Chapter 158: Take Care of You
On the way to the base, they had hunted quite a few low level zombies and they still had a few orbs left inside his dimensional space. Since Pei Ran thought that renting a place here in the central district should not be cheap, he exchanged them all for contribution points, receiving about 1000.
Since housing availability was controlled by the base, there would naturally be real estate agents. They were mostly normal people with no awakened abilities, but as they were working for the base, they looked fairly presentable. Pei Ran asked at reception and very quickly someone came to take on their case.
“There’s currently an opening on the fourth floor. The prices are all the same: 300 contribution points a month. Electricity and water is another fee. If you want to take it, you will have to pay three months of rent upfront.”
The agent speaking to them was a middle aged auntie. She looked a bit cold and distant and there was a sense of sharp barbs in her tone, making people feel a bit uncomfortable. Pei Ran headed up to the fourth floor and took a look at the empty room, which resembled a hotel room. It had one bedroom and one bathroom, which couldn’t be said to be quite big.
“Are there any other options?”
The woman leaned over slightly, the ring of keys on her waist clanging together. She lifted her eyelids and said with a rough voice that sounded as if she was a chain smoker, especially when paired with her clothes that were full of a smoky smell from all the years she has been smoking,
“Don’t bother. They are all the same size. At this time and age, do you think you can even live in your own house?”
Pei Ran didn’t want to argue with her as middle aged aunties, these kinds of beings, were quite scary from his memories. He looked over at Qu Yan, who he found was like air, silent and not speaking a word as he followed closely behind Pei Ran, and asked,
“Is this room okay? If so, I’ll rent it.”
Qu Yan nodded his head as either way, he has never objected to whatever Pei Ran has suggested.
The two of them paid the fees downstairs and then completed all the paperwork before eating a simple meal. All in all, it took about half a day.
The room was very clean, without any dust. There was even a set of blankets to match. It was easy to tell that someone was tasked to clean every day. After camping in the open for several months, Pei Ran finally felt like a living human being after seeing that big bed and laid on it, unwilling to move.
Qu Yan sat on the couch beside the bed, and with a hand holding up his jaw, he quietly stared at Pei Ran as he rolled on the bed. Faint yellow sunlight was seeping through the gaps in the window curtains, shining a ray of light into the room. It just so happened to shine right on Qu Yan’s head. As his eyes squinted into slight slivers, the tips of his hair were caught in the rays of the sun and its glow dropped onto his eyelashes. His skin was highlighted as if it held the gentle warmth of jade, but he still projected a coldness that made it hard for people to approach him.
Under this kind of lighting, dust flew and hid themselves.
Pei Ran lay on the bed, so comfortable he didn’t want to get up. He stared at the ceiling, rustled the bed sheets and then recalling there were not even a hundred points left on his card, he imperceptibly sighed,
Heading out to kill zombies had been a necessity, but now that they have time to eat and drink, even a resting place, who would be willing to go out.
He flipped over, looking sideways at Qu Yan. With half his arm lying on the bed, he hooked his fingers at Qu Yan and smiled as he asked,
“How about you look after me?”
Qu Yan hadn’t even responded yet when the system rang out and said:
Pei Ran quietly hid his face, absolutely annoyed to death by it,
“I didn’t even ask you, so why are you even responding?”
Just when he was at his most agitated state, a sudden weight dropped onto him. His chin bumped into delicate, slightly cold flesh and it was Qu Yan who had climbed into his embrace. Qu Yan said with all seriousness,
Although Pei Ran had guessed that he would answer like this, he was still very happy. His hands smoothly reached in from the bottom of Qu Yan’s shirt and lightly massaged at his tailbone area. He started to speaking out loud to himself,
“Ah, my childhood dream was to live comfortably waiting for my death and my biggest dream now is still the same, to live through life comfortably and wait for death to come.”
