CDJMM – Volume 5 -Chapter 17 Civilization Rescue Team (17)

How could parents possibly watch their only child walk straight into a path filled with mortal danger?

As parents, how could they simply stand by and watch?

That’s why parents will always fight to stop their child—
Even if it means breaking his legs,
Even if it means humiliating themselves by kneeling and begging,
Even if it means staining their hands with blood, trampling every law and every moral line—
They will still drag their child away from danger and make sure he survives, safe and sound.

Extreme and selfish as it may be… That is a parent’s love.

Yes—how can they just watch their child die?

“Dad, Mom… thank you for taking care of me all these years.” The handsome teenager stretched out his arms and drew the elderly Ji Heguang and Bai Wei into his embrace.

His voice was gentle, fresh—like a summer sea breeze brushing the wings of a seagull. “In this life, I’m lucky to have been your child. I will always be grateful.”

Ji Heguang was truly old now—hair completely white, his once-straight posture shrunken and bent, leaning against a son whose chest wasn’t even that broad yet. He looked like a small, frail old man.

He buried his face in his son’s chest without saying a word, as if all the life had drained out of him.

Bai Wei, too, was now a thin little old lady. Her shoulders trembled violently as she clutched her son’s arm, the veins on her hand twisting grotesquely with force.

She bit down on her teeth, holding everything in—yet every now and then a small, frightened sob escaped her lips.

— Even if it means breaking his legs…

“You two gave me the happiness of a mortal life. You taught me what family means. Carrying your love with me… I will march forward without fear.”

— Even if it means kneeling shamefully on the ground to beg…

“Dad, Mom… goodbye. I’m sorry… that being your child means making you suffer like this…”

— Even if it means staining your hands with blood and trampling every law in existence…

Ji Heguang grabbed Le Jing’s shoulders, lifted his head, eyes bloodshot, and roared: “To hell with the end of the world! To hell with the evil god! I don’t care how many people die—none of that matters! I JUST WANT MY SON TO LIVE!”

He stared at Le Jing almost pleadingly. “Stay, okay? Don’t go… There are so many countries, so many nuclear weapons, tens of millions of soldiers—surely they’ll find a way to defeat that damn thing!”

Le Jing quietly looked at the old man begging before him. He gently wiped away the tears from the corner of his father’s eyes. A sigh rose from deep in his chest.

“Dad… I was born to fight the evil god. This is my fate. It’s the reason Ji Hejing exists.”

“What fate—fate my ass—!”

“Let him go.” Bai Wei’s cold, hard voice cut him off.

The small old woman lifted her head. She released her son’s arm and instead forcefully pried her husband’s trembling hands away from Le Jing’s shoulders. Her eyes were bloodshot, but her expression was incredibly resolute.

“Don’t stop him. Let him go.”

“When the country rises or falls, every citizen bears responsibility. I would rather my son die heroically on the battlefield— Than have him become a coward everyone laughs at.”

At this moment of farewell, the bloodline of Sichuan soldiers—those iron-blooded troops of history—erupted from within her bones. Her eyes were full of pain, yet also pride and unshakable resolve.

“I won’t hand you a death flag.
I only ask that you charge forward, without fear for your life.
If you live, I’ll wait at home for your triumphant return.
If you die… then in our next life, we’ll be mother and son again.”

Ji Heguang stared at his wife in shock, as if seeing her for the first time in his life.

Le Jing froze for a moment, then a gentle smile blossomed on his face. He hugged this lioness of a mother tightly.

“I’ll come back alive. I promise.”

Bai Wei shuddered. The tears she had been holding back for so long finally surged uncontrollably.

“I’ll be waiting at home,” she choked out.

…

The young man pushed open the door. Soldiers were already waiting outside.

Without looking back, he walked away.

Ji Heguang stared blankly at his son’s departing figure, tears streaming down his face. He used every ounce of strength just to stop himself from running after him.

He felt resentment in his heart—but he didn’t even know who to resent.

So he muttered, blaming his wife: “You’re better than me… you’re noble, you think of the greater good… you can be ruthless… I can’t…”

But his muttering was cut short by Bai Wei suddenly collapsing into a gut-wrenching, animalistic wail.

The old woman clutched her chest, sinking slowly to the ground, sobbing, vomiting, howling like a mother wolf that lost her cub.

“Lele… my Lele…!!!”

Ji Heguang felt thunderstruck. He knelt down and grabbed his wife’s frail body, crying just as loudly.

There was nothing he could do. Nothing they could do.

He could only watch his son’s back grow farther and farther away.

