My relationship with this Major Xin must be very special. Quite possibly... Though Plague Chicken and Mom both said I never had a girlfriend before, maybe, just maybe, it was like middle school or high school classmates—a quiet, simple, ambiguous sort of flirtation?
Such ambiguity was, for Han Qingyu, a precious first in his life as well.
"And yet, I went and forgot her."
Thinking of this brought a touch of sorrow and guilt...
"I'm sorry. I'll do my best to remember you as soon as I can." This time his gaze did not shy away. Han Qingyu was still a bit timid, but he spoke earnestly.
He took it for granted that the mirror and the hair tie came from the same person. For now, that was a good thing; otherwise, he might have plunged into colossal self-doubt.
"All right. But even if you really can't remember, it doesn't matter. I have all the patience and passion in the world to get to know you all over again."
Xin Yaoqiao smiled radiantly, her eyes shining bright.
"But if you ever dare go on a blind date with someone else again, just you wait. I won't go easy on you! I..." Xin Yaoqiao raised a fist, then let it drop. "I forgot. I can't beat you."
"If that happens, I won't fight back," Han Qingyu said.
Crazy! The world had truly gone mad. Heavens, I must be dreaming! Xin Yaoqiao could barely handle it, unable to believe what she was hearing. Because if she wasn't misinterpreting things, the man standing before her—the dead-iron straight man, Major The Qing—seemed to be saying sweet nothings. Or at least something very much like them.
Nineteen-year-old Qingzi was just too adorable, too much fun. Especially to Xin Yaoqiao, who had seen how he was later on and had suffered through his coldness and indifference, the immense contrast as those two figures suddenly overlapped set her heart racing in chaos.
"Um, I really want to chat with you a bit longer, but right now I have something really, really important that I urgently need to take care of," Xin Yaoqiao said suddenly.
Han Qingyu looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded.
"Remember what you promised me?" she asked, still worried.
"Okay." Han Qingyu nodded again.
Xin Yaoqiao waved goodbye reluctantly, greeted Wen Jifei and the others from a distance, and led her personnel swiftly away. The urgent matter she needed to attend to happened to concern Han Qingyu. Previously, in the process of deciphering the information left behind by those six motherships, Azure had obtained a great deal of data they hadn't possessed before.
Among it was material concerning the Yanxiu.
As well as the Great Spikes' analysis of Chen Buer as a human anomaly.
[The Yanxiu are incomplete];
[The missing parts were buried by "humans"];
[And the Invincible of the Mortal Realm is not a Yanxiu].
The sheer volume of information, doubt, and shock brought by these three layered pieces of intel was unimaginably immense.
And now, with Qingzi in such a peculiar state, Xin Yaoqiao had suddenly realized: all three of these points seemed like they could be tied back to him.
Therefore, whether for Qingzi or for this world, the analysis, deliberation, and deductions they were about to conduct would be of paramount importance.
***
When they returned to their lodgings from the venue, in the reception hall, Han Qingyu's group ran into Harada Niisa once again.
The girl stepped out from the group of soldiers taking photos with her, stood there, and bowed to them, her expression awkward and at a loss.
Han Qingyu stepped forward, preceding Wen Jifei and Yang Qingbai, and walked up to Harada Niisa on his own initiative. He bowed slightly and said in English:
"That song was wonderful. I just saw the translated lyrics. Thank you for saying you wrote it while thinking of me. Also, about your father, Harada Takao, please accept my condolences. I believe that, just as you wrote in your song, the star that belongs to him will endure forever."
Tick, tock, tick, tock. The surroundings stayed silent for quite a while.
"...Thank you." Finally, Harada Niisa snapped out of her dazed stupor, looking up at the gentle Major Qing before her as tears traced down her cheeks.
This was too hard to fathom—unless everything said about him in the past had been nothing but rumors, Harada Niisa and the soldiers behind her thought.
At the same time, behind Han Qingyu, Wen Jifei and the rest were even more dumbfounded. Could it be that Qingzi hadn't just lost his memory, but had actually lost his mind?
"Was nineteen-year-old Qingzi originally like this?" Rusty Sister asked curiously.
"No," Wen Jifei shook his head. "Even back then, he didn't act as human as he does right now."
Just then, Han Qingyu walked back. Wen Jifei went up to meet him and whispered, "What's going on, Qingzi? You acting like this out of nowhere is kind of freaking us out."
Han Qingyu looked at him, then at the other stunned, uncertain gazes. "From now on, I intend to be a good person."
This was roughly along the lines of turning over a new leaf and starting anew.
The entire group stood there dumbstruck, completely paralyzed for several seconds.
"Then what about my matter? Does that mean I'm off the hook too?" He Tangtang asked cautiously and expectantly.
