After completing one mission after another, all members of Team Seven had once talked about going to a nightclub together.

It didn’t take long for this plan to materialize. That night, everyone set out from their homes to meet at a friend’s club, which Li Chun described as having “great lighting.”

Before leaving, Song Qinglan faced a dilemma in finding something to wear. He almost never went to such venues, didn’t enjoy partying, and therefore had no appropriate clothing. On the left side of his wardrobe were all sportswear, and on the right were shirts and trousers—there were barely any casual T-shirts, and the wardrobe was dominated by black, white, and gray, giving off a refined yet somewhat austere vibe, not at all relaxed or casual.

Ji Yushi, on the other hand, was different. After moving in, half of the wardrobe was filled with his clothes. While his outfits weren’t flashy, and he also favored simplicity, upon closer inspection, one would notice that the details and cuts of his clothes were distinct, conveying entirely different styles even if the colors appeared similar.

Ji Yushi summed it up: “I’ve been gay for so many years, so I naturally have a certain pursuit of refinement.”

At twenty-five or twenty-six years old, a young man can’t have interests that are entirely old-fashioned.

That night, when they all met, each person looked more stylish than the last.

Since there was no need to return to work immediately, Li Chun even dyed his hair and dressed like a hip-hop teenager. Even the oldest member, Old Duan, who was usually quite unfashionable, looked completely renewed—having once roamed a few nightclubs with Li Chun, he already knew the ropes.

But the last two to arrive at the nightclub entrance left everyone stunned.

Having grown accustomed to seeing Consultant Ji in black combat uniforms, they now realized just how good his fashion sense was when they saw him in casual wear.

Ji Yushi was dressed in a beige silk short-sleeved shirt, with trimmed cuffs and collar, paired with dark-colored cropped trousers and white sneakers. His already outstanding looks and temperament became even more striking after dressing up. He waved at everyone from across the street, his expression calm and refined, exuding a unique literary vibe.

They had always known that Ji Yushi was good-looking.

But it was only now that they realized just what that good-looking meant. The moment he stepped out of the car, people on the roadside were already turning to look at him.

When Song Qinglan finished parking and opened the car door, that brilliance was instantly elevated to another level. His height was already striking, and with two buttons undone on his usual white shirt, his hair styled back, revealing a smooth forehead and sharp, rebellious features, that inherent untamed nature was fully revealed in this informal setting.

The two stood by the roadside for a moment, waiting for the green light before striding toward the group.

Duan Wen cursed, “Damn, this is just a regular nightclub, what’s the deal with these two gays looking so good?”

Zhou Mingxuan squinted his small eyes, sighing, “They’ve already dealt with each other internally and now want to charm the unsuspecting innocent girls outside.”

As they were joking.

On the crosswalk, Song Qinglan suddenly reached out and held Ji Yushi’s hand.

The two walked over hand in hand, fingers tightly intertwined, completely unfazed by the looks of passersby.

Everyone: “!!!”

Is this what it means to be a little sweet?

Li Chun breathed a sigh of relief, “Alright, alright, they’ve made it clear they’re taken, so no girl should be betting on them.”

For straight men of the right age, girls were all they thought about. Tang Le nudged Tang Qi, “Bro, Chun’er says the girls here are high quality, lots of office ladies from nearby come to play. Tonight, chat up some girls; maybe you’ll meet your love at first sight.”

The ever-disciplined Tang Qi wasn’t interested in finding love at a nightclub, replying expressionlessly, “Love at first sight? More like a one-night stand.”

“Don’t be shy,” Tang Le said, “If you meet someone you like, I’ll make the first move and pretend to be you, how about that?”

Tang Qi: “…Thanks, I guess.”

What do you do when your brother is too dumb?

The desire for love was written all over the faces of the five single men.

It was as if they weren’t there to hang out with their teammates but to go on blind dates.

When the two arrived and greeted everyone, Song Qinglan asked, “Why aren’t you going in?”

Li Chun replied, “Because of you, boss!”

Song Qinglan chuckled, “Why because of me?”

“Every time we ask you to come out for a drink, you never do,” Zhou Mingxuan teased, “We’re afraid you’re too serious and won’t even know how to enter a nightclub.”

They all laughed and walked in.

Song Qinglan glanced at Ji Yushi beside him and whispered, “Who said I don’t know how? When I was hitting the nightclubs, these guys didn’t even know where they were.”

