Chapter 2

The night is snowy and incredibly chilling. A beautiful woman runs through a snow-covered alley, clutching a bundle wrapped in swaddling cloths to her chest. Despite the cold, she is only wearing a threadbare black robe that is already covered with snow. The way she flees, panic stricken, it is as if she is pursued by death itself. She stumbles frequently as she runs, almost falling over several times.

Judging by her ruddy complexion, it is likely that this woman has been running for quite some time. The alley is dark, the only light being that reflected by the snow, and silent except for the faint crunches she makes every time her foot contacts the snow-covered ground.‘This will not work,’ the woman thinks desperately. On such a cold and snowy night, even if she escapes the enemy that is no doubt tracking her snowy footprints, the little baby in her arms will not survive.

Finally, fear for her baby overcomes the extreme fear of her pursuers. The woman stops and carefully shifts the bundle in her arms, using the light reflecting off the snow to look through a small gap in the swaddle that she has opened.

Sure enough, the face of her tiny baby is blue with cold, the vapour of his breath as thin as gossamer. Though he looks as if he wishes to cry heartily, because of the extreme weakness due to cold he can only cry “Eyah, eyah,” faintly.

At this sight the woman’s eyes are filled with tears that overflow onto the baby’s face. The tears rapidly freeze after coming into contact with the child’s face—it shows just how cold it is.

Zeno was suffocating. Suddenly, a sliver of light appeared in front of him, and he greedily breathed in the newly available air. There was no sensation of the woman’s teardrops on his face because the feeling in his skin had long been lost to the cold.

His hands and feet are frozen stiff; he cannot move even a single finger.

Zeno is able to vaguely understand the situation he is in, though he has no idea why he has suddenly become a baby, or why they were running, but he intuitively knows—they are in danger.

If this continues, Zeno may also die of cold and starvation just like the original little baby. Zeno can only helplessly await the death that will allow him to escape from this absurd situation. He is sure that he will then be able to open his eyes to the familiar sight of his own bedroom.

He decided to turn his attention to his thoughts, the goal being that he won’t look any weaker to the woman than he already does. After seeing the state she is in, Zeno does not wish to add to her worries. Suddenly he hears the woman cry out, “Who is there!?”

Zeno laboured to turn his eyes and found a very young, about only * -year-old (t/n: age not specified in the raws) had come into view. He emerged slowly from behind a trashcan on high alert.

The boy’s entire body is tense, his hands wrapped tightly around the handle of a rusty knife. He looked ready to fight tooth and nail to protect himself at any second.

The woman gawked; she did not expect that the one to appear would be a beggar. The skinny beggar was clearly no threat to her. A woman who can run for so long in the snow, and with such thin clothing, would naturally have a martial arts foundation.

She looked at the ragged boy in front of her and his indifferent eyes, and then looked down at baby doomed to die, and a bold idea began to take form.

If staying with her meant that this baby was sentenced to share her fate, then she should give him to someone else. Once this idea comes into her mind, it takes off like a prairie fire and reduces all other thoughts to ash.

Although the small beggar in front of her is not the best candidate, she does not have the time or the freedom to search out someone better. Not to mention, regular people within the community are easier to trace and new family members easy to notice, but the beggar is unremarkable and garners no attention.

Thinking through it more, the woman’s gaze becomes firm, and she walks a few steps closer to the little beggar. Seeing her approach, he draws back looking terrified, gripping his knife even tighter.

The woman draws to a stop a few steps away from little beggar and asks sadly, “You … are you willing to adopt this child?

The small beggar’s ice-cold expression breaks, flashing a momentary look of surprise.

Zeno also found it absurd to ask a child, who was obviously barely able to survive, seemingly on a whim. However, it clearly highlights just how dire the situation is, forcing a mother into making such a desperate choice.

Aware of the ludicrous nature of her request, she anxiously adds, “I will not ask this of you for nothing, I will pay you.”

Her face is tight with panic that she cannot conceal.

The little beggar remains silent. In fact, the only reason he has not already escaped this situation is because he is aware that this woman has no way out and is facing great peril.

The woman does not even have time to wait for the boy’s answer.

She took another two steps forward, forcibly placing the tightly wrapped bundle in her arms into the hands of the little beggar. She immediately removes a plain, dark ring from her finger, seized the little beggar’s hand, and forced the ring onto one of his fingers.

The little beggar did not attempt to dodge – there is no way he could. He silently holds the tiny bundle in his arms, watching the woman as she puts the ring on his fingers, unclasps her cloak and wraps it around him, and the finally pulls a jade pendant from around her neck and gently tucks it into the swaddling cloths.

“Please, let him live,” the young mother sobbed. “He doesn’t need luxury. Even if he is a beggar as well, I just want him to live.”

After having to say such a thing, the mother burst into tears and sorrowfully kissed Zeno’s cheek. Then, after a quick glance at the two, she ruthlessly pushed the little beggar, carrying her son, into a trashcan on the roadside and quickly covered them with the lid.

“Do not come out,” the two children in the bin heard her say. “Do not make a sound before dawn.”