Han Qingyu turned his head to look at him, pondered for a moment, and said, "Yours is a separate matter."
He Tangtang: "..." If all else fails, I'll go back to Squad 1777 and lay low for a while.
When they returned to their room, Han Qingyu called Wen Jifei, Wu Xu, and Rusty Sister over. There were a few things he urgently wanted to ask, yet he found it awkward to be too direct.
"Plague Chicken might lie to me in a minute, but you two won't, right?" Han Qingyu blinked at them, implying: I already shared the metal blocks with you; the three of us are on the same side.
Wu Xu and Rusty Sister nodded.
Then, Han Qingyu took out the small cloth pouch, brought out the hair tie first, and set it on the table. "Who gave me this?"
"Yaoyao-huanghuang," Wen Jifei said.
After hearing this, Han Qingyu looked at Wu Xu and Rusty Sister. Both nodded in turn.
"Then what about this?" Han Qingyu then pulled out a mirror. Although in his heart he judged that the mirror and the hair tie ought to have come from the same person, he still asked.
Silence filled the room. Heavy silence. But the gazes of Wu Xu and Wen Jifei had already given the answer.
"..." Han Qingyu panicked. The mirror and the hair tie actually weren't a matching set! The mirror belonged to Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu... So, what on earth have I done?!
Not daring to ask further about the mirror and doing his best to mask his inward panic, Han Qingyu feigned composure and took out the silver bracelet, murmuring to himself, "This is my mom's, that I remember... Then what about this?"
He placed the pierced old silver dollar onto the table. Since the item had a hole drilled through it, it was probably meant to be worn. If it came from a third girl...
"Mine," Wu Xu said, not looking at him. Back then, this silver dollar had been paid to Qingzi as medicine expenses. Thinking back on it now was somewhat embarrassing.
"!!!"
Han Qingyu nearly fainted on the spot.
Taking several seconds to recover, he barely managed to hold himself together and continued acting like nothing was wrong. "That's all, just these. There wouldn't happen to be anything else I accidentally lost, right?" Han Qingyu asked.
"Nope."
"Nope."
"Nope."
***
That afternoon, beneath the glaciers of Antarctica, inside the small chapel of blue glass.
"Hahahahaha..." A burst of brazen laughter erupted. Liu Shiheng laughed into a trash can for a while, then raised his head and spoke to thin air, "Stumped now, aren't you, Uncle Ne? We can't get out! Hahaha!"
The trajectory of the Great Spike civilization's invasion had slipped outside of Ne's deductions—or rather, his expectations—three months ago.
The slash Han Qingyu had unleashed at the Zenith had hauled humanity back from the brink of the abyss. Afterward, the Great Spike forces had fully retreated to Antarctica, setting up perimeter defenses and a source energy shield.
They were now directly overhead the Snow Lotus headquarters, blanketing it entirely.
And just like that, the world's greatest internal villain, along with the greater part of his elite fighting strength... were pinned down by an external enemy.
It was just that no one knew what special method Ne had employed, such that they hadn't been discovered by the Great Spikes.
Afterward, all intelligence from the outside world had been completely severed since that time... And so, Young Master Shiheng had used this very matter to mock Ne for three whole months.
"Our Qingzi is just too damn awesome, hahahaha!"
Unlike before, there was now one more person sitting with Liu Shiheng inside the small chapel. After Ye Jian appeared in South America, he had abandoned his plan to head to Oceania halfway through and returned before the Great Spike forces completed their defensive deployment.
Smiling wryly, Ye Jian looked up at Liu Shiheng.
In truth, even before Ne, Ye Jian had always remained independent, neither servile nor overbearing, but that was as far as it went. Ye Jian had never seen anyone who could be as arrogant and court death before Ne quite like Young Master Shiheng did.
And yet, he was still alive. Lately, this guy had been snarking at Ne on one hand while secretly hoarding provisions on the other... seemingly preparing to outlive everyone else.
And Ne, surprisingly, didn't even get angry!
"Is that so?" Ne's voice drifted from the void, carrying a trace of a smile.
Liu Shiheng's chin was propped up by an invisible force in the air, tilting his head back to gaze upward.
Ye Jian looked up as well.
The blue glass of the roof parted, revealing the crystalline, icy sky, through which a massive black shadow loomed indistinctly.
Young Master Shiheng was dumbfounded!
At the same time, Ye Jian's eyes widened in shock.
It was an uncanny circular structure, resembling something like an ancient Roman colosseum, yet vastly, vastly more colossal.
"I don't believe we need to go outside," Ne said, "because Azure and your friends will be coming here before long. If the Great Spikes prove to be poor hosts when the time comes, I shall entertain them myself."
Chapter 721