Invasion - Chapter 103
Chapter 103
Lin Yuan's arm was completely useless. The training stopped, and she was sent to a treatment pod in the White Tower.
Although the Queen didn't give her the ruby as a reward, she did give a special reward to commend Lin Yuan for her contribution in opening the Land of No Eyes Contaminated Zone.
It was a special honor, an ID card that allowed her to take the express elevator to the top of the White Tower, to request an audience with the Queen at any time, to freely enter and exit the palace.
Lin Yuan only received this reward, this delicate card that allowed her to freely use the elevator, after coming out of the treatment pod. The way everyone looked at her changed completely.
Shock, envy, jealousy, some even started to flatter her.
This was considered an incredible honor in the empire.
The Queen held all power in the empire, including the dismissal of officials, the deployment of the military, and financial control.
But she was very rarely seen.
Unless summoned, no one, not even members of the royal family or important ministers, had the right to request an audience.
Very few people in the entire empire were qualified to request an audience with the Queen. How could the reward Lin Yuan received not be shocking?
Lin Yuan didn't feel anything special. She didn't understand why she was given such a reward.
Could it be that she was expected to frequently visit the palace, just to spar with the Queen?
The only thing here that she cared about, was perhaps that ruby pendant.
Seeing the shape of that stone, Lin Yuan always felt a connection to the Truth Box in her hand.
It was a pity she hadn’t been able to get it using this opportunity.
It would probably be very difficult to get it in the future, after all, it was the Queen’s personal belonging.
A Guide's recovery ability wasn't very strong, and it took Lin Yuan a long time to heal her arm.
By the time she came out of the treatment pod, it was already very late.
Heavy rain was falling from the sky, long past dinner time.
Xun Hua, holding an umbrella, was waiting for her at the door. Lin Yuan got out of the car and quickly went under the black umbrella.
The rain was very fine, pattering on the umbrella's surface, the entire courtyard shrouded in a gray curtain of rain.
Lin Yuan walked forward, her head lowered, her feet on the rain-soaked stone bricks.
Beside her, Xun Hua’s silver half-mask reflected a metallic sheen in the dark, rainy night.
"It hasn’t been very peaceful at home these past few days, we had a few uninvited guests," Xun Hua’s low, cold voice rang out beside her. His white-gloved fingers pulled out the golden pendant from inside his collar.
"Not ordinary thieves, I think they were after this, or some of the things in your room."
Lin Yuan noticed he had used the word "home."
The one accompanying her on this rainy night wasn't a real human being.
But he was her family.
Since Xun Hua moved in, his powerful mental power guarded the entire courtyard, and no one could truly steal anything from the house anymore.
Those who secretly sneaked in, no matter how sharp their observation skills, no matter how nimble their movements,
Under Xun Hua’s mental interference, they couldn't find the things they were looking for.
Even if those things were blatantly displayed in Lin Yuan’s pile of toys, even if it was hanging on the plastic wind chime by the window.
But this was a sign, a sign that the upcoming nights would be even darker, the rain even heavier.
"It’s okay," Lin Yuan’s steps quickened in the cold rain, "Xun Hua, I think you’re right, I do seem to have become stronger."
"I’ll become even stronger."
Guo Suo prepared a late-night snack for Lin Yuan.
"Ni Ji came by in the evening," Xiao Suo, sitting at the dining table, not used to staying up late, yawned. "He waited for you for quite a while, then he got a call and seemed to have left for some emergency mission."
Lin Yuan responded and carefully finished the food before her, replenishing her energy.
After returning to the attic, taking off her thick coat, changing into her home clothes, lying in her soft bed, only then did the feeling sink in.
After a whole day of tension, danger, battles, and injuries,
She actually felt a little disappointed about missing dinner with Ni Ji.
She had stood him up, hadn’t had dinner with little fish.
Lin Yuan, a little unhappy, rolled over in bed.
She didn’t dislike this feeling, these subtle emotions made her feel different from that cold Queen.
She was living a more vibrant life, more like a real human.
The rain outside was very heavy, torrential, the rainwater flowing down the glass of the window, like winding little streams.
Lin Yuan, lying in bed, quickly fell asleep amidst the sound of rain.
She had a dream.
It had been a while since Lin Yuan had these chaotic and unsettling dreams since returning from the Land of No Eyes.
