Chapter 309: Memories of the Past

"Not an enemy!"

"Open the gates!"

The heavy alloy gates slowly rose as an officer, who once saw Yaoen help fight the gene-stealers, emerged from behind the walls with two men, bringing Yaoen into District 100.

Chen Ye leaped down from the seven-meter-high wall, landing before Yaoen with a spark of excitement in his eyes. "Have you returned to aid me?"

"No. I've come to investigate a matter," Yaoen replied. "What do you know of the Usurper's death?"

"Not the Usurper—the former governor," Chen Ye corrected him, gesturing toward a larger building within the district. "The ones involved are inside. Go and ask them."

Without delay, Yaoen made his way to the house. As he opened the door, the dim light greeted him, and the scent of antiseptic hung heavy in the air. The sparse room contained only a broken bed and an old sofa.

A frail young man lay on the bed while an elderly man tended to his wounds. This elder was evidently a psyker—his eyes sewn shut, with scars trailing from his hawk-like nose to his temples.

The psyker cast a brief glance at Yaoen, then resumed tending to the youth, masking his discomfort.

Yaoen broke the silence. "Are you the one…"

"Yes, I am the psyker who can foresee the future, the one who witnessed the former governor's death beneath my very eyes," the psyker answered directly.

"And that young man?"

"He is the grandson of the deceased governor," the psyker replied as if anticipating the question. "His name is He Qizheng."

The young man lay silently, too weak to speak or move, but trembled as he saw Yaoen produce a silver syringe from his pack.

"It's alright, child," the psyker reassured him. "It's a nanomachine serum to repair your wounds, restoring damaged tissues and organs."

Injecting the serum, Yaoen observed the psyker with curiosity, noting the unusual nature of his powers.

As the silver liquid began its work, coating the wound and rapidly healing the tissue, He Qizheng exhaled in relief, the pain ebbing away.

"Now, perhaps you can answer the questions troubling this lord," the psyker encouraged.

Once again, Yaoen turned to the psyker.

The psyker, seeming to anticipate his next words, said, "To my eyes, you appear as mere ashes adrift in the void, but I can see the future interactions I'll have with you and with He Qizheng."

Unfazed by the cryptic words, Yaoen refocused. He was about to ask how the governor had died, but instead found himself curious about something else: why District 100 had ventured into the underhive to cleanse it of gene-stealers.

After a pause, He Qizheng answered calmly, "Revenge. Over seventy years, twenty-five infants and sixty-three youths from District 100 were stolen."

"Those damn parasites." Yaoen's thoughts flickered to his own child, and he pushed back the urge to storm the underhive in a blind fury. "Now, tell me, how did those nobles' so-called 'Usurper' meet his end?"

"The nobles have slandered him," He Qizheng said, his gaze drifting to the ceiling. "My grandfather wasn't a usurper. A hundred and twenty years ago, he was an ordinary man from the underhive, like any other."

Yaoen listened in silence.

"Though he eventually became governor, he started as nothing more than a common soul, just like the rest of us. When the former governor sought a mate for his mechanical hound, he took a lover from one of the men in District 100. My grandfather only joked about it at the tavern."

He glanced at the psyker.

"We grew up as neighbors, close as brothers," the psyker added with a nod.

"When his best friend's wife was next to be taken for that hound, they plotted to rescue her. They killed the beast, but in doing so, they became fugitives, forced to hide in the underhive. But even then, the governor replaced his dead hound and continued his vile practice."

"When my grandfather heard this, he realized he could no longer stand by. And so, he vowed to put an end to the governor's tyranny."

"The rebellion was unstoppable. The poorly armed soldiers marched through the streets, joined by gang members and commoners wielding whatever they could find. They fought from the underhive to the upper hive and finally to the spire itself. Even priests and nobles joined their cause."

He Qizheng's voice grew fervent, reliving the memory as if he were there. "My grandfather slew the governor and his hound and, before all, was crowned governor by the priests."

"He strove to improve lives, forging ties with the agricultural world of North Star VII, establishing protocols… he achieved much."

He looked to Yaoen, his voice dimming with sorrow. "Then, in his twilight years, he was assassinated. Though he was guarded by a psyker capable of foreseeing events and a loyal guard who had protected him for seventy years, somehow, an assassin still struck."

Yaoen turned to the psyker. "Did you not foresee his death?"

"Visions are fragmented and cryptic," the psyker replied. "They are faint images and distant voices, almost incomprehensible. It took me a century to refine my abilities enough to understand the words and arrange them in order."

He Qizheng, eyes closed, continued, "I was walking toward my grandfather's quarters to ask for money when I heard a noise in the ventilation shaft. I looked and saw…"

Yaoen leaned closer, his eyes intent.

He Qizheng took a steadying breath and spoke, "A tail—a long, slender tail."