Qi Family Gang (6)

Zhu Xi Ning turned to look at him. Jiang Yuhao was tall, but he had a baby face and a scholarly air, making him seem quite young.

"You know how to make this too?"

Jiang Yuhao stammered slightly, "Y-yes. If you want to eat it, I'll try making some after we leave."

Seeing that Zhu Xi Ning didn't seem particularly interested, Jiang Yuhao hesitated for a long time before whispering.

"Um... thank you for saving me in that previous mission."

Zhu Xi Ning, who was eating naan, turned around with a blank look. "Huh?"

Jiang Yuhao, seeing she had likely forgotten, hurriedly explained.

"It was last time, during the orphanage mission. I was there too... I know a high-level player like you might not have noticed me, but I really only survived because of you."

Zhu Xi Ning frowned and thought about it. "Oh, that mission. I remember now. I thought you looked familiar."

"But did I save you in that mission? I don't even know how I cleared it."

Jiang Yuhao was stunned; he hadn't expected this.

He stammered, "It was... it was when the last few of us were trapped in the attic, and that fat dorm manager was about to catch us. Didn't you faint?"

"After you woke up, you smashed the glass and used bedsheets to lower us one by one from the outside. We could have just left, but you charged back into the orphanage, hacked the manager with a kitchen knife, and set the place on fire."

Jiang Yuhao spoke with lingering fear, "The fat dorm manager couldn't be killed, but if you hadn't done that, we would have been caught soon. It's thanks to you that we made it out alive."

"Afterward, a guy gave you the nickname 'Mad Woman,' and I even got into an argument with him."

Jiang Yuhao scratched his head, "I never saw you again after that. Once I leveled up to the next city state, I joined Cuckoo to earn points, and when they found out I was decent with my brain, they brought me into the Research Department to help out."

Jiang Yuhao was eager to tell Zhu Xi Ning everything since the day he was born.

However, Zhu Xi Ning didn't have an epiphany; instead, her expression was a bit complicated.

"So that's why my nickname became 'Mad Woman' after that mission..."

Jiang Yuhao thought he had brought up something she disliked and quickly explained, "That nickname isn't entirely bad. Everyone was just shocked by how you chased the manager with a knife... After the mission, we realized you did it for our own good."

Zhu Xi Ning: ...No, she probably didn't.

It seemed her split personality had appeared earlier than she thought. Zhu Xi Ning asked Gu Xiang Kai, "Have you heard about me too?"

Gu Xiang Kai hadn't mentioned it before. Hearing her ask, he stirred the nearly finished wild vegetable soup.

"I have. But it was in Digital City State. There was a slacker on the west street who specialized in bullying female scavengers who had just arrived from Nameless City, using threats and bribes."

"I heard he was bullying a young girl in an alley, and even though others tried to stop him, you went straight up and chopped off his dick."

Everyone: ...

Gu Xiang Kai calmly added, "You did it right on the street and then stuffed it in his mouth."

Everyone: ...

Zhu Xi Ning: ...

Zhu Xi Ning looked at her hands, suddenly wanting to wash them.

Gu Xiang Kai continued, "So when we teamed up, I thought you had changed your ways and didn't want Nan Yue to know about your past, so I didn't bring it up."

Zhu Xi Ning: ...You sure have a wild imagination.

Nan Yue looked at Zhu Xi Ning, feeling that something was wrong with their previous theory.

If they followed the initial hypothesis of a split personality, the second personality should emerge to handle trouble whenever Zhu Xi Ning was in danger or faced a situation she couldn't handle.

It had always been like that: when facing bloody scenes Zhu Xi Ning loathed, when in life-or-death situations, or when Wen Xiang Yuan revealed truths that Zhu Xi Ning felt she couldn't bear.

The second personality had indeed appeared.

But what Gu Xiang Kai just described didn't fit any of those scenarios.

A scumbag bullying a girl—standing up to teach him a permanent lesson was something any scavenger with a sense of justice would do.

It wasn't strange that Zhu Xi Ning did it.

But the method was completely different from what the usual Zhu Xi Ning would use, so it was certain the second personality had emerged.

Did a mere slacker require the second personality to deal with?

Also, according to what Jiang Yuhao said, the first time Zhu Xi Ning's second personality appeared, she had fainted and woken up as a different person.

But later, the second personality's appearances were seamless; Zhu Xi Ning never fainted again.

Everything seemed to point toward a hidden truth behind Zhu Xi Ning's dual personalities.

Of the things Wen Xiang Yuan said she would figure out, one concerned Nan Yue, and the other concerned Zhu Xi Ning.

Artificial humans don't develop split personalities.

That's what Wen Xiang Yuan had said.

The issues with Zhu Xi Ning had to be understood, if only for her safety.

As for whether it was a hidden danger or a threat...

Nan Yue never even considered it.

It didn't matter what Zhu Xi Ning was. Whether she was a normal artificial human or an artificial human with ten split personalities didn't affect Nan Yue's love and trust for her.

She was her teammate.

Nothing would change that.

In terms of trust, Zhu Xi Ning was much more confident than Wen Xiang Yuan.

She didn't doubt whether her teammates would doubt her. She simply pouted and sat down next to Nan Yue.

"A-Nan, what if I'm a monster?"

Nan Yue stroked Zhu Xi Ning's head. "Then you're a very cute monster, and your combat power has even increased."

Zhu Xi Ning felt aggrieved. "But what if I'm broken? Artificial humans are machines too, right?"

"No, artificial humans are people, we just weren't created through traditional conception."

Nan Yue tapped Zhu Xi Ning's head. "I told you to stop reading those overbearing CEO novels all day, or your brain will rot."

After a moment's thought, Nan Yue added, "Even if you are broken, I'll fix you."

Zhu Xi Ning was satisfied. She took a sip of the wild vegetable soup Gu Xiang Kai had boiled.

"Pfft!"

Zhu Xi Ning spat out the soup, the liquid nearly dousing the flickering campfire.

"Cough, cough... What is this, Gu Xiang Kai!"

Gu Xiang Kai looked bewildered. "Wild vegetable soup. Wild vegetables are naturally bitter, but it's edible."

Zhu Xi Ning realized something was wrong. She frowned at the thick soup in the small tin bowl.

"Something's wrong with this."

Nan Yue took the bowl and sniffed it. There was a faint bitterness, but because the vegetables had melted into the soup, she couldn't smell anything else.

She raised the bowl and took a tiny sip.

Bitterness mixed with a fishy stench flooded her mouth, a strong aquatic fishiness that made her stomach churn even with just a tiny sip.