Chapter 461: Release

The rain is too heavy.

Lu Yu perched on the wall top, his school uniform clinging to his skin, the cold making the seams of his ribs ache.

But what truly chilled him wasn't the rain.

It was the voice behind him.

Warm, elegant, unhurried, like a teacher questioning a day‑dreaming student in class.

Yet it pierced the downpour and rolling thunder, slipping into his ear without missing a syllable.

Lu Yu didn't turn around.

His right hand's five fingers hooked onto the rough concrete wall edge, the pads worn raw, blood streaks mixing with rainwater flowing down, indistinct to the eye.

His mind was whirling.

Chu Che.

The newly arrived school doctor.

Now that person stood ten‑plus meters away, holding an umbrella, blocking his only way out.

No. It's not an exit. It's a way forward.

The hillside villa of South City, a kilometer away, still had that energy expanding.

Lu Yu spent 0.7 seconds completing all the deductions.

The conclusion was singular—pretend.

Pretend to the death.

He snapped his head back.

That turn was precisely calculated, carrying just the right amount of panic, his shoulders lifting to the exact height a fourteen‑year‑old boy caught by a teacher would have.

"Chu, Teacher Chu?"

His voice carried a slight tremor.

Not the tremor of fear. It was the breath caught in a teenage boy's throat when his secret is exposed, a half‑swallowed gasp.

Chu Che stood under the eave at the end of the Corridor, his black straight‑handle umbrella held perfectly upright, rain droplets streaming down the canopy in strings. Over his Doctor's Lab Coat he wore a dark‑gray overcoat, the collar standing up, covering half his chin.

His Gold Thread Glasses were fogged over, but the eyes behind the lenses—

…were bright.

Not the kind of brightness from reflected light.

It was the cold, bone‑piercing shine of an operating lamp shining on a scalpel blade.

"Lu classmate." Chu Che's tone remained unchanged, still that gently lazy timbre, "Answer my question."

Lu Yu swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

That swallow was also calculated.

"I..."

He released his grip on the wall edge, flipping his whole body from the wall side back to the campus side; when he landed his knee bent slightly, and he stood up to wipe the rain off his face.

Then he looked up at Chu Che, his expression shifting from panic to stubbornness, then from stubbornness to clenched‑tooth grit.

Three layers of emotion, linked seamlessly.

"Something happened at home."

As he spoke, he stepped half a step forward, fists clenched, voice lowered, bearing the quality of a fourteen‑year‑old boy who, unwilling to show his vulnerability to outsiders, stuffs all his emotions down his throat and forces himself to endure.

"... Someone's bullying my sister."

Chu Che didn't move.

The umbrella canopy tilted slightly overhead, redirecting the rain's path.

"Your sister?"

"Yeah." Lu Yu's eyes reddened slightly—physiological, from the downpour, yet in this context could be read otherwise. "She's alone outside, I can't reach her by phone, I'm worried."

"So you climbed the wall."

"Right."

"Not using the main gate."

"The main gate is under curfew, the security guard won't let anyone out." Lu Yu's voice rose a notch, carrying that pressured teenage tone, "Teacher Chu, I know I'm breaking the School Rule; I can go back and write a self‑critique at the counseling office, but right now I really—"

He didn't finish the sentence.

Because Chu Che smiled.

The smile was light, the curve of his mouth extremely restrained.

In another setting, say comforting a child afraid of injections in a clinic, that smile would be soothing.

But now it's a stormy night, lightning shattering the sky, a drenched fourteen‑year‑old boy standing beneath the wall, spinning lies.

That smile now carries a different flavor.

Lu Yu stared at that smile, the skin on the back of his head tightening.

The force inside him began to churn again—not because of the southern energy source, but due to the pressure this person exerted.

This pressure felt contradictory.

Clearly Chu Che did nothing, just holding the umbrella there, his posture overly relaxed. Yet Lu Yu's intuition screamed.

All the survival experience he gathered in the apocalypse of his past life was telling him the same thing.

He can't run away.

If this person doesn't want you to leave, you won't be able to.

Silence lasted three seconds.

The downpour filled the ten‑plus meter gap between them, the air saturated with the scent of water and earth.

Chu Che moved.

He took a step forward.

Just one step.

The sole of his shoe pressed into the puddle, emitting a faint sound.

Lu Yu's center of gravity instinctively shifted back two centimeters.

Then he heard Chu Che say something.

"Men, you know."

The tone was casual, like chatting, like a sigh, like a passerby uttering a harmless piece of nonsense.

"There are always a few things you have to shoulder and solve yourself."

The umbrella turned a direction.

Chu Che tilted his head and glanced at him, the mist on the lenses cleared a bit, revealing the warm eyes beneath.

"Looks like it's truly a big deal for you."

Lu Yu was stunned.

It wasn't an act.

He was genuinely stunned for a fraction of a second.

He had prepared seven or eight response plans—questioning, blocking, acting, delaying—each possibility ran through his mind in simulation.

Except for this one.

Let him go.

Chu Che withdrew his gaze and turned away.

The hem of his Doctor's Lab Coat billowed in the wind, swaying twice at the edge of the light. He faced away from Lu Yu, holding the umbrella steady, his steps neither hurried nor slow as he walked deeper into the Corridor.

After three steps, he stopped.

He didn't look back.

"I took an extra shift today, left the sterilizer cabinet open, need to come back and lock the door." His voice drifted from under the umbrella, half drowned by the rain, but every word was clear.

