HP - Chapter 37

Kingdom of Gods 15

Beneath jagged shoulder bones lies an unyielding soul.

Facing the oncoming wind, facing the blade thrust toward her, Zhong Xu extended the knife in her own hand.

With a dull thud, Zhong Xu knew she had won her gamble.

Wails of agony echoed through the dark, narrow alley, yet every household kept its doors and windows tightly shut. No one responded.

Before long, the wailing ceased as well, and everything returned to silence.

By the next day, countless people would pass by the corpse, curse it for bringing bad luck, and then wait for those with ulterior motives to haul the body away, restoring this place to its former quiet.

Zhong Xu had sweated profusely, and after being washed by the rain, her entire body was sticky and foul-smelling.

Panting heavily, she collapsed into the mud, beyond caring whether she was filthy or not.

Only then did she notice a sharp pain at the corner of her eye—after all, so many parts of her body were hurting that this slight sting had been hard to detect.

If the blade had gone even a little farther, it would have cut straight into her eye.

Her victory had come from this all-or-nothing resolve. Her opponent had assumed she would dodge, so he hadn’t used his full strength and hadn’t protected his weak spots. But Zhong Xu already had so many wounds—one more made no difference.

She sat there for a long time. Then, suddenly, an umbrella shifted over her head, and someone stepped into view.

His voice was urgent. “Little Butterfly, I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Why would you come here? I woke up and you were gone—I was worried sick! I searched for ages before I finally found you…”

He kept chattering on, but Zhong Xu couldn’t be bothered to respond.

“Anyway, let’s go back first.”

Xu Mu reached out a hand, trying to pull Zhong Xu up, but she deftly dodged it.

After avoiding him, Zhong Xu grabbed Xu Mu’s shirt with hands smeared in blood and mud and hauled herself to her feet.

“…”

Xu Mu lowered his head to look at the two filthy handprints and found himself speechless.

“The shirt’s very clean,” Zhong Xu said casually, rubbing her hands on it again. “Pretty nice.”

Looking for her for ages? More like watching the whole spectacle for ages.

Xu Mu withdrew his gaze and chuckled. “If you like it, I’ll let you use it as a hand towel from now on.”

“Prepare a few more,” she said. “I get dirty a lot. Take off the buttons—pressing against them while wiping my hands is uncomfortable.”

Xu Mu’s expression slowly grew ambiguous, and then his gaze slid past her to the dead man lying on the ground.

“What were you doing out so late at night?”

“Taking a walk.”

As she spoke, she had already started moving.

Xu Mu followed calmly, shifting most of the umbrella over his own head.

“And the one on the ground…?”

“A bad person. Nights are always dangerous.”

“Little Butterfly defeated the bad guy—so brave and impressive,” Xu Mu praised in an exaggerated tone.

“Little Butterfly, working this hard in the middle of the night—are you training yourself so that one day you can turn that blade on me?”

His pace remained steady as he walked beside her, unhurried. His voice carried a smile, as though he were asking what she wanted for breakfast tomorrow.

Suddenly, Zhong Xu stopped short. Xu Mu was taken aback.

She lifted her gaze in his direction. Her injured eye still failed to focus.

“How could you think that?” Her voice was tinged with loss and grievance. “You saved me. You cook for me and take care of me every day. That I can stand here now—that I could fight with everything I had and kill someone who wanted to hurt me—it’s all because of you.”

“I really am grateful to you, from the bottom of my heart.”

Xu Mu fell silent for a moment, then laughed. “I was just joking with you. I didn’t expect—”

Zhong Xu cut him off, her smiling eyes curved into crescents. “I was joking too.”

“…”

The rain pouring from the sky gradually grew heavier. The rain here seemed utterly unreasonable, as if someone were dumping basins of water down from above—sometimes heavy, sometimes light.

Grave City had very few streetlights to begin with, and the lighting was already dim. Shrouded in the gloomy curtain of rain, the darkness deepened even further.

Only when one drew close could the two people facing off be vaguely made out.

“The umbrella got blown away,” Xu Mu said, turning around and walking ahead first under the umbrella.

“It’s fine. You holding the umbrella makes me uncomfortable anyway,” Zhong Xu said calmly as she turned around as well. “It keeps bumping into my head. You must be shorter than me, right?”

“…” Xu Mu finally lost his patience. “I’m taller than you!”

“Alright, alright—taller than me.”

She spoke carelessly, extending the knife in her hand into the curtain of rain, letting the rainwater wash the blood from the blade.

She tightened her grip on the handle and slowly aimed it toward Xu Mu’s figure ahead—this should be the right direction, right? She could hear him.

..... 

“Hello, may I ask if your tavern owner is here?”

The waiter in the tavern had been replaced by an unfamiliar face. After exchanging a few words, Ning Zhi determined that the other party was a genuine NPC.

“The owner has a habit of smoking. He should be smoking in the alley outside the back kitchen right now,” the waiter replied.

Ning Zhi immediately left the tavern, circled around to the alley behind the kitchen, and sure enough saw someone there, wreathed in drifting smoke.

After stepping forward and talking for a bit, confirming that he was indeed the tavern owner, Ning Zhi took out the widely circulated wanted notice.

“The girl in this photo—she used to be a waitress at your tavern, right?”

“I fired her a long time ago,” the tavern owner said.

“Why did you fire her? I thought her work performance was pretty good.”

“Her performance was fine, but she actually caused trouble for my tavern.” At the mention of this, the owner’s expression turned sour. “She actually let customers stay overnight in the tavern after three in the morning!”

