Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 119: Chu Tianjiao (8)

Dragon Raja 4

“This place used to be the air-conditioning room and a temporary storage area. When Old Chu started working here, he mentioned he didn’t have a place to live, so the boss set him up in this basement temporarily. I was the one who took him out to buy bedding. We thought it was just a temporary arrangement, but he ended up living here for years,” the man explained. “The conditions were terrible—no windows, and when the factory was running, the whole place reeked of kerosene.”

“Was his salary that low?”

“Drivers for the boss get paid decently, especially with overtime. But Old Chu wanted to save up money. Even though his son took his ex-wife’s surname, Chu still felt obligated to pay for the wedding.”

Nono nodded slightly, already starting to build a profile in her mind. Step by step, she was closing in on the man named Chu Tianjiao.

“Here we are.” The man stopped in front of a metal-clad door.

He squinted as he fumbled through the keys, trying several before a loud click signaled the door unlocking.

“Step back a little—I’m afraid mice might have made a nest in there.” The man covered his nose and mouth with a tissue and slowly pushed the door open.

To their surprise, the room was quite clean, and the air was fresher than the hallway. There wasn’t much inside—just a double bed, a bedside table, a desk with a chair, and a small refrigerator. One corner of the room had steel wires strung across for drying clothes. The floor was cement, and the walls were bare. Everything was neat and orderly, the bedding arranged perfectly, and no discarded instant noodle bowls were lying around. It didn’t look like a bachelor’s living quarters at all.

“Not bad, not bad. Old Chu was a clean guy. He never kept food in here, so mice weren’t interested in coming in,” the man said.

“Can I stay here alone for a bit?”

“Sure, sure.”

The door closed, the wind stopped flowing, and the compressor noise was muffled.

Nono paced slowly, carefully inspecting every item in the small room. On the bedside table was a photograph—no surprise, it was a family portrait. The woman was radiant, and the boy looked about four or five. The man, dressed in a white shirt and woolen trousers, had slicked-back hair and a proud expression as he held the woman’s waist. The woman was a younger Su Xiaoyan, and the man had to be Chu Tianjiao. He had a decently handsome face, the kind you’d expect from a man living a modest but comfortable life in a second-tier city.

Was that boy Chu Zihang? Nono stared at the child in the photo. His innocent face seemed unfamiliar.

She found a few magazines—common ones like Zhiyin and Story Club. Chu Tianjiao’s tastes were quite mainstream.

On the desk, there were a few receipts for meals, massages, and sauna sessions—probably expenses he’d covered for the boss. One receipt even bore the name “Alibaba Foot Massage Parlor.”

Nono lit a small alcohol lamp she had brought and sprinkled some benzoin powder into the flame. As the scent filled the room, she sat cross-legged on the uncomfortable bed, closed her eyes, and began to construct an image of Chu Tianjiao in her mind. What kind of person could live in a basement like this for years, cut off from the world, listening to the monotonous hum of compressors?

He was a paradox, his traits in conflict with each other. No matter how much she focused, the feeling remained elusive. After so many years, Chu Tianjiao was no longer in this world, yet the traces he left behind still played a game of hide-and-seek with Nono.

Gradually, a blurry figure seemed to enter her consciousness, but it merely wandered through the room, doing nothing, like a fleeting wind.

Nono had to focus harder, pushing herself into a deeper state of profiling. Ever since she lost control in the wine cellar and plunged into the depths of her own consciousness, she had been afraid of deep profiling. And now, she was alone. If something went wrong, there would be no one to wake her up. But she was still willing to take the risk. A strange, inexplicable anxiety and frustration filled her, as if the evil spirit chasing Lu Mingfei was now after her.

Her consciousness floated between wakefulness and dreams, chaotic images flooding her mind. Suddenly, she heard the sound of rain, her body trembling slightly.

A night, light rain, a long-distance bus pulling slowly into the station. A man stepped off, carrying a heavy suitcase… She seemed to be witnessing Chu Tianjiao from many years ago, when he had just arrived in this city. His trench coat, the suitcase, his sharp gaze, and the long hair partially covering his eyes—all of him felt like a walking blade. This man wasn’t local; he had come from a faraway place, arriving as if on the run, just like they were now—alone and exiled.

