Chapter 437: Thanksgiving

Su Ming sat down, opened the file folder, and spread it on his lap.

"Blood pressure is stable, heart rate within normal range, skin conductance shows no abnormal fluctuations."

He read the data at a neither fast nor slow pace, as if conducting a routine pre‑discharge review.

But Lu Yu noticed that Su Ming's gaze was not on the file.

It was on his face.

To be precise, it rested on the swollen ring beneath his eyelid left by crying.

Lu Yu did not move.

Leaning against a bed board tilted forty‑five degrees, his hands were placed neatly outside the blanket. A gauze band wrapped the spot on the back of his left hand where a needle was left, and his right fingertips occasionally curled unconsciously—a self‑soothing habit common to anxious personalities in unfamiliar settings.

The frequency was low.

It fell right in the gray area between deliberate control and subconscious habit.

"Lu Yu," Su Ming closed the folder, "I'll ask you a few final questions. You may choose not to answer."

"Alright."

His voice was hoarse, his throat still raspy.

Su Ming asked in great detail.

From the movement trace seventy‑two hours before the Qinghuai Community incident, to his precise perception of releasing power inside the B09 Weird Domain, and then to the physiological response when the "thing" inside him awakened—pain level and level of consciousness.

Lu Yu answered one by one.

He answered slowly, pausing in between, furrowing his brows to recall, and filling the vague gaps with "I'm not quite sure" and "It was probably that kind of feeling."

Each pause varied in length.

Some lasted two seconds, some five, some even stretched to eight—he had to rapidly judge in his mind which information could be given, which must be hidden, and which needed to be masked by "memory confusion."

He had performed this routine countless times in the apocalypse of his previous life, facing leaders of various factions.

When Su Ming reached the eleventh question, he changed direction.

"Do you hate it?"

Lu Yu lifted his eyes to look at him.

"The thing inside you," Su Ming said, "do you hate it?"

The question was easy. While Lu Yu supplied a standard answer in his mind, the frequency of his finger curling increased by 0.3 percent.

Neither more nor less.

"I don't know if that counts as hate," he lowered his head, staring at the corner of the blanket, his voice shrinking into his throat, "I just... whenever it moves, I can't tell which is me and which is it. That feeling is more painful than the pain itself."

Su Ming's breathing rate remained unchanged.

But the hand he had on his lap tapped the folder's hard cover twice lightly with his ring finger.

It was a subtle reaction after an empathy trigger.

The last time he made that motion was three seconds before he said, "You don't have to bear it alone any more."

Lu Yu took in the detail without any change in expression.

"Last one," Su Ming stood up, "after you go back, if it loses control again, what will you do?"

He had already thought out the answer to this question.

Lu Yu remained silent for a long time—long enough for the monitor's tick to count fourteen beats.

Then he lifted his head—

"I will contact you immediately and willingly accept judgment."

Su Ming stared at him for five seconds.

Then he nodded.

"I've approved your discharge paperwork."

He put the folder away, pulled a neatly folded deep‑gray coat from his pocket, and placed it at the foot of the bed.

"Put it on; the Qiu Ce Institute has already rearranged things there."

Lu Yu got out of bed, and his feet wobbled slightly as they touched the floor.

It wasn't an act.

After lying there so long, his legs were indeed weak, but he exaggerated the softness by about twenty percent.

When he lifted the coat, his left index and middle fingers unintentionally brushed the side of the third button.

Signal source.

Embedded in the buttonhole and stitch layer, the craftsmanship was so fine that the naked eye could detect no irregularity.

Lu Yu's finger slid over the button without lingering even a tenth of a second.

He put on the coat and turned to face Su Ming.

Then he bowed deeply, bending at the waist.

The angle was precise—his waist bent ninety degrees, holding for three seconds.

"Teacher Su."

"Thank you."

Su Ming looked at him.

The child's eyes were filled with gratitude, relief, and a hint of unmistakable dependence—perfect, without flaw.

"Let's go," Su Ming stepped aside to clear the doorway.

When Lu Yu left the isolation ward, his back was slightly hunched, his steps small and light, each footfall carrying the timidity of a survivor after a calamity.

One of the corridor's light tubes was flickering.

He passed beneath that lamp, and as light and shadow shifted, no one saw the corner of his mouth lift.

The angle was minuscule, lasting less than half a second.

Then it vanished completely.

Qiu Ce Yuan Elementary Department. New Class A classroom.

Second period break in the morning.

When the door was pushed open, the heads of the thirty‑seven people in the class swiveled toward it in unison.

The classroom was silent for about two seconds.

It wasn't the ordinary silence of "someone's come in." It was the collective breath‑holding of "that person has returned."

After the B09 Weird Domain incident, the official press release read: "B09 Weird Domain abnormal revival has been quelled by the Investigation Bureau Special Forces."

But inside Qiu Ce Yuan, mouths couldn't be sealed.

Instructor official Ming was killed. Two assistant instructors were killed. Qian Cheng, Li Xiang, Zhou Ting— their names have already been crossed off the roster.

And only two people emerged.

Chen Yao.

And Lu Yu.

The day the latter, drenched in blood, was carried away on a stretcher, someone captured the scene amid the chaos.

Rumors always become more outrageous as they spread.

But everyone agreed on one thing—Lu Yu sacrificed his life to pull Chen Yao out of the death trap.

Now, that person, sporting a bruise that hadn't fully faded, entered the classroom silently.

Whispers in the Corridor followed all the way.

Someone wanted to call out to him.

