Injured

But by the time he came to his senses and looked again, the shadow had returned to normal.

He didn't think much of it, assuming he was in a poor mental state and had started seeing things. Besides, how could someone's shadow not match its owner?

He shook his head, trying to clear it.

The deaths of Teacher Gongsun, Teacher Zhou, and Chan Li had left him exceptionally agitated. He wasn't as afraid of death as he had imagined. What he truly couldn't accept was how powerless he felt in the face of it.

He could only watch helplessly as the people around him died one by one. There was so little he could do—sometimes, nothing at all.

"You've already done very well." Jiang Cheng raised his head and spoke without warning.

Bai Xi, lost in his memories, paused and slowly looked up. His eyes met Jiang Cheng's, where a faint light glimmered.

"You were decisive. If you hadn't fired that shot at the Starving Ghost, someone else among us would have died," Jiang Cheng said. "Mister Gongsun didn't want to drag us down, so he used the light on the Starving Ghost. He was a brave man, and so are you."

"But I still couldn't save Teacher Gongsun. He was a good person and always looked after us. Teacher Zhou, Chan Li—they were all good people..." Bai Xi lowered his head, his voice turning choked.

"Brother, this isn't your fault." Huai Yi couldn't help speaking up. "If anyone's to blame, it's this mission. No, it's the bastards who created these missions!"

Before meeting Jiang Cheng and the others, Huai Yi had also scraped by in nightmare missions. Several friends he'd known well had died in them one after another, so he understood all too well what Bai Xi had