At midnight, the door of Dorm 311 creaked open under an external force. The sound seemed to be magnified a hundred times in the silence of the night, and was extremely harsh.
Jia Jin had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. At first, he thought there was a thief in the dorm. After flushing, he walked drowsily into the common living area near the entrance.
He took off the enhanced sleep earplugs specially designed for Sentinels, and finally heard the voices at the door clearly.
A tall Sentinel had his head lowered, being scolded by the dorm manager.
The reason was that he had climbed over the wall to return to school at midnight, having missed the dormitory curfew. Yan Ji had even gone out without bringing his key.
The dorm manager scolded sternly, “If this happens again, I’ll report it to the school for a demerit!”
The light and shadow fell across Yan Ji’s face. He stood at the boundary between light and darkness at the doorway and hallway, like a silent stone statue.
His thin lips and single eyelids, which usually gave off a rebellious temperament, were all drooping at the moment. His entire aura was shrouded like the stormy night outside, dark clouds looming.
The dormitory door closed again.
Jia Jin smelled a strong scent of alcohol.
Sensing the heavy atmosphere, Jia Jin cautiously tried to joke, “Haha, why are you back so late? Was the date fun?”
He glanced at the clock. “It’s already twelve-thirty. I thought you were going to spend the night at the Major General’s place.”
Trying to lighten the mood, he teased clumsily, dragging out his tone subtly, “Oh… Don’t tell me you were too eager and wanted to make a move, so the Major General kicked you out?”
If that were really the case, Yan Ji would probably be showing off smugly by now. Even if Xin Hexue had just smiled at him politely, he’d come up with a hundred different interpretations and eventually conclude that the Major General thought he was great and was interested in him.
Heavy footsteps thudded against the floor.
The Sentinel was like someone who had knocked over an entire shelf of wine jars and had just been dragged out from a vat of liquor.
It looked like things were even worse than what Jia Jin had guessed…
Nervously, Jia Jin watched the other party drag his heavy steps back to the bedroom. Their bedrooms were across from each other. When Jia Jin peeked in, he saw Yan Ji fall straight onto the bed. The mattress even shook from the sudden impact of his weight.
The rain-soaked down jacket had been casually thrown onto the floor.
‘Don’t tell me… he got stood up?’ Jia Jin speculated.
………
There was a theory class at ten the next morning.
Jia Jin was woken up before eight by the clinking and clattering of various small noises.
His good upbringing was the only thing that kept him from cursing on the spot.
It only took fifteen minutes to walk from the dorm to the teaching building, so there was no need to wake up this early, right?
Jia Jin opened the bedroom door. Yan Ji had just finished showering and was bustling around cleaning up. When he saw Jia Jin awake, he asked, “Can you still smell the alcohol on me? Did I wash it off properly?”
Jia Jin asked suspiciously, “Why are you up so early?”
Jia Jin added, “This morning is a theory class.”
Yan Ji scratched his hair in front of the mirror and replied in a nonchalant, perfunctory tone, “Oh, I know. I like studying theory, is that not allowed?”
Jia Jin exposed the truth. “Do you like theory class, or do you like the Major General’s theory class?”
Yan Ji froze. He placed both hands on either side of the sink, lowered his head, and suddenly slumped his shoulders. He admitted straightforwardly, “Okay, I got stood up by Xin Hexue last night.”
“He only sent me a message at six thirty in the evening, saying a friend needed mental guidance urgently, and that he’d come over as soon as he finished working overtime.”
“After that, I stayed at the western restaurant all the way until it closed at midnight. From seven in the evening, he didn’t send me a single message, and he didn’t answer my calls either…”
Yan Ji turned his head, looking solemn as he said to Jia Jin, “Actually, it’s not really a big deal, right? He never promised he would definitely come. I just assumed he would.”
“I think I was just being overly dramatic last night.”
“Think about it…he’s a public guide. He must be very busy with work, and he also has to teach. It’s understandable if he had to work overtime.”
Jia Jin stared at him in stunned silence as he rambled on to himself.
Yan Ji eventually managed to convince himself.
