“Buying.” Meng Qing lightly clicked on his terminal, and as the transfer successful message popped up, his account balance was reduced to almost nothing.
After confirming the receipt, the middle-aged man entered an inner room and soon came out, handing a thin terminal to Meng Qing. “Here. It’s yours now.”
Meng Qing took the terminal, replacing the one originally attached to his left arm. Although it cost him greatly, it was worth the price.
Four bailiffs took Yu Yi out of the tribunal, who would take her to undergo the frontal lobe excision. She was unclear about what this punishment entailed, what the frontal lobe was, or why it had caused a commotion among others in the tribunal. But from others’ reactions, she could tell this so-called excision surgery must be terrifying.
She was terrified, almost unable to move her steps, but the court bailiff supported her, making her move forward even if she didn’t want to. She trembled and asked, “Are you going to cut off some part of my body?”
One bailiff looked at her sympathetically. She was only fourteen years old, raised in a time and space with extremely backward technology, unable to understand what punishment she was about to receive. He softly comforted her, “Don’t be afraid. The anesthetist will give you anesthesia, and you won’t feel pain during the surgery.”
Yu Yi was not afraid of pain, but what terrified her most was not knowing what would be cut off. She had heard of prisoners having their noses or limbs chopped off, and if she were to become like that, she would rather die now.
The hearing chamber was inside the Temporal Management Bureau, and the hospital under the medical department performing the frontal lobotomy was also located within the bureau. The bailiffs took Yu Yi by elevator directly to the hospital area.
When Yu Yi was fixed on a single bed and the four bailiffs retreated outside the operating room, her fear reached its peak. When the operating room door opened again, that fear finally erupted, and Yu Yi couldn’t help but burst into tears.
The doctor, wearing a light green half-length gown and a light green surgical cap, approached her. Through her blurry tearful eyes, Yu Yi couldn’t see his face clearly, only seeing him bending down towards her.
She instinctively wanted to curl up and avoid him, but she was tightly secured to the bed with restraints and couldn’t move at all. She could only cry and beg, “No, please don’t…”
“Don’t be afraid, it’s me,” he softly soothed.
Yu Yi opened her eyes wide. This voice… was Meng Qing!
She desperately blinked her blurry tearful eyes to see his face clearly. Behind those protective goggles were a pair of warm, smiling eyes. It was really him! He had come to save her.
Yu Yi’s trembling gradually stopped. She quietly watched Meng Qing unbuckle the restraints securing her body and limbs.
Meng Qing helped her sit up and asked softly, “Are you okay?”
Yu Yi tried to get out of bed and stand, but her legs were numb from being tightly restrained. She looked up at him worriedly, “My legs are numb.”
“Just numb legs? It’s okay, you don’t need to walk,” Meng Qing chuckled. He opened his terminal and quickly clicked a few times, transporting them to another time and space. This terminal had the most powerful function of freely traversing time and space, with anti-tracking technology against the Temporal Management Bureau.
Yu Yi held out her hands to Meng Qing. Her wrists were still firmly locked by metal rings. Meng Qing took out a metal cutter and cut through the handcuffs, removing them from her wrists. To avoid being located by the tracker inside the handcuffs, he operated the terminal again.
Continuously crossing different time and spaces made Yu Yi uncomfortable. She tightly gripped Meng Qing’s arm to avoid falling due to dizziness. Meng Qing wrapped his arm around her waist and said softly, “Close your eyes. I’ll call you when it’s done.”
Yu Yi’s cheeks burned, but she didn’t push him away.
Embarrassed and shy, she lowered her head against his chest, letting him hold her waist as they traversed different time and spaces.
With him holding her, she wasn’t afraid of dizziness. Out of curiosity, she slightly opened her eyes, seeing various landscapes rapidly passing by, which made her eyes widen in surprise.
At one moment they were on a mountain peak, surrounded by misty clouds; then they were on a plain with autumn colors, layers of forest dyed crimson; next they were on a dangerous cliff overlooking the sea, with massive waves surging below; then in a rain-washed dense forest with a jade-like green; and in a deep, dark cave with an unknown, glimmering light on its walls…
This glance revealed such beautiful scenery that she could no longer bear to close her eyes.
This allowed Yu Yi to see landscapes she had never experienced before. She had only read about them in travel journals.
She had read many travel journals, some rare ones even with ink-wash illustrations.
Note: The changes made are minor and aim to maintain the coherence and flow of the narrative while removing information that is not essential to the plot or theme.
Moreover, they sometimes passed through places even more bizarre than planets with purple-red skies and azure grasslands, each landscape uniquely interesting.
Meng Qing glanced and saw Yu Yi’s excited expression, so he slowed down the time and space transitions. He wanted to show her how vast and colorful the world was, far beyond the small Longdu city.
He stopped under a brilliant starry sky and asked her, “Want to see more interesting time and spaces?”
Yu Yi turned to look at him. The joy of finally being free made her extremely excited, but what thrilled her even more now was the novel experiences brought by time and space traversal. She smiled and nodded.
Meng Qing scratched the corner of his mouth, “But I’ll need to earn some money first.” He pointed at the terminal, “I spent all my money buying this thing. Now I’m completely broke. Although we can see free scenery, we still need to pay for food and drinks.”
After hearing her question, Meng Qingwei smiled and looked at her: “There is a type of people in this world, somewhat similar to executors, but they are unofficial lone wolves, called bounty hunters.”
(end)
