HTI: Chapter 170

Qiu Xing returned to the hospital and came to the door of Tao Yang’s ward. Feng Qinglin had already negotiated with the police in advance. Seeing Qiu Xing coming over, the police didn’t stop them. One just euphemistically said, “Mr Qiu, you can’t make it too difficult for us.”

“I have a sense of measure.” Qiu Xing thanked the police and entered the ward, closing the door behind him.

Tao Yang was sitting on the hospital bed. He turned his head and saw Qiu Xing, his expressionless face immediately coming alive. He looked Qiu Xing up and down and smiled. “Your expression is really not—”

Qiu Xing stepped forward and punched Tao Yang in the abdomen. Tao Yang bent over and tried to cover his abdomen with his hands, but his hands were out of control. He retched twice before breathing slowly and raised his head to Qiu Xing, still smiling “Yes, just keep this expression and become angrier—”

Qiu Xing punched this person again before straightening up. He took a tissue from the bedside table and wiped his hands. “Tao Yang, I will ask the best lawyer to arrange the ‘best’ prison for you. You can stay in there for a lifetime.”

Tao Yang was punched twice and he kept retching. He trembled with pain and was sweating, but he persistently looked up at Qiu Xing and nodded. “Yes, thank you for your attention.”

“Attention? Just you?” Qiu Xing sneered. “Trash like you isn’t worthy of anyone’s attention or memory.”

As he spoke, he took out his phone and called a number. Once it connected, it turned it to speak mode and asked, “Mr Lauren, have all of Tao Yang’s works been taken off the shelves?”

Tao Yang’s expression froze as he stared at Qiu Xing’s phone. Lauren was Tao Yang’s design teacher. A slightly hoarse and old male voice came from the phone. “They are already gone. Mr Qiu, do you really want to do this?”

“Yes Mr Lauren. Tao Yang was trying to kill my lover. He is a murderer.”

“…Yes, I will remove all his works.”

“Thank you for your understanding.”

Qiu Xing hung up and looked coldly as Tao Yang’s expression finally changed. Then he made another call. “Professor Yatu, has Tao Yang been removed as an alumni?”

One call after another was made. Qiu Xing contacted Tao Yang’s design teacher, school professor, school director, studio partner… finally, Qiu Xing called Tao Huazhang. “Chairman Tao, how did Tao Yang’s name change procedure go?”

“It is a bit troublesome but it isn’t difficult to resolve. It will be done soon.”

Tao Yang finally understood Qiu Xing’s intentions and his breathing became heavy. “You can’t do this.”

“Of course I can.” Qiu Xing hung up the phone. “Tao Yang, you will soon no longer be Tao Yang. All traces of your past will be erased and the world will gradually forget you. As long as I live, you will never be able to use your dirty designs as Tao Yang to pollute the eyes of the world.”

He would be forgotten by the whole world and would no longer be himself. Tao Yang gritted his teeth but his expression was still calm. “Do you think this will make me uncomfortable? Qiu Xing, you are too naive.”

“You are the one who is too naive.” Qiu Xing made a call again and commanded the moment it was connected, “Buy a hot search in China and foreign media. The topic is Tao Yang plagiarism—”

Tao Yang’s expression finally changed as he called out in an agitated manner, “No! Qiu Xing, you are slandering me!”

“What about slander?” Qiu Xing hung up, his tone cold and malicious. “What is this compared to what you did to Yang Yang? Tao Yang, this hot search will be your last impression left on the design community and the world.”

Tao Yang actually managed to calm down and he shook his head. “No one will believe I plagiarized. Qiu Xing, don’t try to break me.”

Qiu Xing’s phone suddenly rang. He glanced at it, sneered and headed to the door of the ward. He opened the door and reached out to Feng Qinglin who was outside. Feng Qinglin looked through the crack in the door and handed the bag to Qiu Xing, his voice worried. “Uncle, you didn’t…”

“I have a sense of measure.”

Qiu Xing closed the door, walked back into the ward with the bag and dumped the contents onto the ground. Several design books and dozens of sheets of paper fell to the ground in all directions.

Tao Yang’s attention shifted immediately. He saw these familiar things and pretended to be calm. “They are just some discarded manuscripts. So what if you get these? My designs are all in my mind. These things are nothing.”

“Tao Yang, your hands can’t recover.”

