Night’s Nomenclature-Chapter 498: Naming the Night with Daybreak

A crowded bus faced the rising sun.

Warm sunlight shone on Shinguji Maki’s small Face[-]. She occasionally glanced secretly at Qing Chen, but was captivated by the Rubik’s Cube he was turning in his hands.

The little girl thought this Older Brother was truly special.

Qing Chen didn’t look at the little girl; his gaze remained fixed outside the window. He didn’t explain why they pretended not to know each other, nor why they sat so far apart.

Thankfully, Shinguji Maki was well-behaved and didn’t ask any questions.

This little girl was so sensible, just like Qing Chen when he was a child.

That kind of humble understanding was the first survival skill life taught them.

That’s how they didn’t become annoying.

The bus stopped at Nakatsugawa City Station, Gifu Prefecture. Qing Chen first accompanied Shinguji Maki to a hospital.

The nurses and doctors seemed to know her. Upon seeing her, they greeted her warmly: “Are you here to buy medicine for your grandmother again? What a sensible little girl.”

Sensible seemed to be Shinguji Maki’s label; many people would offer a perfunctory compliment.

But only Qing Chen understood that the little girl would rather not be so sensible, that she wouldn’t mind being scolded if she acted spoiled occasionally.

The little girl walked ahead, Qing Chen followed about ten meters behind. When the little girl bought medicine at the counter, he waited outside.

He watched the little girl take out her small wallet, skillfully buying and paying for the medicine.

Next, it was his turn to buy a mountain bike.

The little girl followed silently. A float passed by on the street; it seemed some grand festival was underway.

While Qing Chen bought the bike, the little girl waited outside, her nose turning red from the cold, yet she was elated.

The process of buying the bike was quick. For Qing Chen, the mountain bike had to be of exceptional quality, so he directly bought the store’s prized possession.

A bike cost approximately 80,000 RMB. When Shinguji Maki heard the price from afar, she stuck out her tongue, thinking to herself, ‘This Older Brother is indeed rich.’

Because their family’s onsen ryokan was old and its service poor, its prices were the lowest in Bai Chuan Village.

Initially, Shinguji Maki thought Qing Chen’s financial situation wasn’t that good, which is why he chose their place.

But now, thinking back, someone who could rent an onsen ryokan in Bai Chuan Village for a month couldn’t be poor.

Qing Chen pushed the bike out of the shop. At that moment, Shinguji Maki was gazing dreamily at the parade of floats and the ramen shops along the street.

He rarely approached the little girl, asking softly, “Do you want to stay and play in Nakatsugawa?”

Shinguji Maki looked up at him incredulously, hesitating before asking, “Can I?”

But at that moment, several cars sped down the street, stopping not far away.

The cars bore the Shadow Agency logo. Several men in black suits got out and rushed into a shop facing the street.

Qing Chen frowned. He knew it wasn’t aimed at him, but he was curious about what the Shadow Agency was doing.

He saw the men seize the boss of a buckwheat noodle shop and forcibly drag him out.

The pedestrians on the street watched, someone whispering, “They’re grabbing people again!”

Qing Chen had heard online that the Japanese Shadow Agency was constantly apprehending people.

And he also knew the reason for the arrests: Shendai’s Time Travelers, using comparison charts and Inner World registration data, were creating Time Travelers.

They were taking people who appeared in both charts and the Inner World, but who couldn’t cross because of differences in location, to places where the locations overlapped, to actively substitute the Inner World people.

After the Substitution, male Time Travelers with fighting abilities would be sent to secret military bases for special training. Women and children who couldn’t fight would become mules transporting Inner World goods.

This was to increase Shendai Time Travelers’ control over the Outer World.

In China, Kunlun and Nine Provinces used the Data Fortress to protect the household registration information database.

So the Underworld Consortium couldn’t do this kind of thing, but Japan had no one protecting its household registration information database, and neither did Korea.

Japan and Korea even proactively opened their household registration databases. Kunlun once suspected that the upper echelons of these two countries also had Time Travelers, and that they had been reverse-crossed by Shendai and Koshima.

Perhaps this was also one of the reasons why Shendai and Koshima controlled more Time Travelers than Kunlun and Nine Provinces.

In the early days, Shendai’s capture of Outer World people was concentrated in the three cities of Osaka, Tokyo, and Kobe. Now it was slowly spreading to surrounding areas.

At this time, Shinguji Maki wasn’t paying attention to all this. She looked at Qing Chen expectantly, “Can we play for a while, Older Brother?”

Qing Chen glanced at the Shadow Agency’s vehicles, then calmly said, “No, let’s go home.”

He didn’t want to stay long in an area where the Shadow Agency was active.

In Osaka, keeping the Shadow Agency on edge was a strategy, but now they should be low-key.

Having said that, he pushed his bike towards the bus stop. The little girl said ‘Oh,’ a little disappointed, but she still obediently lowered her head and followed behind, keeping her distance.

At the bus stop, Qing Chen let Shinguji Maki board the bus alone, while he rode back by himself, needing to familiarize himself with the bike on a flat road.

