New Arc: Skin Hunger
Chapters 86-126
[Small World separation in progress…]
[Employee successfully separated.]
[This assessment is complete. The assessment Small World is now closed.]
[Evaluating this assessment’s results…]
[Small World settlement in progress…]
[Zhou Shanheng’s love value is full, heartbreak value is full]
[Du Zhi’s love value is full, heartbreak value is full]
[Hen Zhen’s love value is full, heartbreak value is full]
[Bu Jincheng’s love value is full]
[Based on the fulfillment of Small World character settings and evaluation across multiple dimensions including plot logic, rhythm, and content, the final comprehensive score of this assessment is S. Congratulations, employee, for successfully passing the assessment and upgrading to a Type 2 actor.]
[Assessment Comments:]
[The cat among cats. The dominator among cats. The ruler among cats. The master of cats. The ender of cats. The cat King. The cat god. The overwhelming cat. The eternal peak in cat history.]
?
Xin Hexue skimmed the report at lightning speed, and then his eyes stopped.
Who gave this rating and comments?
Xin Hexue’s eyes curved slightly as he asked aloud, “Mr. Examiner?”
How could an examiner mess up this badly?
K: “…”
Forgot to replace the final text.
K was silent for a few moments. “It was just a glitch in the program output.”
A lame excuse, but fort, the magnanimous cat god would not mind. The cat god only forgives the careless believers.
……
After separating from the Small World and returning to the Big World, Xin Hexue, as usual, went through a company-arranged physical examination and psychological counseling before returning to the high-end apartment arranged by the company to begin his half-month paid vacation.
As Xin Hexue’s system, agent, assistant, and live-in butler, K had unlocked the cooking module using the system points accumulated through the two Small Worlds, and now he had one more title, chef.
For some reason, Xin Hexue felt that his three-bedroom apartment had become crowded.
In this place that could barely be called home, he wore casual loungewear, lying bonelessly on the cloud-like sofa, relaxed and limp.
The TV was broadcasting tomorrow’s weather forecast.
Xin Hexue casually glanced at it, and his gaze was drawn to something else on the coffee table.
It was K’s keychain.
It only had the key to the front door of this apartment, and…
Xin Hexue picked it up between his fingers and shook it lightly.
It was an exquisitely crafted trinket: a glass wind chime with transparent snowflakes hanging below, and a white fish tail.
Xin Hexue vaguely felt this figure looked familiar.
He raised his eyebrows subtly.
From the living room, he could hear the sizzling sound of ingredients jumping in hot oil from the kitchen.
The communicator resting on the low table lit up.
The lock screen showed a group chat mention.
It was K’s communicator.
Out of politeness, Xin Hexue originally shouldn’t have looked. But the screen lit up, and he happened to catch a glimpse of a message:
[In the group chat “Cosmic Little Cats ^>???<^’s Backyard”, someone @you: Teacher! Big Brother! Boss! Please send another top-secret HD photo, we and our fellow group members will do anything???]
Compared to the notification, the lock screen wallpaper was quite normal…it was just the default lock screen. But this immediately made it feel like he was trying to cover something up.
Xin Hexue held the communicator, opened the frosted glass kitchen door, and leaned against it, tilting his head. “Gege?”
The tall, black-haired man turned around, still holding a spatula in his hand, and didn’t seem to notice anything. “It will be ready soon.”
“Oh.” Xin Hexue leaned against the doorframe, shaking the communicator in his hand. “Why are they calling you Teacher, Big Brother, and Boss? What do those mean?”
Because of the constant pings from the group chat, the communicator’s screen kept lighting up.
K visibly froze in place.
His voice dropped slightly, brows furrowing as he looked at Xin Hexue. “You… peeked at my communicator?”
Xin Hexue’s overly curious eyes flashed slightly. “Sorry.”
K looked at the little cat, and feeling guilty, started looking around pretending to be busy.
K: “It’s okay.”
K: “The food is almost ready. Can you grab two plates from the cabinet?”
Xin Hexue obediently turned away and opened the cabinet.
Crisis averted. K silently breathed a sigh of relief.
He had almost been found out by his host. He’d secretly infiltrated the host’s biggest fan group and, using two or three exclusive perspective shots that were clearer than official screenshots from the movies, successfully became a group admin.
Xin Hexue slowly placed two plates by the island counter.
When K took them, his fingers trembled slightly. They were blind box plates he had secretly bought online, special edition little cat series.
A trace of cunning flashed in Xin Hexue’s eyes and he smiled at K. “Thank you for your hard work.”
K’s movements paused.
The clever host knew everything. He just didn’t say it.
……
The upscale residential area had very complete facilities.
Just a few steps downstairs from their building was a supermarket.
Thanks to his employee privilege of getting to experience a healthy body in the Big World, Xin Hexue could indulge in junk food occasionally without it affecting his current health status.
He liked sneaking to the supermarket behind K’s back to hoard piles of junk food, just like how K always secretly ordered whole grains and healthy ingredients online.
