Chapter 172: Proof of Existence (Part I)

The peach blossoms along the bank were quietly blooming, and the first ray of spring arrived with the rising sun in the east. Beautiful and lonely, she stood upon the river cliff, facing the light slowly emerging at the far end of the Yangtze River. She let down her long hair, discarded the bow from her head, and revealed her furry grey-white ears.

"Qi, I will live on well. I will live on well, and I will bring Meng'er with me," Kili whispered to herself. She recalled the voice and smile of her husband, and finally choked back a sob.

"You once asked me, 'Would you be willing to be my cat?'"

"I didn't agree, and I even snapped at you."

"Actually, what I wanted to say was: I am willing. If I could add a time limit to this wish, I hope it would be for a lifetime."

"I want to be your cat, to pester you forever, to cling to you, to act spoiled in your arms, and to throw little tantrums with you." Kili finished in a choked voice, then raised a hand to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes. She turned to Xie Liu behind her and said, "I have to go."

The sun rose, its golden radiance shining upon Kili, dyeing her in a golden hue. She pursed her lips and offered a final, faint smile—one tinged with bitterness yet full of resilience. "And... thank you..."

...

Two hours earlier.

Xie Liu raised a hand, extending his five fingers toward a small warship flying overhead, and then clenched his fist tightly.

"Boom!" With a deafening roar, the small warship burst into a fireball, trailing a long stream of flame as it plummeted into the distance, as if crushed from afar by Xie Liu's bare will.

"What did you just do?" Ailu asked Xie Liu amidst her frantic busyness. Xie Liu only shook his head and said, "It was drawing too much energy, causing its charge to momentarily exceed the capacitor threshold. At that point, all I had to do was apply an external stimulus to make it detonate itself. I simply defeated it using its own energy matrix."

"What other tricks do you have? If I gave you some time, would you be able to pull down that flagship too?" Ailu, witnessing Xie Liu's unfathomable thought process yet again, couldn't help but make a sarcastic remark.

To her surprise, Xie Liu nodded and said, "If the conditions are right, I'd like to try."

"Don't believe a word he says; this guy has no idea what he's doing. Let's just run!" Ye Leng hurried over from behind. The group was stumbling through the dense woods, having run for who knows how long through this pitch-black forest.

High up in the sky, the Phoenix-class warship looked down from afar at the fleeing crowd below. Vladimir didn't seem particularly rushed. As he watched them run for their lives, he remarked, "Xie Liu, I want to see just how long you can hold out."

Losing a few small warships was of no consequence whatsoever; the city could mass-produce hundreds of these things within a day. What Vladimir wanted to do was use these minor vessels to sap the stamina of Xie Liu and his companions. The moment Xie Liu and the others had no strength left to struggle would be the moment he reaped the rewards.

"Two warships approaching from the rear left!" Ailu sounded the alarm. Xie Liu nodded slightly upon hearing this. "Got it. You guys go ahead. Ailu, coordinate with me to shoot it down!"

With that, Xie Liu leaped forward, stepping onto the densely packed tree branches to spring upward. The warship behind them closed in rapidly, its flank laser cannon locking onto Xie Liu's position. Through the reticle, the pilot saw Xie Liu currently holding a black sniper rifle, aiming directly at his warship.

"How arrogant—" Before the pilot could finish his sentence, the left wing of his warship exploded. Xie Liu fired a shot in mid-air. Instead of targeting the heavily armored cockpit, the bullet struck the flank. The Tier 5 bullet pierced the shields and punched straight through the side plating of the wing. The small warship lost control, forced to slow down and initiate emergency repairs on the left wing.

Xie Liu fired his shot while airborne, the powerful recoil thrusting him backward. Ailu appeared just in time, grabbing Xie Liu's arm in mid-air. The two of them spun around twice in the air. Xie Liu activated the small booster on his back, transferring the recoil momentum to Ailu through the rotational force. In the next instant, Ailu shot into the sky like a cannonball fired from a muzzle, reaching the top of the second warship in a flash. With a sharp cry, a white blade of light flashed downward from the air, slicing off the warship's right wing in a single stroke.

"Let's go!" Xie Liu dropped from the sky, shouting at Ailu high above. Ailu flipped her body and descended toward Xie Liu, getting caught by a steel wire launched by him, hurtling swiftly in his direction.

After decelerating among the countless leafy branches, Ailu finally snapped a few twigs and was caught by Xie Liu. Without a moment's hesitation, the two turned and continued to run.

"Are you alright?" Ailu and Xie Liu dashed through the forest, but she noticed that Xie Liu was already drenched in sweat and panting heavily. "You need to rest." Ailu frowned. Her physical stamina far exceeded Xie Liu's; even she found such high-intensity combat somewhat taxing, let alone Xie Liu.

"I can still hold on. The trait of a physical mutation user is great endurance, so you don't need to worry for now." Although Xie Liu said this, his relentless panting betrayed his actual condition.

Though worried, seeing that Xie Liu insisted he was fine, Ailu chose not to press further. She bit her lower lip, an irrepressible look of deep concern lingering in her emerald-right eye. After eliminating the small warships that had given chase, the two quickly caught up with the others ahead.

