Chapter 28: Let Bygones Be Bygones
The two of them, soaked through by the torrential rain, presented a picture of utter wretchedness. Their clothes were completely drenched, sticking flat to their bodies. Every step they took in their shoes squeezed out water on the spot, making a squelching sound that echoed continuously.
Yet they didn’t dare make a sound. Through the cargo container wall, Fang Yue could hear the sound of glass being frantically pounded in the driver’s cab. The zombies had not stopped their assault simply because he had vanished from their line of sight.
Fang Yue’s heart sank slightly.
If the glass were truly smashed to pieces, driving would become an exceptionally difficult endeavor. This rain marked the arrival of autumn in the Highlands, bringing one cold wave after another in close succession. Deprived of the glass’s protection, the icy wind during driving would pour down one’s throat, making every breath agonizingly painful—not to mention the prospect of running into a zombie horde along the way.
To his surprise, however, the noise ceased after a minute. It seemed the zombies had either given up on smashing the window, or—the window had already been broken through.
Even if it were the latter, that would be a problem to solve tomorrow.
At the very least, he had escaped into the cargo container and was temporarily safe, Fang Yue reasoned calmly.
“So cold…” A faint murmur drifted beside his ear from Chi Xiaoxian.
Looking down, he saw Chi Xiaoxian tightly curled into a ball, clutching his soaked clothes tightly around himself, his upper and lower teeth chattering uncontrollably.
Fang Yue opened his backpack, retrieved his spare shirt and trousers, and handed them to Chi Xiaoxian, saying, “Change out of what you’re wearing first.”
Trembling violently, Chi Xiaoxian was just about to begin stripping off his clothes when Fang Yue unearthed that bedsheet from his backpack once more, wrapping it around him and holding him close within his arms.
“This will be a bit warmer.”
“Mm…”
The bedsheet absorbed part of the moisture from his body, and Chi Xiaoxian felt a momentary return of warmth. As he worked to undo the buttons of his shirt, he happened to look up and notice that Fang Yue’s lips lacked color as well, far paler than usual.
*He must be freezing too, yet he still prioritizes taking care of me,* Chi Xiaoxian thought to himself.
He stripped off his shirt as quickly as possible, then poked his head beneath the bedsheet. Feeling for the clothing Fang Yue had handed him, a single rub revealed that it was a fleece-lined long-sleeved shirt that felt deliciously warm.
Chi Xiaoxian slipped his head through first, then used his clumsy, limply weak arms to search for the sleeves.
Grouting around like a mole inside the bedsheet for a long time, he finally prompted Fang Yue to ask uncontrollably, “All set?”
“…Not yet.”
“This long-sleeved shirt is so hard to put on,” the mole muttered in a low voice. “How about you give me a hand?”
“.”
Fang Yue reached his hand inside the bedsheet, but accidentally cupped Chi Xiaoxian’s waist directly.
The curved contour, the slightly protruding bone structure, the delicate, smooth texture of skin like congealed cream… He froze for a second, then retracted his hand as if struck by an electric shock.
Chi Xiaoxian, however, grabbed his wrist firmly, giving it a squeeze. “It’s over here.”
Stunned for a fraction of a second, Fang Yue caught Chi Xiaoxian’s arm in reverse. Reaching for the sleeve with his other hand, he stuffed Chi Xiaoxian’s arm inside, then reached through the cuff to grab Chi Xiaoxian’s hand from the inside, giving a light pull—and one sleeve was successfully put on.
When it came to the other arm, however, he couldn’t replicate the method, because he discovered that Chi Xiaoxian’s head was stuffed inside that sleeve.
He patted Chi Xiaoxian on the head in speechlessness.
Chi Xiaoxian: “?”
Watching his clueless, bewildered state, Fang Yue suddenly let out a soft chuckle—*caring for a zombie was actually quite amusing?*
After helping Chi Xiaoxian change his clothes, he rolled Chi Xiaoxian up in the bedsheet like a piece of sushi before beginning to change his own clothes.
Once dressed in dry clothes, he wrung out his and Chi Xiaoxian’s wet garments. Just as he was about to hang them on the inner handle of the cargo container door, two thunderous booms suddenly erupted against the door!
Zombies were slamming against the door!
Fang Yue quietly stepped back a few paces, sitting back down beside Chi Xiaoxian.