The crunching footsteps quickly faded away, and a suffocating silence ensconced the small trashcan.

This quiet did not last long. A short while later a woman’s scream of despair pierced the silence, and the ensuing calm carried a hint of bloodshed.

Zeno’s mind is chaos, and the present events are giving him a strong sense of déjà vu. This is clearly the introduction to ah!

As a qualified addict, Zeno immediately recognized the moment that he had always read from the comfort of his room. (t/n: Not too sure if this is right, I took a lot of liberties here)

The baby and his unlucky mother are the first two characters in the novel , but also the first two to take the so-called easy way out. Yes, two.

There is no such thing as Zeno randomly crossing over into the original text, and the baby draws his last breath in the trash can, clutched in the little beggar’s arms.

This unidentified mother and son appear only briefly in the book, their brief encounter seems to be due to the golden finger of the protagonist. The origin of those two was never mentioned and, yes, that seemingly plain ring is the protagonist Xi Wei’s first fateful acquisition towards his future.

This young beggar, who is alert despite the indifferent expression on his face, is in fact the protagonist of , Xi Wei.

Zeno is glad to have survived, but recalls that in the book Xi Wei discovers that the baby is dead and leaves him in the trashcan.

However, he is still not dead! Still, no one has said that he cannot lose his life.

It’s not right, how could you throw me away! QAQ

From the depths of his heart, Zeno just wants to cry. He is uncomfortable, barely conscious, freezing cold, and incredibly weak. He does not want to believe the baby’s mother is gone; desperately hoping she will once again come into is field of vision. He is not ready to be left in this strange world, a victim to the whims of fate.

Perhaps the baby’s body is particularly sentimental, because he actually begins sobbing softly. Although the small whimpers are too weak to truly be considered crying, he genuinely has tears falling down his face.

The lid of the trashcan was not completely closed – otherwise the two children would suffocate. Along with the day’s first light, the reflection of the snow penetrated into the small gap beneath the lid of the trashcan, which was unfortunately filled with a peculiar rancid stench.

Xi Wei looked flatly at the small creature folded in his arms, staring silently for a length of time before he spoke, “Do not make a sound.” His desire for silence was the reason he did not speak until this moment. His voice was immature and raspy, his speech inarticulate, “If you do not want your mother to have died in vain.”

Zeno did not make any acknowledgement of his words. Xi Wei’s words seemed to be his thoughts spoken aloud based on how quietly he murmured them.

It was apparent the baby did not understand his words, and continued to moan. Xi Wei’s eyes flashed coldly for a moment, then reasoned that it was unlikely the baby could understand his words—in fact that would be too strange, and his expression softened.

This thought of ‘strange’ unexpectedly hit on the truth, but Xi Wei left that line of thought without looking back.

As they waited, the sky continued to lighten bit by bit. It seemed that the luck of the two children was not bad, and they had not yet met with any danger. However, people like the woman’s killers were not the type to rifle through trash.

Xi Wei cautiously shifted the lid of the trashcan to exlarge the small gap beneath. It is still early in the morning, but quickly becomes apparent that the snow no longer falls. The alley they are in remains basically deserted, the silence punctuated sporadically by the crunching of footsteps in the snow.

Xi Wei, who had been tense since his encounter with the woman, finally relaxed and immediately felt an unbearable hunger. His belly growled loudly.

Zeno remembered reading in the novel that, because of extreme hunger, Xi Wei risked freezing to death in order to search for food in the garbage behind the bakery. It was there, amidst the heavy snowfall, that he came across the ill-fated mother and son.

Despite being famished, and the resulting weakness of his limbs, Xi Wei earnestly held the young baby in his arms. He was very careful not to let that baby fall.

For the average * year-old child, holding a baby for a prolonged length of time can be very difficult, not to mention this particular child is starving and weak.

Zeno’s heart beat quickly. After a few hours of hiding in the trash, he is beginning to accept that he is not dreaming, and Xi Wei is the only one who can save his life. If he was legitimately cold and indifferent like the novel described, then it was likely these arms only held death for him.

In the imaginary world of the novel, it is easy to enjoy the protagonist’s indifference and his ability to kill decisively. However, being held in the arms of said heartless person is a completely different matter.

The city where Xi Wei was born and raised was named Ye Sa, also known as “City of Exile.” This city sits at the junction of two countries, somewhat remote from any other cities, leaving it virtually ungoverned. Many criminals have escaped to Ye Sa, and it can be said that there is a scarcity of good people.

Without someone to shelter this frail baby in this frozen city full of criminals, there is only death waiting.

As Xi Wei crawled out of the trashcan, he could feel that the child within his arms had started trembling. He lowered his head and adjusted the swaddling cloths around Zeno in order to look into his frightened eyes.

“Do not … be scared,” said Xi Wei, his speech still jerky and dry, “I … will take care of you.”

Zeno suddenly stared, almost afraid to believe his ears. Although the words of Xi Wei were spoken flatly, as if the world owes him the money, to Zeno the sound was music to his ears.