Lu Zhaoming stood quietly before the snake-patterned tree, the shadows of its branches swaying gently behind him.
He had made no move to attack, yet no one in the Zero Squad relaxed in the slightest.
Before they had made their move, they might still have claimed that the banquet hall was too noisy and that they had merely come out for a walk together.
But in their current situation, making excuses now would be an insult to Lu Zhaoming’s intelligence.
A faint glow of fire rose in Qinian’s palm. His voice came through the mental link. 【Should we make a move?】
Ye Que had his gun trained on Lu Zhaoming but did not pull the trigger. 【Better not give him a reason to attack first.】
【B-but if we wait for him to strike, we might not even have time to react.】 Chen Ping'an’s voice trembled slightly.
Lu Shiyan gave the order calmly.
【Everyone stay on guard. But without my order, no one is to attack first.】
His expression remained composed as he stepped forward, blocking the others from view.
“The defensive barrier around the snake-patterned tree was set up by you.”
Lu Zhaoming did not deny it.
“You set up defenses in advance, which means you knew how important it was. In other words, you already knew there was something wrong with this world,” Lu Shiyan said.
The night wind passed through the leaves, stirring a faint rustle among the branches.
Lu Zhaoming’s gaze remained fixed on Lu Shiyan’s face. “You inferred all that from a single defensive barrier.”
A hint of a smile appeared at the corner of his lips. “Lu Shiyan, you’re impressive.”
Lu Shiyan’s fingers, hanging at his side, curled slightly toward his palm.
Then, just as quickly, they relaxed again.
Jiang Nuan suddenly remembered what he had said that night in the kitchen, speaking with the haze of alcohol.
He had said that when he was young, he trained desperately simply in the hope that his father would stay a little longer.
Lu Zhaoming had rarely praised him.
Now, that acknowledgment—more than a decade late—had finally reached Lu Shiyan’s ears.
Lu Zhaoming turned his gaze to the others.
“Since you’ve made it this far, why don’t we talk?”
“So after confirming that this was the key supporting this world, your first reaction was to destroy it.”
Jiang Nuan’s heart jolted.
Those words amounted to a complete admission.
Lu Zhaoming had known for a long time that there was something wrong with this world. He also knew that the snake-patterned tree was the core sustaining it all.
But even if Lu Zhaoming truly knew that he was nothing more than an projection of consciousness, this was still the world in which he had lived and protected for so many years.
“False” was merely the definition imposed on it by outsiders like them.
Jiang Nuan suddenly realized that phrased another way, this truth was almost too cruel to accept.
Someone could stand before you and tell you that everything you had experienced, everyone you had loved, the city you had protected—even you yourself—was nothing more than a constructed projection.
And then that person could tell you that, in order for the people of another world to survive, the world you belonged to had to be destroyed.
Jiang Nuan did not believe he could calmly nod in agreement.
Even after discovering the truth, who would be willing to admit that they and everything they cherished deserved to be erased?
And least of all Lu Zhaoming. This was the place where he had personally watched people and their lives continue to this day. It was where Ice Lake’s chestnut sellers still had lines of customers, where he had watched children grow up with his own eyes.
Jiang Nuan even felt that Lu Zhaoming’s willingness to stand there and speak with them so calmly was part of a decision: whether to regard them as invaders who had to be eliminated.
If Lu Zhaoming chose to attack, they might not get a second chance to reach the snake-patterned tree that night.
The members of the Zero Squad had clearly realized this as well. Without a word, they adjusted their positions, placing Jiang Nuan in the relatively safest spot.
No one retreated. But in the face of someone as powerful as Lu Zhaoming, whose stance remained unclear, every one of them was wound as tight as a drawn bowstring.
