Chapter 21
When they added each other as friends yesterday, Zhu Hui’s profile picture had been the system default image. Now, however, it had been changed to a headshot of the snow wolf.
In the bottom right corner of the profile picture, a pale wrist extended into the frame. The veins on the back of the hand were distinct, and five fingers were firmly gripping the snow wolf’s muzzle, likely angling its head toward the camera when the photo was taken.
The snow wolf’s expression—if one could call it that—was somewhat contorted, somewhere between utter confusion and shocked resignation, its amber eyes wide and round.
It was hard to tell if Zhu Hui had been trying to make his spiritual body look imposing or cute.
As if noticing Xu Xunyue’s distraction, a few wisps of the shadows, which had been cleaning, floated up from the floor. They scrutinized the terminal screen for a long moment.
[I get it.]
[I get it too.]
[The little wolf definitely doesn’t like having its picture taken.]
[Right. That Sentinel must have forced it.]
[Definitely. Quick, do something about your Sentinel. Make him send you a picture of himself instead.]
[Exactly. Make him send his own.]
Xu Xunyue pretended he hadn’t heard a thing.
He had a feeling that Zhu Hui wasn’t the type to use a selfie for his profile picture. Using his spiritual body was likely already a big step for him.
As for why he chose his spiritual body for the picture?
Perhaps it was because it could represent him, and was also rather cute.
Xu Xunyue began to read the messages Zhu Hui had sent.
[Zhu Hui: I’m out of class!]
[Zhu Hui: [Classroom Picture.jpg]]
[Zhu Hui: These are the notes I took in class.]
[Zhu Hui: [Notes Picture.jpg]]
[Zhu Hui: After my morning classes are done, can I come find you at the office building?]
[Zhu Hui: A lot of people in the first class were talking about us on the forum. Three people in my class alone were caught slacking off, but I definitely wasn’t one of them.]
[Zhu Hui: Thanks, brother, for dropping me off downstairs!]
[[Relative · Zhu Hui] retracted a message.]
[Zhu Hui: Thank you for dropping me off downstairs [Snow Wolf Airplane Ears.jpg]]
Thanks to the special notification, Xu Xunyue checked it especially promptly. He clicked into the chat window just in time to see the last message being retracted and resent.
…“Brother” again?
Xu Xunyue thought of the term he had heard when he entered Zhu Hui’s spiritual landscape. He still remembered what that wisp of Zhu Hui’s emotion was like.
[…Could it be him, my brother?]
At that time, it was a question. Xu Xunyue had thought Zhu Hui had mistaken him for someone else.
He had no memory of Zhu Hui in his youth or when he was younger, and stories of searching for relatives and friends after the Cataclysm were commonplace. Even Xu Xunyue himself had once received news of survivors in the Undeveloped Zones who bore some resemblance to his family, only to find out after verification that they weren’t.
Since Zhu Hui hadn’t mentioned anything about a “brother” to him later, Xu Xunyue had just written it off as a mistake.
In any case, it didn’t matter who the “brother” was, or whether this person truly existed. Zhu Hui’s physiological attraction to him couldn’t be faked, and it was very obvious where his thoughts were focused.
A large part of this certainty was because his own physiological attraction to Zhu Hui was also very strong. It was a strength that was completely inconsistent with their initial compatibility rating, a bit like the legendary “wanting to be close to someone the moment you see them.”
But this time was different. Zhu Hui had directly sent “brother” in the chat.
It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
Zhu Hui had never called him that to his face.
To send it and then retract it was even more like he had a guilty conscience.
So, it wasn’t some affectionate nickname called out to be coquettish, but because he truly believed he was that “brother.”
Nine times out of ten, he had probably called him that in his heart too many times, and this time his fingers were just too fast, and it slipped out.
Could it be that they had really met before? The Fengshan A2 Zone…
If they had met, why didn’t Zhu Hui say so?
Looking at the chat box, which had gone silent after the sticker was sent, Xu Xunyue leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window and deliberately waited two minutes before replying.
