EDEH Chapter 130

Within a day, news of Huo Yanji’s attack in the city swept through the entire city. This incident seemed to perfectly corroborate the reason for the month-long martial law—that rebels existed within the city.

 

Public discussion erupted like a boiling kettle.

 

On one hand, people worried about city security during Huo Yanji’s crisis. Troublesome agitators had always existed among residents, plus possible rebels—without Huo Yanji’s management, there would likely be no peaceful days.

 

On the other hand, many people had witnessed the explosion firsthand. Though rescue arrived in less than three minutes, many still spread word that Huo Yanji was dead.

 

A deviant in soldier’s uniform had been covered with a white sheet and carried from the car.

 

But many didn’t believe it, since rescue vehicles had gone directly to the nearest hospital—he should be undergoing emergency treatment.

 

For a time, most people in the city lost interest in work, waiting for official results.

 

But after three days of waiting, relevant departments hadn’t said a word.

 

This immediately cast a large shadow over the main city.

 

If Huo Yanji really died, everyone could imagine what would happen.

 

Would the Supreme Council try to seize power? After all, at least half the high-ranking officials had participated in or concealed the Dawn Plan. Without Huo Yanji’s suppression, would they willingly bear the blame rather than join forces with the council to turn things around?

 

There were also remaining rebel remnants. With recent focus on various construction projects, pursuit forces had been minimal. If they also knew about Huo Yanji’s situation and made a comeback, what then?

 

Next was the city’s complex power distribution. Before Huo Yanji’s incident, he had held great power, and due to his “can’t tolerate any impropriety” nature, anyone with impure motives couldn’t gain his trust, while truly pure-hearted people were few.

 

This meant as long as Huo Yanji held power, certain people would never have advancement opportunities.

 

With Huo Yanji’s incident, who knew how many among the high-ranking officials were secretly celebrating?

 

Not everyone’s sacrifice and struggle was for dawn—some only sought to grasp power and look down on all beings from above.

 

For a time, chaos emerged in the city. A small portion opposing Huo Yanji’s monopoly of power took the opportunity to cause trouble, euphemistically calling it “celebration.”

 

Of course, many Huo Yanji supporters camped outside the hospital, waiting for responses from relevant departments.

 

Some extremists even declared that if Huo Yanji died, the safe zone might as well disband with everyone surviving on their own, since most high-ranking officials had participated in and maintained the Dawn Plan—who could guarantee they wouldn’t devise the next plan harming public interests?

 

“You should go handle things.” Though Lillian couldn’t see, she seemed to sense Liao Te’s hesitation and spoke proactively.

 

Liao Te said hoarsely: “I owe the general my life. With his situation, I can’t just watch the order he maintained for years be destroyed.”

 

“I understand, he’s a good person.” Lillian said slowly: “But passionate people can never get what they wish for, often ending in tragedy.”

 

During her years struggling between clarity and confusion, Lillian had been a prayer master at District Seven’s prayer hall.

 

What she heard most daily were people’s confessions of pain, accompanied by endless crying.

 

She even felt the entire world was weeping—humans, animals, plants, earth, sky—everyone suffered, suffering was everywhere.

 

Everyone was in agony.

 

Unable to see, she often wondered if hell was nothing more than this…

 

She truly hadn’t returned to the human world.

 

“I won’t let you end in tragedy.” After a moment of silence, Liao Te said: “If you don’t want to, we can—”

 

“Liao Te, I’m returning to normal.” Lillian said softly: “This isn’t tragedy for me. I can finally wake from the nightmare.”

 

Even if the price was aging, was death.

 

After a long while, Liao Te said: “That’s good then.”

 

Lillian hummed agreement, showing her first smile ever: “I can see a bit of your outline now.”

 

Liao Te stiffened, unconsciously touching his melted, pitted face.

 

“…I’m afraid of scaring you. It’s very ugly.”

 

“I know, you’ve said it countless times.” Lillian spoke flatly: “But I want to remember your face before I die.”

 

·

 

Darkness surrounded everything.

