Volume 6, Heaven or Hell, Second Level—The Evening Sun Plaza, A Tangle of Noises, Ill Habits, and Bravery (1/2)

Volume 6, Heaven or Hell, Second Level—The Evening Sun Plaza, A Tangle of Noises, Ill Habits, and Bravery

Translator: Ever (proofread by Cesium Black & Lala Su; C/E edited by lucathia)

Do you know Dark Sun? It seems like he’s been a hero for a long time, too. Did you or did he become a hero first?

First Wind replied with an uncertain attitude, “Oh, Dark Sun? I’m not sure when he first started being a hero, since he keeps such a low profile. If it weren’t for the media relentlessly pursuing us heroes these days, then he might still be unknown to the world.”

Can he be trusted?

“Heh, I don’t even know him, so how am I supposed to answer you?”

Then, do you trust me?

“Hmm? Oh, of course.”

But you don’t know me either, and you neither know my true identity nor what I do for a living. How can you trust me?

“Don’t I know you?” First Wind laughed, “Do I really not know you just because we wear masks? Would you claim that you don’t know First Wind?”

…You’re really optimistic. You look very happy, unlike someone who has been through a lot of hardships.

“Really?” First Wind said as he laughed, “That might be because I have a younger brother that I need to raise, so I don’t have any time to dwell on sorrowful thoughts… Ah, after hearing so much about me, will you discover who I am? Haha.”

Even if I did discover your true identity, I won’t tell anyone about it. I swear.

“Well, I am not worried about that at all.”

For the sake of reaching the destination on time, I chose to travel on top of the buildings. As I jumped from roof to roof, I thought about how I should stop the young master from watching the TV wall.

The truth is, it is quite easy to prevent the young master from watching the TV wall once or twice. The real trouble is how to prevent him from watching the news for ten days in a row, regardless of whether it was from the television at home or the TV walls outside. I would even have to prevent the young master from searching for news in his own head…

No matter how I think about it, it seems like an impossible mission.

I stopped my footsteps and leapt onto the railings on the edge of a building. I looked down to confirm that no one was in the alley below before I finally took a step forward and started falling down.

On the way down, I continuously used blood ability to slow down my fall and finally landed without a sound.

Walking out of the alley, a large crowd of people appeared in front of me. Some of them hastily walked on while some of them stayed at the plaza or danced to the music. There were also people who were sitting on the rim of the surrounding small, minor stages, the chairs beside them, or even on the railings.

Most of them were fashionably dressed young people who glowed from head to toe, since the current fad was the glowing style.

This was the Evening Sun Plaza, a favorite gathering place of the younger crowd. It could be said that there was not a single moment of silence from day to night, and the plaza would even get busier as the night deepened.

The Evening Sun Plaza was a fan-shaped area. The handle of the fan was the large TV wall that would continuously broadcast various kinds of news and advertisements for twenty-four hours every day.

Incidentally, the TV wall was broadcasting the news of the Sun Emperor coming to Sunset City. This time, it did not appear as an interruption to the news but as a formal headline. The Sun Alliance’s representative was on screen, explaining the upcoming meeting of the Sun Emperor and Doctor Ni Cai.

It looks like there is no hope of this news becoming outdated by tomorrow and never broadcasted again…

If something is associated with the Sun Emperor, then it is usually big news. I am afraid that the TV stations will continue to broadcast this until the Sun Emperor arrives in Sunset City in ten days, or maybe even until he leaves.

I lifted my head to look at the TV wall. The news story about the Sun Emperor had finished and the next one was coincidently related to the young master, which was also a popular topic these days—the Cities Representative Election.

In the previous elections, “the young master” had defeated “Dark Sun” and became Sunset City’s representative, but that was not the final result of the election. Next comes the competition between the representatives of each city, which was when the election would reach its highest point. The news stations and various shows had all been reporting on the same topic for days and would even provide live updates of the newest vote counts.

The vote counts on the TV wall at the moment showed that the young master and the representative of another city had the most votes and were far ahead of the other candidates. That other city was also one I was familiar with; it was “Daystar City.”

Daystar City was as well-known as Sunset City among non-humans since the Church had made the city their base of operations. As such, most non-humans would choose to avoid it, especially vampires.

However, for the same reason, Daystar City had become a very safe place, which was rare for big cities.

Go support and vote for the Angel! The Angel and that damned bastard from Daystar City have fallen into a tug-of -war situation, so everyone go and vote for him. Don’t let the Angel lose to that priest!

The reporter on TV sounded very passionate about this; he even used damned bastard to describe the other candidate. He also reminded everyone to remember to vote and even carefully explained every detail on how to vote, as if he were afraid that the public might decide not to vote just because they did not know how to.

Come to think of it, I have not voted yet either. I will vote when I return home and tell the others to vote with me!

After the television program finished introducing the young master, they moved on to introducing the candidate from Daystar City. His name was Alex Simon and surprisingly, he was a priest.

That the candidate was a priest certainly fit the fact that Daystar City was the Church’s base, but the result was still quite unbelievable. After all, the majority of voters in the election were young people, so the representatives of every city were mostly the favorite idols among the younger generation, with few representatives coming from other industries. Even the young master had also become a representative because of his position as a model and singer.

But this Father Alex actually became the representative of Daystar City. I wonder what kind of story there is behind that?

Maybe it is only because the Church is strongly supporting him… No! What I should do right now is destroy the TV wall. Why am I watching the TV instead?

I observed my surroundings; there were too many people in the plaza and several of them had stopped to look at the TV wall. If I broke the TV wall directly, then the shards that would fall down may harm the people. What should I do?

Right, all I have to do is to cut the power cables. I will not need to destroy the television itself. As for where the power cables were located, I still had to search for them.

