Night’s Nomenclature-Chapter 493: Revenge

Haicheng Pudong International Airport waiting room.

A young boy sat quietly in his seat...

He looked straight ahead, holding a scrambled 3x3 Rubik's Cube in each hand.

His slender fingers moved quickly, rotating the two scrambled cubes. Every few seconds, they would pause for a second before spinning rapidly again.

Strangely, these two cubes were never solved.

It looked like a novice randomly fiddling with them, not knowing how to play at all.

Haicheng Pudong International Airport was bustling with people, yet the boy sat amidst the crowd, appearing exceptionally serene and lonely.

The hustle and bustle seemed to have nothing to do with him.

Not far from the waiting area, a group of young people heading to the Island Nation for a Texas Hold'em tournament stopped in their tracks.

Since it wasn't time for boarding yet, they weren't in a hurry.

"Someone's playing a Rubik's Cube," one young man chuckled.

The group followed his gaze towards the boy. After watching for a while, they turned away bored: "A newbie."

"Yeah, if you can't solve a 3x3 Rubik's Cube in sub-10, you haven't even started. He hasn't even mastered one-handed solving and is trying to use two hands. He's trying to run before he can walk," one of them said.

Sub-10 refers to solving the cube within ten seconds, a professional term for speedcubing.

These young men seemed to be speedcubers themselves, but they didn't think much of the boy's skills. They were elites among Haicheng's university students. They were going to the Island Nation for the Texas Hold'em tournament and then to Takayama Hida for a backpacking trip and onsen experience.

Takayama Hida is also known as the Northern Alps.

The name is peculiar.

In 1896, British missionary Weston compared the scenery of the Hida mountain range to the European Alps. The Hida mountain range became known as the Island Nation's Alps...

Later, the Island Nation established the Alpine National Park here.

The other young men found places to sit.

But one of them kept staring at the boy.

He felt something was strange.

"Ren Yan, stop looking. You're embarrassing him," someone said.

But the young man named Ren Yan didn't turn his head. He suddenly noticed something – although the boy's cubes were never solved, they always paused in the same configuration.

Exactly the same.

And the boy's one-handed twisting rhythm was extremely peculiar, like a repetitive melody.

At first, Ren Yan thought the boy was DNFing.

DNF is also a speedcubing term; professional players give up and scramble the cube again if they feel they can't solve it within their target time.

But then Ren Yan realized it wasn't.

Normal people try to match the colors on each side, but the boy's goal was to restore the same complex pattern each time.

It was as if he was afraid of being too amazing, so he made it look like he was just a beginner.

Ren Yan glanced at his watch and timed him discreetly.

4.983 seconds.

The boy's one-handed "solving' speed was 4.983 seconds.

If you look at it this way, the boy's average one-handed solving speed is 5 seconds, and doing it with both hands simultaneously is even more unusual.

The current world record for one-handed speedcubing is 4.693 seconds.

Ren Yan watched the boy for a long time.

Then he walked up to the boy and curiously asked, "Have you ever participated in a Rubik's Cube competition? Why haven't I seen you at any speedcubing competitions? Would you like to participate? I can introduce you to the registration process. Let me introduce myself. I'm Ren Yan, the vice president of the National Speedcubing Association."

The boy looked at him expressionlessly and continued as before.

Then Ren Yan noticed that the boy's hands showed signs of frostbite, the kind of purplish marks that wouldn't disappear until summer.

He didn't know what could cause such severe frostbite.

"Attention passengers, boarding for flight HO1333 from Haicheng Airport to Osaka Kansai International Airport will now begin…"

The boy stood up and calmly walked towards the boarding gate, using the First Class priority lane.

He completely ignored the young man.

Ren Yan's companion laughed, "He's just playing around. Why did you invite him?"

Ren Yan shook his head, "He wasn't just playing around."

It was strange that someone who could manipulate Rubik's Cubes to this level had never participated in any competitions.

Was it because he disdained to participate or because he didn't know about them?

In fact,

Many people practice speedcubing to participate in competitions, but the boy wasn't one of them.

He did it to improve his multitasking ability for when he had to kill Shendai.

He needed to constantly improve his multitasking ability.

He felt he was still lacking in this aspect.

Ren Yan watched the boy's back with regret. After all, Rubik's Cubes are just a hobby for many people, not something to use for school or making a living, so participating in competitions has little meaning.

There's nothing he could do if the other person didn't want to participate.

The boy, sitting in first class, continued playing with the cubes. There weren't many people in first class, only a middle-aged man besides him.

When Ren Yan boarded, he happened to see the boy still silently playing with the cubes.

It was as if the boy had no other hobbies or emotions.

For some reason, he felt the boy was strange, but he couldn't say exactly what was strange.

When the plane reached cruising altitude, the crew served meals.

The middle-aged man in first class ate a few bites and stopped, as if the food wasn't to his liking.

But the boy ate every bite, finishing every grain of rice in his bowl. He also ate all the fruit and snacks.

