FXDL V1C7

Translated by: TaffyGirl13

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Chapter 7: To be environmentally friendly, save energy and reuse medical resources

After returning to the dorm, Fu Xing quickly went to go search for Brad. However, the roommate said that Brad had stayed in the bathroom ever since he had returned to the dorm. As a result, Fu Xing could only go again later.

When the door opened, Fu Xing was met with the sight of Brad, whose cheeks were hollow, his complexion deathly pale. There were small patches of red rashes on his skin. The worst part were his lips which had swollen into two sausages.

Oh, that’s really bad…

Fu Xing repeatedly apologised. However, while Brad did reprimand him, he did not appear to be that angry. Apparently, Zhu Yue had also called him at the dorm to express her sympathies just earlier, which might have been the reason for his good mood.

“Take note next time!”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!”

“I’m going to rest now. Don’t disturb me.”

“Please take care!” Fu Xing apologised as he retreated out from the room. The moment the door shut, he heard a faint murmur.

“Thanks…for today.”

Fu Xing was stunned for a moment before his lips curled upwards. “You’re welcome.”

 

The following days seemed to be on fast forward, instantly flying past. Halloween was practically right in front of their eyes. It wasn’t just the new students that were busy preparing for the trial; the entire school was in high spirits the entire time because the activity was starting soon. To the older students of Shalom, the Halloween activity was like a grand “exhibition” held once a year.

During his free time on Friday, Fu Xing snatched a moment amidst the business to take a break, heading towards the grass near the main bailey. By the time he arrived, Youny was already sitting there, reading a book as usual.

“It’s been crazy busy recently, and so many things have happened. But luckily, everything is proceeding smoothly.” Fu Xing impatiently shared with Youny all the events that had happened in the past week.

“Brad hurt you, yet you treated him so well.” Youny smiled, “You will suffer like that.”

“It’s fine. Not like I lost anything anyways.” He scratched his head.

Youny chuckled and said, “You can use this to have him do what you want.”

“Um, that isn’t good, right…”

“You are too simplistic.” Youny still wore his usual smile, but his tone turned sterner. “Blind and foolish benevolence will only make you weak…”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Youny continued, “I just think that you can be a bit more straightforward towards others. That way, you can reach your goals more easily.”

“Not necessarily. Like the day after I talked with Brad, he voluntarily handed over his questionnaire!”

Youny raised a brow and let out a chuckle. “So that’s possible too…

“What is?” Although Fu Xing had known Youny for a while, there were still some times when he could not understand Youny’s words.

However, special animate beings had different personalities from humans in the first place, so it was not anything he particularly minded.

“Nothing.” Youny smiled in enjoyment, as if he had discovered some novelty. “You’re very good this way, keep it up.”

“Oh.”

“In that case, have you encountered anything troublesome recently? Such as new orders or tests?”

“Nope.” Fu Xing tilted his head as he pondered over this. “It’s just that, up until now, I still don’t know how to get along with Leon. We’re roommates, but he’s always going out and speaks coldly to me. Hm, his personality was originally like that, so maybe I’m asking for too much.”

“Do you want to become friends with him?”

“If possible, of course that would be great!”

“Hm. Is that so.” Youny stood up and dusted off pants. “I must leave.”

“Oh, good-bye.” Fu Xing was already used to Youny coming and going like the wind. He waved good-bye to the other person.

“Remember, keep holding onto your simplicity,” Youny chuckled as he said this, then left without even a backward glance.

 

There was still one week until Halloween. In the evening meeting, 1-C had already planned out their general line of actions, and the critical mechanisms had been arranged, allocated to small groups to each split up and complete the work. The entire process was already around eighty percent complete. Everyone in the class had participated except for one person: Leon.

Leon had chosen very few classes. Aside from the compulsory classes, he was rarely seen. Moreover, Leon would often be absent even in the mandatory classes, let alone attend any of the class meetings. Even Fu Xing, his roommate, was rarely active at the same time as Leon because of their different daily routines.

They had two consecutive days off, yet Fu Xing still had not seen a trace of Leon. Fu Xing had asked the other darkblood members of their class, but no one knew of Leon’s whereabouts. What kind of important activity is he doing, exactly? So mysterious. He sighed as he looked at the vacant spot on the work allocation list.

On Sunday, Fu Xing, Emerald, and the others gathered to discuss the checkpoint set-up. They spent the remaining time in the classroom, helping the other small groups in class progress. The two days’ time passed by in an instant.

