The End of the World: Forcibly Detained by Six Judges Chapter 56

Jiang Nuan woke up thirsty.

Her throat was parched, and the first thing that came back to her wasn't what had happened last night—it was the need for water.

She shifted, and her lower back ached like someone had wrung it out. Her arms were too heavy to lift.

She kept her eyes shut for three seconds and reached a conclusion.

Lu Shiyan really had gone easy on her that night she'd been crushed.

...So last night, he hadn't?

Jiang Nuan slowly pushed herself upright, her back settling against the headboard.

A glass of water sat on the nightstand. A thin layer of condensation clung to the outside of the glass, and when her fingers touched it, the temperature was just right to drink.

She picked it up and downed most of it, the fire in her throat finally easing.

The bedroom door was ajar, and from beyond it came the faint rustle of turning pages.

He was out there.

Jiang Nuan set the glass back on the nightstand and glanced down at herself.

She was wearing one of Lu Shiyan's oversized black T-shirts, the collar pulled crooked to reveal most of one shoulder.

She straightened the collar and made a half-hearted attempt to smooth down her sleep-mussed hair.

When her feet hit the floor, her knees felt weak—she gripped the edge of the bed for two seconds before she steadied herself.

The mirror was right next to the wardrobe, and she caught a glimpse of herself as she passed. She averted her eyes immediately.

The collar around her neck was still there.

A faint flush of pink stretched from her collarbone to her shoulder line.

She decided not to think about it.

By the time she'd changed and slid the door open, she regretted it.

The outer office wasn't just occupied by Lu Shiyan.

There were two other people.

Shen Wu and Qinian.

They stood quietly in front of Lu Shiyan's desk, waiting while he flipped through the documents in his hands.

All three of them turned to look at her at once.

Lu Shiyan's gaze lingered on her for less than half a second before dropping back to the papers.

"You're up. Have a seat. Breakfast will be here soon."

Shen Wu, standing on the left side of the desk, turned her head and glanced at Jiang Nuan. Her pale eyes were completely unreadable, but the hairs on the back of Jiang Nuan's neck stood up instantly.

Jiang Nuan fought to keep her mind a blank slate.

But the harder she tried, the more it spiraled out of control. Last night's sensations and warmth flooded back in a rush.

The pressure of his wrist. The heat of his chest against her back. The low, muffled breathing near her ear.

Stop.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Shen Wu averted her gaze, her expression utterly neutral as she returned her attention to the file in Lu Shiyan's hands.

As if granting Jiang Nuan one final shred of dignity.

Qinian, however, was not so kind.

He leaned against the side of the desk, black top stretched taut over lean muscle, arms crossed. From the moment Jiang Nuan had opened the door, the corner of his mouth had begun to curl upward.

That curve spread, slowly, bit by bit.

"Oooh."

Qinian's tone rose at the end, carrying that infuriating kind of glee.

"Morning, Nuannuan. Sleep well?"

Every word sounded completely normal on its own, but strung together and paired with that look on his face, it made you want to crawl into a hole and disappear.

"...Fine."

Her voice came out a full octave rougher than she'd intended.

Qinian's grin widened. He tilted his head, his tone all innocence.

"The Captain hasn't shown his face since yesterday afternoon. I thought something urgent had come up."

He spread his hands, and his gaze drifted over the red tips of Jiang Nuan's ears.

"Turns out it was a different kind of mission."

"Qinian."

Lu Shiyan's voice dropped, unhurried and flat, without pausing the page-turning.

Two words. Qinian immediately shut his mouth and raised both hands in surrender.

Jiang Nuan shot him a glare.

This guy was insufferable.

She sat down on the sofa, weighing the idea of just walking to the mess hall to eat instead—it had to be better than swallowing food under the scrutiny of all three of them.

"Back to business."

Lu Shiyan closed the file in his hands and set it down on the desk.

His tone and demeanor flipped back into that cold, hard, inhospitable Captain mode, as if nothing outside of official work had ever happened in this office.

"At six this morning, the Bai family filed a formal petition through the Federation's Family Affairs Office."

Shen Wu looked at the file on Lu Shiyan's desk.

