Daytime training remained brutal, yet Rin's mind found it hard to fully focus on the clashes of blades. Last night's clear nightmare, the silver-haired girl's assassination, and that haunting phrase, "I'm sorry… I had no choice," were seared into his subconscious. And this morning, as he brushed past Ye Xue, the subtle anomaly on her face and the nascent suspicion in her eyes hinted that the fog of truth was slowly beginning to lift.
After training, cadets gradually made their way to the armory to clean and maintain their tools. Rin entered with his short dagger and immediately spotted Ye Xue not far away. She was meticulously cleaning her weapon, her movements gentle and professional, as if handling a work of art. An unapproachable, cool aura emanated from her.
Rin instinctively approached, his gaze piercing through Ye Xue's aloofness and falling directly upon the dagger in her hand.
It was a short dagger with flowing lines and a unique design. The hilt was wrapped in a special black leather, and the blade, in the dim light, reflected a cold, almost ethereal blue gleam. What made Rin's heart skip a beat was the intricate, ancient snowflake motif carved into the dagger's guard.
Rin's pupils constricted abruptly; his breathing almost ceased.
It was that one!
In last night's dream, the ice blade that the silver-haired girl plunged into his chest, though formed of ice, had the exact same design and guard motif as the dagger in Ye Xue's hand! Even the subtle coldness emanating from the blade was eerily similar.
He suppressed the storm raging within him, trying to keep his voice calm: "Your dagger… it looks quite unique."
Ye Xue's movements paused for a moment. She raised her eyes, those clear yet unfathomably deep eyes, gazing at Rin without a ripple. Her look held a hint of wariness, but more so her usual detachment and indifference.
"Just bought it," her reply was terse and cold, offering no explanation, as if it were merely the most ordinary tool. After speaking, she lowered her head and continued to polish her dagger, as if Rin's presence held no significance to her.
These three simple words struck Rin like a sledgehammer. Just bought it? Impossible. Such a unique design and motif clearly indicated a specific organization or family mark. This dagger was undoubtedly a crucial clue to uncovering the truth of his past life!
Rin's mind was in chaos. The silver-haired girl in his dream had assassinated him, yet Ye Xue possessed a dagger identical to that ice blade. Were the silver-haired girl and Ye Xue the same person? Or was there some connection between them? If Ye Xue was indeed the silver-haired girl, why was she here in this present form? Had she lost her memory too? And if not, what did this dagger signify?
He felt his heart entangled by countless invisible threads, pulling and tearing, leaving him in pain and confusion. He couldn't press further here; Ye Xue's coldness and wariness made that clear. Direct questioning would only make her more cautious, perhaps even expose his secrets.
Rin silently turned, gripping his short dagger, and left the armory. His steps were heavy, each one sinking deeper into an unknown fog.
Late that night, Rin tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He decided he couldn't sit idly by. He needed more information; he needed to confirm Ye Xue's true identity and the precise connection between her, the silver-haired girl, and his death.
Though the academy's security was stringent, for a top-tier assassin, every system had its loopholes. Relying on the "Blade of Demise's" instincts for intelligence gathering and infiltration, Rin began to investigate Ye Xue's background file. He knew this was extremely dangerous; if caught, he would face the academy's most brutal punishment. But he had no choice; the allure of the truth was too strong.
He cautiously evaded patrolling guards and surveillance cameras, slipping into the academy's data archives. This was a heavily guarded underground room, the air thick with the smell of disinfectant, tall metal filing cabinets arranged neatly like silent giants. Guided by his vague yet astonishing intuition, Rin successfully bypassed multiple electronic and physical barriers, finally locating Ye Xue's personal file.
However, when he opened the file, what he saw plunged him into a deathly shock once more.
Ye Xue's file was unusually clean.
It contained only the most basic information: name, age, enrollment date. There was no family background, no past experience; even basic information like address or contact details, which ordinary cadets would have, were simply marked "unknown" or "none." Her enrollment referrer was just an internal academy code, with no specific name.
This was not a normal cadet's file at all; it was more like a blank slate, perfectly erasing all possible traces. It was so clean, it was abnormal.
Rin's heart sank to rock bottom again. Someone with such a "clean" file could not have simply "bought" such a uniquely designed dagger with a distinctive motif. This indicated that Ye Xue's identity was extremely secretive, possibly even intricately linked to some high-level power or to the organization he belonged to in his past life.
He thought of his own memory loss, his "accidental" rebirth. Was Ye Xue the same? Was she also an amnesiac, or were her memories deliberately erased?
Countless possibilities flooded Rin's mind, each more complex and dangerous than the last. If she, too, had lost her memory, was her betrayal forced? If she knew something but wasn't telling him, what was she hiding? And that dagger, was it a relic from her past life, or some kind of indication in this life?
He silently closed the file, his mind a tangled mess, and left the archives. The academy's formidable defenses seemed like nothing to him, but the confusion and pain within him were higher than any wall, deeper than any trap.
The silver-haired girl, Ye Xue, his own cause of death, and this dagger… all the clues were intertwined, pointing towards an unfathomable, vast conspiracy. Rin knew he had been drawn into a vortex far larger and darker than he had imagined. He had to survive, he had to become stronger, to find the buried truth in this bottomless ocean of slaughter.