Ning Zhi was somewhat confused. That wasn’t allowed either? Was the issue really that serious?

“This place has been contaminated! I warned her long ago—after three in the morning, strange things start appearing in the tavern. They crawl up from the sewers. No one is allowed to stay overnight in the tavern!” The tavern owner grew angrier as he spoke, taking a fierce drag on his cigarette.

Enduring the discomfort of the smoke, Ning Zhi frowned.

This information was far too vast and unfamiliar to her. The opportunity was rare, so she hurriedly urged the tavern owner to explain further.

“Ever since this world began experiencing torrential rain, those terrifying monsters started to be born. They grow, and eventually they will devour this world—because they once committed mistakes.”

Ning Zhi pondered for a moment before asking, “These monsters—will they harm us, even destroy this world?”

“The nightmare will descend.” The owner suddenly crushed the cigarette butt under his foot and looked into the distance.

Following his gaze, Ning Zhi’s pupils abruptly constricted. In the direction he was looking stood a massive gray tree.

No one knew what that gray tree truly meant to this world.

From the very beginning, countless people believed it to be some crucial clue and tried to go take a look. But no matter how they traveled, no matter what extraordinary means they used, they were never able to reach the area near the tree.

Later, many theories emerged, with most people leaning toward the idea that it was merely an illusion.

Ning Zhi still believed it to be a key clue and often went to look at it—no matter where she was in this world, it seemed as though she could always see the tree.

When she had looked at it some time ago, the tree seemed to possess a faint luster. Now, however, it appeared even grayer.

“What does this tree represent?” Ning Zhi asked.

“The origin of the nightmare,” the owner replied with a meaningful look.

Ning Zhi wanted to press him further about the tree, but the owner seemed to have no additional information left to give, repeating the same lines over and over.

Having once been a game planner, Ning Zhi knew that an NPC’s dialogue would unlock according to events or story stages.

At the current stage, this was likely all the owner was able to reveal.

After thinking for a moment, Ning Zhi changed her question. “The reason you’re so angry—is it because monsters can harm people, so no one is allowed to stay in the tavern after three in the morning?”

Unexpectedly, the owner shook his head. “The monsters will give their memories back to them.”

Hearing this, Ning Zhi frowned, sensing that she had caught onto something.

She searched her memory carefully, painfully.

Just now… hadn’t the tavern owner said something earlier?

“Ever since this world began experiencing torrential rain, those terrifying monsters started to be born. They grow, and eventually they will devour this world, because they once committed mistakes,” the tavern owner had said.

That’s it! That sentence!

At first, she had thought the two instances of “they” referred to the same thing. But now, it seemed that wasn’t the case…

Ning Zhi turned the sentence over in her mind. After a long pause, she lifted her head. “Boss—have I committed mistakes?”

“……” The owner’s gaze settled on her face, his eyes filled with unspoken meaning. After a long while, he shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t dare say.”

With a heavy heart, Ning Zhi left the back alley.

She seemed to have grasped onto something, though it was faint and intangible.

She had to do something—but her strength alone was far too limited.

The first thing that came to mind was the Judgment Eye. To be honest, Judgment Eye had many reliable members, and most of them shared largely aligned goals.

But the organization was entangled in too many things, and its methods were ones she could not fully agree with.

So who else could she turn to?

At that moment, her communication device vibrated as members began reporting the day’s progress. A moment later, she submitted her own report: no gains, no abnormalities.

Exiting the message interface, she lifted her head. A massive holographic billboard mounted on the skyscrapers ahead came into view.

On the poster, a young girl holding shards of glass stared out boldly, her expression sharp and spirited.

Across the image, a vivid red X had been slashed.

The words read: Bounty issued across the entire Divine Kingdom. Higher price for the corpse.

The Tarot Path’s wanted notice had already spread onto advertising billboards throughout the city.

She disliked liars.

But she liked people who confronted evil head-on.

……

“Little Butterfly, what do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”

Xu Mu suddenly turned around, his voice gentle.

He abruptly stopped walking. Zhong Xu couldn’t avoid it in time and nearly ran into him.

“Please keep your distance,” Zhong Xu said flatly.

“You’re the one who ran into me. How are you blaming me instead?” he replied.

“I was warning you—danger.” Zhong Xu lifted the knife in her hand and gave it a small shake. “Blades have no eyes. You almost walked straight into it.”

“Then you should be more careful,” Xu Mu said, sounding as though he were still shaken, deeply concerned. “If you stab me, who’s going to take care of you?”

“Alright, it’s very late. Go to bed early,” Xu Mu said, giving her another once-over. “Remember to shower before sleeping—don’t dirty my sofa.”

The bedroom door closed, and the living room returned to silence.

Twenty minutes later.

Zhong Xu stepped forward, pried open the bedroom door, and groped her way to the bedside.

Xu Mu was jolted awake. The dim night light illuminated Zhong Xu’s calm face. His breath caught, and he instinctively glanced at her hands to see whether she was holding a knife. “You…”

“For breakfast tomorrow, I want milk.”

“……”

After saying that, Zhong Xu turned and walked away calmly.

After a long while, Xu Mu lowered his head. A smile slowly curled at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were pitch-black—now even more so, as if ink had bled into them, leaving less and less white visible.

“Little Butterfly, I really want to crush your wings.”

Sevyn here ~~~

Kingdom of Gods can also be translated as the Divine Kingdom; it will be used interchangeably in whatever context sounds better.

Enjoy!