The warm heating inside the car made one feel a bit stifled. Xin Hexue stepped out from the car, his long trench coat naturally falling from his knees down to his calves.
The chilly air outside seized the opportunity upon detecting a human, trying to pour straight into the neckline of his sweater.
Xin Hexue had no classes scheduled today. He was merely sending Yan Ji back to school.
Originally, he had planned to turn around and head home to rest after dropping him off.
After all, it was just a ten-minute drive.
He had planned to stay in the warmth of the car the whole time, so he hadn’t dressed any heavier.
Only when the cold wind blew did he realize his throat felt a bit uncomfortable, perhaps also due to having gotten slightly wet from the rain yesterday evening.
His Adam’s apple moved beneath his fair skin, and Xin Hexue let out a light cough.
The sentinel on the other end of the communicator raised his voice slightly, suppressing his nervousness, “Are you sick?”
Xin Hexue chuckled, “I’m not sick, Wei Zhuo. Don’t think guides are that fragile.”
He found an angle to explain, “It’s just the weather is a bit dry, and my throat feels uncomfortable.”
The bell for classes rang out on time, clear and melodious. It was now ten in the morning.
On the asphalt road, sanitation workers were sweeping away the remaining snow, white piles gathered beneath the trees.
Wei Zhuo could hear the faint noises from the other end, intermittent and soft.
He clenched his communicator tightly and asked Xin Hexue, “So, tomorrow night won’t work?”
Xin Hexue asked, “Could we try to finish during the day?”
Leaning against the car, his head slightly lowered, “I have plans tomorrow night.”
A long silence followed on the other side.
[Wei Zhuo heartbreak value+5]
Wei Zhuo’s temples twitched and he suddenly felt a splitting headache. It must be the effect of his rising mental pollution level.
Yes, the mental pollution level… that’s the reason.
Wei Zhuo pressed against his temple, rubbing it with the heel of his palm for relief.
A message popped up on his communicator’s screen.
[Kuike: Brother Wei, did you see the post I screenshotted for you? Is it real or fake?]
[Kuike: If you’re going to ask Hexue, don’t say it came from me. I’m not Kuike… I didn’t browse the forums…]
Wei Zhuo frowned and looked out through the glass at the gray and overcast sky.
At the same time, Xin Hexue looked up at the sky as well. The clouds seemed to be breaking, revealing a sliver of light.
He suggested in a light tone, “How about today? I don’t have work scheduled today, you can come find me directly.”
A servant knocked on the door, and asked Wei Zhuo with his head lowered. “Second Young Master, breakfast has been redone. Would you like to come down to eat now? Madam is waiting for you.”
Xin Hexue vaguely heard the words, “You’re home? Would today be inconvenient, then?”
Wei Zhuo replied in a low voice, “…Mm. My father is sick. I came home to visit him.”
He retrieved his mental stabilizers from the drawer. When pouring out the pills, his hand slipped, dropping two to the floor.
The sentinel stood there, staring at the white pills on the ground for a long time, like a statue.
In the end, the call ended with Wei Zhuo’s compromise.
“I’ll come over tomorrow evening as soon as I can.”
“It won’t take up much of your time.”
This way, the young guide wouldn’t miss his appointment.
Xin Hexue opened the car door, “Alright, I’ll wait for you.”
The call ended with a soft beep.
Sitting back inside the car, Xin Hexue closed the door again. Warm air immediately surged up. He flexed his right hand; having stood outside holding the communicator, his fingers were now slightly stiff from the cold.
He realized he hadn’t heard K speak for quite a while.
Xin Hexue’s curiosity was piqued. “Gege, why is this small world of yours so unusually quiet?”
K: […No.]
Xin Hexue: “Is it because this small world is going too smoothly?”
So far, nothing major had gone wrong, and the hardworking little cat perked its soft pink ears.
A hardworking little cat deserved praise.
Therefore, K admitted honestly that this was indeed part of the reason. [The host doesn’t seem to need the system’s help.]
On another note, K didn’t tell Xin Hexue that he felt his position had already been replaced by He Botian.
