Chapter 32

The soup bowl was empty, warmth spreading down his esophagus, but the silence in the living room felt like a thick, heavy gel. Shi Ye stared at the last speck of oil at the bottom of the bowl, the little voice in his head trying to carve out a three-bedroom apartment for Qi Jin's top-of-the-line sound system with his toes—just enough to give this awkward silence some background noise.

Qi Jin didn't seem to have figured out what to do next either. She leaned against the kitchen counter, her fingers unconsciously tracing the edge of the countertop, her gaze falling on the men's loungewear that Shi Ye was wearing, which was obviously ill-fitting and had trousers that dragged on the ground—it was something she had just found while rummaging through drawers, supposedly left behind by her grandfather when he last came over.

"Clothes..." Qi Jin began, then paused.

"It's fine, quite...loose." Shi Ye replied dryly, trying to roll up the overly long sleeves, but they slipped down again after a couple of tries. The clothes had a faint scent of camphor wood and old book pages, completely different from the cold cedar scent on Qi Jin.

Qi Jin watched her struggle with her sleeve, and the corner of his mouth seemed to twitch very slightly, but he quickly pursed it. "I'll have someone send the clothes over tomorrow."

"No need to trouble yourself, I'll change when I get back." Shi Ye finally gave up on the sleeves, letting them hang there.

"Your feet," Qi Jin reminded him, his gaze falling on the pair of dark blue men's slippers that were more than a size too big. Shi Ye's ankles looked particularly slender inside the wide openings of the slippers, and a bit of the instep, covered with a dressing, peeked out from the side. "It's best not to walk around too much."

Shi Ye fell silent. She really didn't want to walk back barefoot, but staying here...

"System," she silently called out in her mind, "give me some advice? Should I wisely leave now, or shamelessly stay a little longer? Has the task progress bar seen any positive changes because of tonight's heroic rescue... oops, I mean, the unlucky CEO's misfortune?"

The system remained silent.

"007? Crashed again? Or have you finally malfunctioned due to continuously witnessing the host's dangerous close contact with the mission target, and need to be sent back for repair?"

There has still been no response.

Shi Ye's heart skipped a beat. Could it be... that the system really crashed completely because of that "collapse" impact? What about her mission? What about the annihilation protocol? What about the world collapse warning?

Before she could figure it out, her mind suddenly went blank.

It's not a system-generated electronic sound.

It was some kind of... more chaotic, more noisy background noise. Like countless people talking in hushed tones at the same time, or like the white noise of an old television that hasn't been tuned properly, rustling and layered upon layer. At the same time, extremely faint, colorful specks of noise began to flicker at the edges of her vision, like a screen with a poor signal.

"When will you visit?"

Qi Jin's voice pulled her back from this eerie feeling. Shi Ye suddenly came to her senses and found that Qi Jin had walked up to her at some point and was looking at her with a slight frown.

"What's wrong?" Qi Jin asked, his eyes probing. "Your complexion suddenly looks terrible."

"N-nothing...it's nothing." Shi Ye shook his head, trying to clear the noise in his mind and the distractions in front of him. "Maybe...I'm a little tired."

Qi Jin stared at her for two seconds, then didn't ask any further questions. He simply said, "The guest room has been kept clean. Go and rest."

The suggestion was reasonable, but Shi Ye's inexplicable wariness (or rather, her fear of "collapse") made her hesitate. What if she woke up in the middle of the night to find the walls suddenly peeling, or her bed turning into a jumble of random data?

“I… I’ll just make do on the sofa,” she said.

Qi Jin frowned again. "The sofa is uncomfortable. And you..." Her gaze swept over a small stain on Shi Ye's forehead, and his ridiculously oversized pajamas, "...you need to rest."

"I really..."

"Shi Ye," Qi Jin interrupted her, his tone calm but with an undeniable air of authority, "Go to the guest room."

Shi Ye shut up. Fine, she'd go along with the host. Besides, she was genuinely exhausted, her bones aching from the effort, both mentally and physically.

