“You know, Ji, Shen Ning.”
The tall girl walked out of the parking lot next to the Academy, gently rubbing the stone in her pocket, feeling the icy spring touch of the Strange Stone at her fingertips.
“Last time, someone brought this thing into the Academy, and it caused an incident that shook the entire school—countless teachers and students suffered, and that headmaster almost died of grief.”
Shen Ning curled her lips, “I know, because I was there.”
Why talk about something that happened just a few days ago as if it were some ancient legend?
“I just mean, to have something that could send the whole Freiden Academy into panic mode sitting in my own pocket right now,” Xu Chuyao sighed, “it’s making me a little anxious.”
“Why don’t you stash it outside school for now, find a safe spot,” Shen Ning suggested.
“No, then I’d have to go looking for it tomorrow morning,” Xu Chuyao pouted and joked, “that would be such a pain.”
Shen Ning understood now—her girlfriend wasn’t nervous at all, she just wanted to talk about it.
After leaving the parking lot and heading back to the dormitory, they parted ways at the stairwell.
“Alright, I’m going back to nap. You go on your adventure. Tomorrow morning, I’ll drag you back here if you aren’t up!”
“Got it.”
When Xu Chuyao returned to the dorm, Mi Xiaolu was already yawning and making her bed, classes finished for the day and exhausted.
“Welcome back. Out again today?”
“Out again? Not just out—I brought back something deadly. Telling you would scare you to death,” she muttered.
But Mi Xiaolu had already snuggled into her quilt, closing her eyes and mumbling, “I feel like you’re always in a rush these days, and every time you go out, something seems to happen.”
“Not always,” Xu Chuyao protested, “like that last time at the performance, nothing happened at all!”
Better get to bed early—tomorrow I’ll need to get up and find a suitable spot to drag my girlfriend out.
Elsewhere, Shen Ning, ever decisive, was already on the move, once again abandoning her identity as a human in pursuit of her goal.
She followed the traces left by the crowd through the white expanse, randomly arriving at a place with very little life. The surroundings were shrouded in a fog so thick she could barely see, the mist slowly rolling over the ground like clouds fallen from the sky.
The girl walked through the white fog, stepping lightly onto the quiet land. Occasionally, she glimpsed a few people suddenly appearing nearby.
“The sky is getting dark, the sky is getting light, but the sky is still the sky, even in darkness.”
“People are dying, people are living, but before they die, they are still alive.”
Hearing these words, Shen Ning abandoned any hope of making small talk.
No one was really listening anyway.
But she hadn’t expected to overhear something about White Zero while wandering. A few people met by chance in the mist chatted about recent big events from the human world.
“She sent us all back again, just like last time.”
“The Twilight Lord, the ruler of dusk.”
“If I could beat that lord, I’d be willing to become human again, to be revived as a living person, I’d do it gladly—no complaints.”
“I get what you mean, but you don’t have to beat the lord or anything like that.”
The so-called Tyrant Lady quietly turned and, under the protection of White Zero, walked away in another direction. After all, with everyone forming their own little groups in this place, it was probably better not to join in.
She wandered through the unknown for a while, when suddenly, the fog around White Zero swirled loudly toward a certain direction, with several others following as well.
“It’s open! It’s opening!”
“This is the Small Gate!”
Open? What gate? Could it be the passage to the human world?
She didn’t know the details, but Shen Ning still quietly followed. In the drifting white mist, she finally saw the gate.
Just as those people had said, it was indeed a Small Gate—not at all like the last time she visited Freiden Academy. The fog around the entrance was also thin, and she could faintly make out what lay beyond.
It was a not-so-big square room, completely empty, nothing else inside. From the edges, where she couldn’t see clearly, came the muffled voices of two people conversing.
“The new experiment subject is coming today. How exciting—welcome to the Valhalla Research Institute.”
“You’ve seen this so many times before. What’s there to be excited about?”
“Of course I’m excited. Every time it’s different—man or woman, young or old. There’s a thrill to seeing it unfold.”
Valhalla Research Institute?
After everything she’d experienced, Shen Ning was especially sensitive to the words “Research Institute.” But this name was new to her. Still, she knew that after the Strange Stone incident in Freiden Free City, all the Root family research institutes had basically been shut down, and a new institute had been established by higher-ups.
According to rumors, everyone at this institute was an enemy.
The Small Gate slowly opened, and a few ropes dropped down from above, quickly entangling several people nearby and slowly hoisting them up.
“Why is it taking so long for them to pull us up?”
“The lord can’t wait—she’s running out of time and desperately needs to prolong her life.”
“No wonder we have to finish the portal experiment this week.”
“Are they going to force them in as soon as they arrive? Sounds dangerous—who’s going to volunteer? Not me.”
“Of course they’ll just grab someone who doesn’t know what’s going on. The Research Institute is full of ignorant staff.”
What were they trying to do?
Shen Ning’s heart tensed. She tried to get closer for a better look, not realizing that one of the ropes had silently snaked around her. By the time she noticed, the rope was already pulling her in.
Damn!
She couldn’t go in there—that was enemy headquarters. To barge in would be courting death.
The girl tried to struggle out of the rope, but it was no use. As she was being pulled closer to the Small Gate, suddenly, a powerful force grabbed her from another direction, dragging her away.
The movement was incredibly fast. Just like in a dream, in that brief moment, everything she’d seen before was swept away like water, and when she opened her eyes again, the gentle sunlight of April was already falling on her.
“Hey, you’re back—my little sidekick, soul returned~”
A soft voice said something strange in an ancient-sounding tone. Looking around, it was the familiar Academy training field. On the ground was a sandbag sliced cleanly in half, with the other half nowhere to be found, just a pile of sand left behind.
Shen Ning steadied herself, turning to see her girlfriend, Xu Chuyao, sitting nearby with her eyes closed, still pretending to meditate.
“Xu Chuyao, stop pretending, I’m back already.”
“Wow, that worked so well!”
Xu Chuyao circled Shen Ning once, looking her up and down, nodding in satisfaction, “Not even a scratch!”
Chuyao’s spell really worked.
Shen Ning didn’t bother discussing mysticism with her girlfriend. Everything she’d just witnessed in that strange world—the crumbling Small Gate, the voices from behind it—all still echoed in her mind.
“Xu Chuyao, I need to get some water, and then I need to talk to you. I think I discovered something really important.”