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Chapter 244. Under the Mask (2)

"Om——"

The masked girl hastily conjured a wind shield in front of her, but the hastily formed barrier was ultimately not solid enough.

The sharp sword energy surged in like a tidal wave, and with a crisp cracking sound, the white porcelain mask shattered, half of the mask turning into fragments that fell to the ground.

Beneath the mask, a delicate profile was revealed.

This fool, a natural-born actor, had a pair of light brown eyes, as clear as an autumn lake.

What surprised her even more was that those eyes were churning with an almost instinctive fear and inferiority complex.

That's not the look a Great Emperor-level expert should have.

Jiang Jianxin's swordplay faltered.

In that instant, the girl in black robes had already covered her exposed cheek with her fingers.

Her movements were so frantic they were almost chaotic, as if what was being revealed was not a mask, but a bloody scar.

A gust of wind swept by, and the girl in the fisherman's hat vanished into the wind, her figure disappearing from the spot.

Jiang Jianxin, who had just drunk half a bottle of nutrient solution, was preparing for a fierce battle, but he did not expect the battle to end so quickly.

Why did she suddenly run away? Aren't they usually only taken off the front lines when they're seriously injured?

Jiang Jianxin asked in confusion.

Retreating when seriously wounded is the rule of the warring factions.

"Intuition tells me."

[You've really been involved in the war faction for too long; your understanding has become aligned with war itself.]

It explained.

[The Fool's Sequence is based on idealism, which is superior to cognition. Once cognition is severely disrupted, it will retreat in time; you can understand this as another level of "serious injury."]

Jiang Jianxin didn't ask any more questions. The masked girl's face flashed through her mind, and suddenly she remembered something and said:

[That person looks familiar. Is he the rebel leader Xie Yan told me about the other day?]

It's her.

"I answered intuitively."

Jiang Jianxin was slightly taken aback.

The conversation she had with Xie Yan that day came to mind.

"...a loaf of bread was sold for an exorbitant price, the mother was blown to pieces by the gifted one while laughing, and the father lay dying on the bed. Before he died, he cut off pieces of his own flesh and stuffed them into her mouth so that she could live."

The words he remembered were now hazy, but Jiang Jianxin still recalled the follow-up conversation he had with Xie Yan.

"And then what happened? How did she become the leader?"

"She was originally an ordinary person, but she witnessed her mother being blown to pieces and her father cutting himself down to his bones before taking his last breath."

"She suffered severe psychological trauma."

"Alas, ordinary people only exist in ordinary and happy lives, after hardship..."

"A new giant was born."

……

"Oranges? Oranges!"

There was a knock at the door. Orange took off her mask and sat quietly inside.

She knew what her sudden departure from the battlefield meant during the attack on Chaoyang Base.

That Sword Master's strength was unbelievable; she was the only one in the entire Furong Army who could rival her.

But her mask shattered, and she dared not go on stage.

Orange took out a mirror and glanced at herself in it.

She was a pretty, cute girl with a round face and brown eyes, and a slightly naive charm.

She stared blankly at herself in the mirror.

She understands her talent better than others.

The ultimate role of an "actor" is one where they cannot show their face, speak, or leave any impression of their personal characteristics.

In this way, she can become one with the characters she plays and possess their power infinitely.

Perhaps it was because she had been ordinary for too long that, at the moment the mask shattered and she saw her talent as an actress suddenly dim, she felt panic and fear... fear that she would lose all her power. Memories flooded back like a tide: that blood-red dusk, when her father stuffed chunks of bloody flesh into her mouth, the taste of rust mixed with a metallic sweetness exploding in her mouth.

On a scorching afternoon, the mother's flesh and blood gradually rotted on the burning ground, turning into a dark red mud that was no longer recognizable.

During her days of wandering, she huddled deep inside a rusty pipe, scraping the mottled metal with her fingernails.

Those bits of food stuck between her teeth always reminded her of the meat scraps she was forced to swallow that day.

Until one afternoon when the cicadas' chirping was deafening—

A young man in a white trench coat and pink shirt led a group of men in black into the slum.

Men in black stuffed homeless children into sacks in the streets and alleys like harvesting crops, the sound of metal cage doors closing echoing around them.

She huddled inside the pipe, biting her wrist tightly, but kicked an empty soda can while backing away.

The crisp sound of the collision was exceptionally clear in the deathly silence.

The young man in the white trench coat suddenly turned around, his gaze precisely locking onto her deep inside the pipe.

But he lowered his eyes, paused, and then said in a low voice:
"Little girl, don't make a sound."

He turned his back to his men and used his trench coat to block the pipe opening.

As the shadows fell, she heard cries rising and falling—the cries of the children who had given her half a loaf of bread just days before.

Warm liquid slid down her cheeks, and she realized that she was crying silently.

Later, Orange learned that the children who were taken away that day had all become organ transplant recipients.

The young man blocking the pipe was a renowned wind-elemental war tycoon.

She lost everything, and even her survival was due to the mercy of the strong.

She genuinely hated this world, and hated even more that she was just an ordinary person.

Her intense obsession and distorted perception, fueled by mental stimulation, led her to hear a neurotic whisper deep within her mind one day—her own voice, but one that was even colder.

You are just an ordinary person, but if you lose yourself, you will become anyone you want to be.

Are you willing?

That choice was like a watershed moment, splitting her life in two.

As Ju Zi trembled as she picked up the pure white mask and put on the fisherman's hat, the touch of the orange her mother had embroidered on the hat lingered on her fingertips—the fine stitches outlining the plump fruit, as if she could still smell the fresh fragrance of the sun-dried peel.

Now, the faded fisherman's hat, nestled among her disheveled hair, became the only warm color amidst the swirling black robe.

Every time the mask covered her face, she could feel something slowly draining from her veins. Only the warmth of the brim of the hat touching her forehead reminded her that she had become stronger and could now kill anyone who stood in her way.

until today.

The moment the sword cleaved through the morning mist, she saw her reflection in the other's eyes—mask fragments flew like snowflakes, and the fisherman's hat was lifted up and then fell back down by the shockwave.

That familiar feeling of powerlessness and tearing apart, like that of the weak, exploded from my temples, a thousand times more painful than any wound.

"tangerine?"

The strategist's voice pierced through the wooden door, like a precise scalpel dissecting her chaotic thoughts.

His voice was calm:
“You suddenly withdrew from the battlefield, so I ordered everyone to retreat. The leader is asking about your situation.”

"I didn't expect the Sword Master to arrive so suddenly... It was a mistake in my decision-making. I am a failure of light... I'm sorry, Orange."

Orange held her head and didn't say anything.

The person outside stopped knocking and began to speak slowly:

“I know you can hear me, Orange. I saw the Sword Master shatter your mask, and knowing you are the Fool, perhaps that’s why you left so suddenly.”

The sound of fabric rustling came from outside the door; he must have his back pressed against the door.

“Your mental state is unstable, it’s okay if you don’t open the door, I’ll sit outside with you.”

"Don't be afraid, don't be terrified, you still have me, and you still have everyone."

The knocking stopped, and accompanied by the soft rustling of fabric, someone sat down by the door and leaned against the door she was leaning against.

Orange remained silent, clutching her head in anguish, lost in thought.

The other side of the door.

Yuan Ziqi sat there and let out a long sigh.

The uprising was started by Ju Zi, but later, due to her talent, she passed it on to Chen Xinran, which resulted in the phenomenon of having two leaders. This will be explained later in the text.