upward.”
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If not for the tall man in black standing beside him, no one would have noticed him.
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Everyone’s movements seemed to shift at crucial moments.
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Some people’s deaths were accelerated, while others seemed favored by time, their wounds healing rapidly.
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The four Protectors stood in the snow as if waking from a deep dream, unable to fully remember what they had done.
The final injury was on Jiang Xiao’s snake tail.
Everyone stared blankly as the wound began healing on its own, only to suddenly stop halfway.
A few seconds later, the dandelion seeds floating in the air hesitated, slowly drifting over and hovering nearby. After observing for a bit and confirming the wound had stopped healing, they reluctantly resumed their work.
Not far away, Qin Zhilu naturally caught An Yu around the waist just as his body went limp.
The cold wind blew through the wide hem of his coat, and An Yu’s waist was freezing cold, so cold that it could be felt even through gloves.
Two black tendrils slipped out from beneath the coat, then coiled back to their usual place.
“He’s asleep.” Qin Zhilu calmly said to Jiang Xiao and the others who ran over to them. “Overuse of power puts him to sleep.”
It was the first time Fengjian had seen something like this. He watched An Yu, who was slumped over Qin Zhilu’s shoulder, with great curiosity.
That snowy-white hair, almost blending into the storm, was messily spread over the windbreaker of the highest commander of the Spire. The bandage covered his sleeping face, but the steady, peaceful breathing, like a small animal, clearly showed he was deeply and soundly asleep.
The descended from the air, and Fengjian tucked it into his pocket.
He resisted the strong urge to take a photo and lowered his voice to ask, “How long will Lord Corner sleep?”
“No need to whisper. If you could actually wake him up, that’d be impressive,” Qin Zhilu glanced at the person slumped on his shoulder, hesitated a moment, then added, “Maybe I pushed him a bit too hard. Last time he overexerted himself, he slept for eight days.”
Everyone: “……”
Jiang Xiao was silent for a moment. “I must remind you, from a genetic and biological viewpoint, An Yu is just a fragile human.”
“Fragile.” Qin Zhilu raised his brows in mild surprise. “Didn’t you say you had the honor of witnessing him hunt?”
“Growing up quickly will be good for him and for humanity.”
The tentacles coiled around An Yu’s waist tightened slightly. Qin Zhilu tilted his head to look at him. After a long pause, he lifted a hand to cover An Yu’s ear which had turned red from the cold snowstorm.
His fingertips brushed over the scar behind the ear, pausing briefly, then gently helped move the young man’s hair to cover it.
“He can only grow when he overcomes his limits. That’s his fate.”
Qin Zhilu spoke softly. After a long silence, he finally looked up again, calmly sweeping his gaze over Jiang Xiao and the others.
“He will never be just a support.”
As he rubbed An Yu’s fluffy head through his gloves, he added,
“He’s a maestro—and what he’ll command isn’t just a skirmish or two.”
Author’s Note:
[26: Breadcrumbs]
Whether gods or ants, they are the same in the universe.
Insignificant. Confused.
Often running in circles, aimlessly.
Sometimes, the universe drops a few breadcrumbs.
To guide the lost toward the next exit.
So both gods and humans cherish those breadcrumbs dearly.
The beautiful thing is: you never know when the next breadcrumb will appear.
Nor can you predict who will pass by and scatter them at your feet.
Snowflake fragments
[Fengjian Tianyu (1/3)]
[Furry ball-like object]
I have a pair of large, round eyes—with just a tiny pointed end at the corner of my eyes.
They say I look like a feline, and that they’ll be scared if I stare at them for too long.
But actually, my distortion type is a dandelion. It’s those drifting seeds that carry my healing power.
They’re round and fluffy, fluttering in the air.
My gaze may be a little intense, but I have no resistance to round, fuzzy things.
The first time I saw Corner’s abilities on the battlefield, I blanked out for a while.
Maybe it was because of the bandage, I couldn’t see his eyes, so the mystery of his powers was even more unnerving.
When I ran toward him, I deliberately lagged a few steps behind.
Originally, I had ambitious plans to become his bound healer, but at that moment, I hesitated.
Yet once I got closer, that sense of abyssal dread vanished.
He was slumped on Commander Law’s shoulder.
A round head, soft and fuzzy, just like a snow-white dandelion.
The dandelion had fallen asleep, and was softly snoring in his slumber.
M1zushi: the lack of comments makes me demotivated 🙁
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