Hand in Hand to Build a Home Amid Great Chaos

chapter3

"Ah, my God, Zero, your hand, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's all my fault, Tang Rui, hurry up and get the car ready to go to the school medical center..."

Everything happened in an instant. Qian Ling stared at the blood in her palm, her heart nearly leaping out of her chest.

Just moments ago, Qian Lu had left. Blue Card, furious, tried to sit down, but accidentally tripped over the tablecloth. Losing her balance, her face plunged towards the glass fragments on the table.

Bodyguard Tang Rui managed to catch her falling body in the nick of time, but driven by the human instinct to react when facing danger, she subconsciously reached out her hand to brace herself on the table. Unfortunately, Qian Ling also instinctively tried to save her, shielding the area below her face with her hand.

As a result of the inertia, Blue Card was promptly caught by the bodyguard, but her hands didn't land on the glass shards. Instead, they pressed down on Qian Ling's hands, causing Qian Ling's palms to slam onto many glass fragments, and blood immediately gushed out.

However, the key point wasn't this. It was the dream that had just ended, a dream that had been haunting her and wouldn't let go.

The faint scenes in the dream, the same dream that had plagued her for so long, so very long.

The ever-changing scenes, repeated over and over, along with everything that had happened today, seemed to follow the blueprint of the dream without a single deviation.

What, exactly, did this foretell?!

Qian Ling had been on guard against Qian Lu, guarding against her making a sneak attack, but she never expected to confirm the scene from her dream again in such a bizarre way.

Stupidly staring at the blood on her own palm, she was completely frozen on the spot. Even as Blue Card cried out in self-reproach and worry, and she was helped into the family car by the later-arriving bodyguards, she still hadn't come to her senses.

As soon as she sat down, the jade pendant string on her neck, as if by some ghostly trick, got caught on Blue Card's ring. The two fumbled to untangle the intertwined string of the pendant and ring. Only then did they realize, belatedly, that the jade pendant on her neck had eerily absorbed a considerable amount of the blood from Qian Ling's hand. Qian Ling felt a wave of dizziness and didn't even know how she was carried into the emergency room.

Blue Card was truly terrified. She hadn't expected Qian Ling's hand injury to be so severe. Watching the doctor pick out the glass shards embedded in the flesh one by one, she reddened her eyes with guilt.

It was only at this moment that Qian Ling suddenly snapped out of it, her hair standing on end.

"Zero, I'm so sorry, I really didn't mean to," Blue Card said guiltily, supporting Qian Ling as they walked towards the dormitory.

"Haha, Blue Card, look at you, it's no big deal, just a little accident. Besides, if I hadn't been distracted, I could have dodged it completely. It's really not your fault, my reaction was just too slow. You were saying I could join the military; at this rate, I don't even know how many lives I'd have to throw away."

Qian Ling finally snapped out of her daze, and at the same time, thought of a very serious question. If all this was real, then didn't that mean the end of the world was imminent?

Seeing Qian Ling joking, Blue Card finally felt relieved, though she was still very guilty. Her big, watery eyes looked at Qian Ling, her face full of embarrassment. "Oh my, you scared me to death. So you only just snapped out of it. I thought you were angry."

"Of course not. Even if I were hurt more seriously for you, I would still be willing, because you are my friend, my only friend." Qian Ling smiled, gently brushing the stray hair on her forehead with her unbandaged finger, her face full of fondness. Over the years, she was glad to have her by her side; otherwise, she really didn't know what joy there would be in life.

They exchanged a few more words, and Qian Ling saw her out the door. When she came back, she happened to see from the upstairs window the Qian family's guard team helping Qian Lu and Qian Jingyao into the family car.

Qian Jingyao was clearly throwing a princess tantrum, arguing with the guards and refusing to get in the car. Qian Ling suddenly remembered what her grandfather had said, grabbed her unpacked suitcase, and hurried downstairs.

Just as she reached the entrance of the building, the family car pulled up right in front of her. Qian Jingyao rolled down the window and looked at her scornfully, "What's this? Weren't you being all tough? Want to catch a ride on my private plane back home? *Heh*, not being so haughty anymore?"

Seeing her like this, Qian Ling hadn't planned on paying her any attention anyway. She reached for the car door handle, but unexpectedly, Qian Jingyao locked the doors, speaking with a hint of schadenfreude, "Find your own way back if you want to go. Ah, plane tickets are very expensive, you know. Do you have any money on you? Want to borrow some from me? Not something a scholarship kid like you can afford."

Qian Ling found Qian Jingyao's smug expression infuriating. If it weren't for the fact that she was her own sister, she would have smashed this car, and no one would leave.

"Jingyao, you're bored. Let's go quickly. Don't you know the airspace is tight lately? I have things to do when we get back," Qian Lu scolded from the other side with a frown, casting a cold, also gloating look at Qian Ling.

Qian Jingyao glared at Qian Lu, then elegantly and slowly rolled up the window. She stopped, leaving a gap of one palm's width, and laughed, "Oh, right, I forgot to tell you, all flights from Country M back home have been canceled. Because the new flu virus has infected many countries. More and more people in hospitals are fainting with fevers from the infection, so many countries have banned flights.

There's no seat for you on our family's private plane. If you want to go home, find your own way. Good luck to you first, and be sure not to catch the virus and die, hahahaha..." With Qian Jingyao's unbridled laughter, the car sped away.

Qian Ling looked up at the blazing sun, then quickly hurried back to the dormitory, closed the door, opened her laptop, rapidly typed in a string of URLs, typed out a series of codes, plugged in her earphones, and inputted a voice message: "Princess Blue Card of Country L's royal family faces a fatal threat in Country M. Please escort her back to her home country as soon as possible to ensure her safety." After inputting the voice, she hurriedly unplugged the earphones, programmed a few more things, and sent it.

She picked up her phone, but found there was no signal. A sudden wave of unease washed over her. She quickly tried to connect to her grandfather's secret communication channel via the computer, but the signal was intermittent and severely disrupted.

Thinking of Qian Ye's emergency secret email, she quickly typed a line of text, but then the network signal was completely cut off. Immediately after, the power went out, and the emergency lights in the room came on.

"Damn it," she cursed, looking at the message she had left for Qian Ye. The signal indicator was stuck at the last bar. She didn't know if he would receive the message.

"In that dream, the first power outage, restored after 10 minutes," Qian Ling muttered to herself, quickly looking at her watch. She just stared at it blankly.

Although it was the era of rapid information development, and phones had many smart features, so few people still wore watches, Qian Ling had participated in a special school activity and was still wearing a solar-powered, smart, waterproof, shockproof, and multifunctional watch.

When the ten minutes were up, all the lights in the room that were on came back on. The refrigerator *dinged* as it started running again. The cup in Qian Ling's hand fell to the floor with a *smack*.

"This is real? The dream is being reenacted in reality one-to-one." She touched her neck for the jade pendant, only to find it was missing, and didn't know when it had disappeared.

That jade pendant was an ancient jade passed down in the Qian family for over a thousand years. When she had left home alone to come to this foreign country, she had declined her grandfather's financial support but absolutely could not refuse the pendant he gave her.

For its sake, her grandfather, who usually doted on her, had even turned angry, saying that if she didn't accept this jade pendant, she shouldn't acknowledge him as her grandfather anymore.

When Qian Ling left, the only thing from the Qian family she took with her was this ancient jade.