EDEH Chapter 139

His lips suddenly hurt. For the first time, Sang Jue experienced such an “excessive” kiss—as if the other wanted to kill him, carrying a vicious intent to tear and devour.

 

The hand gripping his neck loosened, then grabbed his chin instead. The fingertips pressed so hard that the surrounding skin turned blue, with the outer edges swelling red.

 

Sang Jue wanted to grab onto something, but his cuffed hands had limitations, unconsciously grasping at air several times. Another large hand suddenly reached over, forcefully restraining his wrist so tightly that blood couldn’t flow through.

 

It seemed like plundering, yet also like violation.

 

Initially both their lips were cold, but with the storm-like invasion and ravaging, they heated up. All the blood in their bodies rushed to their heads, every nerve and cell screaming and dancing wildly.

 

From beginning to end, Sang Jue never gained initiative. All his weak whimpers were blocked between their lips and teeth.

 

He could have taken the initiative, but he didn’t.

 

It had always been like this—even when bullied, he would only get a little angry, but never thought of severing the relationship—

 

Perhaps from that first day, when he slid and knelt at the bottom of the muddy cliff slope, the violent rain blurring his vision and that dangerous gun pointed at his forehead, it was the human’s cold, proud aura and sharp jawline that were crystal clear, making him instantly infatuated.

 

So much so that he forgot the Doctor’s warning to “always be wary of others,” stupidly allowing himself to be dominated by the human. When told to ride the motorcycle, he rode it, even intimately hugging his waist and sleeping soundly against his back.

 

Now Sang Jue understood—perhaps that day was when a little monster fell for a human.

 

It was a very momentous day.

 

Perhaps from that day on, the ending was already destined.

 

His mouth seemed to be bleeding.

 

Sang Jue thought hazily—Yanji had hurt him once again.

 

He even thought he might suffocate in this kiss. Only when his breathing completely stopped was he granted freedom.

 

His lips were numb, his tongue was numb—everything was numb.

 

He slowly raised his head to meet Huo Yanji’s cold but bloodshot gaze, somewhat dazed.

 

This was the first time like this…

 

The aura around Huo Yanji was tense, carrying a silent violence that wanted to destroy something, hurt something, yet was entangled and constrained by another force, pulling back and forth, ready to tear a person in half.

 

His mouth hurt a little, but not as much as his heart.

 

Sang Jue didn’t know why it hurt, only saying: “You bit me until I bled. They’ll all know you kissed me.”

 

“So what?” Huo Yanji’s eyes were very black, unlike others who had some brown tint—they had a cold, deep feeling.

 

“…Nothing.” Sang Jue lowered his head, raising his wrists that were red from restraint. “Won’t you unlock these for me?”

 

He was still obedient, but different from past obedience—now it carried a gentle rebellion.

 

Huo Yanji took out the key, raising his hand but not moving for a long time.

 

Sang Jue slowly blinked and reached for it—he could open it himself.

 

Just as he touched the cold metal surface, Huo Yanji suddenly let go—

 

“Clatter”—the key completely fell to the ground.

 

Sang Jue was completely stunned. For a moment he felt that these handcuffs would be permanently locked on his wrists until he fell into eternal sleep.

 

Though his face was calm, his eye sockets unconsciously reddened. Sang Jue remained motionless, not daring to bend down, afraid something would drip onto that key.

 

After a long standoff, when Huo Yanji spoke again, his voice was hoarse: “Does it hurt badly?”

 

Sang Jue remained rigidly silent.

 

Huo Yanji looked at him, saying emotionlessly: “Coming back here, you’ll experience things ten thousand times more painful than this.”

 

Fine strands of hair covered Sang Jue’s lowered face. From a slightly higher angle, his slightly trembling eyelashes were distinct, each trembling arc especially clear.

 

After a while, Sang Jue crouched down. Just as his hand was about to touch the key, another hand got there first.

 

Huo Yanji knelt on one knee before him, expressionlessly picking up the key and inserting it into the handcuff lock.

 

“Click”—the handcuffs opened. Two circles of red marks were clearly visible: one from the handcuffs, one from Huo Yanji’s forceful grip just now.

 

Huo Yanji had just removed the handcuffs when a soft body threw itself into his arms.

 

He maintained his half-kneeling position, frozen in place, his hand suspended in mid-air with the handcuffs hanging from his fingertips, swaying in the breeze.

