Hello, Arknights

"You bastard, you're as good as dead, but not me, huh!" The fiery red Sarkaz delivered a knee strike that sent him flying and pinning him to the bed. Although Surtr's knee was pressing down on his chest, Ling Dengxian felt that her strength was very weak. If he wanted to, he could retaliate in an instant.

Compared to when he first arrived in Terra, his physical condition was now vastly different, so he let the other person press down on him without even having to breathe.

"You just misspoke..." Ling Dengxian couldn't ignore this. Despite his impressive entrance, he ended up scrolling to the bottom.

"Damn it!" Surtr roared in fury, instinctively drawing his sword but finding nothing. Remembering what had happened outside, he gritted his teeth, raised his knee, jumped up, and angrily stomped down on his face!

The rapidly enlarging soles of the shoes caused Ling Dengxian's brain to race, and before the mud hit his face, he realized a terrible problem.

"!" Just as Ling Dengxian had thought, it was too easy for him to counterattack. In the blink of an eye, the two of them switched positions. Ling Dengxian remained silent, covering Surtr's mouth with one hand to prevent her from alerting others, and grabbing her arm with the other hand to pull her inward, turning her body sideways with her legs dangling off the bed.

Surtr looked at him in horror, her face turning slightly pale, as if she had thought of something bad. But the next moment she realized something was wrong; Ling's face was as black as the bottom of a pot.

Surtr's shoes, worn from hiking through the lavender fields, left glaring marks on his bed. As their breathing quickened for different reasons, Ling Dengxian took a deep breath and said in a low voice, "I'll let go. Stop messing around, understand?"

Surtr shifted her gaze, understanding what he truly cared about. She patted the hand that was pressing against hers forcefully, and the girl relaxed. Hesitantly nodded.

Ling casually released his grip and straightened up, but Surtr did not get up immediately. He exhaled a warm, tantalizing breath, but he had no time to pay attention to that. At this moment, the other party showed an unsettling "mistake" expression, and it seemed to be more than just because of those few footprints.

"Um... do you have mysophobia?" Surtr asked, his eyes slightly darting away, perhaps because Levantine wasn't around.

"No, but I'm very unhappy right now." Ling Dengxian was already very sleepy, and after this commotion, she didn't know when she would be able to get up tomorrow.

“Actually…” Surtr turned over, turning his back to him so that he could see the “truth” clearly.

"When I came here, I slipped and fell by the water, landing on my back."

The black, human-shaped mud print seemed to mock his arbitrary decision.

"..." Ling Dengxian fell completely silent, then got out of bed and quickly pulled up the four corners of the blankets before Surtr got up, wrapping the Sarkaz girl up completely, leaving only her head sticking out.

"White Dove! What are you doing!"

Ling tied a knot with all his might, patted the knot, immediately lay back down, let out a long breath, and said expressionlessly, "You did it, you'll be responsible tomorrow. Let's leave it at that for tonight."

"You didn't take mine first, or is it that things between us haven't really gotten to the point where I would act so impulsively?" Surtr's words drew his gaze away from the stains on the bedding, and he noticed Sarkaz's dejected expression.

"I said, are you really that uneasy?" Ling Dengxian sat up again and looked at her. In the bright moonlight, he noticed the mud on the Sarkaz girl's face and hair. He lit a ball of white flame, and the pure white light illuminated the head of the bed.

“…What about you?” Surtr didn’t deny it. “The power you relied on to survive in the first half of your life, the power to protect yourself when others have ill intentions, the power to change the situation—just disappear like that. Wouldn’t you be uneasy?”

"So you're relieved now that you have no ability to resist me?" Ling Dengxian poked her cheek, and the latter's face darkened instantly at this gesture.

She said irritably, "What can you do to me?"

Ling rolled her eyes at her, and said in an equally irritated tone, "What if? You can't judge a book by its cover."

“At least you won’t now. You’re a germaphobe, and I’m all dirty.” Surtr seemed to have him cornered.

Ling Dengxian didn't explain, but asked again, "Where's your Levantine? Although he hasn't responded, why didn't you bring him with you this time?"

“I brought it.” Then Surtr looked somewhat confused. “And there’s a new problem that I just discovered.”

……

Ling Dengxian carried Surtr and jumped out of the corridor window, walking along the path she had come from into the lavender field. At this moment, the person on his shoulder objected: "Why don't you put me down?"

"You did it yourself, so keep suffering." That's right, even though it was just a brief trip out, Ling Dengxian still didn't loosen the knot she tied with the corner of the blanket.

"Asshole."

Before long, the two passed through the lavender field, where a fiery red longsword stood by the roadside. Strangely, the sword, which had appeared quite divine in the moonlight just a moment ago, dimmed visibly the next moment, as if it had been seen, and became listless like a living thing, much like the props brought by cosplayers at his original comic conventions—props with a high degree of accuracy.

“When Levantine was back to normal, I wasn’t so careless as to come to you alone without any protection… But once we got here, it wouldn’t obey me. Levantine is left here, and I can’t lift it anymore.” Surtr moved, but Ling Dengxian still showed no intention of putting her down.

