With two sizzling sounds, the invisible defense net over the oasis shut down.
The landships were granted passage and lined up one by one to enter the oasis, parking on the open plaza. Patrol troops disembarked from the landships one after another, forming neat ranks as they awaited orders from their captain.
Gris leaned on her crutch, barely managing to stand straight.
Anyone with eyes could see that her condition was poor—her lips were utterly bloodless, and her hair was a tangled mess.
Yet she seemed oblivious, scratching her hair with one hand, which only made it even messier.
“No, I didn’t see where they went. They might have followed the Joint Group’s route map, or they could have taken their own path.”
As Gris spoke, she laboriously propped herself up on her wooden staff.
When she heard the Patrol Army Captain say they would track the Joint Group’s whereabouts, she grew especially excited and loudly demanded to go with them. She wanted to capture those sand bandits with her own hands.
But the Patrol Army Captain paused, hesitating unusually.
After sizing up Gris, he said obliquely, “Ma’am, your leg doesn’t seem suited for long-distance tracking.”
The mercenary girl scoffed dismissively. She yanked up her robe, showing them her other leg—muscular and sturdy—and demonstrated how she could sprint across the sand for short bursts using just one leg and her staff.
Her short hair clung to her cheeks, slick with sweat, her profile damp.
“Nothing unsuitable about it. I’m very adaptable. Once we’re back in the city and I get a metal prosthetic fitted, I’ll run just as fast as before.”
Gris said confidently, then turned her head and asked puzzledly, “Where’s Aisia?”
The captain followed her gaze. The dark-skinned girl with the long braid was no longer there, only busy patrol troops moving to and fro.
“What’s her deal?”
Gris scratched her hair again, trying to comb it into a slicked-back style to keep the strands out of her eyes.
She thought for a moment and said, “Hmm, a little black-furred rabbit who can’t believe she’s living among wolves.”
Aisia said nothing, nor did she cry.
She simply slipped away from the crowd silently and found a spot shaded from both the sun and people. She sat down, drew her knees up, and rested her forehead on them.
On that midnight when Gris had just woken, the mercenary girl had grabbed her neck with fingers like iron claws, leaving her speechless—but she had insisted on saving her.
Gris had seen the determination in her eyes and ultimately chosen to trust her.
Because of that bullet, she had no choice but to amputate Gris’s leg… In fact, she hadn’t even needed to do it herself; the explosive bullet had blasted Gris’s leg clean off. All she had to do was quickly staunch the bleeding, stitch it up, and bandage it.
She only knew half-baked suturing skills, so the stitches were crooked and uneven. Fortunately, Gris didn’t mind.
She had just said that once they were back in the city, the treatment instrument would fix any imperfections, so she should go ahead boldly.
After finishing the sutures, she even argued with Gris, insisting that she’d grown up in Mase and that the people she knew couldn’t possibly do such things.
Gris had sneered twice. Can’t you see clearly with all this blood?
Then, propping herself on her crutch, she had hobbled off to the side.
Aisia had stood frozen, not knowing how to retort—until she saw the dark muzzle of a long gun barrel poking out from around the corner of a building.
It was her neighbor, the middle-aged uncle who had watched her grow up.
He had been left behind by Jack’s uncle to guard the oasis. He spotted Aisia awake and tending to Gris.
Believing they couldn’t leave loose ends, he decided to kill Gris.
Aisia, don’t make a sound, he signaled to the girl with his eyes. He knew she trusted them enough—she’d always been obedient growing up, and now was no exception.
Keep quiet, kill her, and it’s done.
Aisia’s mind went blank.
Without thinking, she lunged forward, shoving Gris aside. The bullet buried itself harmlessly in the sand.
Gris spun around, flung her staff, and smashed it into the man’s head. His weapon clattered to the ground, and Aisia scrambled to snatch it up, staring at him in disbelief.
“Damn traitor,” the neighbor cursed her before fleeing when he saw the tide turning.
Yes, it was just like that. Gris was right.
Her eyes had been blinded; she knew nothing. The Mase she’d grown up in really was like that—a den of robbers, a nest of sand bandits in disguise…
Aisia couldn’t hold back anymore. She sniffled, letting out a huge sob.
Her nose stung, and tears finally welled up, swirling in her eyes.
Suddenly, she heard someone sit down beside her—the rustle of robes brushing the sand was especially clear. She lifted her face, but her messy hair blocked her view.
“Gris… Uh, you, you’re?”
Turning her gaze, it wasn’t the familiar girl Gris beside her, but a strange boy.
Not entirely strange—Aisia had seen him before, at that outdoor barbecue feast.
He had sat next to the massive merchant caravan captain, who kept stuffing food into him relentlessly until tears streamed from his eyes, yet the feeding continued unabated.
She had glanced at him a couple extra times then.
Thinking, How could a boy’s stomach be so small? Those two plates of roast meat would barely be a snack for her; desert men probably couldn’t even fill a tooth gap with that.
She hadn’t expected to see him here.
The girl wiped her eyes dejectedly and heard Xie Jianxun mutter, “It’s so sunny out here. Mind if I borrow this shady spot to cool off?”
Aisia moved to give him space, but he gently stopped her.
So the two sat together in the shadows, squinting at the yellow sand where armored troops marched back and forth. In the distance came dull thuds—Gris’s staff tapping the ground.
She heard the person beside her sigh: “Once they’ve resupplied, we should hit the road too.”
Aisia thought, What are you telling me for?
Was she, an accomplice from a sand bandit den, supposed to go with them?
Though… that was exactly what she wanted.
She wanted to find Jack’s uncle and ask what was really going on.
Had Mase never been the friendly, helpful place she remembered? Or had it suddenly changed one day, beyond her expectations?
Aisia didn’t dare think further.