But there was still one question. “Then why didn’t he answer my calls? And not reply to my messages either?”
“So maybe, he just wants to avoid me and is using this method to make me back off.”
Yan Ji took a deep breath. “But he really went too far. It’s not like I said I must have him, haha. He’s acting like I’m some clingy bootlicker who can’t take a hint, haha.”
His laughter was dry and hollow, with a sense of self-mockery and powerlessness.
Jia Jin couldn’t even think of what to say to comfort his heartbroken roommate, who was facing the premature end of his first love.
Just then, his communicator chimed with a notification.
Jia Jin glanced at the notification bar and tapped in. “Hmm…?”
“Did you get the email reminder? The Major General is on leave this morning for medical rest. The online makeup class will be arranged and announced later.”
“We don’t have to go to class this morning…
Jia Jin hadn’t finished speaking when Yan Ji casually grabbed a jacket and brushed past him.
Jia Jin only felt a gust of wind. When he turned around, Yan Ji had already walked out of the dorm.
Jia Jin: ?
…
As the pollution in the Folded Zone continued to spread, even the last remaining safe zones were affected. Extreme weather had become more frequent over the past few decades.
The winter in the Imperial Capital City this year alternated with rain and snow unpredictably.
Another heavy rainstorm came, mixed with snow.
“The latest forecast from the Meteorological Bureau says in the coming week, the Central District will experience prolonged rain, snow, and freezing weather. This is expected to be the longest-lasting and most widespread rain-snow event so far this winter. Citizens are reminded to carry umbrellas and travel safely…”
The TV in the living room outside the second-floor bedroom was still on.
After the midday news program, the weather forecast followed. The host’s strong, rhythmic voice pulled Xin Hexue back into consciousness.
He barely managed to open his eyes.
His eyelids felt like melted glue, heavy and sticky, making it difficult even to lift his eyes.
Xin Hexue didn’t have a habit of watching the news broadcast, but he roughly deduced that it was around 12:30 p.m. Usually at this time, the CCTV midday news would end, followed by the weather report.
He had a splitting headache and rubbed his temples and the corners of his forehead.
As he pushed himself up, the blanket slid from his shoulders, revealing his thin pajamas.
The corners of his eyes were flushed from the fever. The open collar of his sleepwear exposed a patch of fair skin, and his collarbone dipped inward. He looked less like a living person and more like a sculpture carved from white jade.
He couldn’t remember how he got back to the villa.
Xin Hexue barely pieced together the facts from the shattered fragments of last night’s memory.
Last night, Wei Zhuo suddenly fell into a mental riot. It wasn’t until the alarm in the treatment room was triggered that security and colleagues arrived to control the situation. He had to take emergency measures and injected Wei Zhuo with a sedative. Though the method was rough, he forcibly purified Wei Zhuo’s mental landscape.
A 3S-level combat Sentinel with 80% mental pollution, combined with a mental riot…going through that process drained all of Xin Hexue’s mental and physical strength.
His colleagues from the medical department brought him back.
He vaguely remembered coming back to the bedroom and collapsing into sleep from exhaustion.
His entire body felt like it was falling apart. Every movement brought soreness, and his body was burning.
He had a fever.
The cough he had ignored the day before was actually a sign of the fever.
“Beep! Beep! Beep!”
The communicator had been ringing in the bedroom for a long time.
Xin Hexue supported himself on the edge of the bed and slowly found the clothes he had worn yesterday on the sofa. Just as he pulled out the communicator, the screen went dark.
When it lit up again, he saw 99+ missed calls and text messages.
Xin Hexue glanced at them…they were all from Yan Ji.
Even scrolling through the text message list, he couldn’t reach the beginning.
Suddenly, Xin Hexue remembered something. “I had class at ten this morning…”
K, who hadn’t spoken until now, said, [I already emailed the school this morning to request leave for you.]
Xin Hexue let out a small sigh of relief. “Mm, thank you, gege.”
Another call came in.
This time, Xin Hexue answered it.
