Chapter 344: Ring “So Xiaoqin is the best.”
It is rare for an organization to issue such a large-scale wanted order.
The idle members were excited because participating in the capture operation would earn them points based on their contribution. Points could be exchanged for a variety of things, including cash, on the organization's intranet and were the organization's hard currency.
They shared information in the organization's public channel and worked together to track Scotland. It was very passionate, but Gin was living a peaceful life - if you ignored the gun case on his back, he and Lin Xi looked more like travelers out for a walk.
Lin Xi, wearing a black cape, took him to the roadside to buy ice cream cones.
Gin couldn't quite understand why someone who shivered in the cold wind had to eat ice hockey when the temperature dropped.
Or a roadside stall.
Lin Xi argued, "Actually, there's no direct connection between eating ice cream and catching a cold. ...How about you have some too?"
Gin wanted to refuse, but the ice ball in Lin Xi's hand was a combination of strawberry and orange. The mixture reminded people of the sunset in the sky, and it also looked like the color of Lin Xi's newly dyed, overly lively hair.
So he stretched out his hand as if possessed by a ghost, with a certain condescending attitude.
The ice cream was a bit too sweet, and Gin could smell the cheap ingredients from the street vendor—the flavors of strawberry and orange. Lin Xi, however, ate it with gusto and shared a gelato recipe with him.
The ingredients are simple: milk, cream, and sugar. By adding various ingredients like vanilla, matcha, chocolate, and various jams/fresh fruits, you can create ice cream of all flavors.
Lin Xi is a master of description. Her descriptions convey a subtle sense of happiness, as if she were inherently joyful and content in the things she did, and sincerely hopes that her audience can also sense her happiness. The perfectly balanced aroma of milk, the mellow and bitter flavors, and the sweet fragrance of seasonal fruits seem truly palpable through her descriptions.
——Even the cheap ice hockey in his mouth has become more advanced.
They found a shady spot and stood by the road, one tall and one short, eating ice hockey. Two gunshots were heard in the distance. Gin turned to look at Lin Xi, who freed her hand and grabbed his sleeve.
Gin felt dizzy - actually it was just a feeling of dizziness, and for a moment he felt weightless and ground to the ground, but he was actually standing still.
"Scotland just died." Lin Xi released his hand, licked his ice cream, and explained, "My other self reset the time. It should be three o'clock in the afternoon now. Everything has returned to its previous time, except me, and you who are with me."
It was already past four o'clock when they came.
Gin looked up at the sky. The sun was indeed higher than before, its brilliant rays scorching the ground mercilessly, but the heat was no match for the cool breeze that had arrived with the change in season.
"Was it Madera who arranged for the murder of Scotland? What side effects does resetting time have on you?"
He was very smart and quickly figured out the real purpose of Madera issuing the wanted order: he didn't want Scotland to die, but wanted Lin Xi to reset time.
"Yes and no... We seem to be playing turtle soup," Lin Xi said. "Scotland was going to die anyway. That was his 'fate.' The destined 'result' cannot be changed, so Scotland had no choice but to die. Madeira simply took advantage of this to get Scotland to approach me and develop feelings for me."
"Constantly resetting time in such a short period of time is detrimental to my mental health. I'm a paranoid person with a strong rebellious streak. The initial reset may have been to keep Scotland alive, but by the end, the rescue operation became a battle between me and 'fate'. I wanted to defeat it no matter what, and I paid a heavy price for it."
"What does Madeira want to do to you?" Gin's sharp teeth crushed the remaining ice cream cone and put it into his mouth.
The way he ate was somewhere between ferocious and elegant, with animality mixed into disciplined etiquette, a contradictory kind of elegance and cruelty.
Others might be scared of him like this, and imagine him gnawing on human skulls and sucking human flesh and blood, but Lin Xi knew that he was just in a daze.
When he first came out of the lab, he had a habit of wolfing down his food, as if eating was just a necessary process for absorbing energy, and there was no need to pursue anything other than efficiency. It was Lin Xi who slowly taught him table manners and helped him learn to enjoy food.
However, those instincts were still engraved in his bones, and would occasionally come out unconsciously, like now - Gin must be brainstorming about her and Madera.
Lin Xi thought it was cute: "Don't think about it, just think of him as a pervert who wants to kill me but doesn't want me to get hurt."
From an outsider's perspective, isn't Karasuma Renya a pervert?
