Volume Three: Walking Hand in Hand

Chapter 61: Yu Ran’s Nightmare

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

 

These days, Yu Ran and Lu Zexuan worked together to transport the snowy mountain scenery, and both of them were very tired. Especially Yu Ran, who had to coordinate the Nine-Tailed Fox and the White Fox to act separately, multitasking, resulting in a significant depletion of mental energy. Now, seeing the snowy mountains appearing in the forest, Yu Ran finally felt relieved. He had finally realized this unprecedented grand plan. In the future, as long as the Nine-Tailed Fox used its invisibility ability to hide the snowy mountains, even if someone checked his mental landscape, they wouldn’t find anything unusual. 

On the other hand, Lu Zexuan’s mental landscape looked completely destroyed and desolate. As long as Lu Zexuan showed a puppet-like obedience to Yu Ran, the Dark Night Organization wouldn’t suspect him. This way, the two could cooperate secretly and, while minimizing casualties, expose the mastermind behind everything. 

Perhaps because his mental state had finally relaxed, a strong drowsiness rose in Yu Ran’s mind, and he could barely keep his eyes open. With their mental fusion, Lu Zexuan immediately sensed his fatigue and said, “Ranran, rest now.” 

Yu Ran nodded. “Okay, you should rest too.” 

They both fell asleep on the back of the Spider Queen. 

There is a distinction between day and night on this planet, but the duration of a day isn’t the conventional 24-hour cycle of human society. The night lasts for 12 hours, while the bright day lasts for approximately 4 hours, completing a cycle every 16 hours. However, the night here isn’t completely dark; there was still a faint light, seemingly emitted by bioluminescent organisms, scattered like stars in a dream. 

At this moment, it was nighttime on the planet, and everything around was quiet. A gentle breeze blew, tousling Yu Ran’s hair, but he didn’t notice, his eyes tightly closed, evidently asleep. 

However, Lu Zexuan wasn’t tired; instead, he was very much awake mentally. During the process of transporting the scenery, Lu Zexuan’s task was merely to guide Yu Ran to the location of the snowy mountains. The only mental effort he expended was discreetly masking the secrets about the Intelligence Bureau Special Agent Team, which he had sealed together with the Golden Eagle and White Eagle, using a large memory bubble hidden deep within the snowy mountains. Yu Ran was busy transporting a vast amount of memories and didn’t have time to inspect closely, so he didn’t notice. 

Of course, Lu Zexuan wasn’t intentionally keeping secrets from Yu Ran; it just wasn’t the right time yet. Now that the two were mentally fused, Yu Ran would eventually know everything. Their lives were now intertwined, and Lu Zexuan had to play the role of a “puppet”, making it inconvenient to act. So, when necessary, he could seek assistance from the Special Agent Team for Yu Ran. His father should understand. 

Although the existence of the Special Agent Team was to be kept “absolutely confidential”, his great-grandfather had established this elite team of loyalists to protect the descendants of the Lu family. Now, Lu Zexuan and Yu Ran’s lives were linked; if anything happened to Yu Ran, Lu Zexuan would undoubtedly perish. Protecting Yu Ran meant protecting Lu Zexuan; there was no need to draw a clear line between the two. 

Lu Zexuan looked at the person sleeping beside him. Yu Ran had long, thick eyelashes, fair skin, gentle facial features, plump lips, a slightly lean physique, but a well-proportioned and handsome frame, exuding a very capable temperament. When he was young, Lu Zexuan had also fantasized about what kind of guide he would find in the future. 

Would it be a gentle and adorable healing guide who needed his care, or an attack guide who was decisive and could fight alongside him? He never dreamed that he would encounter a guide like Yu Ran—one with superb acting skills, able to switch between “adorable innocence” and “ruthless decisiveness” at any moment, and simultaneously possessing powerful attack-type and healing-type spirit bodies. Being able to both attack and heal, and even completing the unimaginable task of mental landscape transportation and reconstruction, made Lu Zexuan deeply admire him. 

Lu Zexuan knew that Yu Ran was very powerful, perhaps unmatched throughout the federation. But as he looked at the person peacefully sleeping beside him, a strong desire to protect him suddenly rose in his heart. 

“Even if you’re powerful, I’ll stand by your side and do my best to protect you.” 

As Lu Zexuan was thinking this, a black mist appeared in the mental landscape. Now that the two were mentally fused, they could see each other’s dreams, and Lu Zexuan clearly saw the images in the shadow. 

