Chapter 104: “Ge,” Admitted; He is Jiang Chenyan; Doesn’t Want to Let Go Even in the Next Life… part 1
Jiang Chenyan and Xiao Yi’s faces were pale, their lips devoid of color. They had almost been crushed.
Suddenly, the roar of a mecha engine came from above, vibrating until their ears hurt. For a split second, a nonsensical hope rose in Jiang Chenyan’s heart—could it be Shen Shiyue?
The next second, a massive explosion went off.
A huge chunk of the villa’s roof was blown away by a mecha’s main cannon. Shattered bricks and tiles mixed with dust rained down on them. Jiang Chenyan reacted instantly, grabbing Xiao Yi and pushing him into a crouch while he arched his own back to block the flying debris.
When Mu Sian’s mecha hovered over the hole, every bit of color drained from Jiang Chenyan’s face.
Mu Sian’s gaze swept over the two wretched figures. He was stunned for a few seconds before a mocking smirk played on his lips, as if he had understood something.
The one with fair skin and delicate features was likely the canary Jiang Xuanshen was hiding. As for the one next to him with the sallow skin and dirt-covered face, he didn’t even have the interest to recognize him.
Jiang Chenyan’s eyes were cold as he moved inconspicuously to shield Xiao Yi.
As if uninterested in them, Mu Sian gave them a cold glance. Anyway, this villa would soon be swallowed by the fire; they wouldn’t live much longer.
He was currently calculating another matter. He had actually run into Shen Shiyue during this siege. How strange. Did Shen Shiyue have a secret cooperation with Jiang Xuanshen? Otherwise, why would he appear at Jiang Xuanshen’s villa and not hesitate to fight them?
He truly didn’t understand what Qi Bai was thinking, forcing him to come and bomb this villa. Was he gambling? Gambling on whether Jiang Xuanshen would rush back to this villa for his canary regardless of everything.
Mu Sian controlled the mecha, turning and leaving without hesitation, leaving the two below to fend for themselves in the sea of fire.
…
The flames licked the walls, and the thick smoke made their throats tight.
Jiang Chenyan pulled up the weak-legged Xiao Yi and stumbled to the edge of the hole in the roof.
A searing heat wave rushed at them. He squinted his eyes to examine the situation outside. If they climbed out from here and scaled the exterior wall to the roof, they might have a chance at life.
“What are you doing?” Seeing Jiang Chenyan leaning half his body out of the hole, Xiao Yi was so scared his heart nearly jumped out.
“Don’t worry,” Jiang Chenyan’s voice was raspy. “I’m going to the top floor. There’s an emergency escape pod there.”
“But…” Xiao Yi wanted to say more, but Jiang Chenyan was already gripping the protruding bricks of the outer wall, laboriously climbing upward.
Below was a roiling sea of fire. Orange flames devoured everything, and the heat waves carrying black smoke rushed up, making it hard for Jiang Chenyan to open his eyes.
The wall was burning hot, making his palms ache. With every step up, the bricks beneath his feet crumbled. Jiang Chenyan’s arms bulged with veins from the effort. Sweat mixed with dust covered his face, and his vision was severely blurred.
Suddenly, his right hand slipped. His fingertips barely brushed against a loose brick, and his body suddenly plummeted a short distance. His left hand desperately dug into a stone crack, and he finally managed to stabilize his swaying form.
Just as he was hesitating about where to grab next, a large, warm hand suddenly grabbed Jiang Chenyan’s wrist. A familiar yet cold voice came from behind him: “What are you doing? Do you know how dangerous this is?”
The bombing of the villa was too loud; Jiang Chenyan had been focused on climbing and hadn’t noticed any movement behind him at all. Only now did he have time to look back, finding Jiang Xuanshen hovering beside him in a small airship with the hatch wide open.
“I…” Jiang Chenyan opened his mouth. His gaze instinctively fell on Jiang Xuanshen’s chest. The black shirt there was soaked in a large patch of blood; the wound seemed to still be oozing.
Jiang Chenyan’s eyes felt as if they had been stung; they were dry and painful. “You…”
Jiang Xuanshen’s face was pale. His usually impeccably styled black hair was now messy against his forehead, covered in dust and small beads of blood. Even his expensive suit was torn in several places, completely losing his usual noble and cold appearance.
