Jiang Nuan stared at the signature at the bottom of the document, unable to speak for a long time.
It was in her handwriting.
Why had the person who once depended on her for survival, the person who had promised they would live on together, gone so far as to seal away her memories?
And why… had she run back to the refugee district alone?
Jiang Nuan lowered her head and ran her fingers over the repeatedly smudged writing.
The answer lay with Bai Siyuan. She had to find him.
And then there was the Bai family’s eastern wing.
The freshman orientation, the art studio, the infirmary, the dormitory buildings.
Bai Siyuan had actually built an exact replica of the university campus from her memories?
“Nuannuan.” Qi Sui’s voice suddenly rang out.
Jiang Nuan turned around. Qi Sui’s face was frighteningly pale, and his body swayed as he gripped the edge of the table with all his strength.
“Qi Sui?” She immediately reached out to support him. “What’s wrong?”
Qi Sui closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing becoming ragged. “Something happened to Qinian. His consciousness is in complete turmoil. Part of him is lucid, while another part… seems to have been invaded by something.”
Jiang Nuan’s heart tightened. “His consciousness was invaded? Can you sense whether Qinian knows why he was invaded?”
“Empathy isn’t mind-reading.” Qi Sui shook his head. “I can only sense his pain, his five senses, and whether his consciousness is clear. I can’t directly know what he’s thinking.”
He paused.
“The part of the consciousness that belongs to Qinian hasn’t disappeared.”
“But at the same time, another state is affecting him. He’s been resisting it the entire time.”
Jiang Nuan immediately slipped the document bearing her signature into the inner pocket of her clothes. “Then let’s hurry and find him.”
The moment she finished speaking, the desk lamp in the infirmary suddenly flickered.
Buzz—
The filament gave off a faint electrical hum. The warm yellow light dimmed for an instant before struggling back to life.
The two of them held their breath at the same time.
There had been no sound outside the door.
But in that brief darkness, the rustling noise of something crawling along the floor sounded again.
It seemed to be right in front of them—so close that it was already crawling over the threshold, crouched beneath the table and inching its body forward, segment by segment.
The desk lamp flickered again.
This time, the crawling sound abruptly stopped outside the door.
When the light came back on, there was nothing outside the half-open infirmary door. The corridor was completely empty.
Jiang Nuan stared at the doorway.
The disappearance of the sound did not reassure her. Instead, the silence felt as though it were pressing down on her, crushing the air from her lungs.
Qi Sui raised his left hand.
Several extremely fine silver threads drooped from between his fingers, making not even the slightest sound.
The desk lamp went out completely.
Darkness swallowed the entire room.
In that instant, when nothing at all was visible, Jiang Nuan even had the illusion that the walls of the infirmary had vanished along with it.
The space around them became vast and bottomless.
She could see neither the door nor the ground beneath her feet.
She could no longer distinguish up from down or left from right. She could not even tell whether she was still standing.
Rustle.
The crawling sound rang out again.
Right at the doorway.
Jiang Nuan and Qi Sui raised their terminals almost simultaneously.
Two beams of flashlight swept over the area and struck the half-open door together.
There was still nothing outside, but the crawling sound did not stop.
It moved through the places the light could not reach, inching toward the threshold.
Jiang Nuan lowered the beam.
The next moment, a mass of pitch-black shadow appeared at the edge of the light.
It crouched extremely low.
Its limbs were twisted and folded in the wrong direction. Some were tucked beneath its belly, some sprawled across the floor, while others slowly reached forward.
The sharp black shape at the very front had already come to within half a meter of Jiang Nuan’s shoes.
