Chapter 3: Their Base Was an Old, Cramped Dump with Luxurious Flair

The wind and snow grew heavier, fluffy snowflakes swirling through the air, settling on Lorise as she continuously glanced around. She was tightly wrapped in a deep green cloak, and ever since her mask had been removed, her eyes had been darting about restlessly.

“Is this the Sword Bearers’ outpost? I can’t see any barricades. Where exactly are we supposed to verify the ID information?”

The girl remained wary of Su Yi. Although he knew the internal hand signals of the Sword Bearers, she would never let her guard down until his identity was confirmed.

“This is not an outpost.”

Su Yi carried a black safe strapped to his back. Whatever was inside was incredibly heavy—at least seven or eight hundred pounds. No wonder the agile girl had stumbled when he bumped into her.

Lorise’s eyes widened in disbelief. She reached out to catch a drifting snowflake, her face full of confusion.

“If this isn’t an outpost, why is there no need to wear a mask...?”

“This is Blue Star. The air has plenty of oxygen, so there’s no need to worry about poisoning.”

Su Yi explained seriously. His gaze dropped to the ground, noticing that with every step the girl took, blood trickled down from her toes, starkly vivid against the snow-white street.

He had healing medicines from the wasteland back at his place, which could temporarily handle emergencies like this.

Though the supply was limited—something he usually treasured—this wasn’t the time to be stingy. If a soldier died, it could trigger an explosion comparable to a nuclear bomb.

“Blue Star?” Lorise’s expression flickered with surprise. She pressed her hand to her temple; her pale blue eyes flickered with streams of data. “There is no record of this location in my database.”

Though her mask was broken, the smart chip embedded in her body remained intact, containing the data library gifted by Granny Ife, including maps of known faction distributions in the wasteland.

“This isn’t the wasteland, so naturally, you can’t find it.”

Su Yi’s eyes flicked toward the girl’s face. When she searched data, she emitted a distinct glow.

Her eyes shone green.

“Lorise cannot comprehend what you mean.”

The girl shook her head repeatedly. The sheer volume of information available was overwhelming, with many unknowns in her database, leaving her lost.

“Let’s put that aside for now. Is Lorise your codename or your real name?”

Su Yi reached the entrance to his apartment complex, turning back to the silver-haired girl whose gaze was vacant. The tense atmosphere had made him forget to bring an umbrella, and now both were blanketed in thick snow.

“Grandma gave it to me.”

Lorise did not hide the truth. Very few soldiers were named by Granny Ife; it was a symbol of honor.

“Then it’s your real name.”

“Yes...”

Underneath her silver hair, the girl’s round, delicate ears peeked out of the snow like bamboo shoots. Their sharp tips were frostbitten crimson. Though she bore it stoically, her body trembled slightly involuntarily.

It was clear her tolerance for cold was far less than Su Yi’s.

Seeing this, Su Yi quickened his pace. About five minutes later, they arrived before his rented apartment.

---

The neighborhood was filled with old residential buildings, their plaster peeling and walls mottled with age. The facilities were older than he was. The hallways were dimly lit; footsteps triggered the motion-sensitive lights to buzz and glow a dull red.

For such dilapidated structures, the mere fact that the lights still worked was a miracle.

“Where is this?”

Lorise looked around at the unfamiliar buildings, puzzled.

“My home.”

Su Yi replied confidently, reaching into his pocket for the key as they stood before the apartment door.

“What is home?”

“Well... you could understand it as a small private outpost.”

“Click”—the door opened. Su Yi pushed it ajar. “Come in and sit.”

Lorise hesitated, then looked around.

“According to the smart chip’s scan, the nearby wall hardness rating is level 1. A heat gun could easily pierce it, and it offers no defense against ground tremors or shelling.”

“This place is a high-risk building, or you could call it a ruin—extremely unsafe!”

The silver-haired girl warned bluntly.

