She stayed bent over the box, her mind racing at full speed.
From the angle where Ye Que stood, could he actually see what was in her hand?
The lighting on the second floor was terrible. A few holes in the tin roof let in slanted shafts of gray daylight, hitting the ground between her and the metal box in irregular patches.
But she happened to be crouching at the edge of one of those light patches, her back to the stairwell.
With her thumb, she silently crumpled the note—already soft from her sweaty palm—into the center of her hand.
She had to hide it.
She couldn’t explain where the note had come from, and even more so, she couldn’t expose the gaps in her memory. What if that missing time held something seriously bad for her?
Until she knew the truth, she would play the part of an obedient tool.
Surviving—that was what mattered most.
She stood up slowly, unhurriedly. Her knees ached from squatting too long, so she patted the dust off her pant legs as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Then she turned around.
Ye Que’s gaze was still on her.
He was still standing there, watching her, her reflection fixed in his pitch-black pupils.
A tingle ran across the back of Jiang Nuan’s neck. Every hair stood on end.
She had already scrambled together three excuses in her head. “What note?” “Oh, that? Just something I scribbled earlier.” “I was looking for something I hid before, but I couldn’t find it.”
If he directly demanded to see what was in her hand, she would shove the note into her mouth.
That crazy thought surfaced, and oddly, it gave her a strange sense of calm.
But Ye Que did nothing.
His voice came, as flat and steady as ever.
“Done packing?”
Those two words brushed against her frayed nerves, nearly making her lose her composure.
She froze.
Seeming slightly impatient with her sluggishness, Ye Que repeated himself.
“If you’re done, head downstairs.”
With that, he turned and walked toward the stairwell, his footsteps silent.
The entire time, he didn’t spare her another glance. He showed no curiosity at all about the thing clenched in her hand.
…That was it?
Rooted to the spot, Jiang Nuan felt more unease now than she had a moment ago.
Did he not see it?
Or… was he waiting? Waiting for her to slip up more?
【Don’t trust anyone.】
That sentence echoed wildly in her mind again, each word hammering against her fragile sense of safety.
Ye Que—the man who had saved her from the Exclusion Zone, then personally delivered her into a cage—did he fall within the reach of that warning?
Jiang Nuan forced herself to calm down and slowly loosened her hand.
The note was soaked through with sweat, crumpled into a small wad.
She carefully folded it up again and tucked it into a tiny pocket on the inside of her combat suit, right against her skin.
Only after doing that did she feel like she could breathe again.
She followed him downstairs.
The warehouse on the first floor was packed with people. The low murmurs of refugees and the crying of children mixed together. The air was thick with the damp smell of mildew and the sour stench of bodies that hadn’t been washed in a long time. The odor she’d almost gotten used to earlier hit her again, churning her stomach.
She glanced toward the spot where Qi Sui had been squatting earlier.
Empty.
Not only was Qi Sui gone.
The refugee Qi Sui had been talking to—the one who had been lying on the ground—was gone too.
All that remained on that piece of floor was a wrinkled thin blanket and an upside-down enamel cup. It looked like someone had left in a hurry, without bothering to clean up.
Lu Shiyan was leaning against the wall near the entrance, holding a communicator, seemingly reading some message.
“Where’s Qi Sui?” Jiang Nuan asked curiously.
“He had something to take care of—he’ll be back soon,” Lu Shiyan said, glancing at her. “We’ll wait here.”
Where did he go?
What business?
She wanted to ask both questions, but the way Lu Shiyan spoke didn’t sound like he was asking for opinion—it was more like a notification: You don’t need to know.
Ye Que had silently moved to the doorway, one hand resting on the doorframe, his gaze sweeping across the ruins of the street outside.
Jiang Nuan stood still for a few seconds, then made a decision. “I’m going to chat with Sister Zhou for a bit.”
Sister Zhou was sitting in the deepest corner of the warehouse, leaning against a concrete pillar.
Two or three refugees were gathered around her, speaking in low voices. When they saw Jiang Nuan approach, their gazes snapped toward her in unison, then just as quickly shifted away.
“Sister Zhou,” Jiang Nuan said, crouching down.
“Oh,” Sister Zhou replied, her tone warmer than it had been in the crowd earlier. “What’s up? Forget something?”
Jiang Nuan pulled a package from the outer pocket of her combat suit.
Silver-gray aluminum foil packaging. Compressed biscuits. Standard field rations from the base.
She had tossed two packs into her pocket that morning before setting out, originally meant for herself. But now, she had a better use for them.
She handed the biscuits to Sister Zhou.
Sister Zhou’s eyes lit up.
In this post-apocalyptic world of extreme scarcity, a sealed pack of compressed biscuits from an investigation team was enough to barter for a full day of security.
She didn’t bother with false modesty. She took them, smoothly stashing them into the inner pocket of her faded, worn-out jacket. Her movements were quick and natural, as if she were long accustomed to hiding any resource she got her hands on as fast as possible.
“Thanks, Xiao Jiang,” she said, lowering her voice, a touch of real warmth creeping into it. “Things are a lot better now that you’re with the investigation team, huh?”
Her eyes swept over Jiang Nuan’s black combat suit, then down to her boots. A trace of emotion flickered in her gaze. She lowered her voice even further, so only the two of them could hear.
