Invasion - Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Lin Yuan had a very absurd dream. The dream was beautiful, like a fairy tale she had read as a child.

Although she couldn’t quite remember if she had read those books as a child, in her room, there were still many picture books about princesses, princes, knights, and dragons.

Those colorful picture books, along with many dolls and wind chimes, filled the room.

When she slept in that room, she always felt like she might have been a beloved little girl when she was young.

Lin Yuan saw the blue sky and the ocean in her dream. The clouds in the sky were actually white, like white cotton candy.

On the golden beach by the sea, lay a mermaid.

Lin Yuan thought, I know this story, the little mermaid turned her tail into legs, enduring the intense pain as she walked onto the beach, approaching the prince. But in the end, it didn’t have a happy ending, her beloved went to another princess, and the mermaid tragically turned into bubbles in the water.

When she got closer, Lin Yuan realized it wasn’t a mermaid.

The back of the person lying on the beach facing away from her was very familiar, the lines of his shoulders were beautiful, the smooth lines extending downwards, suddenly tightening at a certain spot.

There were grains of yellow sand on his back, and it was covered in scars of all sizes, but it wasn’t ugly, and filled with a wild, aggressive power.

Lin Yuan searched her mind and found a suitable adjective, the word was "sexy."

She started to admire herself. She was already able to accurately use such complex vocabulary.

Lin Yuan, in a daze, realized that her hand, like last time, was on the person’s shoulder. There was a long scar there, extending diagonally downwards, past the protruding shoulder blade.

When her fingers touched the scar, the person lying on the beach trembled slightly.

Lin Yuan didn't turn him over like last time.

She realized in her dream who this person was. This time, he wasn’t dying, but lying alive in front of her.

He was a powerful warrior, brave and kind. Although he was now naked, Lin Yuan thought she should maintain respect for him.

"I’m in so much pain," the man said softly, his back to her. He didn't turn around, and she couldn't see his face.

"So much pain, so painful, it hurts so much," he kept repeating these words.

His legs were soaked in seawater, with serious wounds on his calves, almost exposing the bone, a ghastly sight.

Lin Yuan subconsciously reached out and held his ankles, gently stroking the wounds.

"It hurts so much, so much pain," the man kept saying softly. His voice gradually weakened. He finally stopped hurting.

The person under her hand went limp.

Lin Yuan knew what a powerful warrior he was, he could jump over walls tens of meters high in a single leap, and he could cut a group of monsters in half with a single strike.

But he was now limp in her hand, like a puddle of water, making some indescribable whale calls.

Lin Yuan suddenly woke up from her dream.

She didn’t sleep well, often having messy dreams. Sometimes it was fire, sometimes an avalanche. This dream today was a bit too absurd.

They had come to this clinic in the early morning, but she had slept until the dead of night.

The lights in the clinic were dim. The sentinel’s eyes were closed, quietly floating in the turquoise treatment pod.

Lin Yuan sat on the sofa, coming to her senses, recalling that absurd dream.

The floor by her feet was dimly lit, empty, not like in her dream, where someone was lying there.

Only a tentacle had, at some point, emerged, drooping there, its skin moist, looking very satisfied.

Seeing Lin Yuan's questioning gaze, as if it had secretly eaten something, it guiltily retreated back into its dimensional space.

Thinking of food, Lin Yuan immediately felt a strong pang of hunger. Having slept for a whole day, she was starving. She put that absurd dream and those messy thoughts behind her, and went out to find food.

When the doctor came in, the sentinel in the treatment pod had already opened the cover and sat up.

The doctor checked his physical data, feeling very satisfied. "I told you, as long as they lie in my machine, there’s no patient I can’t cure."

"Excuse me," the sentinel, sitting in the green treatment fluid, said in a low voice. "Could you find me a set of clothes?"

"No rush, no rush," the doctor was still excited, he had rarely gotten such a big client.

