Ji Yushan’s assistant was also waiting in the hallway. Compared to his colleagues who focused more on experimental research, his role as an assistant involved handling various miscellaneous tasks, including communication and follow-up with registered sentinel-guide patients at the institute. As a result, he was much more familiar with the profiles of all the high-level frontline sentinels and guides.
The assistant couldn’t help elbowing his colleague twice, signaling for her to stop talking.
He pulled the researcher aside and lowered his voice, saying, “Lieutenant General He Botian… has already died.”
The researcher’s face turned pale with shock. “When did this happen?!”
The assistant glanced at his colleague, a complicated expression on his face. “Back in the first half of the year. You didn’t hear about it?”
The researcher had a blank expression, like a person who had just finished a closed-off experiment with no access to the internet.
The assistant shook his head.
No wonder…no wonder the sentinel she just mistook earlier looked so young, without any hint of mature steadiness.
The researcher gave an awkward laugh. Before she could apologize to Yan Ji, Ji Yushan came out from the ward.
He held a gray clipboard in one arm, the edge tucked into his elbow. The chart paper clipped to the board was filled with recorded data. As he turned around, he closed the ward door behind him naturally.
Ji Yushan ignored the sentinel who rushed forward to question him. He leisurely clicked his pen shut and placed it into the front pocket of his white coat. Only then did he slowly lift his gaze and explain, “Xin Hexue’s mental power is overdrawn and currently in a state of exhaustion. He requires a sentinel to assist with a mental landscape fusion treatment.”
Mental landscape fusion.
For a young sentinel who had awakened his combat power for less than a year, it was indeed an unfamiliar term.
Yan Ji didn’t even fully understand what it meant; he just assumed it was something similar to mental guidance.
And Wei Zhuo immediately said in a low voice, “I can do it.”
He lowered his gaze. The anesthesia from the surgery on his shoulder was beginning to wear off, and the burning pain had already begun to spread toward his heart.
Wei Zhuo calmly cited the basis. “Forty-eight days ago, he performed mental guidance for me. The fifty-day compatibility period hasn’t passed yet.”
A sentinel and guide who had previously engaged in mental guidance would have a fifty-day compatibility period, almost two months.
During these two months, because the last guidance had gone smoothly, their mental powers would remain in a relatively familiar and compatible state. So whether conducting further mental guidance or entering mental fusion, the difficulty would be reduced and the success rate greatly improved.
Wei Zhuo’s statement clearly provided a valid reason that would justify his participation in the treatment, making him a legitimate candidate to undergo mental landscape fusion with Xin Hexue.
If it weren’t for the tightly clenched fists at his sides, one might have thought he was acting out of pure righteousness.
Ji Yushan laughed, his light -colored eyes behind his lenses flashing with a trace of mockery.
“What a pity. When it comes to mental fusion, it’s not about who got there first.”
After his pointed jab, Ji Yushan swept his gaze across them. “Who is Yan Ji?”
He asked on purpose. In fact, this sentinel’s file had already passed across his desk. Locking eyes with the sentinel, he said, “I heard you’re dating Xin Hexue?”
Yan Ji didn’t hesitate at all. He confirmed it immediately.
“When you go in, be careful around the equipment. Don’t go knocking things over with your clumsy hands,” Ji Yushan said coldly, clearly not holding any goodwill toward Yan Ji. He spoke like he assumed all sentinels were idiots who ruined everything. “Then lie down in the treatment pod on the left side of the ward. I’ll be in another room monitoring the backend data. Do everything exactly as I say.”
Ji Yushan adjusted his glasses and didn’t even bother to look again.
He said lightly, “As for Young Master Wei, you better go back and tend to your wounds under the civilized rule of law.”
He had clearly named both Wei Zhuo and Yan Ji to wait here earlier, but now he casually dismissed Wei Zhuo. It was obvious he had deliberately dragged this lieutenant general around in a circle.
Both the researcher and the assistant had awkward expressions on their faces, as if they were at a bizarre scene.
Wei Zhuo didn’t even have the qualification to stand guard outside the ward.
Because after listening to Ji Yushan’s instructions, the White Tower guards had already made a “please” gesture. The intent to drive the sentinel out was clear and left no room for refusal.
………
Compared to guides who could take the lead in mental guidance, it was very difficult for sentinels to actively enter a guide’s mental landscape. After all, their evolutionary strength lay in combat ability.
A sentinel being able to extend their mental power into a guide’s mental landscape usually only occurred in two scenarios.
One: the guide was in extreme weakness, with no will or ability to resist external mental power, making it significantly easier for the sentinel to enter.
