# 1175
Chapter 1176: Domination
Wu Quan snapped back to reality, scrambled out of the ruins in a frenzy, and rushed to rescue the others in the small dormitory.
When the scrawny Wu Quan finally carried the heavyset Liu Laotou to the open ground, gritting his teeth from the strain, he was drenched in sweat. Without time to rest, he quickly checked the vital signs of the other children.
In the fire, there had been four children—two aged ten, one aged three, and one aged four.
Two survived. Two died.
Strangely, the older children, Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng, had failed to survive the ordeal. The survivors were the three-year-old and four-year-old.
Wu Quan pried open the mouths of Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng. Their mouths and noses were clogged with smoke and dust. He had seen this before in the begging ring.
Wu Quan's gaze swept across the faces of the two surviving children. Each had a damp towel draped over their face.
Children this age wouldn't know such things. If Wu Quan had to guess, this must have been something Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng had done in their panic after the fire broke out. In that moment between life and death, they had still chosen to prioritize protecting their younger siblings.
Liu Laotou must have rushed into the small dormitory only after the fire started, so he had inhaled the least smoke and survived as well, though he'd fallen into a temporary coma.
Ash drifted through the dim courtyard. Wu Quan stared in silence at the bodies of Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng, and at the unconscious Shen Qingzhu and Liu Laotou beside them, his fists clenched tight.
In his mind, he recalled the scene of Shen Qingzhu fighting the fire demon with his life, and that hoarse voice filled with hope at the end.
But in the end, Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng were still dead...
He could already imagine what expression Shen Qingzhu would wear when he woke up and saw their bodies.
Wu Quan knew his Qingzhu-ge too well. He would definitely hate himself for not extinguishing the flames sooner, for not getting home in time. He would stubbornly take all the blame onto himself and live forever in endless self-blame and regret.
At the thought of this, the eleven-year-old boy's eyes filled with profound sorrow and guilt.
He was going to disappoint Shen Qingzhu.
"If only... you could come back to life."
Wu Quan hugged his knees, crouching helplessly on the ground, staring at the two bodies and murmuring to himself.
Thump—!
A light sound came from the chests of Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng.
Wu Quan froze.
He seemed to sense something, lowering his head to look at his own hands. A faint glow flickered in his eyes.
Can I... control them?
This thought suddenly appeared in his mind.
Wu Quan tentatively reached out his hand, waving gently at the two bodies. Under the power of [Emperor of Domination], the two hearts that had stopped beating actually began to beat again!
As the hearts started beating, blood rapidly flowed through the corpses. The darkness in Wu Quan's eyes grew deeper and deeper, and his control over the two corpses became increasingly precise.
Heart control, lung function control, kidney function, spleen function, stomach function...
Wu Quan's figure slowly rose. His hands danced through the air, like a conductor directing a symphony of corpses. Those two cold bodies actually began to show signs of life.
This wasn't corpse manipulation. It was making this "dead" body come back to life while controlling all its organs. Their heartbeats, pulses, and blood pressure gradually approached normal human levels under his control.
The only drawback was that no matter how normal these two bodies became, their spirits and consciousness were already dead. These were just two "fresh corpses."
Their gazes remained empty and lifeless.
However—
Under Wu Quan's domination, their hollow eyes began to glow with vitality. Their facial muscles twitched constantly, as if trying to form different expressions.
A few minutes later, Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng were completely "alive," standing quietly before him.
A gleam of joyful surprise appeared in Wu Quan's eyes.
"Ah... oh... you... Wu, Wu Quan... I'm Li Xia...oyan..."
"I'm not... hurt... I'm fine."
"Don't worry, Qingzhu-ge."
"Wu Quan, come eat!"
"Why are you calling him? He's just a block of wood. If he wants to be alone, just let him be alone."
Wu Quan controlled their mouths to open and close, their vocal cords to vibrate. With each attempt, their speech and actions grew closer to everyday life, until finally, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Wu Quan let out a long breath, his gaze falling on the unconscious Shen Qingzhu. After a moment, a pure smile curved his lips.
"Qingzhu-ge," he murmured to himself.
"You saved everyone..."
...
Lin Qiye's eyes snapped open!
At the same time, Wu Quan, sitting beside him, also opened his eyes.
The [Memory Worm] quickly shrank back into the darkness behind Wu Quan. The two stared at each other like that, falling into silence.
"So that's how it is, so that's how it is..." In Lin Qiye's mind, everything connected, and he realized with sudden clarity,
"From the beginning, Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng were being controlled by you?
Your [Emperor of Domination] can only take effect within a three-kilometer radius, so even if you went to school, you could only go to the middle school nearest the orphanage. The moment you left that range, Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng inside the orphanage would immediately revert to corpses, frightening Director Liu and the other children...
No wonder you were willing to slaughter the entire Li family rather than move. No wonder your first request after I caught you was to see Director Liu.
Only by getting Director Liu away from the orphanage could Li Xiaoyan and Qian Cheng leave that place, maintaining a safe distance from you in the shadows, preventing them from losing control and reverting to corpses..."
Lin Qiye's complex gaze fell on Wu Quan,
"So... for the past four years, you've been playing three roles?"
"It wasn't that difficult." Wu Quan spoke slowly. "Though it was tough at first, constantly losing connection with them. But the further along we went, the easier it became."
Wu Quan lowered his head to look at his own hands, as if still processing the memories he had seen in Lin Qiye's mind, his expression somewhat dazed.
The memory fragment Lin Qiye had shared with him was the sequence from finding Shen Qingzhu in hell to everyone leaving. But even so—
Wu Quan closed his eyes, lying back on the leather sofa, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling...
The tension he had held in his body this whole time finally released completely, and the weight on his heart lifted as well.
A faint smile curved his lips.
As long as Qingzhu-ge was alive, he would definitely come back... They, too, would have their reunion someday.
Knowing this, even being locked in a lightless prison was worth it.