Lethal Stunner: Kicking Off with Five Beast Husbands
Chapter 54 Bai Yan No Longer Hides

Chapter 54: Chapter 54 Bai Yan No Longer Hides

"It hurt... a lot." Xiao Jinsheng sobbed.

Even though her fragmented memories weren’t fully recalled,

the image of Li’s body covered in gaping, bloody wounds cut through her heart with a gnawing pain.

Facing Xiao Jinsheng’s tear-filled eyes, Li gently removed her hand from his mask and reassured her, "It doesn’t hurt anymore."

Li’s comforting words only made the ache in Xiao Jinsheng’s chest intensify.

Even with incomplete memories, in those fifteen days of fleeing, what she remembered struck her deeply—

Li’s body, completely devoid of unbroken skin, covered in claw marks, yet he still protected her diligently.

All she had were some dirt stains and exhaustion, not a single injury.

"I’m sorry..." Xiao Jinsheng choked out, voice trembling.

She thought, if only she had the ability to fight, Li wouldn’t have suffered such grievous wounds.

"I’m sorry." Li, filled with regret and lingering fear, spoke up.

Their apologies overlapped in unison, both freezing at the other’s words.

Li spoke in a remorseful tone, "I shouldn’t have left without waiting for you. If I had waited outside the shelter for a few more days, maybe... maybe they wouldn’t have tampered with your memories."

"I—" Xiao Jinsheng closed her eyes and raised a hand to rub her temples as fractured glimpses of memory flashed through her mind again.

"Jinsheng, wake up." A woman’s voice sounded softly in her ear.

Shao Jinsheng struggled to open her eyes and saw Bai Yan’s smiling face.

"Sister Bai?" Xiao Jinsheng asked in confusion.

Bai Yan raised a hand, waving it in front of Jinsheng’s eyes, before glancing at the incoming notification from the Star Map, sent by the shelter’s robot guardians.

Gripping Xiao Jinsheng’s hand, Bai Yan whispered a reminder, "Jinsheng, don’t forget, fifteen days ago you returned to the terminal shelter ten minutes before me. Later, you sneaked out through the gates just before they closed, unnoticed by the gatekeeper robots."

Xiao Jinsheng’s gaze toward Bai Yan immediately turned cautious.

The terminal shelter gates, even when closed, routinely verify whether all personnel have returned.

Yet fifteen days ago, while she was still outside, the gates had shut ahead of schedule.

The system should only act this way if the shelter robots believed she had already returned.

"I wasn’t back yet; the shelter wouldn’t have closed the gates like that. Did you..." Xiao Jinsheng’s suspicious stare locked on Bai Yan. "Did you lie to the robots, telling them I had returned?"

Faced with her interrogation, Bai Yan smiled faintly.

Her eyes, now filled with disdain, sliced through Xiao Jinsheng. "Yes, I was the one who tricked the robots into thinking you’d come back."

"And to think you survived even with the Mist and Fog Corpses lurking," Bai Yan added, her voice tinged with mockery. "Some luck you’ve got."

"Bai Yan!" Xiao Jinsheng was now furious. "I don’t have any grudges against you, do I? I even brought you back to the terminal shelter!"

"And what makes you think I needed saving?" Bai Yan said coldly. "You think I couldn’t find the shelter on my own? What, you expect me to grovel and thank you endlessly, like some wide-eyed kid indebted to a savior?"

Xiao Jinsheng was shaken to her core.

She never could have imagined that the gentle and caring Bai Yan, whom she thought of so highly, could suddenly seem like someone she didn’t even know.

"The robot is almost here," Bai Yan said, her tone taking on a commanding edge. "You need to agree that you returned to the shelter fifteen days ago, and it was your own decision to sneak back out."

Boiling with anger, Xiao Jinsheng backed away, keeping distance between them. Picking up a stone from the ground, she hurled it straight at Bai Yan. "To hell with you and your lies!"

The call of the approaching shelter robot echoed nearby as Xiao Jinsheng threw the rock and bolted toward the sound.