Not only was the other party a useless husband, but he even did better than him, because He Botian was a dead, powerless husband.
Sometimes, K also felt a crisis of status.
Hearing K’s confession of feeling useless, Xin Hexue kindly comforted him, “Of course I need your help. It’s a gloomy day today, can you play me something cheerful? It would make me happy.”
The system successfully connected to the car’s Bluetooth speakers.
The car started up, and with the music playing, the tires hissed softly against the winter roads.
……
Wei Zhuo’s situation on his end wasn’t easy either.
He discovered that his father was only pretending to be sick. The real reason they called him home was to set him up on a blind date.
His parents, whose temples were already graying, sat across the table. They didn’t truly want to oppose this second son, but ever since Wei Zhuo became an adult, he had done things his own way, leaving them anxious.
They stubbornly believed that as long as Wei Zhuo settled down with a guide and started a family, he would naturally become more attached to home and choose to stay in the safety of family rather than rushing off to dangerous Folded Zones.
Especially with the living, bloody example of He Botian, Father and Mother Wei’s hearts hung by a thread every time their son went on a mission, prompting them to pull strings more desperately.
“Look, the White Tower sent over profiles and photos of three eligible guides. Take a look, see if any catch your eye. You could have a meal with one first? It’s not a guaranteed success, but none of these three guides are married yet. Our family’s status in the capital is good, and with your combat ability, you’re far more competitive than those ordinary sentinels.”
Father Wei pushed the photos over, his aging face showing a hint of pleading.
Wei Zhuo’s temples began to throb again. He set down his knife and fork, his expression cold as if encased in frost.
“If your health is fine, then I’ll be leaving tonight.”
He stood up, his tall figure casting a long shadow on the floor.
Wei Zhuo said coldly, “Don’t use such boring tricks next time.”
Father Wei looked at the half-eaten food on the table and his stubborn second son who refused to listen.
He slammed the table, the dull sound shaking the delicate dishes on it.
Father Wei raised his voice angrily, “Okay! If you have the guts, cut ties with the Wei family and never come back, abandon your parents forever!”
Mother Wei grabbed his arm, advising, “The child hardly comes home. Don’t say such things!”
Father Wei was so furious at his second son’s cold attitude that his beard bristled, and his jaw was trembling.
Mother Wei suddenly spoke, questioning Wei Zhuo, “You like that guide from the He family, you like Xiao Xue, right?”
The sentinel who had been heading upstairs stopped.
Father Wei completely lost his composure and shouted, “What?! Didn’t I beg His Majesty for months in both open and covert ways to secure that engagement in the first place?!”
“You brat! I told you to come back and meet them, and you just broke off the engagement and even threatened to leave the Wei family!”
Unlike Father Wei’s furious outburst, Mother Wei spoke gently, “Forgive Mom for saying this, but that child Xiao He had a short life… Xiao Xue is a lonely guide who will still need a sentinel’s companionship in the future. You’ve been by Xiao Xue’s side for so many years. Compared to others, you know him best. You have an advantage.”
Mother Wei advised patiently, “Have you thought about expressing your feelings to Xiao Xue?”
The sentinel’s eyes darkened. His broad shoulders tensed silently, as if bearing a heavy burden.
Wei Zhuo opened his mouth, “I’ve tried. He doesn’t see me that way.”
It seemed they were destined to remain just friends.
No one knows a son better than the mother. Mother Wei asked cautiously, “How did you try?”
Wei Zhuo looked at her as if she had asked something strange.
“Didn’t you notice? The background of My Moments is blank. If you scroll down, you can see the number in the lower right corner.”
Mother Wei pulled out her communicator, “Uh… what does 66.34°S mean? I don’t understand.”
Wei Zhuo said, “The latitude of the Antarctic Circle.”
He explained calmly, “Xin Hexue’s mental body is a snow petrel, it lives in Antarctica.”
Wei Zhuo looked at his parents, not understanding their strange expressions. He asked in return, “Isn’t it obvious enough?”
Mother Wei and Father Wei looked at each other.
……
Five hours until his date with Xin Hexue.
Yes, a date.