Not because of righteousness. But because his son’s back said clearly—

Don’t follow.

…

July 7, 2053.

China was deep in midsummer.

A peaceful summer afternoon—clear skies, sparrows trilling sweetly, sunlight shimmering through towering plane trees. A big yellow dog lay lazily in the shade, yawning.

It was just an ordinary summer afternoon.

In a small grocery store, the TV was broadcasting the noon news:

“Mr. Jing and the support forces have arrived in Antarctica. Hideous tentacles have broken through the ice… endless blizzards are soaked in blackened, viscous blood. Antarctica has become a bloody hell…”

“The evil god is on the verge of awakening. The final battle has begun. This war will determine the fate of human civilization. Mr. Jing stands as humanity’s first barrier, carrying the hopes of eight billion people…”

Li Jingwen, waiting in line to pay, looked up at the screen. Her expression was solemn, her eyes faintly moist.

More than thirty years had passed—yet Mr. Jing still looked like a teenager.

Even his personality was that of a teenager.

On screen, the boy’s face was calm, his eyes burning with unyielding determination.

Li Jingwen looked at him—yet her gaze pierced through the screen, through thirty years of time, and dimly saw another boy.

A boy whose name… also had the character Jing.

She was old enough to be a grandmother now, yet she had never forgotten that boy.

In the darkest days of her life, it was that boy who silently watched over her. His encouragement had given her the courage to step out of her house.

But before she could thank him… before she could truly understand the boy who had supported her…

He died.

The little boy, not yet grown, died at sixteen— Forever frozen in the summer of that year.

What kind of person had he been? What kind of life had he lived? Li Jingwen would never know.

The last she ever heard about him was when she graduated from university:

The boy’s mother had killed his father and dismembered the body. The brutal murder shocked the small town. Even the boy, dead for years, was brought up again.

They said the mother was mentally unstable, had tried many times to kill her own son.

They said the father—publicly a professor at the police academy, known for opposing crime—  was in secret the mastermind behind many crimes. A “modern-day Moriarty” the police had been hunting for years.

They said the mother was sentenced to life in prison…

“Grandma! One hundred fifty yuan!”

A childish voice pulled her back. Li Jingwen blinked, met the cashier child’s earnest stare, and quickly paid with her phone.

As she was about to leave, the child grinned brightly: “Grandma, don’t be scared! Mr. Jing will definitely beat the bad evil god!”

Li Jingwen chuckled. “You trust him that much?”

“Of course! He’s Mr. Jing!” the kid said firmly. “Teacher says he’s the strongest person in the world—stronger than Ultraman, Armor Heroes, and Optimus Prime!”

“Yes… we will win.” But as she said it, she suddenly thought again of that little boy.

A boy who died saving someone from drowning.

And now—another boy named Jing had stepped forward to save the entire world.

A strange tremor stirred in her heart. An inexplicable anxiety seeped into her bones.

As if an omen—

Would Mr. Jing… meet the same fate as Le Jing…?

…

Le Jing now stood at the South Pole.

Beneath him, the ground had already transformed into living flesh— Buildings, animals, plants, rocks, ice… everything that once existed here had become writhing blood-red tissue, secreting corrosive slime like a stomach digesting food.

The nearest troops were thousands of kilometers away.

Though genetically enhanced, they were still human. They couldn’t withstand the evil god’s gaze. If they saw it, they would be polluted, their bodies bursting apart and merging with the god.

Only Le Jing—immune to its corruption—could stand here.

He was the first barrier.

If he couldn’t defeat the evil god, then at the very least he must die with it.

Otherwise, world leaders would press the nuclear buttons.

Tens of thousands of nuclear warheads would detonate simultaneously over Antarctica. The sky would erupt into the largest mushroom cloud in human history.

Nothing could survive.

Earth would fall into nuclear winter. Humanity would face its darkest age— But civilization would survive.

And if even that failed to kill the evil god…

Then humanity had only one final plan— The real reason Le Jing pushed for the evolution of all mankind.

With Xingxiu’s help, survivors would scatter and migrate to other planes.

The new generation’s strengthened bodies would help them withstand space-time turbulence—  and survive in alien worlds.

Beneath Le Jing’s feet, a massive yellow eye snapped open. Inside it were countless smaller eyes—dense like an insect’s compound eye. A normal human would go mad at the slightest glance.

Then another eye opened.

Another.

Ten.

A hundred.

A thousand.

Across the endless mountains of flesh— countless multicolored, hideous eyes snapped open, all staring in unison at Le Jing.

The air twisted under the weight of overwhelming malice. The sea boiled like a pot of water.

It had awakened.