"Have you found the route yet?" Xie Liu stopped in his tracks and asked Ye Leng, who was currently scanning the surrounding terrain. Realizing Xie Liu had arrived, Ye Leng looked at her watch awkwardly, stammering and saying nothing. Xie Liu took a deep breath, realizing that Ye Leng had failed to find the subsequent path. With that thought, Xie Liu raised his wrist to look at his own watch and began scanning the surrounding topography.

"The approximate location has been determined. Head toward the riverside; there should be a path there leading further west." Xie Liu pointed toward the river water ahead and warned, "Don't make any more mistakes. We can't go back into the forest; Vladimir's crawling capture robots are in there."

"Understood." Ye Leng nodded like a pecking chick. After speaking, Xie Liu took a deep breath. "The small warships behind are catching up again. We'll go hold them off." With that, Xie Liu turned around, called out to Ailu to leave with him, and then stepped into empty space.

"Huh?" Xie Liu was surprised to find himself tumbling headfirst toward the ground.

Fortunately, Ailu was quick-eyed and agile, reaching out to grab Xie Liu's clothes just in time to keep him from falling flat on his face. "How are you holding up?" Ailu asked with a frown. Xie Liu's previous stumble had startled everyone. "Your physical endurance has reached its limit. If you keep fighting, you might actually drop dead from exhaustion."

"There's no time to worry about that." Xie Liu pushed Ailu away, then pointed toward the forest behind them. "Vladimir has already released the combat robots. It seems he knows I'm out of stamina."

"Yet I have no way to counter it. Vladimir's move is too shameless; to me, it's completely unsolvable." Xie Liu gasped for breath, shoved Ailu aside again, and drew a folding knife whose edge was already rolled and dull. "I have no choice. Ailu, come with me."

Everyone fell into a heavy silence, save for Kili, who was still gently patting Meng'er, coaxing her to remain asleep.

Wang Qi finally spoke up, "Let's move on first. Their target isn't the Deadeye; we'll be fine."

With that, Ye Leng and Kili exchanged glances. There was no time left to waste; both nodded resolutely. "Alright, we'll wait for you ahead."

The two women turned and left. Wang Qi originally wanted to stay behind, but Xie Liu kicked him away. "You'll only be a hindrance if you stay here. Get going too."

Wang Qi scrambled away in a panic. Watching Wang Qi's receding figure gradually disappear from his line of sight, Xie Liu finally collapsed in exhaustion. Ailu stepped forward to support him, and Xie Liu gave a bitter smile. "Sorry for letting you see such a pathetic sight. I really can't hold on anymore."

Ailu shook her head slightly. "You've done enough. No one will look down on you."

Xie Liu exhaled a breath of stale air and stared deeply at Ailu for a long moment before speaking, "Ailu, you should leave too. Get out of here. With your strength, they won't be able to keep you."

Ailu simply smiled and shook her head slowly. She offered no rebuttal and no argument, using only the motion of her head to convey her unwavering will—she was not leaving.

"Why bother?" Xie Liu sighed, his eyes filled with an unnamable emotion. "This isn't your fight at all. Why take the risk?"

"Because I want to. When I do things, I don't care about gains or losses. If I like it, I do it. If I believe it's right, I do it. No one could stop me in the past, and no one can stop me now." Ailu spoke as if stating something entirely natural.

Xie Liu was momentarily stunned. After a second of blankness, he burst into laughter. "Hahaha, so you're a fool too."

Ailu showed no anger; instead, she nodded. "Yes, we're both fools."

"Hahaha..." Xie Liu kept laughing, laughing until tears welled up in his eyes. "Fool, fool, you really are a fool."

Looking somewhat perplexed, Ailu first furrowed her brow and asked, "Is it really that funny?"

Yet Xie Liu ignored her, continuing to laugh heartily as if he had encountered the most absurd thing in the world. Finally, a trace of annoyance surfaced on Ailu's face, and she snapped, "Have you laughed enough yet?"

"No, I wouldn't have enough time to laugh through a lifetime." Even as he said this, Xie Liu finally stopped laughing, raising a hand to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes—whether from laughing too hard or for some other reason.

"We always live under the expectations of others," Xie Liu muttered out of nowhere. Then, his gaze shifted past Ailu. Behind her, a figure was gradually materializing.

"You're finally here. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you?" Seeing that figure, Xie Liu finally relaxed his expression.

Ailu had no idea someone was standing behind her. She whirled around abruptly, only to witness an intensely eerie sight: standing behind her was no person at all, but rather a figure formed entirely out of countless leaves.

The figure looked like a tall, slender beauty, walking slowly toward them.

"Why are you only just getting here? I was almost dead," Xie Liu complained. The woman made of leaves shook her head. "I wanted to make you suffer a bit, just to see if you'd dare pull stunts like this again."

"I was wrong, alright?" Xie Liu smiled bitterly. "By the way, did you come to bring me some good news?"

"You're thinking too much. You won't be getting any good news right now," the leaf-formed woman replied, shaking her head. "I came to state a fact, and to ask a question."

"Figures," Xie Liu sighed. Ignoring Ailu's inquiring gaze, he said directly, "Tell me everything you know and everything you want to know, Falan Ni."

As Xie Liu's voice trailed off, the leaf-composed woman shed her disguise. Underneath a shimmering, illusory glow, who else could it be but Falan Ni? This was a phantom projection crafted from her mental power, yet it appeared lifelike and true.