Night's Nomenclature
Chapter 506: Even More Stars Fall Like Rain

Taketa Hideo watched the vehicles with an ashen Face^[-]. Just as his subordinates had said, none of their cars were spared; all of them had flat tires.

He suddenly felt that the night had become magical. The person they were pursuing had reappeared before them, but after appearing, he hadn't done anything else, only puncturing all their tires.

So, the two individuals, one big and one small, had punctured the tires first, and then appeared before them with a calm demeanor.

Taketa Hideo was about to laugh angrily. He could imagine the two of them stealthily puncturing the tires, fearing that the sound would be too loud.

As a result, these two people almost scared him!

"Change the tires," Taketa Hideo said ferociously.

A subordinate whispered, "Director, each car only carries one spare tire, but all four tires of each car have been punctured. There aren't enough spare tires."

Taketa Hideo slapped the subordinate, sending him spinning like a top on the snow for two circles: "Can't you use four spare tires to make one car work? Send a vanguard unit to chase him first, and the rest of you will follow me!"

The subordinate, having finally regained his footing, hurriedly bowed with stars dancing before his eyes: "Understood!"

A group of people quickly changed the tires, and more than ten cars sped off in pursuit.

It was the snowy season. If the boy was still escaping on a mountain bike, he definitely wouldn't be able to outrun the cars on the highway.

If the boy was escaping into the snowy mountains by car, there would certainly be footprints in the snow.

Taketa Hideo knew that the boy and Shinguji Maki couldn't escape.

His only concern was that he still couldn't judge the boy's strength, so he sent his subordinates to test him first.

Catching them directly would be best; the credit would still be his. If they couldn't catch them, and if they encountered resistance, the more than ten cars in front would be enough to hold the boy back and drain his fighting strength.

...

...

At this time, little Shinguji Maki sat sideways on the crossbar of the mountain bike. The wind rushed towards her, but she didn't feel cold.

"Are you scared?" Qing Chen asked.

Just now, after the little girl helped him puncture the tires, she watched him silently eliminate more than ten Shadow Agency members.

It was a real slaughter. Qing Chen showed the little girl the cruelest side of this world.

Shinguji Maki, as promised, didn't close her eyes.

She whispered, "I'm scared."

Qing Chen smiled: "Fear is normal; I'm often afraid. But fear doesn't matter; what matters is that you learn to Face^[-] it. What do poor people use to Face^[-] the world? We have no money, no cars, no good fortune born with a silver spoon in our mouths. If a peasant wants to gain a foothold in this world, they must have enough courage."

Actually, tonight, Qing Chen discovered a problem. Although the little girl was scared, she never flinched.

She might have a difficult life and be young, but she wasn't lacking in courage.

The wind and snow in the mountains fell on the two of them. Although Shinguji Maki still didn't quite understand what path Qing Chen wanted to take her on and what kind of life he would give her,

But none of that mattered anymore; her life had already changed.

The little girl whispered, "Older Brother, when tourists came to Bai Chuan Village, they always said that it was like a fairy tale world, but I always felt that fairy tales were fake. If there really are fairy tales, why would no one come to save me?"

At this time, the vehicles behind were gradually catching up. The dazzling high beams in the night were like stabbing knives.

Shinguji Maki nervously grabbed the bike: "Didn't we already puncture their tires? Why are they still catching up? Run fast."

Qing Chen was stunned, then laughed: "They put the spare tires together. Don't worry, this was within my expectations. We can disperse their forces. We're not running this time; otherwise, you'll think the path I'm taking you on is "running away'."

"Ah?" Shinguji Maki clearly didn't understand Qing Chen's bad joke. She didn't even realize what Qing Chen was going to do.

Qing Chen stopped the mountain bike and stood on the mountain road: "This is the place. The road just froze, and the snowplow hasn't had time to clear the snow. Stay back. Now I'll show you what a Knight is."

Shinguji Maki stared blankly. She only felt that her brother's demeanor had suddenly changed, in the heart of the wind and snow.

The next moment, as the vehicles gradually approached,

Qing Chen reached into the night sky and gently flicked his finger.