In the early morning hours of Monday, an abnormal noise came from their dorm’s living room, waking Fu Xing from his sleep.

Fu Xing checked his alarm clock; it was around four in the morning, when night and day intersected. A faint, hazy glow peeked out from behind the layers of clouds outside the window.

…Is it Leon?

Collision noises rang out from the living room once again. Fu Xing rubbed his eyes and got up to walk out of the bed area.

The living room was dark, making it difficult to discern anything. Fu Xing fumbled around in the dark to look for the light switch. Just as he neared its spot on the wall, he kicked something soft, and a low groan sounded out.

“Who’s there?! What is it?!” He frantically patted the wall and found the switch jutting out, then pressed it.

When the light filled the room, Fu Xing got a clear look of the noise’s source, which was also what he had kicked.

It was his roommate, Leon. Just like usual, his face was stern and cold. It was just that his body that was typically held tall and straight was instead now broken like a puppet, paralysed on the ground.

The snow-white uniform shirt was dyed scarlet by fresh blood…

Fu Xing leapt aside in panic. His bare feet stepped onto Leon’s blood, and he could feel the stickiness on the bottoms of his feet.

That’s…Leon’s blood!

What happened?

He crouched down and softly pushed Leon. Fortunately, the other person’s heart was still beating. It was just that his breathing was extremely rushed and uneven.

“Are you alright?!”

Leo’s eyes were tightly squeezed shut. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he let out a faint groan.

“Hold on a bit, I’ll go look for a teacher!” Fu Xing immediately stood up. But just as he was about to stride forwards, a force wrapped around his ankle.

“Leon?” Fu Xing turned his head to see Leon clutching his foot.

“Don’t…tell others…” Leon struggled to speak. At the moment, his pupils had already turned dark red, like blood.

“But you’re seriously injured!”

“Don’t tell others!” Leon strongly roared out, then immediately went back to panting on the ground in pain. “My wounds will recover by themselves…”

“Then what should I do?”

“Nothing at all. You can’t help…” Leon coughed for a while, spitting out some blood. “Return to your bed, do your own business, don’t care about me…”

Fu Xing stared at Leon. Even when critically hurt, this arrogant darkblood was still preserving his haughty stance, stubbornly clinging onto his self-pride until death.

It was quite admirable, but also very stupid.

Fu Xing hesitated for a while before making his decision. He took a deep breath and bent down to pull Leon’s arm over his shoulder. “I’ll help you onto your bed to rest.”

“No need!”

“What if you die? As if I’d just watch helplessly and let my own dorm room become a haunted house!” Fu Xing gritted his teeth as he put on a brave face and loudly retorted back. It wasn’t like Leon could counter while so heavily injured anyways. Right now, he was in charge inside their dorm!

Fu Xing slowly stood, supporting Leon’s body upright and half-carrying-half-dragging the other person over to the bed area. On the way there, Leon kept his mouth shut without saying a word. That did not mean Leon approved of Fu Xing’s actions; rather, he was enduring the pain from his wounds as they were moving.

Once Leon was laid down in his bed, he let out a heavy exhale.

“You need medical treatment.” Fu Xing looked at the blood that had dripped on the floor along their way. He earnestly asked, “How exactly did this happen?”

“None of your business.”

“Then I’ll just go find a teacher.” He would not lose in a contest of wilfulness.

“If you want to find someone, you can…but before then, I’ll leave here…” Leon fiercely threatened.

Fu Xing shook his head in exasperation. “You really just love causing trouble…”

He left Leon’s bed area. Five minutes later, he returned to his previous spot with a first-aid kit and a basin.

“What did you come back in here for!”

“To help treat you!” Is there a need to be so vicious?! You’re starting to be more and more like Brad!

Fu Xing picked up scissors and walked towards Leon, then cut the blood-soaked clothes away. Once he ripped away the cloth, he saw a deep wound that stretched from the rib bone at the front of the chest all the way to the waist.

Ugh…it really is serious. Even with such a heavy injury, he’s still trying to hold himself together.

“Don’t do anything dumb…” Leon weakly warned as he glared at Fu Xing.

“Relax, this first-aid kit was given to me by the medical centre.” Fu Xing opened the kit and took out each bottle to look at their labels. “Good thing Brad’s beating sent me to the hospital last time. The nurse seemed worried that the situation would happen again and just directly gave me a medical kit so that I could easily treat myself. It’s perfect for you to use now. These are all special medicines concocted by the medical centre; they have great effects.”

