Chapter 54: Wronged Knight
After a satisfying meal and a couple of good night’s sleep, Cillin got up and opened his communicator. There were thirty or so missed calls displayed on it, and they all came from the same person. Looking at the call logs, they were all calls during Cilin’s break time. However, this time Cillin had slept for two days straight and turned off his communicator.
Looking at the number and the many ‘Reply ASAP after you see this’ messages, Cillin wondered to himself, what is this guy up to again. However, Cillin still called back at the first moment. There was basically no pause in between before the call was connected, and Knight’s haggard and utterly grieved face appeared on the panel.
“… Cillin…”
Cillin nearly spat out the water that he was drinking. Just how big of a grievance did it take to make Knight, someone who normally carried himself in a ‘I am number one under the sky’ manner to speak with such a tone?
“What now?”
“I was bullied.”
Bullshit, who on earth has the guts bully you?! who in the entire Seven Lights could bully you?
“Get to the point.”
After listening to Knight’s explanations, Cillin finally understood why this fucker had made more than thirty calls to his communicator. Knight had run into his old friend at the Second Military Academy, Stantine while warming up and practicing on the Sector Championship platform. However, Stantine and another student from the Second Military Academy were defeated by the Visby brothers from the Fourth Military Academy in the middle of warming up and practicing, hence drawing Knight’s thirst for battle. However, for a time Knight couldn’t find anyone suitable to team up with in Seven Lights. The reason he needed a partner was because the Visby brothers only participated in the less popular double format content and not the more popular single format contest.
The first person Knight had thought of was Cillin, but Cillin’s communicator was turned off and he did not reply to his messages as well. When he checked with Ci Jincheng and Lung, both of them were busy as well. Sird and Hard? Their abilities were slightly lacking. Pride? No way, Knight felt that if Pride had gone he would not be able to hold back from 1v3 soloing all three of them by himself. So Cillin it was.
And so he called Cillin’s communicator the first time and found that it was unavailable, called a second time and found that it was unavailable again, called a third time and found that it was still unavailable… repeating the same action all the way from yesterday until today. Knight’s face looked haggard from the act. There were a couple of times he wanted to go straight to the research division and catch a Cillin, but if he did, Mo Heng would most likely detain the both of them. All hope would be lost if that really happened.
The Sector Championship was about to officially begin soon, and the small contests at the start of the Championship were the first to be open for registration. There were only two days time for registration, and they were yesterday and today. It was no wonder that Knight was in such a hurry.
Cillin wanted to laugh at Knight’s grievance-filled look, “Alright. I just got a few days off, so I’ll accompany you and check out those twins for a bit.”
Hearing Cillin’s words, Knight’s eyes turned bright and his haggardness vanished as if he was injected with drugs, “Brother you must come back soon then, the registration will be closed by tonight. I’m going to send the battle request right now! Beep –”
Cillin looked at the communicator that had already been cut off speechlessly. Just how thirsty was this fellow?
After stretching his back, washing and tidying up for a bit, Cillin walked out of Mo Heng’s workshop. After sleeping for two days straight he was hungry. He must forage for food above all else.
While walking to the research division’s restaurant, a pale-looking student greeted Cillin feebly.
“What happened, Singh? You don’t look too well.” Cillin asked.
Singh was about the same age as Cillin and a specially recruited Grade One student. However, most of the time he spent tackling problems at the research division instead of attending lectures.
“Let’s not talk about it. Constipation much, bringing shit to work.” Singh had always felt that being in the research division was like going to work; punching cards and checking in, tackling problems and earning salaries just like a salaryman.
“Pwack —— Singh, this is a restaurant. Can you have a bit of culture?” Someone spat out their orange juice at the side and glared angrily at Singh.
“Excuse me, do understand the pains of a man with periodic constipation.” Singh made an apology gesture before leaving the restaurant.
Cillin shook his head while smiling. This guy’s periodic constipation was well known already.
