Chapter 73 Guide 1
“You know what I mean.” Deng Ning’s smile faded. “These things, taken out of the public eye, are enough to fabricate a melodramatic but believable story—you and Zhu Can fell in love in your youth but eventually separated. Unable to forget your past love, you used the beloved General Shen as a substitute, yet you resented his silence occupying the sacred position of lover and partner. One day, unable to bear it any longer, you poisoned Shen’s bowl. You killed your troublesome husband, obtained a considerable inheritance, and perhaps later used the money to search for your youthful lover… How does this story sound?”
Lu Xuejin's calm expression finally changed; her eyes widened as she glared angrily at Deng Ning.
Deng Ning was practically enjoying the moment.
"The Shen family has even more of these things—do you think they haven't investigated you? Between the already dead Chen Mo and the still young and promising Shen Yuncheng, I believe most people wouldn't hesitate—to protect Shen Yuncheng, who would be the one pushed forward to take the blame?"
Deng Ning sighed, "Lu Xuejin, you're just waiting to die now."
Lu Xuejin retorted sarcastically, "Do you think the capital will let me off the hook?"
The capital's covetousness of the border is obvious, and the best ending for the partner of a renowned border lord is to die with her husband.
Deng Ning straightened his back and said earnestly, "As long as you follow my instructions, I guarantee you will have a safe, secure, happy, and prosperous future."
He observed Lu Xuejin's expression and added another bombshell: "Moreover, is General Shen's death really unrelated to Shen Yuncheng? Your husband died as soon as he returned from university."
"Shen Yuncheng is taking such good care of you, who knows what he's up to? Mr. Lu, if I wanted to frame you, I would have submitted this evidence to the judicial office long ago, and there would be no need for me to persuade you again and again."
Lu Xuejin tilted her head with a half-smile: "Commander Deng is so kind."
Dunning sighed: "I just don't want to see an innocent person get caught up in a struggle and be torn to pieces."
The head of the law enforcement agency had a pair of amber eyes that seemed to burn in the morning light, radiating a sincere warmth.
“Trust me,” he said again.
Lu Xuejin smiled at him, and the next second she said weakly but firmly, "You should go. Yuncheng is a good boy. Even if he doesn't like his older brother, he would never lay a hand on his family."
Yeah?
Deng Ning stood silently in front of the closed door for a moment, touched the tip of his nose, and as soon as he turned around, his feet were rooted to the spot.
A few steps away, Shen Yuncheng stood quietly, the cheerful smile that usually graced his lips completely gone, his lips taut and straight, his eyes dark and filled with the violence of his youth.
Deng Ning's deliberately relaxed posture instantly tightened, like an invisible bow being fully drawn, with taut muscle lines subtly bulging beneath the loose denim jacket.
Ten minutes later, Shen Yuncheng pushed open the door, returned with a smile, carrying a bag of fresh fruits, and said cheerfully, "Let's have something nice for dinner tonight."
As if he hadn't heard that unwavering trust from behind the door, nor noticed any trace of the outsider, Shen Yuncheng continued to take care of Lu Xuejin's daily life as usual. He moved the manuscripts from the old house to the villa, and every night after putting Lu Xuejin to sleep, he would quietly go downstairs, turn on the desk lamp, and begin working at his desk.
He trusts me.
Shen Yuncheng felt a tingling sensation in his heart.
Lu Xuejin always sees the good in others and never makes malicious assumptions about them. Even when dealing with the aggressive and scheming Deng Ning, she would at most give him a cold look.
He trusted his elder brother implicitly, trusting that he would protect him and the family. But his elder brother died just like that, and the bastards in the capital even set their sights on his innocent wife.
If only he were...
Shen Yuncheng couldn't help but think about that possibility—if he hadn't left the border, would he have been the one who met Lu Xuejin, fell in love with her, and got married?
Gazing at Lu Xuejin's slender back, Shen Yuncheng suddenly lost control of his emotions, which surged and echoed, causing him to call out to her uncontrollably.