“I don’t need you to mind my business…”

“If you have a way to stop me, go ahead.” Relying on Leon’s injury rendering him unable to retaliate, Fu Xing’s words were much more aggressive than usual. It was a taste of getting revenge by seizing the right opportunity.

“I can only do this. If you’re willing to go see a doctor, you should be able to recover very quickly.” Fu Xing stowed the first-aid kit away, then cleared away the tattered, dirtied clothes. “Take better care of yourself.”

After tidying everything up, Fu Xing was about to head out. When he turned the doorknob, Leon’s questioning voice rang out. “Where are you going?”

Fu Xing looked back towards Leon’s bed area to see the other person lying in bed while sternly glaring at him.

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. Just watch yourself.” He had already done what he should have done. He could not do anything if Leon still didn’t trust him.

 

After morning discussion finished, Fu Xing headed to the dining hall early to quickly eat lunch. As he left, he grabbed two set meals of stewed meat along the way.

With the food boxes, he returned to the dorm in apprehension. On the one hand, he was worried about the obstinate Leon leaving the room while he had been away. On the other hand, he was worried that, upon recovering physical strength, Leon would come looking for revenge for this morning.

If I had known earlier, I would’ve given Leon sleeping medicine first…

Then, unexpectedly, Leon was still in the room. Moreover, he was quietly laying in bed, in deep sleep.

Fu Xing quietly walked over to the bed area and placed the food boxes on Leon’s desk. He then left a piece of paper and hurriedly exited the room.

Leon’s willingness to endure the pain rather than let Fu Xing say anything clearly meant that the cause of the accident was extremely important, maybe even surpassing the limit of the school’s regulations.

In this type of situation, the correct procedure should have been to contact the instructors. However, Fu Xing could guess what that result would be: Leon would be taken away to receive good medical treatment, then get punished. Afterwards, he would never return to the dorm room again, and possibly not even appear in class.

Such a conclusion would truly be horrible. Only a mentally twisted tattletale would enjoy it.

In his free period during the afternoon, Fu Xing ran over to the grass near the main bailey in search of Youny for help. Unfortunately, Youny was not there.

When his afternoon class ended, Fu Xing used an excuse to decline eating with Emerald and the others, running off to the dorms alone after getting three meals for takeout. Wonder if Leon’s awake or not…

When he opened the door, the room’s lights were on. He walked towards Leon’s bed area.

The bed area was completely empty, with no sign of anyone to be seen.

“Bastard!” Running around before recovering from injury; does have that little trust in me?!

“Are you talking about me?”

A low voice rang out. Fu Xing looked back to see Leon standing behind him, hair dripping wet.

“You were showering?”

“Mn.”

“Is it alright for the injury to touch water?”

“The skin has mostly healed. It’s just the internal muscle tissues that haven’t recovered yet.” Leon stared at Fu Xing for a moment before indifferently stating, “Your medicine is quite effective…”

“Is that so.” Fu Xing sighed in relief. Through the corner of his eye, he glanced at the trash can next to Leon’s desk and saw the two empty food boxes.

Leon ate the lunch I prepared for him! He suddenly felt a faint emotion rise in his heart, as if he had tamed an intractable, wild beast.

“Are you hungry? I brought dinner back!” Fu Xing placed the pile of take-out boxes on Leon’s desk. “I read that beef has high nutritional value for darkbloods, so I helped you order some beef meal seats. If you don’t like it, just put up with it a bit. I didn’t tell anyone about you, so you can rest easy.”

After saying this, Fu Xing turned around to head back to his own bed area to read magazines while eating.

“What kind of reward do you wish to obtain in exchange?” Leon suddenly spoke up.

“What?” Fu Xing looked back and saw Leon gazing at him with a profound look, like a judge examining a suspect. “It’s not like I’m doing this to gain any reward.”

“You do not have any obligation to take care of me. Why should you treat me so well?”

“Oh, it’s not like I have any obligation not to take care of you either.” Fu Xing shrugged. “I’m not that grand. If you weren’t my roommate, I would’ve directly called an instructor over to bring you away without bothering to look after you.”

“What exactly is your objective?” Leon inquired with a piercing glare pointed at Fu Xing.

This person is seriously narrow-minded! Speculating about other’s upright intentions with his own mean way of thinking!

