Chapter 141: I Truly Regret It!

"I truly regret it!"Chen Chen Huanyue's father, Chen Jiahao, said to his son.

At this moment, they were hiding in a safe room underground in a courtyard house in Jingcheng, which had been built a year before the alien creatures were announced to the public.

People like them, who stood at the upper echelons of society, had long heard information about the alien creatures and dark matter; before the ordinary masses could even react, they had already made preparations.

Chen Jiahao had predicted that when the alien creatures truly launched a full-scale invasion, the place closest to the political center would be the safest, so he had spent a huge sum of money in advance to buy this courtyard house located on the Second Ring Road and built a safe room underground.

Chen Chen Huanyue watched the emergency news broadcast without speaking.

His father rarely regretted anything; he was a decisive and forceful man. Once he discovered something was wrong, even if he had already invested immensely, even if the sunk costs were high, he could stop in time and turn toward the correct direction. He had once said that excessive regret was useless, serving only to increase time spent hesitating and missing opportunities. Therefore, he had always regretted very little.

But such a decisive man, one who never wasted energy on emotional internal conflict, had now shown regret in front of him twice in a row.

Chen Chen Huanyue knew what his father regretted, and he knew that his father's performance was meant for him to see.

Sure enough, his father continued: "If only your mother hadn't gone to the school to see you back then... You say, why did she run over there so enthusiastically just to take a look at you? She literally scared away your future daughter-in-law... What a wonderful daughter-in-law she was! If you two hadn't broken up back then, my good grandson would already be born by now—a little superman flowing with my Chen family blood..." Chen Jiahao imagined this, then suddenly let out a long sigh.

Chen Chen Huanyue lowered his eyes and remained silent.

It was not because of his mother. Even if his mother had not gone to see them back then, after she had seen his family with her own eyes and realized the class gap between them—of course, now the gap between him and her was even more like an impassable chasm, only reversed—for the sake of her proud and sensitive self-esteem, she would have left him anyway.

Because she was simply that kind of person, and this was also one of the reasons he had been deeply captivated by her back then.

"... At that time, our Chen family would probably have already stood at the very top of this world..." his father whispered.

Chen Chen Huanyue's eyelids trembled slightly.

He suppressed the bitterness in his heart, and at the same time, a few strands of displeasure arose within him; he felt his father's utilitarian thoughts had defiled his originally pure feelings, yet he could also understand his father's thinking, so he remained silent.

Pure... Until now, were his feelings for her still pure? Did they contain no admixture of any interest-based components? Even though she now... was a "god," possessing the power and authority of a god?...

"You were right to refuse the marriage alliance with the Li family back then, and you did very well to refuse the blind dates too. If you had made another girlfriend, or allied with the Li family, our only bargaining chip would be gone, and you would have absolutely no chance with her anymore... Good son, being true to your own heart is right; keeping oneself clean and being faithful to love—such an image is very good; this has brought us a glimmer of hope..." Chen Jiahao murmured to himself, sitting on the sofa, propping his chin and gazing thoughtfully at the screen.

The screen displayed news from the outside world: warriors and soldiers of the Awakening Bureau were cooperating, jointly resisting the invasion of the alien creatures.

In the sky shown on the screen, there were fully three layers of defense: the first layer was a laser network opened to maximum power, the second was firepower coverage, and the third was the newly developed dark matter cannon. But under the increasingly large red scar, even with fully three layers of defense, the situation still appeared to be in decline.

Even though the safe room applied the newly developed dark matter defense layer, and there were still five or six awakened bodyguards guarding outside, it still could not make the father and son feel at ease.

Under such circumstances, it was understandable that his father was releasing some of the pressure in his heart through incessant chatter, Chen Chen Huanyue thought.

"If only you had married her back then, where would we still fear this? Even if she couldn't protect us personally, even if she went to save the world, the most powerful awakened ones in the entire country would fight to the death to protect our safety... I heard that the Capital Dark Matter and Awakening Energy Research Institute has already researched how to reasonably stimulate ordinary people's bodies to awaken superpowers—if it's safe, we will do our utmost to secure a spot for you then; time waits for no one..." his father said again.

Suddenly, the ground shook, as if a small earthquake had occurred.

On the monitor connected to the courtyard, the figure of a monster flashed; this monster had fallen from the sky and landed right inside this courtyard house.

The monster's size was not particularly large among the alien creatures, but it was still the size of an adult elephant. It was obviously injured; one of its fleshy wings had been damaged when passing through the sky's firepower network. Black, viscous blood, like crude oil, dripped onto the ground, raising puffs of corrosive white smoke on the small path paved with bluestone slabs.

Its head consisted of several tentacle-like things, constantly waving and curling in the air. Its head, back, and abdomen were covered with fish-like eyes of various sizes; whenever one saw these eyes, the mind would feel a sense of drowsiness.

Chen Jiahao's hand suddenly trembled violently. Even though he held a high position and had already obtained detailed data and weaknesses of many monsters, ordinary people facing such terrifyingly grotesque-looking creatures with mysterious and peculiar abilities still felt a fear originating from the depths of their souls—this was the primal fear of fierce beasts, darkness, and the unknown, preserved in genes since ancient times. It was precisely relying on these intuitions about terrifying things that humanity had escaped countless predatory beasts and developed the brilliant civilization belonging to humans.

But just when humanity was convinced that in modern society no animal could ever again stir up this kind of primal fear in humans, the alien creatures arrived...

The awakened ones were like hunters in primitive society holding sharp weapons; even if fear still lingered in their hearts, they had the confidence to confront them. But what about ordinary people? They could only tremble and hide in caves, shivering, hoping that the fierce beast would leave as soon as its appetite was satisfied, even if what it held in its mouth was one of their own kind...

Chen Jiahao immediately used the intercom to command the awakened bodyguards outside: "Do you see it? There is a monster outside. Keep your eyes on it. If it invades the safe room, kill it immediately!"

"Yes, Boss!" several voices answered in succession.

Turning off the intercom, Chen Jiahao said to his son: "They won't give their all! If the monster invades here, and they discover they can't defeat it, they will run faster than us!"

He said somewhat nervously, "The awakened ones who truly dare to confront the alien creatures would have already joined the Awakening Bureau and gone to the front lines by now; these are all cowards who fear death!"

This was the first time he had been so close to a monster. Since the appearance of the alien creatures, he had tried to travel on business as little as possible and never went to areas where monsters ravaged; several villas each had a safe room—after all, the rich valued their lives more than the poor.

Even the previous Void-Devouring Beast crisis was merely a group of Super-A-class alien creatures, merely dozens of densely populated cities under attack, but this time it was a global crisis; where could one hide? Where on the entire Earth was absolutely safe?

Chen Chen Huanyue stared tightly at the monster on the monitor. That monster seemed to sense something; the tentacles on its head swayed in the air, as if exploring something.

Don't be afraid! Chen Chen Huanyue! Think of her. She has encountered alien creatures far larger, far more terrifying, and with even more mysterious abilities than this. Even at this very moment, she is in that other world, facing monsters beyond your imagination—would she feel afraid?

She probably would, after all, the her of the past was afraid of the dark, afraid of lightning, afraid of thunder. Once, when they went for a walk in the park and returned to school late, a thunderstorm suddenly broke out. When lightning struck, she suddenly shivered, and her face turned deathly pale...

Chen Chen Huanyue suddenly felt a throbbing, hidden pain in his heart—would she, alone in another world at this moment, facing boundless monsters, feel lonely...