This profiling result was bizarre. She was facing a room with barely any useful information, yet it felt as though she could smell the thick scent of smoke clinging to the man’s coat.

Autumn leaves, wet and fallen on his shoulders. Chu Tianjiao wandered through the city’s dark streets, sitting at a roadside stall. He ordered a bottle of beer and some braised dishes. Under the dim light of an acetylene lamp, the man in the black trench coat calmly ate braised pork intestines. His heavy suitcase sat at his feet, and he looked both downcast and strikingly handsome—handsome like…

Nono’s eye twitched. The mental strain was immense, and her head felt like it was about to split open. But opportunities like this were rare. It was as if she was tracing back through time, following Chu Tianjiao as he first arrived in the city. Everything felt vivid—the environment, the details. Yet, his figure remained blurred, surrounded by a hazy outline.

The rain grew heavier, the acetylene flame flickered, and the sound of water surrounded her—splish, splash, splish, splash.

Suddenly, she felt like she was underwater, her nose and mouth filling with water, even flooding into her brain. She gasped for air, but something cold and metallic held her tightly, and she couldn’t break free. Her vision turned blood red, her throat filled with the taste of iron.

Just when she thought she would die, the metal device lifted her from the water. Red and white lights flickered in her vision, and a mechanical voice spoke above her head: “Execution #17 complete. Suffocation duration: 45 seconds. Frigg-03, you may begin your statement.”

Frigg-03? Statement? Where am I?

Nono’s mind spun in chaos. Before she could catch her breath, the metal device plunged her back into the water. “Frigg-03 refuses to answer. Execution #18 begins.”

“Execution #18 complete. Suffocation duration: 47 seconds. Frigg-03, you may begin your statement.”

“Execution #19 complete. Suffocation duration: 59 seconds. Frigg-03, you may begin your statement.”

Over and over, the suffocation repeated. The mechanical voice never changed. The intensity increased, the pain surrounding her felt like it was ripping every cell apart.

Something was terribly wrong—her profiling had gone out of control. She knew she was trapped in a nightmare, but she couldn’t escape, and there was no one to wake her.

At last, after being suspended in darkness for what felt like ages, blood dripped from her nose into the water, forming ripples. When the water calmed, a clear reflection appeared. The girl in the reflection wore blood-stained white clothes, her one remaining eye bloodshot, her mouth twisted in a grim smile. “Don’t waste your time… I don’t remember anything… Just kill me and start over…” Her wet red hair clung to her, her vacant yet stubborn eyes stared back, and her bloody teeth gleamed in the grimace.

That girl is me!

How could such a strange memory exist in her mind? It was a scene of cold, endless torture. The machine was designed to bring someone to the edge of death through suffocation, asking questions just before breaking their spirit. But how could this happen to her? She might not want to go home, but she was still the eldest daughter of the Chen family, the cherished pearl of Mr. Chen, one of the most prominent figures in the world of hybrids. Who would dare use torture on her? If such a thing happened, her father would make the perpetrator pay tenfold, dunking their head into a steel furnace. Yet, the memory was vivid—the suffocating pain, like a knife carving it into the deepest part of her brain.

“Frigg-03 refuses to answer. Increase intensity. Execution #45 begins,” said the cold mechanical voice.

The suffocating feeling washed over her again. This time, it seemed endless. Her will to survive finally collapsed. She felt herself sinking deeper into the abyss, the surface of the water shimmering with firelight. She could hear many people calling her name, but she sank alone into the eternal, endless depths. Spirits rose from the abyss, hand in hand, dancing around her, singing songs to welcome the dead as they pulled her down deeper and deeper. She knew she was going to die, and she wanted to cry, to call for her mother, but she could only reach out into the void, unable to grasp anything.

Then, suddenly, a deafening roar sounded from above. A massive, burning giant’s face descended from the sky, grotesque and terrifying, its eyes glowing like giant lanterns.

It was so immense that it filled her entire vision. Its tears were molten lava, sending up clouds of steam as they met the water.

The giant roared, “Get away! Get away! Get away! Defiers of fate shall die!”

The spirits screamed in terror and dissolved into black smoke. Nono was freed, and a tremendous force lifted her upwards. The world trembled under the roar of the god.

It felt like someone was holding her, pressing their face gently against hers, whispering in her ear, “Don’t die… don’t die… don’t die…”

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