Chapter 115
Chapter 115
“Ah Ze!”
Lin Ze’s pupils trembled. “Ningning…”
Ningning? Wei Sen felt as if she had heard that name somewhere before…
She searched her memory, but couldn’t recall it right away.
“Ah Ze, did you miss me?” the girl’s voice was as gentle as water.
Lin Ze looked at the face he had longed for day and night. Yet now, every trace of that gentleness was laced with the wrongness of an Eerie Entity.
His brows knitted tightly.
She wasn’t Ningning. She was a wish granted by the Aurora!
Maybe she was… an Eerie Shadow!
But even knowing the person before him was fake, Lin Ze still couldn’t bring himself to push her away.
He had missed her too much. It was precisely that longing that had brought this version of her before him now.
“Huh? What’s going on?” Huang Xinze turned his head in utter confusion. Why had the beauty called his name, only to end up hugging someone else?
“Sister Sen, what in the world is this?” Xu You leaned close to Wei Sen and asked.
Wei Sen studied the girl.
She hadn’t expected Lin Ze’s wish to be a woman.
“She’s a wish granted by the Aurora. Everyone, be careful. She may not be human,” Wei Sen warned in a low voice.
Lin Xiaoxue gossiped, “She called him Ah Ze, but isn’t his name Zhong Lingkun?”
Wei Sen said nothing. Lin Ze’s identity probably couldn’t stay hidden anymore.
Guo Lan narrowed her eyes. “I’m afraid the name Zhong Lingkun is fake.”
Chen Lin was the first to react, checking her Watch. “The group uses each Order Keeper’s real name. Can that even be faked?”
He Xu let out a scoff. “With an Anomalous Artifact, there’s nothing that can’t be done.”
“So this kid’s real name is something-Ze? Damn it, I thought the beauty was calling me! Got happy for nothing!” Huang Xinze shook his head and sat down.
A Lone Wolf named something-Ze?!
Guo Lan, He Xu, and Zhou Jie were the first to think of something. They exchanged glances, but none of them dared voice the guess in their hearts.
A high-level Anomalous Artifact capable of hiding one’s identity wasn’t something just anyone could obtain.
And this person was a Lone Wolf, with a real name that just so happened to contain the character “Ze”…
Could there really be such a coincidence?!
Seeing the situation gradually spiral out of control, Lin Ze grabbed the hand of the person in his arms and strode out of the inn.
“Could he really be…” He Xu’s eyes lit up.
If they had really run into Legend Lin, then they could lie back and clear this Instance effortlessly!
Zhou Jie still had some doubts. “Hard to say. There are plenty of people in the world with the same name.”
After finishing breakfast, Guo Lan stood up and said, “No matter who he is, when it comes to clearing an Instance, it’s better not to count on others too much.”
Guo Lan was also very interested in the legendary Legend Lin, but only because she wanted to know how this person could be so powerful.
Wei Sen finished the last mouthful of porridge, and a bolt of realization suddenly flashed through her mind.
She remembered!
The name “Ningning”-she had once heard it in the Zhihui Primary School Instance!
Back then, there had been a cassette tape in the dormitory that recorded a conversation between two little girls. One of them was called “Ningning”!
It couldn’t be that coincidental, could it?
Wei Sen looked outside the inn. Lin Ze had avoided everyone’s line of sight and was leading the girl toward the back of the inn.
“I’m going out for a bit!”
With that, Wei Sen got up and left.
Even if there was only the slightest possibility, she had to verify it!
In the woods behind the inn-
“Who are you, really?” Lin Ze’s voice was icy as he did his utmost to hide the tenderness in his eyes.
“Ah Ze, what’s wrong?” the girl asked with concern, her almond-shaped eyes looking especially innocent.
A sharp dagger appeared out of thin air in Lin Ze’s hand. In the next second, he pressed it against her.
Not only was the girl unafraid, she even reached out to test Lin Ze’s forehead. “Ah Ze, are you sick? Why have you been acting so strange since just now?”
When Wei Sen arrived, she happened to see this scene.
She didn’t interrupt them right away. Instead, she was quite curious whether Lin Ze could really bring himself to do it.
This was the person he had missed with all his heart, the person he instinctively thought of the moment wishing was mentioned.
Could he bear to make “her” disappear with his own hands?
Lin Ze noticed Wei Sen not far away from the corner of his eye. Frowning, he put the dagger away. “What are you doing here?”
It seemed this Instance was even more troublesome than he’d imagined. It was far too good at exploiting everyone’s weaknesses!
He admitted he couldn’t do it. He even hoped the person before him was the real Ningning.
Wei Sen looked at the girl and said, “Aren’t you going to introduce her?”