Only those ink-black eyes remained fixed on Jiang Chenyan, carrying a bit of lingering fear, a bit of anger, and a trace of hard-to-detect panic.
“Get on.”
The force with which Jiang Xuanshen gripped Jiang Chenyan’s wrist suddenly tightened as he tried with all his might to pull him onto the airship.
Just as his fingertips were about to touch the hatch, Jiang Xuanshen seemed to suddenly sense something. He exerted force in his arm and shoved Jiang Chenyan back toward Xiao Yi.
Xiao Yi reacted quickly, reaching out to support the staggering Jiang Chenyan.
In the very next second—Boom! A flash of fire erupted.
The fuselage of the airship Jiang Xuanshen was in was swallowed by flames. A scorching airwave carrying shattered metal pieces surged out, and the entire airship was blown to bits.
Jiang Xuanshen was thrown by the massive impact, his body falling like a broken kite next to Jiang Chenyan with a dull thud.
The violent explosion caused the entire villa to shake violently. The ruins above them trembled, and large pieces of charred boulders crashed down.
Dust and smoke instantly filled the air, making it hard to see.
Everything went dark for Jiang Chenyan. The world seemed to fall into dead silence at that moment.
Mu Sian hadn’t gone far at all. That mecha had been hiding behind the clouds, staring fixedly at the movement below.
When the signal of Jiang Xuanshen’s airship appeared on the monitor, Mu Sian controlled the mecha’s main cannon to charge and fire at Jiang Xuanshen’s defenseless small airship.
When he opened his eyes again, everything had changed.
The thick smoke made Jiang Chenyan’s throat tight. He struggled to prop himself up.
Jiang Xuanshen was lying not far from him, covered in blood and filth. The gruesome wound on his chest was still gurgling blood. A broken beam was pinning his leg down, trapping him in place amidst the rubble and debris.
Xiao Yi was crouching next to Jiang Xuanshen, his hands tightly gripping the edge of the beam, trying with all his might to move it. But the beam was terrifyingly heavy; no matter how much force he used, it didn’t budge.
An indescribable sense of helplessness seized Jiang Chenyan. He staggered to Jiang Xuanshen’s side and crouched down.
A muffled cough rolled through Jiang Xuanshen’s throat. Beads of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, staining the dust dark red.
As if he had anticipated something, his breath was weak but his words were clear: “Cough… cough… Their purpose… wasn’t that simple. It should have… mainly been targeted at me, but it ended up hurting Jiang Qingyan and the others.”
The tangled clues in Jiang Chenyan’s mind finally connected. He understood. “They were after your arms and munitions, weren’t they?”
“Very smart,” Jiang Xuanshen whispered. Before he could finish, he was interrupted by a fit of coughing, his pale lips dyed a piercing red.
“Cough… Xu Mian, I’m dying. Are you still not going to tell me your real identity?”
When Jiang Xuanshen said this, his eyes were terrifyingly calm, like a bottomless lake. Even though his breath was so weak it could fade at any moment, when he looked at Jiang Chenyan, he had a look of near-total understanding.
Death.
Jiang Chenyan had never thought Jiang Xuanshen would die.
Even Xiao Yi, who was beside them, was stunned. He stared blankly at Jiang Xuanshen’s pale side profile, his own hands still bearing the bloody marks from trying to move the stones.
In the distance, Mu Sian couldn’t hear what the people in the ruins were murmuring and grew frustrated.
His finger pressed the trigger on the mecha’s control panel. He might as well bomb this mess into scorched earth and end this meaningless tug-of-war.
The moment Mu Sian pressed the final bombing command, the shell he fired was intercepted by another, and a ball of fire erupted in mid-air.
Jiang Chenyan squinted his eyes, which were dry from the smoke and dust, and stared fixedly at the rolling black mist ahead.
A moment later, a strong air current blew the smoke away. A black airship broke through the clouds and hovered steadily in mid-air—Shen Shiyue had arrived.
He stood inside the cockpit, and even across a cold layer of the window, Jiang Chenyan could clearly feel the rolling gloom in those eyes.
Looking down at himself, he was covered in the dust from the explosions, and his shoes were stained with rubble.
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