A Novelist’s Guide for Side Characters to Survive

Chapter 23: “You Are My Future, Luciano.”

Destiny craves the strong and the tyrants.

It bows and scrapes to those entrusted with great tasks, watching them seize opportunities, standing in the eye of the storm when the moment arrives, wagering everything on a battlefield where only one can emerge victorious.

Yet destiny cannot control the humble.

The mediocre slip past its gaze, seeking a foothold in the sparse chess games.

The lowly will never return what they’ve grasped to fate.

For they know, if their opportunity stems from luck, they’ll never receive a second gift in this lifetime.

On the day the storm arrives, some die, some are reborn.

*

In the two months following Chu Zu’s death, the conflict between the Upper and Lower Districts grew increasingly intense.

Under Luciano’s push, even those in the Upper District who had initially leaned toward Tang Qi began to waver.

The Tang Family’s patents were indeed the most pivotal among the four major families, but the Upper District’s attitude toward them was racing toward the worse.

The Parliament even began considering restrictions on genetic engineering and biotechnology, introducing a draft bill.

The draft bill, once public, immediately drew countless responses.

This time, the Parliament didn’t stop the crowds from taking to the streets.

They held electronic signs reading: Oppose Biotechnology Patent Monopoly.

Others read: Immediately Explain Preoperative Genetic Technology Protocols.

“Who’s responsible for Chu Zu’s death?”

“Reject anti-human biotechnology.”

“No to unilateral terms.”

“Tang Qi needs to face Upper District judgment.”

But just as the tide seemed to turn entirely in Luciano’s favor, Tang Qi suddenly hacked into the Upper District’s communication channel, delivering a public speech.

“I don’t deny any accusations. Biotechnology and genetic modification technology need stricter scrutiny, and I need to account for those harmed by it. After open-sourcing the technology, I’ll give everyone an explanation.”

“But I want to know—”

The man in the broadcast spoke sharply.

“What do the people of the Lower District mean to you? When he worked for you, maintaining your living environment, you tossed him a scrap of dignity. When he was used up, with nothing left, you let him die, squeezing out his last shred of value.”

“What does the train to the Lower District mean to you? You need to dig up useful things from below, so you condescend to come down, as if a passage reserved for the privileged is some symbol of fairness.”

Tang Qi’s voice spread across the Upper District, stirring endlessly among the crowds on the streets.

“I also want to know, how exactly did Chu Zu die?”

“Esposito owes an explanation. Why did his condition suddenly worsen during a recovery period when everything was improving? Just because he came from the Lower District and lost all value to you?!”

Tang Qi didn’t specify who “you” was.

In fact, people weren’t focused on Chu Zu’s cause of death.

All eyes turned to one phrase—he came from the Lower District.

Chu Zu was from the Lower District?

Videos once broadcast to the Lower District began appearing on Upper District streets, exposing the man’s ruthless and resolute actions to Upper District eyes.

His brutal deeds didn’t draw condemnation or criticism, because everything Chu Zu did, every killing, was to uphold the unshakable order of the Upper District.

The only one pointed at was Esposito.

Chu Zu was employed by Esposito, yet Tang Qi’s words implied his death was caused by Esposito.

More specifically, by Luciano Esposito!

Esposito headquarters kept reporting data breaches and tampering, but the data staff were powerless.

They could only panic in the underground server rooms, trying to fix the corrupted base code.

But nothing worked.

All they could do was sweat coldly, forced to watch those videos alongside everyone else.

“You make Lower District people wield scythes against their own, then talk about fairness, about pity? Who’s responsible for Chu Zu’s death? I don’t believe you don’t have answers in your hearts. You just don’t want to know, and you don’t dare to know.”

Finally, Tang Qi delivered the fatal blow.

“In a world controlled by Esposito, who’s an Upper District person, and who’s a Lower District person? Don’t you know?”

The street crowds froze, exchanging glances.

Suspicion, the deadliest contagion, paralyzed perception, sparking chain reactions, willing or not.

Someone in the crowd said: “Besides Esposito… who isn’t a ‘Lower District person’…?”

When the Inspection Control Department tried to trace the source of those words, similar remarks were already sprouting from all directions.

“I don’t support Tang Qi, but Chu Zu, he…”

“Esposito has always…”

“The four families’ monopoly has lasted centuries…”

“Tang Qi said he’d open-source the technology…”

“Where Chu Zu came from doesn’t matter, what he did for the Lower District…”

“…”

The first voice, the second, the third.

