Chapter 155: The Last Resort

Aili also lowered her head, pressing her cheek against Yun Ruoxi’s.

Her soft, flowing hair draped down, interlacing with Yun Ruoxi’s.

One blue, one yellow—the two different hair colors looked surprisingly harmonious at this moment, shining brilliantly under the sunlight.

[Sisterly bond]

[Feels like Little Ai is now Ruoxi’s light side 233]

Lin Zhen was stunned for a moment by this beautiful scene, then quickly walked over to Yun Ruoxi’s bedside.

When the girl noticed him, she shyly lifted her head and wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes before he finally spoke:

“Xiao Xi, in order for us to help you, you need to honestly tell me how you felt when you did those things.”

“How… did I feel?” Yun Ruoxi opened her mouth, shaking her head. “I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Lin Zhen frowned.

“Big sis, try to think about it,” Aili pressed her hand against Yun Ruoxi’s cool cheek.

“But, I really don’t know.”

Yun Ruoxi lowered her head, “Before I killed the little bird, I froze up. I thought about a lot of messy things that I can’t even remember now, and then by the time I realized… it, it had already been crushed in my hand.”

“You froze up?” Lin Zhen repeated the word, asking, “Is this the same as your frequent spacing out these past weeks?”

Yun Ruoxi nodded.

“Yeah, it’s the same. Every time I space out, a bunch of things pop into my mind—some meaningful, some meaningless—but in the end I basically forget them all. Then my heart would feel really irritable, like I wanted to smash something.”

[What limitless void?]

[Seems like the Saints’ Hand Society’s methods are pretty scary]

[So Ruoxi’s dark side was forced out like this]

[Fun fact: Fiddlesticks came from Ruoxi’s first cry]

“Then why didn’t you say so before?”

A glint flashed in Lin Zhen’s eyes.

Yun Ruoxi’s frequent spacing out started after she returned, but the doctor kept insisting it didn’t matter.

Yet after every episode, Yun Ruoxi’s violent tendencies got worse.

This proved the doctor was lying!

He not only knew the reason for Yun Ruoxi’s changes, he was also trying to fool them all.

If Yun Ruoxi hadn’t been completely enraged by Duxie today, causing her violent tendencies to explode after being subtly influenced for so long, who knows when the truth would have come out.

Maybe by then, Yun Ruoxi would’ve already become a killer who took lives as easily as drinking water, a true “villain” without a trace of guilt!

“I… I can’t explain it. Because I forget everything in the end. If it weren’t for what just happened, I probably still wouldn’t remember anything.”

Yun Ruoxi lowered her head, feeling both guilty and afraid, more tears dripping from her pink eyes.

Aili gently wiped them away, her heart aching.

Lin Zhen picked up his personal terminal from the side and handed it to Yun Ruoxi. “Xiao Xi, you said you barely remember, but is there anything you still recall right now? Can you draw it for me?”

“I… I’ll try. I only have a really fuzzy impression, feels like I could forget it any second.”

Yun Ruoxi took the terminal, her slender fingers slowly drawing on the screen.

Aili leaned over to watch.

Lin Zhen, Yun Che, and Anvil waited patiently by the bed.

Time ticked by, and Aili’s expression grew more and more shocked.

At last.

Yun Ruoxi hesitantly turned the screen over, and the moment everyone saw the drawing, they gasped.

A dense web of blood-red lines crisscrossed each other, forming a complex tangle that was unsettling just to look at. If one looked closely, they could vaguely make out the shapes of hideous monsters within the lines.

“When you space out, this is what’s in your head?” Lin Zhen asked, face full of shock.

“Yeah! And there’s a lot of even weirder, more disturbing stuff…I just can’t remember those anymore,” Yun Ruoxi said softly.

‘I see.’

Lin Zhen nodded and had Aili stay with Yun Ruoxi to rest.

He took the terminal, then left the room with Yun Che and Anvil, heading straight for Chaos.

There was nothing more to ask.

It was better to see if there were any clues about this pattern.

On the way, Lin Zhen clenched his fist, saying angrily, “I knew it—they’re the ones who messed with Xiao Xi! They want to make sure she can never leave, using these tricks!”

“Will they do the same to us if we investigate openly like this?” Anvil asked nervously.

“They probably won’t,” Yun Che shook his head. “If doing this had no consequences, they’d have done it to us long ago. No way they’d wait till now to go after Xiao Xi—there must be some kind of restriction.”

“That’s good then.”

Anvil breathed a sigh of relief, patting his chest, but Yun Che leaned over and whispered to him again.

“But maybe we’re just not worthy of this kind of treatment. And I think they might have even rougher methods.”

“Ah?!”

The flesh on Anvil’s face trembled, and he fell silent.

“Don’t scare him.” Lin Zhen glanced at Yun Che, then continued mulling things over in his mind.

***

Three minutes later.

The three of them quickly arrived at the training room where Chaos was.

They sat down beside him, logged into the Virtual Network, and entered his personal space.

“Any luck? Did you find anything?” Lin Zhen asked.

“Nothing at all…”

Chaos sat cross-legged beneath a mountain of books, shaking his head helplessly.

That book mountain was a projection of all the books he’d ever read, meaning he’d already scanned through a huge number, yet still came up empty.

This made Lin Zhen realize—

Trying to find anything about brainwashing in the Saints’ Hand Society’s virtual space was nearly impossible.

But he still gave it a try, unwilling to give up.

Just in case, what if Chaos had missed something? Plus, now he had Yun Ruoxi’s “brainwashing pattern” drawing.

But reality was cruel.

Lin Zhen, Yun Che, Anvil, and Chaos spent nearly five hours searching and still found nothing.

They logged out of the virtual space just in time to bump into Zi Jiu, who was coming in from outside to look for them.

Lin Zhen looked at Zi Jiu with a glimmer of hope in his eyes, but the purple-haired girl just shook her head.

“I got scolded by Jiao Guan Xia Guang, and she didn’t say anything.”

[Game over]

[It’s hopeless, now Lin’s just going to have to watch Xiao Xi spiral into a villain with his own eyes]

[Putting yourself in Xiao Xi’s shoes, it’s truly despairing—knowing you’re turning bad, but powerless to stop it, just praying you won’t hurt your friends]

[I kind of like this feeling, what do I do]

[If you can write more, please do]

“Is that so?” Lin Zhen paused, unconsciously rubbing the top of his virtual helmet, then suddenly looked up:

“It’s getting late. You all go rest for now. This isn’t something that can be solved in a short time.”

“Mm, what about you?” Zi Jiu asked.

“I’ll look around a bit more,” Lin Zhen replied absent-mindedly. “Who knows, maybe a miracle will happen?”

“Alright then.”

Zi Jiu gave Lin Zhen a deep look.

She knew Lin Zhen was lying—he probably wanted to try something else after they left.