This dream seemed to be something that had happened during her childhood. Lin Yuan had already forgotten, but the scenes in the dream now were exceptionally clear.
In the dream, torrential rain was also pouring outside the window.
A young Lin Yuan was lying by the window, a small, fair hand holding a paintbrush, diligently drawing on a notebook.
A female hand reached out and held her small hand.
"This is mommy's notebook, Yuan Yuan, you can't draw in it," a gentle voice said.
Although she said “can’t”, her tone was indulgent, not truly scolding.
All young children were incredibly perceptive. They were naturally able to discern the true emotions of those around them, using that to judge whether they could continue acting spoiled.
"I'll draw, I want to draw, Mommy hasn’t played with me for so long because of this notebook," little Lin Yuan pouted.
Those warm hands picked her up, lifting her high, spinning her around the room.
Lin Yuan saw the toys and picture books filling the room spinning before her eyes, and a smiling face she couldn’t quite remember clearly.
It was her mommy's face.
Her mother put her down on a chair and gave her a new orca doll as a gift.
"Yuan Yuan, you play with Little Fish first, Mommy and Daddy are going to the contaminated zone again, we’ll be back to play with Yuan Yuan soon.”
The orca doll was brand new, chubby, and round, with a pink bow tied around it.
Little Lin Yuan was delighted, holding it with both hands, untying the bow, playing with the orca toy on the desk.
On the desk, the notebook, covered with doodles, lay open, a few lines written on the last page:
"Something’s very wrong, as if someone’s watching us."
"Where should we hide this box?"
…
Lin Yuan on the bed opened her eyes, the rain outside the window had stopped at some point. The sky was between dark and light.
Everything in the dream faded, the bright toys on the shelf looked old. She had grown up, and her mother and father had been gone for many years.
The sky outside the window was gray, raindrops falling from the leaves in the courtyard, occasionally the chirping of insects.
So lonely it made her sad.
At this time, the tentacles caught some faint, yet familiar emotional fluctuations, very close, right outside the courtyard walls.
Lin Yuan opened the window and poked her head out.
The air was very damp, filled with the cold moisture of rain.
From the window, Lin Yuan saw the sentinel standing outside the courtyard walls.
He seemed to have come a long way, looking dusty, his hair wet with dew, his slight panting forming a faint white mist in the air. He was standing on the slope outside the wall, looking up.
Their gazes met in the cold, damp air.
Lin Yuan had never seen such an expression on Ni Ji’s face. The moment he saw her, he seemed to relax, breathing a heavy sigh of relief.
Then, that dark figure, nimbly flipping over the wall, sliding down along a tall parasol tree by the wall, towards her.
His movements as light as a shadow, not disturbing anyone in the quiet morning.
Not even waking Xun Hua.
Of course, it was also possible that the gardener was pretending not to know. He was, most of the time, the most considerate person in this house.
Ni Ji reached the bottom of the building, and looked up at Lin Yuan on the fifth floor.
He lifted his arms and started climbing up the outer wall.
His movements nimble, his arms strong, his speed climbing up the smooth outer wall was faster than Lin Yuan taking the stairs.
Lin Yuan poked her head out the window, watching the Sentinel climb up from the corner of the wall, her soft black hair blown before her by the breeze.
This suddenly reminded her of a picture book she had read as a child, about a princess in a high tower letting down her long hair, letting her knight climb up to find her.
That book was still on the shelf by her bed.
Lin Yuan felt amused, a strange, special feeling rising in her heart.
As if she had become a character in a fairy tale.
Secretly meeting a certain knight in the dead of night.
A faint light appeared on the horizon, and the knight in black climbed to her window. His black gloves gripping the windowsill, he stood on the windowsill, looking down.
Perhaps because his back was to the light, the color of his eyes seemed deeper and richer than usual, like thick amber.
A certain emotion hidden within that even her tentacles hadn’t been able to find.
Lin Yuan's heart suddenly skipped a beat, that feeling very unfamiliar.
She invited Ni Ji into her room.
The Sentinel, having run all this way, climbing the wall and then the window, seemed to lose his impulsive courage the moment he stepped onto the windowsill.
He stood there, covered in dew, but didn't step further in.
"I just heard that you were injured in the White Tower," Ni Ji's voice was very low, a whisper in the early morning, as if afraid of disturbing someone's sleep.
