ATDIWR Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Breakup, Declaration of War, Escape

“Now, go to sleep. When you wake up, you will remember everything from today, including that I used mental control on you.” Ji An’s expression was obscured by the moonlight, not clearly visible, giving off a strange, unsettling aura.

He wanted Tang Tang to remember all of this, to remember how he took the necklace she cherished as a treasure. Then, knowing full well the necklace was with him, yet unable to retrieve it, she would suffer in anguish.

As for how he would protect himself? He had his own methods.

In fact, as long as he no longer trusted them, they couldn’t harm him at all.

Tang Tang obediently closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep, her standing body following with a crash. It sounded painful, but Ji An paid no attention.

Ji An turned and climbed out the window he had come through. Just as he landed, someone rounded the back of the house.

“Who?” Ji An narrowed his eyes slightly, a dangerous glint appearing within them.

“Mr. Ji, it’s me, Tang Tang’s cousin, Tang Ning.” Tang Ning held her hands high, indicating she had no weapons and posed no danger.

“I didn’t follow you on purpose. I heard a noise from Tang Tang’s room and didn’t dare to go over and ask. You know how bad Tang Tang is to me; she treats me like a dog she raised, on which she can vent her frustrations freely. Then I came out, wanting to see what was happening through the window, and I accidentally saw everything.”

“Including my abnormality?” Ji An didn’t directly mention his ability, fearing Tang Ning might not have seen or heard it and was just probing him.

“Yes, I heard her say you are a Mental-type power user.” Tang Ning admitted frankly.

“You’re not scared?” Tang Tang and Chen Chen were so close to him, yet they were scared after finding out. Chen Chen even began to suspect that his love for him was due to mental suggestion. But back then, it was clearly Chen Chen who pursued him relentlessly.

“Not scared.” Tang Ning answered without hesitation. “I think Tang Tang is much more terrifying than you.

She is the one who is best at pretending, a beast in human skin.

She resents me, always thinking that before the Apocalypse came, I flaunted my family’s good financial conditions in front of her.

But I didn’t at all. Her family was poor, they picked the cheapest vegetables of the day. My family had better financial conditions, so naturally, we didn’t have to consider such things; we bought whatever we wanted to eat.

She also felt that my getting into university was just to make her look even more inadequate when compared in front of relatives and friends.

But what’s wrong with me studying hard and working diligently! What was she doing when I was studying desperately?

Playing with young children. She was only about ten years old back then, just started primary school, and she already knew about dating.

Her mind was focused on studying male classmates all day; how could she possibly study well!”

Tang Ning said angrily, “I never knew being excellent was a mistake! It’s as if the excellence of the hardworking is just to highlight the inadequacy of the lazy, but in fact, the hardworking spend all their time on self-improvement. Where would they have time to pay attention to the lazy? The hardworking only want to be better versions of themselves.”

“What do you mean by telling me all this?” Ji An knew about Tang Tang’s cousin, but he had never interacted with her before.

One could say, apart from Chen Chen and Tang Tang, Ji An didn’t interact with anyone else at the Base.

Perhaps it was because he grew up in an orphanage and had seen too much of the ugly side of human relationships; Ji An disliked the human species from the bottom of his heart and resisted contact with people, avoiding it whenever possible.

This resulted in Ji An not being familiar with many people at the Base, except for Chen Chen and Tang Tang.

Naturally, he wasn’t familiar with Tang Ning either. All the information about Tang Ning was told to him by Tang Tang.

Tang Tang said that her cousin was very wicked and vain, and always bullied her before the Apocalypse.

She also said that no matter what happened in the past, now that the Apocalypse had arrived, only she and her cousin were left in their Tang family, so they should let bygones be bygones. Now that she had abilities, she should take care of her.

At that time, Ji An listened and felt that Tang Tang was truly kind, not knowing that Tang Tang letting Tang Ning live with her was to retaliate against Tang Ning and humiliate her.

Tang Ning said, “Mr. Ji, I know that after you treated Tang Tang like that and didn’t erase her memory, you definitely won’t stay at the Base anymore. I want to leave with you.”

Ji An was silent.

Tang Ning feared Ji An would misunderstand that she was using this secret to threaten him and immediately stated, “I have no intention of threatening you. Actually, I’ve always wanted to leave, but I didn’t have the courage by myself.

With you here, I dare to.

Of course, if you think I’m a burden and don’t want to take me, I swear I will absolutely not reveal this secret of yours.”

Ji An pondered for a moment, then nodded, “Okay.”

He thought that Tang Tang would definitely be very upset when she woke up and found Tang Ning had escaped. Ji An was willing to do anything that could annoy her.

“Go get a weapon,” Ji An said. “I can take you, but I am not responsible for your safety.”

“I understand. I’m very happy as long as you are willing to take me. Whether I live or die, that is my fate.” Tang Ning added, “Mr. Ji, can I have a few minutes to deal with some personal matters?”

“What do you want to do?” Ji An asked.

“Although I can’t bring myself to kill Tang Tang, I want to beat her up fiercely, just to thank her for ‘taking care’ of me during this period.”

“Three minutes, quick action.”

“Yes.” Tang Ning’s eyes lit up; the lifelessness from before was gone.

She quickly ran back, tied Tang Tang up, gagged her mouth, and gave her a fierce beating.

During this time, Tang Tang was woken up by the pain and saw that the person hitting her was Tang Ning. She was utterly disbelieving!

This person dared to hit her, was she crazy? Did she still want to stay in the Base?

Tang Ning vented her anger, grabbed an axe as a weapon, and left with Ji An.

In the night, their figures quickly disappeared.

