Just then, the dormant translucent stream inside Jiang Nuan suddenly stirred on its own.
It wasn’t something she actively guided.
The water, as if startled awake by something, quietly surged from within her, rushing toward some direction deep inside the ship.
This time, it wasn’t deflected by the soft armor.
Wait.
Why did she have the concept of “last time”?
Jiang Nuan’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
Last time?
What last time?
The stream paid no heed to her confusion. It continued flowing, penetrating deeper into the hull, locking onto an extremely hidden point within the ship.
Something there was responding to her.
A faint, barely perceptible resonance.
Like the first time the stream had flowed through that place, leaving behind an invisible watermark, and now, that watermark had become a trail marker.
Jiang Nuan’s breath came to a complete stop.
A searing, dull pain seemed to course through her palm.
She jerked her head down to look at her hand.
Pale and clean. Completely unharmed.
But the agonizing burn of metal railing searing her flesh felt all too real, as did the icy chill of a tentacle piercing through her chest.
The green glow of Qi Sui detonating her life force still seemed to linger in her vision.
And Qinian’s hoarse shout.
“Run forward! Don’t look back!”
Was it a hallucination?
No, it was memory!
Jiang Nuan sharply sucked in a breath, a violent cramp churning in her stomach.
She remembered now.
This was her second time on this deck.
Last time, she had stood here, attempting to probe the ship with the stream inside her, only to plunge into the impenetrable soft armor.
And that failed attempt had become an anchor point.
But what about that colossal entity?
She had fallen into it at the brink of death.
A surge of towering wrath, the frustration of a missed target, and countless cowering, submissive lesser beings.
Had “it” forcibly reset time?
Was it this forbidden zone, wrought from dense fog?
Then what was its goal?
Everyone in Zero Squad—all of them were clearly dead.
Perhaps that wasn’t its purpose after all.
And also.
She remembered everything.
What about the rest of Zero Squad?
The sea breeze, laced with damp mist, pressed against her cheeks.
Jiang Nuan forced herself to pull her gaze back to the deck.
Before her, eight things disguised in human skin were putting on a performance.
Just then, Shen Wu’s voice suddenly crackled through the earpiece.
He stood at the far edge of the deck, seemingly idly surveying the surroundings.
“All hands on alert. I can’t read a single crew member’s thoughts. Their minds are covered by some kind of barrier.”
The others had no memory.
Jiang Nuan recalled the thin fog she had felt shrouding her brain when she first woke up.
If not for that accidental anchor point, she too would have believed this was her first time aboard.
“Captain Lu! Please, you have to save them!”
Xu Guoping stepped forward directly, his tone earnest.
“President Bai spiked a fever late last night and locked himself inside the SS-07 full-seal medical pod in his private quarters.”
Jiang Nuan’s breath hitched for a beat.
That’s wrong.
They shouldn’t know the model of that medical pod.
“President Bai is unconscious in there now. We’ve tried everything and can’t get it open! Please, you have to save him!”
A chill ran down her spine.
Last time, Xu Guoping had mentioned a main thruster fuel pump malfunction, signals swallowed by the fog.
A complete, superficially plausible story.
It had taken several minutes to slowly build up to the hook about “President Bai and Xiao Yin running fevers in the rest cabin.”
And now,
he had skipped all the buildup.
Dropping “medical pod” right onto the table.
They remembered too.
These fog parasites wearing human skin—they also possessed all the memories from the previous round.
No more beating around the bush. Straight to the final goal, luring everyone toward B-01.
Because whatever was in there was what this forbidden zone truly wanted.
Its forced reset of time had one purpose: opening that medical pod.
Her prophetic advantage was gone.
She was even at a disadvantage—they knew the last round had failed, and this time they would be faster, crueler, and leave no room for error.
Had she been exposed?
Jiang Nuan’s fingertips curled slightly.
No. Not yet.
She hadn’t shown any sign of abnormality.
That was her only, barely existing, sliver of an advantage.
One final question.
Could this forbidden zone manipulate time freely?
She recalled that massive body boiling with rage yet unable to break past the edge of the fog, and Qi Sui, whose right hand had gradually lost all vitality after touching the high-concentration contamination source.
No.
There had to be a limit.
It required either 【voluntary contact】, or 【dying within this forbidden zone】.
Jiang Nuan’s mind spun at full speed. These clues took only two seconds to integrate into a coherent picture.
Lu Shiyan’s brow furrowed slightly.
He looked at the anxious Xu Guoping before him, but wasn’t led astray by the topic. His suspicion deepened.
“You’ve been out of contact for twenty-four hours. Why didn’t you send a distress signal?” Lu Shiyan’s voice remained calm, unhurried.
“We did! We fired three flare rounds—all swallowed by this damn fog! The radio’s completely dead too!”
Xu Guoping answered without hesitation, even smoother than last time.
“Captain Lu, this isn’t the time for blame. If President Bai dies on this ship, every crew member here is finished!”
Perfectly reasonable.
Even the emotional crescendo was pitched just right.
What should she do?
Just quietly tell Lu Shiyan?
“Captain, this ship is controlled by monsters, these people are all fake, last round we all died and time rewound and I remember everything.”
The moment she said that, she’d be pinned to the ground and tested for contamination levels.
She looked at Lu Shiyan.
His expression was almost identical to last round.
Brow slightly knit, dark eyes calmly sweeping across the eight people before him.
Scrutinizing each one.
The same scrutiny as before.
But he wouldn’t outright reject the rescue request just because of his suspicion.
Because Xu Guoping’s reason this time was too perfect—President Bai trapped, life hanging by a thread, urgent rescue needed, and no signs of anything unusual yet.
And rescuing President Bai was, in fact, one of Zero Squad’s core mission objectives.
If Lu Shiyan refused outright, that would be out of character.
What to do.
Jiang Nuan’s gaze darted rapidly across the deck.
Then she saw Shen Wu.
He stood at the deck’s edge, the translucent floating glass lens still hovering before his eyes, his cold gaze observing Xu Guoping and his entourage through it.
Jiang Nuan’s heart lurched.
Shen Wu’s ability was mind-reading—he could see through any lie, provided he was looking at the other person’s eyes.
Last round on the deck, to guard against Shen Wu’s mind-reading, she had frantically looped 【dizzy, sick, uncomfortable, nauseous】 in her head.
This round, she would do the opposite.
She needed Shen Wu to read her mind.
Jiang Nuan took a deep breath, pulling the stream’s attention back from the ship’s depths.
The water obediently receded, gathering back within her.
She closed her eyes for a moment, dragging all the memory fragments from last round out of the corners of her mind, spreading them flat.
Then, she attempted to push a thread-thin wisp of the stream toward Shen Wu.
The water crossed the distance between them, gently touching Shen Wu.
Like a knock at a door.
【Shen Wu, look at me!】
The faintly translucent floating glass screen before Shen Wu flickered slightly.
Those pale eyes passed through the mist, through Jiang Ce's broad shoulders, through the distance between everyone.
They landed on her.
Jiang Nuan clearly felt something stir beneath the warm shallows of her mental domain, as if it had been awakened.
Perhaps it was a stream?
Jiang Nuan wasn't sure.
Then she heard Shen Wu's voice.
A cold, clear voice, speaking directly inside her mind.
"Jiang Nuan."
A brief pause.
"Those things in your head."
Another pause.
This pause was longer than the last.
So long that Jiang Nuan nearly thought the connection had been severed.
Then, Shen Wu's voice returned.
"What are they?"