Even with Chi Xiaoxian sitting beside him, they could still detect his presence; their senses were impossibly sharp!
“Move a bit closer to me,” Chi Xiaoxian’s eyes exposed outside the bedsheet blinked.
Fang Yue shifted over a bit more.
Rolling across the floor, Chi Xiaoxian unrolled the bedsheet, lifted a corner, and draped it over Fang Yue.
Tucking the bedsheet tight, he wrapped Fang Yue inside as well, hugging him tightly himself.
“So nice…” he murmured involuntarily. “It’s even warmer now.”
“?”
“I mean this masks your scent better.”
Chi Xiaoxian made a series of rustling micro-movements in his arms, eventually settling into the most comfortable posture to lie flat.
Fang Yue blinked into the empty air, his arms hovering somewhat awkwardly in midair, unsure where to place them.
A moment later, he pulled the bedsheet up higher to cover Chi Xiaoxian’s bare nape, then rested his hand gently against Chi Xiaoxian’s back.
Lying in his arms, Chi Xiaoxian gradually stilled, leaving only very shallow rises and falls of breath, like an obedient feline sleeping quietly. His fine, soft hair rested against his collarbone, and from this angle, one could see the tiny whorl atop his head.
Fang Yue switched off the flashlight and closed his eyes as well.
The rain continued to clatter loudly against the roof of the cargo container, dragging the snarls outside into muffled, distant sounds.
The entire world shrank until only the darkness within this truck cab remained.
Inside the darkness were two people: himself, and Chi Xiaoxian. It felt as though only the two of them remained in this world.
The moment his tense nerves relaxed slightly, exhaustion washed over him like a tide, overwhelming his consciousness. Having driven all day, he was already thoroughly spent to begin with.
—
On the other end, however, Chi Xiaoxian’s situation grew somewhat strange.
He realized he had woken up, yet upon opening his eyes, he discovered he was slowly stepping into an unfamiliar, icy sea.
*Where was this? How did he end up here?* Chi Xiaoxian felt a surge of daze.
He wanted to look back at the shore, yet his feet walked involuntarily toward deeper waters.
Seawater submerged his ankles bit by bit, then his knees, his thighs… all the way up to his chest.
Suddenly, a wave crashed down upon him, trapping his entire self within the bone-chilling seawater in an instant, leaving him without even the strength to shiver. The icy sea bound his limbs tightly like chains.
In his vision, only a deep, gloomy blue remained, while that final tiny cluster of warmth within his chest flickered out bit by bit.
Sinking, sinking…
His fingers clawed limply toward the swaying light above his head, only to discover that his arm had turned white once more at some point.
A soft, thread-like web of white…
The edges of that white were fading rapidly, as if dissolving in the seawater.
He couldn’t help looking at his own legs—
Suddenly, he felt a warm liquid fall onto his face.
He froze for a moment, yet that liquid seemed capable of piercing straight through his skin, falling straight into his chest cavity, igniting the fire that had almost extinguished inside his chest like gasoline.
Flames surged toward his limbs. The white threads seemed to receive nourishment, growing, intertwining, and solidifying frantically, turning into a physical entity with increasingly clear edges…
Chi Xiaoxian opened his eyes abruptly.
This time, he truly opened his eyes, because he saw Fang Yue’s face and the familiar ceiling of the truck cab.
Immediately after, he began trembling violently. That rich, sweet, metallic scent filled the cramped cab almost to the point of exploding.
Every single cell in his body was surging, screaming madly, craving that scent.
It originated from Fang Yue’s wrist bone—a red liquid dripped continuously down along his palm. In Chi Xiaoxian’s eyes, the process of dripping seemed pressed in slow motion, like intoxicating poison injected drop by drop into a patient’s veins.
He struggled even more violently, the veins on his forehead bulging from frenzy and urgency, a faint red flushing beneath his eyes.
“Chi Xiaoxian, calm down!” Fang Yue growled in a low voice.
In his daze, Chi Xiaoxian realized he was completely pinned down. His hands were bound and pinned behind his back, while Fang Yue sat astride him, locking him firmly to the floor.
Chi Xiaoxian’s chest rose and fell violently, a thin layer of mist pooling in his eyes.
Immediately after, his jaw was gripped firmly and lifted upward, forcing Chi Xiaoxian to open his mouth involuntarily.
