Chapter 59: Wounds

These soldiers stood tall and straight, maintaining a uniform and solemn posture on the sidelines. Their presence was so intensely felt that anyone with hidden and malicious intentions dared not make a single unauthorized move, yet they were as steadfast as mountains, standing firm like towering peaks to impart a profound sense of security to the panicked and uneasy crowd.

The people who had been notified to evacuate immediately seemed to finally find their backbone; although their pace of escape did not slacken, they at least found their footing.

However, there were simply too many people, as if a massive corporate population had gathered right here. A continuous stream of people flowed back and forth between the north and south corridors, packed so densely during the evacuation that even with a considerable number of soldiers and staff assisting in the crowd control, things inevitably became somewhat chaotic.

Jiang Hui had no experience and was rather unlucky, encountering several rough-mannered crowds in a row. Coming and going in a rush, they practically collided with her. Amidst the chaos, she was violently shoved by goodness knows what kind of fellow, staggering off the path. It was only thanks to a kind-hearted stranger nearby who gave her a supportive tug that she was spared the tragedy of taking a tumble right then and there.

However, she had lurched forward with too much momentum for anyone to hold her back completely, and the next moment, something seemed to strike her forehead. An inorganic chill, unique to metal, seeped into her mind along the slight tingling sensation on her forehead, startling her so thoroughly that she instinctively wanted to flee. Yet, the hand that had caught her was like an iron clamp, pressing down so firmly that she could not move an inch.

What kind of cursed luck had she run into today?!

Immediately after, the object pressing against her forehead seemed to detach, and the force constraining her arm loosened slightly, shifting from a grip to an open palm that supported her, helping her regain her balance.

It took a great deal of awkward shuffling for Jiang Hui to stand upright. She felt a severe, throbbing pain in her forehead, and a burning sensation at the back of her left arm. Ultimately, she could only say, seeing stars before her eyes, "...Thank you."

The other party remained silent, offering no response.

Then, she felt a chilly gaze fall upon her, lingering briefly on her forehead for a fleeting moment.

"Be careful..." A low voice came without a single ripple of emotion: "Hurry along."

Only after Jiang Hui managed to recover somewhat did she realize that the person who had caught her was extremely tall and wearing... a military uniform?! Given her current height, looking straight ahead allowed her only to see the badge on the other person's chest.

After reminding her to leave, the person looked away and took a stride forward in long boots. She instinctively looked up, but could only vaguely make out half of a chiseled profile, along with a faint mole hovering in and out of sight just below the corner of his right eye.

Jiang Hui walked a long distance in a daze before looking back, but even the shadows of that squad were completely gone. And she was once again "pushed" along by the intersecting crowd, moving very far away.

Fortunately, nothing else happened along the way. As the panicked crowd was successfully evacuated to the designated location, she left the Dongbo Group's branch building without looking back.

A perfectly fine day out had somehow ended up in such a state. Although she had escaped the danger zone, Jiang Hui had no desire to linger outside any longer. She simply hailed an airship and headed straight back to her apartment.

Upon returning home, Jiang Hui was still shaken. It was only after checking multiple times to ensure that all doors and windows were securely locked that she relaxed a little.

She sat blankly on the living room sofa for a while. Not knowing how long she had sat there, she felt a slight chill on her skin and only then realized that it had already grown dark.

Jiang Hui didn't even feel like eating dinner. Dragging her heavy footsteps back to her bedroom, she prepared to wash up and go to bed to soothe her frayed nerves.

After a haphazard wash, she slipped into comfortable loungewear. Just as she was about to turn and leave the bathroom, she noticed the full-length mirror by the exit reflecting a large red and swollen patch on her forehead.

She slowly approached the mirror, frowning to observe the suddenly appeared red and swollen wound.

Touching it with her fingertips, the surface was quite uneven, with several irregular ridges raised, and a spot in the center that looked as though it had been pierced by something sharp, leaving behind a few distinct red dots.

When she pressed down on it, she hissed in pain, and a tiny droplet of blood was squeezed out.

This mark... she remembered it now. It was left behind when that soldier caught her today, clearly the result of colliding with some kind of hard-edged object. Thinking back now, she hadn't actually crashed into someone else's firearm barrel, had she?

Jiang Hui couldn't help but smile bitterly. Good job to her, she had managed to throw herself straight into the muzzle of someone else's gun. She should probably consider herself lucky that she had only made literal contact with a fatal weapon.

She really needed to be more mindful... Otherwise, if she had another truly intimate encounter like this in the middle of a melee, her second little life might just be snuffed out.

Jiang Hui carefully inspected the wound on her forehead and, confirming there were no major issues, retrieved a miniature healing device to repair the damage to her skin until the surface was smooth and flawless once more.

Jiang Hui felt a profound wave of mental exhaustion. Though her rational mind kept "driving" her to go to bed and sleep, she suddenly remembered that she hadn't taken her daily dose of spiritual stabilizer. With great difficulty, she struggled to sit up.

Anything else could wait and be pondered when she had free time, but her medication had to be taken on schedule.

Therefore, she had no choice but to return to the living room, retrieve a tube of spiritual stabilizer from the refrigerated medicine storage, and swallow it down in one gulp without caring whether it tasted awful or not. Only then was she able to return to her bedroom to rest. The moment her eyes closed, she practically passed out, forgetting even about the affairs of her spiritual space, desiring nothing more than to pull the covers over her head and sleep soundly.

Thus, finding herself waking up inside her spiritual space, Jiang Hui was not surprised in the slightest.

Checking the time within the space, it was already past seven o'clock. Hmm... it must be around seven in the morning, because Jiang Hui felt that the duration of her sleep was just right—her mind felt refreshed and full of energy, without the splitting headache of oversleeping.

Even though she had woken up in her spiritual space, it still counted as having had a proper, restful sleep. Jiang Hui finally felt that the shock she had suffered today at the Dongbo Group branch had subsided considerably, and she now began to have a little energy to ponder the events of the day.

Weren't permanent resident star systems supposed to be quite safe? For a massive conglomerate like the Dongbo Group to actually require a military garrison—anyone would be hard-pressed to believe nothing was wrong.

Was it a matter of Jiang Hui having bad luck, or did interstellar people simply have a different understanding of the word "safety"? She had been in the interstellar era for so many days now, yet the moment she casually picked a day to go out and attend an event, she managed to run right into such a blockbuster drama. It was truly something else.

Jiang Hui now felt even more keenly how different this world was from the one she used to live in. At least the country on Blue Star where she came from was the safest place in that world, bar none.

After tossing and turning with wild thoughts, Jiang Hui finally felt intensely hungry. A wave of hunger, stronger than ever before, washed over her. Sounding a silent alarm in her heart, she quickly scrambled up to find something to eat in the living room.

In truth, Jiang Hui still couldn't quite understand why she would feel hungry even in a dream. Moreover, these sensations were so vivid that they compelled her to seek out food to fill her stomach every single time, even within this spiritual space.