So many expensive medicines had been used, he wanted to carefully observe the effects of those medicines that people usually were reluctant to use.

"What’s the rush? I’ve seen plenty of patients’ bodies anyway," the doctor waved his hand carelessly. "When that girl brought you in, you had nothing on you, only a small…"

He didn’t finish his sentence, inexplicably shivering.

It was pressure, pressure from the sentinel's mental power.

The doctor felt both angry and amused. This was the first time he had seen a patient, having just gotten out of bed, use mental pressure on the doctor.

Just to get a set of clothes to wear.

The doctor had no choice but to find a random set of clothes for Ni Ji.

The ordinary T-shirt and shorts, worn on the sentinel's tall, powerful body, inexplicably looked kind of fashionable.

"Who is that person to you?" The doctor couldn’t help but ask Ni Ji quietly. "You must be very close? She’s so good to you, willing to spend so much money to save your life."

Ni Ji didn’t answer. He didn’t want to say that from the time he formally spoke to Lin Yuan for the first time until now, it had only been two days.

Their relationship was very shallow, yet he already owed her so much.

"You young people might not understand yet, money, such a worldly thing, at some critical moments, is the thing that most clearly reveals a person’s true heart," the doctor, having been here for so long, had seen all kinds of people reveal their true colors in the face of money.

Sometimes, the sentinel lying in the treatment pod would be dying, yet the so-called brothers outside would tell him to mind his own business.

The middle-aged doctor printed out the bill and handed it to Ni Ji. "Cherish her, a friend like this is rare. She didn't hesitate at all when transferring the money, she insisted on using the best medicine."

He saw the young sentinel holding the thin piece of paper, looking at it for a long time.

Standing there, finally saying softly, "I'll pay her back."

"It's best if you can pay her back," the doctor packed up the various instruments and medicines on the table. "In this life, the most frightening thing is owing a debt you can't repay."

The middle-aged man looked at the tall, thin young sentinel beside him, patted his chest, and made a crude joke.

"It’s okay, you're so handsome, maybe she’ll agree to you paying with your body."

"Agree to what?" Lin Yuan’s head popped in from the doorway at this time, her arms full of all sorts of food. She even had a soft mochi in her mouth.

Seeing Ni Ji come out, she gestured at the food in her arms, offering it to him.

Most of what she held were sweets, Ni Ji, after figuring out her preferences, only took a flatbread with the lowest sugar content.

"The food here isn’t very good," Lin Yuan swallowed the mochi and opened another bag of soda candy. The saccharin taste was very strong, and she ate it with an expressionless face. "I still like the ones wrapped in red paper."

"If you like tribute candy, they don’t have it here," Ni Ji said, biting into the flatbread Lin Yuan had given him. "But I know where to find it. I’ll find it, and bring it to you when you return to the capital."

Lin Yuan’s eyes lit up, and she licked her lips slightly.

Ni Ji smiled inwardly, she liked sweets, the traditional, handmade kind.

The two came out of the clinic, walking in the dimly lit alley.

It had rained not long ago, and the ground was a little damp, with puddles of rainwater here and there.

Ni Ji, wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts, his long legs exposed in the cool autumn weather, didn’t seem to mind at all. His half-dried hair drooped, softening the sharp aura unique to sentinels.

Lin Yuan, holding a pile of food, walked beside him, her cheeks puffed out, crunching on candy.

This scene, so ordinary, made one's heart soften along with the night wind.

As if those thrilling, bloody storms, those twisted monsters, and the overwhelming black hands, were just a nightmare from another world.

As if they could briefly forget the blood and hatred that burned their bodies day and night, the fire and fog that forever lingered in their hearts.

Relaxing, just walking slowly like this, with a compatible friend.

Exposing their wrists, adding each other on their personal terminals. Eating together, talking about where the candies were sweeter.

However, this street was too short, and this kind of walk quickly came to an end.

