novelbin Chapter 57
Chapter 57
Chapter 57: Kujo Shiyan
Under a gloomy sky, howling winds, torrential rain pouring like a waterfall.
Kujo Ran followed Lu Shiyan up to the rooftop, drenched in the downpour.
Watching this man's silhouette, she finally couldn't hold back the question she'd been suppressing the entire way.
"Why are you disguising yourself as a Huaxia person?"
"Your accent—though deliberately concealed—has certain pronunciation habits that are clearly those of a Itabar native."
Lu Shiyan stopped walking and turned his head.
He smiled faintly, raising a single finger to his lips.
"Things that don't concern you—don't ask."
"Otherwise…"
He leaned in closer, as if whispering to a lover.
"You'll die, you know."
Gulp.
Kujo Ran swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
She immediately lowered her head, not daring to bring up the topic again.
‘This man…’
‘Just how many secrets is he hiding?’
To ease the awkwardness and fear, she changed the subject.
"So where are we going now? Aren't we going to class? You're the teacher leading Morning Exercise."
Lu Shiyan walked to the edge of the rooftop and patted the long-rusted drainpipe.
"Sturdy enough."
Then he turned to look at Kujo Ran:
"Class is definitely happening."
"That Faceless Man is no easy target."
"But…"
"Before that, we have to go somewhere far more important first."
"Somewhere far more important?"
Before Kujo Ran's words even finished—
Swoosh!
Lu Shiyan had already flipped over the railing and slid down the drainpipe!
"Hey! That's the 5th floor!!"
Kujo Ran's face drained of color. She rushed to the edge and looked down.
She saw Lu Shiyan, agile as a gecko, land smoothly at the bottom after just a few fluid movements, standing in the shadow below and waving her down.
"This lunatic…"
Kujo Ran cursed under her breath.
But she didn't dare disobey. She stripped off her outer jacket, wrapped it around both hands and the P90 Submachine Gun, and forced herself to slide down.
Skrrrtch!
Thud!
When she landed, her foot slipped and she fell flat on her backside, wincing through clenched teeth.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk…"
Lu Shiyan looked down at her with zero mercy in his eyes and mocked
"Worthy of a cannon fodder."
"Your military competence is, at best, that of a new recruit who's scraped through a month in training camp."
Kujo Ran stood up, dusted the mud off her backside, and said nothing.
She was, after all, a young lady who had never received specialized training. Joining the Black Wolf Unit had only been to add a gilded line to her résumé.
For an edge in the family competition.
Thinking of that, she couldn't help but say sourly:
"Hmph. Compared to me, Hoshino Hikari is even more useless."
"She's nothing but a filthy country bumpkin who farms for a living!"
"She only got recruited into the squad by sheer luck—awakening a Grade B ability and happening to be transported right to Muraguchi-san's camp. Completely undeserved."
"On what grounds? On what grounds does a blue-blooded noble like me have a lower ability grade than some field laborer?"
Kujo Ran's voice was saturated with envy and indignation.
"Heh."
Lu Shiyan let out a cold laugh, his gaze carrying a trace of contempt:
"Now that's a striking sense of superiority—dragging others into it and everything."
"After all these years, the Kujo Family is still as nauseating as ever."
"But it doesn't matter… I stopped caring a long time ago."
Lu Shiyan's gaze drifted toward some distant point.
"The only one I care about… is her."
"Her? Who?"
Kujo Ran grew even more confused. "What do you mean by that?"
Lu Shiyan didn't answer.
He turned and walked toward the abandoned area behind the school building.
……
A few minutes later.
The 2 arrived before a standalone storage warehouse located behind the main school building.
The warehouse looked like it had been standing for years. The iron door was covered in dark red bloodstains and rust.
And above the doorframe, 3 large characters had been carved into the surface by what seemed like sharp claws.
【Detention Room】
Kujo Ran's eyes went wide, her voice trembling.
"This place… is the Detention Room?!"
"Why did you bring me here?!"
"I've heard students talk about it—people who receive severe punishment get locked up in here! Anyone who goes in is as good as dead!"
"Relax."
Lu Shiyan pulled a cigarette from inside his coat—but didn't light it.
He simply set it gently on the steps outside the door.
"This isn't a place for locking people up."
"It's not an official school facility, either."
As he spoke, he actually pulled a key from his pocket and inserted it into the padlock.
Click.
The lock opened.
"Not the school's… not for locking people up…"
Kujo Ran watched the scene unfold, the terror in her heart reaching its peak.
"You… just what are you doing?!"
She suddenly raised her P90 Submachine Gun and aimed it at Lu Shiyan's back, retreating step by step while shouting:
"Don't move! Hands up!!"
However.
The next moment.
Kujo Ran suddenly felt as if all 4 of her limbs had been bound by countless invisible steel wires—she instantly lost all control of them!
Crack!
"Ahh!!"
Both of her wrists were forced backward by an enormous pressure, bent against their joints!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
But she still squeezed the trigger!
The bullets stopped right before Lu Shiyan's eyes. He casually brushed them aside.
The submachine gun fell into his hand.
"What a disobedient little thing."
Lu Shiyan turned around, toying with the gun, a smile on his face that made one's blood run cold.
"Is this how you treat your savior?"
"And for the 2nd time, no less?"
"Ahhhh!!"
Kujo Ran let out a scream. Her legs were also forcibly bent, her entire body crumpled into a ball, suspended in midair.
