“I... I wasn’t trying to run.”
Jiang Nuan’s voice squeezed out from her throat, fragmented by the rain.
Tears welled up faster than she had anticipated.
Part of it was an act.
She knew it all too well—when facing an overwhelming disparity in power, showing weakness was the only correct option.
But the rest of it was real.
The gunshot wound on her calf was seeping blood; rain poured into the gash, sending numbness crawling up her entire leg.
Sister Zhou’s body lay just two steps away. Her unblinking eyes were filled with rainwater, like two shallow puddles.
Fear, pain, betrayal, and a suffocating sense of being trapped all churned together, making the tears feel startlingly genuine.
She tilted her head back. The icy rain slid down her pale cheeks. She looked up at the tall man before her with a gaze full of terror and helplessness.
“It was Sister Zhou. She lied to me, said my friend was waiting outside...”
Her voice trembled; the trailing words were swallowed by the downpour.
“She said she could help me get out for a meeting, I...”
She bit her lower lip, not finishing the sentence.
If she shifted all the blame too cleanly, it would seem fake instead.
Leaving an opening—the suggestion that she had wavered—was more believable than claiming complete innocence.
Ye Que didn’t speak.
His fathomless black eyes locked onto her, as still as a windless deep pool.
Rainwater dripped from his hardened jaw.
His hand was still by her cheek.
The tactical glove’s fingertip pressed lightly, rubbing across her soft lower lip, wiping away the last trace of blood.
The force wasn’t severe; in fact, it was meticulous.
But that precision wasn’t gentleness. It was more like a hunter checking if his prey had suffered any unnecessary injury.
Jiang Nuan held her breath, too scared to even exhale.
The next second, he pulled his hand away.
He stood up directly, hoisted the sniper rifle, barrel pointed down.
“Can you walk?”
Jiang Nuan lowered her head to look at her right calf.
The fabric of her pants was torn open by the bullet’s path; the flesh beneath was split, still seeping blood, washed everywhere by the rain—the sight was quite gruesome.
She tried to move it. A sharp breath hissed between her teeth.
Then she felt her body lift.
Ye Que bent down, one hand cradling the back of her knee, the other pressing against her waist, hoisting her up from the muddy water.
No unnecessary hesitation in his movements.
Jiang Nuan was clamped between him and the sniper rifle, her cheek pressed against his chest.
He wasn’t carrying her over his shoulder this time.
This time, it was a bridal carry.
Compared to the slung-over-shoulder treatment in the tunnel before, the difference in this posture was obvious.
But Jiang Nuan felt no joy from the upgraded treatment. Because the hand locked around her waist held such force that she could feel her ribs protesting.
It didn’t feel like a princess carry. It felt more like he was securing a piece of cargo.
She could feel his heartbeat through his chest.
Steady. Slow. An absurd contrast to the torrential downpour.
A heart that had just taken three lives—without a single extra ripple.
A chill ran through her.
He carried her, turning to walk into the rain.
Without sparing a single glance at the bodies on the ground.
Abandoned Sector C was like a giant tomb. The rain fell harder, washing away every trace.
Ye Que’s pace was fast but remarkably steady. Jiang Nuan, nestled against him, could only see the broken buildings receding around them.
They didn’t return to where the armored vehicle was parked. They passed through two alleyways and finally turned into a narrow door on the side of a half-collapsed residential building.
Inside was a small single room.
Dry and quiet, with a faint smell of moisture-proofing agent and disinfectant in the air.
A light tube was embedded in the concrete ceiling, connected to a pull cord. One tug, and it flickered on.
The light was slightly yellow, but bright enough to reveal the room in full.
A bed, a metal cabinet with two white medical boxes stacked on top.
In the corner, there was half a case of bottled water and a few packets of compressed rations.
A backup station for Zero Squad.
Ye Que set her down on the edge of the bed. He sat on a chair nearby.
“Stretch your leg over here,” he ordered.
Jiang Nuan bit her lip and cautiously moved her injured right leg toward him.
Ye Que reached out and seized her ankle tightly.