 

For Sang Jue, who had been spoiled by the Doctor since childhood, the grievances he’d experienced had reached a critical point—his surface calm could no longer be maintained.

 

Huo Yanji was the only existence he could possibly grasp onto.

 

His voice seemed to tremble slightly: “Don’t treat me like this.”

 

Even at this moment, Sang Jue maintained his consistently straightforward personality.

 

“…” Huo Yanji lowered his eyes, faintly seeing Sang Jue’s thin back. “Sang Jue, you gave me the opportunity to treat you this way.”

 

“You will belong to me.” Sang Jue held Huo Yanji tightly, as if grasping his final stubbornness. “You must belong to me.”

 

“Knock knock—” came the sound of knocking at the door.

 

Sang Jue was still unwilling to separate, but Huo Yanji had already stood up, pulling away his arms.

 

When the door opened, they were still maintaining a very close distance.

 

Only the old general had come. He seemed to ignore the wound on Sang Jue’s lips and the atmosphere between them, abruptly saying: “Yanji, make time to go to the Waste Waters.”

 

“Waste Waters?”

 

The old general hummed in acknowledgment: “The Waste Waters has developed to a point where its contamination is quite serious. The local contamination index test value has reached as high as 91. If we don’t deal with it, it’ll become the next artificial rift.”

 

This suggestion was strange—

 

At this delicate timing, under these delicate circumstances.

 

The old general paused and said: “It would also count as support for the Fifth District.”

 

The Fifth District wasn’t too far from the Waste Waters experimental area. This collapse of Rift No. 2 had also caused unrest in the Waste Waters area to some degree, severely troubling the Fifth District and making resistance difficult.

 

Huo Yanji glanced behind him—Ling Gen hadn’t followed, and there were no soldiers outside the door.

 

This meant this mission very likely had “personal motives,” or its true purpose was difficult to articulate.

 

“Specifically?”

 

The old general said: “I know you’ve always wanted to solve the Waste Waters problem and have fairly detailed plans, just delayed by recent events. How many people you want to bring, what equipment you need—it doesn’t matter.”

 

Huo Yanji said: “Why?”

 

The old general glanced at Sang Jue: “Sang Jue wants to find Dr. Anya’s remains.”

 

Huo Yanji lowered his eyes to look at the top of Sang Jue’s head, who seemed to be spacing out and not listening to their conversation.

 

“The Doctor died sixty years ago.” Never mind remains—even bones might not have been preserved.

 

Hearing those two words, Sang Jue raised his head, gently pressing his lips together.

 

Most people’s impression of Dr. Anya came from over a century ago—those remarkable achievements mostly from her first half of life. But actually, she was one of the more long-lived researchers, living to over eighty.

 

She survived the meteor season but unfortunately became completely paralyzed due to an accident, with only her eyelids and fingertips able to move.

 

This was largely unknown secret history—no one sang praises of her painful later life.

 

For a researcher, living like this was worse than death. Someone had once suggested euthanasia, which she refused. She returned to the Waste Waters experimental highlands, half-destroyed by the meteor season, spending over twenty years under the torment of radiation and illness.

 

She had left behind an old interview recording. Lying in her hospital bed, when the reporter asked what belief supported her through such torment, she used her fingertips with only weak sensation to type out a text response.

 

—My child.

 

“As far as I know, you never married or had children…”

 

Dr. Anya on the hospital bed seemed not to hear, answering on her own—

 

He is pure and flawless, most dislikes deception, yet I told him a tremendous lie… I hope to apologize in person and receive his forgiveness.

 

“…”

 

This video had poor pixels and extremely monotonous colors. Dr. Anya on the hospital bed had reached old age, but her features still bore traces of her youth.

 

Her slightly curly, deep chestnut hair had become extremely sparse. Actually, shaving it would be more convenient—sometimes when it got caught, others couldn’t help in time.

 

But the Doctor firmly refused, hoping that when her child saw her again, he would recognize her.

 

Sang Jue stood far in front of the screen, staring at the woman in the video without blinking.

 

Different from the gentle appearance he was familiar with, the paralyzed Dr. Anya couldn’t even smile. In the video, she was sickly, fragile, carrying a heavy aura of old age, as if she would shatter at a touch.