Ji Yushi couldn’t help but add, “They were probably doing their homework in college.”

Song Qinglan laughed, then suddenly thought of something and squeezed Ji Yushi’s hand, “Why weren’t you doing your homework in college, Consultant Ji?”

Ji Yushi replied, “I was running to bars, showing myself off.”

Zhou Mingxuan turned around, glaring, “Hey, that’s enough, I don’t want people thinking we’re all gay!”

The two nodded dismissively.

“Mm-hmm, got it.”

“Yeah, yeah, we understand.”

After passing through a long soundproof area, a waiter opened the door, and the deafening music and dazzling lights flooded in.

On the large holographic projection, a sexy bunny girl was performing a hot dance, standing seven or eight meters tall. She was an electronic version of a real performer, her seductive dance moves contrasting with her innocent and retro appearance, causing the men and women on the dance floor to dance and scream along with her.

In here, if you didn’t shout, you couldn’t hear each other’s voices.

Li Chun’s friend had arranged excellent seats for them and enthusiastically greeted Song Qinglan and Ji Yushi. What the young man said to them was unclear to everyone. When the drinks arrived, they realized the friend had sent them the best alcohol, insisting on treating them.

Song Qinglan had promised to treat, so naturally, he wouldn’t let someone else pay.

But that wasn’t the main point now, as Li Chun had already started a game, getting the table’s atmosphere thoroughly heated.

When it came to playing dice games, no one present could beat Ji Yushi.

After a round, he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol, and he even politely took a sip of his own drink—this was infuriating. Eventually, it was Song Qinglan who, very fairly, lost two rounds, and the old-fashioned drinking game got an upgrade; he had to drink a double.

“That’s too much. Do you even know how many people I am?” Song Qinglan started to complain, then turned around and saw, “…”

Ji Yushi, using both hands, instantly opened two bottles of alcohol for him.

Everyone burst into laughter.

Song Qinglan was tough and didn’t say much, accepting his loss.

He popped the bottle caps and downed an entire bottle in one go, his swift actions prompting cheers from the neighboring table.

The group’s only ambidextrous member showed off his skills. Not only could Ji Yushi open two bottles simultaneously, but he could also shake dice cups in different directions with each hand—one hand going left and right, up and down, while the other spun in circles. Before long, he was like a casino dealer, running the game smoothly and keeping everyone under his control.

“What else can Consultant Ji do?!”

“Ambidexterity?”

“Multitasking is amazing!”

Ji Yushi smiled slightly, “It’s simple. I’ll teach you if I have time.”

Everyone responded, “Yeah, right, like we believe that!”

The music changed to a slower tune, and the people in the dance floor began to dance closely.

A waiter brought over a cocktail, specifically for Song Qinglan. Following the waiter’s gesture, they saw a girl in a short skirt not far away raising her glass to him, then blowing a kiss.

Everyone: “!!!”

Oh no!

“Quick, explain!”

“Consultant Ji’s little black book is about to explode!”

“There’s still time to refuse!”

They all joked and teased, but Song Qinglan didn’t reject the drink.

Ji Yushi, leaning against the back of the booth, watched him. The changing lights illuminated his sharp nose, and the shadows cast by his lashes occasionally swept across his pretty eye sockets, his dark eyes observing him as if he found the situation amusing.

Song Qinglan leaned in to kiss his lips in front of everyone and the girl, then pushed the drink towards Ji Yushi, softly saying, “Margarita, your favorite.”

The situation was resolved too easily.

After Song Qinglan released his lips, everyone stared in shock, “That works?!”

Song Qinglan lazily replied, “Why wouldn’t it?”

Everyone: “Consultant Ji?!”

Ji Yushi took a sip of the drink, “Tastes good.”

Everyone: “Damn!”

“Consultant Ji, you’ve changed!” Tang Le accused, heartbroken, “You’re not the cool Consultant Ji anymore!”

“Love blinds everyone,” Zhou Mingxuan commented, “Even immortals can’t escape it.”

Li Chun suddenly recalled, “Hey, I still remember back at Guangyuan Building, Consultant Ji looked so unwilling when Song Qinglan pinned him against the wall!”

Ji Yushi froze, the cool alcohol not fully swallowed yet.

Song Qinglan pinning him against the wall?