[Xu Xunyue: You can, but I should be at the Guide Academy’s Second Teaching Building then.]
[Xu Xunyue: You can wait for a bit in the first or second corridor after class. I’ll take you to apply for a relative’s pass at noon, so you can come on your own in the future.]
[Xu Xunyue: You’re welcome. Attend class properly [Pat Wolf Ears.jpg]]
It was a completely normal and patient reply.
The Sentinel on the other side probably breathed a sigh of relief and replied in a second:
[Zhu Hui: Okay, got it!]
[Zhu Hui: I’ll wait for your message [Little Wolf Kiss.jpg]]
Still trying to be cute.
Xu Xunyue sent a cute sticker back, thinking that he would just wait a few hours and ask Zhu Hui then.
You can’t retract messages when you’re talking face-to-face.
Also, how did Zhu Hui know his classmates were on the forum during class?
He probably was on it too, just hadn’t been caught.
Using his terminal in class, acting cute, secretly calling him brother…
Xu Xunyue thought for a moment and felt that these were all good reasons for him to bully him.
In the historical research on compatibility ratings, every ten-point mark was a huge threshold, and also a lifelong regret for many bonded Guides and Sentinels. His compatibility with Zhu Hui was approaching 70%, and Xu Xunyue had also considered whether they would get stuck at the 70% line.
It was already unscientific to be able to increase it so much just by kissing. His intuition told him that if he wanted the compatibility to go up further, it probably wouldn’t be as simple as before.
Either it would stop at a certain value, or they would have to change their approach—an emotional approach, or a physical one.
It could be said to have great research value.
At this time, the shadows that had finished mopping the floor gathered around, clamoring to see the picture of the little wolf. Xu Xunyue mercilessly ordered them to go wipe the walls, saying they could only look after they were clean.
The shadows grumbled and drilled into the walls.
Xu Xunyue continued to think about how to bully him… no, that’s not right, how to increase their compatibility.
In an era where the compatibility between most Guides and most Sentinels could reach over 60%, even if the compatibility of a bonded pair wasn’t high, it was usually at least 70% or more. This was because some mental activities had strict requirements on compatibility, and 70% was such a watershed.
Zhu Hui didn’t care. He hadn’t gone to a mental soothing chamber before the marriage, nor had he shown any urgent need for it after. Take kissing as an example. Xu Xunyue felt that Zhu Hui kissed him without any ulterior motive, just purely wanting to kiss. The compatibility rating was just something they checked on the side, the same principle as a child checking their stats after a game. But that was Zhu Hui’s thought process.
For Xu Xunyue, since he had decided to keep the person by his side, he still hoped that his compatibility with Zhu Hui could reach 70%. Once it reached 70%, his perception and control over Zhu Hui would take a qualitative leap. If Zhu Hui’s spiritual landscape was injured, he could also clean and heal it better.
…
After the shadows had finished cleaning the room, Xu Xunyue fulfilled his promise.
He saved Zhu Hui’s profile picture to his personal terminal, magnified it three times, and locked the screen. Then he took off the terminal and temporarily tossed it to his spiritual body.
The shadows cheered and pounced, submerging the terminal. Xu Xunyue, meanwhile, calculated the time and prepared to write some lesson plans.
According to Dean Xia Feng, a practical course like mental interference was a very basic skill for an Offensive Guide, so he didn’t actually need to write a lesson plan. But this was, after all, the dean’s care for his star student, so he decided to make a show of it.
Whether the purpose was to attack or protect, a Guide’s methods only worked on creatures with spiritual power. The larger and more unstable the target’s spiritual power, the easier it was for a Guide to interfere with them.
Mental interference was not a direct mental attack. As the name suggested, it was an auxiliary combat skill that all Guides needed to learn:
Interfering with the enemy’s perception and distorting their judgment through spiritual power, thereby creating opportunities for Sentinels to attack directly; or, when there was a huge disparity in strength, confusing the enemy’s cognitive level to facilitate disguise and escape.