The voice on the other end mixed with the sound of rain, and the tone was anxious: “Xin Hexue? Are you awake? I saw the light in your living room was on, but you weren’t answering your phone. I don’t have a key to your place either…”
Xin Hexue’s brain was dulled by fever, but he still reacted to the context of the other party’s words. “You’re outside my house?”
Wearing cotton slippers, he walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in his bedroom.
Unlike the one in the living room, this window was one-way glass, so the Sentinel standing outside the villa couldn’t see him.
Rain mixed with snow blurred the world beyond the glass.
Xin Hexue barely made out Yan Ji’s anxious face.
He held a black umbrella and it was unknown how long he had been waiting outside.
…
The villa gate had a smart system. After receiving the homeowner’s command, the iron gate opened inward to welcome the guest who had been standing outside for nearly two hours.
Because it had been drizzling non-stop, Yan Ji’s hair was damp despite holding an umbrella, and his jacket was streaked with water.
Fortunately, the material was waterproof. He took the towel Xin Hexue handed him and wiped himself down roughly.
Yan Ji asked worriedly, “Did you catch a cold?”
He remembered they were caught in the rain a few evenings ago on the way to the parking lot.
When they got to Xin Hexue’s home, both of them had taken hot showers.
For Sentinels, even getting drenched in the rain without any treatment wasn’t an issue. Their physical constitution had been enhanced, so even though Yan Ji had been reeking of alcohol and soaked from the rain when he returned to school last night, he still woke up the next morning full of energy.
But it was different for Guides.
Yan Ji had never been so acutely aware of that.
Xin Hexue had a fever of 39.8 degrees.
Yan Ji glanced at the thermometer and cautiously asked, “Should we go to the hospital?”
Xin Hexue sat on the bed with a soft pillow propped between his back and the headboard. He lowered his head, covering his mouth as he coughed. The more he coughed, the worse it got, with no relief at all.
It seemed to be a side effect of mental exhaustion, compounded by old hidden injuries left behind from a few years ago in the Folded Zone. Xin Hexue felt like his body was a porcelain vessel filled with cobweb-like cracks, and each cough widened those fractures. The pain was dense and prickling, spreading from his organs to his entire body.
In the end, he collapsed at the edge of the bed, his thin back trembling all over.
Yan Ji’s expression was grim as he spoke with finality, “Let’s go. We’re going to the hospital now. I’ll carry you downstairs. Where are your car keys?”
Xin Hexue shook his head silently but firmly. His gloved hands grabbed Yan Ji’s as if clutching at the last straw. His grip on Yan Ji’s arm tightened, as though trying to release the pain in his body by passing it onto something external.
Yan Ji’s anxiety burned in his chest, the pain seemingly synchronized with Xin Hexue’s. This only made him even more insistent.
“You don’t want to go to the hospital? Then what? You’re not a child…you’re not afraid of needles, right?”
He repeated firmly, “We’re going to the hospital.”
Xin Hexue paused, swallowed the metallic taste in his mouth, and slowly said, “It’s no use.”
He sat on the bed, his face pale as paper, eyelashes drooping. “It’s old injuries from the Folded Zone. They have been there for a long time.”
A Guide’s self-healing ability and physical endurance were far inferior to a Sentinel’s. Furthermore, the purification force in a Guide’s mental power was naturally opposed to the pollutants in the Folded Zone; they countered each other relentlessly and irreconcilably. So many times, such injuries could only accumulate, and the more they built up, the worse they became. In Xin Hexue’s body, they had festered into chronic illness. All he could do in daily life was take extra care to rest and recuperate.
Xin Hexue looked up at Yan Ji. “I’ll be fine with more rest. Can you get me a glass of warm water?”
Yan Ji stood up. “Do you have fever medicine at home?”
Xin Hexue nodded. “In the left drawer under the living room TV cabinet.”
Yan Ji quickly returned, bringing a strip of fever medicine, a glass of warm water, and even a takeout box filled with hot porridge.
“There’s no time to cook. I just ordered delivery.”
Yan Ji guessed Xin Hexue hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so right after the phone call, he ordered porridge from a nearby shop.