His slender finger touched a crystal-clear snowflake. The liquid Knight True Qi roared out from his fingertips.

The fragile snowflake, enveloped by the Knight True Qi, didn't shatter at the flick of a finger but instead grew new snow blades.

With a bang, the tiny snowflake rotated like a blade, cutting through the window of the first off-road vehicle from tens of meters away.

The snowflake flew out with the wind. In the high beams, the little girl felt that the small snowflake seemed to have stirred up the wind and snow in the sky.

It drew a white line in the air, as if the air was being cut.

It pierced the driver's forehead.

She suddenly thought that if there were really gods in this world, then this brother who killed people with snowflakes at his fingertips must be one.

After the driver died, his body involuntarily moved the steering wheel, and the large off-road vehicle overturned on the road, sliding towards Qing Chen.

However, Qing Chen remained unmoved. He calmly stood there, flicking his fingers again and again, casually shooting out one snowflake after another.

In the night, there were whooshing sounds.

The windows of one car after another were shattered.

This was a new application of Knight True Qi that Qing Chen discovered on the mountain ridge.

He had been thinking about a question: Knight True Qi transforms from a gaseous state to a liquid state, which must represent an increase in mass. So, would the toughness and sharpness of the Autumn Leaf Blade be improved?

Until he unintentionally flicked away a snowflake.

At that moment, Qing Chen discovered that the snowflake hadn't been shattered by his finger but instead had been stirred up by the Knight True Qi, like ATS-34 high-carbon steel.

The power of Knight True Qi gushing out from the body, from the inside out, was like a gun hammer hitting a bullet; the power erupted in an instant.

For a while, Qing Chen felt that Knight True Qi was somewhat useless.

If it were in the time of the Knight ancestors, three-foot fist-strength or the Autumn Leaf Blade would have been very useful. But in the modern technological environment, the power of firearms was enough to kill most enemies, so the use of the Autumn Leaf Blade would change from a "lethal weapon" to a "functional weapon."

The Autumn Leaf Blade has a very short throwing distance and is also limited by "material." Sometimes, when the Autumn Leaf Blade hits someone, the person might be fine, but the leaves break.

Therefore, when he killed enemies, he still relied more on "Conquer with Virtue," because the lethality of "Conquer with Virtue' is far higher than that of the Autumn Leaf Blade.

Only during assassinations would he use his or others' hair to infuse Knight True Qi.

He had methods for killing enemies at ultra-long and short distances, but he was missing a more efficient medium-to-long-range killing method, and now he had it.

Not enough.

Not enough.

Qing Chen knew that even so, the Autumn Leaf Blade couldn't replace an automatic rifle.

But he felt that the role of liquid Knight True Qi was far more than that.

The Knight True Qi surging in his body like a tide hadn't stopped, hadn't reached its end, hadn't reached the other side.

Only by taking that last step tonight, completing the next Trials of Life and Death, could Qing Chen know what the complete form of this liquid True Qi was.

At this time, the drivers in the more than ten off-road vehicles were all dead. The members of the Shadow Agency didn't even understand what had happened.

They didn't find bullet holes on the drivers' foreheads; they only saw a small, cinnabar-like bloodstain.

Before they could take a closer look, the rolling vehicle bodies knocked them around.

After overturning on the slippery ice and snow, the vehicles continued to slide, coming to Qing Chen.

Shinguji Maki was about to speak, telling him to be careful, but she saw the vehicle narrowly miss Qing Chen.

Qing Chen didn't move.

The young man stood in the distance, in the high beams of the overturned vehicles. The wind and snow swayed in the beams of light; the young man was brilliant and dazzling.

Only now did the little girl realize that this was the life Qing Chen wanted to give her.

This is her future life!

This is the farthest path among all the shortcuts in the world!

"Don't move," Qing Chen turned to the little girl and smiled.

As he spoke, he walked to the vehicles.

The next moment, golden electric arcs erupted from his palms. Before the people in the cars could get out, they were killed by the thunder controlled by the young man.

At this time, Shinguji Maki felt that her brother was simply omnipotent.