“Excuse me, you’re Charles, Ah Ye’s butler, right?”

I was startled for a moment and turned around. In front of me was a young woman who had short, pretty black hair and was wearing a sleeveless top and a leather skirt. She was not wearing any glowing accessories, which gave her a refreshing appearance.

I smiled and said, “Hello Lin Ding, it has been a while.”

Lin Ding looked at me up and down and said in disbelief, “It really is you? I was so unsure about it! I observed you for some time before I finally had the guts to come say hi. You’re wearing a completely different outfit from before. You look like a totally different person!”

“Is that so?” I chuckled, “I look better, do I not?”

Lin Ding blinked. Her eyes were actually purple, and judging from the pattern in her irises, they did not look like eyes that a normal human would have. Perhaps she is wearing contacts or simply had surgery to change the color of her irises?

“Really? I think you look more like yourself when you’re in your usual outfit, though this does look more fashionable! But it just doesn’t go with the vibes that you give. Instead, there’s this ‘you shouldn’t be wearing this’ kind of feeling.”

This is the first time that I have heard such an evaluation.

“Oh yeah, what are you doing here?” Lin Ding asked curiously, “Are you waiting for someone? Waiting for Ah Ye?”

… The television!

But under Lin Ding’s gaze, I could only answer, “Yes, I am waiting for the young master.” I hoped that she would leave quickly so that I could go find the power cables.

“Really?” Lin Ding thought about it and said, “Then, I’ll wait with you.”

… This is not good!

After being delayed for such a long time, perhaps the young master will arrive soon? Though I felt my heart burn with anxiety, I could not think of a reason not to wait with her, so I asked, “Why wait with me?”

“I need to ask Ah Ye some questions about his new album, so I’ll wait with you! By the way, is Ah Ye going to stay in the music industry? Ever since he released his album, a lot of people have asked me to write songs for them, but I…”

After saying so, Lin Ding stopped for a bit and looked at me hesitantly. I reflexively gave her a gentle smile and waited for her to go on.

Father had said that a smile was the best way to help people relax and express their inner thoughts.

She seemed to relax and calmly said, “If it’s possible, for the time being I would like to only write songs for Ah Ye, because I don’t have that much inspiration and can’t write that many songs. Just thinking about my own band’s and Ah Ye’s songs is enough to give me a headache.”

“I think I understand now. You want to uphold a certain quality for all of your work, and would rather refuse others than release songs that you are not satisfied with.”

Lin Ding looked at me and solemnly nodded her head, but then asked in confusion, “Do you know if Ah Ye still wants to be in the music industry? Or do you think he might just want to stay as a model?”

“The fact is, the young master is a very easy-going person. If you can write songs that he likes, then he will be glad to continue releasing albums, but if you cannot, then he might just continue to be a model.”

As I explained, I thought about how I should bid Lin Ding farewell so that I could go find the TV cables.

“Oh yeah, I think there’s a director who wants him to be in a movie!” Lin Ding suddenly said.

“Is that so?” I answered in surprise, but after thinking about it, I found the news to be very normal since many singers would leave their original careers and move to the movie industry. So I asked out of curiosity, “What kind of movie is it?”

“It sounds like an action movie, the usual story of a hero rescuing the beauty.”

“And they want the young master to be the hero?” That would suit him perfectly!

Lin Ding looked at me with a face scrunched up from trying not to laugh, saying, “No, they want Ah Ye to be the beauty that would be saved by the hero.”

“….”

No! Now is not the time to go speechless. Regardless of whether the young master is the hero or the beauty, what matters now is to destroy the television. How can I be led astray again by a conversation about movies?

“Eh? Is that Ah Ye’s new commercial?” Lin Ding looked at the TV wall.

The television was broadcasting the newest sneaker commercial: the young master was wearing shorts and the camera had starting filming from the sneakers and panned up, revealing the calves, knees, thighs, and finally a picture of the entire person. When I first saw this commercial, I was a bit confused as to whether they were actually selling sneakers or the young master’s legs.

While Lin Ding was focused on the TV, I used the moment to take out from my backpack the two pistols that the young master had given me … I never thought that I would actually use them.

At this rate, I would not be able to find the cables anymore. Though I felt sorry for the television company and the people below about having to break the TV, I would try to shatter the screen into small pieces to the best of my abilities. Since the TV should be made of safety glass, I did not think anyone would be hurt by it.

Using x-speed to leave my original position, sparks danced from the rim of the gun as I fired at the TV wall. But the sound of the gun shots was even quieter than a book dropping to the ground, so in such a noisy plaza, it would not even catch the crowd’s attention.

The moment I pulled the trigger, I used x-speed to return to my original position while placing the guns back into my backpack. At that same time, a series of cracking sounds came from the TV wall.

That was the fastest I could go. I will not be discovered with such a speed, right?

Right then, Lin Ding abruptly turned around. My heart leapt and just as I was getting worried about her becoming suspicious about my actions, she pushed me to the ground. I turned my face to the sky and saw glass shards falling down upon us. I hurriedly flipped the both of us over so that I was now on top. I even covered Lin Ding’s face tightly, afraid that the glass shards would fall into her eyes since she was now facing the sky.

The glass shards pattered onto my back. The comforting thing was that the shards felt very small. I looked to the side and confirmed that it was indeed safety glass. The glass had completely shattered into small pieces, and the edges were not sharp.

“Are you okay?”

I lowered my head and saw that Lin Ding was looking at me with widened eyes. Worry was written all over her face, so I smiled and tried to comfort her, saying, “I am fine. This is safety glass, so the edges are not sharp.”

Looking around, I saw that the crowd had started to get up, and a lot of brash, young people were cursing loudly. Having seen that very few people looked harmed, I let out a sigh of relief.