Yan Ji defined it as such.
He and Xin Hexue had agreed to meet at 7:30 PM for dinner at a highly rated Western restaurant downtown.
If Xin Hexue had searched on social media, he would have found this restaurant was famous as a couple’s hotspot.
It was now 2:31 in the afternoon.
The closer it got to dinner time, the harder it was for Yan Ji to control his pounding heart.
With no classes in the afternoon, he had plenty of time to prepare.
His roommate, Jia Jin, watched as Yan Ji busied himself changing outfits in front of the glass door.
Finally, he couldn’t resist asking, “Uh… Yan Ji, what’s wrong with you? Are you going out for a meal?”
Their dorm didn’t have a full-length mirror, and no matter how reflective the glass door in the common area was, it couldn’t clearly show the colors of his clothes.
Yan Ji turned and asked him, “How does this look?”
A short black down jacket with a light gray hoodie underneath, a casual autumn-winter outfit, it was hard to go wrong.
Besides, with his broad shoulders and narrow waist, an inverted triangle figure, he exuded a sharp and youthful feeling visually.
Jia Jin was busy playing a game and spared him a glance. “Are you a peacock about to display its tail?”
‘Who are you trying to impress?’
‘Wait…’
Jia Jin suddenly remembered Yan Ji’s shocking statement from before, and connected it to the heated posts on the Deep-sea Forum’s gray section these past days.
He began to suspect.
Yan Ji casually tugged at his jacket, adjusting it. “Does this look too immature?”
Jia Jin subconsciously replied, “Didn’t you wear something good yesterday? Was it new?”
Yan Ji paused for a moment. “That was borrowed from Xin Hexue’s place.”
The hunting jacket and turtleneck had been washed and were still drying on the balcony.
Jia Jin had become accustomed to Yan Ji calling Xin Hexue by name and it no longer shocked him.
‘Oh, borrowed from the Major General’s house…’
“What?!” Jia Jin roared, “So the forum posts are true? Wait, those clothes don’t even match the Major General’s style or size, right?”
In that instant, Jia Jin thought of many things.
Only one possibility remained.
The Major General asked Yan Ji to wear He Botian’s clothes.
Jia Jin didn’t believe the Major General was that kind of person and wouldn’t treat someone as a substitute, but what if… someone rushed to be a substitute?
Jia Jin jumped off the couch, “No no no, this road won’t end well! You’d better turn back now. As sentinels, we must have self-respect and self-love, understand?”
Yan Ji looked him up and down, “What’s wrong with you now?”
Jia Jin: “The Major General lent you He Botian’s old clothes, right?”
Yan Ji nodded, “So what? Maybe they were bought but never worn. I stayed overnight and had no change of clothes. Isn’t it normal to lend them to me?”
Jia Jin was stunned by his matter-of-fact attitude. “Do you understand what this means?”
Yan Ji’s thin lips curled into a smile. “Do I need to ask? It’s obvious.”
“Xin Hexue even told me there’s no need to return them. What does that say?”
“The old is gone, the new is here.”
Clearly, Yan Ji had taken the seat as the newcomer.
He patted his down jacket. “Then I’ll wear this.”
Jia Jin repeated weakly, “This is really… anyway, how could you replace He Botian’s place in the Major General’s heart? They even had matching couple outfits documented to hundreds of forum pages!”
Yan Ji listened to him ramble on, the smugness fading from his eyes, his brows slowly furrowing. Just as Jia Jin thought he’d finally convinced him to come to his senses…
Yan Ji suddenly said, “Why are you so talkative? Are you jealous you’re not going on a date with the Major General tonight?”
Jia Jin searched for his communicator, “Go look at the Deep-sea Forum yourself! I’ll pull up old posts for you!”
Yan Ji frowned deeper, “No need.”
“For anything related to Xin Hexue, I’d rather hear it from him. I don’t need to know from others.”
“As for what you said…”
“He Botian is dead.” Yan Ji sneered. “A dead man…how can he compare to someone alive by your side?”
“No matter how deep their love was back then, five years, ten years, twenty years…”
The young sentinel enunciated each word with sharpness and certainty: “He will fade completely from Xin Hexue’s memory, and I will overwrite him.”