If this wasn't a god, then what would a god look like?

Tonight, those who fought against Qing Chen couldn't leave the snowy mountains alive. He had other plans.

Qing Chen dealt with everyone in the more than ten cars and slowly walked to the little girl beside the road, softly asking, "Are you afraid of me?"

He extended his right hand, the wound on his arm had just reopened, and the blood flowed down his sleeve to his hand, looking particularly ferocious.

The little girl grabbed Qing Chen's hand, feeling the temperature in his palm: "I'm not afraid."

The little girl continued, "Brother is a kind person. You put yourself in danger for the villagers, just like you saved me. I only found out today that Brother can smile."

"Let's go, up the mountain," Qing Chen held Shinguji Maki's hand with one hand and carried the mountain bike with the other, walking up Ao Sui High Peak, one step at a time.

Dawn was breaking; they only needed to walk towards the brightest part of the sky.

The little girl asked, "Will I also ride a mountain bike on the mountain ridge in the future?"

"Of course," Qing Chen nodded: "You also have to climb hundreds of meters of sheer cliffs with your bare hands and jump down from the snowy mountain... Are you afraid?"

"I'm not afraid," the little girl said, "I want to walk the path you walked."

"That's probably not possible," Qing Chen chuckled. He was a Time Traveler, but the little girl wasn't.

She might be the first person in the Outer World who could break the rules without time travel.

There were records in Conglomerate history that Ren He was the first person in the Inner World to break free from the constraints of the rules. After that, Ren Xiaosu was born, and the extraordinary progress of the whole world was accelerated.

Before Ren He, there were no Metahumans in the world. Everything started from the moment Ren He opened the Gene Lock.

Qing Chen wondered if the Outer World would be the same?

He sensed that perhaps some people in the Outer World, even if they didn't become Time Travelers, could awaken.

If the little girl was really not a beta tester, it would be enough to explain the problem.

The rules of this world were loosening.

Qing Chen wasn't sure if this was good or bad, but the vast age of the Outer World might be coming.

...

...

Climbing the snowy mountain was much more difficult than walking on flat ground. Each time, the little girl had to use all her strength to climb for a long time.

In the past, Qing Chen would wait, letting her climb with difficulty, even if it was painful and tiring, he wouldn't help.

Today, Qing Chen didn't do that. He let Shinguji Maki lie on his back, then carried the mountain bike and continued to walk.

When they reached the mountainside, they could already hear people shouting from the foot of the mountain. It should be Taketa Hideo who had arrived.

Qing Chen didn't look back.

The little girl whispered, "Brother, are you injured a lot?"

Even the little girl noticed that Qing Chen wasn't in good shape.

These days, Qing Chen had been cultivating like he was torturing himself, so that the injuries he had brought back from the Inner World hadn't fully healed.

Qing Chen smiled: "It's okay."

"Brother, I always feel like you're blaming yourself..." the little girl whispered.

"Why?" Qing Chen was taken aback.

The little girl said, "Eating the unappetizing food clean, training again and again, falling off the cliff, and climbing back up, all of this is like punishing yourself."

Qing Chen was silent for a long time. He didn't expect Shinguji Maki to be so young and yet able to see so many things he hadn't said.

Slowly, they climbed to the top of the mountain. Qing Chen sat heavily on the rocks, looking at the distant sky, and said calmly, "I do feel a little guilty, and I also want to punish myself. For a while, I took a wrong turn, and the consequences were that I suffered and others died for me. I often wonder if the fate of many people would have been rewritten if I hadn't lost my way."

"At that time, I always comforted myself that as long as the Daybreak people were okay, what did it matter if many others died? But then I realized I was wrong. I'm not a bad person, nor am I a good person, but I was wrong because I didn't act like a good person, nor was I bad enough... It's really frustrating."

"So, when I was in the pigsty, I built stone walls over and over again. In the process of torturing myself, I also tried to give others some hope. I wanted to try to lead them out of the predicament. Actually, until that moment, I was still blindly confident in a ridiculous way. I happily watched the expressions of those people change from numb to lively, until finally someone said to me... It's okay, success doesn't have to be in my time."

