Chapter 20: Chapter Nineteen: Thank You

After teaching Geng Qianxing and the other three the basic Long Fist, Ding Huan decided to leave Heluo City to search for the fire lizard.

The fire lizard is considered the strongest limb-regenerating animal on the surface, yet Ding Huan knew that although its regenerative ability was terrifying,

it had one fatal flaw: sometimes the organs it regenerated differed from the original, meaning it could not perfectly replicate the original body form.

But this was no problem for Ding Huan—he could not only perfectly locate the alien genes he needed, but also perfect the missing parts of those alien gene abilities.

The fire lizard's regeneration was powerful, and even if it had no flaws, Ding Huan would never simply copy it.

Before synthesizing this regenerative gene serum, Ding Huan planned to find the mutated cactus or mutated torchgrass regenerative genes.

These two were truly immortal beings; if fused with the fire lizard's regenerative gene and refined under his restructuring, with added compatible gene fragments, they would perfectly align with human DNA.

The fire lizard is also called the fire salamander; legends say it carries a trace of dragon blood, so some call it the fire dragon.

Ding Huan did not know whether it truly carried dragon blood—it did not affect his extraction of the fire lizard's injury-recovery gene.

Fire lizards are not rare nowadays, but their distribution varies; the vast majority exist in Central or Southern Europe.

It was impossible to find any trace of fire lizards in Heluo City; comparatively, the south had more.

For this journey, Ding Huan planned to head to Lujiang City in the south.

…

Ding Huan had little money; he had borrowed several thousand yuan from Geng Qianxing for this trip.

So he chose not to take a plane or maglev train, but an ordinary express train.

Even if he could afford a plane, Ding Huan had no intention of taking one—flight-genetic beasts were rampant now, and flying was the most dangerous option.

Not even trains were guaranteed safe.

Thus, most trains passing through uninhabited zones traveled only during the day and halted at night.

Along the way, Ding Huan's train encountered no danger and arrived safely at Anhe County.

To avoid delaying his cultivation, upon reaching Anhe County, he decided to rest for one night.

Anhe was a mountain city: the entire county was built atop a single mountain, with three sides surrounded by mountains.

The largest mountain near Anhe was Mount Beilong; though far inferior to China's Ten Great Mountain Ranges, it spanned two to three hundred li and was extremely precipitous.

Before Earth's environmental mutation, Anhe was among the poorest counties.

After Earth's mutation, the remote villages around Anhe County were mostly ravaged by genetic beasts; the surviving villagers all gathered in Anhe County.

Though merely a county, it had too many beasts, and Anhe's defenses were no weaker than those of Luohe City.

The mountains near Anhe were mostly extremely precipitous; after the environmental mutation, many rare medicinal herbs grew here.

In addition, this region was rich in various mutated medicinal herbs.

These rare mutated herbs attracted many martial artists and gene cultivators to come here.

As more people arrived, Anhe became lively.

After arriving in Anhe, Ding Huan searched for several hotels but found no vacant rooms.

Anhe County was not large to begin with; though a few hotels had opened due to the abundance of rare herbs outside the county, they were still insufficient.

Yilan Hotel—this was the eleventh hotel Ding Huan had tried; if this one was also full, he feared he would truly have to sleep on the street.

"No rooms left," the girl at the front desk said with a smile before Ding Huan even opened his mouth.

Clearly, she encountered this situation multiple times daily; she had already anticipated his purpose.

Ding Huan was helpless; as he turned to leave, a voice came from behind:

"Xiao Fei, I plan to leave Anhe tomorrow for Puhai—I must take this chance. Will you come with me?"

Hearing this voice, Ding Huan froze as if struck by lightning; this voice had echoed countless times in his mind.

Today, he heard it again.

"Why were you so cruel? You broke his legs and gouged out his eyes—he was still so young…"

"When I die, please donate my eyes to him—he's still so young; let him see the beauty of the world with my eyes…"

She spoke only two sentences to him—no, perhaps not to him; she saw herself in Ding Huan.

She met someone with the same tragic fate as hers, and spoke aloud the monologue and profound helplessness buried deep within her heart…

She entrusted to Ding Huan her deepest longing for life, hoping he would live on, carrying her eyes.

These two sentences had echoed countless times in Ding Huan's mind; he had endlessly imagined the girl's appearance.

He had never met her, yet she became the most important person in his life, his most familiar stranger.

Every time he recalled her agonized final struggles and desperate voice, Ding Huan longed to return to Earth immediately and obliterate the Gene Alliance's laboratory—even wipe out the entire Gene Alliance.

He wanted to destroy this place not for himself—he would have died anyway, even without the Gene Alliance's lab.

He did it only for the girl who gave him her eyes; she was innocent.

