No one among the five people in the guest room spoke. The chaotic sounds of escape outside the window continued unabated, making the silence inside so profound you could hear a pin drop—like the ominous hush before the apocalypse.
Tunqin lay sprawled on the floor, whimpering in agony. The low coffee table, knocked over in the scuffle, lay crooked nearby, while the overturned teapot gurgled steadily, soaking the carpet with dark tea stains.
Ye Jingqiu couldn’t shake the bizarre sensation of being caught red-handed. She and Miss Yu were… well, total strangers, weren’t they? So why did the captain bursting through the door fill her with the same guilty dread as when she and A-Xie got busted staying up all night gaming?
Xie Pingzhi glanced left and right, let out an awkward chuckle, then bolted toward Ye Jingqiu. With lightning speed, she delivered a sharp chop to the back of Tunqin’s neck before dragging the now-unconscious suspect toward the door. Not forgetting her manners, she called back to Miss Yu on her way out.
“Sorry for interrupting your vacation tonight.”
Yu Tingwan’s gaze flickered over Xie Pingzhi’s pale blue eyes. After a brief pause, she broke into a lazy smile. “Miss Ye already said the same thing. No worries—I was planning to fly back to Shanghai tonight anyway.”
“You’re not heading to Bangkok anymore?” Ye Jingqiu blinked in surprise, a pang of guilt stirring in her chest. Had they scared the poor woman off? Then again, the commotion tonight had been considerable. She hoped Minister Sanjima would take it straight to Yi Fengyan and spare Ning Wan’s already thinning hair any further loss.
No one had anticipated Tunqin daring to order his men to open fire right in the city center—but that very audacity proved his worth. What secrets did he know that made him bolt the instant he spotted the base?
Ye Jingqiu’s imagination ran utterly rampant, blind to how her face mirrored pure worry.
Shi Zui’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. Yu Tingwan paused too, then recovered with a smile. “Didn’t expect you to remember that, Miss Ye. A friend needs me back home.”
She hesitated there, her eyes shifting to Tunqin dangling from Xie Pingzhi’s grip. “Speaking of which, thanks for helping take him down. I might not have made it out otherwise.”
Miss Yu’s gratitude rang sincere, leaving Ye Jingqiu flustered. She waved her hands hastily. “Miss Yu, you’re too kind—”
“Xiao Qiu.” Shi Zui cut in abruptly, ending what looked like an endless exchange. Team One’s captain snatched up the discarded M22 nearby, her tone cool as a reminder. “Time to go.”
“Roger that, Captain!” Ye Jingqiu snapped to attention like a startled rabbit. She squeezed out a quick goodbye and bolted out to back up Xie Pingzhi.
The room fell still, leaving just the two of them. Shi Zui wound the rifle strap around her hand with deliberate slowness, then met Yu Tingwan’s eyes with detached courtesy. “Someone will reach out to you directly soon. We’d appreciate your discretion about tonight.”
Yu Tingwan smiled faintly. “Of course. I know better.”
Shi Zui said nothing more. Rifle in one hand, she strode out without a backward glance, leaving Yu Tingwan alone in the guest room.
Captain.
The word lingered on Yu Tingwan’s lips as she arched a brow. That glacial stare from Shi Zui replayed vividly in her mind.
Were the two of them just teammates?
~~~
“Really. Truer than true gold.”
“Captain, you have to believe me! Miss Yu and I are nothing but the purest strangers!”
“So, if I may be so bold—do you have anyone you’re seeing right now?”
“Whoa, that Miss Yu last night went straight for the kill.”
“Captain, please, can we delete this footage? Have Aether trash it—I’m begging you!”
“If not… I’m interested in you.”
“Damn, is she straight-up inviting you to Bangkok?”
“Captain, I swear I haven’t done anything! I hold myself to the standards of a model student and stellar employee every single day!”
Xie Pingzhi chimed in slyly. “But there’s no rule against dating for model students or stellar employees, right?”
Aether nodded solemnly. “Meow meow meow (A-Xie’s right!)!”
Even the unflappable Shi Zui gave a rare nod of agreement. “A-Xie’s addendum is spot on.”
Ye Jingqiu, who’d been pleading like a pilgrim before the Buddha for centuries, felt all her efforts crumble. It was like toiling as a sixty-year-old granny to water ten acres, only to realize you’d irrigated the neighbor’s field instead—a profound, weary futility.
She straightened slowly, fixing Xie Pingzhi—the idle Little Cat spectator—with a death glare. Her eyes brimmed with earnest plea. “A-Xie, do you want me dead, or do you want me dead?”
Xie Pingzhi flashed a polite, dazzling eight-toothed grin. “Hard to say, Classmate Xiao Qiu. Some people are dead while they’re still alive, others alive but already gone. We should start with Hegel, observe Schrödinger’s cat for a bit, then uphold material dialectics to—”
“A-Xie, got a minute?”
