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2024-10-29 19:42:56Besides the identity of Leo Pavilion, I have a job as the one owning a part of this luxurious restaurant. Yeah, you don’t misunderstand. It’s me, who has just graduated from high school.
To be honest, the birth of this restaurant derives from lots of factors: Long’s own dramatic parents, his mental wound, and a crazy moment of mine. Not the intentional idea to startup at a young age, certainly.
The guy who is grabbing every piece of abalone over there is Long, one hundred per cent. He is ugly; I have to accept that reality, with naturally brown skin, black curly hair, a round face, and congenital myopia which forces him to wear glasses all the time. Those are the reasons he got rejected by his own parents.
I don’t know it clearly, because it was Long’s sad memory, anyway. I just heard his butler saying that his mother, a young wealthy heir (yes, childish too), slept with her boyfriend and gave birth to Long a year later, when she was just sixteen. She rejected the little one who was her son because he wasn’t as beautiful as her. What’s worse, her boyfriend—Long’s father and a rich man—was something of a crazy man as well. His top priority was that young girl, and he refused Long too.
His butler was the only one taking pity on little Long, asking for money from Long’s grandparents and bringing him back to his homeland, Vietnam, to raise him.
Ah? Didn’t I tell you that Long is not a full-blooded Vietnamese? It's unexplainable but he looks like us, though his father is American and his mother is French. His mind differs from theirs too. Long is a genius. He soon knows about everything, he understands all, and he might have successfully ended his life if I didn’t go find him on that stormy night two years ago.
This restaurant was his father’s property in Vietnam and the first thing I told Long to take back from those heartless parents. It might be cruel in some ways, but I have no way to go, except to burn his flame of revenge, encouraging him to be richer than his parents, who are now having their own families, to let him live.
That spirit is expressed through the restaurant’s name too, which Long himself put up, in an elegant style, when we opened this location. Rearrange all the letters in the name ‘Genvere’ and you will see another word: Revenge. So, you can guess how he felt then.
I do not know what Long has done to take this fancy restaurant back from his father, but I can’t betray what I said. Err, I once said to him when I pulled him out of the lake that day that I would help him. So when Long the brat told me to contribute capital because he couldn’t work alone, I put all the precious money that I had saved for years, and kept working like a horse to raise this restaurant.
It may sound like a startup story, but what’s the truth? I am still as poor as a church mouse! All the money I had thrown into Genvere just went around and around, getting bigger and bigger like a snowball because of the pretty good business. Nominally, the money I invested is growing, but from a realistic point of view, my money is growing, so I can’t take even a penny out because it will ‘cause some negative effects’, as the manager had told me.
Gulping down a mouthful of lemonade, I think.
F*ck the silly friendship between us, and yeah, my damn kindness too.
“Nguyệt Anh, have you seen Nam anywhere?”
As soon as this sweet voice echoes in my ears, for heaven’s sake, my heart does lose one beat. My mind tells me her identity first, and by the moment I look up, the stubborn thing inside my chest just simply starts… racing.
She is Khanh, one of my classmates, the goddess of beauty. And she is my cup of tea. I have had a crush on her for three years, but the only thing that I can see from her was just her hasty back when she was late for school. I had more or less forgotten her beauty, my emotions toward her since I always had something to do when she showed up. Three years have gone and how incredible it is, I’m in love again.
I am nearly deaf, hearing nothing from her cute cherry lips, just drowning in her deep brown eyes. What is this sound? Love for sure! Owing to that wonderful force of love, I take at least ten seconds to vomit only one word.
“Pardon?”
“Ah, I mean, have you ever seen Nam since the party started?” She repeats her question. Her glitter eyes seem to shine and lure me to fall…
Wait a damn minute. Nam?
