A violent girl with pink twin ponytails.

 

A single weapon was already that heavy; if the full suit of armour were added together, it would probably weigh several hundred jin (1 jin ≈ 0.5 kg). An ordinary person without training simply wouldn’t be able to carry it.

Lu Mingze shook his head regretfully at the armour and said, “I appreciate your kindness don’t worry, I’ll be fine. And I’ll also restore this city to normal and rebuild the city lord’s mansion. When that happens, you’ll be able to protect the city again.”

“Who asked you to rebuild the city?!” The armour clanged all over, roaring angrily, “Put me on! Once you wear me, I can control your body and move freely!”

As soon as it finished speaking, the armour automatically disassembled and lunged toward Lu Mingze.

At that very moment—just as things were happening too fast to react —Lu Mingze’s wrist suddenly burned with heat. A cluster of bracelets on his wrist reacted at once. He didn’t have time to see which bracelet it was; in desperation, he slapped one hard.

The bracelet burst into dazzling light, and a girl with pink hair tied into twin ponytails, barely 1.5 meters tall, appeared in front of him.

The girl stretched out her not-very-long arm, grabbed the flying helmet mid-air, and smashed it viciously into the armour’s torso.

At the same time, she leapt lightly into the air and, with three punches and two kicks, dismantled the armour into scattered pieces. She planted one foot on the armour’s torso and looked down from above, asking coldly: “Whose body were you planning to control?”

Lu Mingze: “……”

The armour: “……”

Outside the window, the red, round sun slowly sank, leaving only a faint glow along the horizon.

The last strand of sunlight shone upon the pink twin-tailed girl. In the afterglow, her 1.5-meter height somehow looked as imposing as if she were 1.8 meters tall.

“So cool…” Lu Mingze murmured as he stared at her.

The twin-tailed girl wasn’t as good-looking as Lu Mingze, but even so, he had to admit that such pure strength was genuinely awe-inspiring, and that cold, ruthless posture was unbelievably cool.

Was she my teammate from before?
Lu Mingze couldn’t help curling his lips into a smile, thinking that he really was a lucky person.

He lowered his head to check his bracelet and saw that the bracelet labeled Cao Qian & Linlin had one horizontal bar missing. He asked, “My name is Lu Mingze. Are you Cao Qian, or Linlin?”

“Cao Qian,” the pink twin-tailed girl replied. “What is this place? And you… you’re pretty good-looking.”

“Huh?” Lu Mingze froze. “You don’t recognize me?”

“I don’t. Why would I?” Cao Qian frowned. “Where is this place? My strength feels huge, and my combat ability seems… way too strong.”

She stared at her own hands in confusion. Every movement just now had flowed as naturally as drifting clouds and running water (NT: idiom, smooth and effortless), as if she were extremely familiar with combat—certainly not her first fight.

Lu Mingze recalled that he had chosen to restore memories together with his teammates, meaning that his teammates would also have lost their memories. That made sense.

So he briefly explained what had happened and showed her the bracelet, asking, “You really don’t remember anything at all?”

Cao Qian shook her head. Seemingly casually, she glanced at Lu Mingze’s strikingly handsome face and said, “I was lying in bed reading a novel when a QR code suddenly popped up on my phone. I scanned it without thinking, and a dialogue box appeared saying, ‘Your companion needs help. Do you wish to provide assistance?’ I clicked ‘Yes.’”

“What?!” Lu Mingze slapped his bracelet hard. “Isn’t this kind of a scam? Is asking friends for help limited by the number of applications? I thought I could ask lots of teammates for help—but they can just refuse?!”

This time, the bracelet spoke up: “In some real-world quiz and challenge shows, even when contestants seek outside help, their friends and family don’t necessarily know the answer, do they?”

Lu Mingze: “……”

That… actually made sense.

“And assistance is mutual,” the bracelet continued. “If the other party refuses to help, they will lose the opportunity to restore their memories.”

Lu Mingze: “……”

This was really a trap-filled system. Fortunately, Cao Qian had agreed—otherwise, memory recovery would’ve been impossible.

Lu Mingze frantically slapped the bracelet again. “Then how long can Cao Qian stay here?”

“One horizontal bar equals one day,” the bracelet replied. “Cao Qian and Linlin share a bracelet. If Cao Qian comes, Linlin comes as well.”

“Linlin?” Cao Qian tilted her head—she could hear the bracelet too.

At that moment, both Cao Qian and Lu Mingze heard a voice coming from Cao Qian’s chest: “Gu-gaa, gu-gaa, where is this place? It’s so dark… why does it feel like I’m on someone’s chest? So flat…”

Cao Qian pulled out the pendant from her chest, pinched the swan crystal’s beak shut, stopping it from talking.

The pink twin-tailed girl and a swan-shaped crystal pendant stared at each other, wide-eyed.

“Cao Qian?” Once her beak was released, Swan Linlin said, “Gu-gaa gu-gaa, why did you dye your hair this colour? Did you turn into a shamate ?” (NT: shā mǎ tè, Chinese slang for youth flashy subculture fashion)

“You two know each other?” Lu Mingze asked in surprise. “Then why don’t we recognize each other?”

The moment Linlin saw Lu Mingze, she instantly lost all coherence: “Gu-gu-gu-gaa-gaa, th-this is who? So, so… good-looking?!”

Cao Qian pinched Linlin’s stuttering mouth shut and said coldly, “I don’t know her.”

But you two clearly look very close. Lu Mingze swallowed those words back down. Cao Qian looked like she really wanted to punch Linlin.

