Chapter 13 The Gray Dome 13 "I cannot ignore their deaths..."
When Zhang Chuxi rushed into the ward, Nanmen Jue had already sat up. She was leaning against the headboard, scrolling through something on the screen of her wristband.
“Nanmen! Thank goodness, you’re really alright.” Zhang Chuxi rushed to the bedside. “I was terrified when I saw it on the big screen.”
Nanmen Jue stopped what she was doing. With a tube still inserted in her nose, her voice was muffled: "What big screen?"
“By the way, you haven’t been to that area.” Zhang Chuxi looked at her with a very subtle gaze. “This tower is huge, as big as an entire city. There’s a public square on the ground floor that everyone can go to. There’s a curtain hanging in the square that shows the view outside the tower in real time.”
Nanmen Jue: "..."
She really didn't expect this.
“When the alarm went off earlier, many people didn’t have time to go home and were gathered there, so your rescue efforts were broadcast live.” Zhang Chuxi’s expression became even more subtle. “Everyone was stunned…”
Nanmen Jue was also stunned.
She now understood what Lin Suwen meant when she said her situation was delicate.
"...Why did you do that?"
Nanmen Jue looked at Zhang Chuxi, who had asked the question. The latter seemed less impressed and more puzzled, as if she were looking at an incomprehensible being.
She lowered her voice, "Only we know that this world is fake, unreal, like a virtual game... but when you die here, you really die! How dare you risk it all for a bunch of data?"
She suddenly remembered something, "You know that if you die in this space, you really will die, right?"
Nanmen Jue put down the bracelet. She appeared to be looking at Zhang Chuxi, but in reality, she was looking through her at a point in the void.
She saw again the battlefield strewn with corpses.
“Ding Zihao is dead,” she said.
"who?"
“Ding Zihao, one of the two remaining reincarnators we didn’t see,” Nanmen Jue said. “He was torn apart from the top of his head, his entire body split in two. Did you see him?”
Zhang Chuxi's expression changed; clearly, she had indeed seen this scene on the screen and remembered it vividly.
"That, that is..."
“That’s right, that was a reincarnator.” Nanmen Jue focused on her face. “He died right in front of me, like a sausage that had been gnawed in half, with his internal organs and intestines spilling out all over the ground.”
Zhang Chuxi looked like she was about to vomit. She held it in and said with a slightly pale face, "I have never seen a reincarnator die in front of me. When I saw them before, they were already corpses."
Nanmen Jue chuckled softly, and Zhang Chuxi looked at her with almost horrified eyes.
“In this world, we will starve, we will feel pain, we will die, so how is this different from the real world?” Nanmen Jue said. “I cannot ignore their deaths, even if they are just NPCs.”
Zhang Chuxi fell silent.
Nanmen Jue picked up the bracelet again, his tone casual, "By the way, have you ever heard of any items that can conceal a reincarnator's identity?"
"Hide your reincarnation identity?" Zhang Chuxi said. "Does that mean hide your name information so it doesn't show up above your head?"
"uh-huh."
Zhang Chuxi lowered her eyes and thought for a moment, "I haven't heard of it. Who do you suspect is a reincarnator?"
Nanmen Jue nodded thoughtfully. "Let me observe for a while longer before making a decision. Here, take a look at this first."
Zhang Chuxi leaned closer curiously. "What?"
“After realizing that the cycle of reincarnation was more realistic than I had imagined, I became interested in the world itself,” Nanmenjue said. “I wanted to see how far the main god could fabricate world history.”
On the screen of Nanmen Jue's bracelet are history books of this world.
Paper documents are extremely rare in the post-apocalyptic era; most exist in electronic form. Nanmenjue has high access privileges and can access most of the information within the tower.
Whenever they enter a new world, the understanding of the written language is implanted in the reincarnator's brain, so there is no obstacle to reading. Zhang Chuxi looked at it and her expression was a little stunned.
"This world... has only been in the apocalypse for less than three hundred years?"
“Two hundred and eighty-seven years ago, the world entered the apocalypse because of a global nuclear war.” Nanmen Jue stroked his chin. “But strangely, having such a clear timeline means that the inheritance has no ribbon. However, there is no trace of the world before the nuclear war, as if a giant hand wiped it away out of thin air.”
Zhang Chuxi was a little confused. "Perhaps the main god didn't construct the worldview before the apocalypse?"
"Yeah?"
Nanmen Jue's voice was intriguing, which puzzled Zhang Chuxi.
Is there... something wrong?
"It's nothing, maybe I'm overthinking it." Nanmen Jue looked thoughtfully at his bracelet again. "Have you eaten? I'm starving."
She changed the subject, and Zhang Chuxi didn't dwell on the strange question. She wore a complicated expression.
"I've eaten the food here, and well... it's good that I'm alive."
“It’s not surprising at all,” Nanmen Jue said. Hearing this, she immediately gave up her already meager hopes.
