Chapter 101: Not Daring to Cross the Line

Chapter 101: Chapter 101: Not Daring to Cross the Line

On the official opening day of 01/01/3095, planet Sirius welcomed a massive volume of guests pouring in from across the star systems. However, the area around the protective wall breach in the Northern Hemisphere was completely isolated from that noisy, bustling commotion.

The winter wind across the temperate zone blew in whistling gusts, carrying fragile snowflakes down to land upon the freezing alloy scaffolding frame. Amidst the vast silver-grey sky, there was only the howling of the wind rushing through the steel gaps and the crackling sound of electric sparks ringing out in solitude.

Julian stood suspended on a mechanical lift platform at a height of three hundred meters, his two hands operating an optical welding machine to relink the weakened energy mesh nodes. By rights, this task of patching a breach with a fifteen-kilometer radius using the exclusive technology of the Vance family needed only three days to be completed. However, Julian had deliberately lowered the machine’s output to the lowest level, manually aligning each microscopic joint himself to drag it out to the tenth day.

Nobody exposed this unreasonable delay of his. Every time Benjamin and Isabella went to inspect the site, they quietly left behind a few tubes of high-grade nutrient fluid or a thermal lunch box at the supply station at the foot of the scaffolding before leaving.

As for Liam, he treated Julian as thin air; so long as Julian did not linger in front of Elijah to become an eyesore to the boy, whether Julian wanted to hang himself on the scaffolding all year or freeze into a statue up there, Liam could not care less.

Every afternoon when the sunlight faded, after Julian finished completing a section of the mesh, he took off his protective gloves that had frozen stiff from the frost, driving the battered construction electric vehicle back to the villa area.

He did not return straight to his own house, instead always stopping the vehicle in a hidden corner about fifty meters away from the villa of the Hall family, where a dense clump of green bamboo provided cover. At that spot, the bamboo canopy drooped down just enough to conceal the grey electric vehicle, yet still left a small gap pointing straight into the warm, sunlit yard inside the wooden fence.

This afternoon was the same.

Inside the villa yard, Elijah was sitting curled up on the familiar swing chair, his lap covered with a thick pale-orange wool blanket newly knitted for him by Isabella. The boy held a mandarin-flavored lollipop in his mouth while frowning as he tapped clack-clack on the virtual keyboard. Occasionally, when he wrote up to a satisfying passage, his fleece-socked feet swung gently, his chubby face shining with a lively radiance that Julian had never once seen again throughout the past nine years.

Julian sat motionless on the electric vehicle, his two hands freezing cold from the icy wind gripping the steering wheel tightly. Inside his coat pocket there was a small velvet box. Inside it was a miniature mechanical star-beast model that he had stayed up for three sleepless nights last week to personally grind the components and assemble by hand. It was identical to the toy that Elijah, the year he turned eight, had insistently demanded Julian buy for him, but that day Julian had been too absorbed in gathering to race hovercars with his group of friends at the meteor belt, completely forgetting about it, leaving the child sitting with his arms around his knees waiting by the window right until midnight.

He badly wanted to step forward, place the box on the table in front of the boy, saying a sentence that his youngest uncle had brought a gift here to make it up to Elijah.

However, his legs felt as though they were filled with lead. The words Elijah had spoken by the riverbank that night still echoed beside Julian’s ears like a curse: "Between us, the debt is cleared."

He had no right. When someone had abandoned the child who trusted him most six times over, indirectly pushing that child into the dark hell of isolation and mental abuse, what face could he possibly have to step through that gate to play the role of a loving youngest uncle?

"Standing out here in the wind is freezing cold, are you planning to be a snowman guarding the gate for my house?"

A chilly voice rang out right behind Julian, making him jump in fright. He turned his head back, seeing Liam wearing a warm fur cloak, one hand supporting the belly that had already risen high in the fifth month, the other hand holding a bamboo basket containing several freshly dug sweet potatoes still clinging with damp soil. Walking close beside Liam was Gabriel with an expressionless face, carrying a gardening shovel in his hand while looking as though he were holding a blade ready to hack someone down.

Julian hurriedly stepped down from the electric vehicle, flusteredly standing up straight like a student caught red-handed doing something bad by a teacher: "Liam... I... I was only passing by on my way."