A laboratory that used innocent lives for gene experiments deserved to be destroyed ten thousand times over.

Yet even as a Level Four Gene Cultivator, he was still hundreds of thousands of miles from returning to Earth.

Ding Huan dared not turn around; his eyes were slightly red.

Two hundred years had passed, yet this voice remained as clear as ever—less hoarse and despairing than in his last life, now filled with a longing for the future.

Ding Huan slowly turned around and saw two girls facing him sideways.

Sensing Ding Huan's gaze, the girl who had spoken turned around.

Seeing Ding Huan staring at her blankly, the girl blushed slightly, nodded to him, then turned her gaze away.

It was her—he had not mistaken the voice; it was definitely that girl.

Those bright eyes, untouched by a speck of dust, told Ding Huan he had not been wrong.

Yes—exactly as he had imagined countless times, like a clear stream, transparent and pure.

Perhaps in looks, she did not rival the beauties he had once seen.

She was not a face of unparalleled beauty, yet her clean, delicate features made Ding Huan feel the phrase "clear water reveals a lotus, naturally unadorned" had been written for her.

In Ding Huan's eyes, that pair of eyes, pure to the extreme, was the most beautiful.

She was the embodiment of an angel; no girl could compare to her.

Such a girl, yet the Gene Alliance actually took her to do a gene elixir fusion experiment—the long-buried anger in Ding Huan's heart was ignited once again.

Watching the girl's retreating figure, Ding Huan rubbed his slightly sore eye corners and murmured,

"Perhaps we are the same kind of people."

Just as when she had seen his legs broken and his eyes gouged out, that sorrowful tone came from the deepest part of her heart.

But he didn't know her; she was simply too kind-hearted, so kind that when she herself was suffering, she could not bear to see others' suffering.

When Seeing Qu Yi reached the elevator entrance, she couldn't help but turn back to look at Ding Huan, who stood frozen in place; she felt Ding Huan was a little strange.

"What's wrong with this person?" The girl beside Seeing Qu Yi also noticed Ding Huan's abnormality and couldn't help but ask.

Seeing Qu Yi shook her head; she also didn't know what was going on with Ding Huan.

Just as she pressed the elevator's up button, Ding Huan finally came back to his senses and walked up to Seeing Qu Yi in a few steps.

"Do you need something?" Seeing Qu Yi asked.

She had been observing Ding Huan the whole time, because from the moment Ding Huan saw her, he had stared at her without looking away.

Looking at Ding Huan's eyes, they seemed a little red, as if his emotions were somewhat stirred up.

"May I know your name?" Ding Huan's voice trembled slightly.

Seeing Qu Yi smiled and said, "My name is Seeing Qu Yi."

The elevator doors opened, and Seeing Qu Yi walked into the elevator; she did not ask Ding Huan's name. During her college days, she often ran into boys like Ding Huan.

"Yiyi, has he fallen for you?" After the elevator doors closed, the girl beside Seeing Qu Yi teased.

Seeing Qu Yi smiled and said nothing.

She had never been in a relationship, yet there had always been many people pursuing her.

To tell the truth, she had not seen the loving gaze of a suitor in Ding Huan's eyes just now.

What puzzled her was that what she seemed to see was the excitement and loss of self-control at a first meeting of an intimate, familiar friend she had known long ago.

This feeling was very strange, making her suspect she had seen wrong.

The elevator doors had just closed, but they opened again.

Seeing Qu Yi and her companion saw Ding Huan standing at the elevator entrance, and both stepped aside to make room.

But Ding Huan did not walk into the elevator as they had imagined; instead, he bowed to Seeing Qu Yi and said, "Seeing Qu Yi, thank you, my name is Ding Huan."

Thank her? Seeing Qu Yi looked at Ding Huan somewhat blankly—why would he thank her? She thought hard and finally confirmed she had never met Ding Huan before.

"Can you give me your contact information?" Ding Huan said again.

Before Seeing Qu Yi could speak, the girl beside Seeing Qu Yi said, "Sorry, we can't give out contact information…"

The elevator doors closed again; Ding Huan did not press the elevator button again.

He took a deep breath—no matter what, he had to find Seeing Qu Yi's address and contact information.

Since his fate could start over, he absolutely would not let Seeing Qu Yi's fate be destroyed by the Gene Alliance again.

The hotel had no place for him to stay, so Ding Huan walked to a sofa in a corner of the lobby, put down his bag, and sat down there.

Having nowhere to stay did not affect him much. As long as the hotel lobby let him stay, he could cultivate here for one night.

Originally Ding Huan had planned that if someone from the hotel came to chase him away, he would proactively pay a little money.

What Ding Huan did not expect was that the front desk did not mind him resting in the corner of the first-floor lobby. Perhaps she also encountered this kind of thing often.