The Gentleman at the End

Chapter 198: Chapter 197 Freedom

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Director Cao had thought that by saving Yi Chen’s life, confessing his true identity, and offering enough tenderness, he could completely transform his personality and make him willing to stay in the Orphanage forever and inherit his mantle.

Little did he know,

Yi Chen lying in bed at night, far from being moved in the slightest, was closed his eyes and replaying the night’s escape in his mind, re-analyzing the structure of the high wall outside the Orphanage, and planning his fourth escape.

Every time he thought of the ‘ingredient’ from Director Cao mixed within him, Yi Chen would vomit incessantly.

The memories continue

Memories related to the “Fourth Escape” were being unearthed once more,

The depth at which this memory was hidden was even greater than that of the “true identity” issue, being a memory directly related to the hidden ‘Death Attribute’ and locked deep in Yi Chen’s brain.

Even the Old World merchant – Duke Garrixon could not dig out this memory,

Currently, Yi Chen’s body, contained within the Duke’s fleshly cavities, had his pores slightly open, and wisps of black thread-like material, representing Death, began to ooze out.

The Duke had also brought out his favorite snack, ready to savor the hidden memory related to the Death Attribute.

“The memories haven’t even officially started yet, and Death is already being released? The ‘First Dead Man’ would definitely try to seize you directly from me, regardless of his status, if he knew there was a little guy like you.”

…

A downpour, a pitch-dark night.

Just-turned-ten Yi Chen left his dorm alone, effortlessly navigating through the blind spots of every surveillance camera, moving with the raindrops to easily make his way to the Orphanage’s surveillance room.

This was a dangerous act he hadn’t attempted in his first three escapes, choosing to kill the security personnel in the surveillance room and seize their firearms.

This time,

Yi Chen had made up his mind, either escape or die here.

Before the shooting in the surveillance room could be exposed, Yi Chen successfully escaped from the Orphanage building.

Now, all that remained was the last challenge, to climb over this heavily guarded high wall.

Surrounding the Orphanage’s high black walls, numerous well-trained armed personnel patrolled 24 hours a day.

Taking advantage of the Thoughts following the third failed escape,

Yi Chen, like a dancer in the dark, moved perfectly at the intersect of the searchlights, hidden in the shadows. Ultimately, he seized the brief moment of the shift change, releasing his biological instinct to climb up the ten-meter-high black wall.

However,

When Yi Chen successfully scaled the high wall, there was no light or cityscape in front of him, only a road stretching endlessly towards the horizon at the gate.

The “Black Mountain Orphanage” was actually built in a desolate area.

But Yi Chen could no longer care about that, he had to make it to the nearest city, even if it meant walking.

At that time, the night shift teacher responsible for patrolling, as well as the security personnel changing shifts in the surveillance room, almost simultaneously reported someone escaping and confirmed that the escapee was Yi Chen.

Given the special environment of the no-man’s land, calculating the maximum range of movement based on the escape time, and then dispatching enough vehicles for a sweeping search, Yi Chen would be recaptured quickly.

But the Orphanage did not do so, or rather, one person vetoed this proposal.

Yi Chen ran along the highway for a full hour, squeezing out the residual energy from all the cells in his body, and still could not see the end of the road, hear the bustle of the city, or smell the aura of Freedom.

It even felt like the highway was part of the Orphanage, and his feet were still shackled.

Crack—a Knee that had been overworked emitted a crisp snap and he fell to the ground.

Yi Chen did not give up; he extended his hands, dug his fingers deep into the cracks of the road, and continued to drag his body forward…

This Crawling did not last long,

Tap tap—a clear sound of high heels came from behind.

Yi Chen had anticipated this outcome and did not panic; instead, he revealed a resigned smile not fitting for a ten-year-old child.

No longer Crawling,

Instead, he propped up his body, sitting in the middle of the road.

Crack—

Gun chambered, pointing the muzzle at Director Cao, who was walking out from the darkness, her face a mix of grief and anger.

Faced with the dark muzzle,

Director Cao, a monster Beyond Human, was utterly fearless. She squatted in front of Yi Chen, pressing her forehead against the gun barrel, and asked the final question:

“Why?”

Pop—

Hearing this question, Yi Chen couldn’t help it and burst out laughing.

“I thought you were smart enough, Director Cao. I didn’t expect you to ask such a stupid question.

Can’t you see I want to kill everyone in the Orphanage at any time? To tear off the disgusting masks on your faces, especially yours.

Living with trash like you makes me feel so nauseated I want to throw up every day.”

“You think you can do that just because you have a gun?”

