Chapter 16 - Reader: I have not betrayed you.
Chapter 16.1 – Reader: I have not betrayed you.
Once upon a time there was a bear child. He was ridiculed by a group of bear children, therefore he became a chuuni. (Once upon a time there was a naughty child. He was ridiculed by a group of naughty children, therefore he became a socially retarded otaku.1)
Du Ze was always a cute, silly little creature; he was born that way. Before he had a problem with his ears he was cute inside and out; after he had to wear a hearing aid, his face became impassive but inside he was still incurably stupid.
At birth his ears were not good, but it was in middle school that they really started to deteriorate. Because the progression of his hearing loss was extremely slow, at first Du Ze did not realize it was happening. He just thought that sometimes when people spoke, he couldn’t quite understand what they were saying. The only thing he could do was to ask the other person to repeat himself. But after this happened again and again, Du Ze discovered that people probably didn’t want to speak to him anymore.
Du Ze thought about it: if he was talking to someone and that person kept on interrupting him and asking him to repeat himself several times, wouldn’t it be annoying? But how can he stop himself from doing this? The moe Du Ze thus made his mind up: as long as he smiles, everything will be okay.
He never thought that his ears had a problem but when his parents found out about his troubles, they took him to the hospital to check out his hearing. Du Ze watched as his parents got a hearing aid for him. He felt incredibly panicked – just in the blink of an eye he was labeled “disabled?”
So Du Ze ran way from reality. He refused to wear a hearing aid, pretending that nothing happened.
If you can’t hear clearly, smile. If you don’t know how to react, smile. When other smile and say something, keep on smiling. He did not realize that his voice was becoming more and more unclear since he was unable to grasp the proper intonation and volume.
Because of his deteriorating hearing condition, Du Ze finally had to wear a hearing aid. The first day he wore it, he was suddenly in a world of clear voices. As he stood outside the classroom, listening to his good friend inside, Du Ze heard him say:
– Ah Ze, he is an idiot, always giggling and saying things that make other people laugh themselves to death.
A friend seemed to imitate a maliciously lengthened, funny, grating, and ugly tone of voice, making the others laugh.
“Right! I told him he was an idiot and he only laughed like a fool.”
“One more time!”
“You! Didn’t the teacher say ‘be nice to the disabled’?”
Du Ze opened the door. The classroom was full of laughing people who abruptly stopped and stared at Du Ze. He walked to his seat and sat down calmly, his face impassive. The people around him looked at each other in dismay. They didn’t know whether Du Ze had heard what they were saying.
“Ah Ze, you’re here …is that a new MP3 headset? Cool!”
Du Ze looked at his “good friend.” His chest felt as though something was squeezing it and he was suffocating. Suddenly, he felt that making a sound was an embarrassing and terrifying thing. That funny imitation lingered in his brain, the mocking parody of his speech let him know that his earlier behavior of trying to escape reality was a silly thing to do.
The teenager raised his hand to the hearing aid headphones, in front of his classmates, he nodded in silence, smiling stiffly: Yes, there are headphones, just headphones.
Therefore he hadn’t heard anything.
– That was probably the last time Du Ze smiled in front of other people.
From then on a stupid moe teenager installed the B route and insisted that he didn’t need anyone until he went to college. He buried himself in the internet, his social life was a mess, and his myopia was about to break through the sky.
Then Du Ze found the works of Yi Ye Zhi Qiu.
The author was like a cup, the protagonist was the tableware, and the reader a whole coffee table.2
*******
In a daze, Du Ze stumbled and sat down. Leaning his back against the stone wall, he slept. Suddenly, he woke up. Xiu was quietly lying in his arms, in a deep sleep. The gnome looked like a cute, delicious, perfect human form dreamed up by an otaku. Du Ze reached out to touch Xiu’s forehead then breathed a sigh of relief.
Yesterday, because Xiu went out to find Du Ze, the gnome’s wounds had opened and he fell into a feverish coma. Du Ze has tossed and turned most of the night so at dawn he had barely rested. He did have the restore function so even if he never slept, he wouldn’t die, but the stress made him feel very tired. After seeing that Xiu was soundly asleep, Du Ze also closed his eyes to get some rest and dream of a happy past.