Qi Jin led her through the living room to a door. The door opened, revealing a simply furnished guest room with clean, light gray sheets and blankets, and no unnecessary decorations.

"The bathroom is inside, everything is new." Qi Jin stood at the door, showing no intention of going in. "Call me if you need anything."

Shi Ye nodded and went inside. The door closed gently behind her.

The room was quiet, with only the faint hum of the central air conditioning. Shi Ye stood in the center of the room, looking around. It was even more deserted than Qi Jin's living room, as clean as a hotel showroom.

She walked to the bedside and sat down. The mattress was soft but supportive. The white noise in her head and the noise in her eyes seemed to lessen somewhat, but not completely disappear, like some kind of stubborn background radiation.

She lay down, staring at the ceiling. Everything that had happened that night replayed in her mind like a revolving lantern: the system's warning, Qi Jin's disappearance, the frantic run, the disarray in the alley, the police lights, and Qi Jin's overly focused gaze as he looked up at her, letting her treat his wounds…

My heart skipped a beat twice more.

Shi Ye turned over irritably and buried his face in the pillow. The pillow had a faint, sun-dried smell mixed with the scent of camphor wood.

“System,” she tried to communicate again, unwilling to give up, “Are you dead? If not, say something. Tell me what to do next. Qin Ming is causing trouble, the world is collapsing, Qi Jin was almost hit by a car, and I…” And something seems off about me.

She didn't think about the second half of the sentence.

As expected, there was no response.

Shi Ye sighed, just about to give up, when he suddenly caught a very faint sound that did not come from inside the room.

It sounded like... very light, back-and-forth footsteps.

From outside the door.

She held her breath and listened intently. The footsteps were light and slow, exceptionally clear in the silence outside the door. They walked back and forth a few times, then stopped. After a while, they started again, this time even lighter, as if deliberately slowed down.

It is Qi Jin.

She didn't go to sleep; she paced around the living room.

Shi Ye recalled that although Qi Jin had tried to remain calm, the slight trembling of his fingertips and his pale face couldn't lie. It would be a lie to say he wasn't terrified after surviving a premeditated murder attempt. Moreover, she was... well, at least emotionally prone to insecurity.

Amidst the cacophony of white noise in my mind, a faint, sigh-like fluctuation seemed to emerge.

Shi Ye stared at the closed door for a few seconds, then suddenly threw off the covers, walked barefoot (his slippers were too big and made a clanging sound when he walked), and gently turned the doorknob.

The door opened a crack.

Only a floor lamp in the corner of the living room was on, casting a dim light. Qi Jin stood before the French windows, her back to them, her figure appearing somewhat thin and…lonely against the backdrop of the city lights outside. She stopped pacing and simply stood quietly, gazing outside.

Shi Ye hesitated for a moment, then pushed open the door and went out. The soft carpet beneath her feet made no sound.

Qi Jin seemed lost in her own thoughts and didn't immediately notice. Shi Ye walked a short distance behind her before softly asking, "Can't sleep?"

Qi Jin's back stiffened slightly as she turned around. The warm yellow light outlined the contours of her profile, making the bandage on her forehead stand out against her pale skin. She looked at Shi Ye, her eyes filled with complex emotions she hadn't yet concealed, but these were quickly replaced by her usual calm.

"Mmm," she replied, without offering any further explanation.

"Does your wound hurt?" Shi asked.

"It doesn't hurt." Qi Jin shook his head, paused, and added, "It's just... a bit noisy."

"Noisy?" Shi Ye looked around the unusually quiet living room. "Where is the noise?"

Qi Jin paused for a moment, then pointed to his temple: "Here."

Shi Ye froze. Her mind was racing? Was it the lingering fear causing her thoughts to become chaotic, or… did she sense something else? Did she sense the unstable, leaky noises emanating from the depths of this world?

