After the Paranoid Female Lead Lost Her Memory, She Insisted on Pursuing This Cannon Fodder - Chapter 49

The bustling beach, so lively during the day, now lay silent, save for the tireless rhythm of waves crashing against the shore. Moonlight poured down like liquid mercury, coating the deep sea and damp sand with a hazy silver sheen.

Lin Zhaoyue and Shen Yuan walked side by side along the beach, their shoes sinking slightly into the soft sand with each step, making a faint “shush” sound.

Compared to the daytime crowds, the seaside at night was exceptionally tranquil.

Shen Yuan walked beside Lin Zhaoyue, her steps light, her gaze rarely leaving Lin Zhaoyue’s profile.

Lin Zhaoyue’s quiet demeanor was a stark contrast to her usual fierce and combative self. The moonlight softened her features, and her eyes—usually sharp with impatience or deliberate aggression—now drooped slightly, long lashes casting faint shadows beneath them. There was even a hint of… tenderness?

Shen Yuan’s heart began to race. The dessert shop during the day had been lovely, but the seaside at night seemed even more perfect for… something.

Shen Yuan took a deep breath, as if summoning immense courage. She carefully reached out and gently touched Lin Zhaoyue’s hand, which hung at her side.

Lin Zhaoyue’s body stiffened almost imperceptibly, but she didn’t immediately withdraw her hand. Instead, she turned her head slightly, glancing at Shen Yuan out of the corner of her eye.

Shen Yuan’s heart leaped into her throat, but seeing Lin Zhaoyue’s lack of outright rejection, her courage surged.

Her fingertips slid lightly down the back of Lin Zhaoyue’s hand. Then, tentatively, she hooked her pinky finger around Lin Zhaoyue’s little finger.

Lin Zhaoyue remained still.

Shen Yuan felt her heart pounding so hard it might burst from her chest. A wave of overwhelming joy, like a rising tide, instantly flooded her senses.

Unable to restrain herself any longer, she gently tightened her grip, enveloping Lin Zhaoyue’s entire hand in her palm.

Lin Zhaoyue’s fingers were cool and her skin was delicate, creating a peculiar sensation in Shen Yuan’s hand.

This time, Lin Zhaoyue finally reacted.

She seemed to want to pull away, her fingers twitching slightly. But in the end, she merely curled them inward, without actually shaking off Shen Yuan’s grasp.

At that moment, Shen Yuan felt the sand beneath her feet become extraordinarily soft.

She couldn’t help but secretly curl the corners of her lips upward, her steps becoming noticeably lighter. Her other hand even surreptitiously waved in celebration.

Just as the atmosphere grew increasingly ambiguous and romantic—

“My eyes… my eyes… How can I live without you…?”

A strange wail echoed from nearby.

The two women exchanged puzzled glances.

Lin Zhaoyue instinctively tried to pull her hand free from Shen Yuan’s grasp, but the other woman tightened her grip.

Shen Yuan turned her head, her voice righteous and firm.

“There’s danger ahead! I must protect you! Come, let’s go investigate!”

“If it’s dangerous, why go?” Lin Zhaoyue retorted, momentarily speechless. In her mind, she once again queried the System:

Are you sure the Will of the World hasn’t returned yet?

Correct, Host. Do whatever you need to do quickly!

She would have liked to do something, but another anguished cry rang out:

“Hue! Aperture! Depth of field! The windows to the soul!”

“If we ignore it, won’t that person keep interrupting our date?” Shen Yuan frowned.

Fine.

Lin Zhaoyue had assumed the main heroine was simply kind-hearted, never imagining this was the real reason.

Half-resisting, she allowed Shen Yuan to pull her toward the sound.

“Alright, alright, let’s go see. I want to know which lunatic is staging performance art on the beach at this hour…”

Following the sound for a few dozen meters, they quickly spotted the person in “distress.”

A woman in loose linen pants and an old, sand-covered T-shirt was kneeling on the beach, frantically digging through the sand with her hands like a crab, her posture utterly disheveled.