When the crew saw this, they felt the boy had obsessive-compulsive disorder. He ate with unusual seriousness and appreciation.

Only the boy himself knew the price someone had paid for him to have a meal, and how precious the opportunity to eat normal food was.

From now on, he would eat every meal seriously, not wasting a single bit.

Two hours later, the plane landed.

The passengers walked off the plane and went through the long and complicated Osaka customs.

But the moment he stepped out of the airport gate, the boy reached out and pulled a hair from the back of the head of the middle-aged man, who was also a first-class passenger.

Then he used two fingers to insert the hair into the middle-aged man's spleen, stirred it, and pulled it out.

It was quick and subtle.

The boy let go of the hair and dropped it on the ground, then continued walking forward.

Everything happened too quickly. The middle-aged man only felt a sharp pain at the back of his head, followed by a stabbing pain in his waist. Internal bleeding caused him to kneel on the ground, his strength rapidly draining.

So did his life.

Someone shouted for airport staff, but when they arrived, they found the middle-aged man was dead.

His heartbeat and breathing had completely stopped.

The passengers behind were confused. They thought the middle-aged man had had a heart attack.

But soon, someone realized it wasn't. Blood was seeping from a small hole in the man's lower back, soaking his clothes.

The airport staff shouted, "Murder! Seal off the scene! Call the Osaka Prefectural Police Headquarters! No one is allowed to leave! Check the surveillance footage immediately!"

The passengers behind widened their eyes. How did a trip suddenly turn into a murder scene?

One passenger said, "We didn't commit any crime. Why are you restricting our freedom? I remember him. He was a first-class passenger on flight HO1333. He got off the plane before us. You should be looking for the people who got off the plane with him."

But at this moment, Ren Yan suddenly searched the crowd for the boy's figure. The boy was nowhere to be found.

Ren Yan had no evidence, but he was certain that the boy had done it.

Only now did he understand why he felt the boy was strange. The boy's eyes were too calm, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

The police arrived. After checking the surveillance footage, they saw the boy's murder technique.

No wonder they couldn't find a weapon at the airport. The boy used hair as a weapon. The size of the wound matched the thickness of the hair.

Everyone at the airport had to go through multiple security checks. If someone had carried a weapon, it would have been found.

But no ordinary person could imagine how hair could kill someone.

And the hair was pulled from the middle-aged man's head.

The police officers looked at each other. It was a Time Traveler murder case, and only a Time Traveler could have such a strange ability!

A police officer whispered, "Notify the Shadow Agency. We're not qualified to handle this."

The Shadow Agency appeared after the emergence of Time Travelers. It specialized in handling Time Travelers.

Everyone inside was a Time Traveler controlled by the Shendai Consortium, serving the Shendai Consortium's will. They had immense power, even influencing the political situation in the Island Nation.

The boy was Qing Chen, and the person he killed was a Time Traveler from the Shadow Agency.

He was secretly in charge of Shendai Time Traveler contacts in China. Due to the tense situation, he chose to retreat.

But he didn't expect to be killed even after retreating to the Island Nation.

At this moment, Qing Chen had no other thoughts.

He only thought about two things: revenge and the Trials of Life and Death.

The a02 secret military base was a mysterious place in the entire Federation. It was one of the largest training bases for Shendai intelligence agents, notorious like the legendary Siberian Devil training camp.

But from the memories of Takahashi Touju and Zhao Shuai, Qing Chen learned much more.

Because these two had personally trained a batch of male Time Travelers at the a02 secret military base.

Those Time Travelers, once discovered in northern cities, were sent to the a01, a02, and a03 secret military bases for two months of brutal training.

This was to improve the Time Travelers' combat abilities and to brainwash them, making them feel loyal to the Shendai Consortium.

When Qing Chen was imprisoned in the a02 military base, the second batch of Time Travelers had just graduated. 300 people had completed their "graduation ceremony' by hunting down 496 prisoners and returned to cities 20, 21, and 22 in the north.

Each batch of nearly a thousand Time Travelers underwent brutal combat training. Then they graduated in batches, forming large organizations of thousands to help Shendai control the Island Nation.

They also searched for undiscovered Time Travelers.

In the previous plan by Li Clan Ji Guanya and Qing Family Si Nianhua, they had carried out a perfect Substitution in the Island Nation.

But even with their thorough preparations, after small-scale destruction, they were forced to retreat by the Shendai Time Travelers.

It wasn't that Ji Guanya and Si Nianhua weren't strong, but this was Shendai's home turf. Their ability to sneak in and cause so much trouble was already beyond imagination.

This time, Qing Chen didn't seek help from Kunlun or Nine Provinces. What Ji Guanya and Si Nianhua could provide was enough.

As the Shadow Agency Time Travelers swarmed, the entrance to Osaka Kansai International Airport was blocked.

Sniper fire rang out, and a Shadow Agency section chief fell.

Everyone realized the killer hadn't gone far…

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