 

Sang Jue carefully reached out his hand, only touching the cold screen, then suddenly withdrew it as if electrocuted.

 

Only now did he truly feel what the past century and more meant for humans.

 

It meant a century had passed, meant countless lives had fallen, meant forgetting and countless regrets.

 

“I forgive you… Doctor.” Sang Jue lowered his head, saying very, very softly.

 

At the doorway, the old general said: “Sang Jue reached a deal with us.”

 

“Sang Jue proposed it himself, without any coaxing or inducement.” The old general paused. “As long as we find the Doctor’s remains, he’ll return to the depths and end this contamination.”

 

Huo Yanji’s tone was slightly cool as he chewed over and repeated: “He proposed it himself?”

 

“Yes.” The old general looked at him deeply. “You should understand—we’re pursuing Sang Jue not because he’s an alien species. As long as contamination can be ended, whether this person is you, me, any other person, or even any group, they can be sacrificed.”

 

Humans had always been this way—no one’s personal interests could override collective interests.

 

“So certain he’ll keep his promise?”

 

“You’ve spent the most time with Sang Jue and should understand his temperament best.” The old general sighed softly, slowly saying, “To be honest, I can’t be certain, but we also can’t control Sang Jue, can we? We can only gamble.”

 

They hadn’t failed to consider controlling Sang Jue.

 

But when they inquired of 007 about how Dr. Millie had brought Sang Jue back to the laboratory over a century ago, they received an unexpected answer: “voluntarily.”

 

007 had no video records, only audio recordings from Dr. Millie’s personal logs—

 

“I’ve been in contact with this liquid substance for seven days now, still unclear about what it is, how long it’s been here, or where it originally came from.”

 

“It gives me an eerie feeling. It seems to flow consciously. When I placed it in thickened glass containers, it easily shattered them—not by impact, no external force, but like vibrations caused by electromagnetic imbalance—it’s like a separate ‘energy field.'”

 

“The Third Research Team has been at Eye of Paradise for ten days now with abundant gains—the survey data has already exceeded expectations. I desperately wanted to bring that mysterious substance back to the research institute, yet had no way to control it. Just when I was about to give up reluctantly and mark the location to return later, it appeared in my backpack. Beyond excitement, I couldn’t help but feel chilled to the bone—

 

“It truly seems to have life. It’s drawn to me.”

 

…

 

To some extent, once Sang Jue returned to his original form, no one could control him.

 

In Dr. Millie’s accounts, no weapons could harm its original form—similar to the humanoid creatures in various rifts now, they could only be dispersed, never completely destroyed.

 

At least humanoid creatures could be contained with glass vessels, but Sang Jue couldn’t be imprisoned.

 

“This mission needs to be conducted discreetly. If residents learn you’re not in the city, it might cause greater panic.” The old general said, “The reason I chose you to accompany Sang Jue… is because I only trust you, and if necessary, only you might be able to ‘control’ Sang Jue.”

 

“You two talk more. Depart tomorrow night.”

 

The old general turned to leave. He pressed the elevator button and walked straight in. The moment the elevator doors closed, he shut his eyes and exhaled deeply.

 

When he opened them again, he was expressionless, looking at the closed elevator doors, but a trace of moisture appeared on his face full of aged wrinkles.

 

“Crack—”

 

Hearing the sound, Huo Yanji turned sideways and shouted sternly: “Sang Jue!”

 

After watching the Doctor’s video, Sang Jue had actually transformed back into dragon form and was biting down on the old computer—

 

He growled lowly, forbidding Huo Yanji to approach.

 

Yet Huo Yanji still came before him, saying heavily: “It’s not a gem. Eating it will give you diarrhea.”

 

The evil dragon had no expression to begin with. His pitch-black eyes stared at Huo Yanji, but his mouth didn’t stop, eating the computer bit by bit, as if permanently preserving that video segment.

 

But it wasn’t actually so—computers and videos weren’t genetic material, so he couldn’t replicate them.

 

“Why did you propose this deal?”

 

Sang Jue didn’t answer. Evil dragons couldn’t speak human language, and computer fragments were still in his mouth, creating continuous fine crunching sounds.

 

But Huo Yanji got his answer from those quiet black dragon eyes—

 

Sang Jue no longer liked this world.

 

He wanted to take his most beloved Doctor back to their original place and sleep forever.

 

***

---