"The wording is aggressive. They're invoking the kinship clause in Federation law, demanding a transfer of custody for Jiang Nuan."

"What's Command's stance?" Lu Shiyan leaned back in his chair.

"Hesitant." Shen Wu continued. "The Bai family's offer isn't trivial. Three batches of high-purity ability stabilizer supply, plus a promise to loan out an S-class Purifier."

Jiang Nuan's fingers curled slightly.

Bai Siyuan was buying her with resources.

And the price he was offering was too steep for Command to outright refuse.

She'd been priced out.

Just yesterday he'd said "no rush," and now a formal petition had arrived first thing in the morning.

Bai Siyuan... this man.

Lu Shiyan's gaze moved past Qinian and Shen Wu, landing on Jiang Nuan on the sofa.

It was a brief look.

But Jiang Nuan understood it: See, what I said yesterday just came true. Bai Siyuan doesn't want you out of warmth—he wants you with cold, hard leverage and tactics that don't see the light.

"How long for the petition to clear the approval process?" Lu Shiyan looked away.

"Standard process, seven business days," Shen Wu replied. "But if the Bai family applies pressure, it can be shortened to three."

"Three days." Lu Shiyan repeated the words, rising to his feet and clipping a comm unit to his ear.

"Plenty."

Qinian raised an eyebrow. "What do you need from us?"

"You and your brother stay at the base." Lu Shiyan shot a glance at Jiang Nuan. "Keep an eye on her."

Qinian answered with a lazy hum of acknowledgment.

"Shen Wu, with me."

As he passed the sofa, he paused.

He reached out, his fingertips brushing lightly across the stray hairs on the top of her head, like smoothing down a strand that wouldn't lie flat.

"I'll take care of it by the end of today."

Then the door opened, closed, and the sound of Lu Shiyan and Shen Wu's footsteps faded into the distance.

From beside her, Qinian let out a meaningful "tsk."

She pretended not to hear it.

A breakfast tray arrived, steamed bean paste buns releasing soft curls of steam.

Like they'd been teleported straight from a pre-apocalypse breakfast shop.

She picked one up and took a bite. The warmth rushed into her mouth with the smooth, dense bean paste, and the flavor was pure luxury.

At some point, Qinian had settled onto the sofa next to her, one long leg crossed over the other as he watched her eat with his head tilted.

"Don't worry too much." He was, for once, serious. "If the Captain couldn't handle some Bai family, he wouldn't be where he is."

Jiang Nuan nodded and swallowed the bite of bean paste bun.

She hesitated for a moment, then tried to sound as casual as possible: "Hey... you've looked into that record before, haven't you? That one record?"

"You mean the braised chicken rice one?" Qinian raised an eyebrow at her.

Jiang Nuan turned her head in surprise. "How did you know I was going to ask about that?"

"Once you got out of that fog patch, your first-round memory of White Whale returned." Qinian shrugged; the slight upward tilt of his eyes betrayed his curiosity. "Don't tell me you're craving braised chicken rice too?"

"No..." Jiang Nuan felt her heart skip a beat. "I just find the pre-apocalypse world fascinating."

Qinian hummed knowingly. "That's why I got curious too. That's why my brother showed me that record."

Jiang Nuan's heart dropped. "It was Qi Sui's record?"

Why did Qi Sui have a record that matched her memories from before she traveled through time?

"I'm not really sure where it came from either." Qinian rubbed his chin. "Want me to ask him about it?"

Jiang Nuan hesitated for a moment, then shook her head.

"I'll ask him myself when I get the chance."

That record—she wasn't sure yet what it was tied to. Until she figured it out, the fewer people involved, the better.

The base was less crowded during the day.

Qinian said the captain had taken the team to headquarters.

It wasn't until the next day that Jiang Nuan learned what Lu Shiyan had done at headquarters.

He had simply laid Zero Squad's recent mission reports on the table in the command center.

In every single report, under the list of team members, the same few words appeared: Purification ability user: Jiang Nuan.

The headquarters personnel handling the paperwork didn't have top-level clearance. They didn't know the details of Jiang Nuan's purification grade—only that she was one of Zero Squad's core members.

Remove her, and you gut the team's central pillar of support.

Next time an S-class danger zone erupted, who would take her place?

