In a crevice within the rock strata hundreds of meters beneath the city.
Knull adhered quietly to the surface of a granite slab.
Compared to the puddle of sludge that was about to evaporate when he first transmigrated.
Now, he had the volume of a palm and his form had become more solid.
Like a piece of black soft gel, with ripples occasionally undulating across his surface.
Within the mental network, Carnage’s signal was always present—not strong, but stable.
The underlying tone, a blend of hunger and repression, vibrated like a low-frequency string.
Haruka had been holed up in the cement factory for a day and a night.
He had eaten nothing, save for a few sips of rusty water.
Carnage’s instinct for slaughter was being suppressed by him, but Knull could clearly sense that the string was being pulled tighter and tighter.
It would snap sooner or later.
However, Knull had no interest in dealing with him right now.
His attention was extending further away.
Twelve kilometers to the southeast, that ball of wrath had been burning for at least three days.
Knull had spent an entire afternoon pushing his perception toward that direction, bit by bit.
This process was draining; a distance of twelve kilometers was already nearing the limit for his current mental network.
The signal became blurred and fragmented at the edge, like listening to someone speak through three walls, only able to catch intermittent fragments of emotion.
Anger—this was the most superficial layer.
Exhaustion, wrapped beneath the anger.
There was something deeper, something Knull took some time to identify.
Humiliation.
The humiliation of an adult male, accumulated over years.
Interesting.
Knull pushed his perception forward a little more.
Groundwater was seeping through the cracks in the rock; using the conductive effect of the water flow, he finally managed to extend his signal range by a few hundred meters.
No images, no sounds, only emotions.
But the emotion itself was the most complete story.
The man was strong, or at least, had once been strong.
Because in the underlying tone of his emotions, there was a sense of familiarity and nostalgia for his own strength.
A feeling that only someone who had long engaged in high-intensity physical training would possess.
He was angry—the kind of anger that was blocked, stifled in his chest, and growing thicker by the moment.
Knull’s tentacles curled lightly against the rock wall.
He didn’t need to know the man’s name, didn’t need to know his history; he only needed to know one thing.
Was this fire hot enough?
Was it enough to burn into qualified kindling?
The answer was: it was still lacking a bit.
There was still attachment in the man’s emotions, things he couldn’t let go of.
This attachment was like a sluice gate, holding the wrath below a safe water level.
But the gate was already cracking.
Knull could sense those cracks—tiny, dense—each one signifying that the limit of endurance had been touched.
Very good.
He didn’t need to do anything.
The world itself would push the gate down.
He only needed to wait.
Knull withdrew his perception from that direction and pulled it back into the range near his main body.
Twelve kilometers to the southeast, at a dusty construction site on the edge of a shanty town.
Kamui climbed down from the scaffolding when it was already dark.
His right knee had been smashed while unloading steel pipes.
Now he was limping, but he didn’t tell the foreman.
It would be useless to say anything; on the construction site, they didn’t even have enough hard hats for everyone, so who would care if his knee hurt?
Once.
That was five years ago.
When the semi-final reached the seventh round, his opponent landed a hook on his right shoulder, tearing his rotator cuff.
He gritted his teeth and finished the last three rounds; he won, but his shoulder was ruined.
The doctor said the surgery and rehabilitation would cost at least two hundred thousand.
He didn’t have that kind of money.
After he retired, all the sponsors ran off.
The leaders of the provincial team called to offer condolences, saying they would help him apply for some subsidies, and then that was the end of that.
Kamui squatted at the entrance of the makeshift board room on the construction site, unscrewed a bottle of mineral water, took two gulps, and pulled his phone from his pocket.
There were three missed calls on the screen, all from the same number: the Municipal Second People’s Hospital.
He pressed redial.
After three rings, the other side answered.
“Hello, is this Zhang Yueran’s parent?”
“I am. Hello, nurse. What’s wrong with my daughter?”
“Mr. Zhang, your daughter’s examination results from this afternoon are out.”
“The attending physician asked me to notify you to come by tomorrow morning; there are some situations that need to be discussed in person.”
Kamui’s hand tightened around the mineral water bottle, the plastic making a crunching sound.
“What situation? Tell me first.”
The nurse on the other end of the line paused.
“It’s not very convenient over the phone. Mr. Zhang, after you arrive tomorrow, Dr. Wang will explain it to you in detail.”
“Has it gotten worse again?”
The nurse did not answer.
“Mr. Zhang, please come early tomorrow.”
The call ended.
Kamui sat on the threshold, holding his phone, motionless for a long while.