All my ‘love’ vanishes straight away with magic when that moron’s name shows up in my ears. What am I hearing? Nam? It was the stupid thing who yelled at me in the morning! It was Leo Killer! Why does this miserable name appear in my crush’s mouth? What’s happening? Is she paying attention to that dunderhead? I haven't tortured that guy but he is now…
“I’m sorry, Khanh. I haven’t seen him appear at this party. And I don’t have his phone number either. You may have to ask another one.” Not letting her ask anymore, I respond with my eyebrows raised but my voice is still calm.
Nam? F*ck! If this moron turns to flirting with Khanh, I’ll cut off his tiny bird! I swear!
Khanh gets no information, so she turns her back and is about to leave, asking the others. I don’t let her go as a matter of course. One is I have to know more about this ‘potential love enemy’, and another is I have seen Nam nowhere for sure. Though it was difficult to change the planned karaoke bar into Genvere to hold the party in safety, this restaurant is famous here and Long has announced it to everyone. That idiot can’t get lost, can he?
“Hey Khanh, has anything happened to him?”
Her leaving figure stops. Khanh turns back, looking at me. However, what I see in those dreamy brown pearls isn’t the warmth but the obvious weirdness mixed with some… pity?
No, no, it may be my vision’s problem. It’s impossible…
While I am still confused, her voice transmits into my mind like scissors cutting through my line of thought, leaving nothing but the shock.
“Don’t you know that? Something attacked him this afternoon. It jumps from the ground to his room on the third floor. His neighbors have called the police too.”
“What?”
Another girl is enjoying her drink and suddenly stops, she comes to her seat and asks Khanh, “You also know it? Before I came here, I could even see a big hole in the road in front of his house! Nam doesn’t get injured much, does he?”
“I’m not sure,” Khanh answered. She sits down on a chair not so far away, looking around and telling that girl with a low voice like a whisper, but thanks to my perfect sense of hearing, it does not differ from a big hammer nailing to my broken mind.
“Thuy was near the scene at that moment. Do you know what she told me? She said the culprit was ugly yet scary, like a monster or…”
“An alien.”
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60000 Years Later Chapter 9
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So, it turns out that aliens are real? Not the synonym of that bad word?It is the final thing appearing in my mind before my body falls to the ground, sliding backward while the broken pieces are splashing on, and I end up slamming the brick wall behind.“Ouch…”I swear on my honor, it’s the most painful moment that I’ve ever gone through. I can barely breathe. My back is so hurtful that it’s no longer sensible. The worst part might be my left arm, which definitely got a crack from that accident and is now causing me terrible numbness, spreading all over my body and worsening my bad health.As the pain gets worse and worse, I crawl up with the limbs, which can’t be still for even a moment. They’re all trembling uncontrollably. There is nothing fine remaining in my body, and for me—a person who can’t even be able to suffer minor pain—it is the true nightmare. Now crawling up is also a difficult task. I got a broken arm, hurting legs, and a blurred vision, which just allows me to see t
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Slowly, I slide to the ground while that anxious tone is still echoing in my ears like the voice of death. I don’t even dare to breathe so hard, though my heart is racing as if it’s about to explode inside my chest. My head is suffering from the splitting headache, but how strange it is, my mind is more conscious than ever.I open my eyes, staring at the dark for a moment before turning the phone’s screen into the wall so as not to let anyone realize. Then, at the fastest speed, I turn on the silent mode and type a message to ask for help.Now, if I don’t realize that this is a carefully prepared conspiracy to cut my throat, then I don’t deserve to be alive anymore. Though it’s unbelievable and damn luckless, Long’s hypothesis is exact: I am the target, which should be killed in silence and absolute carefulness, for some unknown reason.Using this one as an explanation, I understand why they didn’t kill Nam the poor victim, arrest me in front of Thuy’s eyes, or just show their real ap
