Xin Hexue looked at him in surprise.
Had he just asked Yan Ji to add contact information?
The young man with tousled silver-gray hair had a frown because he had held up the communicator in front of Xin Hexue for too long and even looked a little impatient.
The guard assigned by the watchtower seemed like he wanted to say something but held back. He thought maybe Xin Hexue was feeling embarrassed, and was ready to help reject for him.
What he hadn’t expected was that the guide he was assigned to protect actually took out his communicator and scanned the silver-haired kid’s QR code.
Yan Ji saw that the other party’s screen showed the scan was successful, so he lowered his hand, glanced down at his own screen, and casually explained, “Just in case someone else harasses you, you can contact me if necessary.”
The two guards couldn’t help speaking up. “Do you think we’re dead?”
Yan Ji raised an eyebrow, his gaze full of provocation, and shot back, “Then what about those two just now? That’s how you protect a guide?”
One of the guards argued, “They had already left the tent for a while, how were we supposed to keep track of everything? If they dared to speak nonsense in front of an officer, of course we’d beat them until they were picking teeth off the ground!”
Yan Ji let out a long drawn “oh”, every bit of his expression dripping with sarcasm.
Still, he noticed that the two guards had addressed Xin Hexue as “officer”.
‘So this guide actually had a military rank?’
Yan Ji found it quite rare.
His communicator still hadn’t shown a friend request. Yan Ji glanced at Xin Hexue, who seemed to be typing his name. Those long, slender fingers were wrapped in gloves, the black leather surface reflecting a faint shine in the snowy light.
‘Why was it so slow?’
Yan Ji watched the fingers tapping the screen and inexplicably felt like his heart was being scratched by a cat’s paw.
Shouldn’t it just be two characters? Or was the other party trying to give him some special note?
Or had the signal dropped again?
Yan Ji was already used to the weird signal of the North, and the life of complete network disconnection whenever the weather was extremely cold or the Folded Zone expanded.
Inside the city areas farther from the border watchtowers, the signal would be a bit better, but not by much.
The notification sound rang out, and Yan Ji waited two seconds before opening his request list and approving it. He cleared his throat, “Name. I need to add a note.”
“Xin Hexue.”
The guide answered unhurriedly, leaning in as Yan Ji typed, pointing at the characters on the screen.
Xin Hexue: “Mn, that’s the one.”
Yan Ji glanced sideways without expression. Because the distance was closer, he could now clearly see the guide’s lowered eyelashes.
‘Are there really men with eyelashes this long?’
‘Is this normal?’
The guards on the side were displeased with Yan Ji, but they could not interfere with Xin Hexue’s decision, so they could only interrupt and say, “Sir, let’s go back to the tent first. It’s windy outside.
Yan Ji took a glance.
Maybe because he’d been outside a while, Xin Hexue looked like he’d caught a chill, and the tip of his nose was tinged with a bit of pink.
‘Is it really that cold?’
Yan Ji noticed the other party had come out wearing a down jacket.
Wait, why did he feel like he’d been fed some kind of mind-control soup today, and was constantly paying attention to this guide?
Yan Ji clenched the communicator in his palm and was just about to leave. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going…”
Xin Hexue looked up and asked, “Hm? Don’t you want to come into the tent for a bit?”
Xin Hexue gently tapped his own cheek with his fingertip, then pointed to Yan Ji’s face. “You’re injured here. I can help you treat the wound.”
Yan Ji’s right hand curled into a loose fist and pressed against his lips as he let out a light cough. “…Oh, I mean, it’s not a big deal. I could sit inside the tent for a bit.”
………
This was probably a temporary setup.
Medical room equipment had been brought in, and soundproof padding along with white noise devices had been newly installed.
Everything was arranged to simulate a similar environment to the Central Military District’s clinic, just with lower specs and simplicity.
A movable electric heater was designed to look like a realistic fireplace. It worked in front of a beige sofa, with flames burning bright and the crackle of firewood ringing out occasionally.
Yan Ji glanced around; it was indeed a comforting setup that battle-hardened sentinels would cling to.
Xin Hexue placed his down jacket on the sofa and pointed to another single-seater. “Please sit.”
