Chapter 100 Interval
The car gradually accelerated, occasionally brushing past people coming from the opposite direction.
The church district was quiet and peaceful, a world apart from the recently collapsed church, and completely different from the new place itself.
Shu Ningmiao sat in the back of Alan's car, staring wide-eyed at the serval that jumped up again.
Allen dropped her off at the entrance to the church area, and Shu Ningmiao said goodbye.
The young man didn't leave. He leaned over, a slight smile on his face, and asked her in a low voice if she wanted to add his contact information.
So that's what he was planning. I didn't expect him to be so cunning, even going after nuns.
Shu Ningmiao didn't mind his advances. It just so happened that coming from Penelope City to the new land was too troublesome, and he seemed to be very well-informed.
Shu Ningmiao asked, "Do you have a pen?"
Allen's eyebrows twitched, and he didn't react for a moment. After a while, he rummaged in his uniform pocket and pulled out an old fountain pen: "I really do have one. I just picked it up from the bushes."
He searched his pockets again, both inside and out.
"But... it seems there's no paper."
Shu Ningmiao took the pen, uncapped it, flipped the nib between her two fingers, and tapped the back of his hand, indicating that he should open his palm.
“I didn’t bring my terminal.” Shu Ningmiao wrote a string of words in his palm: “Add me when you have time.”
The nib of the pen grazed his skin, pricking his palm and causing a slight itch.
Allen opened his hand and then clenched it again, his eyes gleaming: "Remember to call me next time you run into trouble."
Shu Ningmiao neither said yes nor no. She stood there and watched him leave before raising her hand to her brow.
She memorized the route she took back and forth.
Once the barrier disappears, the people of Pines will come looking for us immediately, and the new land will become even more chaotic.
She needs to find Liang Siyan and quickly use the teleportation item to return to the main capital.
After Achini's death, Pigne's security order should be lifted, and before long, everyone will forget about this month-long episode.
But she still has a lot to face.
——
The barrier surrounding the abandoned church, like a popped soap bubble, shattered in an instant.
Erice huddled in the corner, hugging her knees, looking up at the broken light streaming down from the collapsed ceiling.
Shu Ningmiao didn't know whether Wei Shengqianheng was dead or alive, and she didn't dare to go close to check his breathing.
If it really is a corpse, how long will she have to stay in the same room with a corpse?
The surroundings were too quiet, and all sorts of random thoughts began to pop into Erice's mind.
She was starting to miss the orphanage and her nun mother. A belated longing for life welled up inside her, and she couldn't believe she had made that decision before; it was as if she were possessed.
Eric didn't want to die, nor did he want to save the world.
She wanted to sit in front of her mother and have a sip of soup. It might not taste as good as the soup in the Cornunos canteen; it had too much water in it and wasn't sweet, but it was piping hot and warmed her stomach.
The warmth of the stone slab pressed against her back, clearing her mind for a moment before she felt sad again.
Among so many people, she is the only survivor. What kind of story can she tell to cover up the past without exposing Shu Ningmiao?
The barrier above shattered too quickly. Erie felt she wasn't prepared at all. In just a few seconds, she sensed someone stepping into the ruins.
The expected uproar did not materialize; there were no troops, helicopters, or rescue teams as she had imagined.
There was nothing there, and the surroundings were even quieter than before.
There was only one tall and upright figure.
Just a few meters away from her in the church, the man stood beneath the collapsed, intersecting beams; Erice didn't even know when he had appeared there.
Is there only one person?
In the boundless silence, the figure was backlit, making his face indistinct. A strong halo enveloped his head, making him appear so unreal.
The shadow cast on the ground stretched longer and longer. Erici warily turned his gaze to the person. If it was someone from Pine who came, why was there only one person?
As the light shifted, Ericson saw that the man was wearing a sharp and neat standard military uniform, with a slender waist and a few uneven strands of black, medium-length straight hair hanging into his collar.
He seemed in no hurry to save her, and he was also uninterested in the ruins in front of him. After staring at them for a moment, he casually looked away.
Yet, this man, whose posture exuded a bland and indifferent air, carried a sword almost as tall as her on his back, hanging behind his straight and slender legs, making him all the more unsettling.
Erice squinted, trying to see more details, but the black metal mask obscured the man's eyes and brows, leaving only the pale, thin corners of his lips visible.
Looking at him now, this person seemed to be only in his twenties or thirties, which was quite different from what she had imagined.
The footsteps grew louder as they approached, crunching over loose pebbles, and the owner of the boots stopped a few steps in front of her.