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Since the moment the substance gets injected into my nape, the only signal I receive from my fragile body is survival impossible. I stop for a second, feeling the siren echoing in my ears with no way to escape from this hell. I have no words to describe this situation. Everything is suddenly painful, attacking me without preparation. Every single cell is screaming louder than ever. My sensitive nerves are on fire, but my head is no longer hurtful.I look at my hands, then glance at the bricks scattered around with a freaky thought arising over the pain, without expectation.It, the soul deep inside me, orders self-destruction instead.Unbearable.“Ahhhh!!!”I’m not sure about what happens next.Perhaps the alien has released me, or Thuy finally attacks that damn thing and pulls me out. The final thing I save in my mind—amidst the chaotic thoughts of slamming my head into some rock—is not to cause any harm, before Thuy grasps my wrist and drags me out of this place, with the alien in a
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Then I sob while waiting for the alien's action. But it just sits there in silence, and it's quite illogical.The most perfect lie is a combination between right things and wrong ones. My muscles are actually useless after years of being weak, and… yeah, I can't live my life because I am too weak to do anything. Most of my words are spoken from the bottom of my heart. My actions are high quality as I have learnt it from a famous actress.I have to be the director, the script writer, and the actor at the same time. Ain't I talented? Why doesn't the alien trust me?Luckily, the alien comes closer to me, slightly patting on my shoulders. I look up with my tearful eyes, and those compassionate eyes look back at me.“It was a pity to hear that from you. She stole your power and now you have to follow her as a subordinate, begging for her protection…” Those words are fine for me, but the last ones force me to look up at the alien, “Women should never have powers.”Excuse me?‘Women should ne
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If you have ever failed in imagining how aliens would look like when they were in war, now I can tell you some with my damn experience.It is just… chaotic, in the way that you will easily recognize that they're in war. Only in war.This hallway is full of aliens, where I can see all the possible combinations of colors, shapes, and sizes on the humanlike bodies, which are the first thing that an Earthling like me has ever seen, smelled, or heard of.The atmosphere here is definitely not good for my health. The scent of grass, mixed with dust, roses, burning flesh, and something metallic like blood. Sometimes you can smell a bad odor as if there is a dead body. It is absolutely terrifying, but I see nothing but a dense crowd in the hallway.The headache tortures me. I want to vomit. But I have nothing in the stomach, and there is just no way to escape from this circumstance.Sighing in silence, I walk ahead, trying to pass through this crowded hallway as if I am one of them… Or maybe n
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Chapter 24
After that humanlike creature leaves, I look around the room and don't know what to do next.If describing my emotions now as something figurative, then I suggest calling it a mixture of an avocado, some pepper, and a cup of coffee. An inedible mixture, which is as weird as my emotions are.My situation may be the most hellish one ever in humankind's history. After being chased by drones, fighting against an alien battleship, I'm probably caged for the first time ever in my life.Yes, caged. No matter how prosperous my imagination is, I have never expected that one day I will be caught, or caged—if you prefer the second word.I have been a good citizen for eighteen years of my life. A really good one, I can swear on my honor that even if my three years old little brother was a criminal, I would never be. My body is just simply unqualified to be a criminal, so if I ain't the victim, then there's no way that I will be the culprit.Thinking again, the only serious crime that I have commit
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Chapter 23
PART TWO: Not Home, No Home“Wake up already?”A morning light ray shines in my eyes at the same time I hear this voice. I'm confused for a moment, my sleepy brain hasn't started working yet. I just follow my instinct, turning my head at the place where the voice echoes. Sunlight goes across my skin, leaving some warmth, which makes me feel a little… unfamiliar?Huh?Why is it unfamiliar?“Why are you standing right there? Go and bring those trash bags to the outside. The garbage truck will be here later… Can't you hear me?” The voice appears in my ears again, bringing some anger as I don't pay attention to the content.I look up. My eyes open wide. And, though I don't know why, my mouth has opened and said what it wants.“Mom? Why are you here?”My mother is holding a handkerchief. It seems that she is going to clean the glass window which is covered with fog droplets. She looks back at me with a complicated expression, then she throws that handkerchief at me. That thin object doesn't
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Chapter 22