"You didn't notify me either, which means you don't think of me when you're fine. I didn't see you come when I was recovering from my injuries either." Ling Dengxian stepped forward and drew the molten longsword with ease, while Levantine showed a deathly silence that he had seen before.

Surtr opened her mouth, then stopped herself. She wanted to explain that she wasn't on the ship when he was recuperating, but after all this commotion, she felt that it didn't really matter whether she explained or not. After all, she hadn't brought up Levantine's recovery herself, and the reason she had approached him in the first place was because of Levantine.

If the connection only stems from a weapon, is such a relationship truly valuable?

“I didn’t mean to not call you. It’s just that we haven’t seen each other for a while. I’m not exactly a social butterfly, so I genuinely didn’t think of you.” Ling Dengxian didn’t continue the somewhat awkward topic from before, but instead apologized to her: “I’m sorry, this really made me angry. You should take a good rest here for a while and relax.”

Upon hearing this, Surtr recalled the time when she had caused trouble for White Dove, and how Ling Dengxian had been willing to tolerate her unreasonable behavior. She had even taken her on the trip to Lungmen. It wasn't that she was unaware of these things; perhaps it was just because... if the one-way output relationship remained unchanged, neither side would ultimately care much about such a relationship.

Ling Dengxian carried Levantine in one hand and Surtr on his shoulder in the other, walking back.

"...I'm not good at interacting with people either."

“I speak very directly, and sometimes I can’t express myself accurately. Many operators think I’m hard to get along with. Sometimes I also think that it doesn’t matter whether I have teammates or not. My memory is a mess, and I’ll only cause trouble for others. Your attitude of not resisting is like air. When I don’t need you, I will subconsciously ignore you.”

"I resisted, okay!" Ling Dengxian felt strange and glanced at her sideways. Surtr was looking at him seriously, and the two faces were very close.

Perhaps Surtr really should worry about his personal safety. Ling Dengxian thought to himself.

Surtr turned away to create some distance, not forgetting to retort, "What kind of resistance is it to just be stubborn? You didn't even reject my willful outcome, so nothing has changed, has it?"

"If you insist on doing something reckless, am I supposed to just ignore you? Wasn't Levantine shut down because of me back then?"

"...Are you serious?"

"What do you mean, real or fake? Do you think my memory is playing tricks on me?" Ling Dengxian said irritably.

"If you ask me, you could have ignored me from the beginning, or you could have driven me away by getting angry and warning me instead of causing trouble later. You didn't have to accommodate me while you were not on Rhodes Island. You could have threatened me and eliminated the trouble once you confirmed that I had lost my ability to fight... but you did none of that."

“Isn’t that normal? What’s so strange about it?” Ling Dengxian thought she was overthinking it. “It’s not just me; if you were in Rhodes Island, anyone else would have offered you help.”

"To me, a 'monster' who could threaten other people's lives at the drop of a hat?" Surtr turned back and said with a self-deprecating smile, "Don't forget, before we made our move outside Lungmen, you didn't know you were restrained by Levantine."

“You…” Ling Dengxian was very helpless, but a trace of self-doubt did indeed quietly grow. Could it be that what he thought was a normal reaction was actually not?

Putting aside his own thoughts for the moment, he continued the conversation, not sure if he really wanted to comfort her rather than convince himself: "You are very similar to Skadi in many ways, a human-shaped natural disaster, misunderstood and unpopular, and you avoid others for their sake... Although there are differences, I think 'loneliness' is not what you expect, and I don't like it either... So I will be more patient."

“I’m not complaining that you didn’t come to see me today, it’s just that I feel a little wronged. I’ve put in so much effort but haven’t received anything in return, so it’s understandable that I’d grumble a bit…” Ling Dengxian’s eyes suddenly dimmed. “I don’t want to go back to the way things were before… You guys are really good to me. At least you care when I complain. What’s wrong with me being a little more patient and enthusiastic?”

“…You’re so naive,” Surtr couldn’t help but ask. “Have you ever really been to the wilderness?”

"I've traveled through all sorts of places."

"It's impossible that I haven't seen... all that deceit and treachery."

"Environment broadens one's horizons, conscience determines choices. I just chose a path even more willful than yours, but luckily, I was fortunate enough." Thinking of bagpipes, Mostima, Texas... Ling Dengxian felt at peace.

“…Thank you.” Surtr remained silent for a long time, her purple eyes shimmering slightly as she made up her mind.

"Just do your job tomorrow—" Ling Dengxian's words came to an abrupt halt, because they had already returned to the front of the house, where Texas, Bagpipes, and Mostima were standing.

"Good evening, White Dove," Mostima said with a smile. "Where did you get this from?"

Ling looked silently at her and Surtr's outfits, then at Texas and Bagpipe. The two women rarely posed together, and both sighed.

"Is there anything you can't solve with us?"

"Xiao Xian, please explain..."

Ling Dengxian felt utterly overwhelmed.

The two moons in the sky were very round, and their clear light illuminated the distance between people.