Jia Jin fell silent.
‘Yes, how can a dead person compete with the living?’
…Really?
……
The white tiger lay beneath Xin Hexue’s palm like a docile big cat.
It lay down beside the young Guide, snuggling close and enjoying the Guide’s caress.
As far as the eye could see, there was a vast expanse of withered yellow grassland. At the edges were low shrubs and dense forest. Within the reach of the mental landscape, all creeping flesh and the remnants left behind by the pollution of the Folded Zone were gently swept away by the ongoing snowfall.
The white tiger was completely relaxed and was very comfortable. The purring from its throat sounded like the roar of an engine. It even rolled onto its back, this massive and dangerous feline exposing its soft belly and chest fur without reservation to Xin Hexue.
Xin Hexue simply held its forelimb.
The white tiger nudged toward him in dissatisfaction.
In the next moment, Xin Hexue’s figure dissipated like melting snowflakes.
Xin Hexue withdrew from the mental landscape and spoke gently, “All done.”
Because the mental guidance had ended, the Sentinel who had been sitting on the sofa with eyes closed suddenly opened them wide. Remembering his mental body’s behavior, his ears became red.
The Sentinel, whose mental body was a white tiger, stood up and saluted formally, “Thank you, thank you, Major General!”
The treatment room was as warm as spring. The young Guide wore a white coat, and the black gloves extending from his cuffs gleamed with a leather sheen, outlining the slim lines from the wrist to fingertip.
His right hand was signing at the bottom of the Sentinel’s mental evaluation report with a fountain pen, and the strokes flowed in a flying and powerful handwriting.
Xin Hexue lifted his head again and asked the Sentinel standing stiffly in place, “Do you still feel any discomfort?”
The Sentinel stood in standard military posture, shoulders and back taut like a board, and responded nervously, “Sir, I feel very great!”
Xin Hexue had seen all kinds of Sentinels, but ones this nervous were rare.
“All right, that concludes this mental guidance session. If you experience any issues, please contact the medical department again.”
Sentinel: “Yes, sir!”
Sentinel: “Goodbye, sir!”
While archiving the mental evaluation report, Xin Hexue caught sight of the Sentinel walking out of the treatment room, left hand and left foot moving in sync.
‘Was everything really fine?’
He shook his head helplessly.
Xin Hexue lowered his eyes and raised his wrist to check the time on his watch.
6:20.
If he left work now, he could be on time for his appointment with Yan Ji.
But…
Just as Xin Hexue was typing a message into the chat box, the treatment room welcomed its final, overdue patient.
Wei Zhuo stood silently at the door, his tall figure backlit by the light.
……
Yan Ji received Xin Hexue’s message.
He happily unlocked his screen, but the smile at the corner of his lips stiffened slightly.
[ Xin Hexue: Sorry, I might be late tonight. A friend suddenly needed mental guidance. I’ll come over as soon as I’m done with work. ]
[ Yan Ji: It’s okay, work comes first. Don’t rush on the road. It’s raining tonight…drive carefully. ]
……
This wasn’t the first time Xin Hexue had entered Wei Zhuo’s mental landscape.
The first time is unfamiliar, the second time is familiar.
He was already very familiar with this ocean.
Although the wind on the polar ice field was cold, it wouldn’t actually hurt anyone.
Just like last time, Xin Hexue crossed the storm barrier over the polar region and arrived at a deep blue sea.
Unlike the previous time’s polar day, it was now polar night.
Actually, he had never quite understood something. If Wei Zhuo’s mental body was a blue whale, and the vast ocean could all be its habitat, why did the whale insist on staying in this sea area at the edge of the polar region?
Sometimes he thought about guiding Wei Zhuo in a warmer sea area.
Xin Hexue followed the low, deep hum and found the blue whale in the ocean.
The giant whale surfaced, breathing under the dazzling blue-violet aurora, exhaling mist like sea spray.
The scene was magnificent. With the deep blue night sky and starlight, it struck directly at the human soul.
Gentle snow drifted down.