“System,” Shi Ye asked urgently in his mind, “Is the ‘noise’ that Qi Jin mentioned related to the Honkai? Can she sense it?”

The system remained silent.

Seeing that she didn't speak, Qi Jin turned back to look out the window. "Thank you for tonight," she repeated, her tone more earnest than before, "If you hadn't come looking for me, I might..."

"You'll be alright," Shi Ye interrupted her, startled even as he spoke. Where did she get that confidence?

Qi Jin turned his head to look at her, his eyes somewhat blurry in the dim light. "Why do you think that?"

“…Intuition,” Shi Ye said, forcing a smile. He couldn't very well say, “Because you’re the key villain in this world (now the female lead?), you won’t die so easily according to the tropes,” could he?

Qi Jin seemed noncommittal about the answer, turning his gaze back to the window. The two stood side by side before the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the dazzling yet silent city. In the distance, scattered lights moved like dormant fireflies.

"Shi Ye," Qi Jin suddenly called her name.

"Um?"

"If..." Qi Jin's voice was very soft, almost blending into the night, "If I said I was a little scared, wouldn't that be ridiculous?"

Shi Ye turned to look at her. Qi Jin's profile appeared somewhat fragile in the dim light, her eyelashes drooping, obscuring the emotions in her eyes. This woman, known as the "Iceberg" for her decisive and ruthless approach to business, was now openly admitting her fears.

“It’s not funny,” Shi Ye said, his voice unconsciously softening. “It’s normal to be scared after almost being hit by a car.”

“It’s not that I’m afraid of,” Qi Jin said, turning her head to look directly into Shi Ye’s eyes. Those usually calm and deep eyes now held an undercurrent Shi Ye couldn’t decipher. “It’s that I’m afraid… it’ll be too late.”

"Too late for what?"

Qi Jin didn't answer immediately. Her gaze fell on Shi Ye's face, as if confirming something, or perhaps struggling with something. The light from outside the window flickered in her eyes.

After a long while, she finally looked away and gazed back at the endless night sky.

"It's nothing," she said, her voice losing its usual calmness and even carrying a hint of self-deprecation. "I guess I hit my head and I'm a little confused."

Looking at her feignedly calm profile, Shi Ye felt as if a piece of burning coal had been thrown into the stagnant water of his heart, causing it to sizzle and billow with a hazy white mist. What was Qi Jin afraid of—not having enough time? Was he afraid he wouldn't be able to get revenge on Qin Ming? Was he afraid something would happen to the company? Or was he afraid of… something else?

Before she could figure it out, the white noise in her head suddenly increased by an order of magnitude, the colored noise in front of her began to flicker wildly, and even tiny black cracks, like a break in the data stream, appeared at the edge of her vision!

"Ugh..." Shi Ye groaned, instinctively covering her forehead. This feeling was stronger than any previous system malfunction, as if something was violently tearing at the depths of her consciousness.

"Shi Ye?!" Qi Jin immediately noticed her unusual behavior and reached out to support her arm. "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

Shi Ye was speechless. She felt as if her consciousness was being pulled by two forces: one was reality—Qi Jin's cool fingers, the dimly lit living room, and the city lights outside the window; the other was a chaotic torrent of data—fragmented images, distorted sounds, and meaningless characters cascading over the boundaries of her cognition.

[Warning...Underlying protocol conflict...]

[Critical node...offset...]

[Repair procedure...attempt...force...]

Fragments of electronic sound, intermittent and not from System 007, but colder and grander, exploded deep within her mind.

The black cracks in her vision widened and spread, as if the canvas of reality was being torn apart by an invisible hand. She saw Qi Jin's face distort and flicker behind the cracks, like a malfunctioning holographic projection.

"Shi Ye! Look at me!" Qi Jin's voice broke through the noise, tinged with rare panic. She gripped Shi Ye's shoulders tightly, trying to steady her. "Breathe! Follow me, breathe!"

Shi Ye strained to focus her gaze, meeting Qi Jin's anxious eyes. Her own pale, distorted face was reflected in those eyes.

