After roughly half a minute, Yun Ning suddenly halted beneath a banyan tree by the roadside.
By then, they had already sprinted at least five hundred meters, and Huang Xiu, glancing back, couldn’t even discern the school gate.
Gently setting Huang Xiu down, Yun Ning wiped the fine beads of sweat from his forehead. “Junior Huang, we’ve moved beyond the Void Realm’s influence point. Rest here for a moment; I need to head back now.”
Although his stamina was severely depleted, he still had to return and assist the rearguard.
“Mhm!” Huang Xiu nodded, propping herself against the banyan tree with her left hand. From her pocket, her right hand produced a fuzzy, palm-sized spiky orb, which she offered to him.
“This is a mutated burdock (TL Note: A plant whose seeds are covered in prickly hooks, here implying a weaponized version), its effect similar to a grenade. Take it for self-defense.”
This mutated burdock had been the girl’s last resort, originally kept for her own protection.
Yet, as she no longer needed it, she figured it would be better served by Yun Ning and the rearguard.
“Thanks!” Yun Ning cast a serious gaze upon the girl, his eyes as deep and cool as a spring, his thoughts inscrutable.
He accepted the burdock, tucking it into the pocket of his athletic shorts.
He then spun around, transforming into a white blur that instantly vanished from Huang Xiu’s sight.
‘I hope they stay safe.’ At this point, Huang Xiu was entirely an outsider, left only to pray in her heart.
After watching Yun Ning disappear into the distance, she turned to assess her surroundings.
The area was desolate; she stood on the right side of the road, next to an empty lot overgrown with weeds.
Across the way stood a row of old shops, their vintage signs damaged and coated in a layer of dust.
The shops were closed, with no light emanating from either the first or second floors.
The names of those shops struck Huang Xiu as remarkably familiar, and she instantly grasped her current location.
“Happiness Supermarket… this is on the main road leading to the city center, nearly eight hundred to a thousand meters from the school.”
The girl felt a jolt of astonishment.
First, she was amazed by Yun Ning’s speed, and second, by the sheer breadth of the Void Realm’s influence.
‘I should keep moving further out!’
Having given her last line of defense to Yun Ning, she was now utterly without combat capability. Standing there, gazing into the surrounding darkness, her heart began to pound with apprehension.
Although Yun Ning had confidently left her here, Huang Xiu couldn’t be certain if this spot was truly safe.
Therefore, to be safe, she decided to leave and continue walking towards the city.
The further from the Void Realm, the safer she would be—that much was certain.
“Just another five hundred meters or so, and I’ll reach the city!” Huang Xiu encouraged herself.
Shifting her weight entirely onto her left foot, her right foot served only for slight support.
Though the pain persisted, she could at least manage to walk now.
After walking for a short while, beads of sweat dotted Huang Xiu’s forehead from the pain. She reached up to wipe them away, just as she was about to sit down and rest.
Suddenly, a figure armed with a gun, clad in a bulletproof vest, and wearing four-lens night vision goggles, swiftly approached.
He stopped before Huang Xiu, glanced at her school uniform, and immediately pressed the button on his right earpiece.
“A3 sector, one female student from No. 1 High School located.”
After speaking, he noticed Huang Xiu’s swollen ankle and added, “Right foot injured, movement impaired.”
‘Was he a police officer? Or someone from the Bureau of Special Jurisdiction? Never mind…’ Huang Xiu was too weary to ponder it.
In any case, encountering friendly forces likely meant she had completely exited the Void Realm’s perimeter.
A profound sigh of relief escaped her.
Her entire being seemed to soften visibly, as if her bones had been removed, leaving her utterly devoid of energy and spirit.
“Understood, copy that!”
The man tilted his head slightly, listening for a moment. Apparently having received orders, he responded, re-holstered his weapon, and quickly walked over, extending a hand to support Huang Xiu.
“It’s dangerous here; let me escort you out. Can you walk? Do you need me to carry or piggyback you?”
He tried to soften his voice, but his weathered tone remained somewhat hoarse.
“It’s fine, I can walk. Just help me along!” Huang Xiu shook her head.
She was unwilling even to be piggybacked, let alone carried; being humiliatingly carried all this way today was already her absolute limit!
The man seemed about to speak, but ultimately held his tongue, continuing to support Huang Xiu for another two minutes.
A small encampment, illuminated by searchlights as brightly as day, appeared on the road ahead.
Inside the camp were army-green tents, with police cars and military trucks neatly parked around them, forming a defensive perimeter.
Groups of people, some in police uniforms and others fully equipped, seemingly soldiers, moved between the tents within the camp.
From time to time, the sounds of car engines starting and stopping, along with the rhythmic tread of footsteps, echoed through the camp.
Huang Xiu’s gaze swept past the camp’s centerline, extending towards the distant entrance on the other side.
There, a long stretch of yellow and white caution tape sealed off the entire camp, along with the surrounding roads.
Police officers patrolled the caution tape, blocking any potential vehicles or pedestrians.
Perhaps the man had already communicated with the camp, for as soon as Huang Xiu spotted it,
two soldiers came jogging over with a stretcher.
“Student, shall we carry you?” The man’s words were a question, yet his tone brooked no argument.
Naturally, Huang Xiu had no reason to refuse, so she nodded.
Thus, she experienced for the first time what it felt like to be carried—not in a coffin, she quickly corrected herself, but simply carried.
How to describe the sensation? It was wobbly, making her constantly fear she might suddenly tumble off.
Numerous searchlights ringed the camp, their intensely bright, stark white beams, of unknown lumen count, casting a blinding glow.
Lying there, Huang Xiu could only squint, peering through the slits of her eyelids as she was carried into the camp.
“Name?” A man approached from the side. Squinting, Huang Xiu couldn’t quite discern his face.
She could only make out a stubbled chin, indicating he was not young.
This man wore a bulletproof vest, a holster with a black pistol at his waist, and held a tablet in his left hand, his right fingers rapidly swiping across its screen.
“Huang Xiu.” The girl turned her head to the side, away from the light, curiously observing the camp’s interior layout.
From the outside, she hadn’t seen clearly, but now inside, she realized that besides police and soldiers, there were also many individuals clad in black trench coats.
‘These must be the people from the Bureau of Special Jurisdiction, right?’
As Huang Xiu secretly speculated about their identities, she heard the man with the tablet ask in a placid tone, “I didn’t quite catch that just now. Would you mind repeating your name?”
‘Didn’t he eat? Speaking so softly…’ Huang Xiu internally translated the man’s recent words.
But she truly was hungry, and her quiet voice wasn’t her fault.
She pursed her lips, then spoke two tones louder. “My name is Huang Xiu. Huang, as in the ‘huang’ from ‘gong tian ba’ (common field eight), and Xiu, as in the ‘xiu’ from ‘wan shi jie xiu’ (everything rests).”
“Understood!” The man nodded. Suddenly, a flurry of disordered footsteps erupted from the other side of her vision.
Concurrently, the stretcher was abruptly lowered to the ground.
A click…
From the direction of the recent footsteps, a distinct, uniform sound emerged, somewhat akin to plastic scraping against metal.
‘What’s happening?’
As Huang Xiu, curious, began to turn her head to look, something hard and cold suddenly pressed against her forehead.
“Don’t move!” the man said coldly.