A jeep stopped at the end of the street. Shen Fei and Xiao Mu from the Dongbin outpost jumped out.

Xiao Mu had brought back the injured sentinels, and when they learned that Lin Yuan was still in the contaminated zone, they set out from Dongbin again, coming all the way here to find her.

"That's great, that’s great, Guide Lin, you’re okay," Shen Fei, the captain of Dongbin, when he saw Lin Yuan, rushed over, excitedly gripping her hands, shaking them back and forth. "I told them, Guide Lin would definitely be fine."

If Lin Yuan wasn’t a Guide, he would have almost given her a big hug.

"Big Sister Lin Yuan," Xiao Mu simply called her name, his voice choking with sobs. He lowered his head, wiping his tears.

"The exit was by the sea, I couldn’t wait for you on the sea, I had to send Brother Hu and the others back first. You were gone for so long, I thought you were just trying to comfort me with those words."

A young lion cub appeared at Lin Yuan's feet, affectionately rubbing against her leg. It was Sentinel Rachel’s mental body.

At that time, the mental body that Lin Yuan had pulled out of the sea had been small and weak. Now it looked much stronger, and its size had grown considerably, with beautiful golden fur.

"Oh, how did you come out too?" Lin Yuan touched the little lion's golden head.

The last sentinel got out of the back seat of the jeep. He was very tall, his soft, golden hair tied in a braid behind him, his deep blue eyes the color of the sky.

He saw Lin Yuan, put a hand on his chest, and bowed in a unique way.

"This is a traditional etiquette in his family, only for the people they’re most grateful to," Shen Fei explained the situation to Lin Yuan.

"After Rachel woke up, when he heard that something happened to you, he insisted on coming out with us to find you."

"Actually, everyone wanted to come find you. Xiao Niao, as soon as she woke up, struggled to get out of bed, I had to hold her down," Shen Fei smiled, his eyes crinkling. "I told her, you would definitely be fine."

Lin Yuan felt happy, the sentinel who had been dying on the bed a few days ago, after her mental guidance, had actually recovered so quickly.

He had even reached the point where he could travel with his mental body.

She had always been insecure about her mental guidance abilities, this was the first time she had found confidence.

"You recovered very quickly," Lin Yuan said to Rachel.

Rachel walked forward. He was a gentle man, his light blue eyes looking at Lin Yuan, filled with sincere gratitude and joy.

"I still remember. I remember you bringing me back from the abyss."

"Fortunately, you're okay."

Lin Yuan asked about Xiao Niao and Dahu, and learned that they had all received timely treatment and were out of danger.

Shen Fei and the others then asked Lin Yuan what she had encountered, and how she had escaped.

After experiencing life and death, reuniting with friends, they talked excitedly, walking towards the car.

Lin Yuan suddenly remembered that she had left Ni Ji behind. She turned around and saw Ni Ji still standing alone at the corner where they had just walked out from.

"Do you want to come with us to Dongbin?" Lin Yuan asked.

Many friends surrounded her, lively and cheerful.

"No," Ni Ji's lonely figure stood at the alley entrance. The white streetlight shone diagonally, falling on his shoulders, making his thin body look a little desolate.

"I’ll see you back in the capital," his voice, as before, was gentle and calm.

【Little fish seems very sad.】

【Does he still have something to say?】

【You shouldn't have touched that kitten.】

【I sense a strong attachment to something in his heart, perhaps related to money.】

"Ah, yes, I forgot," Lin Yuan patted her head, calling out to Ni Ji, who was about to leave.

Ni Ji turned to look at her, a hint of expectation in his eyes.

"I still owe your team money. Fifty imperial coins per person, right?" Lin Yuan opened her personal terminal.

【Ah, he’s even sadder now.】

【What did you do to make him so sad?】

【You guys don’t understand, he’s actually reluctant to leave me.】 A certain tentacle said.

【?】

【!】

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