XG 123 - Wasting my time is worth it
They reached the basement third floor and Kang Xunsu asked for her reason again. "What's the actual reason? You actually want to beat up Nanse under the guise of talking to him?"
"Tempting, but no."
"Your father did a good job torturing the kid just for the sake of revenge. There's nothing important to get from him, other than knowing how he awakened his ability. He's the natural type. Boss would have continued if because he had to awaken his gene and fly to Zinnia."
"... Is Woojin still able to answer questions properly?"
"Should be? Even if he died, I think no one would care."
Wong Xue Guo's eyes lowered, thinking that was a sad thing. "Teacher Jang would care."
Kang Xunsu stopped in front of a door with a guard standing in front of it. "That Jang fella is bargaining with the directors for Woojin to be spared. With Chin Chun there, the discussion will not be good for Teacher Jang."
Wong Xue Guo does not have the opportunity to ask why when Kang Xunsu had already asked the guard to let them in. If it was Kang Xunsu alone, he would never be allowed in.
"Director Wong told us to allow Miss Wong to meet the prisoner if she ever comes," the guard explained before unlocking the door.
Am I given permission to vent my anger or something?
Before they entered, Wong Xue Guo told Kang Xunsu not to interfere no matter what she and Woojin did. He can only cut in if she loses consciousness. He agreed after she promised she would not be in danger, and even threatened to find another bodyguard to accompany her before he agreed with her.
In a small room, Woojin was handcuffed, laying on a thin bed with no bed frame, and being the only furniture in the room. This service was worse than the prison cell in the movies she had seen but it was cleaner. The white walls feel a bit like a mental hospital ward.
Is it a coincidence that their lab had a suitable room to host a prisoner?
There were bruises on Woojin, but it was not as bad as she had expected him to be. He never reacted to their presence and continued laying down on the bed, staring into the space blankly. His pose was very different from the one in his memory, who was more expressive of his emotions by curling up into a ball and crying.
The guard closed the door, giving them privacy and tacitly agreed to be deaf to whatever sounds he would hear soon.
Wong Xue Guo does not mind being ignored and approached Woojin. Stopping not too close, and also not too far, she started the conversation. "Strange, aren't you curious how Teacher Jang is doing?"
Wong Xue Guo was plenty satisfied to see Woojin finally react, even if it was just a small twitch of his feet.
"We have worked hard to keep your Teacher Jang alive. What do you think?"
Glaring so intensely as if he wished for her to drop dead, Woojin finally sat up. "I remember you are the one that shot him."
"Oh no!" Wong Xue Guo waved her hands in denial. "You are the one I want to shoot, not him. Let's be fair in this blaming business and accept whatever factors we could not account for. And...Your friend had stabbed me in return. So it's fair."
"That isn't fair. You shot two bullets. One hit me and another hit Teacher Jang. You only got injured once!" Woojin contested.
"But we helped Teacher Jang. Isn't that fair now?" And she was pierced by a thick wood. How can that be compared to a bullet wound?
Woojin's fingers twitched. "Release us and I will not do anything to you."
"If you say it like that, my bodyguard might decide to just kill you now to prevent any future dangers," Wong Xue Guo advised.
That fake kindness angered Woojin. "What else do you want from me? I have told you everything you want to know about this 'Lord' person. Who is he?"
"Likely the one that created these zombies."
Woojin laughed under his breath. "Then I have to thank him for creating this new world."
Wong Xue Guo naturally knew why he would feel that way. "Even if it endangers your beloved teacher's life? From the test, we conclude that your teacher does not have what it takes to survive if a zombie happens to bite him."
Woojin's expression changed. "I'm thankful to that guy and have no opinion on whether the virus should continue to spread or not. It's your business if you guys want to stop it."
"How is it that it's only our business? It's Teacher Jang's business too," Wong Xue Guo insisted. "He's a weak human, and your ability is only useful towards humans. Zombies won't feel anything."
"You think you could threaten me with him?"
"What if I say I'm here to seek cooperation... with some insurance?"
Woojin sneered. "Did they think I would agree just because they sent a pretty girl to talk to me?"
"I would look down on you if you did succumb to my appearance. But I do thank you for praising my looks." And no one knew what she was doing now. This was all her own risky idea without consulting anyone.
"Then you know you are wasting your time."
"My time... hmm, you are right. I'm here just because I saw something in you that I believe wasting my time is worth it."
Woojin was staring at her as if she was stupid, and Kang Xunsu shared the same sentiment with the piercing look on the back of her head.
"What the fuck do you want? Use my ability to conquer other bases?" Woojin spat harshly.
"Ah, that you have to ask the directors' opinion. The cooperation I speak of is between you and me."
"What?" Woojin grew wary when Wong Xue Guo started smiling creepily. His eyes widened when she suddenly moved forward, so sudden and swift, that it brought out the fear in him. Especially when she wrapped her hands around his throat and started to apply pressure.
"What did you do to your parents?" Wong Xue Guo's body jerked when Woojin's hands grabbed onto hers and used his ability to push her away.
"Get off!"
Her breathing slightly hitched from the onslaught of his ability, but with sheer will and fake bravado, she pressed on, "You couldn't have burned your parents too? Just like you did to that 'young master' or his gang. Are you that unsympathetic to their problems as their son? They have fed you, clothed you, even served such trashy rich people just to earn money for you to live well."
"Unsympathetic? They should be sympathetic to me! I'm the one that gets beaten every day!" Woojin roared in anger and his unbalanced emotion once again received the backlash of his ability.
Woojin's ability could cause a person's fear to resurface from the bottom of their heart, where they could not sink it back down until he pulled back his ability from them. But what no one knew was that, at the beginning of his Awaken period, he was forced to experience the victim's fear along with them as he used his ability.
There would always be fear in his heart whenever he needed to use his ability, and it was also during that period he often received backlash from his own ability.
Despite that, he refused to give up on using his ability and constantly found a way to get around it. After months of mental torture, he was finally able to cut off his empathetic connection from his victims.
With the backlash, Wong Xue Guo had an easier time withstanding Woojin's ability. As his ability backlashes, her consciousness was pulled, similar to the feeling of how she had been pulled away from Woojin's memories.
She did not resist that feeling and let it grab her to where it wanted. Just like what she had seen in the six days coma, she could once again view Woojin's memory, only that she was now wide awake.
But unlike how it was in her dreams where she remained as a spectator, she was now in Woojin's shoes, feeling everything he had felt in his painful memories.
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