Chapter 6

"Blue Star's surface isn't fit for human habitation" was a lie.

The truth was that "lower-class humans aren't qualified to live on Blue Star's surface."

That was right. The hundreds of millions of Earth humans who actually lived underground, them included, were all lower-class humans.

Including the illustrious Zhao family that dominated C City.

Zhao Xing had learned this thirteen years ago.

Thirteen years ago, Zhao Xing had brought Luo Mingshan out "exploring" as usual, and accidentally found this place.

Zhao Xing and Luo Mingshan crawled forward through the ventilation shaft for more than ten minutes before they saw a flicker of light.

Countless tales of dragons and heroes swirled through little Zhao Xing's mind.

His face lit up with excitement, his eyes sparkling as though he'd found treasure.

He shushed Luo Mingshan, switched off the flashlight clenched between his teeth, and eagerly crawled toward the light.

The light came from beneath the duct. Through the fine wire mesh, Zhao Xing saw a luxurious, brightly lit office.

Inside were a prison guard and a specially dressed man and woman.

They wore strange skintight outfits, with translucent curved electronic screens around their necks and wrists. As they looked around, their contempt for the place was undisguised.

"This place looks like ancient Earth from the movies. It's so backward! Ugh, even the air is awful. I feel like I'm going to break out in a rash. Can humans really live underground long-term without getting sick? Hey, how long do people here live on average?" the woman asked.

"The average lifespan for Earth humans here is sixty-one," the guard answered.

"How horrifying." The woman looked incredulous.

"All right, stop complaining. We're here for business," the man said.

He looked at the guard. "Are this year's people ready?"

The guard beamed, his tone fawning. "Ready, ready. One hundred and one vicious, unrepentant criminals. They deserve to die. You can do whatever you want with them..."

"Good. I'll inspect the merchandise."

"This way, please." The guard opened the door and gestured him through. Lowering his voice, he added hopefully, "By the way, about transferring me to the surface..."

Snap. The office lights went out, and the guard's voice gradually disappeared.

The world sank into absolute darkness.

Before Zhao Xing could recover from his shock, little Luoluo beside him let out an agonized moan.

Zhao Xing hurriedly switched on the flashlight and, practiced at this by now, hugged Luo Mingshan and gently patted his back. "Don't be scared, Luoluo. Gege turned the light on. It isn't dark anymore."

Luo Mingshan was still trembling, so little Zhao Xing blew softly all over him and comforted him in a low voice. "There, there. Luoluo doesn't hurt anymore. The pain's flown away."

Then he planted a loud kiss on his cheek.

Quite a few people here suffered from nyctophobia.

Luo Mingshan had the worst kind.

According to him, whenever the lights went out and the whole world fell into darkness, he hurt so badly—as if tiny bugs were crawling out from between his bones, biting his flesh and skin.

After Zhao Xing held him for about three minutes, Luo Mingshan recovered.

"Does it still hurt, Luoluo?" Zhao Xing asked.

"No more."

Only then did Zhao Xing release him. In the beam of the flashlight, his eyes shone even brighter. "Luoluo, did you hear that? They said the surface! It's different from what the books say—there are people living aboveground too."

Luo Mingshan didn't really understand. "Is aboveground nice?" he asked slowly.

"It has to be. Otherwise why would that prison-guard uncle want to transfer up there?"

They talked as they crawled back.

"The surface has to be beautiful," Zhao Xing said. "Lots of flowers and grass. Maybe even butterflies!"

"What are butterflies?"

"Pretty things that can fly. I'll show you in one of Mom's books when we get back. And there might be a sun up there too. Not a fake sun like the one in Sun Square—a real sun!"

"Will it be very bright?"

"Yeah. And a real sun won't have power outages! Luoluo will never have to be scared of the dark again!"

"Wow!"

"When gege grows up, I'll take you exploring up there, okay?"

"Okay! Brother A-Xing, pinky promise!"

"Pinky swear—our promise won't change for a hundred years..."

Zhao Xing came back to himself.

He crushed the remaining stub of his cigarette against a piece of scrap metal in front of him and turned to leave.

The flashlight beam and Zhao Xing's shadow receded farther and farther away.

Before the light vanished completely, another faint glow appeared in a corner.

Luo Mingshan emerged from the gloom. He stared at the not-yet-extinguished cigarette butt for two seconds, then picked it up between his long, pale index and middle fingers.

He put it to his lips and took a drag, copying Zhao Xing.

"Cough, cough."

Luo Mingshan frowned and wiped away the tears he'd coughed up. It was bitter, astringent, and choking.

Was this what Zhao Xing liked now?

How strange.

He took another drag.

