“Miss, wake up. It’s time to go home.”
Yuli rubbed her eyes. Still bleary with sleep, she saw a familiar, kindly face.
Lingling, dressed in her maid’s uniform, stood before her. She was holding a pair of fluffy rabbit slippers, with a women’s suit jacket draped over her arm. It was obvious she had been in a great hurry and hadn’t had time to match the style and color of the clothing to her young mistress’s outfit.
Beside Lingling, Yu Zhanqi dragged his exhausted, nearly collapsing body back to the group, tears of relief in his eyes.
“Lingling!” Yuli asked delightedly, confirming, “We’re back at the base?”
A faintly blue protective dome could be seen high above them. It was the defensive screen covering the entire base, no longer the slightly hazy sky of the wilderness.
“Yes.” Tuo Lan lowered his eyes with a smile. “Did Lili sleep well on the way? Is anything bothering you?”
“Miss, come down. We’re going home.”
Before Yuli could answer, Lingling spoke again, uncharacteristically interrupting them.
Her eyes remained fixed on the red-haired young man. Her tone had grown a little sharper, and the expression on her adorable face was solemn, as though she did not want her young mistress speaking too much with this man.
For a maid, interrupting her master’s conversation with someone else was extremely discourteous and utterly unprofessional.
Yet from Lingling’s gaze, Yuli could read her deep wariness toward the red-haired young man, along with a trace of hidden fear.
Yuli suddenly understood. After thinking it over, she realized what was going on.
Lingling still didn’t know that Yuli had decided to legitimize her predecessor’s little lover.
In Lingling’s eyes, the red-haired young man was still only her young mistress’s secret lover. After returning to the base, he shouldn’t be so brazen as to act intimately with Miss in front of everyone.
Miss was still, in name, the exclusive Guide of the S-rank male protagonists’ group. What was she doing being held in the arms of a Sentinel captain from another squad?
Not only would that offend the male protagonist, it would also utterly destroy her young mistress’s aristocratic image!
Yuli naturally wouldn’t make things difficult for Lingling. She immediately said to her future little lover, “Captain, put me down.”
All along the way, Banwei had chattered on about many things, but he had never mentioned what their captain was called.
Yuli had just said that she would try hard to remember, so she couldn’t very well ask him directly in front of him. She had been planning to wait until she received more memory fragments and give him a little surprise.
So now, she followed Banwei and the others in calling him Captain.
Tuo Lan obediently set the girl down. Lingling immediately put her slippers on her, draped the jacket over her shoulders, and then shielded Yuli behind her like a mother hen protecting her chicks.
She was bristling with wariness, but because of the other party’s identity, she couldn’t voice it directly. She could only use her body language and eyes to issue warnings.
Yuli was short compared to the Sentinels, but she was still half a head taller than Lingling.
Standing behind Lingling, she easily exchanged a glance with Tuo Lan, meaning: “I’m going home first, then.”
“Miss!”
Lingling turned around and noticed her little gesture. She stamped her foot anxiously.
Yuli hurriedly soothed her. “All right, all right. We’re leaving now.”
The look Lingling gave her grew increasingly exasperated, as though she was angry at her young mistress for being beyond help. Her eyes reddened, and she looked as if she were about to cry from anxiety.
She had discovered first thing that Miss was missing and had nearly died of worry. She had searched the entire base without finding her. Then Captain Sai'en had urgently entered a contamination zone, leaving her unable to contact him. With no one to ask for help, she had nearly run to the Sentinel Tower to find the Commander.
Fortunately, Captain Baiyan had just emerged from a contamination zone at that moment. As soon as Lingling saw that his profile picture had turned green, she sent him a message explaining the situation.
Only after receiving Captain Baiyan’s reply—that he would lead his team to search for Miss immediately—had she managed to relax, if only a little.
And then—and then Miss had actually been lured away by Tuo Lan!
Lingling would never believe that Tuo Lan and Miss being together had been some kind of chance encounter. Likewise, Tuo Lan had no intention of explaining himself to a maid.
Other than Lili, he didn’t even have the desire to humor anyone else.
Tuo Lan didn’t spare Lingling a glance. He raised his wrist and gestured for them to move forward.
From within the group, Lanxing stepped out and handed Yuli a neatly packed black sealed bag. Inside was the half a roast chicken she hadn’t finished, along with some seasonings.
According to Banwei, the cumin, chili powder, and other seasonings had originally been brought specially for her by the captain from the contamination zone. They were not supplies meant to be turned over to the Sentinel Tower.
Lingling hesitated for a moment but did not stop Miss from accepting it.
But if anyone expected her to say something like, “Thank you, Captain Tuo Lan, for bringing Miss back to the base,” she simply couldn’t get the words out.
Lingling practically ground her teeth as she painfully forced a few words through them. “Thank you, Captain Tuo Lan, for the gift for Miss.”
“Plop.”
The sealed bag fell to the ground.