 

Very quiet, with occasional water drops—drip… drip…

 

Huo Yanji wandered here until he saw a stone platform with dim light falling from above, its source untraceable.

 

In the light lay a youth, napping on the platform while swaying his dragon tail.

 

Huo Yanji stood beside for a long time, watching without approaching.

 

But Sang Jue on the platform woke, rubbing sleepy eyes: “Why don’t you come over?”

 

Huo Yanji still didn’t speak. He slowly walked over, sitting lightly on the platform’s edge, watching Sang Jue.

 

Sang Jue asked strangely: “Why won’t you talk?”

 

After a long time, Huo Yanji finally spoke: “Probably because you’re fake.”

 

Sang Jue settled into his embrace, tail threading between his legs to play with: “Why am I fake?”

 

Huo Yanji fell silent again.

 

Sang Jue pressed against his heart, humming softly: “I think you’re the fake one. You don’t want me anymore, so I don’t want you either.”

 

Huo Yanji asked: “Then why am I seeing you again?”

 

Sang Jue answered without thinking: “Because you missed me.”

 

Huo Yanji gently held Sang Jue’s shoulder, looking down at his hair swirl: “We’ve only been apart a month.”

 

Sang Jue seriously counted: “One day apart feels like three autumns, we’ve been separated for ninety years.”

 

Huo Yanji’s tone was flat: “Since when did you get so good with idioms?”

 

Sang Jue said proudly: “I’ve been working hard to read books.”

 

“Very good.”

 

“Will you still buy me books in the future?”

 

Huo Yanji said: “You can buy books for yourself.”

 

Sang Jue said: “But humans are hunting me, and books were created by humans.”

 

Huo Yanji said: “Change your human skin, hide. As long as you’re not discovered, you can live among people forever, switching districts every ten or twenty years, or changing skins.”

 

“But I’m very stupid. After so long I still haven’t learned how to be a proper human. What should I do?” Sang Jue said quietly: “And none of that has you in it.”

 

After a long time, a low murmur came from the dim space: “I don’t know either, Sang Jue.”

 

“I don’t know what to do either.”

 

“You really are an idiot.”

 

Sang Jue huffily threw out this sentence and disappeared.

 

Huo Yanji maintained his embracing posture, looking at his empty arms, like awakening from a long dream.

 

It was indeed a dream.

 

Consciousness rose and fell in the dream, scenes unclear. Sometimes his arms were warm, sometimes as if placed in the center of a cold pool with nothing but cold and darkness.

 

After an unknown time, Huo Yanji heard a “thud” and some light appeared before his eyes.

 

Eyelids closed for so long finally lifted heavily. His vision was blurry at first until a human silhouette emerged, meeting a pair of beautiful eyes with flashing iridescent light.

 

The hospital room was very dim with only one warm yellow lamp. The accompanying soldier lay unconscious on the floor, while Sang Jue stood far away at the foot of the bed, staring straight at him, motionless, his chest not even rising and falling.

 

“…Sang Jue, breathe.”

 

Only then did Sang Jue seem to remember, having held his breath too long. He unconsciously began breathing heavily, his thin chest rising and falling dramatically.

 

Huo Yanji struggled to prop up his body. The wound pulled painfully, but he seemed unaware, asking: “Didn’t you leave? Why did you come back?”

 

Sang Jue answered: “Came back to eat you.”

 

Though awake for only a minute, it was enough for Huo Yanji to connect events—

 

Nothing more than Ling Gen realizing ordinary methods couldn’t catch Sang Jue, so he could only gamble with him. If he could bomb Sang Jue out, all the better.

 

Huo Yanji said: “I didn’t die, you were deceived.”

 

Sang Jue turned his face away: “I still want to eat you!”

 

“How will you eat me? Here?” Huo Yanji watched Sang Jue: “Didn’t you not want me anymore?”

 

Sang Jue said: “You’re the one who doesn’t want me.”

 

Huo Yanji asked: “I’m human, how can I want you?”

 

“Not that!” Sang Jue seemed somewhat fierce. The grievances he’d never experienced with the doctor, he’d felt thoroughly during this time.

 

Huo Yanji didn’t follow his logic: “…What?”