No matter how much weight the Bai family could throw around, it couldn't outweigh the Federation's security bottom line.

The paperwork was suppressed for now.

Rest area beside the training grounds.

Jiang Nuan sat on a bench, her fingers slowly tracing the heavy weight of a training rifle.

Ever since the White Whale, she'd grown more and more skilled with firearms. The grip and aim that once required deliberate adjustment now felt like a dormant instinct quietly waking up, carved into her bones.

"A Nuan?"

A gentle voice came from the side.

Bai Siyuan stood at the entrance to the rest area, wearing a clean white long-sleeved shirt, cuffs buttoned neatly at the wrists. Sunlight streamed through the window behind him, gilding his silhouette in a soft glow.

He looked better than yesterday, though still pale.

"Can I sit here?" He gestured to the spot beside her.

Jiang Nuan set down her rifle. "Why are you out? Shouldn't you be resting in the medical bay?"

"I've been lying down all day." Bai Siyuan smiled, taking a seat next to her.

Keeping a bit of distance.

The kind of distance that made you feel at ease.

"A Nuan, about yesterday..." Bai Siyuan spoke first, his tone carrying apology. "I was too hasty. I shouldn't have gone to disturb you without asking first."

A question mark slowly formed in Jiang Nuan's mind.

Then what about the paperwork this morning?

As if he could hear her thoughts, Bai Siyuan continued, "That paperwork... it was arranged privately by the Bai family. I've already reprimanded them, and the documents have been withdrawn."

Jiang Nuan looked at him.

He was apologizing.

And his apology was precise—not apologizing for "wanting to take her away" in itself, but for "not asking her first."

He'd conceded his posture, but not his goal.

Also, Jiang Nuan suspected the captain had already finished his talk with headquarters.

The paperwork had been suppressed, and only then had Bai Siyuan come to apologize.

Packaging a forced loss as proactive thoughtfulness.

That move... was pretty practiced.

Jiang Nuan's fingernails quietly pressed into her palm.

Every word this man said landed in exactly the right place. Like playing chess, each move calculated around her response.

"I just..." Bai Siyuan lowered his eyes, his lashes casting a slight shadow beneath them. "It's been so many years since I last saw you. I finally found you—I was afraid of losing you again."

He lifted his head, his gaze open and frank.

"Don't worry. I won't force you. I won't do that again."

Jiang Nuan looked into those eyes.

Clean, warm—just like the white-shirted boy from her memory fragments.

But now she knew.

For someone who'd climbed to the top in a place like the Bai family, how much of his "sincerity" was instinct, and how much was technique?

She couldn't tell.

"It's alright." Jiang Nuan forced a smile. "I know you care about me."

Bai Siyuan nodded, not pushing the topic further.

"Oh, right." As if remembering something, he pulled a small flat box from his pocket and held it out. "This is for you."

Jiang Nuan took it and opened it. Inside was a silver earring.

Small, delicate, gleaming softly in the sunlight.

"Made by the Bai family. It has some shielding effect against mental-type abilities."

Jiang Nuan pinched the earring between her fingers, not refusing.

Shielding against mental abilities?

Could this thing block Shen Wu? Or block him?

Or—make her think she was protected, and let her guard down?

"Thanks." She closed the box and put it in her pocket.

She'd have Shen Wu check it later. No harm in that.

Bai Siyuan smiled, his gaze tender.

A breeze drifted in through the window, and Jiang Nuan instinctively raised a hand to tuck back her stray hair.

She was wearing the base's standard-issue daily training uniform, with a loose collar. The moment she lifted her arm, the collar slipped slightly to one side.

Just a little.

It revealed the spot just below her neck.

A strip of narrow black leather pressed against her skin.

The edge of a collar.

Jiang Nuan realized it almost at the same instant, lowering her arm and letting the collar fall back into place.

No more than a second passed.

Bai Siyuan's smile was still on his face.

But in those eyes that had always been warm and gentle, there flashed—for one extremely brief moment—a darkness, violently suppressed.

The next second, the expression vanished.

No one noticed.

His gaze turned warm again, even taking on a hint of concern.

"A Nuan, is the base's training intensity too high? You look a little tired."