But Lin Xi found him surprisingly pure—purely paranoid, single-minded, and foolish. After over four thousand reincarnations, how could he not learn to adapt? He was so obsessed with the idea that the villain would inevitably die that he couldn't even think of changing his behavior and persona to escape that villain status.
The air pressure around Gin dropped slightly.
Lin Xi quickly comforted him: "Hold on, don't shoot him, it's not his time to die yet."
"Do you have something on him?" He frowned.
"He's in another me," Lin Xi said quickly. "You can think of his existence as a virus, infecting the host to survive. To eliminate him, we must first eliminate the other infected bodies."
"So, your solution is to create a new body and destroy the original one." Gin looked at her overly weak body with understanding. "This is your new body."
Lin Xi gave him a thumbs up: "Xiaoqin, communicating with you is so easy."
Gin's phone vibrated.
He took out his cell phone from his pocket, turned on the screen, and showed it to Lin Xi.
"The other you sent a message in the group." he said.
Punch ordered the peripheral members to evacuate, and she wanted to deal with the undercover agent personally.
"Soft-hearted," he commented calmly, "Even if you don't care about his stance, he deceived you, used you, and ultimately, hurt you."
"You could have asked me for help. At least I would have helped you."
Lin Xi tilted her head: "Are you angry?"
Green eyes glanced at her coldly.
Lin Xi sighed.
At the time, she didn't understand and thought Gin was angry because she was protecting the undercover agent. The original plot had given her a stereotype, making her think Gin was a sharp knife who admired the strong, so she subconsciously feared exposing her vulnerable side to him. After all, a sharp weapon can easily injure the wielder if handled improperly.
Besides, she also believed that Gin was absolutely loyal to the organization, and anything that was detrimental to the organization—such as the rats that had infiltrated the organization, and the boss who was soft on the rats—was a target that needed to be dealt with. So at the time, she didn't want Gin to get involved, but she didn't realize that covering up made her appear weaker.
It was much later that she understood the true meaning of the loyalty written on Gin's character panel—that loyalty without an object. The object was neither the organization nor her, but Gin himself. From beginning to end, this man lived solely according to his own will, making choices based solely on his own needs and judgment—not on circumstances or positions.
So why not trust him a little more?
"I later asked you for help," Lin Xi said. "I ordered you to kill me."
Gin suddenly turned his head and clenched his bony hands.
"So, it was my future self who destroyed your original body," he said slowly. "What are you trying to tell me now that you're saying this?"
He looked at Lin Xi, the emotion in his eyes was unclear, and he seemed somewhat calm.
Through the deep green pools, Lin Xi recalled the afternoon long ago when he taught Gin physical training in the villa, the light dust rising from the basement and the smell of gunpowder next to the shooting range.
Only during that time could one clearly sense the passage of time on Gin. With ample nutrition and sunlight, the boy grew like wild grass in a field, each day more mature than the day before. Yet, his features were forever sealed in his youth, like an insect encased in amber, swirling through time without a trace.
However, just because it's not visible doesn't mean we should ignore this time. Every time he sees her, Gin has to travel through a long time. Does this time really mean anything to him? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but the undeniable fact is that no matter how the world changes, he has indeed always been there, waiting for her, where she can see him if she turns around.
"I want to say that you are the person I trust the most," she said.
It’s not because of the cold word “loyalty” on the system panel, but because... in every time and space, only in front of Gin does Lin Xi need to not pretend.
Even though she knew this was just a novel, Lin Xi was no longer willing to generalize anyone in this world with a flat character. Because at some point, she saw the truth of herself in their eyes.
"Also, I didn't know if I could survive." She smiled faintly. "So from the beginning, I said: Only you can kill me. If this story ends here, then the Bading Ending should also be created by you."
Not Karasuma Renya.
Gin pursed his lips: "You're still alive."
Still alive and appearing with a different face meant that they had succeeded - they had helped her do what she wanted to do.
"That's right." Lin Xi smiled widely, "That's why Xiaoqin is the best."
"...Leave that childish tone of yours to others." Gin turned his head. "When is the next reset?"
"Almost there." Lin Xi licked her ice cream. "This time it should be faster than last time, because Scotland shot himself this time."
"A wise choice." Gin commented coldly, "Before you die, you'd better clean up your tail, otherwise he won't be the only one to die."
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