EDEH Chapter 102

As soon as Huo Yanji reached out, Sang Jue stepped back, saying stubbornly: “Speak. Can’t you understand?”

Blood had soaked through his hair, appearing especially striking against Sang Jue’s pale skin.

Sang Jue wasn’t human and wouldn’t say one thing while meaning another. His current rejection wasn’t fake—he truly didn’t want Huo Yanji to touch him.

Huo Yanji stopped, not crossing the threshold, staying within a range that was “safe” for Sang Jue.

Many words circled around and around in his throat, ultimately vanishing between his lips and teeth.

Huo Yanji sighed softly: “Sang Jue… I like you.”

Sang Jue stared at him.

Huo Yanji asked: “Can you understand?”

“I can’t understand!” Sang Jue slammed the door with a “bang.”

Unlike human partners, Sang Jue didn’t like demanding verbal expressions of love from each other, because he didn’t need confirmation. Even just through smell, just through the changes in Huo Yanji’s aura when he approached, he knew Huo Yanji liked him very much.

So the evil dragon never experienced human feelings of uncertainty. All his previous “anxiety” came from the uncertain reunion with the doctor.

Actually, there had been signs all along.

Just like how Sang Jue had never asked 007 how long he had hibernated in the aircraft, whether the doctor could still be alive when he returned home; he had also never asked what resources a not-very-large aircraft could contain that could save a planet’s human civilization.

Sang Jue was so perceptive to emotional changes that he should have noticed when the doctor didn’t answer his question “Will you wait for me to come home on the home planet?”

But he always listened to the doctor, so he deceived himself and the dragon.

He would do whatever the doctor wanted him to do, because the doctor would never hurt him, the doctor would always love him.

Just as he was certain Huo Yanji liked him, Sang Jue was also very certain the doctor loved him.

In the doctor’s lifetime, she had only told the evil dragon one lie—

She wanted Sang Jue, an evil dragon who knew nothing, to go save another distant planetary civilization, creating the illusion that he could return and reunite after going.

But in reality, Sang Jue could never go back, because what separated him from the doctor wasn’t the distance of light years, but an unbridgeable chasm of time.

There had never been any alien humanoid civilization. His home planet and the planet he was currently standing on had always been the same one.

The resources in the aircraft and 007 were the doctor’s way of leaving a trace of civilization for humanity’s uncertain future, while the evil dragon was her personal sentiment.

She coaxed the unknowing Sang Jue onto that aircraft that had no return path once launched, to drift in space for over a hundred years before landing on the same planet that had become completely different.

What exactly was the world-saving mission?

What were 007 and the doctor’s other plans?

Sang Jue knew nothing, unknowingly embarking on a path of no return.

Huo Yanji curved his finger, holding it up at the door for a long time before knocking: “Sang Jue, can I come in?”

There was no echo from inside.

Huo Yanji suddenly thought of the unclosed window—

Don’t let Sang Jue change back to his true form and fly down from such a high window, then have an attack of acrophobia halfway and fall…

Huo Yanji turned the door handle and found it wasn’t locked. Pushing the door open, the room was empty of dragons, with torn clothes floating by the bed.

His eyelid twitched as he strode toward the window. Under the false sunlight, no flying object was visible. Just then, a faint sound came from the bathroom.

Huo Yanji closed the window, blocking the feathers that were drifting out with the wind, and walked quickly over. The closer he got to the door, the slower his steps became.

He saw an evil dragon covered in black scales sitting in the bathtub with his back to the door, one wing folded at his side, the other resting on the bathtub edge, the atmosphere extremely gloomy.

“Sang Jue—” As soon as Huo Yanji called out, he noticed something wrong. “Sang Jue, let go of your wing.”

“…” The little evil dragon with his back to the human remained in a standoff for a long time, then suddenly retracted his wing. Immediately, half of the cracked bathtub crashed to the ground with a loud “bang.”

Huo Yanji: “…”

Obviously, Sang Jue had changed back to his true form as soon as he entered, thinking the bathtub could support his ‘petite’ dragon body, but ended up sitting it to pieces.

Hearing Huo Yanji come in, he tried to cover it up by using his wing to prop up half the bathtub, pretending nothing had happened.

The clumsy on-scene cover-up was exposed, and the little evil dragon let out a low roar, trying to mask his embarrassment with ferocity.

Huo Yanji’s gaze moved away from the bright red on the evil dragon’s forehead and asked: “Is your wing injured?”

The little evil dragon roared again.

A series of heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.

Huo Yanji stepped out and stopped the soldiers who had come at the sound at the door: “Nothing’s wrong. Have room service send a complete set of new movable items except the bed, and green sore medicine… forget it, deliver it yourself.”

“Yes.” The soldier didn’t hesitate and turned to leave.

Huo Yanji closed the door and instead of going to the bathroom, bent down to clean up the debris on the floor.

The bedding was completely ruined, with feathers scattered everywhere—anyone with allergies would sneeze constantly here. The torn carpet clearly showed signs of being bitten and torn apart by non-human force, as if Huo Yanji kept a giant destructive pet.

