Chi Zhou studied Xia Ye’s eyes. They looked perfectly normal, with clearly defined pupils and irises, and a bright, lucid gaze that caught the fluorescent lamp’s light, gleaming like coloured glass.

Unless someone had tested them personally, no one would have believed that Xia Ye was in fact, sightless.

Rather than answering Xia Ye’s question directly, Chi Zhou asked, “Why would you think that?”

Under the fluorescent lights, the entire room was bathed in a soft glow.

“Normally, when excessive use of mental power causes an imbalance in an organ’s function, the effects last only twenty-four hours. The body should recover on its own, without any treatment.”

Xia Ye recited the passage from a textbook, a trace of unease creeping into his voice.

“But I still haven’t recovered…”

He tightened his grip on Chi Zhou’s hand, clutching it like a lifeline.

“I saw Xia Zhi’s memories. Those are things only she should know.”

Bizarre alien images—scenes from a distant galaxy—mixed with fragments of a young girl’s everyday life, punctuated by the Leader’s piercing shrieks. No one would believe that such memories belonged to Xia Zhi.

His younger sister had been a delicate flower, raised in a greenhouse and protected by their parents from the moment she was born.

Their father had been so protective that he would have gladly kept Xia Zhi inside a sterile chamber. Before the alien contamination incident in District Twelve, she had barely even known that such dangers existed beyond her sheltered world.

She was like a sheltered young lady from ancient Earth, completely removed from District Twelve’s turbulent, dangerous life.

“I suspect she was parasitised during the contamination.” Xia Ye’s thoughts were in turmoil as he voiced his theory. “Maybe the same thing happened to me, and I just don’t know it? Chi Zhou, the Leader had no Bone-Eater. I have no idea where it went. Could it be inside her? Or perhaps…inside me?”

“Xia Ye.” Chi Zhou interrupted his disjointed rambling. “Stop.”

“But I—”

“Calm down,” Chi Zhou said firmly. “You’re not a monster.”

Hearing the unequivocal answer, Xia Ye’s ragged breathing finally began to ease.

“I’ll help you get to the bottom of this.” Chi Zhou pressed his fingers against Xia Ye’s wrist, feeling his pulse. “Your heart rate is climbing. That won’t help you recover.”

He came across as a kind, considerate team leader who cared about his subordinate’s physical well-being, saying all the things Xia Ye would never bother to care about.

Xia Ye found it strange.

He didn’t know Chi Zhou particularly well. For most of his life, the Chi Zhou he had known was little more than the heroic figure of humanity portrayed in Alliance propaganda videos. But their brief time together over the past few days had been enough for him to piece together what Chi Zhou was really like.

Chi Zhou wasn’t the type to beat around the bush or dodge the issue.

Especially not when the matter was this serious. The disappearance of the Leader’s Bone-Eater could practically be considered a major operational failure.

—

“Chi Zhou, have you already investigated this?”

After a brief silence, Xia Ye suddenly spoke. “When will the Contamination Monitoring Bureau come to take me away?”

His tone was remarkably calm, as though the Alliance’s mysterious, terrifying bureau was nothing out of the ordinary.

Chi Zhou sighed and rested his palm against Xia Ye’s back, giving him a gentle pat, as if soothing a little cat.

“I stopped them,” he said helplessly. “How many times do I have to tell you to trust me?”

He continued patting Xia Ye’s back absentmindedly as he explained what had happened while Xia Ye was unconscious.

“After the Leader’s territory collapsed, we couldn’t find the Bone-Eater.”

“As the heart of an extraterrestrial organism, the Bone-Eater and its territory sustain one another. It couldn’t simply disappear on its own. There’s no way to hide this from the Alliance, so I reported it to Headquarters as a large-scale mutation, with Jian Feiyang as the one who underwent it. Headquarters hasn’t pursued the matter.”

“You don’t have to lie for my sake,” Xia Ye said.