Xu Xunyue recalled how his teacher had taught him back then, while constructing and adjusting his own teaching system.
Knock, knock, knock.
But at this moment, there was a knock on his office door.
Xu Xunyue probed with his spiritual power.
The next moment, the shadows, which had appeared out of nowhere, drilled out of the floor and grabbed the doorknob.
Creek— The door opened.
Xu Mengwei had indeed come to find him.
When Xu Xunyue had looked at Zhu Hui’s memory, he had thought he might know the older brother the baby-faced Sentinel had spoken of, the one who worked at the White Tower. Later, when he checked the records, he remembered that Xu Mengwei had been two years below him and had also been the top Guide of his year.
The Xu family was a fallen noble family of the Empire, their bloodline dwindling. The only ones in the direct younger generation were Xu Mengwei and Xu Yan’an. The family rarely got involved in Imperial politics.
Although they were a fallen noble family, they were still nobles. It wouldn’t have been a problem for Xu Yan’an to find a job with a guard unit in the Imperial Capital. Unfortunately, in the green and passionate years right after graduation, not all Sentinels were solely focused on staying in the safest and most developed place. After completing their studies, heading to the Undeveloped Zones to support the border defense was a classic heroic narrative of the Poseidon Era.
As for why Xu Mengwei chose to stay at the White Tower after graduation?
There were many possible reasons.
The average physical fitness of Sentinels surpassed that of Guides, the total number of Guides was less than that of Sentinels, and a Guide with a wide compatibility list could link with multiple Sentinels… Considering factors like local demand and safety, there were already more Guides than Sentinels staying in the Central Districts and the Imperial Capital. Some small outposts in remote, low-risk areas might even only have one Guide during a personnel shortage.
In Xu Xunyue’s distant memory from nearly a decade ago, the Xu Mengwei he had had a few interactions with had a lazy personality. To use a popular term from the early human era, he was probably a “salted fish.” This person was a bit nostalgic and loved to tinker with things from the previous era. Since his student days, he had been riding his old motorcycle, which had been modified and repaired countless times, to the Guide Academy every day.
The Sentinel Academy did not allow such noise on its campus, but the Guide Academy was different. Even those who didn’t know Xu Mengwei or weren’t in his year would become familiar with that “putt-putt” sound over time.
Miraculously, in the freezing cold, no one had ever seen him fall off his bike.
“Long time no see.”
Xu Xunyue greeted him at the same time his spiritual body opened the door, indicating that he had not forgotten this acquaintance from his student days.
“Long time no see,” Xu Mengwei was stunned for a moment when he saw the gleaming floor and walls upon entering, then smiled. “Senior is too efficient. This office has been vacant for a long time. I was thinking you might need help.”
“No need, it’s all tidied up.” Xu Xunyue gestured for him to sit opposite him and said, “There are still fifty minutes until class. I plan to leave in thirty minutes. Would you like to tell me about your class?”
“That’s why I came. I don’t know how much the dean has told you…”
As expected, in their first chat, Xu Mengwei didn’t mention Xu Yan’an or Zhu Hui. He just reminisced a little with Xu Xunyue, and the rest was all work. When the time was about right, he even enthusiastically offered to take Xu Xunyue to the Guide Academy’s Second Teaching Building.
Perhaps the image of being “seriously injured and disabled” was too deeply ingrained. In the past few days since he had started going out, the people he met always wanted to help him. And it wasn’t the kind of help that came with pity and condescension, but a very careful kind of help, born either of goodwill or fear.
Needless to say, Zhu Hui was like that. Xu Mengwei was too. Even Dean Xia Feng, an elder, had offered to push his wheelchair for him when he was showing him around the academy yesterday.
Of course, Xu Xunyue had refused them all.
This was the inconvenient part of faking being sick and weak.
Chatting casually with Xu Mengwei, they entered the teaching building just as the bell for the end of the second class rang.
Xu Xunyue subconsciously glanced at the terminal on his wrist.
…Zhu Hui hadn’t sent a message.
