Li Bai's heart suddenly sank.

It was as if an invisible force was spreading from the soles of the feet upwards, eventually spreading over the head, squeezing out all the air around and making it suffocating.

The joy that hadn't yet fully erupted in his eyes gradually faded, until all the fluctuations returned to silence. The hand that had been extended to touch Yang Jia fell back to his side and clenched.

——The situation she feared most finally happened.

The most unique thing about Yang Jia is that she's not a player at all, but an NPC. Zhang Zitao believes that Yang Jia's escape from the system's "elimination" is a stroke of luck. But for Li Bai, who knows the truth, this is actually the most dangerous thing.

The reason why Yang Jia wanted to improve her strength and design a protection system for herself was more for the system rather than for those who were looking for her outside the game.

Unless they resorted to measures like power outages, it was difficult for people in the real world to interfere with the game. "Reality" wasn't just a game; it had other purposes. Such measures wouldn't be resorted to unless absolutely necessary. Therefore, for the time being, Yang Jia remained safe.

But the system is different. It can receive Yang Jia's information anytime and anywhere, and take action against Yang Jia.

So, while Yang Jia was currently protected by the system, her greatest threat also came from the system itself. She wanted to research the protection system because she didn't want to be defenseless against it, and she also wanted to disguise herself as best as possible to avoid the system discovering her uniqueness.

And now, she is actually sending herself to the system.

If Yang Jia was usually drowned in a sea of data, making it difficult for the system to notice her uniqueness, then now there was no chance of success. After discovering her abnormality, what would the system do?

Li Bai didn't want to think about it, but he had to admit that the biggest possibility was a data reset.

Although he had been prepared, before the incident occurred, Li Bai still held on to a bit of hope, hoping that things would not turn out as he had imagined. But the moment Yang Jia opened his eyes and looked at him with unfamiliar eyes, all his hopes were shattered.

Yang Jia is still the same Yang Jia, but she is no longer her Yang Jia.

At this moment, Yang Jia asked again, "Who am I?"

When she spoke her first sentence, perhaps because she had been unconscious for too long, her pronunciation was indescribably difficult and stiff, but this sentence was much more natural. As she spoke, she turned her head to look at her surroundings, and then her brows furrowed slightly.

Such confused and ignorant behavior further deepened Li Bai's judgment.

Li Bai knew she should leave. She really didn't want to stay here and explain everything to Yang Jia.

She didn't have the same range of emotions as ordinary people, but every one of her emotions was pure and direct, and almost all of them were related to Yang Jia. It was Yang Jia who gave her human emotions, and now it was impossible for her to treat Yang Jia as a stranger and pretend that nothing had happened.

But she was reluctant to leave.

It was also impossible for her to give up Yang Jia and leave like this.

Because Li Bai knew that once she left this place, the next time they met, they might just be strangers with no connection. Yang Jia would never smile at her again, never fix his gaze on her again, never say "Li Bai, I love you so much" again...

I can't let go. So this is what it means to love someone: you want it but can't get it, and you can't bear to give up what you should give up.

Yang Jia didn't notice Li Bai's abnormality. She sat there and thought carefully, finally making a clue. "My name is Yang Jia..." As she drifted in that empty space, she heard someone calling her.

The name was like a command to trigger recollection. The moment she uttered it, a flood of memories flooded into her mind. Yang Jia immediately felt a sharp pain between her eyebrows, a headache that threatened to explode. She groaned and held her head in her hands.

"Yang Jia!" Li Bai, who was still hesitating whether to leave, suddenly changed his expression and immediately grabbed her hand. "What's wrong with you?"

Yang Jia leaned her head against Li Bai's chest. This embrace felt familiar and reassuring, even her headache seemed to be soothed. She closed her eyes and began to sort through the chaotic memories that suddenly emerged.

Since she didn't move, Li Bai didn't dare to move either.

Li Bai squatted on the ground, holding Yang Jia's arm, while Yang Jia sat on a chair, resting her head on her chest. The two maintained this somewhat strange posture until Li Bai felt her legs go numb, and Yang Jia moved slightly and raised her head.

Her face was pale and she looked very tired. Li Bai instinctively wanted to reach out and touch her, but he immediately retracted his hand. His eyes darkened and he was about to get up and leave.

Yang Jia looked at Li Bai in confusion as he suddenly stood up, then fell back to the ground due to numbness in his legs. He called out in confusion, "Li Bai?"

Li Bai was slightly shocked, and immediately raised his head to look at Yang Jia, with an inexplicable brilliance in his eyes, "Do you remember me?"