Chi Zhou’s gentleness made something inside him ache.

“How is that lying?” Chi Zhou replied, disagreeing with him. “Until the investigation is complete, I won’t let anyone interfere with the Special Operations Department’s affairs.”

Xia Ye murmured an acknowledgement, accepting his explanation.

It was exactly the sort of thing Chi Zhou would do. After all, he was the one who brought Jian Feiyang back from the extraterrestrial base.

“What about the experimental pod?” Xia Ye asked.

“Only you and I know about it,” Chi Zhou said. “The matter is too serious. If we report it to the Alliance, the Contamination Monitoring Bureau won’t be able to turn a blind eye.”

“Thank you,” Xia Ye said softly.

“How many times have I told you that you don’t need to thank me?” Chi Zhou complained casually. “You make us sound like strangers.”

Xia Ye fell silent for a moment.

“…I’ll work on it.”

“You don’t have to go that far, either.” Chi Zhou sounded exasperated. “Why are you always so nervous around me?”

He paused, then asked, “Are you afraid of me?”

Xia Ye shook his head.

It was difficult to explain what he was feeling. For a long time, he had imagined all sorts of things about Chi Zhou. His admiration for the man had sunk so deeply into him that it felt woven into his very bones.

Most of the time, he simply couldn’t bring himself to act naturally around Chi Zhou.

He couldn’t see Chi Zhou’s expression, but he knew the man must be watching him now.

“Don’t move. Let me take another look.”

A warm, dry hand touched his face and gently lifted his eyelid.

Chi Zhou examined his eye, shining a powerful beam of light directly into it. Xia Ye blinked instinctively.

“While you were asleep, the Alliance sent someone to examine your eyes. Their initial diagnosis was an organ dysfunction caused by excessive use of mental power.”

With a click, Chi Zhou switched off the flashlight and withdrew his hand without a word.

Xia Ye’s long eyelashes brushed across his palm, leaving behind an oddly delicate sensation.

“You’re lucky,” Chi Zhou said. “Your eyes have fully recovered their normal function, but you still can’t see?”

Xia Ye nodded. From Chi Zhou’s tone, he sensed that his suspicions might have been correct after all.

“Come on.” Chi Zhou stood and thoughtfully fetched Xia Ye’s coat. “Let’s go find your sister.”

—

“My blindness has something to do with Xia Zhi, doesn’t it?”

Inside the speeding off-road vehicle, Xia Ye asked quietly.

He was wrapped in an oversized wool coat, his fine black hair falling across his forehead and partially obscuring his light brown eyes.

Chi Zhou nodded. “I suspect your sister has something to do with it.”

Xia Ye sighed softly. “I really hope that’s not the case.”

The Leader’s final shrieks still haunted him.

You’re not the right person! I’ve found the right person!

At first, Xia Ye hadn’t understood what those words meant. If they were merely a prediction, why had the Leader needed to say them to him specifically?

Then he had seen Xia Zhi inside the Leader’s core.

An absurd idea had taken root in his mind, and since then, he hadn’t been able to shake it.

His sister might be the ‘right person’ the Leader had been talking about.

The damp, endless dream had only made the suspicion feel more real. Terrifyingly real.

He would rather it be him than Xia Zhi.

Being parasitised by a high-ranking extraterrestrial organism carried consequences far beyond what his frail younger sister could endure. The Leader might even take her life before any mutation had a chance to occur.

Xia Ye pressed his lips together and stared out at the passing scenery.

It was an utterly ordinary highway, bordered by farmland and trees. Flowers grew along the green median, and beneath the clear blue sky, everything looked peaceful and serene.

There would be no more human-faced trees surrounding them from the shadows, yet Xia Ye felt as though another kind of darkness had closed in around him.

“Are you and your sister very close?” Chi Zhou asked.

“We grew up together.”

At the mention of his sister, Xia Ye’s expression softened, and his voice grew gentler.

