The rain had stopped.
The mornings in District C were always gray; sunlight was hacked into fragments by the thick clouds, a few stingy rays cast onto the ruins of the city like alms.
Jiang Nuan was woken by the icy touch of metal against her wrist.
She opened her eyes, her consciousness not yet fully returned. The first thing her vision struck was a patch of pure black fabric.
The chest beneath that fabric was rising and falling steadily, muscle shifting slightly with each breath.
Her brain stalled for two seconds.
The chaotic memories from the night before surged back like a tide: her breakdown in the darkness, the warm, broad palm at the back of her head.
Jiang Nuan froze instantly.
It was only then she realized how bizarre her current position was.
She was curled up like an ostrich, her forehead almost pressed against Ye Que’s shoulder.
The chain of the handcuffs limited their distance, so they were far too close.
She could even smell that distinctive scent on him.
There had been the previous nights—the purification test, and the night it was shattered—but those were missions.
This, now, with her defenselessly huddled against a man’s shoulder? It was completely different.
Holding her breath, Jiang Nuan tried to inch her head backward, slowly and stealthily.
“You’re awake.”
A low voice came from above, roughened by the early morning.
Her movements stopped instantly.
She lifted her head slowly, meeting Ye Que’s pitch-black eyes.
He hadn’t been asleep at all, or had woken long ago. Those eyes were clear and sharp, with none of the drowsiness of just waking, and he was watching her from above.
“Awake…” Jiang Nuan forced out a dry smile, shaking her left hand. “It’s daylight now. Can these be taken off?”
Ye Que didn’t answer. His gaze lingered on her face for a second, as if confirming whether the emotional breakdown from last night still lingered.
When he was satisfied she was back to normal, he sat up.
From the pocket of his tactical pants, he produced a small key, pinched it in one hand, and inserted it into the lock on Jiang Nuan’s side.
Click.
The crisp sound of metal springing open.
The cold iron ring released, and Jiang Nuan quickly pulled her hand back.
On her pale wrist, a distinct red mark had been carved—startling against her delicate skin.
She rubbed her wrist and stole a sidelong glance at Ye Que.
Ye Que unlocked his own wrist, tossed the handcuffs carelessly onto the nightstand.
He stood, walked to the window, picked up the black outer combat uniform he had drying last night, and pulled it on nimbly, zipping it all the way up.
“Change your clothes,” he said, his back to her, his voice back to its usual indifference. “Depart in ten minutes.”
Jiang Nuan quickly shed the oversized floral nightgown and changed into the now mostly dry black combat uniform.
The wound on her calf still throbbed at intervals, but it had stopped bleeding and wouldn’t hinder walking.
Ten minutes later.
A jet-black armored off-road vehicle sped along a waste-ground road of mud and gravel.
Jiang Nuan sat in the passenger seat, the seatbelt cutting across her chest, her hands gripping its edges.
Outside the window was the perimeter of District C, made even more dilapidated by the rainwater.
Jiang Nuan had bottled it up the whole way, her mind full of what the man in the black trench coat had said yesterday.
[Take her back.]
[The Chief wants her alive.]
She couldn’t hold it in any longer. Clearing her throat, she said, “Ye Que.”
Ye Que drove without turning his head, only letting out a faint nasal sound from his throat. "Mm."
"Those people yesterday, what exactly is the Apocalypse Society?" Jiang Nuan carefully chose her words, trying to make her tone sound like that of an ordinary person who had been innocently frightened.
Ye Que’s fingers tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
"You know about the Forbidden Zone, don't you?" He didn’t phrase it as a question.
"I do." Jiang Nuan nodded.
The Forbidden Zone was the greatest threat in this world—a death zone filled with pollution and mutated monsters.
The core mission of Zero Squad was to clean up those things.
"Most people see the Forbidden Zone as hell, as the greatest threat to human survival."
Ye Que’s voice was unusually low in the enclosed car.
"But not everyone fears the Forbidden Zone."
Jiang Nuan frowned. "Not afraid? Are there people who actually like those monsters?"
"It’s not about liking them; it’s about faith."
The corner of Ye Que’s mouth curled into a deeply sarcastic smile.
"The Apocalypse Society is a crazy organization that embraces the Forbidden Zone."
A chill suddenly shot up Jiang Nuan’s spine.
Embrace the Forbidden Zone?
"They believe the arrival of the Forbidden Zone is not a disaster but an opportunity for human evolution."
Ye Que’s voice sounded as if he were stating something utterly absurd yet real.
"They see the Forbidden Zone as a form of higher life, believing that the pollution and mutations are a powerful gift from God."