But the stone never reached its target. A transparent barrier materialized, effortlessly deflecting it.

Bai Yan stood motionless, her expression icy as she watched Xiao Jinsheng’s panic-stricken escape. A sinister smirk played on her lips. [System, is her emotional fluctuation within the threshold now?]

[System: Memory replacement program finalized. Initiating replacement process...]

[System: Memory replacement successful.]

[System: Host, the memory modification duration exceeded fifteen days. The functionality has been depleted for the upcoming year.]

[System: Memory editing cooldown set to 365 days.]

"Only a year of cooldown? Totally worth it," Bai Yan murmured, her grin widening as her eyes followed Xiao Jinsheng’s form crumpling abruptly from a dead sprint into unconscious collapse.

Bai Yan had never planned on letting Xiao Jinsheng live.

Had the terminal shelter not sounded emergency alarms at her absence—cross-checking the Star Map for proof she was alive after the heavy Mist dispersed—

had the shelter robots not reached out, commanding Bai Yan to ensure her safety, she would have killed Xiao Jinsheng long ago.

"What’s she doing lying out here?" The shelter robot hurried toward them, rousing the unconscious Xiao Jinsheng.

Her sleepy eyes fluttered open, meeting the robot’s hardened optics. "Carrot Head?" she murmured groggily.

"You were warned about today’s mist. Why did you leave the shelter?" the robot asked flatly.

Xiao Jinsheng rubbed her temples, recalling the disjointed fragments of memory. "I... didn’t notice the bulletin. Thought we still had until six in the evening... Just snuck out, playing, I guess."

"How did you even survive fifteen days out here? The Mist was so thick during that time," the robot pressed.

"I stayed hidden nearby... I guess I was lucky," she replied faintly.

The robot surveyed her condition—grimy, weary, but not injured—and seemed to accept her explanation.

"Let’s head back. Visibility remains poor, and there’s another chance the Mist could form again soon," the robot urged.

But Xiao Jinsheng hesitated.

Her eyes scanned her surroundings, clouded with an inexplicable emptiness, as though searching for something she had lost.

"What are you looking for?" the robot inquired.

Bai Yan arrived at that moment, her laughter light yet soothing as she draped an arm around Xiao Jinsheng. "There’s nothing to worry about. Let’s get you home now, safely."

Yet Xiao Jinsheng’s body recoiled against Bai Yan’s touch. A voice thrummed incessantly in her mind, insisting Bai Yan was her closest friend, someone she could always trust.

Torn between her instincts and the voice looping in her head, Xiao Jinsheng allowed Bai Yan to take her hand and lead her toward the shelter.

As they walked, Xiao Jinsheng often clutched her chest, her eyes misting over.

She couldn’t shake the haunting feeling that she’d forgotten someone—someone immensely important to her.

But in those fifteen days of memories, she was entirely alone out there. Aside from the Fog Corpses, she had seen no other living soul.

"On the day the Mist cleared, I intended to take you back to the shelter," Li’s voice faintly echoed in her mind.

During their fifteen days fleeing the Mist and evading Fog Corpses, culminating in a brutal final confrontation, Li had been gravely injured.

As the Mist lingered thickly, they sought refuge beneath a bridge.

Xiao Jinsheng, desperate, had broken into wails at the sight of Li’s maimed and bloodied face.

Even then, she insisted she would scale the forested hills to fetch medicine, promising to bring it back to him.

But to enter the woods was to invite death—not only from Fog Corpses but from Mutant Beasts, both relentless threats lurking in the shadows.

Fearing he’d lose consciousness and unable to stop her with words, Li instead knocked Xiao Jinsheng unconscious.

When she finally regained consciousness, the suffocating Mist that had enshrouded Mist East for two weeks had dispersed, reducing the Fog Corpses to wispy, sunlit remnants.

And so, with painstaking effort, Li carried the unconscious Xiao Jinsheng on his battered back, inching toward the terminal shelter.

When misfortune strikes, even drinking water can choke you...