Chapter 99: The Answer
As she spoke, the woman lifted a hand and gently stroked Wen Nan’s cheek with cool fingertips.
A faint scent of freesia clung to her, mingled with sandalwood.
Wen Nan did not move. Seated cross-legged on the floor like a statue of Buddha, he let her do as she pleased, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on her face.
The woman’s smile deepened. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
As if she could not bear the force of his stare, she raised her other hand to cover Wen Nan’s eyes, then leaned in, intending to kiss his lips.
Just as their mouths were about to meet, Wen Nan suddenly lifted a hand, seized her shoulder, and shoved her away.
The woman’s slender body was pulled back rather roughly. The smile on her face faded a little, and she lowered the hand that had been covering Wen Nan’s eyes, looking at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
Wen Nan’s brow tightened faintly.
“Are you... a player now?”
The woman shook her head lightly.
“A target character?”
She shook her head again.
“An NPC?”
A third shake.
Wen Nan was utterly baffled.
Once more the woman smiled. Rising onto her knees, she leaned close to him again. When the tip of her nose was almost touching his, she paused and said softly, “I came to find you. Beyond that, I am no one.”
They were very close. From Wen Nan’s angle, he could clearly see the pair of pronounced collarbones beneath her open neckline, and beneath those...
He quickly lowered his gaze, avoiding the line of her chest, until his eyes came to rest on her wrist.
The woman had her palm pressed over the back of his hand, gripping it tightly. On her wrist she wore a simple, very fine silver bracelet.
Under Wen Nan’s stare, that bracelet slowly lengthened, like a slender little snake, coiling around his wrist.
The cold chain tightened and tightened, almost biting into his skin, hurting him a little.
That faint pain snapped Wen Nan fully awake. His pupils contracted sharply.
It was a dream.
With all his strength, Wen Nan shoved the woman before him away, then rolled his own body to the side and crashed heavily onto the floor.
Thud.
A dull impact.
Wen Nan’s eyes flew open.
He found himself sprawled on the floor after falling off the sofa. Looking around, he realized he was still in the living room of the rented apartment. The room was not large, furnished with a sofa, a coffee table, and a television cabinet. On the coffee table sat an admission letter and an empty wine glass.
That had been... a nightmare?
As he was still thinking, the system let out a shrill alarm in his mind. Then, in front of his eyes, a countdown flashing with urgent red light appeared.
[00:00:03—]
[00:00:02—]
[00:00:01—]
9527: [Main Quest 1 has ended. Please return to the respawn point within 15 minutes to begin quest settlement. If you exceed the prescribed time window, you will lose eligibility for this settlement. Acknowledged.]
9527: [Commencing settlement countdown now—]
[14:59—]
[14:58—]
Wen Nan:?!
The first main quest was already over?
That could not be right. There were clearly still more than three hours left...
Wen Nan opened the system panel and checked the time, only to find that it was already eight in the morning.
He had accidentally dozed off just now, thinking only five minutes had passed, but in reality, three hours had gone by?
In the upper-right corner of the panel, the guild chat had a bright red "99+" notification badge, flashing nonstop.
Wen Nan immediately opened the chat and found it full of members’ questions.
Some were asking where the G-point actually was, some were begging the guild leader to show up at once, and some were asking where the leader’s address in the instance was, suspecting he had met with an accident in his rented apartment and wanting to go rescue him...
When he scrolled all the way to the top, Wen Nan discovered that the last message he had sent stopped at a single word: “Yes.”
So the messages he had later drafted to reveal the truth had actually been sent in his dream, and the members had not received any of them at all.
His head was still foggy, as though he had guzzled a dozen beers the night before and was only now waking from the hangover, his skull splitting into two.
The lingering scent of sandalwood still drifted through his breath, making Wen Nan feel a little nauseated.
The final settlement countdown in front of him kept flashing, reminding him that he did not have much time left.
Wen Nan shook his head, forcing himself awake, and quickly sent a message in the chat.
[9: I’m fine]
[Fire Fire Fire: Holy shit! I’m gonna cry! Damn it, boss, you’re okay! I thought you were done for! That’s great! If you’re not around, I won’t be able to keep going either!]
[yao: But the first main quest is already over, boss. There’s no time left. Our guild is going to be trapped in this first quest together.]
[9: It’s still in time]
[9: Get to the G-point as fast as you can]
[yao: Where the hell is the G-point? How do we get there?]
[9: Find Zhang Tianyu]
[9: The place he wants to go but cannot reach is the G-point]
...
...
Aileen Group headquarters, first-floor reception hall.
Standing beside the sofa, Hu Jiayao saw the message the guild leader had sent in the chat and looked utterly bewildered.
“Zhang Tianyu? Who’s Zhang Tianyu?”
Seated on the sofa, Gu Jinxing replied in a low voice, “The newest member we personally pulled into the guild.”
Hu Jiayao immediately remembered. “The NPC who kept running into walls and bugging out?”
Gu Jinxing corrected him with a dark expression, “That wasn’t an NPC. He’s a player, just like us.”
Three hours earlier, after receiving the guild leader’s hint, Gu Jinxing should have thought of it already.
A place they could not hear, see, touch, or step into, yet still wanted to go to—ordinary players like them had no idea where it was, but Zhang Tianyu certainly did.
Judging from Zhang Tianyu’s abnormal behavior, he was very likely a former player. Because each time a quest ended, his conquest progress had failed to meet the required threshold, triggering all five soul threads and ultimately causing the plotline [Reversal Against Heaven].
His body had been controlled by his own target character and no longer belonged to him. He wandered everywhere like a marionette.
In such a state, the place he was willing to smash himself black and blue to reach was certainly the place his subconscious most desperately wanted to arrive at.
At that thought, Gu Jinxing stood up, replied in the chat with [Received. Heading there now], and then sprinted at full speed toward the corridor where Zhang Tianyu was.
...
...
Back in the rented apartment’s living room, Wen Nan received Gu Jinxing’s reply and closed the chat.
Just as the weight in his chest was about to finally ease, a sharp stab of pain shot through his wrist, and his heart clenched again.
He lowered his head and looked toward the source of the pain, only to find that the silver bracelet from his dream was still bound around his wrist. The thin chain had even torn into his skin.
Lifting his wrist closer for a better look, he only then realized that it was not a metal chain at all, but some kind of extremely unusual silver thread.
This was... a soul thread?!
End of chapter.