The little girl boarded the bus alone, sitting in the last row of seats, staring longingly out the window as she watched Qing Chen ride away.

She lowered her head, waiting for the bus to start, then returned alone.

Whether or not she saw the float parade in Nakatsugawa City didn’t matter; she just didn’t want to be alone.

But just then, she heard a knock on the window.

Shinguji Maki looked up and saw Qing Chen wearing a baseball cap and a scarf, standing outside the bus.

He calmly waved to the little girl, gesturing for her to get off.

Shinguji Maki quickly got off: “Older Brother!”

Qing Chen handed her a new pair of gloves and a new scarf, saying, “Shall we go back to Bai Chuan Village together? You’ll be sitting on the crossbar, it’ll be a little cold, and the journey back will be longer, about three hours.”

Shinguji Maki smiled brightly: “It’s okay!”

On the way back, the cold wind blew fiercely against her Face[-], but the little girl didn’t care.

On either side of the black highway, distant snow-capped white mountains, and nearby clear mountain springs and streams ran alongside the road.

The little girl’s long scarf fluttered in the wind, happily waving.

Qing Chen’s life returned to tranquility. Every day he rode his mountain bike, leaving before dawn, before anyone in Bai Chuan Village woke up, heading towards the mountains.

Then he would painstakingly carry his mountain bike up the mountain. In the evening, after all the skiers returned to the ryokan, he would ride his bike back to Bai Chuan Village.

Every day, he could see the little girl from afar, sitting with her chin in her hands in front of the ryokan, waving at him.

These might have been Qing Chen’s most peaceful nine days since he time-traveled.

Calming the suffering he had endured in the Inner World.

Qing Chen was currently setting off from Ao Sui High Peak, clearing a path along the ridge, sweeping away the snow, and removing loose rocks.

Because the ridge was so steep, and because he also spent half his time practicing mountain bike handling, Qing Chen could only do a few hundred meters of meticulous cleaning work each day.

The winding ridge he needed to clear was 3.1 kilometers long, with many slopes exceeding 45 degrees.

He wasn’t in a hurry, going about his work methodically each day.

Night fell, and Qing Chen rode towards Bai Chuan Village against the cold wind.

But today was different.

When he saw the familiar onsen ryokan from afar, he didn’t see the familiar little girl.

Qing Chen fell silent.

He threw his mountain bike into the snow by the roadside and slowly walked towards the onsen ryokan, carefully listening for any sounds.

There were no breaths in the onsen ryokan.

Qing Chen opened the door and only saw Shinguji Maki’s grandmother lying on the ground, lifeless.

He immediately turned and left, knocking on the door of the neighboring onsen ryokan, calmly asking, “Hello, have you seen the little girl next door?”

The boss of this onsen ryokan was a middle-aged woman. She hesitated before saying, “You mean Maki? She was taken away by the Shadow Agency, but they haven’t left yet.”

“Where are they?” Qing Chen calmly asked.

“They went towards the east of Bai Chuan Village. It seems they have other people to capture,” the boss said, “Are you…”

Qing Chen didn’t answer, turning and leaving.

He stood on the black pebble road, quietly gazing at the end of the path east of Bai Chuan Village.

Reason told him that he shouldn’t be creating more problems before completing the Trials of Life and Death challenge.

He only needed to wait three more days, and he could clear the entire ridge and attempt to challenge the Trials of Life and Death.

Once he reached B-Class, he would be eligible to return to A02 Base and attempt to escape, and he would be eligible to return to Osaka and unleash a massacre.

No matter how powerful the Shendai Time Travelers in the Outer World were, except for a very small number of chosen ones, he was the ceiling of combat effectiveness.

If he unleashed a massacre in Bai Chuan Village now, it would certainly attract countless Shendai Time Travelers. Even if Qing Chen was decisive in killing, news of this would quickly reach Osaka.

So the best choice was to wait three more days.

But could Shinguji Maki wait three days for him?

Given the vile nature of the Shendai Time Travelers, Qing Chen didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, what they would do to Shinguji Maki in three days.

He only knew that if he really waited those three days, letting Shendai take the little girl away…

Then he wouldn’t need to complete the Trials of Life and Death anymore.

Because at that point, he wouldn’t deserve to eat the protein bars Wang Yuchao and Zhao Mingke threw to him.

He wouldn’t deserve the respect of Li Ke, Qing Yi, Nangeng Chen, Liu Dezhu, and Luo Wanya.

He wouldn’t deserve to accompany Master Li Xiurui on her last journey.

He probably wouldn’t deserve to be a Knight.

Besides courage, what was the faith of a Knight?

The boy stood on the black road, thinking, it should also be unwavering loyalty.

Unwavering loyalty, never asking for profit, only asking for the heart’s truth.

Qing Chen faced the wind and snow of the night and walked towards the east of Bai Chuan Village.

His expression was as stubborn and resolute as when he built countless stone walls in the pigsty.

Perhaps at that moment in the pigsty, he had already made up his mind. If the long night of this world would not pass on its own, then he would redefine that boundless night with Daybreak.

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