In a post-apocalyptic world where survival is a struggle, how much effort can one possibly put into researching cuisine? Nanmen Jue prides himself on being a reasonable person; how could he make such an rude request?
However, she was really hungry. The reason she hadn't fainted yet was because of the nutrition injection in the back of her hand. But the nutrition injection could provide energy but not fill her stomach, so she pressed the call button and asked someone to bring her some food.
Even though he had mentally prepared himself, he still fell silent when Nanmenjue picked up a piece of dry bread that probably needed a saw to cut it open with two fingers.
"Are you eating this too?" she asked Zhang Chuxi.
Zhang Chuxi's eyes even showed a hint of envy. "No, this seems to be white bread that only high-ranking people can eat. Our food is mashed potatoes and some meat and vegetable stew."
Nanmen Jue fell even more silent. She thought that in this era, there was no transportation chain. Even if this tower was quite large, relying on the tower to produce and sell its own products would be very limited. Being able to eat white bread would already be a blessing.
She calmed herself down and took a bite of the white bread, but the disgust on her face was obvious.
It was already evening, and Nanmen Jue had someone add a folding bed to the ward so Zhang Chuxi could sleep there that night.
After the lights were turned off, only the hum of the machines remained in the ward. Both of them were silent. Nanmen Jue was still scrolling through the contents of his wristband, while Zhang Chuxi stared at the ceiling, lost in thought.
Zhang Chuxi suddenly said, "It's unbelievable. Tonight is the least frightening night I've had since entering the cycle of reincarnation."
Nanmen Jue gave a perfunctory "hmm" through his nose.
Zhang Chuxi rolled over, lying on her side facing her. She looked at Nanmen Jue's handsome and sharp features reflected in the dim light of the bracelet, and said, "Are you really only eighteen years old?"
“Yes, he’s a first-year medical student, and his academic background is verifiable,” Nanmenjue said.
Zhang Chuxi was silent for a moment, then murmured, "It still feels unbelievable... You are only eighteen years old, and this is your first time entering the apocalypse, but the way you acted was as if you had experienced many such cruel worlds before. I have only seen this kind of composure in Sister Terra."
"Terra?" Nanmenjue looked up at her. "Is it related to the iron drill on your head?"
“…Yes.” Zhang Chuxi was somewhat surprised by her quick reaction, but then she thought that it was not abrupt at all when applied to Nanmen Jue, so she felt relieved. “Sister Terra is the leader of Iron Drill, and she is also the person I met in the first world. If it weren’t for her, I would have died in the first world.”
Nanmen Jue became interested. "What kind of apocalypse was your first world?"
“It was a high-temperature apocalypse.” Zhang Chuxi recalled something terrifying, and shivered. She shrank into the blankets, leaving only her eyes showing as she looked at Nanmen Jue. “The highest temperature in the world reached 150 degrees Celsius… But luckily, when we entered the world, the apocalypse had just broken out, and the temperature was only around 40 degrees Celsius. The temperature rose little by little.”
Nanmen Jue pondered how she would survive if she were to enter such a world, and casually replied to her, "Your boss sounds like a good person."
“Tara is the best person!” Her voice suddenly rose and then fell back down. “Of course, you are a good person too. Although you… dared to kill people as soon as you arrived, you also save people. You save me and NPCs. Even Terra wouldn’t give up her own life to save NPCs.”
In the darkness, she looked at Nanmen Jue with a complex mix of emotions. Many images of Nanmen Jue flashed through her mind: weak, strong, fierce eyes and arrogant laughter during battle, the resolute look when he raised his gun... and now, in the dim light, his almost gentle calm.
Of course, she knew that Nanmen Jue was not a weak person; it was just that her beauty was too dazzling. When she did not reveal anything, her appearance was the most deceptive thing.
A good person?
A sinister glint flashed in Nanmen Jue's eyes. "There aren't many people who would call me a good person."
Zhang Chuxi was stunned and was about to say something, but Nanmen Jue shook her head. She didn't care whether she was considered a good person or a bad person. Even if Zhang Chuxi pointed at her nose and called her a villainous murderer, she wouldn't spare a second glance.
"If we survive and make it through this world, would you like to join Iron Drill?" Zhang Chuxi looked at her with a hint of hope. "I joined late, and during the transition period I didn't go back to the guild because of some things, so I don't know much about our guild yet. But we are a guild that only accepts women, and Sister Terra is a really, really good person. She will definitely like you."
Upon hearing about the all-female guild, Nanmen Jue looked up and gave her a serious look. Zhang Chuxi met her gaze, her eyes clear and bright, with a blush of excitement on her face.
“Okay,” Nanmen Jue said. “You can introduce me to someone then, so I can get on their good side.”
Zhang Chuxi was amused and whispered, "Look who's hugging whom, really."
She fell asleep with a hopeful smile, as if dreaming of Nanmen Jue joining the guild and the scene of them fighting to survive in the apocalypse together. That smile lingered on her lips and never disappeared.
A note from the author:
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