Chapter 77

Chapter 77

"Oh, you don’t remember anything when you wake up, except for me, huh?"

Sure, it was true, but coming from him, it made her want to punch him.

Xue Ling took out the duct tape given by the First Research Institute and put a strip over Wen Jiuzhe's mouth, saying, "Don't spread rumors or believe them!"

She simply refused to admit it!

Wen Jiuzhe, with his mouth sealed, raised his eyebrows slightly and curled his lips. That look was playful, smug, and just annoying enough to make her heart race and fists clench.

He smiled and closed his mouth, but his face clearly said, "We both know how it is, but I’ll give you this one."

The aircraft, parked on the First Research Institute’s dedicated helipad, had a silvery-gray-blue exterior.

It would have looked pretty cool, but Wen Jiuzhe clearly didn’t care much for its upkeep—dust and mysterious stains covered the fuselage.

The cabin door slid open to reveal a messy interior that looked like an old warehouse. It was packed with things, even stacked with several old cryogenic chambers.

"Are these cryogenic chambers broken? There’s nothing inside. Why are they here?" Xue Ling asked curiously.

Wen Jiuzhe leaned in.

Xue Ling: "?"

Wen Jiuzhe: "On my mouth, rip it off." As he spoke, the tape on his mouth came loose.

Xue Ling was speechless. Why don’t you do it yourself?

She reached up and tore the tape off his mouth, and only then did Wen Jiuzhe say, "I found a few old cryogenic chambers during an expedition in the ruins last time and brought them back for testing."

Upon closer inspection, Xue Ling realized that these cryogenic chambers looked quite similar to the batch they had used before.

"What did the tests show?" Xue Ling didn’t finish her sentence as she saw him kick the cryogenic chamber and throw all the other miscellaneous items cluttered inside the cabin down.

It was as if he was finally free after finishing an exam, tossing away practice books.

"These things are useless now," Wen Jiuzhe said.

Xue Ling noticed shovels covered in dirt, ropes, lighting tools, tents, rain boots, discarded electrical boxes, and other such items among the clutter.

Were you using these to raid tombs or something?

After clearing out the mess, Xue Ling spotted a thick jacket tossed over the pilot’s seat.

The co-pilot seat was piled high with medical supplies and random stuff.

Wen Jiuzhe quickly cleared everything away too.

"These were all tools and miscellaneous items used when I took the people from the research institute out before. They’re useless now."

After a series of tossing and clattering, the aircraft was left empty, as if a typhoon had swept through it.

He slid into the pilot’s seat, pushed the controls forward, and said, "Buckle up, we’re leaving."

Xue Ling was still patting the dust off the co-pilot seat, wondering how the stains got there, when she felt the aircraft start to move forward. She hurriedly sat down, forgetting about the dirt.

Wen Jiuzhe leaned over to help Xue Ling fasten her seatbelt, and for a moment, Xue Ling felt a brief sense of disorientation.

It was the same when Wen Jiuzhe found her in Anxi and drove her away. He had leaned over to fasten her seatbelt back then too.

"The seatbelt should be fastened like this. Got it?" Wen Jiuzhe asked.

"Got it," Xue Ling replied seriously, committing it to memory.

"Good, but even if you know how, you won’t need to, because this has an automatic button," Wen Jiuzhe said.

He pressed a button, and the complicated seatbelt clicked softly into place.

Xue Ling: “……”

Just a second before Xue Ling raised her fist, Wen Jiuzhe sat back in his seat and pushed the control stick forward. The aircraft, already on the runway, suddenly lifted off.

Xue Ling gripped the handle tightly. This was way more intense than riding in a car.

The aircraft was surprisingly quiet, and it flew low, only about 100 to 200 meters above the ground, allowing them to clearly see the scattered houses below.

"We're in Beifeng District right now, also called A District, which is currently the largest livable area. There are over forty cities within Beifeng District, and each city has strict boundaries," Wen Jiuzhe explained, slowly gaining altitude.

From above, they could see how roads and waterways divided the area, with clear boundaries.