Although Qu Yan was getting a bit ticklish from Pei Ran’s hands, he didn’t avoid his touches at all. Instead he slid down slightly, letting Pei Ran’s hands slide up all the way under his shirt. Perhaps this signalled intimacy, signalled a lack of security, or held no deeper meaning at all. He just liked this kind of bodily touch.
Underneath Qu Yan’s appearance of having a tame character, he was full of thorns. But if there was a need, he could melt into a puddle of water. With Qu Yan initiating, this simple comforting caress suddenly changed tone. Pei Ran suddenly recalled back to the original novel. If the timeline continued as it once was, Qu Yan would become the leader of the southern base. But the young man before him didn’t seem to be like that at all.
“Take a nap. I’m going to take a shower.”
Towards what happened between men in a relationship, Pei Ran didn’t quite understand, even now. So when he saw a bit of dirt on his pants, he grabbed a set of clean clothing and prepared to head to the shower, causing the atmosphere that had been rising in sexual tension to suddenly dissipate.
Qu Yan watched him disappear behind the door and thought for the first time that a man that was too dumb was not a good thing. He brushed his bangs back up slowly, and his eyes and eyebrows that have always been covered up suddenly sharpened to an edge, one that no one would dare to stare straight at.
After an indeterminate amount of time, he lightly chuckled and stood up from the bed. He opened the bathroom door wide, stuffing himself into that already cramped space. Pei Ran had just finished washing his hair and paused in surprise at seeing him,
Splashes of water flew everywhere and Qu Yan’s thin clothing was soon wet. Tightly hugging onto his body, the transparent droplets of water followed the shape of his pale face downward and rolled by the delicate collar bone into his shirt. Paired with the calm expression on his face and that icy cold aura, it brought on some sense of seductiveness.
Pei Ran couldn’t help but take a few more glances,
“You want to shower? I’ll get out.”
And then prepared to leave when Qu Yan directly pulled him back. Qu Yan’s body pressed him against the tiles of the bathroom, and following the flow of water and the rising steam, the pair’s vision was slowly getting muddled.
Silence immediately descended.
All of a sudden, Pei Ran seemed to understand what Qu Yan wanted, but at the same time, didn’t know what he should be doing. Qu Yan stared deeply into his eyes, and brushed that dripping wet hair back before tilting his head to kiss Pei Ran. The first kiss fell on his lips, the second on his Adam’s apple, the third on his chest and then continuing downward, Qu Yan knelt on the ground……
This seemed like a familiar scene.
When they had been trapped in that tiny and cramped underground storage, in that bathroom, Qu Yan had numbly knelt down before him. With a face that was dripping with fresh blood, he was trying to do something that belittled himself.
Subconsciously, Pei Ran did not want him to continue and reached out to pull him up from the floor,
Qu Yan’s pale lips were deepening in color, turning into a brilliant red. His eyebrows slightly furrowed as his fingers grasped onto Pei Ran’s elbows. The expression on his face was stubborn and persistent as he asked confusedly in a light tone,
“Why won’t you touch me…….”
He’s already knelt on the ground like this and it still wasn’t enough?
These kinds of affairs, in Qu Yan’s eyes, were extremely disgusting and repulsive. When he was young, he would see that prostitute of a mother of his having sex with clients. The surroundings were filled with the smell of cigarette smoke, with each cry of pleasure like a rotting hand, palms grasping on depravity in all its debauchery.
If that woman hadn’t died.
If that woman was still living.
She would sell her own son for an extraordinarily high price, as after all, good looking, untouched young boys would forever always hold an attractive power.
Qu Yan tightened his grasp around Pei Ran’s neck and quietly said in his ear as if he could see through to the hearts of anyone,
“I know you don’t like men, but you’ve said, you like me…….”
He pressed against a certain place on Pei Ran’s body and then slowly slid his body down. His knees met with the floor once more as he lifted his head up to look at Pei Ran,
“I have only been like this to you…… you know?”
