1.30

A blood-curdling scream called out into the night air, not too far away from us.

My eyes widened as I tried to comprehend Zhiyue's memories, now burned into my mind, alongside recognising the potential danger.

What was his purpose in showing all this to me? I would never be Zhiyue, he could not return to being Wang Lei. Did he just want me to suffer alongside him?

"Ah, looks like murder is in the air," Lixin pushed up to stand and walk towards the fence, "want a hand?"

I pushed back the thoughts of Zhiyue's life and Lixin's intentions and sat up faintly hearing the sound of doors opening and closing one after the other.

"System?"

"He's correct, souls with killing intent are making their way toward us," it replied.

Fuck, he'd only shown me Zhiyue's memories, but what about mine? Those were the ones I had actually wanted. 

Either way, whatever he wanted with me, he wanted me alive, unlike the people drawing closer. Once we got away, I could just kiss him again if it meant I could live through my original memories. 

"Times ticking," Lixin tapped an imaginary watch.

I rolled my eyes, then walked over to ask quietly "what's your plan?"

Instead of replying he turned around and crouched, hinting for me to climb onto his back.

Hearing the sounds of the doors getting louder I gave up hesitating and clung to his back like a koala.

I held my breath and closed my eyes as he quickly jumped over the fence, to walk along the outside of it with ease. Only when I felt him climb back over the fence did I open my eyes and breathe with ease.

Climbing down from his back my eyes drifted to look over the edge to the ground around thirty floors below. One misstep and we'd have both broken our bodies, no matter how powerful our souls were.

"Hmm… she's almost as pretty as you," Lixin stood over a body lying on the loveseat, as if asleep. I noticed in the dim light she was similar in size to me, with a similar shade of mahogany hair, even her dress was the same colour as mine although slightly differently styled.

She even looked familiar, I could have sworn I saw her in the Li Manor. Was this poor girl here to serve as my duplicate to trick them? Fuck, why hadn't Lex told me? 

My hand slid into the slit of my dress to pull out the hidden dagger. Looks like they had flushed out the person after me, only this poor girl had paid the price. My grip on the hilt of the dagger tightened at the thought, eager to plunge it into someone.

"Guess we'll have to see about your memory next time Luna," Lixin opened the door, not showing a sign of being on guard, and walked ahead. I hesitated, not willing to take the risk and follow.

"Don't worry they're gone," System helpfully advised, "move forward."

I obeyed System and found Lixin was nowhere to be seen as I walked down the hallway to the stairs, hoping to find a familiar friendly face.

"Miss Mo," James, Lex's right-hand man appeared out of nowhere when I reached the bottom of the stairs.

"James," I let out a heavy breath, I had almost attacked the gangly teen.

"Master Li sent me to evacuate you," he then quickly turned to begin to walk ahead, and I moved to walk in step with him.

"Where is he?" I looked around the crowd, trying to find Jianyu, Meilin, or Dr. Wu too to drag with, but I couldn't see anyone I knew.

"He's found the target," he replied, "quickly, we don't have long-" A gun was fired on the dancefloor and someone dropped down to the floor, blood pooling out below them.

I thought they were just after me, yet now another person was dead, a man at that. Just what was happening?

"Fuck," James cursed, then pulled me through the exit as mayhem ensued behind us.

"Wait, what about Meilin?" My voice was high-pitched and broken. I thought I'd be stronger than this, yet I felt breathless and panicky, sweat making my dress stick to my back.

I could not understand why I felt such a strong attachment to Meilin and her child, I just knew that if she lost it I'd not be able to cope, not just in this life, but also in all the ones that followed.

"My orders are to get you out of here miss Mo," he grabbed onto my wrist and pulled me firmly through the fire exit doors, "think of the baby."

"I am," I scoffed, "I'm not pregnant, Meilin is."

He paused midstep, making me almost fall down the stairs. "You're not pregnant?"

I nodded, "so where is Meilin?"

"I'm still ordered to evacuate you first," he sighed, then pulled me down the stairs.

"System, can you sense Meilin anywhere?" I asked, feeling frantic as my bare feet stumbled down the cold stone steps.

"No," it replied just as the fire alarm began to ring.

Almost near the bottom of the fire exit, we heard the sound of a gun firing below and panicked people entering above. He swiftly dragged me through the fire doors.

This floor was full of offices and currently empty of staff.

My eyes quickly scanned the dimly lit large room. It had many cubicles taking up most of the space with private offices along one wall. At the end were two double doors.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," James cursed and tipped a bookcase to block the fire exit.

"What's wrong?" I asked, leaning against a desk to try and take the weight off my aching feet.

"They're in both fire exits and on the ground floor at the lifts, either way, we'll be like fish in a barrel," he replied, making me frown. How could he know so accurately where the enemy was? He wasn't even wearing an earpiece.

"System are we alone on this floor?" I asked, pushing myself to stand again.

"No, I've found Meilin and others," System replied excitedly, then its tone sharply changed, "but there's killing intent."

"Miss Mo, I need to secure the other side of this door first," he pulled me to walk towards the offices on the other side, as if perfectly aware of what was going on through the thick doors.

"James," I gripped on his arm, forcing him to stop, "are you an immortal?"

Everything was too chaotic for me to care about sounding crazy.

He nodded, giving me a quick wink, "my men are working on clearing the other fire exit, so stop worrying, we'll try and grab Meilin on the way."

I let out a sigh of relief. As if him being immortal meant everything was going to be okay.

Following along the hallway I heard shouting through the door.

"What have you done?"

It was Meilin's voice.

James pulled out a gun and motioned for me to stay put as he entered the room ahead.

Shortly after a gun was fired, followed by Meilin's scream.