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墨書 Inktalez
As the rocks tumbled down, Xu Nuan could only cover her head and flee in panic. Once the tremors subsided slightly, she finally had the chance to observe her surroundings.
It seemed that she had become separated from her team. After surveying the chaotic scene around her, Xu Nuan concluded this and quickly speculated that perhaps everyone had scattered due to the earthquake.
“Xu Hang has his hands full.”
Xu Nuan muttered to herself as she walked across the yellow-brown ground littered with large stones. Towering stone peaks surrounded her, some reaching nearly into the clouds, while others were low and rugged. The shapes of these peaks were bizarre and varied; if they were in a tourist spot in real life, they would surely have imaginative names like "Lion's Gate" or "A Thousand Sails Competing."
At that moment, Xu Nuan had no mind to admire or name them. As a human, her figure was already buried among these stone formations, making it quite difficult to find her companions or be found.
Just as she was thinking this and carefully avoiding the collapsing boulders, a piercing alarm sounded from her own body.
Steadying her heart, Xu Nuan searched for the source of the sound and retrieved a necklace hanging around her neck. On it was a Tail Ring belonging to Tang Jingshu.
She suddenly remembered that this ring had a positioning function, and of course, it served another very important purpose related to their ultimate goal.
Following the method Gu Ze had taught her, Xu Nuan activated the Tail Ring. On the screen, five points of light appeared: four were green and distant, while one was red and very close to her own position.
Red indicated danger.
In a daze, Xu Nuan realized this but did not tuck the necklace back away; instead, she let it hang outside her clothing and ran toward the red dot, worry etched on her face.
The distance between the two points on the locator and the actual distance was not significant. After running through the rubble for a while, Xu Nuan no longer heard the alarm.
Knowing this meant she was very close to one of her companions made Xu Nuan's heart race. She called out directly.
“Is anyone here?”
Unable to determine who the other person was, Xu Nuan couldn't even call out their name.
But no one responded. Xu Nuan called out a few more times, yet still no reply.
Seeing the surrounding area filled with collapsed stones, Xu Nuan felt a surge of panic. She made a difficult guess that someone might be trapped beneath the rubble and had lost consciousness. Activating her Tail Ring, she carefully compared the distances between the glowing points and headed toward the area with the most debris.
Her heart raced, and breathing became difficult.
This was Xu Nuan's reaction upon seeing Gu Ze trapped under the stones.
“Gu Ze!”
Xu Nuan nearly lunged forward, checking on the unconscious Gu Ze.
Gu Ze was wedged beneath several stone pillars that had formed a perfect balance point. His right leg was pinned by a rock, but he had only dust on him and no serious injuries. His right hand, which had been bandaged not long ago, was protecting his head. At that moment, the wound had reopened and was bleeding slightly. The reason for Gu Ze's unconsciousness was that his head had struck against a stone, causing some blood to flow.
The feeling of her heart racing to her throat described Xu Nuan's emotions at that moment. She cradled Gu Ze's head and examined him closely, finally breathing a sigh of relief when she discovered it was just one wound.
However, the most important thing was to drag Gu Ze out from this pile of rubble. The ground still trembled slightly; if another pillar collapsed, both she and Gu Ze would be in danger.
When she realized that the rock pinning Gu Ze's leg wasn't heavy, Xu Nuan felt another wave of relief wash over her. If the stone wasn't heavy, then Gu Ze's leg wouldn't be in too much trouble. Carefully, she moved the rock aside and attempted to pull Gu Ze out.
But she underestimated both Gu Ze's weight and the amount of debris surrounding them.
After exhausting herself and panting heavily while Gu Ze remained lying in an awkward position, Xu Nuan decided to tend to his wounds. The tremors weren't too strong at the moment, so she patiently waited. If she managed to bandage Gu Ze's wounds and he still hadn't regained consciousness, she would resort to extreme measures.
Xu Nuan felt along Gu Ze's right leg based on the knowledge He Min had once shared with her. Finding no damage to the bone, she disinfected his wound with alcohol and applied some iodine to prevent infection.
As Xu Nuan tended to Gu Ze's wounds, she recalled the confrontation she had with Rao Tingxue a few moments ago. In that moment, she had truly lost control and had genuinely wanted to kill Rao Tingxue, regardless of the consequences or whether Rao Tingxue was guilty. She simply wanted to vent her anger.
She was unsure why she had lost that segment of her memory. It contained images of her parents' car accident, where the vehicle had turned around to try and run her over. It also held memories of Qin Yaojie keeping vigil with her, attending to relatives who came to pay their respects. During that time, Qin Yaojie seemed unchanged from the person she had fallen in love with; it was as if the previous three months with him had been a nightmare. But that nightmare returned two months after her parents' death when Qin Yaojie vanished, only for her to receive a breakup call from him half a month later.