"We live in Lebin City, here in Beifeng District. All the anomaly teams are based there, each with their own headquarters. Next to them are the anomaly control center, the infection prevention and aid center, and the A District patrol guard team," Wen Jiuzhe said.

Xue Ling followed the direction he was pointing and first saw trees and a lake, then the small buildings around the area.

Compared to the high-rises and bustling scenes in other blocks, this area clearly had fewer people and more greenery.

Xue Ling thought to herself: The floor area ratio is so low, the land price must be sky-high.

The management was also very strict. They had flown over many areas before without obstruction, but when they reached this area, there were patrolling drones in the air.

At first, Xue Ling mistook them for birds circling overhead, until they flew next to the aircraft and hovered, emitting an electronic voice: "Please present ID and pass."

Wait, did I even get an ID? Am I undocumented now?

At the same moment Xue Ling realized this, Wen Jiuzhe pulled up two identification documents.

The drones quickly finished scanning and flew away.

"Do you have my ID? Did you get it for me?" Xue Ling grabbed Wen Jiuzhe's hand to see the documents he had shown.

"This kind of thing doesn’t require my personal presence. Haven’t you been at the research institute this whole time? When did I manage to get it done without you knowing?"

Wen Jiuzhe said, "I told you, everything was prepared, just waiting for you. We're home."

The aircraft landed in front of a twelve-story building.

Wen Jiuzhe led her inside and said, "We live on the fifth floor."

Xue Ling immediately remembered that the place she had rented before was also on the fifth floor.

In such a large building, they didn’t see a single person as they took the elevator directly to the fifth floor. Each floor had only one unit.

From the outside to the inside, everything was spacious, spotless, and clearly well-maintained.

But when Wen Jiuzhe opened the door, Xue Ling was speechless.

On one side of the door, everything was clean, tidy, and beautifully decorated; on the other side, it was dark and abandoned, like a haunted house.

Xue Ling: "Wen Jiuzhe, you’re really letting this place go to waste."

The thick blackout curtains were tightly drawn, and several of the chandeliers on the ceiling were broken, leaving only one dim, yellowish light still on.

The house looked like no one had lived there for a long time. A layer of dust covered the floor, with visible footprints going back and forth from the door to a certain room.

"How long has it been since you last came back?" Xue Ling asked.

"Two months?" Wen Jiuzhe wasn’t too sure. He spent most of his time running around outside, except when he was on missions with his small team. He rarely returned here.

He spent more time at the First Research Institute than he did here.

"You don’t clean at all?" Xue Ling was going crazy over this bachelor pad.

"Clean? Oh, right. When we moved in, there was a smart home assistant that could clean the place regularly, but I turned it off because it was too noisy."

He walked to the control panel by the door to find the switch for the smart home assistant that was shut down for being too smart but lacking wisdom.

Xue Ling walked in, stepping on the dusty floor.

The house was spacious but felt eerily empty. Apart from the fixed island counter and cabinets, there was only a sofa in the living room. Not even a single dining table.

To the right, a small living area led to a balcony piled high with junk, including several abandoned cryo-pods and other worn-out "trash."

She yanked open the floor-to-ceiling curtains on the left side of the living room, and the bright sunlight and the golden blooms of the Koelreuteria trees outside flooded in.

"With such a beautiful lake and tree view, why did you keep the curtains drawn!" Xue Ling couldn’t understand.

Was this guy even living here, or what?

Wen Jiuzhe said, "It was too bright and distracting when I was trying to relax."

When I’d lie on the sofa to unwind, the bright sunlight would make the floor shimmer, creating this strange, quiet afternoon dream. But the silent room had only me, and I didn’t like that feeling.

After some fiddling, he reactivated the smart home assistant, and a humanized male voice chimed in the house.

"Reboot complete, welcome to the smart home assistant. It has been eight years, nine months, and ten days since your last use. The smart home assistant needs to update your information to provide better service."

"How many people are currently residing?"

"Two."

"What is your relationship?"