“She was very well-behaved and never went looking for trouble. She spoke so softly that I was always worried someone would bully her.”

“I heard you used to get into fights at the orphanage because of her,” Chi Zhou said.

“Mm… Xia Zhi was very cute, and there were always people trying to take advantage of her. I couldn’t stand it,” Xia Ye replied. “Any older brother would have done the same, wouldn’t he?”

Chi Zhou fell silent for a long moment before finally asking, “What would you do if your sister turned out to be different from the person you thought she was?”

“I don’t know.” Xia Ye answered honestly. “I don’t know what I should do.”

The scenery rushed past outside the window. District One was drawing closer.

The highway toll station was just ahead. They would arrive in another ten minutes or so.

“Xia Ye.”

Just before they reached the checkpoint, Chi Zhou called his name.

“I’ll do everything I can to help you keep her safe.”

—

A strange, nameless emotion welled up in Xia Ye’s blood and spread to his heart.

“You don’t have to be so good to me.” He lowered his head, burying his face in his hands. “Protecting my sister is my responsibility.”

He felt as though he were in danger.

Chi Zhou spoke with such openness and sincerity, yet Xia Ye couldn’t help entertaining thoughts he knew he shouldn’t have.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that Chi Zhou’s concern for him had crossed the boundaries of what was expected between teammates.

Did teammates really need to go this far for each other?

Xia Ye didn’t know.

But he hated the nervous anticipation stirring inside him. It made it harder to keep a clear head.

“Why are you making it sound so tragic?” Chi Zhou said, exasperated. “Aren’t you supposed to be quite an expert on ancient Earth movies? Don’t you know that older brothers who say things like that usually don’t survive past the third episode? What an inauspicious thing to say.”

Xia Ye replied, “It slipped my mind.”

The atmosphere inside the off-road vehicle grew a little lighter, no longer as heavy as it had been when they first set out.

“Xia Ye, seriously,” Chi Zhou said, his tone turning more solemn. “It’s not your sister I want to protect. It’s you.”

Xia Ye looked puzzled. “Me?”

“Mm.” Chi Zhou nodded. “I suspect there’s some kind of connection between you and your sister.”

Those few words were enough for him to understand what Chi Zhou meant.

Just as with their eyesight, Xia Ye and Xia Zhi’s other senses might also be linked, with both sharing each other’s gains and losses.

“I looked into some records, and they mentioned a similar case.” Chi Zhou kept one hand on the steering wheel as he spoke. “Twenty years ago, a research institute submitted a study to the Alliance, claiming they had found a way to break through the limits of human-mecha synchronisation and dramatically increase combat strength.”

Xia Ye listened quietly, his long fingers interlaced in his lap. There was something almost obedient about his composed, cool demeanour.

“The core theory behind the research was based on a hypothesis from ancient Earth. Back then, people believed that twins could communicate telepathically. The research institute later confirmed that this was possible.”

As he drove, Chi Zhou explained the findings in broad strokes.

“If both twins awakened at the same time, they might develop a connection under certain circumstances, sharing memories and physical sensations.”

He turned his head slightly to glance at Xia Ye.

“Sound familiar?”

Xia Ye frowned. “My sister is physically weak. There’s no way she could have awakened.”

He had known that since childhood. The first time their father took them to see Scarlet Dawn Lotus, Xia Zhi had remained at the entrance, unable to approach within five meters of the mecha because of the overwhelming pressure it emanated. Their father had been visibly disappointed.

“It’s only a hypothesis,” Chi Zhou said, bringing up a particular term. “But your situation resembles what the research institute called shared sensation.”

Xia Ye’s expression changed.

He had seen that term before. It had appeared repeatedly in his father’s letters. His father was an expert in cryptography, and he had encrypted the letters in multiple layers. Xia Ye had spent three months buried in the library trying to decipher them, but he still hadn’t managed to understand their contents.

