The massive transport platform was already packed with trainees who had passed the First Phase Exam.
A dense sea of people.
It seemed that their numbers were not at all small.
But after Lin Zhen swept his sharp gaze over the crowd, he keenly noticed that there were far fewer people than at the start of the exam.
He couldn’t make out the exact number, but at the very least, over two thousand people were missing.
At this point, not many trainees were arriving. Lin Zhen and Yun Ruoxi, who had arrived together, instantly drew numerous gazes.
They climbed the steps and had barely set foot on the platform when four people hurriedly pushed through the crowd.
It was Zi Jiu, Kaios, Yun Che, and Tie An.
Their trainee uniforms were all somewhat tattered, and Tie An even had a wound on his body, crusted over with blood.
But their overall energy and spirit were in excellent shape.
It was clear that in these past twenty days in the Misty Forest, they’d managed to get by with relative ease.
But this was only natural.
All of them were quite strong. Even Tie An, with his outstanding endurance, didn’t have much trouble passing the First Phase Exam.
“Well, well, how did the two of you end up together?”
Kaios bounded forward and playfully punched Lin Zhen in the chest, grinning.
“We waited for you two for so long, we thought something happened!”
Lin Zhen laughed as he rubbed his chest. “I was saved by Xiao Xi by accident, so we just decided to team up.”
“Oh — what a coincidence, huh?”
Kaios waggled his eyebrows mischievously, just about to shoot Lin Zhen a meaningful look when a slender, fair hand with distinct joints pressed down on his head, pushing him down.
With one hand, Zi Jiu held back the fidgeting Kaios and smiled gently at Lin Zhen:
“Did you run into any trouble? What took you so long?”
“Yeah, we ran into quite a bit of trouble.”
“Tell us about it!” Tie An asked, curiosity piqued.
“You all want to know?”
Lin Zhen hadn’t planned on telling the story—it was rather complicated, after all.
But seeing everyone nodding with curiosity, he glanced at Yun Ruoxi, and after getting her nod of approval, organized his thoughts and began to recount those ten days in detail.
At that moment, Yun Che suggested, “Why don’t we go sit where we staked out our spot and talk?”
Lin Zhen was just about to agree when Yun Ruoxi gently shook her head and smiled apologetically.
“You go on ahead, I’m still waiting for someone.”
“Or maybe…”
Lin Zhen realized who Yun Ruoxi wanted to wait for. He intended to wait with her, but she refused.
“I’ll come over as soon as I find them,” she said.
For some reason, watching the natural rapport between Lin Zhen and Yun Ruoxi, Zi Jiu felt a faint trace of loss in her heart, as if something that should have belonged to her had been taken away.
However, at this point, Zi Jiu hadn’t developed any feelings for Lin Zhen beyond friendship.
So she didn’t dwell on it, just chalked it up to a mild jealousy at her friend finding a new companion.
“Let’s go, let’s go, she said she’ll come by later! If someone else snags the good spot we found, that’ll be trouble! Just because the First Phase Exam is done doesn’t mean we’re finished—we still have to wait here for two days. If we don’t get those prime spots now, you’ll regret it tonight.”
Kaios urged them on, rambling.
Yun Che could only rub his forehead, helpless in the face of Kaios’s total inability to read the mood.
Unable to resist Kaios’s enthusiasm, Lin Zhen followed them deeper into the platform.
Passing through the packed crowd, he couldn’t help but glance back.
The petite blue-haired girl stood alone at the edge of the crowd, right at the most prominent entrance to the platform, silently waiting.
She stared intently at the distant forest, eyes brimming with a quiet expectation.
The setting sun cast a crimson halo over her, as if bathed in blood.
The surging crowd closed in like a tide, and the gap through which Lin Zhen could see Yun Ruoxi grew narrower and narrower.
Kaios had his arm slung around Lin Zhen’s shoulder, guiding him forward. He drifted further and further away from her, his view becoming ever more blurred.
At last, the crowd completely blocked his sight.
He could no longer see Yun Ruoxi, and arrived at an open space among the crowd.
This was the spot Kaios, Zi Jiu, and the others had previously secured, close to the Engine of the transport platform.
In the chilly night, this place would be warm—a rare spot in the crowd where one could rest well.
Lin Zhen sat down beside his companions and continued telling the tale of their adventure, though the other protagonist was no longer by his side.
“Is this considered recycling the OP?”
“Such a strong metaphor—the production team is ruthless. Are they really going to have Xiao Xi exit at the end?”
“That’s impossible, right? She’s one of the most popular characters. They can’t just kill her off, can they? Won’t the production team get torn apart by fans?”
“Why not? Even Master Lao could get axed mid-story. What else wouldn’t these twisted Japanese screenwriters do?”
“Scary.”
“Whoa, the cinematography is that good?”
Outside the crowd.
Yun Ruoxi appeared calm on the surface, but was secretly surprised inside.
She’d only meant to wait for Aili, but the production team chose this moment to play a trick. The shot they took matched perfectly with the hidden content she’d smuggled into the OP.
She even suspected that the production team had already noticed her alterations to the plot and were now cooperating with her performance.
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence. After all, in the original plot, I also chose to stay at the war camp in the end. Besides, the production team wouldn’t change the original outline on a whim…” Yun Ruoxi pondered.
She’d actually done quite a bit of research on the cross-temporal “Stellar” production team.
At first, she’d suspected the production team didn’t exist at all, that the so-called anime was all the system’s doing.
After all, if a real production team existed, her rewriting the story and tweaking the OP just didn’t make sense.
But the truth was:
There really was such a “Stellar” production team, made up of big names in the industry.
Occasionally, there’d even be an exclusive interview revealing behind-the-scenes stories of “Stellar,” showing production sketches and unedited footage.
So even though Yun Ruoxi still harbored doubts, she no longer spent any effort investigating the truth.
After all, the two sides were separated by time and space—finding out the truth was no simple feat.
Otherwise, the system wouldn’t have put a “nine billion popularity points” price tag on the so-called truth.
And Yun Ruo had always believed that no matter what the truth was, one day, everything would come to light.
Pressing her lips together, Yun Ruoxi kept waiting.
She stood quietly in place as the afterglow of sunset on her body slowly faded into the misty, gauzy moonlight.
In the end, even the moonlight retreated, and dawn began to break on the horizon.
Lin Zhen came by several times to persuade her to rest, saying there was no need to wait so hard.
But she only smiled and shook her head.
Knowing how stubborn Yun Ruoxi could be, he eventually stopped trying to convince her. He simply found a beast pelt and spread it at her feet, so she could sit and wait more comfortably.