A professional-looking camera bag lay scattered beside her, along with an overturned tripod.

The woman appeared to be around thirty years old, her messy hair haphazardly pinned up with a pen, a few strands clinging to her sweaty, sand-streaked cheeks.

Completely absorbed in her own world, she seemed oblivious to their approach.

“My muse, window to my soul… where have you fallen asleep among these cold grains of sand? Without you, this exquisite moonlight and crashing waves lose all meaning…”

The woman murmured to herself as she frantically dug through the sand, her voice filled with inconsolable grief, yet her movements were strangely focused.

Lin Zhaoyue watched the scene, then hesitantly spoke up:

“…Are you alright? Do you need help?”

The woman’s digging paused, and she snapped her head up.

“Help? Oh! Wonderful! You’ve come at just the right time!”

She pointed to her face, then to the sand, and exclaimed in anguish:

“My eyes are lost! Somewhere around here! I was trying to capture the poetic moment when the moonlight shattered on the cresting waves, but I got too excited, moved too abruptly, and they… they abandoned me!”

Is speaking plainly going to kill you?

Lin Zhaoyue’s lips twitched. After hearing this melodramatic description, she could guess what the woman had lost.

“You mean your glasses?”

“Precisely!”

The woman slapped her thigh emphatically, her eyes gleaming with the admiration of a kindred spirit.

“A pair of ordinary black-framed glasses! But they hold my 1500-degree myopia and 150-degree astigmatism! Without them, I…”

“Enough! Do you remember roughly where you dropped them?”

Lin Zhaoyue patiently asked, “The area?”

The woman frowned, straining to recall. “Right around here… I was trying to capture the moment the moonlight hit the waves crashing against the rocks. I looked down for a second, and… it was gone! Like a scorned lover!”

Lin Zhaoyue rubbed her temples, deciding to abandon any hope of meaningful communication with this woman.

She lowered her head and began searching the general area indicated by the woman, using the moonlight to guide her.

“Zhaoyue’s always so eager to help…” Shen Yuan muttered sarcastically, but she immediately joined the search.

After a few minutes, Lin Zhaoyue’s foot struck something hard beneath the sand.

She bent down and shone her phone’s flashlight—a pair of black-framed glasses lay half-buried in the sand, the lenses covered in grit.

“Found them.”

She picked up the glasses, brushed off the sand, and handed them to the photographer.

“Ah! My eyes!”

The photographer let out a triumphant cry worthy of an operatic aria the moment she saw the glasses. She snatched them, carefully blew off the remaining sand, and quickly put them on.

The moment she slipped the glasses on, her entire demeanor shifted.

Though her clothes remained casual and her hair still disheveled, the eyes behind the lenses suddenly sharpened, radiating focus and intensity. It was as if she had instantly switched from “behavioral photographer” mode back to her professional photographer persona.

First, she habitually glanced at the distant sea and moon, adjusted her focus, and murmured a satisfied “hmm.”

Then, her gaze fell upon Lin Zhaoyue and Shen Yuan standing before her.

Her eyes narrowed slightly behind her glasses, filled with both scrutiny and admiration.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…” She circled halfway around the pair. “Didn’t I say it? A perfect composition! Flawless lighting and shadows! The clash of ice and fire, the tension between the forbidden and the alluring… It’s magnificent! A gift from the Muses themselves!”

Lin Zhaoyue shifted uncomfortably under her intense gaze, taking a step back and asking warily, “…What do you want?”

“Gratitude! To thank you for helping me recover my ‘window to the soul,’ as a reward—”

She abruptly raised the DSLR camera hanging around her neck, the lens clicking into focus as it aimed at them.

“—I’m going to take your picture!”

Take their picture?

Lin Zhaoyue frowned, instinctively about to refuse.

But at that moment, the System, which hadn’t issued her a mission in ages, suddenly spoke up:

Host, let her take the photo!