Yuli’s fingertips hovered in midair. After enduring two seconds of headache as memory fragments flashed through her mind, she suddenly looked toward Lingling. “Lingling, did you just—”
Who had she said? Tuo Lan?!
Tuo Lan, the captain of the Lynx elite squad—in other words, one of the S-rank novel’s male protagonists.
Damn these late-arriving memory fragments!
Wonderful. Instead of her giving him a surprise first, Tuo Lan had given her a fright.
What the hell, a little third-party lover? Yuli’s inner self wept, wanting to give the version of herself with her overactive imagination a good whack with a club.
“Lingling, you left out one thing,” Yuli pretended to remain calm as she picked up the words she had blurted out earlier. “It isn’t just for me. This gift is half yours too. I’m sure you’ll like it.”
Fortunately, she was a reserved and restrained person. She hadn’t directly announced to Tuo Lan that she was promoting him from lover to legitimate partner. There was still hope.
As she spoke, she bent down, trying to pick up the fallen sealed bag and pretend that she had merely dropped it by accident.
Lanxing was faster. He had already turned around to return to the group, but at that moment, he snatched up the sealed bag before Yuli could reach it.
To be cautious, he handed the bag to Lingling instead.
Lingling accepted it blankly, staring at Miss in complete confusion. “Me?”
Miss must have misunderstood something. Tuo Lan giving her poison would have made more sense.
“Thank you.” Yuli instead gave Lanxing a brilliant smile.
The handsome young man said nothing. The ears hidden beneath his smooth hair turned faintly red. Without realizing it, he covered the back of his hand with the other and concealed it behind him before slipping back into formation.
The Guide seemed distracted just now.
He had already picked up the sealed bag, yet the Guide’s hand had still reached toward the ground. If he hadn’t raised his hand and brushed the back of his hand against her fingertips to alert her, she might have touched the dust on the ground.
It was strange.
The cool sensation of the Guide’s fingertips was strange too.
“We’re going home first. Thank you, everyone.” Yuli had already adjusted her state of mind. She linked arms with Lingling and turned around. “Come on, we’ll talk about the rest when we get back. I want to hurry home and change. I’m not exactly presentable right now.”
Her hurried excuse fit the persona of an aristocratic young lady perfectly. It was beyond reproach.
This outfit really was a strange mix: a long-sleeved, courtly-style nightdress underneath, paired with a suit jacket and fluffy slippers.
“I’m sorry, Miss. There wasn’t enough time.” This truly wasn’t the moment to settle accounts. Lingling walked just slightly ahead of her young mistress, leading the way.
The two hurried forward, leaving the Sentinels of the Lynx Squad behind them.
Yuli wasn’t sure whether she had truly managed to fool Tuo Lan, so she didn’t dare look back.
She felt that she had performed fairly well in the wilderness. After all, at that time, she genuinely hadn’t known that he was a male protagonist.
But when the memory fragments had flashed through her mind moments ago, she wasn’t sure whether she had controlled her microexpressions properly. She had attended an ordinary high school, not an international acting academy.
On the day Sai'en had escorted her home, Yuli had reflected on one thing:
Setting aside whether the male protagonists had already fallen to darkness or wanted to kill her, as Youlier, she didn’t know what her fate would be. She didn’t know that in the future, the male protagonists would throw her into a contamination zone.
Therefore, no matter how her personality changed after her “partial amnesia”—whether she became gentle and tolerant toward Sentinels like the other Guides, or drew closer to her predecessor and maintained the persona of a vicious female supporting character who destroyed whatever she couldn’t obtain—
In any case, she couldn’t show panic or rejection toward the male protagonists.
Especially not panic and rejection without any reason.
That would be suspicious.
There was no unusual movement behind her. Yuli felt that she had probably managed to bluff her way through this time.
“Miss, how were you lured away by Captain Tuo Lan?”
After walking far enough to put some safe distance between them, Lingling couldn’t hold back and asked in a low voice. Yuli was just about to ask why Lingling was so certain that Tuo Lan had lured her away when Lingling continued, growing angrier by the word. “What did he use to seduce you this time?”
Yuli: “?”
“He was like this before too. He completely bewitched you, leaving you unable to tell up from down. You always prioritized scheduling more of his treatments. Captain Sai'en isn’t good at saying nice things and suffers because of his personality, so his treatments kept getting pushed back by Tuo Lan.”
Oh, dear. Girl, your tone made it sound as if your young mistress were a foolish king or dazed emperor bewitched by a fox spirit.
“He didn’t lure me away.”
He had indeed seduced her, but as for saying that Tuo Lan had lured her away, Yuli felt she needed to explain. Last night, she had been suddenly carried off to the wilderness by someone… Wait. Carried off?
Yuli stopped walking. She unconsciously reached up and rubbed the back of her neck, touching the collar of the suit jacket.
Why had she used the word “carried off”?
Human teeth might be hard, but how could one person possibly carry another person’s weight in their mouth?