Only Pei Ran, only he didn’t make him feel gross or disgusting.
Even though the two of them were very intimate, Qu Yan felt that it was not enough. His possessiveness was even stronger than the bond between bone and blood, even strong enough to swallow him up; his desire was endless like the abyss, forever impossible to fill up.
Seeing him like this, Pei Ran finally left the state of mind contemplating the complicated question of whether he liked men or women. He pulled Qu Yan back up again and reached around to turn off the shower. With the overly skinny young man in his arms, he left the bathroom and dropped them both onto the bed.
Water was dripping down from their wet bodies, each droplet falling onto the bed sheets. Pei Ran’s chin was quite chiselled, and looking from the side, the outline of it was very sexy. His Adam’s apple moved as he leaned over and dropped a kiss on Qu Yan’s lips, silently comforting that young man beneath him that always had undecipherable emotions.
Qu Yan was like a drug addict getting his fix, finally sighing with the relief and satisfaction of receiving his drug of choice. He returned to his obedient character, latching onto Pei Ran’s waist as he said with a husky and seductive voice,
Pei Ran lightly used his teeth to bite him, signalling he was.
Pei Ran answered seriously and then paused his movements. He looked at Qu Yan and asked,
Qu Yan didn’t answer but instead led Pei Ran’s hand to slowly drop onto his back. There were three new wounds there, from when they had been surrounded by the high level zombies, from protecting Pei Ran.
At that time, they lived in an abandoned motel and didn’t think they would instead attract three level T4s. Qu Yan couldn’t completely control all of them and the second floor balcony was their only escape route. Afraid of heights, Pei Ran did not dare to jump down, and Qu Yan was the one to tightly grab onto him and say,
“Don’t be afraid, it won’t hurt.”
And then Pei Ran had really not gotten hurt because Qu Yan acted as padding beneath him and was the one who got stabbed by three glass shards in the back.
The only one hurt was Qu Yan.
Pei Ran had remembered these three wounds very well. He caressed the scabbing on top and then leaned down to use his tongue and lightly lick at them, baring a loving pity. Qu Yan shivered from the sensation and tightly grasped onto Pei Ran, feeling the warmth coming off his body. He lightly moaned into Pei Ran’s ear as he said,
“Don’t ask me if I like you or not. You just only need to know, in this lifetime, I am only willing to get hurt for you from the bottom of my heart, and that is enough……”
“I will always protect you.”
To like, to Qu Yan, this verb was too overly light and powerless in its meaning; it was not enough to describe his heart.
But he considered what Pei Ran gave him, this powerless and meaningless like, as something precious.
When Pei Ran lightly embraced him, Qu Yan seemed to be crying, yet there were only tiny sweat droplets on his face and not a single tear coming out of his eyes. He was moaning as he powerlessly lifted his head upwards, baring his weak and delicate neck out in the open, accepting the feeling of being overcome.
Pei Ran said his name in a low tone, and with an emotion that made it much more difficult to say out loud than before. He kissed every part of Qu Yan, every corner, every inch, his gentle temperament finally morphing into something like the primitive, vicious desire to swallow him up all the way inside himself.
Qu Yan bit down on Pei Ran’s earlobe, his voice stuttering through the bumping movements,
“Do you know……people like me are so very pitiful……”
Never seen the light, never tasted something sweet. Just with a sliver of like someone tossed out, he would take it as his precious treasure. Shown just a little, even a sliver of being good to him, he was willing to take his heart and serve it on a platter.
A poor tiny bug born and raised in the sewer pipes.
Qu Yan continued to say words that only he himself would understand,
“I had thought I was not a pitiful existence, but in reality I was……”
Pei Ran cupped his face, stared right at Qu Yan’s pair of eyes and said quietly,
“I’m here, so you are not.”