Liam glanced at the thin layer of snow that had already covered the shoulders of Julian’s coat and his hair in pure white. With this kind of "passing by" that meant standing motionless for nearly a whole hour amidst the snowy wind like this, even if one told it to a Robot dog, it would not believe it.

Lately, because Nirvana was by his side putting on a comedy act every day, combined with his pregnancy having become more stable as it entered the fifth month, Liam’s psychophysiological disorder had subsided considerably. Even though he still had no fondness whatsoever for this thoughtless youngest maternal uncle, he was no longer to the point of flying into a rage demanding to take an excavator to scoop Julian flying out of the meteor belt like before.

Liam breathed out a wisp of white mist, his tone indifferent: "That protective wall breach up there, I heard Gabriel report that it was already patched up since yesterday afternoon. How long are you planning to make excuses to stay put here?"

Julian bowed his head low, the tip of his shoe rubbing lightly against the cold stone ground: "Tomorrow morning I will return to planet Vega. The research lab over there has been urging me as well..."

Liam looked at the dejected appearance of the man nearly thirty years old in front of him, glancing over again at the velvet box showing a corner out of Julian’s coat pocket. He stayed silent for two seconds before speaking up:

"Julian, do you know why I cleared away that pile of food in front of you that day at the restaurant?"

Julian was stunned, stammering: "Was it not... because I took the dishes Elijah likes to eat?"

Liam let out a scoff: "My family has no shortage of food; wanting to eat more only requires calling the kitchen to bring up another plate to be done with it. I cleared it away because from the moment Elijah sat down at the table, he never raised his head for more than five seconds, even having to tense his body just to breathe. With you sitting opposite him, he could not swallow his food."

Julian’s complexion turned pale, his lips trembling without uttering a word, his chest transmitting dull spasms one after another.

"Do you think he does not know about you standing lurking by this bamboo clump every afternoon?" Liam lifted his chin toward the villa yard: "Elijah is currently wearing the highest-grade security alert device of the Hall family on his person. For anyone standing within a one-hundred-meter radius around him for more than five minutes, the smart unit will report the location and identity. You standing here for fifty minutes means he has to endure a suffocating feeling for a full fifty minutes."

Inside the villa yard, the small figure on the swing chair froze slightly. Elijah’s fingers that were typing on the keyboard stopped completely in mid-air, the orange wool blanket on his lap slipping lightly down by a corner.

Julian felt as though someone had slammed a sledgehammer into his chest, his breath choking in his throat. He had kept thinking that if he stood peeking from afar it would not bother the boy, never expecting that even his silent presence was a form of mental torture toward Elijah.

He hurriedly stepped back two paces, his trembling hand taking the velvet box out of his coat pocket, placing it onto the seat of Liam’s electric vehicle:

"I... I am sorry, I did not know about that. This... please pass it on to Elijah for me. Do not say it is from me, just say it is a complimentary gift from the tourist area. I am going to pack my belongings to return to Vega right tonight."

Julian finished speaking, nearly fleeing for his life toward his own villa, his tall, broad back looking exceedingly disheveled and lonely beneath the afternoon curtain of snow that was growing thicker by the moment.

Liam picked the velvet box up, clicking his tongue once. Nirvana jumped onto his shoulder, smacking its lips: [Sigh, truly a case of not knowing how to cherish what you have when you have it, then once it is lost even wanting to take a single look becomes a burden. Host, are you really planning to give it to Elijah?]

[I will just hand it over, while whether he accepts it or throws it into the trash bin is his right.]

Liam strolled unhurriedly into the villa yard. Elijah had already turned off his smart screen at some point, currently bowing his head to unwrap a second lollipop. Liam walked over, casually tossing the velvet box into Elijah’s lap:

"Someone gave this. He said he is packing up to return to Vega right tonight; from now on, out of sight, out of mind."

Elijah held the velvet box that still lingered with a trace of Julian’s body warmth, opening the lid to look at the tiny mechanical star-beast blinking its pair of blue LED eyes. The boy’s eye sockets reddened slightly; the memory of the eight-year-old child who had once wept silently by the windowsill seemed to rush back before quickly dispersing along with the cold breeze, but this time he did not cry anymore.

Elijah snapped the lid of the box shut with a "click", tossing it into the drawer beneath the tea table, his nasal voice slightly choked yet light as a feather:

"A child’s toy. Who would care to play with this kind of thing anymore."