Every product and every flavor felt novel to Xin Hexue, and the explosion of taste on his tongue was like discovering a new world.
Although this freshness might wear off soon.
Xin Hexue had already asked K to start drawing a new script.
He carried a large pile of snacks, stacked so high it reached above his eyebrows.
As he walked back, Xin Hexue bumped into someone.
“Sorry.”
The male voice was low and hoarse, as if he hadn’t rested well for a long time.
Xin Hexue turned to look and saw a stranger with golden hair and deep features. It was an unfamiliar face.
In fact, most residents in this complex were probably employees of Dianxing Company. A few steps out the door, and one might run into a colleague. But due to the special nature of acting work, they didn’t need to show up at the company, so naturally, they didn’t know each other.
Xin Hexue remained indifferent. As he brushed past, the blond man suddenly reached out as if to stop him, but quickly withdrew his hand.
“Uh, do you need help?”
Xin Hexue noticed the urgency and awkwardness in the man’s tone.
‘? Help with what?’
‘Carry my snacks?’
The golden retriever stammered, “I’m not a bad person. I mean, if you’re worried, I can show you my employee ID. Where…where do you live? I can help you carry the stuff upstairs.”
A faint sense of bewilderment rose in Xin Hexue’s heart.
‘…What a strange guy.’
He sidestepped and replied in a cold tone, “Your ID photo probably looks really nice. But sorry, I’m not interested.”
The golden-haired man froze and missed his chance. He could only watch Xin Hexue’s figure walk away.
He took out his employee ID. The photo showed a man with neatly cropped golden hair, a high nose, thin lips, and a pair of eyes and brows full of relaxed wildness.
The photo was actually really good, but the young man didn’t even look and said he wasn’t interested.
……
Vacation time always passed faster than workdays.
Xin Hexue received the script transferred by K.
The next world was a system he wasn’t familiar with.
A post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Humanity lived in shelter bases called safe zones. Beyond the safe zones was the Folded Zone…remnants of the old era, now overrun by all kinds of extremely dangerous monsters.
No one knew where the source of mutation or the start of the catastrophe had come from.
But after the rubble formed into huge beasts, pet dogs grew skull heads, and the air became thick with smog, humans evolved along with the environment.
Some of them differentiated into Sentinels and Guides.
Children born from these two special groups were naturally either Sentinels or Guides.
Sentinels had combat strength far beyond ordinary people or Guides. They were elite warriors, often risking their lives in the Folded Zone to retrieve resources or fight monsters and force them deeper into the zone in order to expand the safe zone’s perimeter.
However, their extraordinary strength came with highly unstable mental power. The more unstable the mental power, the more prone they were to entering rage states. Once their senses were overloaded to the extreme, they completely lost rationality and fell into uncontrollable berserk mode. In other words, they would kill lovers, family, teammates without discrimination.
Eventually, they would either mutate into monsters themselves, or be killed by their own kind before the transformation was complete.
Mental stabilizers can not effectively suppress the overloaded senses and manic emotions of Sentinels.
At times like these, they could only rely on Guides.
In contrast to the Sentinels’ traits, Guides exceeded ordinary humans in terms of mental power.
Only the mental guidance from a Guide could purify the mental pollution accumulated by Sentinels through prolonged, brutal battles in the Folded Zone.
The two were often paired and bound together by the Empire based on compatibility assessments.
However, due to the extreme rarity of Guides, Sentinels who had a fixed Guide partner were incredibly fortunate, with a winning rate of about one percent.
Among the remaining Sentinels, those on the front line with high combat rankings could earn the chance to enter the public Guides’ consultation rooms. But such mental guidance services had to be accessed either through fixed schedule draws or exchanged with military merit.
The vast majority of lower-ranked Sentinels could only rely on psychotropic medication. If they didn’t die in the Folded Zone, their ultimate fate would be losing control after excessive medication abuse and being eliminated by their peers.
However, in this Small World, Xin Hexue’s role was not a Sentinel in a dangerous position.
He was a Guide, the Empire’s only SSS-ranked Guide in mental power.
Guides could team up with Sentinels to enter the Folded Zone.
Possessing SSS-level mental power also meant he would take on more frequent and intense missions in the Folded Zone.
Before “Xin Hexue” had even graduated from the special Guide training school, he had already been matched with a suitable Sentinel.
On the battlefield, they were comrades who entrusted their backs to each other. In the safe zone, they were intimately bonded lovers.
But unfortunately, a few years later, the Sentinel went berserk during a battle deep in the Folded Zone and was devoured by a monster.
The two had just gotten engaged a month before he died in battle.
“Xin Hexue” could not recover from the grief and applied to transfer from the frontlines to the medical department of logistics and became a public Guide.
With his powerful mental power, he did not need to consider compatibility. He could provide mental guidance therapy to any Sentinel with combat strength below SSS-level.
In the new year, the military district recruited a new batch of soldiers.
“Xin Hexue” discovered one of the newcomers who bore a thirty percent resemblance to his deceased fiancé. The man was also from the border and also possessed SSS-level combat power.