It was as if a flood surged in, no longer a one-sided condemnation.

Hearts clashed for their own stances.

The Inspection Control Department couldn’t control everyone’s speech.

They could only grit their teeth and disperse the street crowds.

The Parliament resorted to its old emergency tactic, using artificial rainfall with biochemical levels far exceeding normal to keep people off the streets.

In an instant, dark clouds loomed, and the downpour arrived.

*

The upheaval reached the Esposito Building.

Luciano smashed everything within reach.

“How did he use the official channel? Why didn’t you cut him off? What are the people maintaining the lines doing?”

Jeeves, usually all-knowing, flashed red, emitted a “beep beep” error sound, and fell silent again.

Even the digital butler’s permissions had been restricted.

Lazar and the others were nowhere to be found.

The only contacts were clueless low-level employees, stammering apologies and nothing else.

Luciano slumped into his chair, fingers digging into his palms.

The situation, once in his grasp, had shifted again, and he couldn’t pinpoint where it went wrong.

Because every link was wrong.

The communication channel being hijacked could only mean internal high-level betrayal, and not just one person.

He knew these people—either colluding or selling each other out, climbing over corpses to get ahead.

Chu Zu’s death, once entirely beneficial, had become a gun aimed at him.

Even if he truly died from genetic engineering and biotech, so what?

Tang Qi’s promises were enough to make people overlook that, remembering only that Chu Zu worked for Esposito and died after losing value.

Damn Tang Qi, his final words lumped everyone under Esposito’s heel into the same camp.

“Even Chu Zu ended up like this, so what about you?”*

For a moment, Luciano was dazed, instinctively wanting to call that name to fix everything.

The one called would never refuse.

He might have betrayed, might have hidden it, but he never refused his requests.

Why kill Chu Zu?

Luciano shivered, thinking.

The loss of two surveillance stations wasn’t irreparable.

With Chu Zu, rebuilding them in the Lower District would’ve been easy.

He was just throwing a tantrum.

He’d done it before and always compromised.

You even held his weakness.

For that kid named Sidney, even if he didn’t want to continue, the most “rebellious” thing he’d do was seek death in the Lower District.

As long as you didn’t let him die, he was your best tool.

Why kill Chu Zu?

The rain poured outside.

Unwilling to be trapped in the wreckage, Luciano left the Esposito Building, heading to Chu Zu’s grave for the first time.

He wanted to talk to Chu Zu, like before.

Most of the time, he spoke, and the others listened, responding with a simple “hm” afterward.

Chu Zu never judged his actions.

The man’s downcast brows and eyes naturally exuded calm, always expressionless.

At twenty, Luciano believed the world would be his, because as long as they stood together, even fate had to step aside.

He didn’t know when things changed.

Everything happened silently, corroding all he knew beyond recognition.

The cemetery.

The rain had flooded the paved paths, turning them into a swamp, making each step heavier.

Tang Qi stood with an umbrella, facing the tombstone.

Even sensing someone approaching, Tang Qi didn’t glance over.

He stared earnestly at the man’s name on the empty tombstone, as if carving each stroke into his heart.

Then, he turned, meeting Luciano’s gaze through the rain.

“Why did you kill Chu Zu?”

Tang Qi’s voice overlapped with the question in Luciano’s mind.

Luciano felt no anger or grief.

He looked at Tang Qi numbly, lips moving, mind blank.

“He started working for you at twelve. You told him to kill, he killed. You told him to die somewhere, he went to die there. You think him telling me about the surveillance stations was betrayal, Luciano. Do you know, if he truly decided to betray you, you wouldn’t have lived past the next dawn?”

With Tang Qi’s calm tone, Luciano’s heart crumbled bit by bit, unstoppable.

But it also brought back his words.

Amid the cascading rain and piercing tinnitus, Luciano, pale, sneered.

“Look, the great savior. You know it all.”

He didn’t know what he was saying, only hating Tang Qi’s audacity for exposing his darkest shame in his face.

“You knew he wouldn’t betray me. Given a choice, he’d never pick you. Yet you pushed him, over and over. Do you really think you’re blameless?”

Tang Qi shook his head: “I know I did wrong and will face judgment eventually. But what’s that to you?”

A soft click sounded.

The magazine loaded.

