After Faking a Disability, I Married the New Chief Sentinel 5

Chapter 5: Familiarity

Leaves swayed in the mountain wind, and countless images flashed across their surfaces: the training grounds of the Sentinel Academy, the cordon lines of the undeveloped zones, the vast white snow of the cataclysm zones…

This mountain was the center of his spiritual world, and each of these leaves was a place where the Sentinel stored his memories.

Zhu Hui stood under a tree, one hand braced against the trunk, his body still trembling slightly.

He bit his lower lip to keep from letting out a sound that the Guide might hear, but the moment his teeth touched his lip, he remembered how Xu Xunyue had bitten him there when they kissed.

The pressure had been light, yet despotic, as if he knew that he wouldn’t resist, couldn’t resist.

His face began to burn.

After entering a spiritual world, the reactions from the physical world were not carried over. It was equivalent to resetting the body’s entire state.

Seeing himself about to repeat the same mistake, Zhu Hui was quite annoyed.

It was one thing to react like that during a kiss, but now, just from having his spiritual body touched, he was reacting this way again.

Perhaps he should have appeared the moment Xu Xunyue arrived here, instead of observing from a distance.

But he couldn’t help but watch a little longer.

Only by maintaining inner peace and observing from a distance could the answers he sought be closer to the truth, unaffected by a racing heart.

The Xu Xunyue who had entered his spiritual world was in a state of perfect health, without a trace of sickness. He didn’t need a wheelchair or a thick coat. He walked alone on the wasteland, as elegant and upright as a bamboo stalk in the snow.

Zhu Hui subconsciously felt that the Xu Xunyue before him now was more familiar than the one he had seen sitting in a wheelchair, wrapped in a coat, reading under a lamp.

So familiar… like someone else.

Zhu Hui couldn’t be sure.

However, he had been hearing about Xu Xunyue for a very long time.

From the moment he awakened as a Sentinel at fourteen and began to learn about Guides and Sentinels, he had known this high-level Guide’s name. There wasn’t a single Sentinel who didn’t know it.

The youngest Chief Guide in the Empire’s history, an Offensive Guide who was both respected and feared, a genius of the Cataclysm era, a hero of the Cataclysm era.

It was said that in his twentieth year, he had led a team to support nineteen undeveloped zones, clearing the boundaries between them and the cataclysm zones.
It was said that he had no relatives in the Imperial Capital and had established himself entirely on his own, becoming one of the Emperor’s most trusted confidants.

Although all of that was now in the past.

But none of it had anything to do with Zhu Hui.

Three years ago, he had entered the military as a student from the Sentinel Academy. In the same year, Xu Xunyue had an accident and soon resigned from all his positions in the military. They had never officially met, nor had they had any professional interactions.

As a junior, as a soldier, Zhu Hui genuinely admired this Guide and felt regret and sympathy for him. It was only that some recent events had forced him to be on edge and wary of those in the Emperor’s faction.

He didn’t want to doubt Xu Xunyue. He had even planned to take care of Xu Xunyue to the best of his ability. But the marriage contract was too strange, and being cautious had its benefits.

Zhu Hui had originally thought about many things, running through many hypotheses in his mind.

But when the other man touched him, held his hand, and pinched his chin to command a kiss, everything seemed to become simple again.

He… had become Xu Xunyue’s Sentinel.

His instinct was to be close to Xu Xunyue.

The temperature of the Guide’s fingertips was slightly lower than that of his spiritual body, and the force with which he kneaded the snow wolf was not light. That slow, unhurried pressure easily reminded Zhu Hui of their interaction before entering the spiritual landscape.

So much so that now, he was stuck—it felt wrong to appear, and wrong not to.

Zhu Hui’s breathing gradually quickened.

He felt a little thirsty—no, very thirsty. It was probably because he hadn’t had any water on his way to Xu Xunyue’s residence, and the delayed dryness was finally assailing him. He released his lower lip from his canine teeth and licked it.

His five senses continued to converge on the spot where Xu Xunyue stood. With every second that passed, the sensations deepened.

They were clearly so far apart, yet he was keenly aware of Xu Xunyue’s breathing, the curve of his knuckles, the line of sight hidden by his lowered lashes, as if he were the one being touched.

It was unfamiliar.
He liked it very much.

Just having his spiritual body touched felt like a healing session. The taut strings of his heart unconsciously relaxed, and his entire body couldn’t help but unwind.

“…”

On the other side, the snow wolf was splayed out at the Guide’s feet like a wolf pancake, letting out soft whimpers, its tail sweeping back and forth across the snow, drawing several semicircles.

Xu Xunyue had only intended to pat it once, but the snow wolf felt so good to the touch that he couldn’t stop at just one.

He touched its ears, head, back, and tail, all of which were fluffy and warm. But if he had to pick a favorite, he still preferred the ears.

There were tiny black specks on the tips of the snow wolf’s ears, which could only be seen up close. At first, he had thought it had rolled in the snow and gotten some gravel on them.