“I don’t know much about the shared-sensation research. I only know the experiment existed,” Chi Zhou continued. “It was a classified project. Nobody outside the research team was authorised to access its files. What I know is mostly hearsay.”

Xia Ye ventured a question. “Did you hear about it from my father?”

“Yes.” This time, Chi Zhou was the one who looked puzzled. “How did you know?”

“My father was the project leader…”

Xia Ye’s voice had grown dry. “After he died, I read the letters he left behind. He kept mentioning ‘shared sensation,’ but they were encrypted. I couldn’t understand what they actually said.”

“I didn’t know Dr. Xia was in charge of the shared-sensation project,” Chi Zhou said gravely. “Xia Ye, I’m sorry.”

His expression turned cold as he realised that Xia Ye’s past might be far more complicated than he had imagined.

From Xia Ye’s scattered remarks, Chi Zhou began piecing together the truth.

Experiments that disregarded human rights. A highly classified project. A friend who had been secretive and strangely excited. A genius researcher who had suddenly vanished.

And then there was Scarlet Dawn Lotus, the legendary mecha that had appeared out of nowhere in District Twelve.

At last, the ‘top-secret plan’ the Alliance had gone to such lengths to bury was beginning to emerge from the shadows.

Extraterrestrial organisms were so powerful that the Human Alliance spent vast sums of money and resources every year training armies capable of fighting them.

But this was nothing more than drinking poison to quench one’s thirst. Faced with the prophecy that humanity would be wiped out within a century, such efforts seemed pitifully insignificant.

To defy that prophecy, the Alliance was willing to take desperate risks.

If no human could match the power of extraterrestrial organisms, then they would create one.

Even if he suffered. Even if it cost him his entire life.

The Alliance would pay any price.

Against the fate of all humanity, this one person was nothing more than an insignificant symbol, cast out from the collective. There would be no one left to mourn him.

And Xia Ye was the person they had chosen.

—

“The shared-sensation project lasted only six months before the Alliance abruptly shut it down. The official reason was that it involved human experimentation.”

Chi Zhou kept one hand on the steering wheel. With the other, he reached across from the driver’s seat and took Xia Ye’s hand, hoping to offer him some small measure of comfort.

“If I had had the authority to access your file, I would have taken you away before the experiments began.”

Unfortunately, he hadn’t.

Xia Ye’s file was marked with the silver-grey designation reserved for the highest level of secrecy.

It was kept at Alliance Headquarters, accessible only to the head of the Alliance.

“Chi Zhou, you don’t have to feel sorry for me.”

Xia Ye lowered his head. His long eyelashes cast faint shadows across his face, making his expression difficult to read.

“This wasn’t your responsibility in the first place.”

He understood what Chi Zhou meant.

The layers of encryption on his father’s letters pointed to one undeniable possibility: he and Xia Zhi might have been nothing more than experimental subjects.

They simply hadn’t known it.

In his memory, his parents were the best parents in the world. They were gentle, rational, and patient. They were always smiling when they were with their children and never lost their temper.

Their neighbours often said, “Your family is even more enviable than the families in television commercials.”

Xia Ye had always believed the same.

That apartment, filled with the faint scent of dust, had once been the most beautiful place in his memories. It held every childhood moment he had shared with Xia Zhi.

Until he told Chi Zhou about his father’s letters.

Twins… Shared-sensation research… Human experimentation…

A dull ache throbbed at his temples.

For the first time, Xia Ye began to wonder whether his memories were even real.

The Author’s Note:

Waaah, I really tried to write as much as I could! I wrote from 7 p.m. until almost midnight. I really did my best……

This part of the story is a little long, so I’ll try to write a bit more each day. QAQ

Support the author by buying the author’s works and/or throw some bombs~
(It’s very easy to buy for jjwxc because they support Paypal payments~)

We have a discord server for those who want to receive an update ping and various announcements~
Join here ^^

And please buy me some kofi if you like the translation~

Also leave some ratings if you like this series here~