 

Sang Jue said: “You should pragmatically coax me, make me stay, work for you. That way you wouldn’t betray humanity but could still have me. If needed, you could even coax me to go underground—

 

“I’m so stupid, I’d believe you.”

 

“…” This sounded extremely familiar, like what Huo Yanji had said to Sang Jue that night when they returned from the underground city.

 

Huo Yanji exhaled lightly: “Who said you were stupid? Aren’t you a genius?”

 

Not everyone’s lies could be discerned by Sang Jue. When Huo Yanji lied, his aura didn’t change at all—it required careful observation.

 

But Sang Jue trusted Huo Yanji and never observed carefully. Even when ‘bullied,’ he’d only get a little angry briefly.

 

“You think I’m an idiot who doesn’t know what you want to do.” Sang Jue stared at Huo Yanji, his eyes reddening with emotion: “You haven’t wanted me for a long time. I can feel it. You always say things I don’t like to hear, saying human interests are more important than me, always making me learn to pilot aircraft… you just don’t want me.”

 

“…”

 

What Sang Jue meant by “you don’t want me anymore” was completely different from what Huo Yanji understood.

 

They looked at each other for a while before Huo Yanji looked down: “How do you know I didn’t deliberately make you think that, so you’d trust and depend on me more, under my control to do anything?”

 

Sang Jue pressed his lips into a line, getting a bit dizzy from the confusion, but after understanding he got even angrier.

 

He stared expressionlessly at Huo Yanji: “If you say more things I don’t like to hear, I’ll kill him!”

 

Huo Yanji followed his pointing finger to look at the soldier on the floor.

 

He’d grown up—no longer threatening people with “I’ll eat you.”

 

Sang Jue should have had a hard time recently. Though he had no dark circles and hadn’t lost weight, he just seemed unwell—no hot three meals a day, no one to sleep with, barely able to wear clean clothes, looking like a pitiful little thing.

 

Seeing Huo Yanji looking at his big, dirty pant legs, Sang Jue turned his head away, saying coldly: “I stripped a vagrant outside the city of his clothes. I didn’t kill him.”

 

Huo Yanji asked: “When did you leave the city?”

 

Sang Jue said: “I’ve been out for half a month.”

 

Huo Yanji asked again: “…How did you get out?”

 

The supposed martial law where not even flies could escape hadn’t stopped Sang Jue at all.

 

Sang Jue didn’t hide anything, still maintaining a question-and-answer attitude with Huo Yanji: “Turned into a fish and swam out through the sewers.”

 

People watched the sewer exits and patrolled below, but who would notice a fish hiding in muddy water?

 

“Then why come back?” Huo Yanji propped himself up, saying calmly: “Standing here, I’ll definitely have to arrest you.”

 

Sang Jue refuted: “How will you arrest me? You almost died.”

 

As soon as Huo Yanji’s fingers moved, Sang Jue noticed: “I already broke the call button.”

 

Huo Yanji: “…”

 

It seemed Sang Jue had done considerable homework coming here. For the former little evil dragon who knew nothing of worldly affairs, planning things out was truly great progress.

 

Huo Yanji had already grasped the communicator at the bedside: “You can still leave now. Once I report this, the sewer route probably won’t work anymore.”

 

Sang Jue didn’t stop him: “Won’t use sewers anymore, too smelly.”

 

Huo Yanji suddenly had a feeling, realizing something: “You—”

 

“I’m going to kidnap you.” Sang Jue’s voice carried stubbornness as he stared fixedly at Huo Yanji: “If you make noise, I’ll kill any soldiers who discover us.”

 

“…”

 

“I mean what I say, I will kill them.” Sang Jue repeated: “You know that even if all the soldiers come, they might not catch me.”

 

Huo Yanji fell silent.

 

The two maintained distance throughout—Huo Yanji leaning against the headboard on an IV drip, Sang Jue standing at the foot of the bed without moving a step.

 

Past intimacy felt like another lifetime.

 

In previous reunions after long separations, Sang Jue would have already pounced into his arms.

 

But now there was wariness—also a small kind of progress.

 

**

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