The people nearby began noticing the return of the two elite squads. Gradually, they cheered and gathered around, preparing to organize a welcoming reception.
“Oh, right, I forgot. How could the noble young master of the A01 district possibly lower himself to do something like this?”
“Let me guess.” Tuo Lan licked his lips, his eyes turning into vertical pupils. “You must have already applied to the Commander to have Qiquan released.”
After all, that fellow was very conscious of his role as Lili’s dog.
“Yes.” Bai Yan’s translucent blue eyes remained unfathomable, his expression calm. “And if you’re smart enough, you should be trying to control your condition and emotions right now, so you won’t be affected by the contamination, instead of thinking about doing something to Lili.”
“Mindlessly slaughtering mutated entities won’t vent the disturbance. It will only deepen your contaminated state.”
“My suggestion isn’t for your sake. Whether you live or die has nothing to do with me.”
“I simply don’t want Lili wasting any more energy on you.” Bai Yan said, “Tuo Lan, you’ve already exhausted her.”
Tsk, that damned dog.
Tuo Lan pressed his tongue against his back teeth.
What a sanctimonious, hypocritical damned dog.
“Captain Baiyan, Captain Tuo Lan, you’re back from your mission! You’ve worked hard!”
The residents, unaware of what had happened, enthusiastically approached them. Their eager greetings broke the tense, confrontational atmosphere between the two squads.
“That’s right, Captain Baiyan. Which area did you explore this time? Can you tell us about it?”
Bai Yan gave a slight nod. “It isn’t classified. This time, we explored the outskirts of the contaminated Base A03. If nothing unexpected happens, our future explorations may run into Commander Fuyuelou and the others, who have gone deep into Base A02.”
The crowd erupted in cheers.
“Commander Fuyuelou!”
“The Commander and the others have been on that long-term mission for so long. It’s been a month, right?”
“Your memory is terrible. It’s clearly been two months! Didn’t they send back word before that there seemed to be survivors in the A02 area?”
“They only said there were traces suggesting that living people might have survived. It hasn’t been confirmed yet. Goodness, it wouldn’t be strange even if there were survivors. After all, it’s a major district. Captain Baiyan, will you explore the A01 district in the future?”
Everyone knew that A01 was Captain Baiyan’s hometown. If it weren’t so far away, Captain Baiyan would presumably have wanted to explore A01 more than choosing the nearby A03 district.
“I’m not sure. I’ll follow the Commander’s arrangements,” Bai Yan replied evenly and courteously.
Through several people who had asked questions, he cast Tuo Lan a faint glance. Then, leading the White Flame Squad Sentinels—most of whom came from noble families—he merged into the crowd and guided them away perfectly.
Banwei let out a loud “Tsk.”
“I just can’t stand him.”
“What, jealous that people like him?” Their malicious captain slapped him on the head, surprisingly calm. “He does have the capital to put on airs. Since I chose to eat roast chicken with him, I have to be prepared for that.”
There was no doubt that Bai Yan’s White Flame Squad was the most popular Sentinel squad after Commander Fuyuelou’s team.
If the base’s popularity rankings were taken into account, among the five elite squads, Lynx Squad would probably be either last or second-to-last.
But so what?
He didn’t need popularity.
After four years of playing house with one Lili and five Sentinels living together harmoniously, he was tired of it now.
Bai Yan wanted to use Fuyuelou to suppress him, but no one even knew whether Fuyuelou was still alive after being out of contact for so long in A02.
“No,” Banwei muttered, covering his forehead. “I’m not jealous. I choose roast chicken!”
Compared with roast chicken, the people’s affection was worth nothing!
“That’s more like it.” Tuo Lan watched the crowd gradually being led away by Bai Yan, a careless smile appearing at the corners of his mouth. “You can’t be too greedy. People have to know what they want most.”
The same went for Lili. She couldn’t be too greedy and want everyone.
……
Yuli ran breathlessly to the villa with Lingling.
“Miss, you actually found the way here by yourself!”
Lingling happily discovered this point. For most of the latter half of the journey, Miss had basically been dragging her along.
Was that finding the way? That was fleeing for her life!
“I—I’m exhausted.”
Yuli really wanted to collapse onto the floor, but time was tight. Only now did she remember to use her light-brain. She opened it and sent Song Xuanye a message.
She wanted to move into the Sentinel Tower dormitory!
The villa was no longer safe. She would only feel secure inside the organization.
The Sentinel Tower had strict surveillance, Sentinels working in shifts, and the Commander stationed there. Even if Tuo Lan was an S-rank Sentinel, he could no longer continue abducting people openly.
The moment she opened her contact list, a series of delayed messages began dinging and popping up.
Aside from Lingling, there were two unfamiliar profile pictures: one was a handsome meteor-patterned Border Collie, while the other was a chibi Baituanzi whose appearance was impossible to make out.
Lingling’s profile picture was the easiest to recognize because she had directly changed it to an image of text that read, “Miss, where are you?”
“Miss, you didn’t read your messages again.”
Lingling pouted unhappily, though she also knew that Miss’s profile picture had remained gray the entire time, so Tuo Lan must have blocked the signal. “Next time, remember to find a way to notify me. Leave me a message as soon as you get a signal.”
“Understood.” Yuli secretly decided that she would figure out the light-brain completely tonight and get used to using it.
“Come on, let’s go upstairs and pack. We’re staying in the dormitory tonight!”
The Commander hadn’t replied yet, but that was fine. She would act first and report afterward.
Yuli ran to the bedroom on the second floor of the villa in her bunny slippers, producing a clatter of banging and rattling.