Once he was done feeding, Cillin returned to his own workshop to pack and to get ready to return to the accommodation. While he was packing, Ling Long had come around.
After entering, Ling Long asked in a small voice, “There’s no one else in here, is there?”
“Nope, the cameras aren’t turned on either… what are you planning? You gonna force yourself onto a man?” After eating and sleeping well, Cillin was feeling a lot better. He was even cracking jokes more frequently.
Ling Long curled her lips, closed the door tightly before folding her arms together and smiling sneakily at him, “How would I dare take Shadow X all for myself?”
Hmm?
Cillin was surprised. The way Ling Long put it, she was very sure without the slightest bit of guess in it whatsoever. How did she know? He even implemented the safeguard on the platform’s information himself.
Ling Long stared straight at Cillin, “No matter your ugliness or your beauty; the water you swim or the sky you soar; I will always know you at first glance.”
Cillin smiled, “Levine’s ‘Colors’, Chapter 7, ‘The Butterfly and The Dragonfly’.”
“You read Levine’s books as well?” Ling Long’s eyes lit up as if she had finally found her confidant after overcoming countless hardships, “There are very few people who would read Levine’s literature-oriented fantasy fairy tale. I didn’t know you read it as well, and remember it so clearly.”
Cillin didn’t answer.
Chapter 7 of Levine’s ‘Colors’ talked about the story of a butterfly and a dragonfly.
There was a very large tree besides a river. Its branches stretched far, and there was one thick tree branch that was stretched across the river. A very disgusting caterpillar had laid there while eating a tree leaf. The tree branch was very close to the water surface, and after it was full it looked down from the tree branch at the water surface on a whim. Through the reflection of the water surface, the caterpillar saw a very ugly and very fearsome-looking worm underneath the water surface, and that worm saw it in turn as well. For a while, the caterpillar would go there everyday to meet the worm, and the worm would wait at the same spot everyday beneath the river for the caterpillar as well.
The days passed by, and the caterpillar was about to turn into a cocoon. On that day it crawled back to the same spot, looked once at the worm beneath the water, before crawling to a place on the tree where its companions are spinning themselves into a cocoon. On the next day after the caterpillar had left, the worm under the water climbed out of the water surface and hung onto a plant jutting out of the water. There were many of its kind that had also climbed out along water grasses as their bodies began to change.
After the caterpillar had undergone metamorphosis and flew out of its cocoon as a butterfly, it immediately returned to the same place from before. However, the worm’s figure could not longer be seen beneath the water surface. The caterpillar was very sad, and it followed its companions to fly to a land of flowers not far away from this place. There were colors everywhere; from colorful flowers to colorful butterflies, dragonflies, bees and more. It was very lively.
The butterfly flew and flew, and when it flew across a sea of irises, its gaze fell onto a purple iris where a dragonfly was flapping its wings and flying towards it. A golden sheen shone as sunlight reflected across its thin wings…
At the conclusion of ‘The Butterfly and The Dragonfly’, Levine wrote a passage as she always did, and one of the lines were, “No matter your ugliness or your beauty; the water you swim or the sky you soar; I will always know you at first glance.”
“Do you believe in what Levine wrote?” Ling Long asked.
“I don’t know.” Cillin answered. But Hena believed in it, and she loved this fairy tale very much. That was why Cillin had remembered this chapter.
Ling Long looked at Cillin and said, “You don’t believe it.” She leaped onto a nearby table and began shaking her legs like a little child, “There are many things that aren’t logical in fairy tales, but I agree with Levine on this line.”
She turned around and looked at Ling Long seriously, “From the very first moment I saw Shadow X, I knew he was you.”
Sweat appeared behind Cillin’s back. Was this a confession?
Thankfully, Ling Long did not press the matter and instead took out a microcomputer from her bag and turned it on. She looked onto the Sector Championship and opened the Sector Championship form.
“Look, Shadow X. You’re famous now.”