Behind the black mask, the man's gaze was slightly lowered. Eric noticed that his eyes were light blue, like the water of a lake in a deserted area, revealing a calm and gentle emotion.
Perhaps it was his aura and demeanor that made her vaguely certain that this person belonged to the military.
His aura was neither as frightening as Achini's, nor as strange as Wei Shengqianheng's; it was even refreshing and calming.
A man with a Pinheid chain hanging from his coat would never do anything to her.
But for some reason, her body stiffened slightly involuntarily.
Eric lowered his head and noticed that he didn't speak first. He could only maintain his stiff leg-hugging position and slowly raise his eyes to try to observe what he was doing.
I didn't see anything.
This person's legs are way too long. Eric clenched his fists and could only look up.
The man looked down at her, his clear blue eyes softening his overly cold expression, though this softening still carried a hint of chill.
He curled his index finger slightly, gently twirling a familiar pearl earring.
The round, white pearls rolled on the pure black gloves, the stark contrast between black and white making them particularly striking.
The moment Eric saw it clearly, his heart skipped a beat, and his mind went blank.
These are Shu Ningmiao's earrings.
She immediately recognized where the earring came from. Erice never paid attention to these things, but she remembered that Shu Ningmiao would wear such jewelry.
calm.
The person in front of her wouldn't recognize Shu Ningmiao, so she didn't need to be nervous. Only she knew that these were Shu Ningmiao's earrings, and no one would drag others into this because of an earring.
Erice bit her lip, trying to control her expression so as not to reveal anything unusual, and after a long while she finally spoke: "These are my... my earrings."
She reached out her hand, trembling, wanting the man to hand her the earring.
She was unaware of how clumsy and flawed her expression was; a quick glance would reveal that there were no traces of ear piercings on her ears.
The man seemed not to hear her words; his well-proportioned fingers slowly tightened, enveloping the small pearl.
“You are a student of Cornunos.” He lowered his eyes, his gaze as calm as the sea, his tone clearer and gentler than she had imagined: “What happened?”
He didn't actually need Eric's answer; the instrument hanging by his ear had already scanned the entire ruins.
There are remnants of Achini's supernatural energy fluctuations, but not many. Most of the leaked energy comes from underground, and there seems to be a small Pandora's Well.
The only living person here is the girl in front of me.
The latest news from the Union Building is that all the abnormal fluctuations in the Pandora's Springs have suddenly returned to normal, the detection of the other party's interference has failed, and it can be determined that Achini is dead.
Official media, rescue teams, and the police are on their way, waiting to gather firsthand information.
Shu Changyan looked at the girl in front of him and listened to her rambling account of the whole story.
After the deaths of the other three kidnapped classmates, it was all a lie.
Erice had finally managed to weave a reasonably coherent story, and stared intently at his hand hanging by his side, hoping that he would return the earring to her so that she could destroy the evidence.
The man merely glanced at her indifferently, his tone calm yet authoritative: "If anyone asks you, tell them you don't know what happened, you just saw me. Don't say anything else besides those two things."
Eric was startled, and his whole body suddenly felt cold.
The man lifted his foot away from the ruins, never intending to give her the earring; he carefully held it in his hand.
“Apply to the police department for post-traumatic stress disorder and a psychologist; they will not conduct a memory review on you.”
He turned his head and spoke, his tone still indifferent, revealing no emotion whatsoever: "I've remembered."
——
Shu Ningmiao talked with Liang Siyan, took the last few teleportation items, teleported back to Pinnie, and then climbed back to the third floor of the medical center by hand through the pipes.
Arsia had been sitting by the window waiting for her, her eyes crinkling with a smile, as if admiring her agility.
When Shu Ningmiao landed safely, Arsia seemed even happier than her. She pushed the wheelchair over and, without minding Shu Ningmiao's disheveled state, gently hugged her.
The little girl's head rested against her chest, and Shu Ningmiao could smell the rose shower gel on her body.
Shu Ningmiao felt like she was covered in dirt, like a walking pile of trash, and patted her arm: "Are you alright?"
"It's alright." Arcia blinked. "Nobody noticed at all, don't worry!"
Arsia's ward was of a higher standard and had a private bathroom. After taking a shower and changing into clean clothes in her ward, Shu Ningmiao finally felt less tense.
She raised her hand and touched her earlobe. One of her earlobes was missing a pearl earring, probably because she had taken it off and put it back on in such a hurry that it had loosened and fallen off.