"At that moment, I was thinking that it wasn't me who was redeeming them, but they who were redeeming me."

"I was finally redeemed."

As he spoke, blood seeped from the wound, finally flowing onto the snow, staining the white snow red.

Shinguji Maki sat beside him: "And now?"

"Now?" Qing Chen smiled, stood up, and said, "I'm back."

As he spoke,

The snow stopped.

The clouds dispersed.

The rising sun spread golden ripples through the atmosphere, just like that day on Qingshan Cliff.

Qing Chen took two steps forward, looking at Taketa Hideo and others who were gradually climbing the mountainside. More than 300 people were armed, following their tracks.

They were about to bring Qing Chen and the others into range.

The mountain ridge was steep. This time, if he used the Reverse Breathing Technique, life and death would be left to fate.

The little girl begged, "Brother, you're bleeding, why don't we give up today?"

Qing Chen turned around and smiled at Shinguji Maki, "Little Maki, do you believe in fairy tales now?"

The little girl remained silent.

Qing Chen straightened his clothes, lifted the mountain bike, and said seriously, "Dancers have to keep practicing. Their feet are injured, their knees are bleeding, they cry again and again backstage, and they've shouted countless times that they want to give up."

"But the moment they take the stage, they wear gorgeous clothes, and only elegance and composure remain."

"From that moment on, you should know that an ugly duckling can really become a swan, and there really are fairy tales in the world."

"But this fairy tale isn't written for you by others; it's written by you with blood and tears, for yourself."

Qing Chen put the little girl on the crossbar.

He couldn't leave her alone on the mountaintop; otherwise, if the Shadow Agency found him going down the mountain alone, they would definitely go up the mountain to capture Shinguji Maki as a threat.

Taking the little girl with him would be even more dangerous.

In the past, he had only Trials of Life and Death that he couldn't complete by himself; now he had to take someone with him.

This way, the little girl would also be in danger.

But since Shinguji Maki had decided to take the path of the Knight, there was no need to make a choice anymore.

Qing Chen asked again, "Do you believe in fairy tales?"

Shinguji Maki said seriously, "I believe."

Qing Chen looked at the rising sun again. The last time he had gone through all kinds of hardships to see the rising sun, this time he was drawing strength from the rising sun.

He finally remembered the grand aspiration he had felt when he first became a Knight, when he saw those four words on the cliff.

Qing Chen resolutely used the Reverse Breathing Technique, took a step forward, rode the mountain bike, and plunged down the sharp mountain ridge.

He was back.

He didn't leave himself any way out.

...

...

Taketa Hideo was halfway up the mountain when he suddenly saw someone riding a mountain bike down the mountain ridge from the top of the mountain.

They were on the shady slope, where the sunlight hadn't reached. Therefore, Taketa Hideo looked far into the distance, only to see the black figure on the mountain ridge engraved in the rising sun.

"Open fire!" He raised his automatic rifle and fired quickly. Bullets chased Qing Chen's tracks within range.

But Qing Chen's speed was getting faster and faster, but his eyes never looked at the enemy once.

120 kilometers per hour; if you were standing by the road, you would feel that the car speeding past would leave you and the world behind in the dust.

What exactly are the Trials of Life and Death?

On the verge of losing control, find the order within your heart, and then make friends with the world.

This time, he wasn't trying to defeat anyone; he was trying to defeat his past self.

But for some reason, the moment Qing Chen released his emotions, he suddenly felt that the direction was no longer so difficult to control, and he no longer felt the mountain ridge was dangerous.

This was the path he was destined to take in his fate.

Then what was there to be afraid of?

Qing Chen was going to finish this path, then, with his strongest state and his returned mental will, go to A02 Base and fight for a way out with those who had redeemed him!

He looked down at Shinguji Maki, but found that the little girl was also fearless.

Shinguji Maki sat on the crossbar with peace of mind, staring at the rising sun.

"Kill them!" Taketa Hideo roared.