His eyes carefully scanned Lin Yuan.
Ni Ji had just completed a secret mission. After returning to the White Tower, he heard that the sentinels there were all talking about a battle that had happened during the day.
Guide Lin was injured and had been lying in a treatment pod for a long time.
Many had said this.
Hearing this, Ni Ji had run all the way here, scaling walls and climbing windows, only now, seeing that Lin Yuan was alright, did his anxious heart finally calm down.
Ni Ji’s fingers tightly gripped the windowsill, his foot on the windowsill, he didn’t seem to intend to come in at all.
As if having run all this way, climbed up to this high window, just to ask this one question, then turn around and leave.
Lin Yuan showed her hand to the sentinel on the windowsill, "It was very painful, my whole arm was broken, fractured in several places.”
Ni Ji subconsciously took her hand and came in from the windowsill.
He took off his gloves, his fingers holding Lin Yuan's wrist, carefully feeling the bones, then moving her wrist, her elbow, and even her fingers.
For sentinels like them, who had suffered countless injuries, whether a bone was injured could easily be detected by touch.
They had held hands in many contaminated zones.
It was something they were both used to.
The sentinel’s fingers were long and slender, his fingertips a little cold, pressing on Lin Yuan's skin, gently touching the bones beneath.
It made Lin Yuan's skin inexplicably itch a little.
The sentinel before her had his eyelashes lowered, his expression focused.
The sky completely brightened at this moment, the hazy dawn light giving his amber eyes a subtle glow.
A strange thought came to Lin Yuan, she felt like there was a secret hidden in her heart, a secret that even she couldn't understand.
The Queen in the White Tower made Lin Yuan feel both apprehensive and strangely close, she always felt that Her Majesty was, in some ways, very similar to her.
They were perhaps both the type who, despite pretending to be human, clearly knew they were different from most.
But at this moment, she felt different from that Majesty, that Majesty, gentle and smiling on the surface, her mental world an icy wasteland, as if there wasn’t any life in her heart.
While she herself had a fiery heart in her chest, one that would beat faster, one that would race.
The two sat by the window after the rain, very close, Ni Ji's long fingers holding Lin Yuan's slender wrist.
As if only just realizing what he was doing, the sentinel's ears turned slightly red in the cold air.
Last night, Ni Ji had been busy all night, on a secret and difficult mission, fighting for a long time, the smell of gunpowder still clinging to him.
Yesterday morning, Lin Yuan had met with the mentally powerful Queen in the White Tower, a fierce and dangerous battle, in which she broke her arm.
The lives of the two, as if constantly on a knife’s edge, filled with danger and hardship.
But at this moment, holding hands, sitting quietly by the window, time seemed to slow down, the wind and rain seemed to stop, their fatigue and loneliness melted away by each other’s body heat.
Ni Ji told Lin Yuan that he had seen Roy in the White Tower.
He told her about the secret records he had seen about Lin Yuan’s parents.
"There's something very dangerous inside the White Tower," Ni Ji said.
"In the afternoon, I saw that Roy from your Special Research Department again. He was completely different, it was like he didn't even remember what had happened in the morning."
That morning, Roy, having found those secret notes, had looked dispirited.
But in the afternoon, when Ni Ji and Ji Xuan had seen him again, he had returned to his usual carefree demeanor, as if nothing mattered.
Ji Xuan had casually greeted him. "Did you manage to resolve everything from this morning, Roy?"
Roy had looked completely confused. "What are you talking about? What happened this morning?”
Just half a day, and he didn’t know what he had encountered, but he no longer remembered the secrets he had discovered.
Those records that had troubled him for so long, that he had held tightly in his arms that morning, now were as if they had never existed, completely erased from his mind.
At that time, Ni Ji and Ji Xuan had exchanged a look, both glad that they had risked peeking into Roy’s memories, otherwise, if they had waited until now, even if they wanted to see it, Roy wouldn’t have that memory anymore.
"You have to be very careful," Ni Ji said to Lin Yuan.
"If, if there's any dangerous mission, please take me with you."
His fingers tightened, holding her wrist.
He didn't ask for anything else, only hoped that when Lin Yuan encountered danger, he would be the one by her side.
On a stormy, cold night, the person holding your hand, I hope it could be me.
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