“Yes—”
Xie Pingzhi snapped to attention in an instant, shrugging off Little Cat as she bellowed back to Zhong Qing. Like a meteor punch, she rocketed into the living room.
Ye Jingqiu: “…”
A miracle Zhong Qing hasn’t driven you nuts yet.
Sigh.
Ye Jingqiu let out a heavy breath.
They were in the Myanmar Branch’s small meeting room right now. Truth be told, the base had only one major outpost across all of Southeast Asia: the big division in Bangkok. Ho Chi Minh City offered direct access to Base Space, so too many stations would just bloat the staff. If not for the Project Y’s old footholds in Yangon and Mandalay, the Myanmar Branch wouldn’t have even made the proposal list.
Tunqin was still in interrogation. Little Dragon had slipped back to Olivia from Ye Jingqiu’s pocket in the nick of time last night, and everything had settled. Ye Jingqiu had figured Team One could kick back and wait for leads on Pandora’s Key. But no—Aether had dug up last night’s recording in secret.
Before speaking with Olivia, Ye Jingqiu had completely shut off the Ring of Will. She never imagined that this simple act would earn Aether’s grudge. The AI was utterly furious about the unconsulted forced logout on Xiao Qiu. During its routine database cleanup, it spitefully unearthed that particular record involving Yu Tingwan.
And so, they had arrived at this disastrously awful scene. Captain Shi had now meticulously reviewed the entire sequence three times—from Miss Yu’s question about adulthood to Ye Jingqiu chasing Tunqin right into Yu Tingwan’s room. At the moment, she was dragging the progress bar back to the bathroom exchange that sent shivers of dread through student Ye Jingqiu.
After countless replays, Captain Shi finally condescended to extend her right hand and tap the spacebar, pausing the video. Ye Jingqiu pounced on the opportunity, flopping down beside the captain with a dramatic thud, her voice dripping with pitiful remorse.
“Captain~ I was wrong~”
Shi Zui blinked in surprise. “Wrong? Wrong about what?”
Ye Jingqiu shot upright, sitting ramrod straight. “Wrong for chatting so casually with a stranger!”
Shi Zui: “?”
Shi Zui sighed helplessly. “I didn’t go out of my way to watch your conversation with Yu Tingwan. I was just reviewing your pursuit route. Everything was spot-on except for the moment Tunqin held that gun to you.”
Ye Jingqiu let out an “ah” as she looked up, another “ah” as she stood, and a third as she paced forward. Her furrowed brows seemed locked in place, refusing to unknot, while every feature on her face radiated helpless confusion.
A faint smile tugged at Shi Zui’s lips. She leaned forward, propping one hand on the desk with unruffled poise. “What’s the matter? Turned into a crow?”
“Captain!” Freed from her anxiety, Ye Jingqiu huffed in indignation. “You had me on edge for half an hour, so why were you going along with A-Xie’s nonsense earlier?”
Shi Zui fell silent, slowly turning her head aside.
Enlightenment struck Ye Jingqiu like lightning. She slapped the table and sprang to her feet. “Captain, you weren’t using me as a stand-in for Aether just to mess with me, were you!!!”
“Way too hyper,” Shi Zui murmured softly, making a downward-pressing gesture with her hand. “Don’t binge so many novels with A-Xie.”
“Reading novels is perfectly reasonable relaxation.”
In an instant, Ye Jingqiu flipped to full rogue mode, rolling her face across the desk to sabotage the captain’s work. “Captain, you misunderstood me! You tricked me! You don’t trust me! Wuu wuu, Captain, I’m about to throw a fit. If you don’t say something, I’m really going to!”
She spoke without a shred of restraint, oblivious to how oddly intimate her tone had become.
“. . . And just how are you planning to throw this fit?”
“Hiss—” Ye Jingqiu buried her head in her arms, then lazily peeked out with one sly eye. “Doesn’t matter. Captain, you’ve got to make it up to me somehow. Like a big feast and three Combat Exemption Vouchers. Wind Chamber ones would work fine. I’m not picky!”
Shi Zui nodded and spread her hands wide, her words brutally direct. “Then go ahead and throw it.”
Ye Jingqiu: “?”
Shi Zui tapped the floor lightly, sending her swivel chair gliding backward as she gestured invitingly. “Have at it.”
Ye Jingqiu: “. . . Captain, how could you do this to me!”
It was over. Not only had she been played, but she couldn’t even wheedle a single perk out of it. Ye Jingqiu’s life had plunged into #000000-level darkness—utter pitch black.
The defeated little teammate sighed and groaned in despair, but Shi Zui’s smile faded. She wheeled back to her spot, fiddled idly with the computer footage, and tossed out a seemingly offhand remark. “So, you didn’t give that Miss Yu your contact info?”
Her tone was as light as a drifting leaf, a mere passing mention she wouldn’t press if ignored.
Ye Jingqiu couldn’t read the captain’s mind at all. She just froze for a beat at the sudden callback to old news. “Of course not! What she said nearly stopped my heart cold. I shut it down fast as I could—I’m squeaky clean!”