"Of course." Yang Jia naturally reached out to pull her. Although her mind suddenly had many more memories and became very chaotic, it wasn't so chaotic that she couldn't even remember Li Bai, right? However, it was true that this earliest memory of hers had been pushed into a corner, and it took a long time to find it.

Recalling the two questions she had asked when she woke up, Yang Jia couldn't help but touch her nose in embarrassment. Perhaps because of this, Li Bai had misunderstood that she didn't remember anything.

However, after the initial surprise, Li Bai did not ask any more questions. He just looked at her for a moment, then got up and left quickly.

Yang Jia froze for a moment. When she reached out to pull him back, Li Bai had already walked away. She subconsciously tried to sit up, but this body had fallen into a deep sleep and hadn't eaten in ten days. Although Li Bai and Zhang Zitao had tried some tricks to prevent her from dying from exhaustion or losing all her health, she was still weak.

Realizing this, Yang Jia couldn't help but exclaim, "Oh no!" She hadn't previously known how long she'd been in the data world, so she hadn't thought much of it, simply assuming it was just like any other day. But now that she noticed something was wrong with her body, she immediately realized it might have been much longer than she'd thought.

Then she immediately knew why Li Bai was angry.

She was trapped in the data world, her life or death uncertain, while Li Bai was left outside, helpless, and must have been extremely worried. When she woke up, she couldn't remember her due to her memory disorder. Li Bai's worries at that time were actually Yang Jia's own worries, so she could naturally understand them.

Although it was a false alarm, Li Bai was probably really scared this time, so it's no wonder she was angry.

Although Yang Jia was very anxious, he had no way to find Li Bai in his current state. Moreover, Li Bai opening the door and going out would alarm others. Zhang Zitao had already brought people over. Yang Jia could only suppress his anxiety and figure out what the situation was first.

Upon learning that he had been unconscious for ten whole days, Yang Jia couldn't help but gasp, "How could it be so long?"

"I should ask you this. What exactly did you experience in that data world?" Zhang Zitao asked back.

Yang Jia was silent.

She had so many experiences, and they were so complicated and messy that it would probably take a long time to sort them out. It would be impossible to summarize them in a short time, let alone extract the useful parts.

Zhang Zitao didn't want an answer to this question. He simply recounted what happened after Yang Jia fell into a coma, then added, "Li Bai is very worried about you. If it weren't for the guild's affairs, he would probably stay here the whole time. No matter how busy he is, he would come to check on you every morning and evening. - By the way, why did she leave?"

He didn't know about the little episode when Yang Jia woke up, and didn't understand why Li Bai left in a hurry when Yang Jia's awakening was a good thing, and his expression was so scary.

"It's okay," Yang Jia forced a smile. "I'll go find her later. For now, lend me a room to rest, eat something, and recover my strength."

In the eyes of others, Yang Jia was missing because she was working on a secret project with Zhang Zitao, so she certainly couldn't leave like this. Besides, there would definitely be a lot of things to do after leaving here, and before that, Yang Jia needed to sort out the extra memories in her mind and make sense of them.

As for Li Bai...

Although Yang Jia hadn't fully grasped the information in her head, she had a general idea of it. The gains from this trip far exceeded her expectations, correcting many of her previous judgments and revealing many things she hadn't known before.

She would not hide these things from Li Bai, but before that, Yang Jia needed to be alone and think quietly. Otherwise, once she met Li Bai, she would inevitably mention these things, and the conversation would eventually become more and more confusing.

But she couldn't just leave Li Bai alone, especially now that Li Bai was angry because she was in danger and needed comfort the most.

After much hesitation, Yang Jia finally picked up the terminal and sent a message to Li Bai after entering the room Zhang Zitao had arranged for him. "The system has instilled a lot of information into me, and my mind was very confused when I first woke up. Don't be angry."

After a pause, she sent another, "I saw you in those messages."

She thought Li Bai would be interested in the second piece of information, since it concerned her. However, Li Bai's perceptiveness always exceeded Yang Jia's expectations. "Did the system proactively give you this information?"

Yang Jia was helpless. She had only said the word "be" and Li Bai immediately realized the key point. That was it, so she had to sort it out before speaking to Li Bai, otherwise she would lose her mind mid-sentence.

"It's hard to explain in a few words. Let me sort out all this messy information and then we can talk about it when we meet." Yang Jia typed the sentence word by word, and finally added four words at the end, "I miss you very much."