He wasn't used to it, but at the thought that Zhao Xing liked it so much, smoking suddenly seemed oddly interesting.

After three or four breaths, Luo Mingshan had learned.

With his eyes lowered and half a cigarette between slender fingers, he looked relaxed and languid. The way he flicked off the ash was skilled and elegant, reproducing ninety percent of Zhao Xing's manner. He even narrowed his eyes, naturally picking up some of Zhao Xing's particular roguish air.

At last, he copied Zhao Xing again and ground out the cigarette on the sheet metal.

Perfect.

Having completed the act of smoking, Luo Mingshan glanced at the old vent, then turned and headed back with his flashlight.

Zhao Xing wandered around Academy No. 7 for a while with nothing to do. After some thought, he decided he might as well go to class.

Being late cost 0.5 Repentance Points. Skipping class cost 1. Going now could still save him 0.5.

When Zhao Xing entered Class 109, second period had just begun. Under their teacher's lead, the students were reciting an oath, right at its final line.

"...I have violated the Earthling Code of Conduct. I repent. I know my wrongs."

There were around twenty students in the class. Their voices were loud, unified, and sonorous, and every expression was deadly serious.

But if Zhao Xing had guessed right, the entire class was made up of unrepentant Class-A Rehabilitation Subjects.

He glanced around and found two familiar faces.

Luo Mingshan and his roommate, Zhang Yue.

Zhao Xing raised his brows.

Luoluo was here too.

Ah, right. He'd been sent in for excessive self-defense, so it was understandable that he thought he'd done nothing wrong.

After everyone sat down, Zhao Xing knocked on the doorframe. "Reporting in."

The robot teacher scanned him with red eyes. "Enter."

Zhao Xing looked it over with interest.

So the rumors were true. Every Class-A teacher had been replaced by a robot.

Because Class-A Rehabilitation Subjects were vicious and unrepentant, and teachers' safety couldn't be guaranteed, all teachers had been replaced by robots controlled remotely by people.

There were many empty seats. One was directly to Luo Mingshan's left, and Zhao Xing headed for it.

But when he reached it, he abruptly stopped. He changed direction and went to Luo Mingshan's right instead.

A hulking man nearly two meters tall sat there, fat rolling across his face and tattoos covering his neck. He had been staring at Luo Mingshan through the oath and even now, licking his lips, looking certain of himself. His hand was secretly inching left, intending to touch Luo Mingshan's pale fingers on the desk.

Tap tap.

Zhao Xing knocked twice on his desk. His tone was lazy. "Get up. Give me your seat."

Every other student turned to look. Even the robot teacher stopped flipping through its lesson plan.

The big man hadn't expected someone to be this arrogant on his first day. He froze before recovering.

His low voice suppressed an undercurrent of rage. "There are other seats."

"No. I want this one."

The man's fists cracked, veins bulging in his face. But he looked at the robot's glowing red surveillance eyes and finally rose with gritted teeth.

It wasn't that he wanted to swallow this. It just wasn't the right time. After class, he'd definitely—definitely drag this guy into the bathroom...

Thinking about Zhao Xing's impending miserable state, he moved to sit at Luo Mingshan's left.

Before his ass could touch the chair, a jacket landed on the desk.

"You can't sit here either," Zhao Xing drawled. "Get the fuck farther away."

The man glared. "What the fuck do you mean?!"

"Nothing. You stink. Haven't showered in days, have you? I want you sitting farther away."

"Fuck!" His rage ignited at once. With a curse, he raised his fist and swung at Zhao Xing's face.

After his first punch missed, he never got another out.

From then on, it was entirely Zhao Xing beating him up.

Five minutes later, the man lay twitching on the floor, unable even to crawl.

Zhao Xing blew on his reddened right hand, gave it a light shake, then casually sat down to Luo Mingshan's left.

The classroom was silent.

Ding—

"Zhao Xing: twenty points deducted. Repentance Points balance: 74.5."

"Cao Cong: ten points deducted. Repentance Points balance: 8.7."

At the electronic notification, Cao Cong twitched even harder on the floor, nearly furious enough to die.

"Not fair." Zhao Xing curled his lip in complaint. "He threw the first punch. I'm the victim here, so why do I lose more points than him?"

Shameless!

So arrogant!

No fucking shame at all!

Everyone stared at Cao Cong, beaten beyond recognition on the floor, then at Zhao Xing, who didn't even have a scratch on his face, and screamed their complaints internally.

The robot teacher swept a mechanical arm over Cao Cong, confirmed he wasn't in danger of dying, and turned back to the podium. Its next electronic announcement was utterly cold. "Quiet. Continue class."