Seeing that the speed of the bullets couldn't catch up with Qing Chen, the members of the Shadow Agency simply fired in advance along Qing Chen's path, forming a barrier of steel torrent.

The mountain ridge was swept by bullets, rocks flying.

The moment Qing Chen reached the place where they were shooting, he leaped more than two meters high.

Everyone watched him, carrying the little girl in the rising sun, dodging all the drifting bullets with a leap.

No one expected that Qing Chen would dare to use such a dangerous move on this dangerous and narrow mountain ridge!

"He's been shot!" someone shouted, "He's been shot in the thigh! I'm sure!"

The gunfire was too intense. No matter how much Qing Chen calculated, no matter how fierce he was, he was still hit.

However, after being shot, Qing Chen didn't cry out in pain or frustration. He seemed to have blocked all negative sensations and was still resolutely carrying out his will.

Taketa Hideo ran wildly on the mountainside, calculating Qing Chen's route and the path he had to take, wanting to intercept him with his own strength as he sped down.

Qing Chen sped down from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the valley, and the Shadow Agency director ran faster and faster.

The paths of the two were two lines that would inevitably intersect.

But the next moment, he saw Qing Chen suddenly stand up and pedal his mountain bike, increasing his speed again at 120 kilometers per hour!

The two lines that were bound to intersect were thus missed!

At one point, Taketa Hideo felt his heart skip a beat. He seemed to hear a "click."

The sound came suddenly and from an unknown source.

He could only stand there and watch Qing Chen plunge into the valley, walking like a stroll on the blade of the mountain ridge.

"Chase," Taketa Hideo shouted angrily.

But when they reached the bottom of the valley, they found the mountain bike discarded to the side, but Qing Chen was gone.

There were traces of blood in the snow. Taketa Hideo followed the traces of blood and looked up, but he saw the young man who had been shot in the thigh... was climbing Ao Sui High Peak again.

Carrying Shinguji Maki.

His back was tired but firm.

"Is he crazy? He rushed down on a bike and then climbed back up again. What's he doing?" Taketa Hideo roared.

"Director, are we still chasing?" someone asked.

"Chase! He's only one person; the fact that he was shot in the thigh means he's still afraid of firearms. What are we, more than 300 people, afraid of?!" Taketa Hideo said.

However, he remembered the "click" just now and felt that he had missed some clue.

On the snowy mountain, humans were as small as a black dot.

One small black dot in front and more than 300 behind; everyone was desperately climbing and chasing.

Qing Chen limped to the top of Ao Sui High Peak, put the little girl down, and smiled, "I did it."

Shinguji Maki was stunned for a moment: "Ah... What do we do next?"

"Kill people," Qing Chen said.

The young man suddenly turned to Face^[-] the mountainside and waited silently.

When those people finally came within 100 meters,

The surging liquid Knight True Qi gradually became manic. They traveled through Qing Chen's limbs and bones and finally surged towards his mouth.

Breathe!

Qing Chen stood in the rising sun, suddenly inhaled, and then bent down forcefully and exhaled, exhausting all of it.

White clouds surged like a tide, stirring up the snow on the mountain.

The snowflakes were blown up and turned into blades, and an avalanche-like snowstorm rolled towards the more than 300 people on the mountainside.

Countless snowflakes rotated at once, instantly injuring more than 300 people. The snowflakes pierced into the body for two or three centimeters before melting in the blood.

The clothes of more than 300 people were constantly pierced. Blood and shreds of cloth were mixed together, as if someone had held a Metal Storm and pulled the trigger in the sky.

It wasn't as terrifying as Metal Storm, but the snowflakes could blind when they pierced the eyes, and piercing the body with countless holes would cause pain and even cause shock from blood loss.

More than 300 people fell to the ground in the snow, wailing. Some were unlucky enough to have their carotid arteries accidentally severed and died on the spot.

This scene was terrifying.

The young man on the mountaintop finally found his own great weapon.

Inhaling and exhaling, injuring 300 people. The seemingly magnificent 300 people also became supporting roles!

East wind at night releases a thousand trees of flowers!

Even more blowing down, stars like rain!