“Ranran, run!” On the starship Starlight in the year 494 of the Star Era, a female general in dark blue military uniform, her eyes deep and sharp, her electromagnetic knife stained with bright red blood, beheaded a sentinel with a single stroke. 

Beside the female general was a handsome and gentle-looking man, his eyes filled with reluctance and tenderness as he looked at Yu Ran. He reached out, gently rubbed Yu Ran’s head, and whispered, “Ranran, live well.” 

Then, he pushed Yu Ran into the escape pod with force. 

The couple closed the door of the escape pod together. 

“Mom! Dad!” Yu Ran frantically pounded on the door of the escape pod. 

In the next moment, the escape pod was suddenly ejected with great force. With a deafening roar, the explosion of the Starlight illuminated the universe with blinding light, and in just a few seconds, the entire starship was torn into countless fragments, raining down like a storm of metal debris. 

“Mom… Dad…!” Yu Ran’s voice was hoarse and choked with tears, his emotions on the brink of collapse. 

The escape pod was pushed into the depths of the universe by the immense force, the blazing fire gradually becoming blurry before Yu Ran’s eyes, which were filled with tears. His heart was wrenching, his pale hands pressing hard against the transparent porthole of the escape pod, as if trying to grasp onto something… 

Soon, his escape pod was sucked into a cosmic wormhole, and darkness enveloped everything around. 

“Ranran, run!” “Live well.” 

The nightmare began to replay. 

The faces of General Xie Xi and Professor Qin Luo appeared vividly in the dream, over and over again. The scene of the Starlight being destroyed replayed in front of Yu Ran’s eyes like a repeated key press. The pain of watching his parents sacrifice and the despairing emotions spread slowly in the depths of the forest. 

Unknowingly, a vast expanse of black fog shrouded the forest, violent winds suddenly swept through the primeval forest, and torrential rain fell fiercely. The flowers and grass on the ground were uprooted by the fierce wind and rain, and trees collapsed one after another, leaving the entire forest in ruins in an instant. 

Nineteen-year-old Yu Ran stood alone in the center of the storm. He shouted blankly, “Mom… Dad… where are you?”

“Major Tang, Major Noah… where are you?”

“Why am I the only one left?”

The youth ran aimlessly through the forest, as if he had lost his soul. The torrential rain soon soaked him, and he stumbled along the way, accidentally tripping over vines, falling and bruising his face. A thorn from the vine pierced his eye, blood gushing out, and the intense pain made his whole body tremble.

At that time, his eyes were still black, and he was accompanied by a red fox. This fox was not a Nine-Tailed Fox; due to its owner’s extreme pain and despair, the mental state of the Red Fox was also very poor, and its body appeared semi-transparent, almost disappearing.

Yu Ran lost sight in one eye. His right eye was blurred by the rain, his left eye bloodshot, unable to see anything clearly, but he struggled to get up and continued stumbling forward.

Lu Zexuan watched Yu Ran’s painful dream, feeling as if his heart was being twisted by a pair of hands—

Ranran, have you been troubled by such nightmares for so many years? Is this what you experienced firsthand? After losing your parents and comrades-in-arms, and coming to this planet alone, was your eye pierced and blinded by thorns?

The thought of this made Lu Zexuan’s heart ache almost unbearably. How did Yu Ran survive alone in such adversity?! He had said that when a human was at their most painful and desperate, a galactic creature monster encouraged him and helped him out of trouble… So, was it because of the Spider Queen’s help that you survived?

The teachers all said that when a sentinel’s mental landscape was filled with negative emotions, it could be sorted out by the guide. However, no one told the guide…What should a guide do when they themselves are trapped in terrible nightmares and their mental state is about to collapse? Who could help him? When he was struggling to survive alone on a strange planet, who could lend him a hand?

Watching the youth stumbling in the torrential rain, Lu Zexuan felt heartbroken, wishing he could bear it all for him. Seeing that Yu Ran’s nightmare was about to repeat, Lu Zexuan decisively spread his wings and flew into the dream. He quickly approached and hugged the youth, who was soaked and covered in injuries from the storm.

The youth, suddenly embraced by a man, looked up blankly and asked, “Who… who are you?”

Lu Zexuan gently pressed his head against his chest, stroking his wet hair, and softly said, “I am your sentinel.”