"In their doctrine, as long as one completely embraces the Forbidden Zone and accepts the baptism of pollution, humans can achieve so-called purification and gain strength far beyond ordinary people."
Jiang Nuan sucked in a cold breath.
Crazy.
These were absolutely a bunch of utter lunatics.
In Lu Shiyan and Zero Squad’s understanding, pollution was a cancer that must be eliminated.
But in the Apocalypse Society’s understanding, pollution was a ladder to evolution.
These were two completely opposite paths—mortal enemies with no room for compromise.
She suddenly thought of the man in the black trench coat yesterday. Could that so-called teleportation ability of his be a kind of quasi-superpower born from the Apocalypse Society’s exploitation of the Forbidden Zone? Would such power come at a cost?
She asked Ye Que.
"The cost is the gradual loss of reason and irreversible physical mutation."
Ye Que let out a cold laugh.
"But to those lunatics, that cost is nothing at all."
Jiang Nuan’s fingers clenched tightly around her seatbelt.
If the original owner of this body really had ties to the Apocalypse Society, to the point where the Chief himself had ordered her return, then what role had the original owner played in this insane organization?
A devout follower? A defector? Or… something more central?
She didn’t dare think further.
"Doesn’t the Federation do anything about this kind of cult?" Jiang Nuan steered the conversation away, raising a question that fit with common sense. "Aren’t they accelerating humanity’s extinction by doing this?"
A brief silence settled over the car.
Only the dull crunch of the off-road vehicle’s tires grinding over gravel could be heard.
After a long moment, Ye Que spoke again.
"The Federation? On the surface, of course, they strictly forbid it. They’ve even issued multiple laws, designating the Apocalypse Society as a top-level terrorist organization."
He paused, his gaze turning deep and unreadable.
"But behind the scenes, too many people are interested in the methods that can grant someone immense power in an instant."
"Power, longevity, strength... those things are enough to drive people mad."
He didn't continue.
But Jiang Nuan understood.
So there were always people in the Federation who turned a blind eye, and some might even provide covert assistance.
Including the Federation. Including--
A term suddenly surfaced from the original owner's fragmented memories.
The Dawn Foundation.
Jiang Nuan's temple throbbed sharply.
Regarding this name, the original owner's memory offered unusually clear information.
After the apocalypse descended, the nation-states of the old world crumbled.
But the mega-corporations that controlled core capital, military technology, and biopharmaceuticals did not disappear with them.
They survived in a kind of "family" structure, growing even larger and more centralized.
These elite families banded together to form the "Dawn Foundation."
They monopolized sixty percent of the energy supply and eighty percent of the bio-pharmaceutical production lines in several major cities.
Even the Federation sometimes had to bow to them.
Why did the original owner know all this so clearly?
Why would a refugee from the bottom rung of District C carry such information in her mind?
The memory fragments suddenly began to flicker violently.
No longer a gray slum, but a blinding green.
Neatly trimmed lawns, massive white fountains, wrought-iron gates.
In this post-apocalyptic world where even clean water was a luxury, someone kept a koi pond in their estate.
The scene shifted.
The figure of a teenage boy appeared in her memory.
He wore a crisply tailored white shirt, a gold badge pinned to his cuff.
The boy's face was blurry, impossible to see clearly, but his tone, as if everything were only natural, echoed clearly in Jiang Nuan's ears.
"A Nuan, stop messing around. Come back with me..."
Jiang Nuan's heart suddenly clenched, a strange tightness in her chest.
Who was this person?
He called her "A Nuan."
With a natural, ingrained intimacy.
Was this the friend she was supposed to find?
That gold badge--
"What are you thinking about?" Ye Que's cold voice cut through her thoughts.
Jiang Nuan jolted, turning her gaze out the window.
Without her noticing, the scenery outside had changed.
High walls, barbed wire, gray buildings.
Zero Squad base.
Jiang Nuan's heart instantly leaped into her throat.
She stared at the slowly opening steel gate, like a steel beast opening its vast maw.
What had she said to Lu Shiyan back then?
"Captain Lu... I want to go back to District C. I really miss a friend I had there. I want to go see her, make sure she's still alive."
And then?
Then that so-called friend, Sister Zhou, had sold her out, and she'd almost fallen into the hands of the Apocalypse Society.
Even though she was the victim, even though she'd been deceived.
But in the eyes of Lu Shiyan, that absolute rational control freak, this meant only one thing: she had slipped out of his grasp, she was an extremely unstable and unpredictable variable.
"Ye Que..."
Jiang Nuan turned her head, looking at Ye Que with a pitiful expression, her voice carrying a clear tone of pleading.
