Apocalypse: I Have A Multiplier System - Chapter 469

Chapter 469: Chapter 469: Stay With Him
For a second, Qin Feng couldn’t breathe.

He knelt down beside the boy, the towel forgotten in his hands. His heart ached so badly it felt like it might break.

Slowly, gently, he draped the towel over the boy’s shoulders and whispered,

“No one’s going to hit you ever again. Not while I’m here.”

The boy stayed frozen for a long moment.

Then, slowly, he opened his eyes. His small fingers clutched the towel tightly, and he looked at Qin Feng as if he were seeing something unbelievable.

Qin Feng gently wiped the boy’s small body, taking care not to hurt him.

Every time his hand brushed over a scar, Qin Feng’s heart tightened even more.

After drying him off, he knelt in front of the boy and carefully brushed his teeth.

The boy sat there quietly, letting Qin Feng work, though he kept glancing around with cautious, unsure eyes.

Qin Feng then helped the boy wear the kid’s clothes, which Su Jiyai had bought from the system space.

The boy was stunned by the clear clothes. In his entire life, he had worn no more than 10 clothes, and all of them were dirty and used.

Once they were done, Qin Feng wrapped the boy in a clean, warm towel and carried him out of the bathroom.

Su Jiyai was waiting just outside. She smiled warmly as she saw them. Without hesitation, she reached out her arms, and Qin Feng gently passed the boy to her.

The boy blinked up at Su Jiyai, a little dazed.

He was so light, it was like lifting a bundle of feathers. Su Jiyai hugged him close to her chest, and the boy instinctively relaxed, resting his head against her shoulder.

She carried him toward the bedroom.

The boy looked around with wide eyes, taking in everything as if he had just landed on an alien spaceship.

The walls were made of warm-colored wood, not cold metal.

There was a thick rug on the ground, and soft lights that made the room glow gently. In the center was a bed — a real bed — with fluffy pillows and a thick blanket.

He stared at it all, almost not daring to believe it.

In the laboratory, there was never anything like this.

The ground there was dirty and rough. The air was cold and sharp, and it always smelled like blood and chemicals. Beds were just metal slabs.

But here…

Here it was warm. Safe.

Su Jiyai smiled as she gently placed him down onto the bed. The boy’s tiny hands gripped the edge of the blanket tightly, his eyes wide and unsure.

Su Jiyai knelt beside the bed and asked softly, “Do you want a blanket?”

The boy shook his head immediately, still too tense to fully trust the comfort around him.

Su Jiyai straightened up, about to leave to give him some space, when she heard a small, hesitant voice call out,

“B-Boss Su…”

She stopped and looked back at him. The boy’s face was nervous, his small fists tightening around the edge of the bed. His voice was tiny as he asked, “C-Can you… stay here? Stand or sit… near me?”

His words were clumsy, but his meaning was clear.

He was scared.

He couldn’t relax in this new environment, no matter how safe it seemed. But somehow, when Su Jiyai was close, he could breathe a little easier.

Su Jiyai’s heart melted like ice under the sun.

Without saying a word, she walked back to the bed and lay down beside him. She opened her arms slightly in invitation.

The boy hesitated for only a second before he carefully, shyly snuggled into her arms.

Su Jiyai gently patted his back, feeling his small frame slowly relax against her.

As sleep pulled him closer, the boy moved unconsciously, wrapping his arms tightly around Su Jiyai’s waist and even throwing one small leg over hers, like a little koala clinging to a tree.

Su Jiyai chuckled softly. She shifted to hold him more securely, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to drift off too.

It had been a long day.

………..

Su Jiyai stood frozen, her breath caught in her throat.

The air around her felt heavy, filled with a thick, bitter stench of blood, sweat, and salt.

The metal walls around them were rusted and stained.

The floor was just as filthy, covered with dirty, torn clothes and broken bowls.

There was no warmth here, only coldness that pierced straight into the bones.

And the children—

They were thin, nothing but skin and bones.

Their small wrists and ankles were locked in heavy iron chains that clanked every time they moved.

Their clothes were ripped and filthy, barely enough to cover them. Some of them sat curled up in the corners, crying softly.

Others just stared blankly at the ground, like broken dolls.

Beside them was a bowl of white salt that sat cruelly, almost mocking them.

Su Jiyai’s eyes quickly found her brother.

He was sitting by the wall, trembling. His little hands were red and bleeding, his whole body shaking like a leaf in the wind.

Angry red marks and deep cuts covered his small arms, legs, and back.

Tears clung to his long eyelashes, and every now and then, he let out tiny, muffled sobs, trying to hold them back.

Beside him, two boys whispered to each other.

“I-I don’t think I can finish it today,” one boy whimpered, clutching his wounded arm tightly. His voice cracked with pain and fear. “It hurts too much… It feels like… ants crawling under my skin!”

The second boy, slightly older, tried to comfort him, though his own voice was shaking too.

“Just a little more… The in-charge said if we keep doing it, we’ll pass the test. We’ll get stronger and pass the experiment more easily, becoming the best choice for being the test subject.”

The first boy bit his lips and said in a scared voice,

“But…but, it still hurts a lot! Even after doing this for the past 6 months…I feel as if I could never endure the pain.”

The second boy blinked, his eyes flickering to Su Jiyai’s brother, full of guilt and fear.

“We’re lucky compared to him,” he pointed in a low voice, pointing toward the trembling figure against the wall.

“He tried to run away. That’s why they doubled his punishment…”

Su Jiyai’s stomach twisted painfully.

Her brother’s salt bowl was nearly twice the size of the others.

And he—he was trying to be brave.

She watched, helpless and horrified, as he picked up a handful of salt with trembling fingers. His lips pressed together tightly, trying to stop himself from crying out.

Then he poured the salt onto one of the open wounds on his arm.

A sharp, raw scream tore from his throat.

It echoed off the cold metal walls, mixing with the sobs and whimpers of the other children.

Su Jiyai felt like a knife had been driven straight into her heart.

The in-charge, a tall, cold-faced man, entered the room with a clipboard in hand. His voice was emotionless as he barked,

“Three more hours! If you don’t finish your bowls by then, you’ll get another round of punishment!”

Some of the younger kids burst into tears, their thin bodies shaking harder.

But no one dared to disobey. They couldn’t.

Su Jiyai’s brother hunched over, his body shuddering violently. His small hands shakily grabbed another pinch of salt, and with another heartbreaking cry, he forced himself to sprinkle it on a deep cut on his leg.

Su Jiyai’s hands curled into fists at her sides.

Her chest burned with anger so fierce she could barely breathe.

Her vision blurred, but she forced herself to watch. Forced herself to see every second of this nightmare.

Because she was going to make sure that all the f*ckers who harmed her brother receive the same treatment.

She would torture them to the point that they would start to question their reality and beg for death.

Su Jiyai swore to herself—

She would never, ever let him go through anything like this again.

Her brother let out another soft whimper, his body folding inward from the pain, his little face pale and wet with tears.

Su Jiyai stepped forward instinctively, wanting to grab him, to pull him into her arms and shield him from all of this.

But just as she moved—

The world around her twisted.

When it settled again, she found herself standing in another part of the hellish facility.

Her brother was still there — but now he was inside a narrow, dark cage barely big enough for him to sit in. His arms were forced through the metal bars, tied with rough ropes that bit into his already bleeding wrists.

On the ground outside the cage were piles of sharp stones.

A guard barked coldly, “Kneel. You move, you bleed more. If you fall, you get no food for three days.”

The boy’s small body trembled as he carefully, painfully shifted to kneel on top of the sharp stones.