Chương 12: Lance is My New Reality

That night, when removing and rebandaging her palm, she pulled the gauze a little too strong, the fabric pressed into her still aching wound.

Was she careless? General Chiaki Spring had been in many battles; skin-deep wounds were trivial to her. She only needed a doctor if that involved the possibility of infections.

But this one . . , she inhaled, something occupied her mind.

The battle did take its impact on her. Her brain was muddled, memories of the past Chiaki and her own from the physical world jumbled like puzzle pieces on the table, lying in waiting for someone to assemble them.

Reaching for a pair of scissors to cut the gauze and the tape, her eyes zeroed in on the fern-like blitzing scar, her souvenir from the taxing excursion. Something in her heart stirred, a feeling she couldn't place a name on.

As soreness claimed her calf, numbing the joints and muscles, she had to drag her body from point to point, grabbing the nearest furniture like the back of a chair or creeping on the wall and door handles.

She remembered one of her staff offered to order a wheelchair for her; she refused; her heart yearned to be strong, so she didn't want to look invalid. A portrayal of physical weakness struck her raw nerve, making her vulnerable to attack. A formidable, single heroine of this realm, just like how she imagined the female character when she was still moping in the unkempt room, regretting the bad luck in relationships, cursing life for still letting her down even when the world was in shambles during the pandemic.

She was an Immune working a break-backing job, a cog in the rusty machine, a ratchet in the mechanism, still gyrating to sustain humanity.

What was just a simple strike of lightning that left a mark on her body if it could help her to save people?

Here, she fulfilled her duties to the people on a bigger scale.

Here, she worked this fabulous job with purposes and a higher calling.

Here, she managed and oversaw her jurisdiction.

She knew what was going on in her government, learning from the experience as just another pawn on the original realm's chessboard played by the disembodied fingers of the Council.

If she were to wake up at any moment, she would offend anyone who said this experience was not real. That metaverse was not real.

The people trembling in fear after the barometric anomalies had decimated their villages, the nephew who loathed a man she married because of an allegation from the ghosts in the past, the playful expression of a pout on General Ao's handsome face as he could only watch Chiaki seal the holes on the barrier back while he, the war enthusiast, was a bystander with popcorn.

Those people were real, not just characters in a game. Didn't all the clues point this out? The setting had been different, and the characters had been new until this new reality felt only inspired by the original Dome City game.

That was the word: reality.

Didn't Path of Indifference also talk about how to face the ever-changing reality?

From around the twentieth chapter: Your time and energy are finite. Rather than question reality, focus on the settle down and moving forward.

That was indeed true, like a slap to her face. In the months leading up to her decision to volunteer in the Dome project, wasn't she wallowing in self-pity and low confidence?

Didn't her mind keep bothering her on restless nights that she had no points in doing all of this: a routine clockwork from the time she woke up in the morning, clicking on the keyboard for her logistics job, and hitting the bed only to repeat the same cycle the day after?

And without a steady sense of relationship, wouldn't the pandemic sea feel too lonely to cruise over?

But here, she found purposes. The word 'boredom' might not even exist. And 'loneliness' because of the departed family members in her real world were replaced by these people around her.

However bizarre her reputation was, or how presumptuous her partner, even a sincere, amicable relationship wasn't possible, at least she wasn't alone. At least she found the reason to wake up every single morning.

Therefore, the South Guardian couldn't have it that she had to be constrained in bed rest. There were things to do and strategies to execute. What about strengthening the layers of the Dome even more? What about studying the pattern of the strikes so she could evacuate the people sooner or erect more watching posts to catch the attacks early?

Oriole wasn't successful in Ursa, but it wasn't something to not be spoken of. She could take one or two key learning points from this incident. The scientists back in her original world worked with tornadoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis this way.

Catastrophes happened, but human beings learned. Perhaps, only until this pandemic — where the fuel of the civilisation itself, human beings — were seized by fate.

To run the previously hustling world with billions of people with now only a quarter of them left . . . Perhaps, the question was not when the vaccine would be discovered or when the economy could be restored by the trickling down effect of the safety net.

Those were superficial questions.

But whether they would continue living like this, losing the kins but having to go on; losing the freedom to walk the earth but having to pretend life could still carry on.

Her arborescent scar would always remind her that she had the chance to rebuild anew the life she couldn't have on the original earth.

She patted the pattern with the same ointment Gin gave her, tracing the red angry lines; its point stopped mid-thigh. The arborescent welts reminded her of the blood rain, diluted in the downpour full of blessings from the sky on her wedding day.