Ye Que drove the vehicle into the base's internal passage, slowed down, and kept his eyes fixed ahead.
"Speak."
"Can you... not tell the captain about yesterday?"
Jiang Nuan swallowed, clasping her hands together.
"I mean the part about me leaving the clinic. Sister Zhou came to find me and said someone was looking for me outside. I followed her out, and then I ran into those people."
She spoke rapidly, wrapping her words in a narrative of "I'm also a victim," carefully sidestepping the word "escape."
Jiang Nuan truly couldn't imagine the expression on Lu Shiyan's face when he found out that she had been completely fooled by a woman called Sister Zhou and nearly taken away.
He would surely think she was not only disobedient, but also hopelessly stupid.
He might even take away all her freedom and lock her up for good in that cold, sterile rest room.
Ye Que pulled the car into a parking space.
He killed the engine.
Silence instantly filled the cabin.
Ye Que didn't get out immediately. He turned sideways, his right hand resting on the steering wheel, his left arm casually draped along the edge of the window.
His dark eyes fixed on Jiang Nuan, carrying the cold ruthlessness of a hunter watching its prey's final struggles.
"What do you think?" he countered.
"I think a capable and reasonable man like you definitely wouldn't make things difficult for a helpless woman like me, right?" Jiang Nuan braced herself and threw out some flattery.
"Jiang Nuan." Ye Que called her name.
"Yes!"
"Do you have any misunderstanding about the intelligence network of Zero Squad?"
Ye Que leaned in slightly, closing the distance between them. The overwhelming pressure of his presence instantly engulfed her.
"Or do you actually think I'd help you tell a lie that flimsy in front of Captain Lu?"
Jiang Nuan's shoulders slumped. The last flicker of hope in her heart died.
"So..."
"So, within three minutes of me taking down those two Apocalypse Society members in the square yesterday,"
Ye Que mercilessly crushed her fantasy.
"every detail of how you followed that woman out of the clinic and got cornered by the Apocalypse Society on the empty lot was already compiled into an encrypted report and sent to Captain Lu's communicator."
Jiang Nuan closed her eyes in despair.
It was over.
Completely over.
This guy really left her no way out!
"Get out," Ye Que said without sympathy.
Jiang Nuan moved like a death row inmate on the way to execution, slowly unbuckling her seatbelt and pushing open the car door.
The wound on her calf throbbed with pain the moment her foot touched the ground. She gritted her teeth and said nothing.
After taking two steps, she suddenly stopped.
By the access control at the end of the corridor, someone was leaning against the wall.
Qinian.
His head tilted against the wall, one leg bent with his foot pressed against the surface, arms crossed over his chest.
His slightly upturned eyes lit up the moment they saw her.
"Oh,"
He grinned, his expression full of the glee of someone watching a good show.
"Our little escape artist is back, huh?"
He paused.
The amusement in his expression faded slightly, and his tone shifted subtly.
"The captain's waiting for you in his office."
He stressed the word "waiting" heavily.
Jiang Nuan's stomach churned violently.
She was deeply grateful she'd only eaten two bites of compressed biscuit that morning.
The metal door slid open to both sides.
Behind it stretched a wide corridor paved with cold gray tiles. At the end of that corridor was Lu Shiyan's office.
At this moment, the corridor was eerily silent.
No researchers or intelligence personnel hurried back and forth. No routine security patrols.
Only an oppressive atmosphere hung in the air, so thick it could suffocate.
Ye Que pressed the button beside the office door.
A few seconds later, the door slid open.
Jiang Nuan instinctively turned back to look at Ye Que.
Ye Que stood outside the door, his dark eyes meeting hers for a brief moment.
Then, he shifted his gaze slightly to the side.
The subtle motion translated roughly to:
I can’t help you with this one.
You’re on your own.
Jiang Nuan took a deep breath.
She turned and stepped through the door.
Lu Shiyan was sitting behind his desk.
Today he wasn’t wearing his iconic black combat suit; instead, he had on a dark gray shirt, with the top button fastened all the way to the collar.
One hand held a thin electronic document pad, his gaze lowered as he read.
He was just sitting there.
Yet his entire presence exuded an air of absolute rationality and inviolability.
When he heard Jiang Nuan’s footsteps, Lu Shiyan slowly lifted his head.
Those deep brown eyes, crossing the length of the entire office, locked onto Jiang Nuan standing at the doorway.
A moment of silence.
“You’re back.”
His tone was flat, devoid of any emotion.
But Jiang Nuan could clearly sense that a storm had already been brewing to its peak within those three words.
