Chapter 131: Family

"A clone?" Liu Chang exclaimed. "And number seventeen?"

"Yes, number seventeen." Li Qingshui finished feeding the infant and held it as he spoke. "Is it that strange? People clone themselves all the time."

"It's strange enough. If this is number seventeen, how many clones of you are there in total?" Liu Chang continued to ask.

"Seventeen in total. This baby is the youngest, and the oldest is already three years old." Li Qingshui waved his hand at Liu Chang. "Come, follow me. I want to show you something."

"Fine." Regardless of the chaos raging outside, Liu Chang followed Li Qingshui into a hidden laboratory that required a password to enter, taking in everything within the vast experimental area.

There were rows of transparent glass containers, but they held test-tube babies. Looking at the cluster of infants, Liu Chang looked at Li Qingshui, feeling an indescribable sense of strangeness in his heart.

"Are these all you?"

"They are all me. The survival rate is very low. In four years, only seventeen children have survived." Li Qingshui pressed another button. An electronic door opened, and over a dozen soldiers walked out, each leading or carrying a child. The oldest ones could already run on their own, looking about three or four years old, while the youngest was the one in Li Qingshui’s arms, looking like a newborn.

"Of these seventeen children, please take three with you," Li Qingshui said, pointing to the three oldest. "Li Qing, Li Shui, Li Shuiqing, come out here."

"Oh." The three children stepped out from the group—the oldest looked a bit over three, and the youngest was nearly three; they were all able to run and jump.

"Take these three. They are older and easier to care for." Li Qingshui pushed the three children toward Liu Chang. "I’ll have others look after the rest. Just do your best to keep these three alive. They will be able to help you in the future."

"And what about you?" Liu Chang asked.

"I’m staying here." Li Qingshui let out a long sigh. "I want to meet the Great Willow."

"Are you insane?" Liu Chang roared. "No way. That’s suicide."

"I have my own plan. Don't stop me."

"I know you always have plenty of ideas, but I still think you've lost your mind this time!" Liu Chang frowned and grabbed Li Qingshui’s arm. "Cut the crap and let's go. Meet the Great Willow? Do you think you'll survive meeting it? Are you kidding me? The Amphibians—fine, you say you aren't afraid of them, and I believe you! But the Great Willow? You claim you can handle it? I’ll never believe that. Stop with the mad scientist martyr complex and let's get out of here."

"I truly want to talk to it. I’ve made preparations; I won't necessarily die." Li Qingshui removed Liu Chang's hand and said, "I want to talk to it. I want to know what is going on inside its mind."

"I want to know what is going on inside *your* mind." Liu Chang slapped his forehead. "The Great Willow's intelligence isn't something you can compare to. How many brains do you have? One! Well, maybe your brain is worth a hundred or a thousand others. But how many brains does the Great Willow have? A million? Ten million? Do you really think it has any need to communicate with you?"

"It does." Li Qingshui pulled a bottle from his robes. Liu Chang remembered this; it was the "Devil’s Moss."

"Is this stuff useful?" Liu Chang asked.

"It is. I’ve cultivated a large batch and sealed them in the experimental area. Once I detonate the charges to let them hatch, it will pose a massive threat to the Great Willow," Li Qingshui explained.

"If it's that powerful, would it be afraid of this?" Liu Chang was still skeptical.

"Yes. To the Great Willow, this substance is like a super-bacteria to us. If released, I don't know if it will kill it, but it will certainly cause it massive damage. That is why it won't move against me lightly. I believe it will give me the time to speak."

"Fine. And then what? What is the point of talking to it?"

"I have my own plan," Li Qingshui repeated. "Don't stop me. It's useless. I've already made up my mind."

"..." Liu Chang fell into a long silence upon hearing this. He knew that once Li Qingshui made a decision, he couldn't change it. As he said, he had his own plan. Even though Liu Chang felt it was incredibly foolish, he couldn't change the outcome.

"Let's go. Is there anything more important than staying alive?" After a long silence, this was all Liu Chang could manage to say.

"Yes," Li Qingshui nodded. "You guys. You are more important than staying alive."

"What?"

"I said, the weight of family in my heart is greater than life itself." After saying this, Li Qingshui gave a miserable smile—an expression Liu Chang had never seen on him before.

"Do you know? I cherish the bond between us more than you, or Xiao Jing, or anyone else. I like the feeling of being missed, and I like having people in my heart to miss."