Du Ze looked up at the sky. It was cloudy but he thought it was past midnight.
Had he missed the appointed time of his transaction with Dan?
He looked at his headphones to check if there was enough charge. It only had half of its normal charge. If he leaves now, he can still make it.
What are you waiting for? Walk you ┏ (゜w゜) =?!
Du Ze carefully put down Xiu from his arms, having a bit of a fun fantasy that he was an adult pretending to be annoyed and helpless at the spoiled child who is tightly gripping his clothes: this sick child is so sticky, ah ~ (big misunderstanding here).
A silly, cute person didn’t want to wake Xiu up. In any case, after the deal with Dan is finished, he will quickly return. He tried to gently unfasten Xiu’s grasp on his robe but it tore. Luckily, not much harm was done since the robe was already in tatters anyway. Because his clothes were ripped, he lost some time, and was in too much of a hurry to return to Halphas City that he didn’t think deeply about what he was doing.
A pair of amber eyes opened and quietly looked at Du Ze’s back as he left. The eyes were gloomy and uncertain.
Chapter 16.2 – Reader: I have not betrayed you.
It was only when Du Ze was rushing towards the city that he remembered that he had said “outside the city” without specifying exactly where they would meet. Outside the city was full rocks both high and low, how were they going to find each other?!
“Aha, you are here at last.”
The voice came from above. Du Ze looked up and saw the demon in green sitting on a rock, smiling earnestly. Dan agilely jumped, bowed to Du Ze, and said: “I waited a long time for you.”
Dan’s right hand held a book, like always. He clapped his hands, and from a nowhere a box appeared in his left hand. It was the same box that Du Ze had chosen from his stall.
“Your clothes are amazing,” Dan exclaimed. “May I ask how it was made?”
That is a cheat, you wouldn’t understand.
Seeing that Du Ze had no intention of speaking, Dan could only sigh with regret and give the box to him.
“This is the one you want.”
Du Ze took the box. The small gray box was very inconspicuous. No one could guess from the outside that there was a high level weapon in it.
As Du Ze looked at the box, Dan’s eyes seemed to sweep over a corner behind him. Dan’s smile became brighter.
“Do you want to get in touch with the City Lord to discuss a sale?”
Du Ze paused, since the box came from Dan, naturally Dan knew what was inside.
“The city Lord will be very happy to get such a rare breed.” Dan revealed an ambiguous smile. “You can get a lot of money, and even get the city Lord’s appreciation.”
Indeed, the demonic sword is a very precious artifact but somehow Du Ze felt like Dan’s words were quite strange though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong.
“May I ask, when are you going to sell? Perhaps I could introduce you to the City Lord?” Dan suggested. “Or you can give ‘him’ to me first, and I can process the sale for you, that way the Lord won’t find out your identity.”
Du Ze was surprised. Dan seemed to have found out that he is a human and, in order, to prevent the City Lord from finding out, wanted to help him. Dan is such a good person? Du Ze once again recalled that in “Mixed Blood,” Dan was mysterious but he was always on the protagonist’s side. Du Ze hesitated but he had no money now, not even enough to pay the city’s entrance fee. Moreover, with his social barrier, it would be very hard for him to talk to the City Lord whose staple food was humans.
Therefore, Du Ze nodded. “Yes, help me to sell it.”
dinner
Image: Remember, the Lord “likes” humans.
“Please don’t worry, I will surely get a good price.” Dan’s manner of speaking was exaggerated and he was grinning happily. “For sure, ‘he’ will never know that you betrayed ‘him’ and you will not be killed by the blood contract with ‘him’ -”
Du Ze was shocked, he couldn’t understand a thing that Dan was saying. He could only look helplessly as the green-clothed man knit his bros and looked behind Du Ze.
“It is a little mouse … Come out, I know you’re there.”
Du Ze turned to see what Dan was looking at then saw something he would never forget in his entire life – Xiu stood in the shadow of a large rock, Du Ze didn’t know long he had stood there. His face did not have the slightest expression, just like a dying animal. The brightly-colored eyes were cold, like hell’s deep springs that looked gentle but when touched would freeze a man to the marrow.