The excruciating pain of her joints being dislocated twisted her expression beyond recognition, but she still gritted her teeth and spat:
"You… you demon!!"
"Your ability isn't Metal Manipulation at all!! That's Psychokinesis!! You've been deceiving me the whole time!!"
"You deserve to rot in hell!!"
"A demon?"
Lu Shiyan nodded, as though quite pleased with the description.
"That's actually a fairly accurate assessment."
"But powerless rage can't change anything."
As he spoke, he crooked a finger.
The crumpled Kujo Ran floated to his side like a balloon.
Lu Shiyan pushed open the warehouse door, casually tossed the submachine gun into the grass outside, then walked inside with Kujo Ran in tow.
……
A figure slid down that same drainpipe and crept stealthily into the shrubbery.
It was Guo Shuai.
He had spotted the 2 of them on the rooftop during his search and decided to follow.
He stared at the opened warehouse door and the 3 characters above it【Detention Room】.
"Hssss…"
For reasons he couldn't explain.
Guo Shuai suddenly felt a sharp stabbing pain in his head.
"This place…"
"Why does it feel so inexplicably familiar?"
"Why is my head hurting this much? And… where did I even go before?"
"Why did Albert suddenly fall asleep at that moment?"
Guo Shuai clutched his head, a powerful instinct surging through him.
Every answer was hidden inside this Detention Room.
……
Inside the warehouse.
Flick!
Lu Shiyan struck his lighter.
The faint flame illuminated the dim interior of the warehouse.
When she made out what was inside, the suspended Kujo Ran's pupils shook violently, and a manic laugh burst out of her.
"Haha… hahaha!!"
"You… you really are a madman!!"
"You're actually keeping ghosts in here?!"
Inside the warehouse stood several enormous cages.
One cage's iron bars had been violently twisted and warped—something had clearly broken out from the inside.
And beside that empty cage.
Another cage held a male student dressed in a Rose High School uniform.
His body was covered in filth, and a foul stench of feces and urine radiated from him.
His 4 limbs were bound by specially made shackles, his eyes filled with hatred and madness.
The moment he saw Lu Shiyan walk in, the male student screamed in a hoarse voice
"You damned Sakura Nation man!!"
"If you have the guts, just kill me!! Kill me!!"
His speech was slightly unclear—because half his tongue had been cut out to prevent suicide!!
As for the language… it was Huaxia language.
Kujo Ran understood it—thanks to the universal translation mechanic.
In that moment, she finally understood everything.
"So… this is the real 'Huaxia's No.1 Romantic'…"
"A Huaxia student studying abroad in Sakura Nation…"
"And you… Lu Shiyan… you're a complete impersonator!"
"You've been manipulating this pawn from the shadows, using his identity as your own disguise!!"
"You are a fraud through and through!!"
But that wasn't the most terrifying part.
What pushed Kujo Ran to the edge of despair was the largest cage, positioned right at the center of the warehouse.
The atmosphere inside it was completely unlike all the others.
It was furnished with pink carpeting, lined with dolls, and even contained a princess-style bed.
It was exactly like a young girl's bedroom.
Except for…
The thing sitting on that bed, eating.
It was a wandering corpse—a girl in a sailor uniform, skin a dead ashen gray, long hair hanging loose.
She was clutching a skeleton with some flesh still remaining, gnawing at it with apparent satisfaction.
No… that wasn't a human.
The flesh remaining on the skeleton was grayish-white.
That was… a ghost.
Shortly after, Kujo Ran traced the tattered remains of clothing on the skeleton to a student ID that had fallen to the floor.
Written on it in blood-red text:
【Sakuragi Yukishita】
"That's… that absentee ghost student?!"
Kujo Ran felt her entire worldview collapse.
‘This man…’
‘He had actually captured ghosts from the school to feed this Wandering Corpse?!’
"Have you eaten enough, Oriha?"
Lu Shiyan stepped up to the cage, his voice soft with tenderness.
He opened the cage door, then turned around, the smile known only as despair spreading across his face.
A flick of his fingers.
Thud!
The crumpled Kujo Ran was hurled into the cage.
Click.
The door locked.
"Eat well, Oriha."
Lu Shiyan said gently, "I accidentally caught a troublemaker today. I'm sorry for startling you."
"Consider this dessert my apology."
"I'll properly prepare that troublemaker and serve her to you later."
"Grrrr…"
The Wandering Corpse girl named Oriha—upon seeing the living prey that was Kujo Ran—immediately flung aside the bones in her hand.
And lunged!
"Ahhhhh!!"
Kujo Ran wanted to struggle, but with all 4 limbs broken, she could only watch helplessly as that bloody maw closed in on her.
In the final moment between life and death.
She was no longer afraid.
Because she knew—this time, she truly had no way out.
"Who are you really!!"
Kujo Ran locked her gaze on the man outside the cage, screaming with every last ounce of strength she had.
"Let me die knowing the truth!!"
"Why are you doing this?!"
Lu Shiyan stood in the shadows, the firelight painting his face half in light, half in dark.
He reached up and rubbed at that face of his, and smiled.
That smile—3 parts mockery, 3 parts cold indifference, and 4 parts casual cruelty.
"Well then… allow me to reintroduce myself."
He bowed with elegant grace.
"My name is Kujo Shiyan."
"By seniority… you should be calling me uncle."
"Or rather…"
Lu Shiyan raised his head, eyes sharp as a blade.
"You can call me… the renegade assassin who left your grandfather half-paralyzed and was stripped of his family name."
"Lu."