"What's wrong?" The young man turned around, his well-defined fingers holding the showerhead handle, which seemed almost transparent in the sunlight.
He and Shen Mo raised several potted plants together, and even when they were at their lowest point, they never forgot to water them.
As if a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head, his impulsiveness suddenly cooled, and Shen Yuncheng's lips parted and closed, but he couldn't utter a word for a long time.
Lu Xuejin assumed he was exhausted from the complicated affairs and said with concern, "Get some rest early today. You've been working so hard for us these past few days, it's been too tiring."
……"us".
Silence died long ago, brother.
Shen Yuncheng nodded blankly, then staggered and fell onto the sofa.
Lu Xue went upstairs, looking rather uninterested: "Let's go to the next world. I suddenly miss him a lot."
...
puff--
A fair and soft hand dips into the pool water, the surface of which is exceptionally clear and sparkles under the direct sunlight, as if a pool of tiny diamonds has been laid out, reflecting the dancing light spots onto the mottled walls around it and the broken statue in the center.
A handful of water, scooped in the palm of my hand and gently swayed, was clear and bright, reflecting a pair of blurry, soft blue eyes.
Lu Xuejin was barefoot, the bricks beneath his feet were cold and smooth, the water was up to his ankles, and with each slight movement he swayed, it brought a cool, ticklish sensation.
Amidst the shimmering waves where water and light meet, the angel statue stands silently.
It had lost its head and half a wing, and the remaining wings were covered in cracks. But its body leaned slightly forward, and one arm was raised powerfully, gripping a straight stone halberd, as if it would come to life at any moment and solemnly slay the evil in the world.
On a few rows of simple wooden benches, a red-haired woman sat casually, her eagle-like eyes fixed on the boy who kept bending over to scoop water: "Do a good job. Since you live in the church, you should do your part for our church."
She said flippantly, "You're young and beautiful, with clear eyes; you'd be perfect as a shepherd boy."
“Madam, I am sixteen years old, no longer a child,” Lu Xuejin calmly corrected.
The overseer hummed a broken tune, glancing back at the church's main entrance. Four towering figures guarded the entrance, patrolling back and forth, with one always intently watching the boy inside. An hour ago, it was the mercenary leader, a tall, composed man with an unsettling, sinister gaze; now, a new face, his eyes defiant and arrogant, clearly just a greenhorn.
Sally was annoyed no matter who it was. Not only because of their extremely wary demeanor, as if she could rape Lu Xuejin on the spot; but also because, as a fellow Sentinel, even though she was now disabled, she always felt a strong aversion to the approach of her fellow Sentinels.
Sally scoffed and said, "They really do treat you like the apple of their eye, watching you closely as if I could run away with you in the blink of an eye."
After grumbling for a while, he finally said something more reasonable: "However, you're only safe in this area if there's a pack of wild dogs guarding you."
The angel statue was spotless, and it is said that this washing was for the cleansing of the "spirit." Therefore, the children to be washed were to be young children with clear minds, bright eyes, and pure thoughts. However, this church did not have a priest, nor could it find a clean child who had been cleansed by the Holy Spirit from childhood. So, Lu Xuejin had to take on the role.
Silently counting to the thirty-third, Lu Xuejin watched as the transparent, shimmering liquid flowed down the hideous cracks at the severed head.
This is a world dominated by powerful humans.
With the emergence of the first Sentinel, more and more ordinary people awaken to become Sentinels or Guides, altering the world order. This is accompanied by the appearance of unexplained pollutants and increasingly scarce resources.
Conflict has eroded the order of civilization. The past century has been marked by the melody of war, with blood and fire singing the funeral songs of nations. Major powers have come and gone, until now, the Holy Spirit Federation, as the last behemoth, occupies the most extensive safe zone.
Four months ago, Lu Xuejin entered this world. Dong Yao claimed that since there was no special need for the plot, he did not specifically create an identity for him, but used a miniature version of Lu Xuejin's real body—he landed in a desolate hilly area in the state of a sixteen-year-old. Before he could ask about the plot, he was discovered by a team of valiant patrol mercenaries and taken back to the Yaqiao Dark Zone.