The liquid fell drop by drop into his oral cavity, and as if scalded, his body trembled uncontrollably once more.
He closed his eyes tight, trying to turn his face away.
“It doesn’t matter,” Fang Yue soothed him in a nearly coaxing tone. “Drink it.”
“You’re experiencing hypothermia—a sign of exhaustion. You need to feed.”
…
After an unknown stretch of time, Chi Xiaoxian’s state finally stabilized.
His gray eyes looked toward Fang Yue, clarity gradually returning to their depths, panting slightly as if a strand of consciousness were still submerged in what had transpired just now.
Seeing Fang Yue clean the wound with iodine and bind it up, then pull another blue glass bottle out of the medical kit, he couldn’t help asking, “What is… that?”
“Zhifang’s nutritional supplement. Do you recognize it?”
Chi Xiaoxian nodded.
“I retrieved this from the pharmaceutical factory earlier. Drinking only blood won’t do; you need to replenish all aspects of nutrition to maintain normal physiological functions.”
Chi Xiaoxian dazed for a moment; the person in Fang Yue’s words sounded not like a zombie, but like a normal human being.
Fang Yue helped Chi Xiaoxian sit up, knocked off the bottle cap, and held the bottle out to Chi Xiaoxian’s lips.
Chi Xiaoxian caught a sour, sweet, fresh scent, freezing briefly: “Lime flavor?”
“Selected for you,” Fang Yue said succinctly.
He omitted the process of individually picking out all the lime flavors from among thousands of bottles of nutritional supplements—after all, every bottle was blue, appearing identical on the outside.
Chi Xiaoxian took a sip and swallowed it whole. The lime flavor exploded in his mouth instantly, as if magic had brought an entire summer into his oral cavity out of thin air, sweeping away every trace of blood flavor.
“Better?”
“Mm.”
Fang Yue untied Chi Xiaoxian’s bound hands behind his back, saying, “Shall I tie you up in front? The blood scent can’t dissipate inside the cab; you can probably still smell it.”
Chi Xiaoxian nodded, obediently extending his hands over.
Looking at the gauze wrapped around Fang Yue’s hand, he couldn’t help saying in a low voice, “I caused you to get hurt.”
“Doesn’t count, considering I was the mastermind,” Fang Yue said flatly.
Only then did he explain the detailed situation to Chi Xiaoxian.
After Chi Xiaoxian fell asleep, Fang Yue had quickly fallen asleep as well. In the middle of the night, however, he was woken by an icy chill, discovering that Chi Xiaoxian’s body pressed against his felt freezing cold. He instinctively checked Chi Xiaoxian’s breathing.
Finding only extremely faint breaths remaining, he tried frantically to wake Chi Xiaoxian up, but Chi Xiaoxian offered zero response, as if submerged in the deepest, bottommost layer of sleep, all senses having lost their capacity for perception.
Though anxious, rationality forced Fang Yue to analyze the cause, ultimately deciding to take a risk and test this method.
“You were afraid I’d completely lose my mind, so you bound me up?”
Fang Yue nodded: “Your reaction was indeed even fiercer than I imagined. You were deliberately suppressing your nature before, weren’t you?”
Hearing his words, Chi Xiaoxian fell silent for a moment before saying softly, “I couldn’t go around biting you and turning you into a zombie too…”
“Suppressed for too long, desires will bounce back even harder,” Fang Yue said flatly. “If you need it, just tell me. I can draw a bit of blood for you periodically.”
“Don’t carry a psychological burden about it either. To put it plainly, I simply hope my experimental specimen can be transported intact to my home. Besides, the act of drawing blood itself serves as part of the experiment; I will bear the risks myself.”
Chi Xiaoxian raised his head to look at Fang Yue.
After a long pause, he blinked lightly: “So I just need to cooperate with you properly, right?”
“Mm,” Fang Yue said. “Including telling me your feelings truthfully.”
Chi Xiaoxian froze for a second, his fingers knotting tight unconsciously.
“Let bygones be bygones for what happened before,” Fang Yue stared at him and said.
“…Let bygones be bygones?”
Chi Xiaoxian repeated the phrase in a daze, as if finding it hard to comprehend.
Fang Yue nodded, then dropped a thunderous line that nearly blasted Chi Xiaoxian’s soul straight out of his body—
“According to my records, this makes the second time you’ve gotten an erection from smelling blood.”