Lu Mingze said, “Actually, I don’t know what kind of game this is either, nor do I know what exactly is in the memories we lost. But I want to know—what about you?”

Cao Qian didn’t answer. But Lu Mingze understood clearly: if she hadn’t felt confused about the sense of emptiness in her heart during this period of time, how would she have scanned a QR code that suddenly popped up on her phone? That was dangerous—what if it had been a scam?

After a moment of silence, while they were talking, the sky had completely darkened. In the darkness, she suddenly said, “I don’t remember Linlin, but one night at 1:30 a.m., her family called me, happily telling me that Linlin had woken up and that I didn’t need to worry.”

“Woken up?” Lu Mingze caught the key point.

Released from the grip on her mouth, Linlin said, “Yeah, I’d been in a coma for over two months, turned straight into a vegetable. It was terrifying. My family even specially hired a caregiver to look after me.”

“Did you wake up half a month ago?” Lu Mingze asked.

After receiving a confirmed answer, he frowned and said, “I was in a coma for four months, and I woke up at the exact same time on the same day as you.”

“Gu-ga gu-ga, could it be that we fell in love in our dreams while we were unconscious?” the crystal swan said with sparkling eyes.

Cao Qian pinched her mouth shut once again and said simply, “Her family’s phone call made me feel very strange. I didn’t know this person at all. But the next day, I checked the ride-hailing records on my phone, which proved that I really did visit her once or twice every week. Her family always thought I was a friend from her workplace. Many of the energy compounds she was injected with were bought by me—there are detailed bills on my phone, and pharmacy receipts at home as well.

“After checking this information, I took some time to visit her. The two of us inexplicably hit it off. I inexplicably helped her with rehabilitation. Half a month later, I inexplicably gained a friend, and recently I’ve even been helping her look for a job.”

Cao Qian’s expression was calm. She didn’t panic because of her amnesia, nor did she resent fate for forcibly stuffing this “salted-fish” friend (NT: expression meaning someone drifting through life) into her life. But Lu Mingze could tell from her eyes that she also wanted to understand why all of this had happened.

“Looks like we’ve had similar experiences. Do you want to complete the tasks together and recover our memories?” Lu Mingze extended his hand to Cao Qian. “You can stay in this world for a whole day, and there are still two horizontal lines on the bracelet—you can stay for a full three days.”

“Gu-ga gu-ga, I do—”

With one hand pinching the swan’s mouth shut, Cao Qian grasped Lu Mingze’s hand with the other and said, “I don’t know why, but I’m not worried at all about whether time is passing in the real world.”

Lu Mingze said, “Time in the real world doesn’t pass while you’re in the game.”

The two of them shook hands amicably and reached an agreement. The armour that Cao Qian was stepping on finally couldn’t take it anymore and shouted, “How long are you going to keep chatting on top of me?!”

“Ah, I forgot about him,” Lu Mingze said embarrassedly.

Cao Qian mentioned, “I didn’t forget.”

Lu Mingze: “……”

So this very cool big-sister type was deliberately crushing the armour the whole time?

Lu Mingze looked down and saw that the armour’s torso had already been flattened. Just how strong was Cao Qian?!

Cao Qian lifted the iron armour plates and said, “What are you? Why can you talk? He needs to get a map—will there be danger in the fourth-floor office? Also, is there any light source here?”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t squeeze me—if you squeeze me any more, I won’t even be armour anymore,” the armour said nervously. “I’m just an ordinary suit of armour. On the day the disaster came, I became alive. I awaken every dusk and sleep at dawn. But I can’t move—unless someone wears me, in which case I can control their body to move. When I encounter someone, I roam the city for one night to take a look at the town I protect. By morning, I must return to my original position and fall asleep under the first ray of sunlight. At that point, the person inside me can leave. I don’t want to hurt him. I just want to walk around the town once. In return, I’ll help him get the map.”

By the end of his speech, the armour actually sounded aggrieved. The helmet let out “hngh-hngh” panting noises, like a five-hundred jin oversized baby.

“So that’s how it is,” Lu Mingze squatted down and looked at the armour. “Then you should’ve just said so earlier. I’m not against it. Look at what a state you’re in now.”

The armour said, “If I didn’t force it, who would agree after hearing that I can control someone’s body? And I really am too heavy. People I controlled before had to sleep for several days afterward—probably from physical exhaustion.”

Lu Mingze thought for a moment and said, “I can’t agree right now, since I don’t have time to be unconscious for several days. But after the task is completed, I’ll come help you run around for one night. Anyway, once the task is done, even if I sleep for several days, it won’t matter, right?”

“You—” the armour was stunned. “Why are you so foolish? I was lying to you!”

Lu Mingze: “……”

The armour said, “A living person can’t withstand the dark aura inside me. Wearing me for an entire night would cut one’s lifespan in half!”

“Then… in this city, are there any people guilty of heinous crimes, the kind who should be hanged?” Lu Mingze asked. “I can capture them and have them wear you. That way, you can protect the town and punish criminals—killing two birds with one stone.”

The armour said excitedly, “That actually sounds feasible! I really do know some criminals. On the day the disaster came, they burned, killed, looted — committing every evil imaginable — and harmed many ordinary residents. But they live outside the city; they’re a group of bandits who rob the townspeople of their grain every year. Bring me the map, and I’ll tell you their exact location.”

As soon as the armour finished speaking, the narrator prompted: “Task Two accepted: capture the bandits near the town and hand them over to the Guardian Armour for punishment. Current task progress: 0.2/6.”

 

Translator : DarNan