Then, she saw something even stranger.

Deep within Qi Jin's pupils, in the darkness that should have only reflected her image, a few extremely tiny, fleeting lines of code flashed by...?

It wasn't Chinese characters, nor English; it was a string of symbols she had never seen before, yet she could inexplicably "understand" their cold meaning.

The meaning is: [Error: Key emotional anchor point missing. Activate backup plan: Forced association... Association target: Shi Ye (abnormal individual)... Association progress: 71%...]

The code disappeared.

It's as if it never existed.

The tearing sensation and noise in my mind receded like a tide, and the data cracks and colored noise in front of me vanished instantly. The world returned to "normal." Only the throbbing pain in my temple and the rapid beating of my heart proved that everything that had just happened was not an illusion.

Shi Ye was completely exhausted. If Qi Jin hadn't been supporting her, she might have collapsed to the ground.

"Shi Ye? Can you hear me?" Qi Jin's voice was tense. He helped her to sit down on the sofa, half-squatting in front of her, looking up to carefully observe her face. "What's wrong with you? I'll call a doctor right away..."

“No need…” Shi Ye grabbed her wrist, stopping her from taking the phone. Her hand was icy cold and trembling slightly. “I’m fine…it’s an old problem…a little…low blood sugar.” She made up the worst excuse.

Qi Jin clearly didn't believe her. Her sharp gaze swept over Shi Ye's pale face and terrified eyes. "You didn't look like you had low blood sugar just now."

“Really…” Shi Ye avoided her gaze, let go of her hand, leaned back on the sofa, and closed his eyes wearily. “Just let me… catch my breath.”

Qi Jin didn't insist, but she didn't leave either. She just squatted there, silently watching Shi Ye. A tense, impending silence filled the air.

Shi Ye had her eyes closed, but she could feel Qi Jin's gaze on her face. The code she had seen just now was like a red-hot branding iron, searing into the depths of her consciousness.

Is there a lack of key emotional anchors?

Forced association?

Is she the target? Progress 71%?

These words, taken together, point to a suspicion that sends chills down her spine.

This "broken" world seems to be trying to "correct" her relationship with Qi Jin in some way? Because it detected that Qi Jin's original "emotional anchor" (possibly the original female lead Lin Xiaoyu?) had failed, so it captured this "abnormal individual" to take the blame?

And that terrifying experience just now was the process of "forced association"?

What if the connection reaches 100%...? Will she become Qi Jin's true, inescapable "emotional anchor"? Or... will she be completely "digested" by this world, becoming nourishment to keep the plot running?

"System..." she whispered in her mind, knowing there might be no response, but it was like grasping at the last straw.

This time, there was actually a response.

It wasn't the static-filled voice of 007. Instead, it was a fainter, more intermittent signal, as if it were coming from the deepest depths of the earth:

“The host… resists… the agreement… and refuses to… complete the… connection…”

The sound stopped abruptly.

Shi Ye suddenly opened his eyes.

Qi Jin was still looking at her, his eyes as deep as a bottomless, icy pool.

"Qi Jin," Shi Ye heard his own voice was terribly dry, "If... I mean if, one day you discover that everything that happened between us might not be a coincidence, nor a natural development, but was driven by some... force, what would you do?"

Qi Jin stared at her, remaining silent for a long time. The only sound in the living room was their slightly rapid breathing.

Then, Qi Jin slowly stood up. She walked to Shi Ye, leaned down, and placed her hands on the sofa armrests, trapping Shi Ye between herself and the sofa. They were so close they could feel each other's body heat.

Her gaze was fixed firmly on Shi Ye's eyes, and she spoke clearly and calmly, word by word:

"So what?"

Shi Ye was stunned.

Qi Jin's lips curled into a very faint, almost sharp, arc.

"Whatever the force, the coincidence, the arrangement," she said, "what I saw, what I encountered, what I chose—"

“It’s you.”

"That's enough."