But his steps didn't halt. Neither fast nor slow, he walked straight through the aisle, reached the second‑to‑last seat by the window, pulled out the chair and sat down.

The desk was spotless.

Someone had arranged his textbook for him, even leaving an unopened bottle of mineral water.

Lu Yu neither looked around nor made eye contact with anyone. He placed his backpack at the desk edge, opened his textbook, and turned to the page matching the lesson schedule.

Quiet.

As if nothing had happened.

But that very silence was itself a signal.

Thirty‑seven pairs of eyes examined him from every angle—some with admiration, some with curiosity, some with apprehension, and some with an indefinable fear.

No one initiated conversation.

Zhou Han, a boy two rows away, nudged his desk‑mate with his elbow, moved his lips, and whispered low enough for only two people to hear: "I'll tell you, the Investigation Bureau sent him back personally, in an armored vehicle."

The desk‑mate swallowed.

Lu Yu's ears took the words in.

There was nothing on his face.

Just as his gaze landed on the third line of the textbook, his peripheral vision caught a variable that shouldn't have been there.

Footsteps.

Very light.

They came from the right side of the classroom, slipped through the narrow passage between two rows of desks, and stopped beside his desk edge.

Lu Yu looked up.

Chen Yao stood there.

Her school uniform was impeccably neat, hair tied into a low ponytail, and a restored Old Hairpin clipped at the side—its broken part wound with ultra‑fine metal wire, crafted with a meticulous, almost obsessive precision.

She didn't lower her head.

She didn't hunch her shoulders.

She lacked the typical "don't look at me, I'm scared" lone‑girl expression.

She simply stood upright, eyes fixed on him.

Her irises were unfathomably deep.

The whispers in the classroom ceased instantly.

Everyone knew what kind of person Chen Yao was—timid, silent, never speaking up even when bullied. The number of times she'd voluntarily spoken in her life could be counted on one hand.

But now she walked to Lu Yu's desk.

"Your back."

Chen Yao spoke.

Her voice was soft, unshaken, without any deliberately lowered, submissive tone. Clean and steady, like a stone dropped into still water.

"Does it still hurt?"

Three words.

Lu Yu's eyelid twitched.

It wasn't because of the question itself.

But because when she asked, all pretenses vanished.

She wasn't the pitiful little girl crouching in the corner picking up torn paper. She wasn't the "victim" who clutched her skirt's hem and cried until she shivered. The thirteen‑year‑old standing before him had relaxed brows and eyes, a steady gaze, and from head to toe exuded a calm that was out of sync with her age.

Su Ming had never seen Chen Yao in this state.

Fang Ming hadn't either.

None of the thirty‑seven people in Class A had ever seen it.

But Lu Yu had.

In the Weird Domain B09, the sewage from the drainage canal rose to his waist; two of the three ribs at his waist were broken, his left hand gripping a weapon—at that time Chen Yao crouched behind him, neither crying nor shouting.

It's these eyes.

It's this gaze.

"Can sit." Lu Yu answered. Brief.

"Then that's good."

Chen Yao's gaze lingered on his face for two seconds.

Then she did something even more out of line—

She pulled something from her school uniform pocket and gently placed it on Lu Yu's desk.

A milk candy still warm from her body.

"Thank you." she said.

There was no bow, no reddened eyes, no contrived gratitude performance. Just three words, her tone flat to the point of indifference.

But Lu Yu read into it.

In those bottomless eyes, he read something extremely unfamiliar.

Not merely gratitude.

Also inquiry and curiosity.

It was also the kind of probing, measuring stare a hunter gives another hunter.

The girl was looking at him.

She was judging whether he was worthy enough to be placed on her extremely short list.

Lu Yu picked up the candy.

The wrapper flipped over his fingertip, and he saw a line of tiny handwriting on the back, written with a ballpoint pen.

It was Chen Yao's contact information. She seemed never to have given it to anyone before.

The penmanship was earnest to the point of being clumsy.

His finger pinched the candy wrapper, pausing for a beat.

Then he slipped the candy into his pocket.

"You're welcome."

Chen Yao turned and left.

She walked three steps, her low ponytail swaying, and the Old Hairpin reflected a faint metallic glint under the fluorescent lights.

She sat back down at her seat.

The expression on her face had switched back to the default setting—downcast eyes, shoulders hunched, her fingers turning the textbook with just the right amount of restraint.

Perfect.

A textbook‑level personality switch.

Lu Yu refocused his gaze on the textbook.

The corners of his mouth did not curve.

But his mind was already racing.

She had just shed her disguise, and the layer beneath her eyes was something he knew all too well.

That was not a gaze a Child should have.

It was something that only after rolling in mud, soaking in blood, and dissecting humanity for study could settle.

Just like him.

The candy in his pocket pressed against his hip bone.

It tasted of milk.

It was sweet.

But Lu Yu thought of something else.

He thought of—Chen Shao erasing the entire Zhao family from the map, just because the girl's Old Hairpin had been crushed.

He thought of—an assassin from Eden Garden carving a Blood Road through the Old District, solely to clear any obstacles from the girl's path to school.

Such a being, guarded by others as if a precious eye, had just taken the initiative to come before him.

She removed her armor.

She handed over the candy.

She said thank you.

Lu Yu's thumb rubbed the ballpoint pen writing on the candy wrapper inside his pocket.

The gate of Eden Garden opened faster than he had expected.

Outside the window, sunlight fell perfectly onto the playground.

Students were running, and the Instructor was whistling.

Everything was normal.

It was only just beginning.