Tao Yang sharply stared at Qiu Xing. “What did you say?”

“The police and doctors told you that they were making an antidote for you just to get you to reveal the real hiding place and let me find these.”

Tao Yang stared at Qiu Xing incredulously before realizing something and shifting his gaze to the things on the ground. Qiu Xing coldly curled his lips and walked to the bathroom. He took a large bucket of water from it, placed it in front of the pile of manuscripts, took out a small bottle of dye from his pocket and poured it into the water. The clear water slowly turned a turbid black-grey.

“Tao Yang, these will be the last designs of your life.”

Tao Yang immediately went crazy. He tried to get out of bed to stop it but he was restricted by the handcuffs. He had to shout, “Qiu Xing, the crime can’t be placed on art. This is the principle!”

“It is your principle. My principle is Xie Yang.” Qiu Xing threw away the bottle of dye and stepped on one of the designs. He looked down and happened to see a suit covered in red feathers and shaped like a broken wing. His expression became terrible as he looked at Tao Yang and raised the bucket.

“Stop, Qiu Xing, stop! You can’t destroy them!” Tao Yang pulled at the handcuffs and desperately stretched out his hands to his latest works. “You can’t! Stop—!”

The red suit with feathers disappeared under the grey-black liquid instantly. Tao Yang’s struggles abruptly stopped. The moment the bucket of water came down, all the design books and papers were soaked. There was a disgusting black-grey water mark on the floor of the ward.

Qiu Xing put the bucket away. He walked over to Tao Yang and bent over. “Tao Yang, your expression is really good now.”

Tao Yang breathed heavily. He suddenly shot up and rushed at Qiu Xing but was blocked by the handcuffs and couldn’t go any further. His eyes were wide with madness. “Qiu Xing, I want to kill you.”

“However, I don’t want to kill you.” Qiu Xing straightened up and looked at Tao Yang who was twisted awkwardly. “From today on, the designer Tao Yang has disappeared. Only the murderer Wu Ming is left… enjoy the rest of your hopeless life.”

Then he turned around, stepped over the soaked papers and opened the door of the ward. He stepped out without looking back.

***

Xie Yang woke up from a deep sleep in an ignorant manner. His consciousness was hazy but he couldn’t perceive the existence of his body. He could only feel the movement in his ability core. What was going on?

[The system has been split and formatted… the energy system has changed… restructuring is in progress.]

Countless data flowed in front of him and all the templates in his core suddenly started working and merging independently. At the same time, his ability core also started to rotate. It became faster and faster and gave off a faint heat.

Xie Yang suddenly became sober. Oops, his ability core was going to be upgraded again. In addition, the remaining system residue…

The energy templates in his core had all fused together and his ability core was running at the extreme. It burst before merging and expanding. Xie Yang just felt his brain exploding. Heat flooded and he once again fell into darkness.

It was unknown how much time had passed.

[The restructuring is completed. This is the No. 1314 Nascent Word Energy Harvest System. Opening the return channel.]

Xie Yang opened his eyes and found that he was high in the sky with a bright white energy ball floating in front of him. The color of the energy ball was the same as his ability core but the shape was very similar to the system.

He instinctively reached out to touch it but the energy ball separated and turned into countless light spots.

[The channel is open. Leaving this world.]

A gust of wind came from nowhere and blew these light spots high into the sky. Xie Yang looked up and saw the lights piercing through the clouds and disappearing into the vast night sky. Then he fainted and was dragged into a long dream.

***

Xie Yang saw the life of a planetary body.

It was born, developed, prospered and ushered in an inevitable decline.

After the decay, what was waiting for it was to disintegrate and disappear. It wasn’t reconciled with this and wanted to exist forever. Therefore, it plundered the power of all living things on the planet and used the highly intelligent system made by the intelligent life on the planet to actively disintegrate and condense together, turning itself into a huge energy body.

It created countless sub-systems that could plunder the energy of intelligent life and put them on new planets to steal the power of the intelligent creatures there. It wanted to accumulate enough power to transform and usher in a new round of a strong and new life.

His consciousness became dizzy and then sharp again.

Xie Yang found that he had returned to the original world but he was no longer him. Instead, he was lodged in the body of a person with an indistinct appearance and lived life from the other person’s perspective. At that time, the world hadn’t experienced the apocalypse yet. ‘He’ was born and grew up normally… then he was bound to a system.

