Chapter 218: Paranoia and the White Fog
The afternoon found Qi Yanxin extremely busy. She kept sealing the gaps in the doors and windows, checking the curtains and other spots over and over. Xu Zhi’s mental state wasn’t great; by the time she fell asleep and woke again, it was already past nine in the evening.
Perhaps that dose of strong medicine really had been brutal. After waking up, Xu Zhi felt much lighter all over. Her mind was clearer than it had been in days, and her energy seemed noticeably better as well.
Qi Yanxin still seemed to be occupied with something, so Xu Zhi didn’t call out to her. Once she realized her body was no longer so weak that she couldn’t exert even a bit of strength, she tried to sit up, slowly shifting herself into the wheelchair on her own.
She succeeded.
A trace of pure, genuine joy appeared on the girl’s face. This meant she had finally said goodbye to that useless life of opening her mouth to be fed and reaching out to be clothed.
That said, the process of transferring from the bed to the wheelchair was slow and made a bit of noise. Qi Yanxin was very attentive to her condition; hearing the sounds, she immediately set down what she was doing and came over with a candle.
Seeing that Xu Zhi had actually gotten out of bed by herself, Qi Yanxin said with some worry, “Why didn’t you call me?”
Xu Zhi was still in a great mood and didn’t bother hiding her smile. She replied cheerfully, “I just wanted to see if I could do it myself. See? I pulled it off, didn’t I?”
Qi Yanxin was a little surprised—it was rare to see her this happy. Then she smiled as well. “Yes, you look much better.”
“But next time, even if you want to try on your own, you can still call me. It wouldn’t be good if you got hurt.”
Her words were sincere. Xu Zhi wasn’t the type who couldn’t take kindness, and over the past two weeks of living together, she had also confirmed one thing: Qi Yanxin wasn’t acting.
To put on an act nonstop, twenty-four hours a day, perfectly blending in with everyone around, having a long-established social circle, a complete life history—and even predicting her arrival in advance, arranging everything beforehand, then picking her up and taking her home, all without ever slipping up—that was practically impossible.
Of course, that was assuming everything over these past four weeks was real, and that Qi Yanxin herself was real.
Maybe her experiences in the Federation world had left Xu Zhi with some kind of psychological scar. Now, whenever she encountered anything, her first reaction was always: Could this be fake too?
It had almost become a kind of paranoia.
Xu Zhi knew she shouldn’t think this way, but she couldn’t control it. Her thoughts always drifted in that direction.
Still, when the other party had clearly shown goodwill, had done nothing to harm her, and could be confirmed as genuinely sincere, Xu Zhi—even with all her suspicion and inner speculation—would never behave like an ungrateful ingrate.
If Qi Yanxin could continue to treat her with such sincerity, Xu Zhi wouldn’t be an ingrate either. She would repay her.
Thinking about it, perhaps the return of the [Lamp] had indeed brought back some of the sense of responsibility and empathy she had once cast aside. She still believed that she herself was the only thing in this world truly worth caring about, that her own interests came above all else—but now, she didn’t mind shouldering a bit of responsibility, nor did she instinctively shy away from forming bonds with others.
As she was now, her mindset leaned more toward: letting things take their course.
So she didn’t refuse the woman’s kindness and nodded, saying she would remember to call her next time.
“Has the fog come down yet?” Xu Zhi asked, her tone openly curious about the mist.
Qi Yanxin found that curiosity a little worrying, but she still answered honestly. “It’s already started to get foggy outside. In another two or three hours, it should settle in completely.”
As long as it was something she knew, she answered almost every question Xu Zhi asked.
Xu Zhi raised her eyebrows slightly after hearing that. Wouldn’t that be right around midnight again?
What a coincidence.
“Since you’re awake, do you want to eat something? I’ve kept the food warm. After you eat, I can also apply some medicine for you.”
Xu Zhi calculated the time. She ate very slowly and had to chew thoroughly before she could swallow. Adding the time for applying medicine, resting a bit after the meal, and then taking her pills, the whole routine would take over an hour. By then, the fog probably wouldn’t have fully settled yet. There was still time.
So she nodded obediently. “Okay.”
After cooking, applying the medicine for Xu Zhi, and tidying up the house, it was already close to eleven. Xu Zhi could see deep exhaustion and sleepiness on Qi Yanxin’s face.
That made sense. She had run around quite a bit today and stayed busy the whole time. For an ordinary person, it was only natural to be completely worn out by now.
So Xu Zhi took the initiative and said, “It’s getting late. You should go rest.”
Qi Yanxin was already struggling to stay awake, but she was worried about Xu Zhi. Xu Zhi insisted that she go sleep first. Considering that although the girl had lost her memory, she wasn’t a child—and that insisting further might annoy her—Qi Yanxin reminded her once more not to go outside, then returned to the bedroom to sleep.
Although there was only one bedroom, Qi Yanxin and Xu Zhi didn’t sleep together. Xu Zhi slept in the original bed, while Qi Yanxin set up a small resting spot for herself with a folding camp bed.
After Qi Yanxin fell asleep, another hour passed. The clock hanging on the wall had clearly ticked past midnight. Xu Zhi slowly maneuvered her wheelchair to the door.
She planned to do something extremely bold: open the door and make contact with the fog.
Back in Cloud City, Xu Zhi had done plenty of bold things. But now, at a time when she herself was already extremely weak, taking a risk without knowing what consequences it might bring—she hadn’t done that many times before.
But she had no choice.
If Qi Yanxin were awake, she would never allow her to take the risk of touching the fog. Xu Zhi also didn’t have the patience to spend a huge amount of effort trying to persuade her.
Besides, time was tight. She had to recover her extraordinary abilities as soon as possible. Whether it was dealing with Zhuang Xu’s examination or the army that was about to arrive, she couldn’t afford to have no means of resistance at all.
At present, she had no clear idea how to restore her powers. There was no core here. The only thing she could come into contact with was this strange fog.
She could only gamble—gamble that this fog had something in common with the one in Cloud City, that it also contained high concentrations of energy, or at least something else she could absorb.
With an all-or-nothing mindset, Xu Zhi opened the tightly shut door.
The force she used was weak—not because she was deliberately holding back, but because that was all the strength she had. That also meant that if there were monsters or aberrations lurking in the fog and they attacked her, she wouldn’t even be able to dodge.
Fortunately, Qi Yanxin hadn’t lied to her. Outside the door, everything was quiet—except for the thin, pale white mist.
Unlike the black fog of Cloud City, so dense it almost blocked all vision, the fog here looked unusually “normal.”
But that normalcy seemed only skin-deep.
Because the moment Xu Zhi opened the door and her body was exposed to the fog, she immediately sensed it—large amounts of white mist surged into her body through her skin, as if they had found a target to invade, or a vessel made to contain them.
