Chapter 26
However, facing Kai’s icy expression, Shen Yuzhe didn’t think he was joking at all.
He hurriedly went outside, waved to the figure not far away through the railing, and called out, “Joe!”
Joe heard him and approached, looking fresh and curious as he peered inside, “Where’s Kai?”
“Uh, he’s inside,” Shen Yuzhe replied, “How did you get here?”
“You told me to look after you, didn’t you? So I came to check on you,” Joe replied with a hint of curiosity in his expression, something inexplicable. “Are you okay?”
Shen Yuzhe knew Joe might be thinking wrong things, so he said, “Actually, we haven’t done anything.”
“Really?” Joe looked skeptical. It was Kai, after all. Did he really seem like someone lacking in that department?
“Really,” facing this misunderstanding, Shen Yuzhe started feeling awkward again. “He just let me stay in the tower and didn’t let me out.”
Joe asked, “Why?”
Shen Yuzhe shrugged, pretending to be calm, “I don’t know. I guess he might be feeling lonely.”
Listening to their conversation, Kai inside the tower muttered, “…”
Joe looked at Shen Yuzhe with suspicion but eventually gave up on gossip. He said, “Regardless, I brought you these. Otherwise, I came here for nothing.” He took out a few items and handed them to Shen Yuzhe.
Shen Yuzhe took a look and saw several small bottles. Two of them contained a translucent liquid, and one slightly larger bottle held pale yellow powder.
“What are these?” Shen Yuzhe asked, holding one of the bottles containing liquid.
“Snail slime,” Joe replied.
“Snail?” Shen Yuzhe heard this word for the first time.
“A type of shelled insect, quite gentle, about this big,” Joe explained, opening his arms to show the size. “There are two of them in the base, on the other side of the river. I can take you to see them sometime.”
Shen Yuzhe asked, “What are these for? Do you drink them?”
Joe explained like he was educating a child, “Their main effect is to heal scars, but most females use them on their faces. It’s said to make the skin smooth. Of course, besides this, it has other effects that you should understand. Male recipients have a particular area…”
“Stop, stop, stop!!!” Shen Yuzhe’s face turned red again.
“You can drink it if you want; it’s not poisonous,” Joe teased.
Shen Yuzhe said, “…”
“The pale yellow powder is for treating injuries. If you have any wounds on your body, apply a little or drink it with water,” Joe patiently explained the other bottle’s purpose.
Shen Yuzhe thought it was a good thing. “These are all rare items in the base. After all, there are injuries during every game. I had to pull some strings to get these, especially the pale yellow powder,” Joe said. “Whether you need them or not, I’ve taken care of you, isn’t that nice?”
“Alright, I’ll take them,” Shen Yuzhe said as he stuffed the small bottles into his pocket. He wasn’t sure if he should thank Joe for his care or complain about his unnecessary actions.
While they were talking, Kai, who had counted to five hundred, appeared on time behind them.
Joe waved at Shen Yuzhe, “I won’t disturb you two any longer. Goodbye!”
Shen Yuzhe said, “…”
Back in the tower, Shen Yuzhe sat alone downstairs for a while, feeling a bit awkward. After dinner, Kai suddenly brought a large box and placed it in front of him.
“What’s this?” Shen Yuzhe asked.
“Take a look,” Kai didn’t leave immediately; he seemed to want Shen Yuzhe to open it right away.
Shen Yuzhe followed his instruction and lifted the box’s lid. Inside, there was a whole box of small bottles. In addition to the translucent liquid and pale yellow powder that Joe had given him, there were also bottles containing unknown white and gray powders. There were many varieties.
“These… are medicines?” Shen Yuzhe was surprised that Kai had so many “rare items,” and he wondered if Kai had overheard his conversation with Joe just now.
Shen Yuzhe looked at Kai, wanting to know what he meant by showing him these items. Surely, he wasn’t showing off how many rare medicines he had?
However, Kai simply said, “Zoeis gave these.”
Shen Yuzhe was puzzled. Did Kai give him all of these?
He went back to the third floor, found a spot to place the box, and sat on the bed. He took out one of the bottles and examined it closely. He suddenly noticed that there was a faint hexagram symbol at the bottom of the bottle!
Shen Yuzhe immediately checked the other two bottles in his hand—none of them had the symbol.
He frantically examined each bottle in the box that Kai had given him—one by one. None of them had the symbol.
Only the pale yellow powder bottle that Joe gave him had it, and when he compared it carefully, the quality of this bottle was indeed better, much more solid.
Shen Yuzhe’s heart skipped a beat. He jumped off the bed, ran up the stairs, and asked Kai to let him go outside again.
Kai, who was lying on a cushion with his head in his hands, was initially pleased to see Shen Yuzhe taking the initiative to come upstairs, but when he heard Shen Yuzhe’s words, his expression turned stern.
