WMSR – QT Chapter 123

 

WMSR – QT Chapter 123

By

siofra

Chapter 123: The Senior of the Apocalypse

As Qi Yuanyuan scanned the courtyard, she tried to identify the focal point of the operation. The two individuals directing the logistics were clearly base administrative staff, and the manual laborers carrying crates were obviously hired help. Ah, that must be him!

Having spent years navigating the ability wielder sectors of the compound, Qi Yuanyuan possessed a sharp eye for reading spatial authority. After sweeping her gaze across the chaotic yard, her focus locked instantly onto a slender man standing near the entrance, draped in a black trench coat and radiating a distinctly cold, detached aura.

So young, Qi Yuanyuan thought with a flicker of internal surprise. And he looks remarkably refined, not like those crude, aggressive power-wielders. Hopefully, he's reasonably approachable.

Just as those thoughts crossed her mind, the high-aura young wielder pivoted slightly to exchange words with someone standing directly beside him. Only then did Qi Yuanyuan realize a second person had been obscured from view by his frame. She instinctively shifted her gaze—and the next instant, her vision locked tight.

It was a man of breathtaking, arresting handsomeness. Even though he lacked any overt external aura and screamed "ordinary civilian" at first glance, the moment your eyes drifted toward him, breaking eye contact proved virtually impossible. The reason was singular: his visual appeal was simply overwhelming.

Yet the shock paralyzing Qi Yuanyuan's gaze wasn't rooted in mere aesthetic appreciation; she recognized the face instantly. It was her former boyfriend.

Author's Note:I’ll try to update earlier next time~

Chapter 62: The Senior of the Apocalypse (18)

For a brief, suspended moment, Qi Yuanyuan drifted into a state of total dissociation, feeling as though she had crossed a temporal chasm into another lifetime. How many years had passed? Five, surely. She never anticipated beholding him again, having long since consigned him to the casualty lists of the early apocalypse.

Recalling that era, the pre-apocalyptic world felt impossibly remote, yet the intricate details of their courtship remained hauntingly vivid. She mused that she must have genuinely loved him. On campus, he had reigned as the undisputed magnetic heart of the student body, pursued by legions, yet out of all those infatuated girls, he had singled her out. Achieving the status of his official girlfriend showered her in a magnitude of jealous envy that eclipsed anything she had experienced before—even her closest girlfriend, who matched her flawlessly in family pedigree and physical beauty, had briefly flashed an undercurrent of green-eyed resentment. How could she possibly fail to adore a boyfriend of such staggering caliber?

Yet the brutal crucible of the apocalypse had shattered her youthful naivety. True, in a peaceful social order, Ling Mengchen could satisfy every shallow vanity; but in the wasteland, did handsome facial features translate into sustenance? Could vanity keep you breathing?

Within this merciless era, the very traits that once made Ling Mengchen an idolized campus figure were rendered entirely worthless.

Here, ability wielders and elite fighters were the sole currency commanding reverence.

No matter how pristine your facial architecture, a tearing zombie felt zero distinction in flavor profiles.

Had Ling Mengchen awakened as an ability wielder, a thread of possibility might have linked their futures; yet she could sense with absolute clarity that he remained an unpowered civilian, utterly devoid of a single spark of supernatural energy. Between him and her, all bridges were permanently burnt.

Consequently, after weighing her options, Qi Yuanyuan decided against stepping forward to initiate contact. While reuniting with an old acquaintance was theoretically a celebratory milestone, a lack of shared operational reality made greeting him a pointless invitation to unnecessary distress.

Following her initial surge of complex emotions, her thoughts abruptly veered toward Xiao Yi, triggering a sharp spike of anxiety. Xiao Yi was undoubtedly aware that Ling Mengchen had once been her boyfriend; their campus romance had been common knowledge, and Xiao Yi had even cornered her alone once to inquire about Ling Mengchen's whereabouts. There was zero doubt that Xiao Yi retained full knowledge of their past relationship. What terrified her was whether Xiao Yi would harbor resentment upon discovering Ling Mengchen's miraculous survival, and whether that unexpected ghost from her past might derail her grand strategy for capturing Xiao Yi's heart.

Biting the inner corner of her lower lip, a wave of bitter resentment washed over her. If you managed to stay buried for half a decade, why resurface now? Across all these operational safe zones, couldn't you have picked a different destination?

Then again, perhaps she was manufacturing panic where none existed. Years had dissolved into the past, and the chasm separating Xiao Yi from an ordinary civilian like Ling Mengchen had widened into an unbridgeable gulf. Catching sight of a powerless civilian like Ling Mengchen today, Xiao Yi would likely view him with the absolute indifference an elephant affords an ant.

Reassured by that internal rationalization, Qi Yuanyuan forced her anxieties to settle and pivoted to leave—opting to evacuate before Ling Mengchen spotted her and latched on as a clingy burden.

While Qi Yuanyuan comforted herself with the belief that Xiao Yi would treat her ex-boyfriend with utter apathy, inside the administrative tower of the Lingxiao Survivor Base, Xiao Yi sat frozen like a marble statue, staring down at a specific entry inscribed across the newly arrived registration ledger with a rigidity bordering on paralysis.

No vocabulary encompassing tidal waves or tempestuous storms could capture the cataclysm erupting across his emotional landscape. Ling Mengchen—those three syllables he had traced within his thoughts across thousands of sleepless nights—stared back at him from the paper without a single flawed stroke. He refused to trust his optical nerves, harboring a fleeting, desperate suspicion that visual hallucinations were mocking him; yet blinking and refocusing confirmed the lettering remained locked in place, matching syllable for syllable. His fingertips shook with an uncontrollable tremor.

Following a prolonged eruption of ecstatic frenzy, he marshaled every ounce of sheer willpower to slam his erratic pulse back into order. He could not verify with absolute certainty that this individual was identical to the person he mourned; while names could match, statistical coincidences did occur. He needed ocular verification—he had to march down there and witness the truth with his own eyes!

Driven by that imperative, Xiao Yi abandoned all executive composure. Pushing away from his desk, he surged to his feet, wrenched the office door open, and strode out into the corridor. The manifest clearly documented that the individual had arrived alongside the independent water-wielder hailing from Z City, currently settling into the elite enclave. Targeting his trajectory directly toward the District A detached residential villas, Xiao Yi threw all prior scheduling—including his deliberate plan to grant the incoming wielder a couple of days of recovery before paying a formal courtesy call—to the absolute wind.

Within minutes, Xiao Yi materialized before the specific luxury villa designated for Lin Jiawen. The manual laborers hired to haul baggage had long since cleared out, and the core party had moved indoors.

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