Yu Ran asked in confusion, “My sentinel?”

Lu Zexuan nodded. “Yes. In the future, you will meet a sentinel who is willing to live and die with you. You are not alone anymore. Don’t be afraid, this is just a dream… Rest well, you’re really tired.”

A huge white eagle flew overhead, like a divine bird suddenly appearing in the mental world, blocking the torrential rain and fierce wind above. Lu Zexuan’s warm embrace and soothing voice gradually calmed Yu Ran down.

The youth gently closed his eyes in Lu Zexuan’s arms and said softly, “I’m so tired, my eyes hurt. Can I sleep for a while?”

Lu Zexuan hugged him tighter. “Sleep, I’ll be here with you.”

As the nightmare ended, Yu Ran finally fell into a deep sleep.

In the primeval forest, the violent storm gradually subsided, and sunlight streamed down from the sky, restoring the flowers, grass, and trees to their original state.

Lu Zexuan opened his eyes, looked at Yu Ran sleeping beside him, and felt almost unable to breathe from the heartache. He turned over and hugged Yu Ran tightly, just like he had embraced the lonely and helpless youth in the dream. The man wrapped Yu Ran’s entire body in his arms, shielding him from the night wind.

Yu Ran seemed to find the shoulder comfortable and gently snuggled into Lu Zexuan’s embrace, reaching out to hold Lu Zexuan’s waist. This gesture of dependence softened Lu Zexuan’s heart, and he reached out and gently stroked Yu Ran’s head. “Sleep, I’m here. We’ve already merged mentally. From now on, whenever you have any nightmares, I’ll be there with you.”

White Eagle spoke in his mind, “Master, Ranran’s nightmares should be more than just this one, right? How did his eye heal later? I just patrolled his mental landscape and didn’t find where he hid these memories.”

Since Yu Ran was asleep, the two foxes also fell asleep. White Eagle, who was still awake, flew around the forest, familiarizing itself with the environment of their new home. But it didn’t find Yu Ran’s past memories in the forest. Most of the memory bubbles found in the forest started from Norma’s Planet B73.

Lu Zexuan frowned and said, “Let me take a look.”

Inside the mental landscape, Lu Zexuan spread his wings and flew with White Eagle through the forest.

Yu Ran’s mental landscape was too vast. Where would those memories be hidden? Under the grass? Between the trees? Or…

Suddenly, he saw a lake in the forest.

It was the lake that Yu Ran, disguised as a C-level guide, had voluntarily shown to others. It was only the size of a soccer field, but placed in the endless primeval forest, it was as insignificant as a drop of water in the ocean.

The people from the Dark Night Organization knew that the lake was what he used to pretend to have “C-level mental energy.” When other high-level guides searched his mental landscape, they would definitely check deep into the forest, not suspecting that there was anything hidden under the lake.

Perhaps the place shown to everyone was also the safest place. Lu Zexuan descended and landed gently on the lake surface.

The lake was clear and shallow, with only a few scattered water plants inside, in line with the characteristics of a “C-level guide.” Lu Zexuan folded his wings and dived into the lake. He kept swimming downwards, and when he reached the bottom of the lake, he found a large expanse of mud.

It was normal for the bottom of a lake to have mud, but Lu Zexuan vaguely sensed that something was wrong. Invading guides would see this and think that the lake ended here, then withdraw their mental tendrils. But Lu Zexuan was different. He wasn’t a guide, so he didn’t need to use mental tendrils to break through mental barriers. Moreover, he and Yu Ran had already merged mentally, so Yu Ran’s mental landscape would automatically recognize him as the master and have no guard against him.

No mental barrier would stop the new “master” Lu Zexuan.

Before entering the mental landscape, Lu Zexuan had asked Yu Ran, “After mental merging, we’re bound, and I’ll know all your secrets. Are you okay with that?”

Yu Ran had said, “It’s okay.”

—Ranran, I want to know about your past.

Without further hesitation, Lu Zexuan continued to swim towards the depths of the mud. Miraculously, the mud dispersed on encountering Lu Zexuan. The thick mud, more than ten meters deep, was a mental barrier set up by Yu Ran. Underneath the mud appeared a completely new world.

It was a huge palace located at the bottom of the lake world. Inside were Yu Ran’s most real and precious memories. His name was not Yu Ran. He was the only son of General Xie Xi and Professor Qin Luo, using his mother’s surname Xie.