The other scenario: when the guide and sentinel were bonding.
When the bodies reach the most intimate and highest level of contact, the combination of body and soul make the fusion particularly easy to achieve.
Yan Ji had just finished listening to the assistant’s explanation through the earpiece.
He entered the all-white ward. Xin Hexue was lying inside the treatment pod, dressed in a thin hospital gown. His crow-feather eyelashes drooped, and his expression was calm, as if simply asleep.
Yan Ji’s face flushed. “Even though we are dating, I’m not the kind of sentinel who takes advantage of someone when they’re vulnerable…”
“It’s daytime. What are you daydreaming about?”
Ji Yushan sneered. The sarcasm behind his glasses was almost impossible to hide.
He was in another room, watching the real-time footage of the ward through the monitor and directing Yan Ji through the earpiece. “Just like I said before, lie down in the other treatment pod. Xin Hexue is currently in a very weak state. We’ll assist you in entering his mental landscape.”
“Watch out for the wires and all the equipment on the floor. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, if you break anything, you’ll be saddled with White Tower’s astronomical debt before you even graduate.”
Ji Yushan’s tone actually sounded a little gloating, like he was eager to see things go wrong.
Yan Ji carefully stepped over the tangled mess of equipment and wires.
Every fine line of wiring ultimately led to the treatment pod on the right.
The pod was spacious enough that even an adult Sentinel could fit in comfortably. Through the light blue glass dome, Yan Ji could see inside.
The young man’s lips were pale, his black hair lay listlessly and softly over his shoulders and neck, and the hospital gown on his body made him look extremely thin.
He looked like a fragile glass lamp.
Yan Ji’s eyes darkened.
He approached the treatment pod step by step.
If one ignored the disposable electrode patches stuck on Xin Hexue’s body and the IV tubes delivering nutrients, the pod looked more like a sleeping capsule.
This impression became even stronger when Yan Ji lay down in the treatment pod on the left.
Ji Yushan’s voice was calm as he gave instructions.
“Close your eyes.”
“Imagine yourself returning to the most recent battle. Then, release your mental body.”
Yan Ji: “Here? Release the mental body here?”
The treatment pod clearly couldn’t fit both a Sentinel and a gray wolf.
Ji Yushan: “Stop asking nonsense.”
Ji Yushan: “Just do as instructed.”
…
As the treatment pod door closed, he followed the instructions step by step.
Yan Ji was originally imagining himself returning to the battle at the Puppet Circus arena. But the moment he released his mental body, the battle scene was stirred into chaos.
He felt his consciousness sinking into a blur of light and shadow.
It was an expanse of snowfield that felt void, vast, desolate, and completely empty.
Aside from the wide stretches of white and the blue sky above, there was nothing.
Everything was silent.
Yan Ji walked forward.
The only noise in the entire world was the crunch of his feet stepping on thick snow.
No…something was off.
Yan Ji realized what was making him feel strange.
He suddenly lowered his head.
His forelimbs were covered in a thick layer of silver-gray fur, enough to shield against the extreme cold.
He raised one of his front paws.
Yan Ji finally realized that he had merged with his mental body the moment he entered Xin Hexue’s mental landscape.
Even though his mind was within this snowfield, he could still hear Ji Yushan’s voice through the earpiece his body wore back in the treatment pod.
“Sentinel, report your situation.”
Yan Ji described his surroundings clearly to Ji Yushan.
“Hmm, keep searching. Find Xin Hexue first.”
Yan Ji didn’t know how long he had been trudging through the snowfield.
The gray wolf’s four-legged stride was fast, but no matter how far he ran, all directions were the same shade of white. The boundary was always at the furthest edge of his vision, never reachable.
Time seemed to pass differently inside the mental landscape. When Ji Yushan informed him that half an hour had already gone by, Yan Ji’s surroundings had shifted from polar day to polar night.
The night sky was lit with brilliant auroras, like fluorescent green silk ribbons stretching across the heavens.
He finally saw Xin Hexue.
Countless white, elf-like mystical birds flew in flocks from the edge of the aurora.
They landed on a circular lake.
The extreme cold had frozen the lake into thick, unmelted ice that had accumulated over years.
As the gray wolf stepped onto the ice, the flock of birds scattered and took flight. In the space they left behind, lying in the center of the circular lake was an injured angel.
He was called an angel because of the pair of pure white wings that curled around the young man’s fragile body.
However, the wing feathers looked dull and lifeless. The once-beautiful sheen, soft down, and distinct contour feathers had all lost their former perfection.
There was even faint blood seeping out from beneath the quills.