“This is my room too! If a wild dog ran in here and peed all over your bed area, it would still upset me even though my territory wasn’t the one that was dirtied! You were lying half-dead on the floor and getting blood everywhere, how could I not care?” Fu Xing turned his body to point a finger at the living room floor. “Here, here, here! Do you see that? The carpet is covered in your blood. Once you’re recovered, you’d better clean it up yourself!”

“You could find an instructor to come handle things, there’s no need to cover up for me.”

“Oi! You were the one that forbid me from telling others!” So ridiculous!

“Why did you listen?” Leon suspiciously asked, “If I had gotten injured as a result of committing a crime outside, anyone that covers for me would be dealt with as an accomplice.”

“That does make sense.” Fu Xing scratched his head. “But I don’t think you would do anything super outrageous.”

“On what basis can you be certain of that?”

“I said such stupid things on the first day of school, yet you never bothered me about it. Plus, the darkbloods in class highly respect you, so I don’t believe you’re a bad person.”

Leon gazed at Fu Xing without saying a word.

“You eat dinner first. I’ll help you apply medicine and [re]bandage later.”

Leon’s expression was very complicated, which made Fu Xing feel a bit awkward.

“Your way of thinking is too naïve.” Leon slowly said, “You will land yourself in dangerous situations like that.”

“I don’t think that far, it’s too troublesome.” He could only take control of whatever happened in the present. He rarely assessed how things would develop afterwards.

“Thank you.”

Fu Xing froze in place, staring at Leon blankly. Leon had thanked him?

Ignoring Fu Xing’s reaction, Leon walked over to the desk by himself and began to eat his dinner without minding the other.

Fu Xing returned to his senses and a light smile filled his face as he brought his dinner to his own bed area.

Ooooh, it’s another tsundere….

After dinner, Fu Xing helped Leon reapply the medicine and bandage the wound. In the morning, the cut had still been mutilated bloody flesh. Now, it had already closed for the most part, the dried blood and remaining medicine closing up the cut to form a protective layer.

“Is this a blade wound?” Fu Xing stared at the straight cut as he casually asked, “You duelled someone?”

Darkbloods were masters of swordsmanship; quite well-known among special animate beings. As they did not possess sharp claws or other attack-type body parts like other races, they were extremely practiced with weapons.

“It was revenge.”

“The opponent was someone from your race?”

“No, a human.”

Fu Xing paused for a moment before hesitantly asking, “Was it…White Triangle?”

Leon looked down at Fu Xing without replying directly. However, the answer was certain.

Fu Xing recalled what the instructor had said in class: White Triangle was a name given by special animate beings. It was an organisation constituted of humans, formally called “World Sanctification Court”, with the members referred to as sanctifiers. Their established objective was to eliminate unclean things from this world and return the world to its pure state.

“Um, so you’re saying there are sanctifiers near Shalom?”

“No. I was still investigating their whereabouts. I went to Austria last Friday since I heard sanctifiers had appeared there.”

“Then this injury is…?”

“The school forbids students from students leaving the country at will, so I secretly left school. I previously discovered a space near the Forbidden Tower where there is a hole in the defence system. I’ve been going in and out of there.” Leon looked down at the injury on his abdomen. “Originally, everything was fine. But when I came back this time, I was suddenly attacked by a spell.”

“Is that so?” Fu Xing nodded. “In that case, what did you come to Shalom for? Wouldn’t it be easier to independently move around outside?”

“Because Shalom has many resources.” Leon’s gaze shifted towards the bookshelf that was filled with books. “I can learn more here and make myself stronger. In addition, I can receive quite a bit of information through exchange inside the school.”

“Your reason for entering the school was only to increase your capabilities for getting your own revenge?”

Leon paused for a second, then nodded.

“I see…” Fu Xing did not know what to say, remaining silent for a while.

Such a cruel and cold world was too distant from the one that he knew.

“Why tell me this?” Fu Xing curiously asked. “You’re not worried that I’ll tell others?”

“No.” Leon put on his shirt. “You’re an accomplice; talking about it would be disadvantageous to you as well.”

“That’s true too.” Fu Xing packed up the first-aid kit and returned to his own bed area.

Knowing Leon’s situation, the feeling of discontent from before was immediately dispersed, only to be replaced with sympathy.

If my family member was also maliciously murdered, maybe I would become as reclusive and detached as Leon…

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