“I thought, if you didn’t come to the cemetery, I’d go to the Esposito Building. I’d kill everyone I saw, whether they did wrong or not. I’d only need to know they were in my way—I’d become the person I least wanted to be.”

Tang Qi slowly raised the gun.

“But you came. It’s laughable. The man I caused to die is still stopping me from becoming you, even in death.”

Luciano still looked at Tang Qi mockingly.

He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, and he found Tang Qi absurdly laughable.

A man born in the Upper District, enjoying all its perks, lowering himself for cheap compassion.

He thought he’d bring change, that killing a figure representing the Upper District would change everything.

Wasn’t that laughable?

The Upper District was a behemoth built on Lower District corpses for centuries.

You could control it, but not shake it.

It had its own unspeakable absolute laws, its own heartbeat and breath.

A gunshot brought silence.

Tang Qi said nothing, glanced at the tombstone one last time, and walked past Luciano’s body toward the cemetery’s exit.

Luciano didn’t call for help.

If even Jeeves’ permissions were blocked, no one he contacted would respond.

For the first time, he crawled on the ground, struggling and pathetic.

Blood loss and rain blurred his vision, but he still moved toward the tombstone.

The tombstone was colder than his hypothermic hands.

Luciano coughed up blood, quickly washed away by the rain.

Leaning against the tombstone, he closed his eyes.

“I wasn’t wrong before. Without you, I really can’t do it,” Luciano said softly.

“But thinking it over, I’d still kill you again.”

“Only, your life wasn’t as valuable as I thought, Chu Zu.”

“But Tang Qi didn’t win either. He’ll see what the Upper District is, so I didn’t lose the bet.”

“No, you lost.”

A voice came softly from behind the tombstone, shattering the dying man’s pretense of sentiment.

Luciano’s mind exploded with a boom, his body trembling.

He looked up in disbelief at the man holding an umbrella for him.

The familiar voice, familiar gaze, familiar man.

Chu Zu sat in a wheelchair, umbrella in hand, Sidney pushing him forward until they reached the tombstone.

His hair had grown longer, some strands falling to his shoulders.

Against the black hair, his skin was paler than before.

Most of his body slumped in the wheelchair, the hand holding the umbrella resting on his knee, trembling slightly.

Luciano’s heart was thrown into chaos by the other’s gaze.

His chest heaved, blood flowing faster, gushing from the wound.

“Chu Zu…”

“Hm,” the man said.

“It’s me.”

“You… didn’t die?”

“I didn’t die,” Chu Zu said.

“You weren’t supposed to die here either.”

“…”

“You shouldn’t have come, Luciano. Tang Qi was going to the Esposito Building tonight. He’d deal with security, kill your people, and then Lazar would open the stairs to the top floor. The world would witness how you died by his gun, and I wouldn’t have needed to see you.”

Chu Zu said softly, “I didn’t need to see you.”

Luciano clutched his wound, trying to stand.

He refused to show any weakness before Chu Zu.

It was always the other man who showed misery, and he’d generously offer care.

That was the proper dynamic between Upper and Lower Districts, not…

“Why didn’t you die…”

Luciano said hoarsely, his voice laced with uncontrollable venom.

He could mourn a dead Chu Zu.

A dead man could be favored, his flaws ignored, his virtues magnified.

But a Chu Zu looking down on him from above?

“Why didn’t you die?!”

“I don’t understand.”

Chu Zu’s scarlet pupils were like a blood-red mirror, clearly reflecting the man’s ferocious face.

He asked coldly, “You’re not a fool. Why ask me that?”

Luciano opened his mouth several times, unable to make a sound.

Blood loss slowed his mind, but he still pieced things together.

Chu Zu’s “death,” the high-level betrayals, Tang Qi’s blatant appearance in the Upper District after his speech.

If he died by Tang Qi’s hand, the Upper District wouldn’t accept Tang Qi, but no one else had enough clout to take that position—except Chu Zu.

The still-living Chu Zu.

His name had spread through the streets.

People didn’t know this Parliament’s MPs, but everyone knew Chu Zu.

He wasn't in the Upper District, nor seen as Lower District.

People discussed him neutrally, and not long ago, Tang Qi had foolishly tied his situation to the Upper District’s.

Even with Upper-Lower tensions at their peak, only he could be chosen without bias.

At this point, no one was more “qualified” to take power than Chu Zu, not even Tang Qi!

