When Wen Xin opened his eyes, it was still the middle of the night.
The moon hung high amidst sparse stars, casting shadows of swaying trees outside the window. Everything was eerily quiet.
He found himself locking eyes with a pair of startled golden pupils. Just as their owner prepared to flee, Wen Xin called out softly, stopping them in their tracks.
“I had a strange dream,” Wen Xin said thoughtfully, still feeling groggy but alert. “I dreamt that we both became ghosts and were discussing how to change the original outcome.”
Yuan Yanzhong froze mid-step but hesitated to turn back and meet Wen Xin’s gaze.
Tilting his head, Wen Xin observed Yuan Yanzhong’s awkward posture and couldn’t help but chuckle softly. In a teasing tone, he said, “Given how dangerous things are, I should thank you for keeping watch over me.”
Hearing this, Yuan Yanzhong snapped out of his guilty embarrassment. Scratching his head as he turned around, a faint blush lingered on his ears.
Wen Xin spoke earnestly, “When you’re around, I seem to feel at ease so easily.”
Lately, Wen Xin’s sleep had been shallow—he could fall asleep quickly but would wake at the slightest disturbance.
If the intruder had been anyone other than Yuan Yanzhong, even a sound five meters away would have woken him immediately.
“Mm.” Yuan Yanzhong nodded, startled, his thoughts drifting far away as the blush on his earlobes deepened.
Seeing Wen Xin reach to turn on the light, Yuan Yanzhong hurriedly shifted the topic to avoid revealing his thoughts. “I had a dream too.”
In truth, Wen Xin suspected that what he experienced wasn’t just a dream. The details of the past life had been vividly clear, leading him to an 80% certainty that what he had seen was the original future.
But hearing Yuan Yanzhong speak, Wen Xin set aside his speculations about the future for the moment.
Yuan Yanzhong didn’t typically dream—he had told Wen Xin this himself. Each time he slept, he would find himself in an endless expanse of darkness.
Curious, Wen Xin tilted his head slightly in a listening posture. “What did you dream about?”
Sitting on the bed, his fair complexion gleamed under the soft light. His slim waist bent slightly forward, the graceful curve extending smoothly from his chin to his shoulder blades.
His eyes reflected the faint glow of the white light, like shooting stars about to fall into the galaxy’s embrace, dazzling and bright.
Yuan Yanzhong met his gaze, and in mere moments, his heart, which had just calmed, began racing wildly again.
Wen Xin, puzzled, reached out and patted Yuan Yanzhong’s shoulder. “Why are you suddenly so distracted?”
As if jolted by electricity, Yuan Yanzhong averted his gaze instantly.
“Nothing,” he stammered. “I just dreamed… that I might have seen you before.”
Wen Xin raised an eyebrow, almost thinking Yuan Yanzhong had the same kind of precognitive dream. However, Yuan Yanzhong continued, “But you were very young back then.”
Momentarily forgetting his earlier awkwardness, Yuan Yanzhong cupped his hands together to form a small shape. “About this small.”
So small that he could have held him in one hand—soft, innocent, and completely unaware of his presence.
“I can see you, but others can’t. I know—you’re Mr. Ghost!”
“Mr. Ghost, Mr. Ghost…”
“Mr. Ghost, do you know a lot of things? Have you met a lot of people? I’ve never met my mom. I think it’s because of me that she left… Have you seen her? If you’ve seen her, can you tell her something for me? Dad misses her a lot, and so does my big brother. I really, really want to see her…”
The forlorn child, speaking in a soft, milky voice, buried his head in his arms, his bright eyes peeking out through a small gap, stealing glances at him.
He looked pitiful and endearing, like a little ostrich torn between curiosity and fear. Yuan Yanzhong felt a pang of affection for the child.
The boy’s house was vast, its owner rarely present. The elder sibling in the household was perpetually lost in thought with a stern expression.
Even though servants bustled along the hallways, their presence failed to bring a shred of warmth to the hollow, empty home.
The boy was neither independent like his brother nor mature like his father. He was even more sensitive than other children, often waking up from nightmares in the dead of night.
The indifference of the servants and their disdainful looks made the boy too scared to call for help, leaving him to clutch his blanket and cry silently in a corner.
