The Fake Son Wants to Live [BL]

Chapter 236: Chapter 236 - Grudge from past life

Jian pulled himself out of the dazed state when he heard the loud crack of gunfire behind him. It was sharp, jarring—enough to snap through the fog of his mind like a whip. His body jerked instinctively, turning just in time to see Varon crouched beside him, rifle up, scanning for targets. He hadn’t even realized Varon had come over.

A few feet away, Eren was shielding both Nansich and Li Wang, who were crouched low behind one of the testing tables. The metal surface was streaked with old blood, and on the floor beside it lay a corpse. It hadn’t been moved—it still lay where it had collapsed. Directed death. Jian remembered they had left it untouched.

But that wasn’t what made the bile rise in his throat.

The golden blood—thick, luminous, and too vivid—was still pooling on the floor like molten metal. His eyes traced it from the corpse to the cracked tiles and then slowly, with a sick pull of dread, up to the testing pod behind him.

There, suspended in a fluid-filled chamber, was a woman. She looked so peaceful—serene even. Her face was beautiful, almost too beautiful, soft and unmarred by death. Her white lashes were closed, her features relaxed as if dreaming. But she wasn’t asleep. She was gone.

Gone.

The golden blood told him that.

Jian’s breath hitched in his throat, his shoulders jerking forward. A pressure gripped his chest, wrapping tightly like bands of steel. His knees nearly gave out as he took a staggering step toward the pod.

His vision blurred.

His eyes burned.

”Jian!” Varon barked, snapping off another shot toward the corridor. ”Focus!”

But he couldn’t.

The pain shot through his forehead like a spike driven straight between his eyes. The spot—just above his brows, right in the center—flared hot, hotter, burning. His body jolted from the inside, something surging from a place he didn’t have a name for.

He gasped.

His hands flew to his head.

It hurt.

The pain wasn’t like anything he’d felt before. It wasn’t external. It came from within—like a scream of something caged. His heart beat wildly in his chest, thudding so loud it drowned out even the gunshots.

He stumbled backward, almost colliding with Varon.

”Jian! What the hell is wrong—?”

But Jian couldn’t hear him anymore.

The edges of the world were warping.

The ceiling lights buzzed louder, the walls stretched in and out as if breathing, and every sound, every movement rippled like waves underwater. The air distorted.

The burning in his forehead turned white-hot. He tried to cry out, but no sound came.

Behind him, the pod hissed.

The serene face of the woman inside did not move. Her silence echoed louder than the gunfire.

”Jian!” Eren shouted this time, voice tense.

But Jian didn’t move.

He was shaking now, his fingers trembling, his nails digging into his temples.

The image of the golden blood wouldn’t leave his mind. It kept coming back. Again and again. The pooling. The smell. The stillness.

The burning reached a peak, and for one terrifying moment—he felt like his mind would crack open.

Like something inside him was clawing out.

Then—

Everything went white.

He didn’t fall. He didn’t scream.

He just stopped.

Time didn’t feel linear anymore. It felt like someone had twisted the world around him and bent it backward. Like the air had folded inward.

And Jian stood, still trembling, but now upright—his hands no longer clutching his skull, his eyes wide, raw, glowing faintly as if catching the reflection of something no one else could see.

Eren saw it first—the flicker. The unnatural shimmer around Jian’s silhouette, like reality couldn’t keep him properly tethered.

”Jian...?” Eren said carefully, lowering his weapon just a little.

But Jian didn’t answer. His gaze was locked on the woman in the pod, and then—slowly—he turned his head toward the corridor.

His eyes no longer looked entirely human.

”Targets approaching,” Varon said, voice clipped. ”Three at ten o’clock.”

But Jian was already moving.

Not walking. Not running.

Moving.

A blink—he was gone from one spot.

Appearing near the corridor in the next breath.

”Shit!” Varon yelled, startled.

The three men charging down the hall had their rifles up—but they didn’t get a chance to shoot. Jian didn’t give them time.

With a flick of his hand—something lashed out. Something invisible, but devastating.

A pulse—like space collapsed and rebounded all at once.

All three soldiers were thrown back violently, their weapons clattering across the floor as they slammed into the walls with bone-crunching force. One let out a choked scream. Another didn’t move.

Jian stood still, staring down at them. His chest rose and fell. His hands were trembling.

