(1)
A plain-looking man jolted awake. He propped himself up with his hands on the steering wheel, then turned to look at the young woman beside him. “Wenwen, did you feel that?”
“Yeah, in this direction.” Wen Ye, holding a expressionless little girl in her arms, nodded gently and pointed behind them. “Turn around.”
The two-seater red sports car spun around sharply. A cloud of dust rose from the ground but before it could settle, the roar of the engine had already faded into the distance.
(二)
“Teacher, still not sleeping?” A young man walked up to the rooftop of the research institute, holding a cup of coffee.
Beneath them lay an island, surrounded by an endless expanse of sea. Tonight’s sky had few stars as decoration. In his eyes, the sea was as black as ink, the waves crashing one after another as if they would never stop.
Not far away, an old man in a gray coat leaned on the railing, looking up at the starry sky. He seemed not to notice the voice behind him.
“Teacher…?”
“Oh… what is it? You haven’t slept yet?”
“Don’t know why, but I can’t sleep tonight.”
“Tell me, which planet do you think those meteorites come from?” As the director of the institute and the chief technical officer, Dr. Ye felt a twinge of confusion at that moment. “The universe is so vast. There are just too many planets in that direction.”
“Yes… we still can’t determine exactly where they came from.”
“But at least recently we’ve confirmed that the meteorites are man-made. The beings that created them must have an extremely advanced civilization.”
“But what is their purpose? Shooting meteorite after meteorite across this vast galaxy—is it really just to send a gift to other civilizations?”
“Heh…” Dr. Ye gave a faint smile. “Maybe a seed for the destruction of civilization?”
“Destroying civilization like that would be far too troublesome. I’m leaning toward ‘gift.’ It’s just that our civilization is too fragile to interpret it, let alone bear it.”
“For other civilizations, it’s a big cake, but for a fragile civilization, it’s like poison.”
“But in the end, it’s just a tool. Tools have no inherent good or evil.”
“Our understanding of this world… is still too shallow…”
(2)
In a place much farther away—on the island nation far from the Asian continent, beside a mountain—there sat an apartment.
Brilliant starlight spilled wantonly into the room, but the moon had long since vanished.
A girl’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, and then she slowly lifted her eyelids a crack, revealing her jade-green eyes.
“Phew…”
“What’s up?” The girl beside her, who looked very similar but was taller, mumbled and hugged the bedding tighter. “In the middle of the night… you getting up to pee again?”
“Your sleep’s that light today?”
“It’s Qing Er making too much noise getting up…”
“Bullshit, I only just opened my eyes! You think everyone’s like you, lying there sleeping like a log? Some of us have already finished saving the world!”
“What else is there to do in the middle of the night if not sleep…”
“Tsk, go back to sleep. I’m going to the bathroom.” The green-eyed girl threw off the covers with force and padded barefoot to the door with a thump thump.
“So you are going to the bathroom…” The other girl buried her head in the pillow, as if that could block out the noise of the outside world.
The green-eyed girl snorted, stretched lazily, and walked to the window. She looked at the night sky where moonlight had been buried by starlight. “Tsk. The Ritimuxi Fragment, like a meteorite plunging from outer space into this planet. A spacetime disturbance forever beyond anyone’s control, huh…”
(3)
“That’s Xue Tianling’s car.”
“Flash the high beams.”
“Slow down over there.”
“Hey—” Wen Ye nodded, then quickly stuck her head out the window. “Tian Ling! Wrong direction!”
“What?” The driver’s window on the opposite side lowered quickly. In the dim light, only half of Xue Tianling’s face was visible.
“We can sense it’s in that direction. If you want to save someone, follow us!”
“You can sense that too?”
“It’s just a familiar aura.”
“Alright, you lead the way!”
“Are you the only ones?”
“The backup team is still behind us. Once we confirm the target point, they’ll arrive soon!”
“Good—” Wen Ye jerked back into the car. Holding the doll-like, expressionless girl in her arms, she said, “Qiu Yi, drive faster.”
“Already fast.”
“Too slow. If Qianyu were driving, she’d definitely be faster!”
“You call that driving? When she floors it, it’s like she’s flying a plane.”
“Hurry, hurry! Saving people is the priority!”
