The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 760: Liu Haoqiang

“Huh...what, what is it now?”

Gao Xinxin had been staring at Gao Yang as he lowered his head to focus on massaging Vermilion Bird. His sudden shout startled her.

“I remember something else! About Sir Jiang!” Gao Yang’s eyes blazed.

Gao Xinxin sighed inwardly. My dear brother, you really are a workaholic. Even if your future wife is delivering a baby, you’ll probably be working on a laptop outside the operating room.

Thinking of Gao Yang as a corporate slave made Gao Xinxin smile. It’d be great if they got to lead a simple, mundane life like that in the future.

“Why are you smiling?” Gao Yang asked.

Gao Xinxin pursed her lips. “Nothing. What were you gonna say?”

“Do you remember, Xinxin? I told you that Liu Qinying warned me about X, so I warned Qilin, and he had his guard up against the man.”

“Hm...” Gao Xinxin tried her best to recall their conversation. “I remember a little.”

“I once asked Liu Qingying about it indirectly. Although she didn’t give me a straight answer, she more or less admitted to having a source of intel that isn’t an awakener. I speculated then that she may be trading with elite monsters, too.”

“Do you, do you mean...” Gao Xinxin covered her mouth in surprise. “That she learned about X...from Sir Jiang?”

“Possibly.” Gao Yang nodded. “The pride monsters each have their answer, and Sir Zuo’s answer was for X to kill all humans and become God alone. It was an unorthodox answer even among the pride monsters, so Sir Zuo had been a lone wolf.”

“The same could be said about Sir Jiang. However, they were both pride monsters at the end of the day, and they might have crossed paths long ago and exchanged thoughts. Thus, Sir Jiang had always been wary of Sir Zuo and X.”

Gao Xinxin frowned. “If Sir Jiang is Yan Liang, though, why did he have to give out the warning through Liu Qingying? He could’ve just told Qilin to be wary of X.”

Gao Yang tried to rationalize it. “Perhaps Sir Jiang only knew that Sir Zuo and X were planning something, but not what their actual scheme was. Or Sir Jiang would’ve stopped Qilin from sending us to seek out X, or had Qilin kill X long ago.”

“Makes sense.” Gao Xinxin nodded.

“It means that Sir Jiang believed X to be an asset, but not to be fully trusted. To be on the safe side, he had Qilin keep his guard up just in case, and it turned out to be warranted.”

“Thinking back, Qilin and Dragon were more than enough to deal with Lilia and Epilogue. They didn’t need X’s help.” Gao Yang continued with his analysis. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, though. Before the Crimson Tide, the leader of shadowstalkers and the heads of awakeners had never fought, but each stayed out of the other’s way. Thus, neither knew how powerful the other side was.”

“Yeah.” Gao Xinxin agreed.

Gao Yang tried to think from Sir Jiang’s shoes. “Were I Sir Jiang, this would be my thought process: I know X and Sir Zuo are up to something, but I don’t know what. Now, the leader of the shadowstalkers has been pulling strings behind the scene with the Godbearer Cult. And Surnamed Li prophesied that all awakeners would die during the Crimson Tide. Things aren’t looking good.”

“Thus, I agree that Qilin should send people to recruit X and Alcoholic, gathering all possible power to deal with the enemies. After all, we are all in the same boat in the fight for survival.”

“Still, something has to be done about X. If I just warn Qilin, Qilin will have to explain to others how he knew that X was suspicious in advance, which will be troublesome.”

“Therefore, I send the message through Liu Qingying, the information broker. That’ll help keep up the front that I have nothing to do with Qilin. After all, if the awakeners know that the leader of the Qilin Guild has an established relationship with a pride monster, it’ll make it difficult for Qilin to lead humans and achieve our ultimate goal.”

Gao Yang turned to Gao Xinxin. “What do you think?”

“Oh my.” Gao Xinxin gaped. “If you just put a mask on, you’d be Yan Liang himself.”

“Yan Liang himself.” Gao Yang knew she was joking, but his gaze turned icy then. “Just wait. His name has foretold his fate. He’ll become a cold corpse for sure.”

...

Twenty-one years ago, spring.

A tube-shaped apartment, Nanji District.

It was dawn, and sunlight broke through the sky. Liu Haoqiang opened her swollen eyes, waking up in a small, dim room filled with the smell of mold and alcohol.

She had had little sleep the whole night because she hurt all over.

Last night, her father came home drunk and beat her up with a grip on her hair. Once he got tired, he removed his belt and used that to whip her, all the while cursing her out for being a “sissy”.

Liu Haoqiang wasn’t that. She had always been a woman, but cruelly given a body with both male and female parts.

Her father had always wanted a son. When he found out that his wife had given birth to a “freak”, he lost it and raged, considering it a stain on the Liu Family. He asked the doctor to immediately turn the child into a boy with surgery.

However, his wife opposed to it vehemently. The child had come out of her womb. It would be the child’s choice if they wanted to be a boy or a girl.

For that, the couple fought constantly and almost divorced, but never really separated.

While her mother was still around, Liu Haoqiang had support. Despite the boy’s name forced on her, she was still allowed to grow her hair long, put on dresses, buy dolls, and be the girl she wanted to be.

Unfortunately, when she was seven, her mother fell ill and passed away.

What followed was a nightmare that lasted a decade.

Her father cut her long hair and burned her dresses and dolls. He forced her to be a boy, and whenever Liu Haoqiang even acted a little like a girl, he would get mad and call her a sissy.

Liu Haoqiang started out putting on an act and insisting on her identity in private, but then her father found out and gave her a beating.

After being abused for six months, Liu Haoqiang got scared and started playing the part of a son.

Even so, her father wasn’t satisfied. He had lost his wife in his middle age and then lost his steady job at a factory. He attributed all the difficulties he faced in life to the freak he and his wife had given birth to. This must be the punishment inflicted on him by the ancestors of the Liu Family.

Since then, her father started drinking excessively. He hit rock bottom, and thus the domestic violence continued.

Sometimes he beat her once every week, sometimes every two to three days. The neighbors couldn’t take it and called the police, but nothing came out of it.

Her father smartened up after that. He no longer punched and kicked Liu Haoqiang, but whipped her with a belt, doing his best not to leave marks on the face and hands so that the neighbors would stop being nosy.

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