Shi Zui let out an imperceptible breath of relief, her face betraying nothing. She hummed as she always did, nodded, and resumed her work.
Ye Jingqiu was left utterly baffled when thunder cracked from a clear sky. Shi Zui fixed her gaze on the screen and said abruptly, “In other words, you have no intention of dating anytime soon?”
Ye Jingqiu nearly leaped out of her skin, torn between laughter and tears. “How could I? Captain, Miss Yu just tossed that out there casually. You don’t need to fret over it. At the earliest, that stuff wouldn’t come up until next year, after I graduate high school, right?”
Shi Zui clenched her fist to cover a few discreet coughs. “I was just thinking a little too far ahead. As for finding a partner, I’d recommend waiting until after university, once you have a solid grasp of your own values.”
Ye Jingqiu blinked in mild surprise. “Captain, that’s not what you said before.”
“Before?”
“The first time we met.” Ye Jingqiu mimicked Shi Zui’s tone. “‘The Base encourages dating and marriage. A stable partner can go a long way toward stabilizing rampage value fluctuations’—I figured you were all for it.”
Shi Zui remained as calm as a placid pond. “No inconsistency. Both views align. What I support are stable partnerships. If memory serves, high school or college romances rarely hit that mark for stability.”
“Fair enough. If I ever think about it, it’ll probably be ages from now. Who knows, maybe I’ll spend my whole life devoting my time and energy to humanity’s grand survival cause.” Ye Jingqiu sighed wistfully.
Shi Zui appeared absorbed in jotting something down, tossing in a supportive question. “Why’s that?”
“Because the Base ruined my sense of taste,” Ye Jingqiu drawled lazily, spinning nonsense. “Once I’m out there, my heart won’t just be still as water—I’ll be one with nature. Even if I did consider it, the person would have to be at least half as amazing as you, Captain—”
Shi Zui’s hand paused ever so slightly on her pen.
“A-Xie, Sister Zhouzhou, Professor Luo, or Teacher Yan . . .” Ye Jingqiu rattled off casually. “Hey, wait—Professor Luo still hasn’t won over Teacher Yan? Captain, got any insider scoop?”
“None.” Shi Zui’s face was a blank mask as she capped her pen and turned to Ye Jingqiu. “Did you finish your endurance training for today?”
“Captain, that’s not a smooth topic pivot at all. And bringing it up now feels off-timing. Wouldn’t it be way better to just keep lounging here, shooting the breeze with the sea wind? Don’t you think . . .”
“How much is left?”
“I’ll go right now!”
Without daring to hesitate any longer, Ye Jingqiu sprang from her chair like a coiled spring. She snatched up her jacket and bolted toward the training ground, moving so fast she blurred into a streak.
Only obedient at times like these.
Watching Ye Jingqiu’s figure fade from view, Shi Zui let out a sigh. She leaned back in her recliner and rubbed her temples, her mind a sudden jumble. One moment, she saw Yu Tingwan’s eager, over-the-top invitation on the tape; the next, the sly glint in her little teammate’s eyes as she sprawled across the table.
It was a feeling she’d never had before—one that made it impossible to settle her thoughts.
Shi Zui had a vague sense that something was seriously wrong with her.
Setting aside the indescribable sensations that stirred whenever she was with her little teammate, ever since she’d slain the Candle Dragon, memories of that silver laboratory had been multiplying in her dreams. Her Rampage Value showed signs of slipping out of control. And it was especially bad when she spent time with her little teammate—her Rampage Value, which had been stable for so long, was actually starting to climb.
Growth was a good thing, but unstable surges brought far more harm than benefit. In that sense, it perfectly mirrored the unrest in her heart.
So what was wrong with her lately?
The room was empty and silent, offering no answers. Shi Zui gave up trying to puzzle it out. Closing her eyes, she murmured, “Aether?”
The little cat popped out from the Ring of Will, its tone as cheeky as ever. “A Shi, A Shi, what’s up?”
“Send a message to Uncle Ying. Ask him to arrange a fresh batch of sedatives for me. It looks like the side effects from the Project Y might be flaring up again.”
The smile faded from Aether’s face, replaced by a look of concern. It paused for a moment before replying, “But A Shi, those sedatives will damage your…”
“It’s fine,” Shi Zui said, opening her eyes. She quelled a certain naive and dangerously optimistic notion in her heart, her voice soft. “I don’t need a long life anyway. Just hold on until Xiao Qiu can fully master Word Manifestation… Go on.”
Her final words were as faint as a whisper on paper, so soft that even Aether couldn’t quite catch what she said.
But a command was a command. The little cat acknowledged it and set about drafting the message. Shi Zui reopened her computer and began poring over the obscure ancient tomes, meticulously copying down every detail related to the innate principles of Word Manifestation. Her expression was one of utmost caution and focus as she took her notes.
No one noticed the faint pulse of a blurry pure golden flame flickering and burning at the center of Shi Zui’s heart, as if it would never be extinguished.