"Spouses."

Xue Ling turned to look at Wen Jiuzhe with a shocked expression.

Spouses? Did I agree to that? Did we even get married? What are you talking about?!

The smart home assistant cheerfully said, "Congratulations, during the time without the smart home assistant, you, who was single, have finally found a partner..."

Wen Jiuzhe quickly pressed skip without any expression.

Xue Ling: "..."

She reasonably guessed that Wen Jiuzhe might have shut down the smart home assistant because the AI unintentionally hit a sore spot, leading to his resentment and years of disuse.

The smart home assistant began working, ventilating the room and cleaning the surfaces with floating cleaners, while hidden brushes wiped the large glass panels until they were spotless and shiny.

Xue Ling walked into the rooms, most of which were empty. Only one room had a bed and a cabinet, and the en-suite bathroom was perhaps the cleanest place in the house, indicating it was the most frequently used.

However, the items on the countertop were in a chaotic mess. Empty cans were tossed to the side, and an unused cream had dried out with its lid left off.

For a moment, Xue Ling was transported back to when she lived with Wen Jiuzhe, remembering how long it took to train him.

“Don’t leave things lying around, hang the towels properly, clean up the shower area, and wash the dirty clothes in time…”

“Wen Jiuzhe! Come and tidy up your stuff! Keep what you need and throw away what you don’t!”

Wen Jiuzhe slowly walked over.

He listened as she started barking orders at him, acting like the boss of the place.

The door to the fifth floor, which had been shut for years, was now wide open. Wen Jiuzhe brought out the clutter from the room and piled it outside, waiting for the garbage disposal robot to come and take it away.

Xue Ling walked around inside and out, and the house was filled with her calls for Wen Jiuzhe.

“Wen Jiuzhe? Don’t you have any clean bedsheets? Your quilt is torn, and you’re just using it like this?”

Xue Ling called out twice but received no response. She came out and didn’t see Wen Jiuzhe, only a few people wearing hats with serious expressions standing at the wide-open door.

“Hello, we are from the Resident Registration Office of Beifeng District.”

The Resident Registration Office?

Xue Ling thought: Wen Jiuzhe, you’d better not have gotten me a fake ID.

“Our system detected that a previously sealed household registration, under the name Xue Ling, has been activated and used. We’re here to confirm the situation,” they said seriously.

“That’s correct. Xue Ling here is a thawed patient with the same situation as me. You can contact the First Research Institute for proof. I believe I’ve completed the other procedures before,” said Wen Jiuzhe from behind them.

There were too many miscellaneous items in their house, which caused the waste disposal machine to malfunction. He had to carry the broken machine downstairs.

When he got back, he found them still standing at the door.

Seeing Wen Jiuzhe, the group stepped back to let him enter first.

Although their expressions remained serious, they were all silently dreading this encounter.

In every aspect, Wen Jiuzhe was a well-known figure in their system.

A hero and martyr from over 300 years ago, the longest recorded cryopreserved individual, the oldest existing virus carrier, and the ace member of the anomaly team who had broken numerous mission records… But what left the deepest impression on people was his difficult and stubborn nature.

When they processed his ID back then, Wen Jiuzhe requested that another person’s identity be processed at the same time.

It was for his lover from the same era, Xue Ling, who was in the same situation.

However, this “Xue Ling” did not exist at the time. They couldn’t register a new identity for someone who had likely been dead for a long time with no chance of revival.

Their identities were indeed special, and they could receive some privileges, but some rules were non-negotiable.

When Wen Jiuzhe couldn’t get what he wanted, he left and joined the anomaly team.

It’s unclear what he did, but soon after, the Resident Registration Office received an order. They were ordered to prioritize processing Xue Ling’s ID.

First, handle it, but don’t activate it for now—just to cool him down.

The people at the household registration office still remember this case and talked about it for ages.

Everyone thought the ID Wen Jiuzhe went through all the trouble to get was never going to be activated.

Surprisingly, it was activated today.

They were watching history come alive right in front of them.