Chi Zhan fell silent for a moment.
“You were here the whole time? Even just now?”
“I’ve always been here,” the System replied reluctantly, its tone tinged with reluctance. “But… occasionally, I get hit with a mosaic.”
“When exactly?”
“Just now.” The System’s usually mechanical voice now carried a distinct gritted-teeth quality. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Ordinary NPCs aren’t allowed to get involved with romance targets. Breaking that rule has serious consequences—way more than just a memory reset.”
“What exactly are you referring to?” Chi Zhan let out a soft laugh. “If I remember correctly, in the last mission, you were the one who told me to seduce the Crown Prince… Isn’t he a romance target too?”
“That was different! You were supposed to assassinate him in the end. There’s no way he’d still fall in love with you after that,” the System retorted. “Only players are allowed to pursue romance targets.”
“Oh, I see.” Chi Zhan’s voice turned contemplative, almost amused. “But what if I didn’t assassinate him, and he ended up falling in love with me anyway? What would happen then? It’s unlikely, but not impossible.”
“Absolutely not!” the System shrieked, its voice turning sharp and shrill. “You can’t entertain thoughts like that. If you make the same mistake again… the entire world could collapse!”
Chi Zhan caught a key phrase. “Make the same mistake again? What does that mean?”
The System fell silent. It seemed to realize it had said too much. After a pause, its voice returned, now cold and flat: “If you keep asking, I’ll have to erase your memory.”
Chi Zhan decided to back off while he still could. “Be sure to follow up on my application. Goodbye.”
He knew his barrage of questions had hit a nerve—he’d definitely touched on something the System didn’t want him to know. And what he had managed to learn was deeply intriguing. But the answers were still too vague. “Make the same mistake again”? What did that even mean? Could it be connected to the memories he’d recently recovered?
The memories he’d regained were bizarre to say the least—and they all had one thing in common: Cen Chi.
Clunk. The sound of the exhaust fan shutting off snapped Chi Zhan back to reality. The room was instantly enveloped in silence.
He looked up to find Qi Song standing right in front of him. His body still carried the dry chill of a winter snowfall, the scent of fresh snow clinging to his coat like an invisible shroud, sharp and bracing.
He was dressed in a black trench coat and black slacks, a sleek silhouette against the dim light. His shirt was buttoned all the way to the collar. The small mole at the corner of his eye softened his otherwise sharp gaze.
But he was standing far too close.
He instinctively took a step back, only for a gloved hand to wrap around his waist. A low, calm voice followed:
“I waited for you for three hours.”
“…??”
He murmured, “When did I ever…”
A wild, improbable idea began to form in his mind.
The other man raised his hand. Jingle. A delicate silver chain glinted under the light, loosely wrapped around his slender wrist. Dangling from it was a black enamel badge, swinging slightly with gravity.
A… cat head?
Chi Zhan instantly recalled the identical avatar he’d seen on social media. His eyes widened in disbelief.
“You’re S?!”
Qi Song hummed in affirmation, openly revealing himself as if it were no big deal. He looked calmly at Chi Zhan, who suddenly realized why Tang Ling had called him out of the blue. The revelation was surreal. The supposedly dangerous figure turned out to be a classmate. But on second thought, they did have quite a few similarities… He just hadn’t connected the dots.
“How did you know I was 54349?”
“I knew from the moment I first saw you,” Qi Song said coolly.
“So you’ve been pretending not to know me all this time?” Chi Zhan suddenly remembered all the things he’d done to “S”—trying to get him drunk, cuffing him with handcuffs, and even…
Qi Song looked utterly unfazed.
“Darkport has surveillance. Even if I knew, I couldn’t say anything.”
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Chi Zhan was momentarily speechless.
“What’s this?” A cool fingertip brushed the back of Chi Zhan’s neck, lightly grazing the sterile patch. His voice lowered. “A suppression patch…”
Chi Zhan immediately reached up to block him, but Qi Song didn’t press further. He withdrew his hand and said evenly, “The person you mentioned, the one who needs pheromone testing—was it you?”
Chi Zhan replied calmly, “No. It really is a friend of mine.”
Before learning S’s identity, he’d been torn about whether to tell him the truth. But now that he knew S was Qi Song, there was no way he was going to come clean.
“Really?” Qi Song asked again.
“Yes.” Chi Zhan’s tone was firm. Then he added, “Actually, I wanted to ask you to help me find someone. But this touches on Imperial law. If we’re caught… the consequences would be unimaginable. A Federation citizen named Jiang Yi,” he added uneasily. “If you don’t want to help, I understand…”
Qi Song was already pulling up the data.
“Got it. I’ve sent you the detailed info.”
Chi Zhan blinked. “…That fast?”
“Do you need to contact him? We can use an encrypted messaging platform to bypass the Empire’s network. No one will notice.”
Chi Zhan nodded.
“Then I’ll… give it a try.”
As expected of S. Something so difficult, and he solved it in seconds. Worth every credit of that hefty consultation fee.
Qi Song stood up to give Chi Zhan some privacy.
“I’ll come back in ten minutes.”
He opened the door and picked up Chu Xingxiao, who had been scratching at it. With a frosty tone, he said, “Don’t bother him.”
Back inside, Chu Xingxiao watched Qi Song’s utterly composed expression and couldn’t help asking, “Didn’t you notice? My gege, he…”
“Temporary marking,” Qi Song replied, his tone flat. “Who else knows?”
Chu Xingxiao froze.
“Wait a sec, why are you not even surprised? Since when did you know my brother’s an Omega?!”
His mind was racing. From Qi Song’s calm response, he could already sense a storm brewing. So he immediately launched into an embellished, highly dramatic retelling of the entire sequence of events.