He took scissors from the drawer and carefully trimmed the carpet edges bit by bit, creating the illusion it had been cut up.

The soldier not only brought new items but also a large trash can. Huo Yanji threw all the garbage in and said: “Burn it all.”

“Yes.”

Huo Yanji took the green sore and entered the bathroom, saying before the evil dragon could roar: “I’ll leave after applying the medicine.”

The evil dragon didn’t make a sound, sitting in the bathtub without turning around.

Huo Yanji stroked the thick, long horns and applied green sore to the spot on Sang Jue’s forehead where he had removed the chip.

The wound wasn’t shallow and was still bleeding. After applying the green sore, the bleeding stopped in a short while, though it would probably take some time for the wound to heal completely.

Huo Yanji said he’d leave after applying medicine and truly didn’t linger.

But before leaving, he casually stroked the tip of the tail, which stiffened for a moment then slapped hard against the wall twice.

Fortunately, this was a small suite with good soundproofing.

Huo Yanji covered his mouth and nose with a towel and cleaned the entire room, not out of concern for contamination but because dragon-form Sang Jue would naturally have evil dragon genes that might be detected.

Then he put on gloves and began restoring the room, placing the items the soldier had brought back in their original positions one by one.

After handling everything, the morning had passed.

Sang Jue had also been sulking in the bathtub for five hours.

Huo Yanji walked to the bathroom door and said to himself: “I’m tired.”

The lightning-like horns moved slightly, but the evil dragon didn’t make a sound.

Huo Yanji continued: “Keep me company for an afternoon nap?”

Evil dragon: “Roar!”

As if refusing.

The little evil dragon looked quite large, but the soul inside was still too small to bear the suffering brought by life and death separation.

What was most difficult was that Sang Jue still didn’t know this emotion was called “sadness” or “pain.” He just felt uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, wanting to destroy everything around him to vent the gas that was about to explode in his heart.

Venting it out would make it better.

Venting it out… would it really get better?

For current humans, growing up was a process of constantly sacrificing and dedicating oneself, and reconciling with separation and death.

Anya had taught Sang Jue to grow up into a ‘human,’ but hadn’t taught him how to reconcile with negative emotions after truly having human feelings.

The word “reconciliation” didn’t exist in the evil dragon’s dictionary.

Huo Yanji continued on the previous topic: “I don’t know much about Dr. Anya, only that she once worked at the Wastewater Research Heights as deputy director, spanning the periods before and after humanity’s meteor season. She had deep research in both AI intelligence and genetics, with remarkable achievements… 005 was Dr. Anya’s work.

“According to rumors, Dr. Anya always claimed during her lifetime that she had a child, but no relevant historical materials were ever found. People assumed the child died early and the records were lost due to disasters.”

In the bathtub split in half, the evil dragon sat steadily, motionless like a statue.

“But recently, when council members were controlled in the main city, I heard another rumor from Councilman Lance.”

Huo Yanji’s eyes were dark and unclear: “It’s said that the original purpose of building the underground city wasn’t to continue human civilization.”

“According to calculations by the most intelligent AI at the time, the possibility of human continuation was minimal—only one in billions. The reason they used massive resources to build the underground city was simply because the top one percent of humans who controlled resources didn’t want to die, so they created an ideal city, trying to live out their remaining years in luxury, using the excuse that ‘only valuable humans are meaningful for civilization’s continuation’ to abandon the vast majority of humans after exploiting ordinary people’s resources.”

This statement was too shocking, but upon careful consideration, there were actually traces to follow.

They clearly could have built more crowded structures to allow more humans to survive… Don’t say there wasn’t enough time—the underground city’s construction was refined to seventy or eighty percent of the civilization’s level at that time.

But after over a hundred years, even if the underground city’s original intention was truly like this, it would be hard to find evidence. Once rumors spread, it would easily shake current survivors’ faith.

Councilman Lance initially didn’t know either. He heard his deputy chairman father casually mention: “Compared to the original council members, we’re truly great.”

After hearing this from Lance, Huo Yanji never revealed a word to others, as if he’d never heard it.

From this perspective, Huo Yanji might have no faith, otherwise his inner world should have collapsed countless times.

As the first little evil dragon to hear this secret rumor, he had no reaction, only letting out a low roar a few seconds later, as if asking what it had to do with him.

“This rumor has a second half.” Huo Yanji looked at Sang Jue’s back and said calmly: “Dr. Anya, who devoted herself to humanity’s cause and created the most intelligent AI at the time, easily learned of these people’s true intentions in creating the underground city, and was naturally angry and disappointed.”

The little evil dragon’s wings moved slightly, as if returning to the last few years on the ‘home planet,’ when Dr. Anya was often in bad moods and increasingly frequently contacted outsiders.

But when turning to face Sang Jue, she still maintained the same gentle demeanor as always.

“Dr. Anya was a firm believer in genetics and considered the portion of humanity remaining in the underground city to be the most despicable bloodline. After using AI to conduct countless simulations and learning that humanity’s chances of surviving this disaster were essentially zero, she devised a bold plan.

“—Also known as the ‘Nuwa Plan.'”

**