The snowflakes reflected the aurora’s colors, and the metal power within them purified everything in this sea area that had brought the blue whale pain.
Xin Hexue immersed himself completely in the water.
The seawater made his black hair float upward, and his whole body was soaked.
Rather than barely making it on time or simply being late…he needed a stronger, more sudden situation to shatter Yan Ji’s fantasy about the date.
He knew where the forbidden zone that the blue whale didn’t allow anyone to approach was.
Xin Hexue moved through the deep sea like a fish, agilely approaching that bubble-filled area belonging to memories.
During the last session, he had accidentally wandered into the bubble area.
Those bubbles were all materialized carriers of memory, existing within this mental landscape.
Wei Zhuo must have had something in his subconscious he didn’t want Xin Hexue to see. That’s why, when Xin Hexue approached the bubbles last time, the blue whale suddenly attacked, stirring up waves to push Xin Hexue away from that area.
This time, Xin Hexue was more cautious. He silently increased the snowfall to its maximum.
The comfort brought by purification relaxed the blue whale’s vigilance. Its deep hum was full of pleasure and enjoyment, completely unaware of the intruder in its forbidden zone.
Xin Hexue himself had already silently swum to the deepest part of the densely packed bubble cluster.
Relying on intuition, Xin Hexue found the memory bubble at the very center.
He removed his gloves, stretched out his thumb, and pressed the soft, pink-white pad of his fingertip to the bubble.
In an instant, Xin Hexue was pulled into a dark memory.
……
It was their dormitory.
With two years’ worth of memories, Xin Hexue recognized it at a glance.
This was Wei Zhuo’s memory, and he could only follow Wei Zhuo’s point of view.
It was a… peeping perspective.
That was the only way Xin Hexue could describe it.
Because the surrounding vision was very dark, with only the silhouettes of the furniture and layout faintly visible.
Xin Hexue realized that Wei Zhuo had just returned from outside.
But why didn’t he turn on the light?
Suddenly, he heard the sound of ambiguous water, along with suppressed breathing.
Xin Hexue immediately understood.
He was so ashamed he wanted to cover his imaginary feline pink ears.
If he actually had cat ears.
But he couldn’t control Wei Zhuo’s point of view.
The perspective shifted.
The scene was inevitably exposed in the gap.
The low, suppressed gasps grew clearer, like feathers scratching at a Sentinel’s heart, so itchy it was impossible to ignore.
Two large hands gripped a narrow waist, fingers pressing precisely into the dimples on the lower back.
The young Guide was held firmly, seated on the Sentinel’s lap. The Sentinel’s honey-skinned arms flexed with strength, and the Guide, unable to resist the force or rhythm, bounced up and down like a rootless duckweed on the water’s surface, drifting with the current.
Moonlight cast a soft glow on the Guide’s body, highlighting fair skin covered in scattered kiss marks.
A low moan, weak like a cat’s meow, escaped uncontrollably.
His eyes were unfocused, completely lost.
K said at the right moment: [Do you need the video of you and He Botian having sex to be blurred out?]
Xin Hexue: […]
You wait until after showing everything to ask whether he wanted the visuals blurred?
Xin Hexue: [You better not continue with this topic^^]
……
The Sentinel suddenly entered a riot during the mental guidance session.
The alarm triggered automatically and blared loudly in the treatment room. Staff rushed over, and the hallway erupted into chaos.
In the commotion, someone knocked over the glass cup on the coffee table in the treatment room.
The cup fell onto the carpet, and the liquid spilled out, blooming into a dark red stain.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” The waiter at the Western restaurant bowed repeatedly in apology.
The manager on duty on the other side came over to apologize to the guest. “Sir, I’m really sorry. He’s new here.”
The manager had been watching this young man for a while now. He’d been sitting there all this time, only ordering drinks.
He carefully asked, “Sir, would you like to order now?”
Yan Ji looked up, his eyes red from the alcohol burn. He furrowed his brows and asked, “What time is it now?”
The manager bent down slightly and reminded, “It’s eleven o’clock at night, guest. Our restaurant will close in one hour.”