Right after making a fragile bond between an unknown danger and a victim, that ‘danger’ picks me back to the control center because I can't walk.The lighting system couldn't escape the fate of being destroyed in the fight. We can't see light from outer space as well—maybe we have gone away from that cluster. The dim green light from the control panel is the only thing we can see in the dark, and it's obviously not enough.I slowly wave my hand on the floor to make sure that I'm not going to sit down on sharp metal pieces, then lean against the cold wall while Thuy comes closer to the control panel. Green light reflects her curious face when she stares at all the virtual keyboard, radar system, and the three-dimensional simulation—an expression which I can barely see on her cold face.“Looks great, right?” I ask her with a low voice but full of obvious pride. All the spaceships I designed in Sky Force follow the highest standards of aesthetics, so how could they be unimpressive?“Yeah
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Chapter 21
Actually I don't know what I'm thinking about, when I'm still lying on the metal floor and looking up at the electric sparks like a crazy guy.My head is aching, again.It feels like you met some fuckin' scary guys and they smashed you, at your head, with a hard brick. It was painful at first, but when they started changing their weapon into a block of metal, you…No.Now I just want to slam my head into something, or anything possible, to end this unbearable pain. I don't know if this pain comes from the weird substance which I got injected, but it is absolutely worse than the usual ones.For a moment my nervous system has stopped working. But just a second later, it starts, once again, thinking of some negative things like what I had to suffer in the past. They bloom in my chaotic mind as a call from hell, or an ugly hand waving me from the dark.The headache gets worse. Now it feels like someone is stirring my brain, and I can do nothing but bite the sleeve so as not to accidentall
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Chapter 20
Xeros 5M is never a good choice for face-to-face battles, especially for an unequal fight between a small spaceship and a huge battleship.Though its damage is perfect for long-range targets with a good motion detector, the cannon will break into pieces if we fire closer than the minimum distance. The weapon itself will become a disposable product—and it's a critical, deadly waste in fighting, which is usually prohibited (in Sky Force, at least).Because of that reason, not many players know that it was the muzzle that restricted Xeros' capacity, and it's just enough for an impressive headshot.First I move around the enemy battleship to check if it has anything related to my memories. Although it sounds ridiculous and crazy, I can't hold back thinking that this damn world might have some relation to Sky Force and… my spaceship design.We got a ship with all the functions of my Hurricane, now there is a battleship using something that looks exactly like the camouflage cover I have use
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Chapter 19
Wars follow humankind on their way to evolution.Before Christ, we had lots of wars in Egypt, Babylon, and the Hittite Empire, which were reflected in several famous comics which I don’t even read.The Roman Empire was in the spotlight for being involved in so many wars until the fall of the East Roman Empire in 1453 A.D.The Middle Ages was known for the Crusade.And the modern era shows us World War I and World War II, which everyone has already known after years in school.Differences and similarities are the main reasons that lead to wars. You’re afraid of something weird, ugly, unknown, and different from you, and then your instinct tells you to destroy that object to prevent any harm. That’s how war happens.No one wants war, or at least we ordinary people don’t. I am too.I don’t believe what the AI system’s voice said at first. I stand up again and look for a camera to check it out, thinking that it's just an error. I have a habit of taking photos of my opponents from behind,
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Chapter 18
At first, I didn’t recognize what it was.The first scene which catches my eye is a big room with a metal floor, and three huge glass-like cracked windows showing nothing outside. It is pure black, just like any normal scene coming from a science fiction movie. I am not attracted to this, because everything that draws my attention is the way to unlock the control panel. It’s the crucial part here. Nothing else.I’m trying to guess what the alien engineers thought when they created this spaceship. It’s time-consuming and patient-required. I have to make lots of ways, as much as possible, while the right arm—which is not broken—keeps on touching every single inch of the floating plate, to find something useful, shown clearly through lots of blood lines that my fingers left on the way.Where can the control panel be hidden?Aliens are not us. I have to forget all the usual methods of inference to think weirdly, as an alien does. Can this plate be the control panel? If not, why is it here