Xin Hexue said to the guards nearby, “Can you go out and help maintain order? Have the sentinels who want mental guidance register. Organize a standard mental pollution screening, and prioritize those above 75% for notification and treatment.”
The two guards watched him speak and nodded in a daze.
Before leaving, they hesitated and looked again at Yan Ji sitting on the armchair. One of them said, “Sir, maybe we should leave one of us behind…”
Clearly they were on guard against Yan Ji.
Xin Hexue shook his head and said gently, “It’s fine. He’s just an ordinary person.”
“Besides, there are other guards outside the tent. If needed, I’ll ask them for help.”
From the moment Xin Hexue started speaking, Yan Ji’s gaze hadn’t moved away from him.
The person before him was clearly a standard guide.
To be fair, if Xin Hexue were placed among ordinary people, he would definitely stand out with his tall height, and with his superior proportions, his figure appeared even straighter and more upright.
But sentinels were enhanced humans. Compared to the average height of 1.85 meters and the minimum six-pack abs standard among sentinels, the young man looked like a weightless willow branch.
Setting these aside, the reason Yan Ji thought he was a standard guide was because the young man was soft, fragile, and thin.
His body truly didn’t seem to be in good health.
Yan Ji saw Xin Hexue in the corner of the tent by the medicine cabinet, facing away from him, covering his mouth and coughing. He bent like a willow branch in the wind, shoulders trembling, as if he could snap from a single breath.
For a normal person, at this distance, it would be impossible to smell that trace of blood.
But Yan Ji wasn’t the same as what his citizen ID stated.
He stood up almost immediately, uneasy. “What’s wrong with you?”
What answered him was a sharp crackling sound, and glass shards shattered across the floor.
Yan Ji’s eardrums ached.
He strode forward, eyes sweeping casually toward the trash can where Xin Hexue had just thrown away a tissue.
It was folded thickly, so the blood spreading on it couldn’t be seen.
Yan Ji confirmed that he had smelled blood. At his level of sensory ability, once he got close, the scent only got stronger.
He thought his glance at the trash can had been subtle.
In fact, all of his reactions were seen clearly by Xin Hexue.
The glass cabinet quietly reflected warm light. Xin Hexue lowered his head and narrowed his eyes slightly.
Inexperienced, hot-headed young men could never sit still.
And just like that, he exposed himself as a sentinel.
[Ah…]Xin Hexue looked at the glass shards on the floor. [A glass wasted.]
K: […Mn, what a pity.]
He did his best to cooperate with the host, using a regretful tone.
Cats were like this…when they see glass cups placed precariously high, they always had to knock them over.
In a little cat’s world, placing a glass cup up high was basically a capital offense.
Xin Hexue waved his hand and declined Yan Ji’s help. “I’m fine, let me do it.”
Yan Ji furrowed his brows and silently pushed him aside anyway.
He curled his lips and explained coldly, “Don’t get me wrong. I just don’t want the guards outside to come in and think I did something.”
After all, guides were so delicate, pampered from a young age in the White Tower. Just brushing against some glass shards might slice open their hands.
If the guards came in and saw the guide hurt, he would be suspect number one.
With that thought, Yan Ji cleaned up the mess on the floor.
Xin Hexue used tweezers to hold a cotton ball soaked in safflower oil and tended to the wound on Yan Ji’s face.
When the cotton pressed down, the skin at the corner of Yan Ji’s eye twitched twice.
Xin Hexue glanced sideways. “Does it hurt a lot?”
Yan Ji shot him a glance and replied stiffly, “No.”
It was just that he was too close.
Yan Ji was allergic to people, and really disliked guides.
Suddenly, his gaze froze; an animal had emerged in the corner of the tent.
A large gray wolf crouched in the dim corner behind Xin Hexue, its brownish-gray fur covering its ears, the tips of which were black and upright.
Its canine eyes were sharp, glowing with a cold green light in the darkness, locked tightly onto Xin Hexue from behind.
Its sharp fangs were bared, as if ready to attack at any moment.
Yan Ji immediately shot a warning glare at his mental body.
‘What was it doing? Running around in broad daylight?’