Eren ran to him, stopping a few feet away.

”Jian!”

He turned slowly, eyes unfocused.

Seeing his face Nansich’s eyes widened, lips parting in a silent gasp as he tugged on Eren’s sleeve with a trembling hand.

”Eren... look at his—”

Jian stood near the testing pod, his silhouette half-lit by the flickering lab lights and the golden blood still glistening on the floor. But it wasn’t the light that made him shine.

His body was changing.

Where once soft brown eyes had held pain, confusion, and fire, now blazed a golden halo—burning bright, unnatural, and all-consuming. His irises weren’t just glowing—they were ringed, layered like ancient glyphs turning slowly inside themselves, golden symbols orbiting within his stare.

The skin on his forehead, just above the bridge of his nose, split open without bleeding—revealing a small, pulsing stone.

It glowed a strange blend of green and gold, humming softly with energy too old and too immense to belong in a child’s body. It wasn’t embedded—it was grown into him, like it had always been waiting to reveal itself.

And then—his hair.

Li Wang let out a soft gasp as the strands turned color before their eyes, as if some invisible wind was brushing the pigment away. Jian’s dark brown locks shimmered and shifted, rippling into hues of pale, radiant gold—like sunlight distilled into silk, flowing behind him even though the air in the lab was still.

He wasn’t just glowing.

He had become something else.

Someone else.

Someone farian.

Eren clenched his jaw, his breath sharp. He took half a step forward before whispering under his breath, ”He is finally in his Farian form.”

The words slipped from him before he could stop them, a truth that had always been too dangerous to speak aloud.

Nansich looked between Eren and Jian, eyes flickering with panic. ”W-What does that mean?”

Eren didn’t answer immediately. His gaze remained locked on Jian, who still hadn’t moved, still staring at the pod like his soul had been uprooted and the last threads of his former self were slipping through his fingers.

Jian’s fists were clenched at his sides. His golden hair shimmered faintly each time he breathed. The glow between his eyes pulsed with a rhythm not quite human—steady and vast, like the heartbeat of a world no one here could understand.

”He doesn’t look like himself,” Li Wang said quietly, stepping slightly behind Nansich.

”He is himself,” Eren replied, voice low. ”Just... not the Jian you guys knew.”

Jian’s glowing eyes fell on the guards who had begun to stir—those who had survived the earlier blast. Three of them lay sprawled against the wall, groaning, struggling to get up. One man in particular was already on his knees, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes still sharp and cruel.

And then Jian froze.

His breath hitched.

That face.

Everything around him—Eren’s voice, the humming stone in his forehead, even the burning gold in his veins—fell silent.

He knew that man.

He couldn’t forget that jaw, that sneer, that hulking build. Not in this life. Not after what had happened in the last.

It was him.

The one who had helped Wang Bushen capture him.

The one who held him down.

The one who had tried to violate him.

The one who laughed when Jian cried, screamed, begged.

The one who stripped the last of his hope with those filthy hands.

In his past life—this man was the last thing Jian saw before he ended it all. The last sound he heard was that laughter echoing in his ears.

The man wiped blood from his mouth, snarling, and Jian could see it again—see the room, the shackles, the stinky dirty cell.

Strapped him down.

Cut into his body.

Harvested his marrow.

And ripped the stone—his stone—right out from the center of his forehead.

He had screamed prayed abd begged.

But no one cared.... No one cared...

And because of this man—this thing crawling back to its feet in front of him

Because of this man... He had chosen to end it all....

Something inside snapped at this moment.

His jaw clenched so tightly it ached. His hands curled into fists, golden veins pulsing with every throb of his racing heart.

All the glowing energy in him, all the heat and sound and trembling that had filled his body before—it erupted. But not outwardly. Not yet.

It boiled inside him.

A wrath so pure, so sharp it made his eyes water.

He wanted to destroy everything.

Not just that man.

Not just the guards.

Everything in this place.

The walls that had held test subjects. The tables soaked in golden blood. The pod where that peaceful woman floated in death. The corridors where they dragged people like animals.

He wanted it all gone.

His vision darkened at the edges, the golden glow in his eyes growing violent, flickering, unstable.

His lips moved soundlessly as he stared at the man who had destroyed his past life.

”I remember you.”

The man met his eyes—and for the first time, he flinched.