Du Ze was frozen by those eyes. He had never seen Xiu look at him with such eyes, even his heart was so cold he thought it had stopped beating.
Beside Du Ze, Dan had a regretful, helpless expression: “Ah, I was caught.”
Du Ze remembered what Dan had said. He was misled! He deliberately used words that would make Xiu think that he had been betrayed!
“It’s a mistake -”
Dan chuckled and forcefully interrupted Du Ze. “It has been discovered by him, don’t pretend anymore.”
F***! You lying f***er! ****! ****!
For the first time in his life, Du Ze had the impulse to choke a person to death. In front of Xiu, countless words of explanation scrolled through his brain. Right at this moment, the headphones dealt a fatal blow to Du Ze when its battery ran out.
Du Ze lost heart. Dan spoke a few words that Du Ze couldn’t hear then Xiu, under the shadow of the rock, finally spoke.
– Betrayed … is he angry?
Xiu looked at Dan whose expression was full of malicious sarcasm. The gnome’s tone was light but, at the same, as heavy as exhausted hope.
He said, “I’m used to it.”
Du Ze could not hear what Xiu said but he saw Xiu’s weariness and numbness – there was no despair, but rather the absence of hope.
Being betrayed once, one will be angry.
Being betrayed many times, one will be sad.
Being betrayed countless times, one will lose all hope.
In the end, one will realize that being betrayed is not the end, and all that will remain is exhaustion, like dying embers of a fire.
Du Ze’s throat was dry. He knew the pain of being betrayed. He was too timid to touch the world just because he had been teased by his “good friend.” When he saw the protagonist of “Mixed Blood” betrayed by his best friend, as he sat in front of the computer, Du Ze felt like he was being suffocated. Because of the protagonist, he cared about and like “Mixed Blood.” When he saw the real protagonist, Du Ze thanked him for his existence -luckily he was able to compensate the protagonist. So he signed the blood contract, was used as a test subject, treated with suspicion, showered in acid rain, but none of it mattered to him. He is not a masochist, he just thought that this was the way to gain the protagonist’s trust and restore him to his original kind and gentle self.
But now because he was misled by Dan, Du Ze “betrayed” the protagonist.
So hurry up and explain! Du Ze looked at Xiu’s eyes that were not black, they were darker than black. His mouth opened and closed several times; if he doesn’t explain then it will be too late –
– Ah Ze, he is an idiot, always giggling and saying things that make other people laugh themselves to death.
… I am an idiot! Okay, whatever!
“… I … have not … betrayed you.”
It was very difficult to speak the words, as though he had not spoken for a long time. His voice was out of tune, stuttering and stiff, and he could not control the volume.
Xiu looked back at the black-haired youth and the smiling Dan, pondering.
Afraid that a lengthy explanation would sound like a guilty conscience or hypocrisy, Du Ze did not add anything more. He just stared at Xiu’s shadow and, with that awkward and funny-sounding voice, just repeated:
“I have not betrayed you.”
“Believe me … okay?”
******
******
Daniel was aware that he was spotted. Facing Xiu and smiling the same simple and honest smile he wore when the original, human Xiu would help him bully his seniors, he spoke.
“Xiu, sorry, the best thing you can do now is to die.”
It’s strange to know that he was betrayed again but he wasn’t hurt or sad. Even his anger cooled. There was no pain in his heart, either – No.
The skeleton opened its mouth and began to laugh.
His heart had been melted away, hadn’t it?
The blue soul fire leaped in the black holes of his eye sockets, cold and without a single trace of heat.
– excerpt from “Mixed Blood”
The author has something to say:
Reader: I didn’t betray you. QAQ
Author: Prove it with your actions, child.
Protagonist: Come sit here.
Readers: … I will betray you. =皿=
Translation notes:
I’ll just use the word “moe” sometimes lol, that is what Du Ze means anyway. I have been trying to not make things sound too Japanese since this text is Chinese but since the POV is an otaku character, pfft… I’ll just use the Japanese terms.