Xin Hexue was completely unaware and asked when he saw Yan Ji’s strange expression, “Did I press too hard?”
Yan Ji was very nervous and had to look away to maintain his composure. “No. Not at all.”
When the young guide gathered his tools and tidied up, Yan Ji glanced at the corner again and suddenly noticed the shadow cast on the tent wall by the firelight.
It was the shadow of a wolf tail, swaying vigorously and wildly like a windshield wiper.
‘Was it having a seizure?’
‘Why was it suddenly acting like a dog wagging its tail at the guide?”
Yan Ji suddenly stood up. The gray wolf looked at him, then finally disappeared with visible reluctance, retreating into the mental landscape.
Fortunately, his combat power was high, so his mental body wasn’t easily noticed.
Xin Huexue, who had 3S mental power, pretended not to notice anything and looked at him calmly. “What’s wrong with you?”
Yan Ji scratched his tousled silver hair irritably and changed the subject. “Where are your two sentinel companions?”
“They came on a mission to escort a supply train to the North and are heading all the way to the Ankur iron mine,” Xin Hexue said as he tossed the used cotton ball into the trash and put away the safflower oil. But before he closed it, he still asked Yan Ji, “Do you have any other injuries on you?”
‘What did that mean?’
Yan Ji thought for a second…if he had injuries elsewhere, wouldn’t the guide ask him to take his clothes off and get treated?
Yan Ji was a very conservative person.
Even if he had injuries on his torso, he wouldn’t let an outsider handle it, especially not a guide.
“No.”
Yan Ji had no expression, and then smiled sarcastically, “Those two useless sentinels couldn’t even touch me.”
The young man had just reached adulthood, still in the stage of being overly arrogant, and unintentionally showed off his combat strength.
Xin Hexue curved his eyes slightly. “You’re amazing.”
The young man’s voice was calm and soft, like raindrops falling from the eaves, and it sounded like sincere praise.
A jolt ran up Yan Ji’s back, shooting all the way to the top of his skull and making his scalp tingle for a moment.
He cleared his throat. “Just average.”
He should be very powerful in the eyes of the guide, right?
Yan Ji couldn’t help thinking.
………
Since Xin Hexue still had mental guidance duties to attend to, Yan Ji didn’t stay long and left the tent.
He walked all the way back from the border.
The northern wind, funneled through the narrow alleys, only grew stronger. A local newspaper from the Northern Desert City had been crumpled up and tossed away, now rolling through the long street in the cold wind.
Yan Ji had his hands in his pockets, the black windbreaker still holding the 800 yuan he’d earned today. He walked back to his home in the city.
It was a walk-up apartment his parents had once bought. He climbed to the third floor. The lights were dim, and the motion-sensor hallway light only worked half the time.
Yan Ji slid the key into the lock by memory and opened the door. He was used to it.
He had no plans to change anything about his life.
Nor did he want to end up like those sentinels, charging into the Folded Zone all their lives, never getting mental guidance, eventually losing control and either dying to the monsters or getting shot by their own kind.
Perhaps even the heavens were on his side, because Yan Ji had not been tested for combat ability at the age of fourteen, so the corresponding section on his ID stated he was an ordinary citizen.
Combat ability awakened on the day of adulthood. Just four months ago, Yan Ji had still been an ordinary student who had graduated from high school in the Northern Desert City.
After hastily finishing his dinner and washing up, he lay on his back on the bed with his arms and legs spread.
His clothes hadn’t been hung properly and had fallen from the coat rack to the floor.
Drip, drip, drip…
In the darkness, the only sound was the dripping of an untightened faucet on the enclosed balcony, creating a crude kind of white noise.
Suddenly, the image of the guide’s face flashed through Yan Ji’s mind.
He turned over, got up from bed, and picked up the clothes.
Although his home was simple, because Yan Ji did a thorough cleaning every week, the floor wasn’t very dusty.
“Ding!”
The notification sound from the communicator rang out, which was particularly clear in the empty room.
Yan Ji slowly picked it up. When the screen lit up, his pupils contracted slightly.
He quickly unlocked it with facial recognition and swiped up.
[Xin Hexue: I don’t have a fixed partner yet.]
[Xin Hexue: Do you want to try the compatibility test with me?]