Hearing this, Su Yi clenched his fists, biting his lip as he muttered softly.

“It’s in a commercial district, a school district. It’s only a fifteen-minute walk to Gangnan High School.”

“Most importantly, the rent is only 200 a month. I won’t let you badmouth it.”

However, Lorise, from the wasteland, didn’t understand his meaning and persisted, “The database suggests the best current strategy is to retreat to an open field to maintain a clear line of sight for monitoring the outside.”

Seeing this, Su Yi couldn’t help but laugh.

When he first crossed back to Blue Star, he was the same—afraid to sleep indoors, camping outside for half a month before slowly daring to return inside.

After a moment’s thought, Su Yi leaned against the iron gate, refraining from further persuasion. Instead, he stared into the girl’s eyes and asked,

“It’s snowing outside, the temperature is around minus fifteen degrees Celsius, and you’re injured. How long can your body sustain itself?”

“Approximately... three hours, twenty-one minutes, forty-six seconds...”

The green glow faded from Lorise’s eyes; her exoskeleton had lost power.

Based on the database’s assessment of her physical condition, this was her maximum endurance.

“With so little time, I don’t think camping outside is a good choice. At least here, I can keep the temperature above twenty degrees.”

Outside the hallway, the cold wind howled, snowflakes swirling. Su Yi exhaled a long breath of white mist and pointed inside.

“If you don’t trust me, I can show you my ID information.”

---

Hearing this, Lorise clenched the blade hidden under her cloak, lifted her head to scrutinize his face, then glanced toward the hallway before hesitating briefly. Ultimately, she chose to step inside.

“Don’t get excited. There are no weapons inside. Although there are many unfamiliar devices, they’re all safe. Don’t use violence...”

Su Yi whispered the warning. This was a rental; any damage meant compensation. He didn’t want the landlord coming after him with a flashlight for inspection.

Saying this, he crouched and opened the drawer in front of the TV stand, rummaging inside a metal box to find a pale green syringe.

“You should know what this is.”

Su Yi shook it gently in his hand.

Lorise’s eyes narrowed slightly. “According to the scan, this is the T1205 model healing serum that was popular in the wasteland 269 years ago. It can treat severe injuries and was a precious research achievement at the time, though the formula was later lost.”

“Correct. Now don’t move.”

Su Yi removed the syringe cap and leaned toward the girl’s neck to inject it. Yet, just before touching her skin, she turned her head away.

“You detected that this is a healing serum, so why avoid it?”

Su Yi looked puzzled. The serum had to be used within two minutes once unsealed to maintain its efficacy.

The silver-haired girl shook her head repeatedly.

“According to Sword Bearers’ Article 251, soldiers are forbidden from receiving treatments beyond controlled standards. Those severely injured are to be abandoned. This serum is precious; I have no authorization to use it.”

In the wasteland’s strict resource control, all supplies prioritized personnel with official ID information. As a weapon, her mission was sacrifice.

Seeing this, Su Yi frowned deeply. During his years away from the wasteland, the Sword Bearers seemed to have undergone earth-shattering changes. Previously, they were the most opposed to soldiers, with many high-ranking members considering them a manipulation of lives, contemptuous of human life.

It was hard to imagine this was the legacy of Granny Ife’s research, who once strongly opposed soldiers.

Su Yi bent down and took out a jet-black card from the TV stand.

“If I remember correctly, if a Sword Bearer’s ID clearance is high enough, they can bypass all restrictions.”

“That’s true.”

Lorise nodded. Members with IDs under 10 have authority above the rules.

So far, she had only seen one person with such authority: Granny Ife, with codename 7. Lorise’s own codename was 748923.

Everyone else was bound by the regulations.

“Then I hereby authorize you to receive the treatment.”

Saying this, Su Yi tossed the black card into the silver-haired girl’s hand.

Lorise’s fingers brushed across the card, and soon her eyes revealed the ID information.

“2.”