The night was slowly darkening. After they washed off, the pair on the bed were tightly intertwined with each other, neither letting go nor loosening their hold on each other. Lying on top of Pei Ran, Qu Yan had his eyes closed in a rare state of calm and quiet, and along this darkening night, the sight of Qu Yan’s three grievous wounds were slowly becoming obscured before fading into the darkness.
These wounds would also carry their loyalty to him until the end; with no hate, no fighting, they would just silently rest on his back, quiet and unmoving.
Pei Ran had been constantly vigilant for so long that now that he had a chance to relax, drowsiness suddenly washed over him. He hadn’t noticed that the person in his embrace had silently left his hold, having quietly changed his clothes and left the room.
Security at night in the base was very strict, with guards investigating every corner with each sweep of their lights, not willing to overlook any place. Every so often, the sounds of cars would pass, coming from teams of ability holders who came back after finishing their mission. However, no one noticed the shadow of an overly skinny figure in this dark of night.
Orbs could raise the levels of abilities but this was only targeted towards novices. The higher you climb, the higher your level, the more difficult it was to move forward. At best it would only be used to refill your stamina.
Only during moments between life and death would he gain greater experience and level up.
In the wilderness not far from the base, a small group of zombies were slowly gathering. But they only circled around their spots, so quiet and obedient it feels like an illusion, with none of them even letting out a scream, so they did not raise any alarms.
Qu Yan silently controlled more zombies to move, pushing his psychic ability to the absolute limit. The ability in his body was churning faster and faster, and slowly, the number of zombies began to grow and grow until the group became a thick darkness that could be seen into the horizon. On this moonless night, no end could be seen.
With a baseball cap hiding most of his face in shadows, Qu Yan tilted his head to glance at this horde of zombies. Then, like giving a theatre call, he moved his lips to say one word,
And as if to answer his narrative, under this dark night, the zombies suddenly began to explode, their flesh and blood bursting as their bodies split into pieces and fell onto the ground. A thundering sound of things dropping, sounding like a stormy rain.
Surrounding Qu Yan was the stench of blood, and he didn’t care if this terrifying scene was going to attract attention. He was in a very good mood as he stepped forward and used his psychic ability to control the crystal orbs embedded in the bloody flesh on the ground to float upwards and collected all of them into his backpack.
The next morning, Pei Ran was awoken by sparkling lights. There had been this glimmering shine piercing through his half open eyes. Furrowing his eyebrows, he pushed himself up and when he opened his tired eyes, he suddenly saw a bed full of orbs……
These things held the shimmer and glimmer of diamonds. And at this moment, someone had washed them very cleanly and spread them all out on the bed, an innumerable number of them. Paired with the sunlight coming through the cracks of the window curtains, the room was beaming like the milky way.
Pei Ran was still in a state of shock when a familiar voice rang by his ears,
Resting by the side of the bed, Qu Yan reached out to clump the rewards of the battle from yesterday night and then pushed as much as he could towards Pei Ran,
There was a lack of a depressive gloom on his face, as half of his body was on the side of the bed, as if he was waiting to be complimented. Pei Ran was dead silent for a while and then he couldn’t help himself and rubbed his face as he asked,
“You got all this? When?”
Sitting on the bed, Pei Ran’s emotions were going up and down like on a rollercoaster ride, going from shock to surprise and questioning to calm. At last, he stared at Qu Yan’s soft inky black hair, not knowing what he should even say.
Pei Ran casually put his clothes on, his hair in a slight mess, handsome but with the feeling that it was being wasted. He got off the bed and pulled Qu Yan up from the ground into his embrace. He was joking but also a bit mad as he said,
“You sleep with me and then you are even able to go out to kill zombies. Your physique and stamina’s pretty good huh.”
It was hard to tell whether Qu Yan understood or not, but when he was hugged by Pei Ran, his expression became delighted and he lurched forward in the embrace, nuzzling his chin and said,
“I’ll take care of everything for you.”
The system was like a spirit, coming in from everywhere and nowhere:
[ Promise me, don’t take it ok ]