The mental body and its host shared a telepathic connection, and everything Yan Ji saw, his mental body could also sense.
That damned gray wolf, which had been sleeping on the carpet, now got up and let out a long howl in the middle of the night.
Then it circled around Yan Ji…or more precisely, circled around the communicator, like a stupid dog, its wolf tail wagging like a helicopter rotor.
Yan Ji smacked its head hard. “Shut up.”
He’d have to explain to the neighbors tomorrow that he wasn’t keeping a wolf.
His temple throbbed. He had no idea how his real identity had been exposed.
The communicator, having been inactive for too long, dimmed again. He unlocked it once more and was just about to carefully consider how to type his reply when another message came in.
[Xin Hexue: Sorry, you probably haven’t seen that yet.]
[Xin Hexue: I was playing a game with them. This was just a prank challenge…I hope it didn’t catch you off guard.]
[Xin Hexue: Even though you probably saw through it at first glance, I still apologize for messaging you so late.]
After all, he wasn’t a sentinel.
At least, from Xin Hexue’s perspective, that was the case.
If so, “Yan Ji” should have immediately realized upon seeing the word “partner”, that the message was either sent to the wrong person or just part of some game.
Yan Ji closed his eyes, then his fingers quickly tapped out a reply.
[Who are they?]
[Xin Hexue: After you left, I did mental guidance for three more sentinels. You people in the Northern Desert are very enthusiastic…they invited me to a local specialty tavern.]
[Xin Hexue: The food was delicious.]
[Xin Hexue: You could try it next time too, though you’ve probably already been.]
When he shared a photo of the food, he even included a location pin.
It was in the northern part of the city.
Yan Ji knew that place, indeed, that tavern was quite famous. Sentinels from nearby watchtowers often went there at night to relax and drink, temporarily numbing the pain of mental pollution with alcohol. That also led to the place being filled with drunk sentinels.
It had even given rise to some shady red-light business.
No matter how he looked at it, it was not a place a guide should go.
Yan Ji pulled a jacket from the wardrobe and threw it on, striding quickly down the hallway and into the night wind.
……
On the way there, Yan Ji kept wondering if he was being nosy and if he should just turn around.
It wasn’t like that person had anything to do with him, so why was he rushing to show concern?
He told himself it was just out of worry that a guide might get hurt in Northern Desert City.
That could cause trouble for the northern border.
Judging from the messages, since they were playing some kind of prank game like truth or dare, and they were at a tavern, alcohol was definitely involved.
Yan Ji sent more messages to Xin Hexue afterward, but there was no response.
Maybe he was drunk.
Yan Ji’s pace quickened.
Guides were always like this…fragile and troublesome.
Suddenly, Yan Ji’s steps slowed down.
At the end of the road was the tavern.
The streetlamp cast a warm yellow glow, reflecting faintly on the snowy ground.
The young man stood not far ahead, just around the corner, his fair skin very dazzling under the light. He seemed to be entangled with a sentinel with malicious intentions.
Even from a distance, Yan Ji could smell the strong stench of alcohol.
The completely drunk sentinel slurred, “How much? Don’t look down on me, I’ll pay you, I’ve got all the money you want!”
The young man was standing at the corner of thestreet and was probably mistaken for someone in the red-light trade.
Yan Ji was just about to step forward and intervene.
Then he saw, under the streetlight, the young man’s beautiful eyebrows knit slightly, and his face turned cold. Just as the sentinel tried to reach out…
He made a swift elbow strike.
Followed by a clean over-the-shoulder throw, using perfect leverage.
The young man moved with agility, and his counterattack was sharp and elegant. The hem of his knit sweater lifted and dropped with the motion.
The sentinel was bulky like a bear. He crashed loudly into a metal trash can and landed on his back in a pile of garbage.
He lay there, staring up at the streetlight in a daze.
Yan Ji watched as Xin Hexue lifted his leg, his calf wrapped tightly in tall black boots, the lines smooth and beautiful.
Then, with force, he kicked down hard.
A pained scream echoed through the night.
Yan Ji swallowed subconsciously.
He felt like his own “brother” just went cold.
Fragile… guide?