"When I passed by, I didn't see anything."

Lu Yu stood in place.

Rainwater ran down from his forehead, along his nose bridge, over his lips, salty.

He watched Chu Che's silhouette.

Coat, black umbrella, the dim yellow light at the end of the Corridor.

That silhouette was slender, shoulders even, gait composed, somehow strolling through the storm.

To be honest—

He was pretty handsome.

Lu Yu cursed himself in his mind.

Then he turned, grabbed the wall rail again, and vaulted up.

This time there was no hesitation.

As his body cleared the wall top, he cast one last glance toward the Corridor.

Chu Che had already turned the corner, only a small arc of the umbrella handle flashed in the light.

Lu Yu let go.

He landed, knees bent to absorb the impact, his sneakers splashing muddy water. He crouched, pressed against the wall base, ran three steps, confirmed no pursuers, then sprinted full speed toward South City.

The downpour struck his face like grit.

He ran like the wind, his heartbeat dropping from 160 at the moment of vaulting to 120.

Yet a string still tightened.

It wouldn't loosen.

Why did Chu Che let him go?

A competent School Doctor, upon seeing a student scaling a wall at midnight, would normally react how? Block him, call the guidance office, inform the homeroom teacher. Even if he believed the girl's sister story, he should report to security and follow proper procedure.

It's not a release.

Nor is it "I didn't see anything."

Lu Yu thought while running, the thud of his soles against the water echoed through the alley.

But he had no time to ponder.

The energy from the south had already surged to its critical point.

His whole body resonated. The suppressed force in his chest roiled like boiling water, trying to burst the lid.

He had to hurry.

Corridor.

After the footsteps faded, silence lingered for a long while.

Rain still fell. The light tube at the end of the Corridor flickered, slicing the reflected puddles into segments.

Chu Che stood behind the corner, his umbrella folded.

A patch on his coat's shoulder was wet, but he didn't mind. He took off his gold‑rimmed glasses and gently wiped the mist from the lenses with the inner lining of his coat.

The face without glasses looked a few years younger, the features exquisitely soft.

But the eyes were not.

The temperature in those eyes—or rather, the lack of temperature—was laid bare without the lenses.

Deep within the pupils, a faint halo, almost invisible, was swirling.

It's not something a human should have.

He puts his glasses back on, the glare disappears, and the warmth returns.

Then he extends his right hand, the five fingers slightly spread.

In the palm, a set of translucent data materializes out of thin air, like a hologram, casting a scarlet glimmer in the rain‑night Corridor.

Timeline.

An energy curve extending from the villa's basement is climbing at an exponential rate. Beside it are several key nodes, each annotated with timestamps precise to the second.

Lu Yu's moment of scaling the wall to leave is circled with a red marker.

Enough.

Enough for Lu Yu to arrive at the most opportune moment.

Enough for that reborn youth to witness Zhang Yuanqing's authority fully unleashed, and to grasp where the editor's sub‑authority ceiling lies.

It also suffices for him—to expose more cards in his desperation.

Chu Che withdraws his hand, and the data in his palm dissipates.

He reopens his umbrella and walks very slowly toward the Medical Room.

His heels tap on the floor tiles, one after another, the rhythm steady as a metronome.

When passing the Stairwell window, he turns his head to glance outside.

In the direction of South City, behind the curtain of the downpour, nothing can be seen.

But he doesn't need to see.

"Act One, entrance."

The voice is very soft, so soft that even the echo in the Corridor cannot catch it.

The curve of his mouth doesn't change.

Nor does it disappear.

He pushes open the Medical Room door, steps inside, and casually turns on the desk lamp. Warm yellow light spills onto the glass of the cold water on the table, and a bead of water on the cup glints in the illumination.

Chu Che sits back in his chair, leans the umbrella against the wall, picks up the health‑check summary sheet on the table, and turns a page.

The faint scent of disinfectant drifts.

The Corridor falls silent.

Only the sound of rain remains.

South City.

When Lu Yu turns the last alley corner, his foot suddenly slips.

It's not from stepping on pooled water.

It's the ground that is shaking.

A low‑frequency vibration travels from the soles of his feet up along his shin bone to his molars. Lu Yu steadies himself, half‑crouching behind the corner of the alley, and looks forward through the rain curtain.

The Half‑Mountain Villa lies three hundred meters away.

The fence, garden, and four‑story main building have their outlines sketched by lightning, then sinking back into darkness.

It looks perfectly normal. The lights are still on, and the security sensor lights are scanning.

But the ground's tremor hasn't stopped.

The frequency rises higher and higher.

Lu Yu's pupils contract briefly.

He looks down at his feet.

The color of the pooled water changes.

It's not the muddy yellow brought by the torrential rain.

It's red.

A pale red.

It drifts from the direction of the Half‑Mountain Villa, mixing with the rainwater, spreading from the low spots on the road outward.

When the red water touches the sole of his shoe, the mass of power in his chest jolts sharply—as if struck by electricity.

Then, from deep beneath the villa, a muffled sound emanates.

It's not thunder.

Thunder comes from the sky, striking down.

This sound pushes upward from the ground.

In that instant, the street's pooled water is shaken off the ground, rising half a meter as blood‑red mist, rolling and dispersing in the white flash of lightning, like a gigantic lung exhaling.

Lu Yu braces against the wall and stands up.

Rain mixed with the red mist hits his face, smelling of blood.

He stares at the distant villa, his Adam's apple rolling up and down.

It's too late.