“Miss, Miss.”
Lingling hurried after her, lifting her skirt.
“You already have a room in the dormitory.”
Watching Miss plunge headfirst into the walk-in closet, Lingling pressed a hand to her forehead. “What I mean is, you don’t need to pack. Everything is already there.”
Everything was already there?
“Oh.” Yuli calmly pushed back the largest suitcase she had just dragged out. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry, I’m not fleeing for my life. I just suddenly remembered that the dormitory might be short on some seasonal clothes.”
“You don’t need to worry about any of that. I’ll prepare everything for you.” Lingling planted both hands on her hips. “Now, can you explain what it means that you were in the ward and touched Captain Sain’s chest?”
Yuli: “……”
This matter had to be traced back to the day before she entered the novel.
That day, she had received her admission letter from the university she had wanted to attend. Her best friend, Zhang Lingling, would also be living in the same city in the future, so the two of them had made an appointment to celebrate with barbecue that evening. Before they knew it, they had drunk too much.
Yuli hadn’t expected her alcohol tolerance to be so poor, nor had she known that she would wake up inside a book after falling asleep.
In her memory, she had clearly woken up with a hangover and a headache. She had wanted to raise a hand to rub her temples, but then someone had seized her hand. Her fingertips had touched something warm and resilient and could not move any farther.
She heard Sai’en’s voice asking Doctor Shaohua, “What’s going on? Is she in pain?”
The unfamiliar voice of a man appeared in the room, and Yuli woke up completely in an instant. Then she opened her eyes and saw a neat row of men.
The Sentinels of Heiying Squad seemed to have just gone through a bloody battle that day. Every one of them had suffered injuries to one degree or another.
They were all over 185 centimeters tall on average and stood in a neat line. They wore pure-black combat uniforms, had fierce features and sturdy builds, and exuded a cold, stern air.
They had frightened Yuli badly at the time.
When she came to her senses, she discovered that her hand was inside Sai’en’s collar.
At the time, the powerful black-haired young man was sitting on the edge of her hospital bed. His combat uniform was already damaged, revealing a terrifying wound beneath the clear lines of his collarbones. It was a long gash running from his left chest to his right side, so deep that the bone was visible, with blood and flesh everywhere.
Yet his expression was calm. His black eyes gazed at her as she woke, and there was no sign on his face that he had suffered such a severe injury.
What was worse, because Sai’en’s clothes were torn, Yuli discovered that her hand was pressed just below his wound—in other words, against the left side of his chest muscle.
According to Doctor Shaohua, Guide Lier had suddenly convulsed and woken while unconscious, then raised her hand to pull off the monitoring patch—meaning that she had tried to rub her temples. Captain Sain had promptly seized her hand and stopped her.
So the entire thing had purely been an accident caused by her entering the novel.
Under the astonished gazes of Heiying Squad at the time, she had silently moved her hand away from Sai’en’s collar. While she was at it, she had kindly pulled up the torn fabric of his collar to cover his wound.
Yuli considered that a fairly appropriate response. She simply had no idea how the news had spread, or why it seemed to have changed somewhat in the process……
“So that’s what happened. Thank goodness, thank goodness. You nearly scared me to death.” Lingling let out a sigh of relief. “Miss, don’t worry. Captain Sain is a reasonable person. He won’t blame you unfairly.”
Yuli naturally couldn’t tell her that she had entered a novel. She borrowed Doctor Shaohua’s explanation and repeated it to Lingling.
Strictly speaking, according to the timeline, the person who had touched Sai’en’s chest really had been her—not the body’s original owner.
But instinct told Yuli that Sai’en wasn’t the sort of person who would care about something like this. He might not even know about the chest-touching rumor.
Even if he did know, he probably wouldn’t bother explaining it.
Yuli then briefly recounted what had happened to her from last night until now. Lingling prepared hot water and pushed her into the bathroom, claiming that she should take a bath and relax properly.
“Tuo Lan must be behind this. He’s playing at being a hero saving a damsel in distress. Miss, listen to him less from now on—and don’t believe him.”
Yuli obediently nodded as she soaked in the bubble bath.
She left out a great deal. She didn’t mention that she had nearly been hacked to death by a mutated mantis, nor did she mention the corpse of the mutated entity or any of the other bloody, frightening details. She deliberately downplayed Tuo Lan’s malice because she didn’t want Lingling to worry too much.
Lingling was only an ordinary person who couldn’t even see spirit entities. It wasn’t suitable for her to become too deeply involved in this sort of matter.
Yuli buried her face in the bubbles, breathing in the soothing, relaxing fragrance of the essential oils as she considered what attitude she should adopt when facing Tuo Lan in the future.
Her light-brain beeped twice, reminding her that she had forgotten something.
Yuli wiped the foam from her face and opened the light-brain’s message window.
Song Xuanye: [Miss Guide who wants to contribute her strength to the base, it seems releasing you from the hospital did nothing to help your brain.]
What a terrible superior. He was insulting her again!
He was referring to the message she had sent earlier, acting first and reporting afterward by announcing that she would move into the Sentinel Tower dormitory.
Yuli calmly replied at once: [Commander, you’ve misunderstood.]
User 8722443: [What I mean is, I’m moving next door to you, not staying in my old dormitory.]
Yuli glanced at the new light-brain’s indescribably awful default ID and profile picture, then silently left the screen and changed them.
When she returned, she found a new reply.
Song Xuanye: [?]
Song Xuanye: [Six o’clock. Come to my office.]
Yuli shot upright from the bathtub with a splash.
Perfect!
This concerned her survival, so she had been planning to discuss it in person anyway.