This reason sounded perfectly reasonable.
Moreover, it was just delivering a birthday gift.
Lin Zhen thought it over and agreed, accepting the comb and keeping it close.
But what he didn’t know was—
In the following week, Yun Ruoxi prepared a gift for each member of the protagonist group, using the same reason, and had them personally deliver it to someone else.
Clearly, Yun Ruoxi was plotting something.
But except for the omniscient viewers watching from a god’s-eye view, those within the mountains, the protagonist group, remained completely oblivious.
“Why is Laoxi setting up flags every day?”
“Why do I get the feeling Laoxi wants to sacrifice herself to send the protagonist group out of here?”
“I think so too.”
“Can’t it be Laoxi joining forces with the Doctor, taking down Lin and the rest, brainwashing and corrupting them all so they can live happily ever after in the camp?”
After Yun Ruoxi finished handing out gifts to everyone, the passage of time in the episode accelerated.
Days slipped by at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The Final Examination was now only a few days away.
Lin Zhen had no choice but to revisit his escape plan, searching for any possible flaws.
Over this period, he had already made up his mind.
He would escape with Yun Ruoxi and the others during the Final Examination!
The surveillance inside the base was overwhelming. Even with Chicha’s help to block the monitoring,
the short window of time wasn’t enough to gather companions, seize a ship, and install the engine—let alone pilot the ship with everyone on board past the Saints’ Hand Society’s defense network.
And it hadn’t yet been three months since his last contact with Chicha. Without Chicha’s help, he couldn’t even complete the first step.
So from the very start, there was only one path left for him: to leave the Asar System during the Final Examination, slip past the base’s omnipresent surveillance network, and look for an opportunity to escape.
For this, he had drastically revised his plan and managed to hide a signal transmitter capable of cross-universe communication on himself, so he could contact Chicha at the critical moment.
Now, there were only a few days left before the plan began.
Even Lin Zhen couldn’t help but tremble all over, nervous and excited from the depths of his heart.
He couldn’t understand what was going on with Yun Ruoxi during this time, why she seemed somewhat distant from him even without being brainwashed.
But none of that mattered.
Perhaps Yun Ruoxi had just grown up.
He would still take her away from this damned place.
And after they left, whether Yun Ruoxi liked him or not, whether she was willing to visit the trash planet with him, it no longer mattered.
This was what Lin Zhen owed Yun Ruoxi.
***
At the same time, outside the laboratory in the restricted zone.
Dr. Forefinger leaned against the lab’s main door, watching the young girl who could now calmly walk all the way here, and asked:
“There are only three days left before the exam starts. Have you given out all those gifts?”
Yun Ruoxi, dressed simply in trainee clothes, her pale arms covered in knife marks exposed.
At Dr. Forefinger’s words, she suddenly clenched her fists, then after a long pause finally looked up and replied softly, “I’ve given them all out as you asked, Doctor.”
“Good girl. You did the right thing.”
Dr. Forefinger patted her on the shoulder, then opened the lab door, gesturing for her to go inside.
As Yun Ruoxi walked past him, he suddenly said:
“Don’t blame yourself too much. You’re saving him. Otherwise, when his laughable plan fails and he gets caught by the Saints’ Hand Society’s Shengcai, I won’t be able to save him.”
“They won’t see it that way. They’ll blame me… they’ll think I’m a traitor.” The girl gripped her right wrist tightly with her left hand. The scabbed-over cut broke open, blood seeping between her fingers.
She growled in a low voice, “They’ll never like me again!”
“Then why did you agree to my request?” Dr. Forefinger looked down at Yun Ruoxi from above. “You know, you could’ve refused.”
“Because… Yun Ruoxi raised her head, revealing a beautiful yet chilling smile, “since Brother Zhen couldn’t save me from hell, then let him stay in hell and keep me company.”
“Hahaha, excellent.” Dr. Forefinger laughed with satisfaction. Ever since he’d completely shattered Yun Ruoxi with words last time, her brainwashing had advanced at lightning speed.
In just a short while, she had become a different person.
Cold, vicious, cunning, greedy, addicted to self-harm and sadism…
The more beautiful Yun Ruoxi once was, the more twisted and evil she had become after her worldview was warped.
She could kill without batting an eye, and lie without pause.
Though her feelings for her friends remained, they’d been twisted into another kind of warped emotion, making her frantically want to drag back anyone trying to escape hell, anyone trying to leave her side.
“Go on in, take it as your reward. I prepared some new animals for you today.”
Dr. Forefinger turned to leave. The corners of Yun Ruoxi’s lips curled up as she slowly stepped into the laboratory.
But as the doors closed, sealing the inside from the outside, a brief flash of sorrow and vulnerability appeared on her face, only to be replaced again by a cold, cruel smile.
***
The day before the Final Examination.
Instructor Behemoth announced the detailed arrangements for the Final Examination.
The Final Examination would be in the form of team cooperation and confrontation.
They were required to go to a planet in the negative universe, one inhabited by intelligent life, and seize its Star Core.
A Star Core—
This was a treasure born within certain planets.
Not only did it contain unimaginable and terrifying energy, capable of powering massive star-energy weapons or devices, but some of them even possessed strange, mystical abilities of their own.
For example: changing gender, rapid evolution…
Incredibly precious and rare.
And once a Star Core was seized and removed from its planet,
That planet would lose its ability to generate its own star energy, slowly wither, and eventually become a dead and desolate place.
At first, only planets in the negative universe could produce Star Cores. Such planets were called Taixing by the Tianyan Clan.
But as the membranes between the positive and negative universes fused, the life planets of the positive universe gradually began producing star energy as well.
And thus, Star Cores were born there too.
This was the reason for the Tianyan Clan’s invasion of the positive universe.
A civilization built on star energy technology, the Tianyan Clan had an insatiable demand for Star Cores.
Most life planets in the negative universe had already had their Star Cores taken, and were now nothing but lifeless, dead worlds.
So when the positive universe, rich in Taixing, appeared—
To them, it was as if a pillow was delivered right when they needed to rest.
They just hadn’t expected that the pillow would be so hard—so hard that in the end, they lost the war and nearly faced extinction.
And now, the target of the final exam was to seize a life planet’s Star Core.
This was hardly any different from wiping out all life on that planet!
Although most of them could now kill without flinching,
Killing an entire planet’s worth of life was going too far!
None of them felt they could bear such a crime.
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