Chapter 52

Chapter 52

The instant Xiao Huai reached for the half-heart, it felt as though countless needles pierced his palm and ground into it again and again.

Pain shot through his hand. His brows drew together, and a vein stood out on his forehead.

[Warning! Sanity continues to fall! Heavy contamination source detected: Half of Joseph’s Heart!]

[Half of Joseph’s Heart]

Heavy Contamination Source Description: Not an item. The source of a curse and contamination. Upon taking possession of this curse-ridden heart, Sanity will instantly decrease by 50!

[Note: You have no idea what pain is.]

The frigid air sliced at his outstretched hand like a blade, carrying agony with it.

At that moment, he suddenly smiled, the faintest elusive curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Like a winter gale stabbing into the earth, he seized the half-heart in one hand.

It hurt!

The system’s shrill notifications replayed endlessly in his mind, yet all Xiao Huai seemed to hear was a droning buzz. Mist blurred his vision.

He gasped for breath and dropped to one knee under the pain.

[Current Sanity: 48. Emergency mental-state protection activated. Please leave the area containing the heavy contamination source immediately! Protection will end in one minute.]

Before his awareness could fade any further, Xiao Huai forced himself upright and carried the heart out of the magic array.

But the instant he crossed its edge, his pupils contracted.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he forcibly swallowed a groan of pain.

It felt as if someone were carving his heart apart one thin slice at a time. Black markings flickered across his body, as though something burned beneath his skin. The pain reached all the way into his soul and the marrow of his bones.

His back went rigid and trembled. Sweat had soaked his skin, and he had almost no strength left. Only sheer will kept him moving toward the door, one step at a time.

Only now did he finally understand how real the system’s warning had been.

His blood seemed to boil and burn. Tremors coursed through his body in waves.

Then he bit hard into his lower lip. Bright red blood stood out starkly against its pallor.

Sweat plastered his black hair to his face. He lifted his chin and smiled faintly, almost in self-mockery, but the defiance in his eyes was impossible to ignore.

“I have to get out,” he murmured, striding forward despite the tremors racking his body.

To keep himself from losing consciousness completely, he used the pain of biting his lip without hesitation.

As blood and sweat mingled and dripped onto the floor, he knew that if he continued cowering here, he would only become more pathetic.

Once he left the space beyond the door, the black markings gradually faded.

Xiao Huai did not know how he made it downstairs alone or how he found his way back to the office.

But when the familiar figure in the office entered his vision, his heartbeat fell into rhythm with the blood flowing through his veins, and the passage of time became indistinct.

“Lu Yuanshi.”

He called the man’s name softly.

Lu Yuanshi gave a quiet response. His lips moved as though he said something else.

Xiao Huai heard none of it. Darkness washed over his vision again and again. He stumbled despite himself, only for an arm to hook around his waist and keep him from falling.

His forehead pressed against Lu Yuanshi’s shoulder. He breathed quietly, almost greedily inhaling the faint, clean fragrance clinging to the other man.

Lu Yuanshi’s hand merely rested lightly at his waist, yet even through the overcoat, it seemed to touch flesh and bone, lending an almost imperceptible warmth to all that cool detachment.
Lu Yuanshi lowered his eyes to the pitiful figure in his arms, so fragile that he seemed as if he might shatter with the slightest pressure.

He had seen far too many fragile people. Yet when Xiao Huai spoke his name, Lu Yuanshi heard not the slightest trace of weakness in it.

It was more like… a greeting as warm as winter sunlight.

There was no frailty, no grievance, no pain.

Only the most ordinary call of his name, as natural as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. It held the warmth of dawn and the golden shimmer of scales breaking the horizon, yet it also stole his breath, pulled every nerve taut, and froze space and time.

The lips that so often wore a smile were pressed into a straight line. Lu Yuanshi raised one hand. The breeze it stirred brushed Xiao Huai’s lashes, and his fingertip skimmed the bloodied corner of Xiao Huai’s mouth as lightly as a dragonfly touching water.

A long time passed before Xiao Huai’s five senses gradually returned. The steep drop in Sanity had dulled them, which was why he had so abruptly and almost greedily breathed in Lu Yuanshi’s scent.

Perhaps he had been afraid. Afraid he would die like that, with the reek of the sea as the last thing he smelled.

Or perhaps Xiao Huai wanted to turn Lu Yuanshi’s faint, clean fragrance into a memory he could preserve forever.

Xiao Huai raised his head and instinctively put some distance between them.

His bloodless lips curved. A smile swept across them like a passing breeze, raising a ripple that vanished almost as soon as it appeared.

“Sorry,” he said softly. “I got your coat dirty.”

The sweat from his forehead had stained Lu Yuanshi’s overcoat.

But the next second, a large hand settled on his hair, fingertips rubbing gently through the damp strands at his brow.

Xiao Huai’s pupils contracted. Lu Yuanshi’s voice reached his ears as the man curved his lips ever so slightly.

“I don’t mind.”

For that one instant, there was none of the usual falseness in his smile.

Lu Yuanshi was beautiful when he smiled, but that beauty had always seemed too insubstantial, too far removed from reality.

Yet when their eyes met just now, Xiao Huai had felt as though a breeze had lifted that gauzy veil for the briefest instant.

Xiao Huai looked away. His fingertips trembled faintly as blood flowed back into them.

He glanced at the clock mounted high on the office wall. An hour had passed since he went upstairs.

“We have to go,” Xiao Huai said. “On to the next place.”

Lu Yuanshi’s deep eyes remained fixed on him. Xiao Huai turned to meet his gaze.

He did not ask why Lu Yuanshi had suddenly vanished from his side as they walked.

There were too many variables in a horror game. Being separated from a teammate happened often. A single shift in space could trap someone here forever.

His thin lips parted, but all he said was, “Good. Neither of us diamond fiends came to harm.”

He did not tell Lu Yuanshi that he had already been preparing to search for his corpse and belongings. Nor did he mention anything he had encountered while alone.

He kept all pain locked away in a black box inside his heart. There was no need to tell an outsider such things.

As long as both of them were alive, their odds of making it through would be higher.

The corner of Lu Yuanshi’s mouth held a trace of a smile that was not quite a smile. His dark eyes narrowed slightly, and his long, dense lashes lowered, concealing the faint warmth beneath them.

“Mm,” he replied softly.

* * *

In the Diamond Factory’s underground laboratory, the air was thick with the pungent reek of the sea. Employees in white coats and gas masks moved in and out of the various laboratories.

Test tubes of every kind were piled throughout the main work area.