Lin Ze looked at Wei Sen suspiciously. Why was she curious about Ningning’s identity?
“Hello. I’m Ah Ze’s girlfriend, Cheng Wanning.” Cheng Wanning took the initiative to step forward and extend her hand to Wei Sen. “And you are?”
Wei Sen calmly extended a hand and shook hers. “Wei Sen. His… roommate.”
There was body heat. A real sense of touch. But no bracelet. Could the person before Wei Sen be a Chaos Body from the Eerie World?
“Roommate?” Cheng Wanning looked at Lin Ze with a jealous pout. “Why haven’t I heard you mention this before?”
Lin Ze stared at Cheng Wanning in a daze. Even the jealous note in her voice was exactly the same as the Ningning in his memory.
What kind of existence was she, really?
Was she truly an Eerie Shadow?
Or… did another Cheng Wanning exist in this world as well?
Lin Ze’s eyes trembled slightly. He took Cheng Wanning’s hand from Wei Sen’s grasp, then looked at Wei Sen with a grave expression. “What exactly do you want?”
A flicker of surprise crossed Wei Sen’s eyes.
Lin Ze had just taken out an Anomalous Artifact and pressed it against Cheng Wanning’s neck. That was proof enough that he knew this person was a wish granted by Aurora, not the woman he truly wanted to see.
And yet, even knowing all of that, he still instinctively shielded her behind him?!
So the person ranked first on the Hero Ranking had such a fatal weakness…
Feelings really were strange things.
Thinking this to themself, Wei Sen asked Lin Ze, “Have you heard of the Zhihui Primary School Instance?”
“No,” Lin Ze answered without hesitation.
But Cheng Wanning, standing beside them, said in surprise, “Zhihui Primary School? That’s my alma mater. But what do you mean by Instance?”
Lin Ze and Wei Sen both stared at Cheng Wanning in shock.
Lin Ze was stunned that Ningning’s old school had become an Instance in the Eerie World-assuming this “Cheng Wanning” was telling the truth.
Wei Sen, on the other hand, was shocked because Lin Ze’s girlfriend really was the girl from the Instance recording! And she had a direct connection to the Instance World?!
“Then do you know Mark?” Wei Sen asked Cheng Wanning tentatively.
“Of course. If not for his donations, the children in our village, including me, would never have had the chance to go to school.”
“Then you also know about Ether Group?!”
Cheng Wanning smiled and glanced at Lin Ze. “Ether Group is so famous. Everyone should know about it, right?”
Lin Ze looked at Cheng Wanning with an odd expression. She really did know about those things from the Real World…
So Zhihui Primary School really had been Ningning’s alma mater!
“Why are you asking about Ether Group?” Lin Ze looked at Wei Sen warily. “Is it because of the clue on the Hot Spring Pool Stele? Or something else?”
It had been a long time since he had heard anyone mention that name. If he had not encountered clues related to Ether Group in this Instance, he might have nearly forgotten that, for a period of time, he had once suspected the group was connected to Ningning’s death!
And the Fake Ningning standing beside him now looked the way she had before graduating from college. Did that mean she knew the real Ningning had joined Ether Group after graduation, and knew what happened afterward?
Wei Sen replied, “Because I’ve already found clues related to Ether Group in three Instances in a row.”
“Three… in a row!” Lin Ze could not hide his surprise. He pressed on, “So you only learned about Ether Group inside Instances?”
When he had first arrived in the Eerie World, he had asked around everywhere. Yet whether it was Order Keepers or Eerie Humans, not a single one of them knew about Ether Group.
Ether Group had clearly been such a famous company. Why did no one in the Real World know about it?
If there were so many clues related to Ether Group in the Instance World, then why had no Order Keeper known about it before Wei Sen appeared?
And… why would people and events that had truly existed in the Real World appear in the Eerie World?
In that instant, countless questions surged through Lin Ze’s mind.
Wei Sen seized on the key information in his words. “Are you saying you didn’t learn about it inside an Instance?”
Their eyes met, and both of them realized something was strange.
Wei Sen remembered that in the Real World, there had been no trace of Ether Group at all. But Lin Ze had learned about Ether Group in the Real World!
Lin Ze frowned in thought. Ether Group had already vanished decades ago. Why was the person before him the one who kept discovering clues related to Ether Group in the Instance World?
Cheng Wanning stepped between them, blocking their line of sight. “Ether Group is the most famous technology company in the world, and Mark is the richest man in the world. What’s so strange about that?”
Lin Ze moved past Cheng Wanning and strode toward Wei Sen. “We need to talk.”
Wei Sen’s eyes darkened. “Exactly what I had in mind!”