Two pills were already missing from the fever medicine. Yan Ji guessed Xin Hexue must have taken some either last night or early this morning before falling asleep.
While Xin Hexue drank the porridge, Yan Ji stood and glanced around the room. He casually said, “You’re this sick, and there’s not even anyone around to take care of you. If I hadn’t seen that email…”
K, the transparent assistant who spent all night changing clothes, feeding medicine, requesting leave, and sending emails: “…”
Xin Hexue set down the empty porridge bowl. He tilted his head back, his Adam’s apple moving beneath his fair skin.
The pill slid down silently, and when he set the glass down, a layer of moisture still clung to his lips.
His usually light pink lips seemed flushed from the fever, and the color was overly bright and vivid.
Yan Ji’s eyes glanced over unintentionally, and his gaze paused suspiciously. The tips of his ears grew inexplicably warm.
Yan Ji tried to reason with the stubborn patient. “If the fever hasn’t gone down by evening, we’re going to the hospital, okay?”
Xin Hexue sat quietly at the head of the bed. “…Okay.”
Yan Ji felt itchy in his heart and a little embarrassed by his own clinginess. “You… why did you stand me up last night?”
Xin Hexue seemed to have just remembered and his sudden realization made Yan Ji’s heart sour, like a chunk had been carved out.
He’d waited so long at that Western restaurant, but in the end, he probably hadn’t even crossed the other party’s mind, and had been forgotten completely.
Xin Hexue lowered his gaze slightly and spoke softly, “Sorry. While working overtime yesterday evening, a Sentinel suddenly went into a mental riot. The situation was critical. I didn’t finish the mental guidance until after ten at night.”
“My mental power was overdrawn, plus the fever started last night…I forgot to reply to you.”
Yan Ji’s brow furrowed. “So that’s what happened…”
He hadn’t experienced it himself, but he had heard of Sentinels going berserk during guidance sessions. There had even been serious cases on the news; Sentinels losing control and injuring their Guides, or even sexually assaulting them…
Yan Ji realized how severe the situation had been.
He asked repeatedly, “Are you okay? What happened? Were you hurt anywhere?”
Actually, aside from the fever, Xin Hexue seemed fine.
Xin Hexue blinked slowly. “There’s an alarm system in my treatment room. When a riot is detected, security immediately steps in.”
The stone in Yan Ji’s heart finally dropped. “I’m glad you’re alright.”
The young man sitting on the bed curved his eyes into a smile. “Do you want to know how I handle a berserk Sentinel?”
Yan Ji responded instinctively, “Huh?”
Xin Hexue beckoned him with a finger. “Come here, I’ll tell you.”
Yan Ji walked over obediently.
Xin Hexue explained patiently, “A rioting Sentinel is usually extremely aggressive. So the first step is to physically restrain them.”
Almost the moment he finished speaking, Yan Ji’s collar was yanked with a swift tug.
He was completely unguarded against the sick young man.
So in the blink of an eye, the two of them switched positions.
Weight pressed on his hips, and Yan Ji lay flat on the soft bed, looking up at the Guide now straddling him.
Xin Hexue looked down from above, his expression still mildly gentle. “Just like this. Restrain.”
The Sentinel beneath him was stiff as a board.
Xin Hexue continued calmly.
“The treatment bed in the inner room has shackles on both sides. They can lock down very tightly.”
“Then, to prevent the Sentinel from biting during the riot…”
Through the glove, his finger pressed against Yan Ji’s thin lips, and Xin Hexue lowered his eyes without warmth. “A muzzle goes here.”
“Of course, for Sentinels who still can’t control themselves, verbal discipline is also necessary.”
The thin glove pressed against the lips, the white teeth bit at the fingertips, and the glove was tugged off as he turned his face to the left.
His wrist came into view first; narrow, white, and lined with delicate blue veins. Beautiful and fragile.
The slender fingers curled.
Xin Hexue held the glove with his right hand and, through the cold leather, delivered a light slap to Yan Ji’s cheek. “…Bad dog.”
Yan Ji’s scalp tingled, and his brain crashed on the spot.