The world had collapsed in that instant.
She recalled the feelings she experienced when her parents died and the emotions that surfaced when Qin Yaojie truly left her.
Her parents' deaths were not an accident; this was something Qin Yaojie had once told her. He promised he would investigate the truth behind it all, while she only needed to go about her daily life and wait for him to return home.
But she had lost everything—from the day of her parents' accident on January 1st to the day in May when Qin Yaojie called to break up with her.
When she learned that Qin Yaojie had entered the game and that she had followed him there, she remembered everything from the year prior and how things had changed since New Year's Day. Qin Yaojie had been in an extreme situation for three months, yet her memory seamlessly extended that period into five months.
It was as if there was no gap at all.
Why had she lost this memory?
This was Xu Nuan's greatest confusion. At the same time, she was certain that it wasn't due to emotional trauma; medically speaking, selective amnesia was extremely rare and typically occurred only under significant stress related to the events in question.
When her parents passed away, she was indeed heartbroken and devastated, but many people were there to protect her—Qin Yaojie, friends, and close relatives. With everyone's support, she ultimately accepted the reality while secretly investigating the truth.
Someone must have tampered with her mind or perhaps made her take some medication or implanted some suggestion in her.
These thoughts sounded absurd but were the only explanation. So now the question arose: who was responsible?
She only remembered the pain that Qin Yaojie had caused her and, filled with indignation, chased after answers in the game. Who would want to do this?
The Mastermind?
But what was the purpose?
Xu Nuan was lost in thought when, without realizing it, she tied the bandage she was applying to Gu Ze into a tight knot.
"Sorry."
As Xu Nuan tried to untie the knot, she suddenly found it amusing to be talking to someone who was unconscious. Just as she hurriedly worked on freeing Gu Ze from the knot, another tremor shook the ground, causing the surrounding stone pillars to sway precariously. Instinctively, Xu Nuan wrapped her arms around Gu Ze's head.
In that moment, she had only one thought: she didn't want to see Gu Ze get hurt again.
People can easily become self-deprecating in extreme situations. There was a time when she felt very inferior, believing that her parents' deaths were her fault, that Qin Yaojie's departure was due to her own inadequacies, and that her world crumbling was all because of her incompetence.
Those were dark days buried deep within her heart, a darkness that had never truly disappeared and had made her calm and rational. Only by being this way could she avoid bringing harm to those around her and prevent herself from being killed too soon.
She always thought that Gu Ze's personality was completely opposite to hers. Even when she recognized Gu Ze's qualities, there was a sense of unwillingness within her. There were many reasons for this reluctance, but the fact that Gu Ze cared for her would not change.
She couldn't understand why someone as exceptional as Gu Ze would like her, especially when she believed that after losing everything, she wouldn't survive this game.
She felt like a person without a future, while Gu Ze was the opposite; his future was bright and smooth, something many envied but could likely never attain.
The chaos among the stone pillars quickly settled down, and fortunately, neither Xu Nuan nor Gu Ze were hit by any falling stones. As Xu Nuan slowly lifted her head away from Gu Ze and loosened her grip, she felt a smile creeping up on her face. It seemed that this memory and the potential influence represented by Rao Tingxue had made her impulsive.
As she released her hands from Gu Ze's head, Xu Nuan met a pair of eyes that sparkled like the night sky.
In those eyes, various emotions had once appeared, but most of the time they were deep and inscrutable. However, at this moment, Xu Nuan could instantly discern the emotions hidden within those eyes.
Relief and happiness.
Two people with different personalities, encountering different experiences in life, and destined for different futures—how could they possibly intersect?
"The so-called expert in Sanda actually got knocked out by a rock. If the coach knew about this, he would definitely hide in a corner and grow mushrooms."
Xu Nuan was unsure of what she was doing but felt compelled to break the current gaze. Stopping certain things from happening in time was the true essence of calmness and rationality.
"Even a coach can't guarantee that they won't get hurt when facing a hundred opponents."
As Xu Nuan took a few steps back, Gu Ze had already sat up and was smiling at his bandaged hand.
That smile was too dazzling for Xu Nuan to bear; she quickly stood up and intended to walk away. What she didn't expect was that Gu Ze, now sitting up, suddenly reached out and grabbed her hand.
She was standing among a pile of rubble, needing to be extremely careful with her steps, making it difficult to maintain her balance. With Gu Ze's sudden pull, she lost her footing and fell directly into someone's embrace.
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