Although it's very likely that it fell into the ruins, she can't risk continuing the search for it. It's okay, it's just an earring. Even if it's found, she can think of countless reasons to refute it.
Wearing just one was too strange, so she simply put the rest away, wondering if Weston would get angry if she asked him to make her another one.
Arsia propped her chin on her hand, watched her come out, and smiled gently: "I think you're like a great hero."
"Why?"
Shu Ningmiao stretched her arms, and Arsiya turned on the projector, which was broadcasting the news, with the host unable to hide his excitement.
The theme is "The red clouds threatening the Phineas have finally dissipated; heroes will forever protect the peace of Phineas."
As the crowd gathered outside the interview area, a girl even screamed, "Lord Zhao—"
The silver-haired man in the lens was debonair, his smile remaining unchanged under countless flashing lenses. Only the two red highlights stood out, just as Shu Changyan had said, like tendrils swaying on his head.
Shu Ningmiao curved her lips into a smile, but when she thought of Shu Changyan, the smile quickly faded.
Using the power outlet in Arsya's hospital room, she plugged in her terminal to charge.
The screen lit up, and countless message notifications popped up, instantly filling the entire screen.
Many classmates and friends sent her greetings, asking why she went to the medical center and how she was feeling.
Shu's father made more than a dozen missed calls. The most recent message was from ten minutes ago, in a gentle tone, telling her to go home and check on things. She casually swiped up the message.
Shi Yu sent her a question mark every two days, as if to confirm whether she was alive or dead.
Linlu asked her if she knew anything about Eric.
You An also tried calling her on his terminal. Although she didn't reply, he still sent her messages telling her about some major events that had happened on campus.
To her surprise, there was a message from Weston in the terminal.
He only said he would come to the clinic and ask her what she needed.
He didn't send a second message after not receiving a reply from her.
Knowing that he might be coming to see Arsiya and that they would most likely run into each other, Shu Ningmiao simply didn't reply.
A friend request popped up in her contacts, the name was ALAN, she accepted it, and a greeting immediately appeared on the other end: Hello, Sister Sister, I am ALAN.
Shu Ningmiao temporarily put the message aside and unconsciously scrolled to the bottom, her gaze fixed on the chat box between her and "03," where there were no new messages.
Shu Changyan.
She gritted her teeth, his words echoing in her mind—Shu Changyan had dreamed of her, and there was no one else in his dreams but her.
In other words, both Achini and he appeared around the time of her death in her previous life.
If Pigne didn't want her, who knew too much, to live, then the person who did it...
Why couldn't the person who took action be Shu Changyan?
She clenched her fists inch by inch.
After she died in the previous game, Shu Changyan clearly watched her die, so why did he disappear without a trace?
Shu Ningmiao knew that her idea was somewhat of a misplaced anger, but it was different. The irritation in her heart gradually rose up, subtle and clear. She closed her eyes and simply stopped and deleted his message completely.
Arcia turned her wheelchair behind her, holding a new bouquet of roses in her hands, which Shu Ningmiao had bought for her outside before climbing up: "Miaomiao, what's wrong?"
Shu Ningmiao shook her head and said, "It's nothing."
She exited the message interface and reopened the long-forgotten game in the terminal.
The title "Secret Love" popped up, and the tower of Cornunos on the cover remained the same, but all the text on the title began to crumble, densely packed with black squares of varying sizes.
The game's system was nowhere to be found; it remained silent, without any dialog boxes appearing.
Using her memory, she navigated to the page with the characters in the strategy section and saw that among the five interlaced character frames, Su Ni's smiling portrait had turned gray.
The favorability rating and name under Su Ni's gray frame have all turned into gibberish.
Only the text in her "personal information" is correct.
However, that ridiculous character profile has disappeared, leaving a large blank space, as if reflecting her unbridled and unknown fate after she broke free from her original destiny.
Shu Ningmiao placed her fingertip on the ability section of her character information. The status of her ability "Absurd Original Sin" only had one conspicuous "Jealousy" on it, which symbolized that she had taken Edvina's ability, but nothing else.
After awakening her superpower, she looked at the "arrogance" that came with it every day, but never felt that she was arrogant.
The more ignorant she is, the more arrogant she becomes. When she is content with her status, she can even use an arrogant title as a humble opening line.
Shu Ningmiao stared at the screen in front of her, gazing blankly at the empty suffix after "superpower" for a long time.
When she truly realized her arrogance.
Arrogance, however, has disappeared.
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