“You used to be so different. Always curled up alone in that corner on the second floor, never knowing where your next meal was coming from. I brought you food twice, but you wouldn’t open the door—you’d just wait until I left and drag it in through the crack under the door.”
She shook her head as she spoke.
“And you used to say you’d rather die than have anything to do with the investigation team. But look at you now—you’ve come around, haven’t you? Isn’t this better?”
Jiang Nuan’s heart skipped a beat.
“Rather die than have anything to do with them.”
She understood the weight of those words all too well. The original owner hadn’t been bluffing. She had chosen death.
With one bullet, she had ended her own life.
Though Jiang Nuan couldn’t find a clear memory of why in her mind, she could guess well enough.
It was all about that blood-pressure-spiking SSS-rank purification ability, and the even more blood-pressure-spiking method of carrying it out.
After all these twists and turns, she had transmigrated into this body and inherited a fate she couldn’t escape.
Jiang Nuan pulled the corners of her lips into a slight smile, feigning a helpless sigh. “Well, I’ve come around, haven’t I?”
“Yeah, that’s good. You’re young and pretty,” Sister Zhou said, sounding like someone with life experience, her voice hushed.
“Those men—always fighting and killing—they need someone by their side to look after them, you know?”
“And the legendary Zero Squad? I’ve heard they never had a single woman before. You’re the first.”
“Good fortune’s coming your way.”
A vein twitched on Jiang Nuan’s forehead. She suppressed the discomfort rising in her chest and the urge to argue back.
She needed more information.
"By the way," Sister Zhou suddenly remembered something and asked, "Weren't you trying to find someone before? You put a lot of effort into it. Did you ever find them?"
Find someone?
Those two words slammed into her ears, and her mind went completely blank.
There was nothing about this in the original host's memory bank.
The confusion on her face didn't escape Sister Zhou's eyes.
Thinking she hadn't found the person, Sister Zhou instead offered words of comfort. "Ah, that's normal. In this world now, finding someone is harder than climbing to the sky. Maybe they've already returned to that... what was it... Sky something Society you mentioned?"
Sky something Society?
"Sister Zhou," Jiang Nuan seized on the key phrase and pressed further, "Do you remember the specifics? I've had too much going on lately, my head's a bit jumbled."
"I only caught a snippet of it by chance," Sister Zhou said, trying to recall. "A man came looking for you. When you were talking, you mentioned wanting to find a friend, and you brought up that Sky something Society."
A man who came looking for her?
Another blank spot in her memory!
Just how much of her memory had been erased?
The warning "Don't trust anyone," the mysterious "Sky X Society," the friend she wanted to find, and the man who came for her.
The original owner wasn't completely alone. She had a past, someone she was trying to find.
So why did she die alone in Sector C?
Who wiped her memory?
The questions tightened around her, making it hard to breathe.
She was about to ask more when footsteps echoed at the entrance.
Qi Sui was back, carrying his medical kit.
He had returned alone.
As he passed through the warehouse entrance, the gray afternoon light fanned out behind him, softening his entire silhouette.
Qi Sui still wore that gentle, warm smile, as if he'd just taken a casual stroll.
Jiang Nuan's gaze instinctively slid past him to see what was behind him.
That drifter. He hadn't come back.
"You're back?" Lu Shiyan looked up at him.
Qi Sui walked over to Lu Shiyan's side. The two exchanged a few words in low voices.
Jiang Nuan was too far away to catch what they said, but she saw Lu Shiyan nod slightly, his expression unchanged.
Qi Sui came to stand beside her, naturally stopping at her side.
Sister Zhou had already walked away with a pot of water, melting into the crowd in the corner of the warehouse without looking back.
"Were you waiting long?" He looked down at her, his smile warm.
As he got closer, a very faint smell of blood, mixed with his usual scent of disinfectant, drifted into Jiang Nuan's nose.
"Not long at all." Jiang Nuan smiled back at him and stood up.
The question about the drifter never left her lips.
She could feel the note hidden close to her body.
Some things were better left unknown.
The four of them left the warehouse and stepped into the ruined streets.
The warehouse's rolling iron door was half-open and half-closed. The drifters inside huddled in their own corners, watching them leave with wary eyes.
Sister Zhou stood at the edge of the crowd, watching her, and even raised a hand to wave.
Jiang Nuan waved back, thinking she should come back another time to talk more with Sister Zhou and see what else she could dig up.
On the streets, wind whipped sand and dust against their faces. A dull rumble echoed in the distance—another building had collapsed, making the ground tremble faintly underfoot.
Sector C was like that, like a giant corpse that hadn't yet breathed its last.
The armored vehicle was parked beneath a broken bridge, two intersections away.
Jiang Nuan got into the car and sat in her usual spot by the window.
The door closed, shutting out all sound from outside.
The silence inside the cabin was unnerving.
Lu Shiyan picked up the communicator and made a routine check-in.
"Qinian, Shen Wu, Jiang Ce, do you copy?"
Crack—
A piercing static noise, amplified to an unbearable degree in the dead-silent cabin.
No response.
Lu Shiyan lowered the communicator from his ear and stared at the screen for two seconds.
Then, he lifted his head.
It was the first time Jiang Nuan had seen that look on his face.
He was still calm and rational, his lips pressed into a tight line. But that sense of steady composure in his eyes had cracked, just one small shard broken away.
"Qinian's squad," his voice went cold, "gone completely dark."