‘He’ was ecstatic and started to collect the people’s love value according to the system’s tips. He used this love value to exchange for things in the system and used the exchanged things to get more people’s love… ‘He’ gradually gained everything he wanted. Money, wealth, status… then he died at the peak.

Countless people who loved ‘him’ were crazy about ‘his’ death and the system started the harvest. Those who actively contributed the love value to ‘him’ all became the targets of the system. Without their knowledge, they delivered a type of energy at the cost of their life to the system.

Some people ‘loved’ deeply and more energy could be harvested while some people had a shallow ‘love’ and less energy was received. Some people died suddenly, some committed suicide, some became stupid, some became sick and some became weak for no reason… however, the world was too big and no one found anything wrong with this group of people.

After the harvest, the system left ‘his’ body with the large amount of energy provided by ‘him’ and his believers. It lodged into the body of the next person and started another journey of collecting the love value.

Xie Yang was forced to follow.

***

After the system had changed hosts an unknown number of times, the nascent planet that had been robbed of too much intelligent life entered a period of decline in advance. Humans mutated and there were imbalances in the world order… the apocalypse came without warning. Then the system satisfactorily left the last host and set off on the return journey with the harvest.

Xie Yang followed the system back to the main system that had once been seen in 1314’s memory. The main system spoke words of welcome and incorporated the system back into its body.

Xie Yang’s perspective changed and he was now hanging above the main system. He saw countless new systems separating from the main system and being thrown into a world. Then he saw countless systems returning with great power, not knowing whose homes were destroyed.

Xie Yang could clearly feel the coldness and anger in his heart. He wanted to destroy this thing.

A group of white lights suddenly appeared at the end of his vision. Xie Yang looked over and found that it was the system that flew out of his body after being eroded by his ability and reconstructed. It was integrated into the main system. The grey-black color of the main system twisted for a moment before quickly returning to calm.

Xie Yang realized something. It could hurt the main system but it wasn’t enough. It was too weak.

As if hearing Xie Yang’s voice, countless colorful energy groups gathered in his vision. They crashed into the main system one after another. The main system gradually started to fluctuate and become unstable, dancing and struggling.

His brain abruptly became dizzy and Xie Yang found he had returned to his original world. He hovered above an abandoned factor and saw a book appearing out of thin air on the floor of an office. Then an unknown ability user ran in and picked it up in a bewildered manner.

The screen jumped. Soon after the ability user died, the book that was picked up by the ability user appeared again in the air. The soul of the ability user was sent into the world described in the book. It was a new life full of the future, but in a world watched by the system.

A new story opened.

The image started to shake chaotically and all sorts of books appeared in front of different ability users. Then countless souls were carried into the new worlds one by one. Finally, the reconstructed systems flew back toward the main system with a power that could hurt it.

***

There was a buzzing in his head and Xie Yang abruptly opened his eyes. Everything that was clear in his dream quickly became blurred. He blinked and sat up in a room full of sunlight, raising a hand to his forehead.

His ability core that had reached level 10 was running quietly and there were no shadows of the system fragment and energy templates.

The system had disappeared.

Xie Yang was in a daze for a long time before thinking of something. He hurriedly used his ability to locate Tao Yang’s position. A clear sensation was felt from the ‘seed’ he had placed in Tao Yang’s body even at this distance. The mark was still there. He let go of his worry.

Xie Yang lowered his hand, got out of bed and walked to the window. He opened the curtains and stared at the bright sunlight. After the heavy snowfall, sunny days would surely come. So the things in the dream were the truth about the system and him crossing to this world? He was a pawn for the planet to save itself and was rewarded with rebirth?

He stared at the snow-covered courtyard. Was the land under his feet conscious?

The familiar black car drove into the yard, interrupting Xie Yang’s thoughts. Xie Yang regained his senses and shifted his gaze to see Qiu Xing getting out of the car. The chaotic thoughts brought about by the weird dream quickly dissipated from his mind.

Regardless of the planet having or not having a consciousness, this wasn’t something he should think about. All he had to do was cherish this new life and hold his sugar jar tightly. The sugar jar had already entered the house. Xie Yang left the window, walked out of the room and rushed to the stairs accurately just as Qiu Xing strode upstairs.

Xie Yang smiled and called out, “Good morning, my fiance.”

---

Proofreader: Paranoid Kitten