Jiang Nuan felt a cold sensation around her wrist as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
The distinctive chill of metal was slowly settling against her skin, wrapping around her wrist and tightening gradually, loop by loop.
Her mind hadn't fully surfaced yet, but her body had already tensed up.
Her fingers curled instinctively.
Not again…
The cramped, damp temporary shelter from that rainy night, the short clinking sound of an iron chain, and the suffocating feeling of being locked together with no way to escape—it all came flooding back at once.
She remembered that temperature. She remembered it even now. Every time she turned over, she’d be yanked back, like a silent reminder.
You can’t run.
She hadn’t done anything!
Even in that narrow, pitch-black wardrobe, she’d already been worn out to the point where she couldn’t lift a single finger.
And still, it happened again and again.
After all that, why did she still have to—
A sense of grievance wrapped around her even faster than the metal circling her wrist.
She opened her eyes, still groggy.
Her vision blurred for a moment, then slowly focused.
She was staring straight at Ye Que’s face.
He sat by the edge of the bed, half-turned toward her.
One hand held her wrist steadily and gently, while the other was putting something on her—
A bracelet?
The silver chain was extremely delicate, each link polished smooth, pressing against her skin with a layer of cold. Set in the middle of the chain was a tiny grayish-blue stone. She couldn’t tell what material it was, but it faintly shimmered in the dim light.
Jiang Nuan stared at the bracelet for two seconds.
Then she looked at Ye Que.
He must have noticed she was awake.
He didn’t pause what he was doing. The silver clasp clicked shut with a soft sound.
Something dark stirred in those black eyes, and his fingers lingered on her wrist for an extra second.
Then he let go.
“You’re awake?”
Jiang Nuan was still staring wide-eyed, her earlier grievance not yet digested.
Ye Que looked at her: lips pressed tight, eyes slightly red at the rims, curled up in the blanket with only half her face showing.
His gaze darkened.
Without a word, he raised his hand and rested it on top of her head.
His palm slowly brushed through her hair, sliding from her forehead to behind her ear, his touch feather-light, like he was soothing a startled little animal.
Jiang Nuan blinked.
Had her expression just been that obvious?
“What is this thing?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“An S-rank defensive item,” Ye Que said, handing her a glass of water as he spoke.
Jiang Nuan took it and drank a few shallow sips before her throat felt better.
“Once triggered, it forms an absolute defense barrier that can block one fatal strike of any level.”
Her fingers paused.
S-rank?
She’d been at the base long enough to understand the item grading system. Consumables below C-rank were standard issue. B-rank already required exchanging points. A-rank items were rewards for high-level missions.
She wanted to reach out and touch that grayish-blue stone, but the moment her fingers twitched, Ye Que’s gaze lowered, following her movement.
“After that rainy night, I went to the black market.”
He said it casually, like an offhand remark.
Jiang Nuan’s hand froze midair.
That rainy night.
She remembered what had been on her wrist…
She also remembered crying in the dead of night, leaning her forehead against his shoulder.
He went looking for this thing back then?
From that day on, he’d been thinking about how to replace it with something else?
Jiang Nuan’s throat moved. A sentence nearly slipped out.
She forced it back down.
She couldn’t say it.
Couldn’t let a bracelet make her think everything could just be wiped clean.
Couldn’t forget that just because a hunter offered prey a little kindness, it didn’t change what that kindness really was.
But her fingers, against her will, gently brushed over the grayish-blue stone.
The metal was cool, but it fit comfortably.
“An S-rank item… must’ve been expensive, right?”
Ye Que glanced at her.
“It was fine.”
Too dismissive.
So what exactly had he given up to get this chain?
How much of his points did he drain? How many high-risk mission bonuses did he burn through? Or did he trade something else for it?
Her gaze settled on his profile.
He made no move to explain. He didn’t even try to use this bracelet to earn any credit.
Just those two sentences.
S-rank. After that rainy night.
Jiang Nuan lifted her right hand slightly.
The silver links were razor-thin. A sliver of orange-red light squeezed through the gap in the curtains, landing right on her wrist, gilding the silver chain in pale gold.
Sunset.
…Wait.
Sunset?
She’d come back to this room in the morning.
Then she’d been on the couch with Ye Que… practicing.
Then shoved into the wardrobe.
What happened after that she didn’t want to recall.
But the key point was.
This entire day had just… passed inside a wardrobe?!
The moment her rationality snapped back, her body immediately protested from head to toe. She tried to turn her head toward the bedside table to check the time, but the second she moved—
“Hiss…”
A sharp ache shot through her neck.