His grip was formidable; even through the soaked pant leg, Jiang Nuan could feel the heat of his palm.
Jiang Nuan’s whole body stiffened.
Ye Que pulled a knife from his side, the blade pressing against her skin. With a “rip” sound, he slashed open the fabric of her calf.
The wound was exposed to the air. The bullet had just grazed her—it hadn’t lodged in the flesh—but the jagged, torn skin mixed with mud and blood made a gruesome sight.
He returned the knife to his waist, opened the medical kit, and took out a disinfectant pad.
“Bear with it.”
No sooner had he said it than Ye Que pressed the pad onto the wound.
It hurt.
It really hurt.
Jiang Nuan jolted, instinctively shrinking back.
His other hand pressed down on her knee, pinning her in place.
“Don’t move.”
His voice was low and curt, leaving no room for negotiation.
Jiang Nuan bit her lip hard, forcing herself to stay still.
Ye Que’s movements didn’t stop. Disinfecting, stopping the bleeding, applying medicine, bandaging.
When he lowered his head, his face was very close to her calf.
She could even feel the warmth of his breath. Through the medicine pad and gauze, it brushed against her bare skin, puff after puff.
It was an indescribable feeling. Not intimate. Closer to a strange, lopsided proximity.
Jiang Nuan didn’t dare move. She just stared at his hair, distracting herself by counting how many strands were plastered to his forehead by the rain.
Three strands.
No, four.
The bandaging hand suddenly paused for half a beat.
“That person from the Apocalypse Society just now,” he said, lifting his eyes. “He recognized you.”
Jiang Nuan’s fingertips unconsciously tightened on the sheets beneath her.
So he’d already figured it out.
This man was far too perceptive. Even if he hadn’t clearly heard the man’s words from a distance, with his observational skills, it was easy to deduce from the scene alone.
Let alone in this world full of rampant supernatural powers, where nothing was impossible.
Jiang Nuan didn’t deny it. Nor did she panic and try to explain.
“I don’t know him,” she said, keeping her voice as steady as possible. “And I have no memory of the Apocalypse Society.”
That was the truth.
She had sifted through the original owner’s memory banks—nothing about the Apocalypse Society, nothing about that man.
A total blank.
There was no need to lie about this.
Zero Squad had Shen Wu, an intelligence officer with a Truth-Seeking Eye.
Whatever Jiang Nuan thought about or remembered was completely exposed in front of Shen Wu, stripped as if she were sitting naked.
If she had any memory trace related to the Apocalypse Society, Shen Wu wouldn’t have missed it.
It was probably because of this that Ye Que didn’t press further when she said she didn’t recognize the man.
It wasn’t that he trusted her. It was that he trusted Shen Wu’s ability.
“Shen Wu went through your files.”
Ye Que’s voice was especially low in the dim room.
“Your memory is very clean. So clean that it couldn’t find a single flaw.”
Jiang Nuan silently breathed a little sigh of relief.
“Like a blank piece of paper.”
As he tied the bandage knot, his motions paused.
“A blank piece of paper that someone had erased.”
“There’s something wrong with your memory. It was tampered with.”
Jiang Nuan fell silent.
She had known this.
Ever since she found that note.
But coming from Ye Que's mouth, it meant Zero Squad already knew.
Maybe they had known from the very beginning.
"About Sister Zhou's money,"
Ye Que stood up.
His tall figure instantly blocked the light overhead, completely engulfing Jiang Nuan in his shadow.
"We were the ones who gave it."
Jiang Nuan's mind went blank.
The smile on Sister Zhou's face when she accepted that pack of compressed biscuits suddenly surfaced without warning.
"Thanks, Xiao Jiang."
"Life's been better since you joined the survey team, hasn't it?"
She remembered the nimble way Sister Zhou tucked the biscuits into her inner pocket, the way she stood at the edge of the crowd and waved.
She also remembered the knife pressed against her throat in the rain, and those eyes—wide open in death, filled with rainwater.
From beginning to end, she thought she had been using Sister Zhou to extract information.
But in reality...
She was the pawn placed on the board.
And she didn't even know who was moving the pieces.