Only then did Cao Cong slowly, miserably climb to his feet and find a seat as far from Zhao Xing as possible.

Luo Mingshan's eyes sparkled. He opened his mouth to speak to Zhao Xing, then remembered Zhao Xing's warning and obediently shut it again.

A little later, a note was passed to Zhao Xing.

"That person has been harassing me. Brother Zhao, thank you."

Zhao Xing snorted.

Fuck, this little idiot was awfully narcissistic. He hadn't beaten the guy to help Luo Mingshan. He'd done it to deliberately cause trouble, so he could get himself selected as one of the 101 Most Heinous as soon as possible.

But...

Zhao Xing studied the note, feeling something odd.

The handwriting was neat and delicate, every stroke written with care.

It was exactly like five-year-old Luo Mingshan's handwriting.

Had he not practiced writing in over a decade? Why did he still write so childishly?

Zhao Xing couldn't be bothered to think about it. He crumpled the note and tossed it back, then put his head down on the desk and went to sleep.

Classes here were actually pretty lax. Normally, only being late, leaving early, or missing class cost points.

As for sleeping, talking, or spacing out in class, none of that cost points. It was all simply recorded in the routine-score system and folded into the semester evaluation.

Of course, Zhao Xing's main goal was to get the lowest possible ideological assessment score and be selected for the "Unrepentant, Most Heinous Group of 101."

But the moment he lay down, he felt warm breath draw close.

Frowning, he opened his eyes and saw Luo Mingshan's face magnified before him.

Zhao Xing blanked out for a moment.

Really, it wasn't Luo Mingshan's fault he attracted so many creeps. He was genuinely beautiful.

Humans had lived underground for so long that even with an occasional dose of the "fake sun" in Sun Square, most people's skin was a sickly pallor.

Luo Mingshan's skin was the palest of all. His features were flawless, his lashes thick and long. He had an unreal kind of beauty, like an exquisite expensive doll in a display window...

Zhao Xing snapped back and slapped a hand over Luo Mingshan's face, pushing him away. "What are you doing?"

Luo Mingshan exited mute mode. Staring at Zhao Xing's lips, he asked, "Brother Zhao, why is your lip split?"

It wasn't from the fight just now; Luo Mingshan was sure of it.

And it was on his lower lip, like it had been...bitten.

Luo Mingshan lowered his eyes and thought quietly.

He refused to consider that someone else had bitten it, immediately deciding Zhao Xing must have bitten it himself.

When would someone bite their lip hard enough to hurt it there?

When enduring pain.

It hadn't been there this morning, so it must have happened during class placement...

Luo Mingshan abruptly looked up, his voice slightly cold. "Did they give you an electric shock?"

His tone and expression were nothing like Luoluo's. He hadn't even called him Brother Zhao.

Zhao Xing looked at Luo Mingshan in surprise.

Luo Mingshan quickly adjusted his expression, his voice softening again. "Brother Zhao, does it hurt? I have medicine. Do you want some?"

Zhao Xing was actually pretty afraid of pain. But he'd just been electrocuted and his body still felt numb, so his lip didn't hurt much. If Luo Mingshan hadn't said anything, he wouldn't even have known it was split.

Still, Luo Mingshan had already taken out the ointment, so Zhao Xing accepted it.

It smelled unexpectedly nice—sweet, without any medicinal odor.

"Brother Zhao, you're putting it in the wrong spot," Luo Mingshan reminded him. "A little more to the left."

Zhao Xing moved his hand left.

"No, a little more right..."

What a pain. Forget it.

Zhao Xing tossed the ointment onto the desk.

Luo Mingshan picked it up, his voice gentle. "Brother Zhao, can I do it for you?"

When they were little, Zhao Xing was hurt often, and Luo Mingshan had applied medicine for him every time.

Zhao Xing nodded indifferently.

Pink ointment was squeezed onto Luo Mingshan's pale fingertip, then gently brushed over Zhao Xing's lips.

—Brother A-Xing talks so tough, but his lips are so soft.

—Fuck, he's a guy. Why are this little idiot's fingers so tender and soft, with no calluses at all? Ridiculous.

Their thoughts ran wild at the exact same time.

After applying the ointment, Luo Mingshan leaned in as he had when they were children and blew on Zhao Xing's lips. "There, there. The pain's flown away."

Then he lightly kissed Zhao Xing's cheek.

Zhao Xing froze.

Bang!

The next moment, he shoved Luo Mingshan away, springing to his feet so hard his chair toppled over.

Even the tips of Zhao Xing's ears burned red with embarrassment. He roared, "Are you fucking insane?!"

Luo Mingshan looked up at him, blank and a little lost, like he had no idea what he'd done wrong.