Chapter 126
Chapter 126
He slept with rare peace of mind.
Ning Shuo rarely had anyone by his side around whom he could let down every last one of his defenses.
Or rather, he rarely ever met someone like that.
So to lower all his guard before another self, and place himself completely in that person’s hands…
It felt like destiny-unexpected, yet somehow perfectly natural.
Xie Ning…
—
The next day, when Zone A and Zone D had their match, Zone F went to watch as well.
When they logged out, Ning Shuo leaned lazily against Ning Wang. “Knight, escort this King back to the palace. We need to prepare for the match three days from now.”
His expression looked no different from usual.
But Ning Wang could still tell something was wrong with him. He looked exhausted, yet at the same time as though he had endured tremendous pain.
They were still out in public, under the System’s surveillance, so Ning Wang only glanced at the thoroughly drained Rong Xi on the arena stage and didn’t ask any questions. After taking Ning Shuo back, he finally asked softly, “What did Rong Xi say to you?”
Shielded by the Water Moon Mirror, Ning Shuo grabbed his collar, his fingertips trembling. “They… those idiots…”
The Forum was already exploding with arguments.
[What the hell? Why does the Zone A and Zone D fight feel so weird?]
[What’s going on with those two Zones? They both look like they’re going all out, but the livestream just feels off no matter how you watch it.]
[They’re clearly bleeding and sweating, so why does it somehow feel less satisfying than the preliminaries?]
Back in the Rest Area, somewhere the System couldn’t spy on them, Ning Shuo was already weak enough that he had to be supported by Ning Wang. “He… they were never planning to seriously fight us at all.”
The top three Star Zones could all have their wishes granted, so why insist on taking first place just to meet the Main God?
Because only by meeting the Main God would they have a chance to kill it and destroy the entire System.
Ning Shuo understood Rong Xi just as Rong Xi understood Ning Shuo.
He knew Rong Xi had never cared much about winning or losing in games, especially not in games of life and death. If all he wanted was to have his wish granted, then there had been no need to tell Ning Shuo those things last night.
There was only one message he could have been trying to convey to Ning Shuo: he wanted to meet the Main God.
Meet it, and then destroy it.
At first, that alone hadn’t been enough for Ning Shuo to realize that Zone A wanted to push Zone F to the top.
Not until today’s match, when Zone A and Zone D drank together in the nighttime portion of the Script, smiling as though all grievances had vanished.
Then Ning Shuo understood: all three Star Zones shared a common goal.
A shared goal-to destroy the System and return home.
And if they got to meet the Main God, naturally the whole team would be able to go.
The more people there were, the greater the chance of success.
So when Zone F became the only team in the preliminaries to survive with every member intact, the other two teams must have already, at some unknown time and by some secret signal, come to an understanding behind the Main God’s back.
Last night’s conversation and today’s Script were purely a performance for the Main God. The two teams had cooperated in quite a few places today, quietly keeping casualties to a minimum.
Everyone was working toward that goal.
The people they knew, and the people they didn’t.
Everyone.
—
Ning Shuo didn’t cry. It wasn’t to that extent.
Nothing had been decided yet, and Rong Xi’s group did not necessarily have to die.
He just felt tired.
It was rare enough to meet old friends again, and now a second parting already felt like an arrow nocked on the string.
In his hazy sleep, he heard someone coaxing him softly by his ear.
“Ningning, you have a bit of a fever.”
“Ningning, get up and drink some porridge. I’ll feed you.”
“You’re too tired. Sleep a little longer.”
Ning Wang lowered his eyes and looked at the person who was still clutching his arm even in sleep. He gently pulled his arm free, then went to get a cold towel to help cool him down.
Ning Shuo mumbled something under his breath. Ning Wang bent down and heard him calling, “Master.”
Right now, he really was like a child.
Ning Wang smiled. After being busy for half the night and making sure Ning Shuo’s fever had gone down, he washed up a little, gathered him into his arms, and fell into a deep sleep.
—
Rong Xi stared listlessly at the sprout in his palm and suddenly thought of that night, when he had issued Ning Shuo a challenge.
If Ning Shuo had really wanted to challenge someone, the first thing out of his mouth would definitely have been a mocking jab, crushing his opponent psychologically before anything else.
He wouldn’t have actually said something like that, just to emphasize a fact Rong Xi had known all along.
That meant Ning Shuo had already started to see through what they were trying to do.
Not to mention, while today’s Script might have fooled the System, Brother Ning was far too sharp, and he knew Rong Xi too well. Rong Xi had a feeling he’d already been seen through.
He scratched at his messy hair and looked at Fei Jinnian. “Uncle Fei… am I doing the right thing?”
If the System really were destroyed, then the people in Zone ABC from the modern world who had already died and were only still alive because of the System…
Fei Jinnian took a sip of warm liquor and laughed freely. “You said it yourself. We’re all people who already died. We’ve gotten to live here for this long already. Isn’t that enough to make it worth it?”
“The living have to go back,” he said, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. Beyond it was the unchanging starry sky simulated by the System. “We still have people we care about. We have to let them get out and see the real stars.”
In the Rest Area set to wilderness mode, Jiang Shu joined the team’s bonfire gathering.
In her hand was a photo that had been specially printed out. It showed her and Ying Jian pressing their palms together.
Ning Wang had captured it perfectly. At the time, Jiang Shu hadn’t noticed her husband.
But in the photo, it looked as though the two of them were gazing at each other.
In his own room, Qi Yang sent Luo Li a string of rambling messages. “You have to be careful in tomorrow’s match. Stay safe. Life and death are definitely more important than winning or losing…”
The Virtual Screen was filled with well-wishing messages he had sent Luo Li. She hadn’t replied to a single one.
Just when Qi Yang thought this one would go unanswered too, a new message popped up on the Virtual Screen.
Lolita: Got it.
Luo Li put away the Virtual Screen and glanced at the Cloth Doll in her Backpack.
It was Zhu Xiangfeng’s Cloth Doll.
Luo Li had been in the System for two years. She understood very clearly just how heavy the emotional ties people carried from before could be.
Heavy, but important.
That was why she always did her best to avoid forming connections with others.
And yet, feelings weren’t something you could avoid just because you wanted to.
After tomorrow, whether they won or lost, the System would definitely make some kind of move. There was a very high chance it would hurt the audience.
Luo Li held back for a moment, but in the end she still sent Qi Yang a message. “Be careful yourself after this.”
Some rooms still had their lights on. Qin Genan was studying firearm blueprints. Zhuang Yao was analyzing the Scripts they had broken in the past, sorting out which flaws counted as weaknesses in the System and which vulnerabilities still hadn’t been repaired.
Some lights had already gone out. Song Zhu lightly tapped Rao Lin between the brows, his mind full of tangled thoughts.
Today seemed to be a special day.
In a space occupied by no one but himself, Shu Yan casually tossed the last sheet of spirit money into the fire. When he left, all he left behind was a resolute silhouette; whether he was burying that chaotic past deep inside himself or saying farewell to it, no one could tell.
The long night was lonely and still, like a send-off tempered by the passage of countless years.
Unconsciously, Ning Shuo tightened his grip around the fingers of the person beside him. That person clasped his hand in return, and the sense of reassurance lulled him back into deep sleep, letting him store up his strength for the unknown battle ahead.