Wound

A "knock, knock" at the door temporarily interrupted Shen Qian's thoughts.

The delivery was here?

Shen Qian's eyes lit up. He hurriedly got to his feet, but nearly fell over from a sudden wave of dizziness.

He felt like something was wrong with his body. Besides the overwhelming hunger, he also felt strangely weak.

Wrapping himself in a bath towel, Shen Qian went to the entryway and opened the door. Sure enough, the most adorable delivery guy had brought him food.

Seven dishes and a soup—Shen Qian swept it all clean in just twenty minutes.

And he still wasn't full...

Shen Qian picked up his charged wristband. The moment he turned it on, it began vibrating frantically, its "ding-ding" notifications ringing nonstop.

He had expected some of it, but seeing the four-digit number of unread messages and three-digit number of missed calls displayed on the wristband still made his scalp tingle.

Knock, knock, knock!

Just as Shen Qian was about to tap one open, the knocking sounded again.

"That fast?" Shen Qian, who had just called for another delivery, didn't think much of it and went straight over to open the door.

A girl in a navy school uniform dress stood outside. Her chest rose and fell sharply from her hurried breathing. Her dark eyes were wide, and when she saw Shen Qian's flushed cheeks, her cheeks puffed up slightly in anger.

"Huo Ling'er?" Shen Qian froze. Thinking of the AFK Record, he couldn't help looking awkward. "Why are you here... Wait, no. How did you know I was here?"

"I left a missing-person notice at Tongxinyuan Hotel!" Huo Ling'er glanced at Shen Qian, who was wearing nothing but a bath towel, then quickly looked away. "The front desk called me as soon as you checked in, and I ran all the way here from school!"

"Shen Qian, how could you do this?" After explaining, Huo Ling'er immediately questioned him.

"Uh, I didn't really mean what I said that day. Well... you could say I wasn't fully conscious at the time." Shen Qian explained stiffly.

"That's not what I mean. I-I wasn't even that angry about what you said that day. I just thought you were being too disrespectful toward me..."

Huo Ling'er spoke softly, then raised her voice again. "What I mean is, how could you run away from home just because I rejected you?"

"Do you know the entire school has been looking for you? The Police Warriors came to question me twice. And your parents, too, and that pretty senior sister. But the way she looked at me was kind of strange, like I'd somehow offended her..."

Huo Ling'er was confused, but Shen Qian caught the key phrase... a pretty senior sister?

"Are you talking about Ding Yi?" Shen Qian instinctively grabbed Huo Ling'er by the shoulders. "She's back?"

"You seem really nervous. What is your relationship with her?" Huo Ling'er suspiciously looked up at him.

"She..."

Shen Qian was about to press further when, from the corner of his eye, another girl suddenly appeared in his field of vision.

She wore a fitted black coat. Her long hair, which she rarely wore loose, fell in soft curves over her shoulders. A few stray strands clung to her forehead, adding a touch of gentleness to her cool, delicate face. Under the dim hallway lights, she was breathtakingly beautiful.

Her originally anxious gaze slowly turned from shock to indifference after taking in everything inside the room.

Shen Qian looked at himself, clad only in a bath towel, then at the hand resting on Huo Ling'er's shoulder. He couldn't help rubbing his forehead. What the hell is this situation?

Thud, thud, thud...

More footsteps came from the corridor, and more and more people gathered outside the room.

Shen Qian saw his parents, their anxious expressions mixed with joy; Liu Simin, visibly relieved; the dumbfounded Zhou Xu and Wang Yangming; and Song Ye, the Police Warrior, wearing an inquisitive expression.

Huo Ling'er finally realized something seemed off and took two steps to the side.

"Ah!"

Huo Ling'er was now facing the full-length mirror beside the door. She suddenly screamed, her face rapidly turning pale.

"Shen Qian, y-your back..."

Her voice trembled, as though she had seen something terrifying.

Everyone froze, unsure what was going on.

Shen Qian, who had been pondering how to explain things to Ding Yi and calm her down, instinctively turned at Huo Ling'er's cry and looked into the mirror. Then he froze as well.

In the mirror, a massive wound about two fingers wide stretched across his back, running from beneath his left armpit all the way to his right waist. Flesh was torn and curled outward, the wound deep enough to expose bone. It was incomparably grotesque.

Strangely, the wound wasn't bleeding. Still, Shen Qian sucked in a breath. He finally understood where the discomfort he had felt ever since regaining consciousness came from.

The next moment, an overwhelming wave of dizziness struck again. This time, Shen Qian couldn't endure it and fainted on the spot.

Everyone at the door immediately descended into chaos.

A sky full of stars hung upside down, while at the end of the endless darkness stood a broken bridge.

At the end of that broken bridge stood another person.

With his back to the stars, dressed in white, his figure seemed endlessly tall and endlessly lonely.

Shen Qian stepped onto the broken bridge in confusion.

"You're here," the figure said calmly.

"I'm here," Shen Qian replied.

"You came too early."

"I'm not the one who came early."

Shen Qian immediately added another line, then felt that the exchange was vaguely cringeworthy. He hurriedly adjusted his train of thought and asked again, "Who are you? And where am I?"

"Where you are isn't important. What's important is, do you know who you are now?" the figure still said calmly.

"Can you just speak plainly?" Shen Qian couldn't take it anymore.

"Words spoken by people are all human words."

"Keep this up and I'm going to insult your family."

"How boring." The White-robed Man shrugged and pointed ahead. "Look."

Shen Qian followed his finger. In the deepest darkness, a pair of eyes suddenly opened. Those eyes carried an unimaginable, terrifying pressure. They seemed to be watching Shen Qian, yet they also seemed to be watching heaven and earth.

An indescribable terror crashed over him. Shen Qian abruptly opened his eyes and saw another pair of eyes. Instinctively, he tried to shrink back.

"Shen Qian?" A familiar cool voice gradually pulled Shen Qian back to reality.

Only then did he realize those eyes belonged to a girl sitting by the bed. They were bright and clear, not like the cold, emotionless eyes from his dream.

"You're awake." Ding Yi stood up, seemingly going to call for a doctor.

Shen Qian's fragmented awareness gradually returned. Remembering what had happened before he fainted, he looked around. It was a single hospital room of roughly fifty square meters, with lush green plants and a pleasant environment.

"My back..."

Shen Qian suddenly remembered something and reached behind himself. Sure enough, thick bandages were wrapped around his back. It seemed that massive wound hadn't been an illusion.

Seeing that no one had entered the room yet, Shen Qian summoned the system and opened the fifth AFK Record.

Clearly, the answer was in there.

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