His daughter was nineteen years old this year.
She had a congenital developmental delay; the doctor said she only had the mental age of a seven-year-old.
Besides these, his poor daughter…
Also had congenital heart disease, a ventricular septal defect, and had been repeatedly hospitalized since birth.
Her condition worsened last year.
The doctor said she needed surgery, costing about one hundred fifty to two hundred thousand.
He scrambled to borrow sixty thousand, but it was still far from enough.
The work at the construction site paid two hundred a day, and it was often withheld.
“Kamui!”
A rough voice shouted at him from the other side of the board room.
Kamui stood up and walked over, limping.
The person calling him was one of construction site boss Sun Debiao’s men.
A foreman surnamed Ma, about forty years old, with a face full of flab and a walkie-talkie clipped to his waist.
“Come here, Boss Sun wants to see you.”
Kamui followed him out to the construction site gate.
A black BMW SUV was parked on the side of the road, its engine still running.
The back window rolled down, revealing Sun Debiao’s face.
He was in his early fifties, pot-bellied, with a thick gold chain hanging around his neck.
He wore three gold rings on his fingers, and the fat on his face was arranged into a fake smile.
“Kamui, come up and sit for a bit.”
Kamui didn’t move.
“Boss Sun, if you have something to say, just say it.”
“Come on up; it’s cold outside.”
Kamui still didn’t move.
“I’m dirty; I don’t want to dirty your car.”
Sun Debiao smiled and leaned half his body out of the window. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Fine, I’ll keep it short. This month’s wages might be a few days late.”
Kamui’s expression changed.
“You said it would be a few days late last month, and it still hasn’t been paid.”
“I know, I know.”
Sun Debiao waved his hand, his gold rings flashing under the streetlights.
“Capital turnover is a bit tight lately; you know how the market is.”
“Boss Sun, my daughter is in the hospital, waiting for money for treatment.”
“I know your situation.”
Sun Debiao said in a seasoned tone, tapping his fingers on the car window frame.
“How about this, Kamui? I’ll give you a chance. Didn’t you use to box?”
“I have a buddy down south who opened a private fighting club; they occasionally organize underground matches.”
“If you’re willing to go fight a few matches, the appearance fee for one match starts at at least five thousand.”
Kamui’s brows furrowed.
“Underground matches?”
“Don’t think the wrong way; it’s just amateurs exchanging pointers.”
Sun Debiao’s smile didn’t change.
“With your foundation, winning a few matches wouldn’t be a problem; it’s much better than moving bricks at a construction site.”
“My shoulder is injured; I can’t fight.”
“That’s a pity.”
Sun Debiao retracted into the car, the window rolling up halfway before stopping.
He looked at Kamui through the gap, his voice lowered a bit.
“By the way, Kamui, your wife who came to the site to find you last time, is her name Zhou Fang?”
Kamui’s body tensed up.
“Why do you mention her?”
“Nothing, just thought your wife was quite pretty.”
Sun Debiao’s eyes narrowed.
“If you really can’t make ends meet, having your wife come to my company to help out would work too.”
“Doing some clerical work or something, five or six thousand a month is no problem.”
Kamui’s fists clenched.
His right shoulder throbbed with pain, but he could feel the muscles in his arm contracting.
That instinctive combat reaction was still there, even five years after he retired.
“As for the wages, I’ll give you until the end of this month.”
Kamui finished speaking and turned to leave.
Behind him, the BMW’s window rolled all the way up, and the engine sound gradually faded into the distance.
Kamui stood at the construction site gate, looking at the pitch-black road, a ball of something burning in his chest.
It burned, making his whole being feel hot from the inside out.
He fished a crumpled cigarette from his pocket.
He flicked the lighter three times before lighting the cigarette, took a puff, and choked, coughing several times.
Foreman Ma, who was beside him, leaned over.
“Kamui, don’t butt heads with Boss Sun; you know what he’s like, you can’t win against him.”
Kamui ignored him.
He smoked the cigarette until it was almost burning his fingers before throwing it away.
Dragging his lame right leg, he walked back to the board room.
He lay on the hard wooden bed, his phone resting on his chest.
He flipped through his album and opened the only photo of his daughter.
The girl in the photo wore two pigtails.
Her complexion was a bit pale, but her eyes were as bright as two black grapes.
Kamui stared at that photo for a long time, pressing the phone screen against his forehead.
The wind picked up outside the board room, and the tin roof rattled with a clanging sound.
The distant city was brightly lit.
It had nothing to do with him.