“Xin Hexue” proposed that the man become a substitute for his former fiancé, and in return, offered the promise of unconditional mental guidance at any time or place.
But as they spent time together, feelings developed. Then followed a messy entanglement: you love me, but I don’t love you; when you no longer love me, I fall deeply for you; he runs, he chases, he cannot fly away.
It was even more melodramatic than previous scripts. It included a white moonlight, a substitute, and the ultimate chasing to the crematorium cliché.
Xin Hexue raised his eyebrows slightly, focusing on the final keyword.
Him? Did he fit with that keyword?
K also couldn’t figure it out.
Based on his understanding of the host, the only possibility was that the target would be the one volunteering to be the substitute, how could it end up in chasing to the crematorium?
Just in case, Xin Hexue asked, “I passed my transformation assessment in the last world. Now that I’m a Type 2 actor, that means I can freely adapt character settings and plot lines within the script without penalty, right?”
K gave an affirmative response.
Xin Hexue had a plan in mind, but he would need to meet the target in person before adapting accordingly.
“Alright.”
“Let’s enter the Small World now.”
……
He Botian’s funeral took place on a rainy day.
The sky was as gray as the smog-filled world inside the Folded Zone.
That smog had taken the life of He Botian, a Sentinel who had made great contributions to the Empire.
Wei Zhuo sat among the chairs in the ceremonial hall as the memorial service proceeded.
His gaze was fixed on a row of wooden seats in front.
One seat was empty. The invited guest had not come.
Wei Zhuo shifted his eyes, lowered his head slightly, and returned his gaze to his hands, clasped over his knees.
After the ceremony in the hall, the event moved to the outdoor cemetery. Because He Botian’s body had been devoured by a monster with no remains recovered, his military uniform served as a symbolic burial in place of ashes.
Shovelful after shovelful of earth buried the honored remains.
Rain began to fall from the sky.
Wei Zhuo held a black umbrella.
The tailored black suit fit him perfectly, highlighting the Sentinel’s broad shoulders and narrow waist.
The tall man stood solemn and cold as ice.
As he was about to leave, someone called out to him. It was a senior military official.
The other party expressed deep concern over the absence of an important Guide.
“Wei Zhuo, Xin Hexue didn’t show up today. We’re worried he still can’t accept reality. The Empire has already lost an outstanding Sentinel…we can’t afford to lose a precious Guide.”
“You were close with He Botian and were comrades for years. You often saw Xin Hexue, could you talk to him on our behalf?”
Wei Zhuo was silent for a long time.
“…Alright.”
The official relaxed visibly.
Before walking away under his black umbrella, Wei Zhuo spoke in a cold and distant voice to clarify, “Sir, I’m not actually close with Xin Hexue.”
……
He Botian’s home had been arranged by the military.
Wei Zhuo obtained authorization from them and entered the villa without a key.
Sentinels didn’t usually stay in the safe zone. They often ventured deep into the Folded Zone, living between life and death.
But He Botian’s villa was decorated warmly, in cream and light green tones, full of vitality, completely different from the chaotic style of typical Sentinels or the minimalist, cold aesthetic of Wei Zhuo’s own place.
One glance revealed that the owner of the home had put great care into the space.
Besides personal taste, there was only one other reason.
This was supposed to be the marital home of He Botian and Xin Hexue.
Wei Zhuo’s expression was indifferent as he stepped inside the villa.
The first-floor living room was spacious, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering an unobstructed view of the outdoors.
The windows led to the backyard swimming pool.
Wei Zhuo caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye…someone was floating in the water with their eyes closed. His pupils shrank and he quickly opened the sliding glass door with a “whoosh”.
“Xin Hexue!”
The young man lay on his back on the surface of the water, his body rising and falling with the waves.
His thin shirt was translucent, revealing snow-white, delicate skin. Under the overcast sunlight, it looked as if there were no texture at all, so white it almost glowed.
For a moment, Wei Zhuo thought the young man had…
Xin Hexue opened his eyes.
“…Wei Zhuo.” He swam to the edge and saw Wei Zhuo’s expression. “Did I worry you?”
“Sorry. I just felt everything was too noisy. Being in the water lets me hear only its sound…it helps a little.”
Xin Hexue lowered his lashes. His face was pale.
His eyelashes, cheeks, and lips were all wet, looking as though he had just cried.
Wei Zhuo felt a stir in his heart.
He parted his lips, about to speak, when he heard Xin Hexue say, “You’re here to persuade me?”
“It’s fine. I’m alright now.”
“But I want to step down from the front lines.”
Wei Zhuo met Xin Hexue’s gaze. Those dark eyes were deep and gentle.
Xin Hexue said softly, “My condition… I can’t go back to the front anymore.”
Xin Hexue lifted his eyes, forced a smile, and said to him, “I submitted an application to the higher-ups to stay in the safe zone’s logistics department as a public Guide.”
Wei Zhuo: “…Alright.”
He crumbled the Sentinel-Guide pairing application form hidden behind him.