Unless the one who had carried her off wasn’t human, but a spirit entity.
In a flash, an answer seemed ready to emerge.
Yuli’s expression turned solemn. “Lingling, let me ask you something. Are the fact that I touched Sai'en’s chest in the infirmary and my partial amnesia now known throughout the entire base, or are they only being spread within the Sentinel Tower?”
She needed to confirm the scope.
“Plop.”
The sealed bag fell to the ground for the second time.
Some distance away, a young man with golden hair tied into a wolf tail also paused slightly.
Even in his combat uniform, the young man’s bearing remained elegant and refined.
Lanxing: “…”
The Guide’s memory really was muddled.
The distance they thought was safe was one at which even an A+-rank Sentinel could hear their conversation clearly, to say nothing of two S-ranks.
“M-Miss…?” Lingling stood frozen. “Whose chest did you touch? Where on Captain Sai'en?”
“Even if your feelings suddenly improved, you can’t do that in the infirmary! What about Fuyuelou?” Lingling grew anxious again and asked in a lowered voice, “…How many people saw it?”
If there weren’t many, she might be able to think of a way to fix things.
Yuli: “…”
The entire Heiying Squad had seen it.
But that had been a misunderstanding. And who was Fuyuelou, anyway?
Never mind. She could explain all of that to Lingling slowly after they returned.
Judging from Lingling’s exaggerated reaction, the chest-touching misunderstanding was known to hardly anyone.
Given the Heiying Squad’s discipline, they certainly wouldn’t spread rumors. As for the Commander, Doctor Shaohua had probably been the one to tell him. Aside from the other S-rank male protagonists, Yuli couldn’t think of anyone else who would both be capable of learning about it and pay attention to what happened in her infirmary room.
She now had a guess in her mind and urgently wanted to confirm it.
She wanted to look back at Tuo Lan one more time.
Perhaps the memory fragments would reveal more information—for example, what his spirit entity was.
They had already gone quite a distance. It should be safe. She would just take a quick glance and look away immediately. It would be fine. Yuli encouraged herself.
She drew a deep breath and turned her head swiftly.
Her eyes met Tuo Lan’s from afar.
Yuli: !
He seemed to have anticipated that she would look back. With leisurely composure, he tilted his head toward her, the piercing along the rim of his ear flashing with a row of tarnished-silver light.
“Looks like you remembered something, our clever Lili.”
A trace of a smile curved Tuo Lan’s lips. His amber eyes bent slightly, his expression so gentle it seemed to be steeped in honey.
Although he didn’t know exactly what Lili had remembered, he didn’t mind showing her more.
Yuli’s dark eyes widened. She watched him calmly release his spirit entity, momentarily forgetting to turn her head back.
Behind Tuo Lan, the lynx spirit entity with its sharp-tipped ears slowly grew larger. Lazily, it licked the fur on its forepaw, its tongue flexible, pink, and covered in barbs.
Yuli almost instantly recalled the damp sensation of its tongue licking her cheek.
That slightly itchy, stinging feeling.
In that instant, fragments of information came rushing in—the corpse in the wilderness, the small soundproof barrier, and all the rest. Like scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they slid perfectly into place, rearranging and connecting.
Until the puzzle was complete.
The hairs along Yuli’s spine rose one by one. She was utterly certain.
The person who had abducted her was Tuo Lan.
“Run!”
Yuli whipped around, seized Lingling—who had just picked up the sealed bag again—and changed from a hurried walk into a jog.
Finally, in the eyes of outsiders, the two girls inexplicably began sprinting.
Who had time to manage their expressions? Yuli’s inner cowardly self was sobbing hysterically.
Damn it, how had she run into someone who was openly playing the werewolf card? How was she supposed to keep acting from now on?!
Mommy, there’s a pervert here! Aaaah!
“Roast—!” Banwei watched the bag swinging back and forth in Lingling’s hand, its fate growing increasingly tragic, and cried out in anguish.
Chili-powder roast chicken was still chicken! He couldn’t eat it, but he had helped pack up that half of a chicken and had grown attached to it!
“Captain.” Lanxing looked toward another direction and reminded him softly.
The golden-haired young man who had stopped moments earlier appeared before them in the space of a few breaths.
Behind him, Sentinels in white combat uniforms edged with gold appeared one after another, blocking the Lynx Squad’s path. Banwei nearly bristled at once, instinctively preparing to release his spirit entity, but Lanxing held him back.
Not fighting inside the base was a common understanding.
“Tuo Lan, you’re being far too dismissive of discipline.”
The golden-haired young man spoke first.
His cool, clean voice was like the first snow falling from a treetop after a winter sparrow’s wings had beaten the air.
“I thought a behavior like raiding a Guide at night shouldn’t be carried out by a Sentinel.”
“And?”
Tuo Lan happily watched the girl’s panicked retreating back and withdrew his restless spirit entity into his body.
“Bai Yan, are you planning to be our Lili’s watchdog tonight?”