The next morning, Chen Chen woke up and found Ji An wasn’t in the room. He didn’t think much of it, assuming he had gone out.

But Ji An hadn’t returned by evening. Then he suddenly remembered that Tang Tang also hadn’t come to see him all day. Normally, Tang Tang would pester him the moment she opened her eyes. Chen Chen initially thought Tang Tang was feeling guilty and hadn’t figured out how to tell him about the necklace. Now it seemed, with both of them disappearing simultaneously, something unexpected must have happened.

Thinking of a certain possibility, Chen Chen’s face instantly changed. He immediately ran towards Tang Tang’s house.

“Tang Tang, Tang Tang…” Chen Chen pushed open the door and shouted loudly.

“Wuwuwu…” A muffled crying sound came from the bedroom.

Chen Chen quickly ran over, kicked open the half-closed bedroom door, and saw Tang Tang lying on the floor in her pajamas, beaten black and blue.

“Who beat you up like this?” Chen Chen quickly went to help Tang Tang up and removed the ropes from her body and the foul-smelling socks that had been stuffed in her mouth for who knows how long.

“Ugh… It was Tang Ning! The one who beat me was Tang Ning.” At this moment, Tang Tang’s gentle, pure, and kind persona as a little white flower was completely gone. Her face was contorted, her expression was frenzied, and she screamed like a madwoman, “Where is that slut Tang Ning? I’m going to kill her! No, I won’t kill her, I’m going to torture her brutally, make her wish she were dead but unable to die, and then sell her to be a prostitute, forced to play with the ugliest and oldest men for the rest of her life!”

“Alright, I promise you.” Chen Chen only wanted to know where Ji An had gone now, but he still had to appease Tang Tang first.

“Tang, have you seen Ji An? He’s gone.”

The second before she was screaming like a madwoman, Tang Tang became as quiet as a chicken after hearing Ji An’s name, her expression panicked.

Just by looking at her like this, Chen Chen knew she must have seen Ji An. “You’ve seen Ji An? Where did he go?”

Tang Tang shook her head, guiltily saying, “I, I don’t know.”

Thinking of something, Chen Chen immediately looked at Tang Tang’s neck and, sure enough, it was empty.

“Where is your necklace? Was it stolen by Ji An?” Seeing that Tang Tang still refused to tell the truth at this point, Chen Chen’s face was very grim, and his attitude became very tough.

“Tang Tang, tell the truth!” Chen Chen threatened. “Otherwise, don’t blame me for not taking care of you anymore!”

Tang Tang was truly scared now. If Chen Chen really left her to fend for herself, losing her Space and Healing dual abilities, how would she survive in the Apocalypse!

“The necklace was stolen by Ji An. Last night, he snuck into my room in the middle of the night, used mental control on me with his mental ability, and then stole my necklace.” Tang Tang bit her lip, tears instantly streaming down her face. She looked frail and pitiful, swaying as if about to collapse, extremely pitiable.

This was Tang Tang’s usual tactic; as long as she used this wronged act on men, no one could escape it. Including Chen Chen.

But this time it was ineffective. Not to mention that Tang Tang’s face was beaten like a pig’s head with no aesthetic appeal, Chen Chen was just frantic right now.

Chen Chen had no thought to pity her; he grabbed Tang Tang’s shoulders, squeezing so hard that Tang Tang cried out in pain. “What is the secret of that necklace? Tell me quickly!”

Tang Tang swallowed, not daring to struggle anymore. “That necklace is actually a space…” She dared not continue speaking under Chen Chen’s fierce gaze.

“So your Space ability came from that?” Chen Chen couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Ji An had long suspected that the necklace was not simple, perhaps hiding some secret, but he never expected it to be such a huge secret!

Tang Tang was bold enough to pretend the necklace was her Space ability!

Chen Chen wanted to strangle Tang Tang right now. “Why didn’t you tell me about such a big matter earlier? Do you know how important space is to a Base?”

Such an important item was lost, and Tang Tang didn’t immediately tell him to quickly retrieve it. She even tried to gloss over it, unwilling to tell the truth.

What in the world was she thinking!

“I, I didn’t want to.” Tang Tang Shrink in fear. “Who knew Ji An would dare to steal it in the middle of the night!”

“You didn’t want to? You didn’t know? Didn’t I warn you yesterday?” Chen Chen was going crazy. How could she have the nerve to shirk responsibility when she lost the space? “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday? If you had told me, and I kept it, how could he have easily stolen it!”

It was precisely because she didn’t want to hand over the space for Chen Chen to keep that Tang Tang deliberately didn’t say anything.

“So now, do you know where Ji An went?” Chen Chen asked again.

“I don’t know.” Seeing Chen Chen’s grim face, Tang Tang quickly added, “He must have escaped. After he used mental control on me yesterday, he also asked me if we knew he had a mental ability?”

“And then? And then you told him everything?” Chen Chen was truly going mad.

“Yes,” Tang Tang said weakly. “You know, he had me under mental control. I couldn’t resist; I was his puppet. Whatever he asked, I had to answer.”

Chen Chen thought about the things he had said to Tang Tang about whether his love for Ji An was genuine or due to mental control, and he felt like the sky was turning gray.

Since Ji An could easily use mental control on Tang Tang, he could have also erased her related memories. He could have completely stolen the necklace, then erased or altered Tang Tang’s memory of this, and no one would have known he did it without a trace.

But Ji An didn’t. He didn’t erase Tang Tang’s memory, letting Tang Tang openly tell him. This was Ji An challenging him!

If you have the ability, find him and take the necklace back!

This was a breakup, and a declaration of war!