CHAPTER 703: 702

Lu Zixun: "???"

Gazing at the children who had suddenly drawn closer, Lu Zixun was thoroughly bewildered at that moment.

What’s going on here? That shift in attitude was way too quick.

But fortunately, he could now converse with them, which was a nice start.

After learning the names of some of the older children, Lu Zixun let the little ones touch his back, and looked up at Chi: "You actually know me?"

"In the fairy tale books, Lord Cat appeared many times, and there were even illustrations, so we recognized you."

Chi, cradling a cup of instant noodles, munched away while giving a mumbled response to Lu Zixun’s question.

"I see."

Pursing his lips, Lu Zixun couldn’t help but sigh. Sun Yang had really planned ahead; could it be he anticipated that I would come here?

"Um... Lord Cat." Aili approached Lu Zixun, carefully watching him: "Where is Mr. Sun?"

When he heard this question, Lu Zixun had originally wanted to tell a lie.

But it seemed unnecessary to lie in front of these children, so he simply told the truth: "He’s dead."

"As I thought, that’s why Mr. Sun hadn’t come over."

Although Aili’s tone was calm, Lu Zixun could still see the flicker of tears in his eyes.

"Aili, what does ’dead’ mean?"

Qi Yuan tugged at Aili’s sleeve, a look of confusion on his face as he stared at Aili.

Raising his hand to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes with his sleeve, Aili squatted down to eye level with Qi Yuan and said with a smile: "It means Mr. Sun has gone to a place where we may not see him for a very, very long time."

"Ah?"

Hearing Aili’s explanation, Qi Yuan was stunned for a moment, then muttered in disappointment: "Mr. Sun lied to me, he had promised to tell me a story. How could he not keep his word."

The naively spoken words caused the older children to be unable to hold back their tears, bowing their heads for a long time without looking up.

Likewise unsure of what to say, Lu Zixun silently sighed in his heart.

"Lord Cat."

Looking up at Lu Zixun, Tian asked: "I want to know, what kind of place is the Crimson Land?"

What kind of place?

For a moment, Lu Zixun didn’t quite know how to answer the question.

After a long silence, he finally spoke: "It’s a good place."

"Lord Cat, Lord Cat."

Qi Yuan moved closer to Lu Zixun, blinking furiously a couple of times: "Can we go to your kingdom? I heard there are lots of cute animals there!"

"Yes."

Lifting his paw and placing it on top of Qi Yuan’s head, Lu Zixun said without hesitation.

At Lu Zixun’s promise, Qi Yuan cheered: "Yay!"

Having had their fill and being tired from the day’s activities, the children went to the resting room to sleep, accompanied by Aili.

In the room, only Lu Zixun, Chi, Ling, and Tian remained.

Looking at the three children playing the role of "parent," Lu Zixun felt an inevitable surge of pity and asked: "Aren’t you going to rest?"

"We’ll wait for Aili to come back. We need to organize some of the base’s documents to take with us and destroy them, to prevent the Insect Clan from finding them."

After methodically answering Lu Zixun’s questions, Chi continued, "Lord Cat, is Mr. Sun really dead?"

In Chi’s mind, the name Mr. Sun represented the word ’miracle.’

When Lu Zixun announced the news of Sun Yang’s death, Chi’s first reaction was disbelief.

"Mhm, lost too much blood."

After saying this, Lu Zixun changed the subject, "Do you know where Sun Yang went after he left the base?"

"Farm."

With a heavy heart, Ling replied with his head down, "At the time, Mr. Sun told us that the children at the High-level Farm had discovered a secret code in a fairy tale book. He was going over to meet them and then instructed us to seal off the base completely if there was no contact within a day."

Upon hearing this, Lu Zixun roughly understood—it seemed that it wasn’t the children who discovered the secret code, but the Insect Clan.

After all, a group of children had already escaped; it would have been strange if the Insect Clan hadn’t noticed anything.

"What’s the situation inside the High-level Farm?"

Previously, Lu Zixun, who had only glanced at it briefly, continued to ask.

"Back when we were at the farm, we didn’t know it was a farm and preferred to call it home. It appeared to be an orphanage on the surface, with a ’mother.’"

After a pause, Heaven continued, "Mother was responsible for taking care of the younger brothers and sisters, and once we turned five, we would start the system’s learning, followed by tests."

"The better our test scores, the later we would be adopted, at the latest by the time we were thirteen."

After emphasizing the word ’adoption,’ anger filled Heaven’s eyes, "Later we found out that this so-called adoption was actually them killing us to extract our brains."

The better the grades, the longer one lived...

Lu Zixun couldn’t help but cover his face, thinking that with his own poor learning ability, he probably wouldn’t have survived until thirteen in that farm.

It was no wonder these few children were so exceptional. At the ages of eleven or twelve, they must have been among the strongest learners.

Heaven continued, "In the farm, ’Mother’ was responsible not only for our nourishment and growth but also held the role of a supervisor, preventing us from escaping and discovering the truth."

"’Mother’... Is it a man or a woman?"

Frowning, Lu Zixun asked.

Caught off guard by Lord Cat’s seemingly naive question, Heaven paused before quietly saying, "A woman."

"Continue."

"Mother has incredibly powerful strength. Picking up two little brothers and sisters is nothing to her, and simply put, even twelve-year-old children working together wouldn’t stand a chance against her. Moreover, Mother could easily locate each child’s position."

Sighing, Heaven shook his head, "With Mother’s suppression, even if one discovered the truth, there would be no chance of escape."

Powerful strength... location tracking...

Thinking of those three F-level Blood Ability Users, Lu Zixun narrowed his eyes.

"However, after observing for a month, we found an opportunity."

Ling added, "At the end of each month, ’Mother’ becomes much weaker, but still not someone we could confront directly."

"So you took advantage of that time to escape."

Hearing this, Lu Zixun could roughly guess how this group of children had managed to escape, and couldn’t help but remark on their audacity and carefulness.

After talking for a while, the three children clearly became less wary of Lu Zixun.

When Aili returned and they finished organizing their documents, they also went back to the resting room to sleep.

Yawning, Lu Zixun was left responsible for the night watch.

He couldn’t expect the children to stand guard at night; Lu Zixun wasn’t that shameless.

Pulling out his phone to watch a TV drama, Lu Zixun suddenly put away his phone the next second.

With a solemn expression, a powerful Blood Energy Aura emerged.