Who else had the element of treelike structure? The man with the red spider lilies.

People said visual memory faded the easiest, while the olfactory stayed longer. She could still feel the lingering sweetness and peaceful yearning of the wooden substances, blanketing her body with warmth she had never tasted.

Lance Hua, the man with a sharp, poisonous mouth had let her enfeebled arm curl over his shoulder after she exerted nearly a hundred per cent of her power to stitch the holes. The so-called evil lord's strong arms supported her waist as she faltered midway to her guest chamber.

When the lord left her at the door and returned to his room, Chiaki's feet did the rest of the job carrying her to the cold sheets of the bed. Normalising her breaths as she sat on the edge of the bed, she straightened her cramped fingers, the result of strenuous hand movements when calling forth her innate crystal power when shooting the budding lightning down.

Lifting her hand midair, the fingers tremored and failed to stretch still. If she extended her palm and fingers too far, she feared the bandaged slice wound would reopen.

She glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. Five thirty in the afternoon. They had skipped the debriefing as she had admitted she couldn't hold it any longer. The Council rang her every fifteen minutes after she sealed the barrier to catch up on the latest news from the forest.

"I must return home to the South Manor to replenish my energy. The aura and crystal electromagnetic field there would heal me faster than if I had to wait at your hall to explain to you and have your doctor tend to me."

Home. A concept she distanced herself from, but now as quickly rolling off her tongue in a conversation like this.

South Manor, the old General Chiaki Spring's house, was her home. She thought about this as she gazed at the pyramid. The view from this guest room was not as good as in her master bedroom; the angle of the pyramid was shielded by cypress trees.

Bathed in the twilight solemnity, the pyramid radiated brightness and purity, a total cleanser for souls.

Feeling better by regulating her breaths several times and tending to her wounds while absorbing the ambience, she walked staggeringly to see how Lance Hua fared. They argued on the battlefield with their lives at stake, but once it was over, they were like comrades of the same battalion.

Her blunt nails caught herself by the crook on the wall as her legs gave up. Sliding to her knees, she massaged her calves' sore and cramped muscles.

It was pretty often for the Chiaki in the physical world to jolt awake in the middle of the night, thigh raised as her knee bent the leg unnaturally. Sometimes it was the left leg, other times the right. The leg cramps tortured her with spasming muscles every time they flared up. She took multivitamins, but it rarely helped, although the article she found on the web said so.

But it was different when she had the ex to help her massage the tensed-up muscles and years later when they began to sleep in different parts of the flat.

This time, she didn't have anyone else to massage her either, so she straightened her leg on the carpet, massaging it lightly, and hoisted her body up.

The door to Lance's room was ajar. Her hand stopped when it was about to knock. Should they reflect on what had and hadn't worked? Or, should she dismiss it?

She was in uncharted territory here; otome worked by introducing conflicts and situations that made the couple grow closer by resolving them.

But given her poor history of relationships, what could she do?

System . . .

Um, no. Shaking her physical head, she cleared away her dependence on System. She had asked for a cheat, which cost half her coins. That was how it worked in real life, too. No free lunch.

She entered stealthily, her footsteps masked by the plush carpet. It was an excellent design choice Chiaki made a few years ago that aided her today.

However, she could never sneak upon a veteran like Lance Hua. Although she had tried to be silent enough, it was as if she underestimated his sharp senses. He didn't rise to this position where he could easily bully the juniors and Council members without actual prowess.

As she only walked four steps from the door, Lance glanced over his shoulder fast, sliding his silk shirt back up. Chiaki couldn't help but let her gaze follow a stroke of the black line that peeked temptingly above the neckline of the soft grey material. It dipped sinuously over his spine, the rest of it as quickly hidden from her sight as only a flash of lightning.

"Next time, please knock."

Chiaki found herself nodding to this simple command, her mouth too dry to speak.

"The cook has prepared non-spicy dishes. Let's have dinner?"

But over the tantalising fish soup covered by a sheen of chilli oil and dull, blanched vegetables and steamed fish on Lance's side of the dining table, Chiaki couldn't evade her intrusive thoughts.

Of what the actual shape of his back tattoo could be.

SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO
HeavenlyFlower

Thank you, Abao for providing this pomodoro channel.

Has anyone of you lovely readers found that working or writing together with the youtubers of pomodoro or ‘study with me’ sessions makes you go through it all and more focused in finishing your tasks?

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