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Yi Chen shook his head with a smile.

“No, of course not.

Four fully armed soldiers were all killed by you in an instant; how could I possibly pose a threat to you with a gun in my hand.

I lost~ I didn’t expect the Orphanage to be built in such a remote place.

The sounds of horns and passersby I occasionally heard through the window, they were all prerecorded, weren’t they? The outside scenes I occasionally glimpsed through the small window, those were deliberately set holographic images outside the window, right?

I’m not as skilled, I’ll take the loss.”

The muzzle instantly turned 180 degrees and he pulled the trigger.

Even if Director Cao reacted as quickly as possible, she couldn’t prevent this act.

Bang!

The spiraling bullet penetrated his skull, carrying pink brain matter as it burst through the back of the head.

Hands open, he fell backwards to the ground.

A self-mocking smile remained on his face.

The purpose of Yi Chen’s seizure of the gun from the control room was never to confront adversity, but merely to leave himself an ‘escape route’.

“No!”

Director Cao’s scream echoed in the desolate area.

[Old World]

The Duke, upon witnessing this scene, let go of a massive amount of snacks. Even It hadn’t expected Yi Chen to actually die; according to the memory’s background setting, revival was simply impossible.

However,

The memory images continued to play,

but the footage changed from color to black and white, and was accompanied by frame skipping and signal interference.

Director Cao didn’t give up, she grew appendages similar to centipedes and erupted with speed even faster than a car, sprinting toward the Orphanage.

Unfortunately, the journey still took six minutes, and a vast number of brain cells had already died, not to mention the bullet had pierced the brain, leaving even the most skilled doctor in the Orphanage powerless.

Director Cao administered various self-developed cardiac and brain injections to Yi Chen, still without any response.

“Death declaration”

Yi Chen was placed on a special trolley, or rather, a trolley that only carried bodies.

Director Cao couldn’t accept this and pointed at the body cart, cursing frantically, yet her voice couldn’t penetrate the black and white footage, gradually fading away.

The footage slowly narrowed down to the body disposal staff, and every now and then the Peeping Tom—Teacher Fang—appeared in the corner; one could see Fang Qiong’s eyes brimming with tears and the streaks on her cheeks through the intermittently frozen frames.

The body output of the Orphanage was astonishing; if they planned a cemetery, in just over a decade, this uninhabited zone would turn into a zone with ‘residents’.

Therefore, beneath the Orphanage there was a deep pit specifically for stacking bodies, and a large incineration would be carried out once a month.

It was now the twentieth of the month, and the pit had already accumulated a considerable number of bodies, most of which were no longer in human shape, shattered.

Yi Chen’s body, with its head blown open, was the most intact.

The cart was tilted, and the body just happened to fall on the very top of the pile of corpses.

Perhaps because of Yi Chen’s death, Director Cao’s mood had greatly changed in recent times. She slaughtered extensively within the Orphanage, and her experiments adopted the most dangerous, highest-dose forced modes, with the number of deceased increasing to three to four times that of an average day.

Time quickly arrived at the end of the month, and the pit was completely filled up.

Strangely enough, the corpse of Yi Chen was still sitting on top.

At the moment the staff turned the valve ready to start the large-scale incineration, owing to the excess of bodies, the top sealing could not shut, forcing them to move the corpses at the very top out for a second incineration later on.

As a result, the one on the top, Yi Chen, was temporarily removed.

The staff didn’t notice that the other bodies deep in the pit all had varying degrees of a drained appearance.

During the wait for the big burn, the staff couldn’t help glancing a few times at Yi Chen’s well-preserved, barely-rotted youthful body, contemplating in their mind.

The next week he had a chance to leave the Orphanage, take a ride to the city to collect goods.

And his family was in the funeral business; he was well aware that such a young, handsome and well-preserved body could fetch a high price, so he secretly preserved the body.

He even applied “Dead Man Makeup” in advance—white foundation with red lips, using a special white paint to ensure the freshness of the body, covering up the gunshot hole on the head, and attaching a label that said [Corpse Specimen].

Thus, Yi Chen’s body, as a [Specimen], was legitimately loaded onto the freight truck and headed toward the city.

When the truck arrived at its destination and the rear doors were opened, they found that the body was gone.

Since he had illegally transported the body out, naturally he didn’t dare to investigate.

In some corner of the city,

Yi Chen, bearing the Dead Man Makeup, found a suit discarded by the side of a garbage station in the rich district due to size issues.

He changed into the clothes and put on a hat that could conceal his face.

With his red lips slightly parted, suppressing the excitement in his heart, he stepped into the bustling crowd…

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