That happened during the large cycle in the Ouroboros mission. In their memory, they didn’t have this particular recollection during the Ouroboros mission.

When they entered the Overload mission, the cycles were out of sync, with each of them serving as the point to pave the way for the original team. When the original team completed the mission, they would disappear, so the original team in the Ouroboros mission wouldn’t remember the events of the large cycle.

They repeatedly appeared at anchor points, as required by the Sky Vault mother system, maintaining the original development order as long as the final outcome wasn’t changed, ensuring the timeline wasn’t affected.

In other words, during the Ouroboros mission, they were like NPCs, like the black-faced man, and technically, they shouldn’t have these memories.

But just like the merged memories of Teams A and B, even before the final events happened, Ji Yushi remembered the difference in Song Qinglan from Team B. Song Qinglan also remembered Ji Yushi stepping on his foot while they were avoiding zombies in the power distribution room—coincidental anchor point resets made Song Qinglan reborn in Team B, extending his point, leaving traces of what he had done in the memory. However, that memory didn’t include the motivation from the large cycle.

Seeing Ji Yushi confused, Duan Wen added, “Consultant Ji didn’t see it, huh? That must’ve been you guys from another cycle. It happened in the hallway on the 115th floor, we saw from afar that Captain Song was pinning you. We still don’t know what you were doing, but honestly, I thought you were about to punch him.”

Duan Wen glanced at Song Qinglan, “I’m not lying; Captain Song saw it too!”

Ji Yushi realized then that it was the time when Song Qinglan was kicked down the stairs by another version of himself, and he caught him just in time.

They had indeed talked in the hallway, expressing their feelings, and indeed saw another version of Song Qinglan from a distance.

So this event had already left its mark on the original timeline.

It was just that the other version of him wasn’t there.

But wait—

Ji Yushi suddenly realized, if Duan Wen and Li Chun remembered, did that mean Song Qinglan also remembered?

“What were we doing?” Song Qinglan spoke up amid the chatter, telling them, “Most likely, Consultant Ji was disobeying orders, and as the captain, I was fulfilling my duty to educate him.”

Everyone scoffed, “Just admit you were taking advantage! Stop sugarcoating it!”

Another round of drinks started.

Song Qinglan held Ji Yushi’s hand, casually tracing his palm, looking calm.

When Tang Qi lost and was dared to ask a refined-looking girl for her number, amidst the commotion, Song Qinglan leaned in and whispered to Ji Yushi, “I did see it.”

One can imagine how Song Qinglan felt at the time.

After all, the Song Qinglan back then was completely different from the one now—straight as an arrow.

Ji Yushi’s lips curled into a smile, “Were you shocked?”

Song Qinglan replied, “Not shocked, exactly.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at his thoughts back then, “I didn’t even see you kiss my nose. I really thought I was disciplining you.”

“Boom—”

The music abruptly stopped, plunging them into darkness, leaving only the echo of the last note.

The large interior was suddenly pitch black, all sound disappearing. People were still for half a second before the lively atmosphere erupted into noise.

The power had gone out.

Li Chun cursed, “What the hell happened?!”

Tang Qi joked, “Chun’er was right; the lighting is amazing.”

Everyone laughed.

Li Chun, embarrassed, angrily turned on his phone flashlight and ran off to find his friend to see what was going on.

On the way, he accidentally bumped into a man and quickly stopped to apologize.

People all took out their phones simultaneously. A power outage in a nightclub was a first for many. Amid the complaints, many people left the dance floor and seats, with the occasional sound of glass cups or bottles being accidentally broken.

Duan Wen’s phone vibrated, and when he checked, it was the first message from a girl he had gone on a blind date with.

Zhou Mingxuan and Tang Qi stood up to help; in situations like this, maintaining order was crucial to prevent a stampede.

A few emergency lights came on, but it was still quite dark. Tang Le suddenly remembered, “Isn’t Consultant Ji afraid of the dark? Captain Song, shouldn’t you—”

He turned around, only to find that the rumored Consultant Ji, who was so afraid of the dark that Ning City’s division made an exception to not assign him night shifts, was calmly talking to their captain, looking completely at ease.

An unexpected situation and a somewhat noisy environment.

Various phone screen lights flickered among the bustling crowd, like stars suddenly lighting up.

They weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere because their best friends and loved ones were right there.

The night had only just begun.