Luciano stared blankly at him: “When did it start…”

“When did you start scheming all this…? When I told you to get the surgery?”

“When you wanted the code from Tang Qi.”

“Why…”

Chu Zu’s expression remained indifferent, his eyes slightly lowered, no different from how he’d looked at Luciano all these years.

But the downward angle made his eyes tilt upward, forming a disdainful, mocking coldness.

“Because I knew then that you were bound to break your promise, Luciano.”

He said, “What you wouldn’t give me, I had to take myself.”

What did I promise him?

Luciano was suddenly confused.

“I’ll give you food, the sun, all the best things. Come with me.”

What were the best things?

Luciano gave him a place to live, food, education, and an Upper District identity.

Luciano gave him countless valuable collections, unchecked violent technology, everything he could give.

Luciano thought it was enough.

Even if Chu Zu didn’t care for those things, still teetering on the edge of life and death, even if he spent years in the Lower District like an exile, hadn’t he been called back to his side?

He never complained, so Luciano naturally thought there was no issue.

But what were the best things?

Finally, Luciano realized it was he who let this man see the world bit by bit.

It was his own desires that shaped Chu Zu’s desires.

“I don’t understand…”.

Luciano said wearily.

“I remember holding you the first time, you were trembling. I remember at twenty, you gave me a faint smile. When I told you to kill those two Mitoli…”

Those past memories flooded his mind like a breached dam, trampling everything, painfully vivid.

“Those two Mitoli boys?”

Chu Zu recalled something.

“I had concerns then. If you pinned their deaths on me, things would’ve been tricky. But you acted first, clumsily. You couldn’t wash your hands of it, so I acted with confidence.”

Luciano could barely breathe: “I thought… we at least trusted each other once…”

But Chu Zu only asked, puzzled: “Trust… what’s that?”

Luciano had heard that tone before.

At twelve, Chu Zu asked him the same way: Pain… what’s that?

“Wasn’t it just a transaction between us?”

Chu Zu said in a simple, cold tone, “You give me the best things, I deliver my value. You give me Sidney, I protect your life. You broke the deal, so I stopped keeping my promise.”

Luciano Esposito felt a piercing cold seep through his body.

Chu Zu… had no emotions at all.

His world was made of “give” and “take.”

Every move hinted, lured, but he was an emotionless monster.

For the first time, Luciano felt fear, coursing through his limbs, mingling with death’s decay, spreading to every pore.

“You… won’t get what you want,” Luciano said, as if comforting himself or simply trying to break the man’s coldness.

“After I die, the three families’ gene bank will never see the light of day. All your scheming got you is a defective product…”

Sidney suddenly spoke: “That’s not certain.”

The child’s voice was jarring.

Luciano looked over with effort, seeing only the indifferent blue eyes behind the wheelchair.

He knew those eyes.

He’d seen them countless times in the mirror growing up.

Ha, so that’s how it is.

So that’s how it is.

“One last question… That day at twelve, what were you thinking?”

Luciano’s eyes were vacant, his voice fading.

He knew he was destroyed, inside and out.

He’d only seen Tang Qi as a player in a game, thinking it was a two-way bet.

He wagered everything, never expecting Chu Zu had never taken a side since twelve.

Chu Zu had always lived for himself.

Why was his heart breaking now?

Because he lost completely, or…

Luciano had no answer.

Chu Zu thought for a moment.

When thinking, his eyes turned a brighter red, stunningly beautiful.

“I felt I smelled the future.”

Chu Zu said softly to the man who’d stopped breathing, “You were my future, Luciano.”

Chu Zu’s future died beside Chu Zu’s tombstone.

Along with ambition, brutality, and helpless resentment.

The man in the wheelchair suddenly asked: “Scared, Sidney? The dad you chose seems like a monster.”

Sidney bent down, carefully wrapping his arms around Chu Zu’s neck, resting his head lightly on the man’s shoulder, shaking his head.

“You got it backward. I chose a monster as my dad,” Sidney said quietly.

“Dad is Dad, so I’m not scared.”

Chu Zu hummed, saying no more.

He didn’t let Sidney push him away or contact Dai Xi’an to clean up.

The communicator rang a few times, swallowed by the rain, unanswered.

Until Luciano’s body grew cold, Chu Zu still held the umbrella for him, shielding him from the chaotic rain with his body.

This was the last bit of value Chu Zu could offer Luciano Esposito.