He was utterly out of place in that house, like a fawn lost in a shadowy forest.
Thus, Yuan Yanzhong’s presence was a source of joy for him.
Finally, the boy had someone to keep him company. He was so happy that he eagerly shared his little games of pretend with plants with his new friend.
Time flew by in the dream, and Yuan Yanzhong seemed to stay with the boy for a long while—long enough for the child to gather the courage one day to ask why he remained in their house. Did he have an unfulfilled wish?
The boy had just learned about ghosts from a book and understood that ghosts lingered because of unfinished business. Once their wishes were granted, they would usually leave.
Though timid and yearning for companionship, the boy mustered the courage to face potential separation and asked the question.
“Mr. Ghost, why are you in my house? Do you have an unfulfilled wish?”
Yuan Yanzhong gazed at him tenderly.
The room was lavishly decorated, and the scenery outside the window was splendid. Yet in Yuan Yanzhong’s deep golden eyes, the only thing that existed was the small figure before him.
“My wish… is you,” he whispered.
Listening to Yuan Yanzhong recount his dream, Wen Xin blinked in surprise.
Just that morning, they had seen childish markings left on the walls of the Wen family’s old mansion. Now Yuan Yanzhong was dreaming about a ghostly figure names “Mr. Ghost”? The coincidence was almost too much.
Wen Xin couldn’t recall such memories, but he didn’t dismiss the possibility. “Maybe we really did meet when we were kids.”
He touched the back of his head, where a faint, nearly invisible scar remained. “A doctor once told me I might have undergone brain surgery as a child, which could have caused partial memory loss.”
However, Yuan Yanzhong couldn’t recall what happened after or the specific details of his wish.
Seeing his companion frown in frustration, Wen Xin, despite his own questions, turned to comfort him. “If you can’t remember, don’t stress over it. There are plenty of unsolved mysteries in the world. Maybe one day the answers will come to us naturally.”
Yuan Yanzhong neither affirmed nor denied Wen Xin’s reassurance. As he saw Wen Xin yawn, he turned to leave.
A soft call came from behind him.
“Mr. Ghost.”
Yuan Yanzhong froze in his tracks, turning back to look at Wen Xin. His expression was a mix of suspicion and inexplicable emotion.
“As I thought,” Wen Xin raised an eyebrow, his smile teasing but sincere. “That nickname feels even more intimate than I imagined.”
The once-proud tyrannosaur had no experience with romance. All he knew was that the moment Wen Xin spoke those words, his heartbeat quickened, pounding with vitality.
The next day, Li Yongming proceeded as planned, dispatching messengers with urgency to contact City Rose and other human factions.
For years, the First Base had carefully maintained its public facade of benevolence and leadership.
But after the battle at City G, where the dragon’s skeleton was revealed, the First Base’s pristine image was irreparably fractured, exposing a sinister crack beneath its glossy surface.
The evidence Wen Xin had in his possession was sufficient to widen that crack, nailing the First Base’s ruthlessness to the gallows for all to see.
The justification for a full-scale assault was set.
However, during initial discussions about the plan, Li Yongming had voiced some doubts. “If we want other factions to join forces against the First Base, evidence alone won’t be enough.”
Wen Xin understood this well. To convince those self-serving leaders, they’d need to offer sufficient incentives.
Fortunately, the First Base had already paid this “down payment.”
Li Yongming, puzzled by Wen Xin’s cryptic comment, asked cautiously, “What do you mean?”
Wen Xin kept it brief. “The espers.”
Li Yongming’s realization hit him instantly. He couldn’t help but sneer in contempt. “So they’re shooting themselves in the foot, aren’t they?”
Large trees attract the wind.
As the only facility capable of producing effective vaccines, the First Base was already the object of envy and greed from other factions. Many coveted the benefits vaccines brought, eager for a share of the pie.
Now, upon learning that the First Base not only had zombie vaccines but also the means to artificially create immensely powerful espers, how could the faction leaders possibly stay calm?
Wen Xin could already foresee the storm this revelation would unleash among the survivors.
Before leaving, Li Yongming turned to Wen Xin, hesitating for a moment before asking, “If the commander is still imprisoned at the First Base, won’t our plan put his life in danger?”
