That feeling only lasted for a few seconds because Nan Yue quickly reacted. Without overthinking, she stepped forward and held Jiang Siyan's trembling hand.
Jiang Siyan seemed to snap out of an intense emotional trance. He took a breath and slowly looked down at the hand holding his.
He tilted his head slightly, as if he still didn't quite understand what had happened.
However, as the warmth from her hand reached him, the redness in his eyes gradually faded.
"Calm down."
Nan Yue's cool, steady voice rang in Jiang Siyan's ear. "It's okay. We're all here."
Jiang Siyan squeezed Nan Yue's hand tightly, his eyes closing in pain.
Are we all here?
No, someone was still gone.
Nan Yue looked at Jiang Siyan with concern. This news was hard for anyone to accept, let alone someone like Jiang Siyan, who had become unstable and extreme because of his best friend's death.
"The awakened ability of the one who died..."
Jiang Siyan forced the question out of his throat. He still wanted to know the truth.
Wen Xiang Yuan knew part of Jiang Siyan's story, so she understood what he was asking.
"The Scavenger Project has its own evaluation system. If an awakened ability is exceptional and can play a significant role in purification, it will be reassigned to someone else after the holder's death."
The Scavenger Project was not manually controlled; it was managed by intelligent monitoring.
Machines have no emotions. It would only select the most suitable successor for the awakened ability based on the previous holder's life trajectory and the physical constitution of those around them.
That was why Jiang Siyan ended up with the exact same awakened ability.
Jiang Siyan's face turned pale, and he felt a sudden urge to vomit.
From the nearby assembly hall, bursts of laughter echoed. A comedy was playing today, creating a scene of harmony and joy.
Meanwhile, in the factory office not far away, the atmosphere could only be described as deathly silent.
No one spoke for a long time. They all needed time to digest this.
Wen Xiang Yuan sat there with her back straight and her hands resting on her lap. This simple posture revealed her excellent upbringing and the aura cultivated by top-tier wealth and power.
She didn't say a word.
In this place, she was also a sinner.
Even for scavengers with stable psychological values, this news was a bombshell.
It was entirely possible that someone might kill her in a fit of rage.
She waited quietly for her companions.
"Then you... you aren't an escaped NPC."
Gu Xiang Kai looked down at Wen Xiang Yuan, unsure of how to feel.
The faint, special affection he had for Wen Xiang Yuan had been crushed before it could even sprout.
They were not on the same level at all.
If Wen Xiang Yuan were an NPC, he could have saved her, and he wouldn't have cared if she was polluted.
He would have been her best teammate and companion. As for anything else, Gu Xiang Kai hadn't thought that far ahead.
But now, everything had changed.
Scavengers were nothing more than dogs for the people of the Federation.
Actually, they were lower than dogs.
Not to mention that Wen Xiang Yuan belonged to the very top of the Federation's social pyramid.
Wen Xiang Yuan looked up at Gu Xiang Kai. He didn't have any particular expression, but he looked incredibly dejected.
Like a large, abandoned dog.
Wen Xiang Yuan pursed her lips. "I'm not."
"Eden Garden was my nightmare. Aside from presenting my fears in an absurd and eerie way, everything else was fairly accurate."
"I am the daughter of the Wen family of the Federation, and the wife of the future President."
Gu Xiang Kai opened his mouth, but not knowing what to say, he closed it again.
"You don't want to be, do you?"
Zhu Xi Ning's cold voice drifted over. Wen Xiang Yuan met her eyes—they were indifferent and detached. This was Number Two.
"What exactly is the nature of the cooperation you want with Nan Yue?"
Zhu Xi Ning's Number Two was the only one who had no emotional connection with Wen Xiang Yuan. In fact, she didn't even consider herself a scavenger; she didn't have a complete life of her own.
There wasn't much difference between being a split personality and being a created machine.
Because of that, she was the calmest person present.
Wen Xiang Yuan looked at Nan Yue, who had also calmed down significantly.
"I want to help you escape your fate as expendables."
Nan Yue raised an eyebrow slightly. "What do you need? Power?"
In Eden Garden, Wen Xiang Yuan had ultimately gained control over the Wen family's power.
Wen Xiang Yuan didn't answer Nan Yue immediately. Instead, she spoke slowly. "The Wen family actually follows a matriarchal lineage. It was founded and established by the most exceptional women, eventually becoming the greatest family in the Federation."
"The men would later marry into the Wen family."
"This continued until my grandmother's generation. My grandmother was the most brilliant woman in the history of the Wen family, but as the saying goes, extreme brilliance leads to an early end. She passed away very young."
"At that time, my mother was too young, so my grandfather took control of the Wen family."
"Since then, the Wen family became my grandfather's domain. He raised his own sons and turned my mother from an eagle into a canary."
"From the age of five, my mother was kept in the inner chambers by my grandfather and hidden from the world, taught only to indulge in wine and pleasure."
"Later, my mother married the young master of Dingshi Company, who is my father. The marriage between the Wen family and the Zhao family made them an unshakable existence in the Federation."
"Dingshi Company rose to prominence through technological innovation. Although they were newcomers, they were far behind the other established great families of the Federation."
"After my father married my mother, he gained the influence of the Wen family and truly established himself."
"My mother had two children, my brother and me. Our education was the same as my mother's and my uncle's, but the difference was that while my mother lost her maternal upbringing, I did not."
Wen Xiang Yuan's eyes reddened slightly. "At least until I was fourteen, I had my mother."
"My mother was frail, simple, and naive, but she wasn't stupid. She was, after all, a woman of the Wen family."
"Once she became an adult, she understood the power struggles hidden beneath the veneer of family affection. In the face of power, nothing else mattered. She was merely a sacrifice."
"She committed suicide because she had handed the Wen family over to others, and because she couldn't stop my fate."
Wen Xiang Yuan's tone was cold, but her eyes were moist.
"She was cowardly in the end, but I don't blame her. The best thing she ever did was ensure that I didn't grow up in ignorance like she did."
"The last thing she said to me before she died was to never live like her."
Wen Xiang Yuan fell silent for a moment. There was a time when she still feared her family and her brother.
She used to resent her mother for leaving her behind in this predatory place.
But now, she no longer did.
Her mother had done the best she could.
Her mother had been controlled like a doll while growing up, having no right to resist, and was used like a machine to give birth to a son and a daughter.
Her son's attitude toward her was the same as his attitude toward a clock or a car.
In his eyes, she wasn't a mother. She was just the woman who gave birth to him, the woman who carried the Wen name.
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