The dressing room door was pushed open.
Jiang Ce stepped inside, his gaze landing on Jiang Nuan at once.
His eyes traveled from her slightly disheveled hair to the side of her neck, then down to her collarbone.
There, a faint red bite mark stood out sharply beneath the lights.
His tall frame went taut. He reached up, took off his jacket, and draped it over Jiang Nuan’s shoulders.
The movement was gentle, covering her collarbone exactly.
“That painting has been confirmed to contain abnormal energy fluctuations.” Jiang Ce grabbed Qinian by the back of the collar with one hand. “We need to trace the source. You’re coming with me.”
Qinian clicked his tongue. “Brother Ce, go easy—”
“We’re investigating it now.” Jiang Ce gave him no chance to say another word, dragging him toward the door.
As Qinian was hauled to the doorway, he looked back at Jiang Nuan. The heat in his eyes had yet to fade, emotions still churning within them. His voice was low and hoarse. “Wait for me to come back.”
Jiang Nuan raised a brow. “You don’t have to come back.”
The door shut behind them.
A soft chuckle sounded beside her.
“Need a bandage?”
Shen Wu was leaning against the edge of the makeup table at some point, idly twirling a black pen between his fingers.
“…When did you get in?”
“When Jiang Ce dragged Qinian away,” he answered with perfect composure. “I stepped aside to let them pass.”
The noisy backstage area seemed cut off from the room. Only Jiang Nuan and Shen Wu remained.
“No bandage needed…” Feeling somewhat awkward, Jiang Nuan pulled Jiang Ce’s jacket closer around herself and walked over to the seating area by the floor-to-ceiling window. She sat down on the long sofa beside the glass.
Shen Wu followed at an unhurried pace and sat at the other end.
Jiang Nuan turned to look at him.
Shen Wu looked much the same as he had when they had parted a day earlier.
The only difference, perhaps, was that he was now wearing a sharply tailored black suit, and his hair had been styled. He looked several degrees more polished than usual.
To ease the awkwardness from earlier, Jiang Nuan took the initiative to ask how things had been for him in this restricted zone.
“During the day, I act as Qinian’s manager, handling his schedule and public opinion,” Shen Wu said, crossing one leg over the other. “At night, I go out on missions with Ye Que, while also looking into leads on the underground black market.”
Ye Que.
Jiang Nuan’s heart skipped a beat. She rubbed the silver chain around her wrist. “Ye Que… how is he doing now?”
“He’s already number one on the bounty hunter rankings. His client feedback is perfect,” Shen Wu said blandly.
Silently, Jiang Nuan lit a candle for Shen Wu. He was single-handedly taking care of two teammates with extreme personalities, terrifying combat ability, and the life skills of complete invalids. It really wasn’t easy.
Apocalypse edition: a father’s love as steadfast as a mountain.
For someone who looked so lean to have avoided sudden death until now was truly a medical miracle.
Shen Wu’s gaze settled on her, watching her impassively. “What exactly is this unfavorable impression you have of me? Why do you think I’m in poor health?”
Jiang Nuan’s back stiffened.
She had indeed complained that he looked skinny.
But only she knew what kind of… power was hidden beneath that seemingly slender frame.
Stop. Stop right there!
She slammed on the brakes in her mind.
“I just think you work too hard, that’s all!” Jiang Nuan blurted out, decisively avoiding his eyes.
Shen Wu gave a quiet scoff. He did not pursue the subject, apparently choosing to let her off.
“Oh, right.” Jiang Nuan hurriedly changed the subject. “I’ve noticed a change in my mental domain.”
“It used to be a very shallow little stream, but now it seems to have become a small river.”
She described the sensation—one of fullness, yet difficult to fully control.
“When an ability’s manifested form expands in volume, it usually indicates an advancement in energy,” he said. “But there are many possible explanations for that.”
He stopped halfway through the thought.
Puzzled, Jiang Nuan followed his gaze and turned to look outside.
At some point, the heavy clouds in the night sky had quietly parted, revealing a bright, radiant moon hanging overhead.
Gentle moonlight poured in through the floor-to-ceiling window, bathing the area where she sat in a soft white glow.
The sofa, her bare calves, the jacket draped over her knees, and the strands of hair scattered over her shoulders were all coated in a layer of cool moonlight.
All except Shen Wu.
He happened to be sitting within the dense shadow cast by the window frame.
His outline was blurred, his features hidden. Only those pale eyes gleamed with an unnatural brightness.
He sat there in the darkness, silently watching her without blinking as she remained enveloped in moonlight.
As though that tender moonlight had forgotten him entirely.
All at once, Jiang Nuan felt that this was Shen Wu’s true appearance. Not the sharp-tongued intelligence officer, but an observer who had been forced to see through all the truths and falsehoods of the world—and had chosen to exile himself from it.
For that instant, Jiang Nuan felt as though she had stopped breathing.
“A verbal description makes it difficult to judge accurately.” Shen Wu finally withdrew his gaze, his voice slightly lower than before. “I need to examine your mental domain directly.”
He said it as if it were an entirely routine professional request.
Jiang Nuan nodded.
Shen Wu was the foremost expert on psychic abilities in Team Zero. And in this strange restricted zone, any changes in an ability could become a fatal hidden danger.
The instant she nodded, her consciousness was stripped from the real world by a force too immense to resist.
It was too fast.
So fast that Jiang Nuan did not even have time to feel wary or afraid.
Only one fleeting, blurred thought flashed through her mind.
Wait.
Lu Shiyan seemed to have said that this sort of operation required asking for her permission first…
But before the thought could form into a complete sentence, it was completely overwhelmed by an even more shocking reality.
Everything around her vanished. The moonlight, the sofa, everything in the dressing room.
All that remained was boundless darkness and absolute silence.
She stood in the void.
This was not her mental world.
Her mental world was shallow water, warm and silver.
But this…
This was Shen Wu’s mental domain.
The very second she realized it, a massive, cold golden vertical pupil slowly opened in the darkness ahead of her.
It opened very slowly.
Golden light spilled from it through the night, inch by inch illuminating the astonishment on Jiang Nuan’s face, illuminating her small, fragile figure standing alone in the boundless darkness.
The vertical pupil watched her.
There was no warmth, no emotional fluctuation—only a gaze of pure judgment.
Shen Wu’s voice came from every direction. It did not sound like a particular person speaking, but rather as though the rules of this space itself were issuing a declaration to her.
There was a nearly imperceptible note of pleasure in it—the satisfaction of someone who held everything in his control.
“Don’t move.”
“Let me take a look.”