"But throughout history, few clever people have had happy endings, or rather, it is easier for clever people to be abandoned by everyone—because no one trusts them."

"First it was Xiao Jing who became resistant to me, then you. But the truth is, I know that the longer we stay together, the further apart we will grow. Because no one fully trusts someone smarter than themselves. Because if you are smart, it means others can't see through you, and if they can't see through you, they will unconsciously guard against you. They will always have the feeling of 'don't let yourself get sold while you're still counting the money for the other guy.' I understand that. No one trusts a clever person, just as no one likes the feeling of a knife pressed against their throat."

"Actually, I do trust you," Liu Chang started to say, but he was interrupted by Li Qingshui.

"Forget it. If there were trust, there wouldn't be doubts. Just a few days ago, a single sentence from the Amphibians made you doubt me." Li Qingshui looked into Liu Chang’s eyes. "If that kind of provocation had been about Xiao Jing, or even He Zhizhi, would you have doubted them?"

"Absolutely not!"

"You would have sneered at it!"

"To be honest, let alone Xiao Jing, let's talk about He Zhizhi. Have we known each other longer, or have you and she? Have we faced life and death together more often, or have you two? Have I helped you more, or has she?" Li Qingshui smiled again. "But ask yourself honestly, which of us do you trust more?"

"I understand you, just as you, despite your doubts about me, still convinced yourself to trust me."

"That is what it means to be friends!"

"But that’s all you are—friends."

"You will always see me as a friend, not as family."

"Honestly, that makes me feel very sad," Li Qingshui said. "But since we might never meet again, I’ll say everything today. Some things I wanted to say before. It still comes back to that one thing—"

"I cherish our bond more than you, or Xiao Jing, or anyone else." After saying this, Li Qingshui took a deep breath, then pushed Liu Chang and the three children out of the laboratory door. "Go. I’ll stand here and wait for the Willow..."

"You're really not coming?" Liu Chang asked one last time.

"I’m not leaving. I’ll stay here and hold it off for three years!" After those final words, Li Qingshui said nothing more.

Liu Chang wanted to say something else, or perhaps try to grab Li Qingshui's arm, but his mind suddenly became muddled. His thoughts seemed to drift to the edge of the universe. A feeling like "sleep paralysis" washed over him, leaving him suffocated and unaware of the passage of time.

He didn't know how long it had been, but when he finally regained his senses, he was standing at the entrance of his own bar. Looking around in astonishment, Liu Chang saw no one else in the alleyway, only the three children in his arms.

"What on earth is going on?" Liu Chang held the children, his eyes wide.

At that same moment, the iron door of the bar was pulled open, and He Zhizhi reached out and dragged Liu Chang inside.

"Why were you standing outside for so long instead of coming in?" After pulling him inside, He Zhizhi looked in surprise at the three children in his arms. "Whose kids are these? Where did you grab three of them?"

"Li Qingshui's children," Liu Chang said.

"What?" Mo Sanpang stood next to He Zhizhi. "He’s such a player? I couldn't tell."

"Yeah," Liu Chang nodded. He didn't want to explain that they were clones, as two of the three people in the room were hostile toward Li Qingshui.

The little girl didn't speak, and she had never really talked to Li Qingshui anyway.

He Zhizhi, strictly speaking, was someone who held a grudge against him.

Moreover, Liu Chang felt that the word "clone" was hard to say, so he just went along with it.

"He has three kids, and we never even saw them," He Zhizhi sighed, looking at the children. "And they look so much like him, I can't even say you're lying."

"Yeah," Mo Sanpang looked at the children. "The three of them look almost identical. Aside from the height difference, there's almost no distinction!"

"But he brought his kids, so where is he?" He Zhizhi sniffed the air. "He's not in the area."

"Still in the lab. He’s not leaving," Liu Chang said, sighing heavily at the mention of it.

"What? The Great Willow is coming, and he’s not leaving?" Xiao Jing walked out from the inner room, carrying some small belongings.

"He's not leaving. I couldn't stop him, and you going there would be useless. Forget it, let's pack up. We're leaving. I'll explain the situation on the way." Liu Chang put the three children on the floor and walked into the inner room to pack his weapons and food.

The three children remained obedient, standing on the floor, looking at the other four people in the room, neither speaking nor smiling.