At this moment, the two ears with the tiny black specks were trembling slightly, as if trying to shake off the snowflakes on their tips.

A hint of a smile flashed in Xu Xunyue’s eyes. He simply reached out to help wipe away the snowflakes and gave them another rub.

But he saw the two ears twitch, then slowly fold back, until they looked like the wings of an airplane.

He was slightly taken aback, a little surprised.

Airplane ears?

Crack.

Zhu Hui’s hand, braced against the tree trunk, suddenly clenched, his five fingers digging deep into the wood.

His cheeks, ears, and the back of his neck all turned crimson once again.

…Useless fool.

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

The tree trunk trembled from the Sentinel’s recent action, and the leaves carrying his memories swayed.

If Zhu Hui wanted to attack, the current situation was perfect for a sudden assault.

But he didn’t.

Plucking a leaf, the Sentinel’s figure disappeared from the mountain.

The trembling of the green tree, however, did not stop so quickly. At the very top of the tree, a leaf of the tenderest, most vibrant color even flipped over from the shaking.

The memory stored in that leaf was thus exposed to the sunlight.

Unlike the vibrancy of the leaf itself, the memory fragment it stored—that is, Zhu Hui’s perspective at that time—looked dire. The image was dark, shaky, with specks of light darting about.

After a moment, a crescent-shaped slit opened in the center of the image.

The slit widened tremulously, and a more intense light shone in, causing the crescent—the newly opened eye—to squint.

Tears instantly welled up at the edges of the frame, blurring everything in the image. The exceptionally white sky, the exceptionally white leaves, the exceptionally white snow-capped mountains… all were a sickly, glaring white that made one not want to look for a second longer.

But the owner of the gaze did not give up.

The scenery in his field of vision changed rapidly, clearly indicating he was on the move, but the perspective was strange. The ground was not visible in the frame; all that could be seen were the sky, tree trunks, leaves, and snow, all white.

Only at the left edge of his vision was a small patch of black, which looked like fabric.

He was being carried.

His gaze began to move.

First left, then up. During this time, physiological tears flowed freely, drenching the entire image in the leaf.

More of the black was revealed. It was indeed fabric, and from the shape, it was the collar of a piece of clothing. They were very close.

His gaze continued upward.

Soon, a heavily overexposed side profile appeared in the frame.

He was blurry, wearing a protective mask. Even if one were to watch this memory leaf repeatedly, only two features could be vaguely discerned.

A high ponytail, and eyes that seemed to be blue.

Just as his gaze settled, the person looked down, then quickly raised a hand. A palm with a clotted wound covered the frame—that is, the memory’s owner’s eyes.

“Close your eyes.”

Perhaps because his condition was so poor at the time, even the voice sounded muffled, as if there were a layer between it and his eardrum.

But it was still possible to tell that his voice was very young, with the aura of a natural leader, and also a great sense of security.

The person said calmly:

“Your snow blindness is already very severe.”

The image became dark and shaky again.

Rustle, rustle, rustle…

The sound of the memory leaves rustling gradually subsided, and the tree trunk slowly returned to its original upright position.

Xu Xunyue’s hand, which had been kneading the wolf’s ears, paused.

He straightened up, looking thoughtfully in the direction of the cliff.

So he was there.

Only preparing to show himself now… finally couldn’t take it anymore?

He supposed he had been a bit too much, using such a forceful approach to induce a Sentinel who hadn’t even graduated from the academy yet.

Coaxing him to close his eyes, implying he should lower his guard, invading his spiritual world, playing with his spiritual body, rubbing the snow wolf’s ears until they went flat, all while looking leisurely and pleased with himself.

For any warrior, this would be an extremely humiliating experience. A proper confrontation and tense stalemate had instantly turned into another, more secretive and ambiguous story.

But… wasn’t Zhu Hui his Sentinel to begin with?

It was only normal for him to listen.

Zhu Hui had done very well.

Xu Xunyue suddenly felt something nudge his hand.

Looking down, he saw the snow wolf looking up at him, letting out a soft, pleading whimper, as if wondering why he had stopped petting it.

Xu Xunyue waited for two seconds.

“…”

The wind on the snowfield whipped against his face. It wasn’t cold, but its presence was palpable.

The snow wolf was getting impatient. It tentatively raised its upper body, its amber eyes glinting slightly, as if it wanted a more advanced form of contact and affection—to pounce on Xu Xunyue’s legs and bury its fluffy head in the crook of his arm.

It extended a front paw, eager to try—

It vanished.

But the spiritual power Xu Xunyue had already gathered did not disperse.

Before him, a chaotic whirlwind of gray-white snow swept in, covering the large pit the snow wolf had made, yet not a single flake touched Xu Xunyue.

Between the gaps in the swirling snow, the most prominent feature was, once again, a pair of amber eyes, only this time, they were a deeper shade.

The master of this spiritual world, of this snowfield, had finally recalled his spiritual body.

And appeared before Xu Xunyue.