The young man was unconscious.
Yan Ji didn’t know where to begin.
He had no experience and didn’t know what to do next. He was afraid that even a small mistake might harm Xin Hexue’s mental landscape, or even his physical body.
So he reported the situation to Ji Yushan.
Ji Yushan’s tone was extremely nasty. “Lick him. Do I have to teach you even that?”
He looked like he desperately wanted to switch places, an expression so unfiltered that the assistants and researchers monitoring the data in the room kept glancing at him sideways.
…
Xin Hexue remembered being surrounded by vines in that closet.
After being overwhelmed, he lost consciousness from suffocation.
Or maybe he wasn’t unconscious…he might have made a mistake when using the last of his mental power to attack the vines, and ended up falling into the mental landscape of the vines.
At the edge of a hellish world that was dyed a deep red, and even from a great distance, he immediately saw the towering strangling tree…and He Botian, shackled to its trunk.
It was hard to say whether He Botian still counted as human anymore.
The upper half of his body was still human-shaped, but from the waist down, countless vines were growing, writhing unconsciously.
…He’d turned into a plant person.
Inappropriately, Xin Hexue thought of such a cold joke.
But it made him realize that all the vines and aerial roots he’d seen before were merely branches that had escaped from the strangling tree in the Folded zone.
In other words, the real body was still inside the Folded zone.
And he had simply connected to the mental landscape of one of these branch vines, essentially tapping into a node of the strangling tree’s neural network. Through the connection between the branch and the main body, he caught a glimpse into the world within the Folded zone.
However, on the satellite images, Folded Zone No. 122 had clearly already been marked as purified, showing no energy fluctuations.
So where exactly was the strangling tree hiding?
Where was this deep crimson hellish scene located?
The urgency of his desire to know leaked out, affecting this neural network node.
Finally, all the vines noticed the uninvited guest on this land.
He Botian’s eyes suddenly flew open. Due to his assimilation with the strangling tree, his black pupils had turned deep green, his entire being radiating an unmistakable inhuman aura.
He warned Xin Hexue sharply, “Ah Xue, run!”
In the consciousness world of the strangling tree, if Xin Hexue were captured by the tree’s vines, his neural consciousness would be wiped out.
The vines growing out from He Botian were doing everything they could to restrain and attack the ones belonging to the main body.
Branches, vines, and leaves twisted and tore at each other in a brutal tangle.
Xin Hexue could only use this brief gap to turn and run as far away from the main body of the strangling tree as possible.
However, he had no idea where this place was.
The deep red earth beneath his feet was dry and cracked, stretching endlessly into the distance.
He Botian looked pained, the veins at his temples pulsing violently, cold sweat covering his forehead.
His consciousness was locked in a struggle against that of the strangling tree’s main body, fighting for control over the trunk, so he could command the countless vines that blanketed this world.
He Botian roared hoarsely, “Run! Don’t look back!”
………
A hot tongue licked over pristine white flight feathers again and again.
From the outermost primary feathers, it licked wetly inward to the secondary feathers, not even sparing the coverts above.
Bit by bit, strand by strand, everything was being repaired.
Xin Hexue was born a defective Guide, lacking an independent mental body. His wings were the outward manifestation of his mental body.
This level of excessive intimacy reached directly into the depths of his mind and soul, even giving him the illusion of being violated by something inhuman.
The cold white skin gradually took on a gorgeous rosy hue.
Like crimson clouds brushing snow-covered peaks, stunningly beautiful.
His lips were marked with tooth prints from when he had bitten into himself unconsciously, and soft whimpers spilled between his lips and teeth.
The wolf tongue reached the base of his wings. Because of this movement, the entire pair of wings growing from between his shoulder blades trembled.
Xin Hexue forcibly swallowed down a moan, not realizing just how over-the-line the sound, like a little cat whimpering, was.
The angel, still in a newborn’s naked state, couldn’t stop his wings from trembling.
Feathers rustled and trembled, brushing against the gray wolf’s nose over and over.
Xin Hexue hadn’t fully come back to his senses. The experience in the strangling tree’s mental landscape had left a deep impression that he couldn’t completely come out of the stress response. So the name that slipped from his lips and teeth was…
“He Botian…”
Soft and hoarse.
It sounded like a murmur, and also like a subconscious act of coquettishness.
Yan Ji was about to go crazy.
He had worked so hard grooming his little cat, and this little cat was still thinking about that damn ex-husband?!
Yan Ji was furious, “You…!”
He had to admit that Xin Hexue had really pissed him off this time.
So now, he was going to lick Xin Hexue until he turned into a fluffy ball.