She choked back a sob and buried her face in her knees—a posture of surrender.
“…When did they change?” she murmured through tears. “Or had I never really seen them clearly?”
But the person beside her said quietly, “When the world you live in suddenly changes, it’s hard to adapt.”
Xie Jianxun sat cross-legged, one hand on his knee, propping his cheek boredly.
He shook his head slightly at the mechanical puppet in the distance, signaling he wanted to handle this alone.
It obediently halted and didn’t approach.
“Then go find out,” the boy said softly, earnestly advising her. “Whether with your own eyes or by asking outright, it’s better than doing nothing.”
Aisia said in a panic, “But what can I do?”
The desert heat baked her mind into a daze; the white glare stung her eyes.
She blinked hazily and saw Gris standing in the distance with the helmeted Patrol Army Captain, whose face was hidden. They watched this way, expressions unreadable.
Two dimples appeared on Xie Jianxun’s face as he gave them a small wave.
“Go on.”
He smiled. “Gris will be willing to take you to find the truth.”
The girl instinctively started to stand and walk over, but she halted abruptly and turned back to Xie Jianxun.
In that case, had he also gone through upheaval in his world?
She blurted out, “Did you find it?”
Xie Jianxun sighed. “Alas, not so fast. I’m an armchair strategist—haven’t even taken half a step yet!”
Aisia relaxed instead. She sat back down and studied Xie Jianxun’s face, suddenly thinking he was truly handsome, his golden eyes brighter than the yellow sand.
“Were you in a completely different world too?”
Xie Jianxun thought for a moment and pointed to the oasis’s lone clock tower. “If they locked you in there for over a decade without letting you out, what would happen?”
Aisia considered. “That clock tower was my entire world.”
“Yeah, I was like that once too.”
The boy sighed faintly, as if reminiscing. “Until I broke the window and realized I was just someone living in a high tower.”
“My guardian… didn’t seem to love me all that sincerely.”
“Or rather… is he really my guardian?”
…
Xie Jianxun watched Aisia leave, taking small, determined steps toward Gris.
Her back already showed resolve, just as she’d said before leaving: If Mase was no longer what she imagined, she would build her own Mase.
In the end, the girls supported each other as they boarded one of the landships.
A logistics soldier ran up to report the oasis situation to the Patrol Army Captain.
No living people found, but several Joint Group members who had already passed away.
They had gathered them all and would take them back to Golden City with the patrol troops—either to their families or for a unified burial.
The Patrol Army Captain shook his head slowly, thumping his chest plate with a clenched fist in brief mourning.
The logistics soldier continued, “Captain, we found this.”
He led them there. Under the shadow of a wall corner, they saw a short string of numbers scrawled in blood.
“What does this mean?”
The captain’s deputy followed, puzzled.
Xie Jianxun poked his head from behind. “I think I’ve seen that number before.”
Having just counseled a lost lamb, he was in high spirits, eyes crinkling as he coquettishly hid in One’s shadow, refusing to step into the sun.
The Patrol Army Captain whipped around. “Where?”
It wasn’t recent. Xie Jianxun pondered, then realized. “I saw it on Basero’s map!”
The captain reacted instantly, ordering his deputy to fetch the map.
Without fuss, he spread it out right there on the ground, tracing the numbers with a pen to find the special point.
Finally, he drew upward and circled a spot.
“They must have gone from these coordinates,” he declared firmly. Standing, he bellowed, “All hands, form up!”
The deputy raised his voice: “Form up—”
The landship convoy was ready to depart, including the ones left by the Joint Group.
Xie Jianxun fiddled with a landship door when the deputy approached, instructing them not to wander once they arrived—wait for orders before acting.
Xie Jianxun agreed obediently.
Only after they left did he react: “Is that place dangerous?”
No one else around, so One answered.
“The desert’s infamous Death Forbidden Zone. Shadows you can’t see belong to the insect clan, and there’s a ghost ship sailing through the fog.”
Xie Jianxun looked up at it, shocked. “The desert has ships?”
“Yes.” The mechanical puppet’s lips curved in a smile. It even lowered its head, pressing against Xie Jianxun’s forehead. “It’s exactly where I wanted to take you.”
Xie Jianxun clutched his forehead, surprise nearly spilling from his eyes, but he didn’t pull away. In their days and nights together, this sweet lamb had unconsciously accepted such intimacy.
The mechanical puppet let out a faint hum, narrowing its pale blue eyes.
It leaned down again. “No one at home has kissed you?”
They had, but that was from when he was little.
So long ago that Xie Jianxun could barely remember—probably when he was very young… four or five? Five or six?
It was just a way to soothe a child; the current butler no longer did it.
He’d switched methods.
Xie Jianxun stammered, “I just… didn’t react in time…”
The mechanical puppet asked casually, “Where would family kiss?”
Off guard, Xie Jianxun thought and pointed to his dimples.
“Here?” he said uncertainly. “Forehead, nose… seems like those too.”
One sighed softly. “Truly can’t see the spot.”
Xie Jianxun missed the implication in One’s words.
In his mind, the mechanical puppet was an ancient relic dug from the earth, its chip data so pure.
“Good thing it was a goodnight kiss. They said I was clingy as a kid—that method put me to sleep fast, out in one second.”
Suddenly, Xie Jianxun glanced at it and pouted.
His golden eyes sparkled brilliantly. The mechanical puppet froze, its mechanisms stuttering audibly.
“…Mm, don’t want to?” Xie Jianxun hesitated. “Then I’ll sleep?”
About three seconds later, the mechanical puppet recovered and slowly leaned down—
But Xie Jianxun had already lain back, dodging away.
“Alright, since you don’t need to sleep, you really don’t need a goodnight kiss.”
He said sullenly, “Then I’ll get some sleep first. Call me when it’s time to switch.”