“Accelerating, accelerating…”
(4)
Falling.
An intense sensation of falling.
And there probably wasn’t anything more intense than this.
After all, falling from nearly out of the atmosphere all the way down—the entire planet felt like a bottomless abyss.
“Ugh—!” An Jing suddenly opened her eyes. The fierce falling sensation hadn’t fully faded, leaving her head slightly dizzy. Then she realized she wasn’t on the ground but rather slung over a man’s shoulder.
This person had an aura that felt incredibly familiar to An Jing.
A name popped into her mind the next second.
Jingye Luqiao!
That assassin who seemed to be targeting her all along!
Except he had disappeared for so long that An Jing had almost forgotten him.
She never expected that not only had he not given up the mission, but he’d laid low, preparing all along.
And now, he had almost completed the task.
This was an unfamiliar road. The starlight spilling down from the sky was sparse. The pine trees around them pierced the night like blades. Ahead, she could only see blurry silhouettes, but the man carrying her walked steadily, as if even on a night like this, the world was perfectly clear to him.
An Jing didn’t react immediately. She narrowed her eyes silently, pretending to still be unconscious, and continued to observe. Her hands and feet seemed tied with very thick ropes—unless the rope was cut, she couldn’t move at all.
Moreover, the way she was bound made it impossible for her to exert any strength.
“Don’t try to resist. You won’t be in danger,” the man said calmly in Mandarin with a slight regional accent. “I’ll take you safely to Sweden.”
An Jing’s body trembled. Facing an assassin in reality, she was still somewhat afraid, but she forced herself to stay calm. “Why me?”
“The mission requires you.” He didn’t seem to mind talking a bit more.
“…What do you want to do with me?”
“I’m only responsible for taking you to the destination. The rest has nothing to do with me.”
An Jing took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She was already using her mind-reading ability. Maybe she could find a breakthrough.
However, Jingye Luqiao’s mind seemed completely empty at the moment. When answering An Jing’s questions, the same words appeared in his thoughts, but otherwise, it was blank. Not that he was thinking nothing—at least there was information about which way to go next.
—An Jing guessed this because all his mental activity was in Japanese.
That made sense, since he was Japanese.
But this left her with no way to proceed.
Fragmented words alone couldn’t tell her what he was thinking.
“…You’re different from the first time I met you.” The gold in An Jing’s eyes slowly faded. She took a deep breath and tried to sound casual.
“A qualified assassin prepares at least ten disguises for one mission.”
“Why aren’t you going right?” From over his shoulder, An Jing tried to look into his eyes, feigning nonchalance. “That road is wider.”
Jingye Luqiao turned his head slightly. “A good road doesn’t mean a safe road.”
But An Jing didn’t care at all what he answered. What she wanted was this very moment—the moment their eyes met.
In the next second, Jingye Luqiao’s gaze became dull. His body trembled slightly, as if struggling, but he still managed to put An Jing down on the ground with great difficulty. Then he pulled a small knife from his pocket and began cutting the rope around her hands, one strand at a time.
An Jing kept twisting her head back, making sure to maintain eye contact with him.
Jingye Luqiao tried to look away, but he felt as if he were glued to her gaze—no matter what, he couldn’t move his eyes, not even if he tried to squeeze them shut.
Clearly, a brief blink wasn’t enough to break this superpower that controlled his bodily actions.
An Jing took two steps back and sat down on the slope. Still maintaining eye contact with Jingye Luqiao, she had him slowly cut the rope around her feet.
The situation was bizarre. Neither could look away, but both were busy working with their hands.
Finally, An Jing’s hands and feet were free. She quickly retreated two more steps, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
A night wind brushed by, but it felt like someone was scraping her skin with a knife. The pain grew sharper over time.
“Ugh—!”
At last, the duration of the ability reached its limit. Without a moment’s hesitation, An Jing turned and ran toward the top of the hill. She felt she was using all her strength.
If she could run that fast during the Zhong Kao physical exam, she might have even broken the school record for the 1000-meter dash.
Yet now, she felt Jingye Luqiao closing in. That guy stuck to her like a nightmare, impossible to shake off.
Then, she was tackled onto the grassy slope. A ripping sound came as her clothes tore. A piece of sweat-soaked cloth was pressed tightly over her eyes…