At this moment, Shen Yuzhe didn’t have the patience to understand Kai’s inexplicable mood. He urgently explained, “I need to ask Joe something important.”
Kai dug deeper, “What kind of question?”
“The bottle he gave me is somewhat special,” Shen Yuzhe took out the small bottle and showed it to Kai. “See, there’s a hexagram symbol on it.”
But Kai’s reaction was very calm, as if he didn’t find it strange at all.
Shen Yuzhe suppressed his disappointment and explained patiently, “This bottle is the same as the candy that the person who looks a lot like you in my memory gave me. I’m not imagining that they are the same person anymore, maybe they just look alike. So I want to ask Joe about this bottle and where it came from.”
Kai furrowed his brow, and then he took the bottle from Shen Yuzhe’s hand and sniffed it.
“This is Og’s bottle,” Kai identified.
Shen Yuzhe was puzzled, “What is Og?”
Kai replied, “Og is not a place; it’s a person in the base.”
“How do you know this bottle belongs to Og?” Shen Yuzhe finally realized that Kai’s sense of smell was different from ordinary people.
Kai didn’t explain but simply said, “What can this symbol tell us?”
Shen Yuzhe asked, “Don’t you wonder? It might have some information related to our past. You’re not curious?”
After a moment of contemplation, Kai stood up.
Shen Yuzhe thought he would remain indifferent, but to his surprise, Kai put on a coat and told him to wait. Then, he opened the window and jumped out.
“!” This is the fourth floor!
Shen Yuzhe rushed to the window sill, leaned out, and saw Kai landing effortlessly on the ground below. After a few leaps, he disappeared into the night.
… Is this guy really an ordinary person!?
Before long, Kai returned. He brought back a person with disheveled shoulder-length hair, a dirty face, a five o’clock shadow on his mouth, and a body that had become skin and bones.
Kai tossed the man in front of Shen Yuzhe, and the man immediately cried out, “Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me…”
Shen Yuzhe: “…”
“He is Og,” Kai, who was shrouded in the cold air outside, stood behind Og with a stern expression and said to Shen Yuzhe, “Go ahead, ask.”
“Get up first,” Shen Yuzhe handed the bottle to Og and asked, “Is this bottle yours?”
Og recognized it at a glance, “Yes, it’s mine. Yesterday afternoon, Joe exchanged it from me for ten pieces of bread and five pieces of meat!”
Shen Yuzhe asked, “Since it’s yours, do you know what the symbol at the bottom of this bottle means?”
Og was puzzled and shook his head, “I don’t know.”
Shen Yuzhe frowned and asked again, “Then, do you remember who you got this bottle from?”
Og hesitated, stammering, “I… I don’t remember. I found it on the ground.”
“Found it?” Shen Yuzhe raised an eyebrow. Joe said this was a rare item; how could it be so easily found?
Kai approached Og, grabbed him by the back of his collar, and coldly reminded him, “Tell the truth.”
Og shivered, tugging on his collar, and said in a trembling voice, “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you! It was a long time ago, about half a year ago. A few of us robbed it from Randy; he was beaten by us, and this small bottle fell out of him. No one noticed, so I picked it up… Please don’t kill me!”
Shen Yuzhe asked Kai, “Who is Randy?”
“Randy is a person brought in by a special member of Zoeis Club,” Kai said, looking at Shen Yuzhe. “He’s just like you, left here for three months after losing the game. But he’s already gone back, and he hasn’t been here recently. Have you seen him?”
Shen Yuzhe’s heart sank. Does this mean he won’t have a chance to see the person named Randy in the future?
Kai wasn’t sure either, so he didn’t say anything.
They released Og, and before leaving, Shen Yuzhe gave him some food. Og accepted it nervously, then turned and ran away.
Watching Shen Yuzhe’s actions, Kai, who didn’t intervene, spoke his survival philosophy for the first time, “In this place, kindness can make you die in ways you can’t imagine.”
Shen Yuzhe understood that it was foolish and self-righteous to distribute Kai’s food to help others, but those supplies were already more than they could consume, and they would go bad if left untouched. He also considered Og’s information as a form of payment. Besides, the man already looked very thin, and while he had traded the medicine he got from Joe for some food, it wouldn’t sustain him for long.
Of course, Shen Yuzhe didn’t bother explaining this reasoning to Kai; he simply replied, “I won’t be staying in this place forever.”
Kai looked somewhat puzzled, but in an instant, he returned to his usual cold demeanor and ignored Shen Yuzhe.
Shen Yuzhe went downstairs alone. The rare lead they had just received had suddenly gone cold, and tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.
As he tossed and turned, Shen Yuzhe suddenly saw Kai silently appear in front of him again – he was standing at the staircase on the third floor, silently staring at him.
Shen Yuzhe was so startled that he gasped.