The source of the pollutants is unverifiable. Due to their strong corrosive properties, they are hated by all forces. Infected humans are no longer human beings, but pollutants that need to be "cleaned up." They will corrode resources and consume human survival capital.
Currently, most of the area is occupied by pollutants. The Holy Spirit Federation controls the safe zone, while the area in between is the Dark Zone—a paradise for rebel forces, madmen, thugs, and even hidden pollutants. Here, order is chaotic, fights and murders are frequent, and even a three-year-old child would pick up a knife and stab someone to survive.
Most of them were Sentinels, strong, violent, with heightened senses and extreme personalities. Although rarely infected, they had been plagued by berserk madness since the Autumn Equinox Peace Treaty. As pressure piled up and their senses overloaded, without the guidance of a mentor, their clumsy and fragile mental landscape crumbled until they were swallowed by darkness, reduced to ignorant beasts. The harm caused by a fully berserk Sentinel was far more direct, rapid, and violent than any contaminant.
While guides can alleviate stress buildup, they cannot solve the problem at its root. Only guides, or rather, high-level guides, are the key to freeing sentinels from berserk disorder.
Even if all the existing guides were combined with the sentinels, their numbers would still be insufficient to support the massive sentinel force.
Guides are a precious and scarce resource.
Aside from the corrupted guides, the powerful lone guides, and the guides protected by the Holy Spirit Federation's White Tower, all the guides who were left out were hunted down by the company's mercenary teams and scattered throughout the numerous dark zones, becoming important tools for the company to seize resources.
The company will not allow guides to be harmed, let alone escape. Each guide is assigned an elite team, which serves as both protection and supervision.
Because of Lu Xuejin's thorough and gentle approach to clearing the area, the sentries who had received his guidance found it difficult to find others, quickly making him the most valuable guide in the Yaqiao Dark Zone. The company treated him with great kindness and indulgence; apart from being unable to leave Yaqiao, he could do whatever he wanted, and even people within the company dared not easily provoke him.
Beyond the bridge, many powerful sentinels, having heard the news, tore through the contaminated swarm, bypassed the Federation's watchtowers, and brought countless treasures to the bridge, all in exchange for a mental intervention to save the crumbling mental landscape.
But a month ago, Lu Xuejin was bought out by someone.
The soles of her boots scraped against the floor tiles, producing a soft yet grating sound in the quiet, cramped space. Her nose twitched; she caught a faint whiff of rust. Lu Xuejin heard a nun in the church let out a short, disgusted click of her tongue, calmly flicked the water from her fingers, and slowly turned around.
The light at the entrance was almost completely blocked by a tall figure. The sentry was unusually tall, with dark green, almost black eyes that glowed eerily. Blood and other substances clung to his dark combat uniform, still slowly dripping down. He stepped in against the light, each step landing on the brickwork, his unusually long, bony hands carrying a heavy black cloth bag.
He followed Lu Xuejin into the confessional, her ghostly green eyes like two eerie will-o'-the-wisps, locking onto the boy without any emotion.
Unfolding the cloth bag, the jewels glittered. The sentry casually pushed them aside, grabbed a sapphire bracelet from the pile, and hung it on Lu Xuejin. His cold fingertips brushed against her hand, leaving a dark red mark. A serpentine body, as thick as a bowl, draped over the back of Lu Xuejin's hand, its tongue flicking out towards the cinnabar.
Lu Xuejin asked, "Liang Mi, who did you kill today?"
Liang Mi stared intently at him, her voice hoarse and cold, like sandpaper scraping: "Men, women, pollutants... there are too many to remember."
The light from the gemstone illuminated the assailant's face, revealing his unremarkable yet rather sinister features.
There were still bloodstains on Liang Mi's eyebrows.
This face was so familiar that Lu Xuejin thought she had returned to the past.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com