Not just her neck—her waist, her legs, even her fingers were all flooded with a deep, overused soreness.
In that wardrobe where she couldn’t even turn around, the darkness had amplified every sensation—those scorching breaths, those unhinged heartbeats…
Jiang Nuan’s face flushed crimson in an instant.
She turned her head and shot a fierce glare at the culprit sitting beside her.
If looks could kill, Ye Que would already be sliced into sashimi.
Receiving her utterly harmless death glare, Ye Que didn’t look guilty at all. Instead, the corner of his mouth curved up by the barest margin.
He leaned in, and his warm, broad palm pressed directly against the side of her neck.
His rough fingertips pressed into the aching muscle with just the right amount of force.
“It’s five o’clock,” he said, working his fingers as he gave her the time.
Jiang Nuan squinted in comfort, about to let out a satisfied hum, when she heard his voice from above her head.
“Shen Wu stopped by once in between.”
“Cough—cough!” Jiang Nuan nearly choked on her own saliva.
She snapped her eyes open, ignoring the ache in her neck, and grabbed Ye Que’s wrist. “He came?! When?!”
Ye Que didn’t stop what he was doing. He reversed his grip and wrapped her hand inside his palm. “Four in the afternoon.”
Jiang Nuan felt like the sky was falling.
“Don’t worry,” Ye Que said, noticing her stiffness. He rubbed his thumb soothingly across the back of her hand. “You were asleep at the time. I didn’t let him in.”
“He didn’t say anything, did he…” Jiang Nuan asked without much hope.
“He did,” Ye Que said flatly. “He asked me in the mental link whether I needed him to apply for occupational injury compensation. Since high-intensity close-quarters combat can be quite draining on stamina.”
Jiang Nuan’s face erupted in heat.
That Shen Wu!
“I told him that if he kept running his mouth, I’d show him what actual close-quarters combat looks like.” Ye Que’s tone was deadpan.
Jiang Nuan closed her eyes in despair.
That was practically the same as admitting it!
She snapped her eyes open again, her gaze sweeping rapidly across the room.
No torn clothes strewn about as she’d imagined. There wasn’t even a trace of any ambiguous scent in the air.
He’d cleaned up the scene.
Even on her, there was a fresh set of clean pajamas.
Jiang Nuan let out a breath of relief.
At least if Shen Wu came over later, he’d see a normal, respectable room with zero evidence of any crime scene.
Wait.
Relieved, my ass!
Shen Wu didn’t need to see the scene.
All he had to do was read minds.
Jiang Nuan ground her teeth, even starting to seriously consider a feasible plan: the moment Shen Wu walked through the door, she'd simply blindfold him with a strip of black cloth. As long as Ye Que played along on the side, even if Shen Wu had ten thousand sarcastic remarks ready, he'd probably have no choice but to happily accept the proposal, right?
Jiang Nuan tried once more to bury her face into the pillow.
Ye Que's hand held the back of her head steadily, not letting her succeed.
"Let go," she muttered.
"Not letting go." His voice came down from above her, low, carrying a faint trace of amusement. "If you do that, your neck will only hurt more."
A man who had committed every conceivable crime—while continuing to massage her neck with that very same offending hand—said "not letting go" in a tone so gentle it bordered on absurd.
The culprit was playing the good guy.
Jiang Nuan closed her eyes and decided to give up the struggle for now.
Her neck was too sore. She didn't even have the energy left to be angry.
His fingers worked slowly along the side of her neck, his thumb occasionally brushing the skin behind her ear, sending a tingling, numbing shiver through her.
The sliver of sunset light peeking through the curtain gap grew dimmer.
A silver chain now rested on her wrist.
So light she could barely feel it there.
But it was indeed there, quietly pressed against the pulse of her heartbeat.
Ye Que's voice sounded again.
"Once you've rested, I'll call Shen Wu up."
He paused.
"There's something serious to discuss."
Bai Siyuan, Song Huaicheng, the newcomer Chen Ping'an, and that memory-dream.
These things were like a paused video, having completely vanished from her mind over the past few hours.
Now they were slowly trickling back.
Jiang Nuan opened her eyes.
The room was beginning to darken.
Ye Que's fingers still rested on the side of her neck, kneading with steady, gentle pressure.
She suddenly felt that the bracelet was heavier than she'd imagined.
Or maybe...
It wasn't the bracelet that was heavy.
It was something else.
But hotter than silver, far more valuable than an S-rank, it lay quietly, pressing down on her wrist.
