Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Gradually, everyone gathered around Jie Lin Yuan, cautiously pulling at his arms and shoulders, fearing he might do something rash. A faint halo of light fell on Wu Yin's unblinking face, then moved to his missing lower half, pausing briefly before swiftly looking away, unable to bear even half a second's gaze.

The shock was too sudden, the once jubilant joy now completely vanished. Their faces grey with defeat, they seemed still trapped in a dream. No matter how many times they'd witnessed death, they found themselves at a loss for words, unsure how to comfort this friend met by chance.

Particularly strange was the reaction of the silver-haired man to his companion's death. He anxiously scanned the faces of everyone around, scrutinizing their expressions, then dashed into the shop to check on Lao Huang with lung cancer, kicked the dead mutated corpse to see if it could revive, and even shook a Teddy dog cowering in the corner.

"Uh... Jie, you," the man opening the door asked cautiously, "what are you looking for?"

Jie Lin Yuan paused, then relaxed his grip, releasing the pitifully whining Teddy. The dog tumbled to the ground, scrambling to find a place to hide.

What am I looking for?

Looking for Wu Yin?

…What for?

Weren't the two of them just not that close, not exactly life-and-death allies?

It was nothing more than some hormonal impulses upon sight, a few kisses, some ambiguous physical contact. Their relationship, filled with deceit and concealment, couldn't even qualify as friendship.

Wu Yin's identity was unknown, his abilities unfathomable. Jie Lin Yuan didn't believe he would just die simply at the jaws of a low-level mutant.

Moreover, even if Wu Yin really met an untimely end today, it wouldn't be a bad thing for him. An enigmatic individual, Jie Lin Yuan, though lustful and indulgent, was rational at heart, never truly open and honest.

At most, he lamented the loss of a pleasing appearance.

On second thought, he didn't even feel that regret. The one who died here was just a cloned bio-synthetic body. It's very likely that Wu Yin and the other 59 test bodies of his batch were all the same type of bio-synthetic.

Now, with freedom, time, and capability at his disposal, he could wander around the major bases. Who knows, he might even encounter other parasitic test bodies with the same appearance, surely with a better temperament than Wu Yin.

Jie Lin Yuan stood quietly for a moment, then waved his hand at the others, speaking tiredly, "It's okay, he and I... only knew each other for two months, not very close, not enough to be too heartbroken."

As he spoke, his voice was almost devoid of fluctuation: "You guys are staying here for a while, right? Send a couple of people to help me move the body out."

Hearing this, the others sprang into action, rummaging through the corner for shovels, brooms, dustpans, gloves, and tongs.

Jie Lin Yuan bent down to pick up the battered half of a body from the ground. Now Wu Yin was finally docile, lying motionless in his arms, allowing Jie Lin Yuan to handle him as he wished. The body, nearly drained of blood, was light yet filthy, making a squelching sound of organs and flesh as it was dragged.

The flashlight's beam barely lasted a few seconds before the man who had been vomiting against the wall began retching again. The others painfully averted their gaze, except for Jie Lin Yuan, who, with exceptional tolerance, found a large snakeskin bag to gather Wu Yin's scattered limbs, flesh, and the contents from the mutant's mouth, dumping them all into the bag.

Before adding Wu Yin's body to the bag, he hesitated, considering whether to keep the head for collection. However, for some reason, his interest in Wu Yin's flesh had waned. After a brief pause, Jie Lin Yuan zipped up the bag and, along with his six brothers, tossed it into a burial pit they had dug and expanded for Lao Huang, now repurposed as a grave for the newcomer.

Young Akun cried the hardest, kneeling and bowing to Wu Yin, muttering apologies and thanks. In contrast, Jie Lin Yuan, having disposed of the body, returned upstairs to seriously pick through the warehouse's spoils of war.

The blood-covered Tianxia followed closely behind Jie Lin Yuan, seeming to understand that with its master gone, it needed to please a new protector. It had feasted on the mutant's remains while everyone was busy clearing the hall, possibly ingesting some of Wu Yin's body parts.

Jie Lin Yuan found a cart and began loading it with items he wanted. Turning to see Tianxia licking the blood off its mouth, he suddenly considered a possibility and quickly went to check the mouths of the border collie and golden retriever, pulling at their tongues to see if they were hiding anything.

"You didn't eat him, did you?" Jie Lin Yuan squatted and asked.

Tianxia sat innocently on the ground, looking up at him with its tail sweeping back and forth.

“……”

After a moment's eye contact, Jie Lin Yuan clicked his tongue in irritation, standing up to continue directing his five brothers in fetching items from the containers.

"You can only follow me now. Be smart from here on out; I won't pamper you like Wu Yin did."

Tianxia perked up its ears, standing close beside Jie Lin Yuan's leg.

After three hours of rummaging, they had turned the warehouse inside out. Jie Lin Yuan casually picked a few items, leaving most behind. He initially planned to take a whole case of red wine but ended up hanging just two bottles around Tianxia's neck with a rope.

The brothers didn't dare invite Jie Lin Yuan to stay, his effortless killing of mutants and the mysterious long sword making them feel he was out of their league, possibly harboring significant secrets.

Before leaving, Jie Lin Yuan suddenly remembered their purpose, turning with Tianxia and asking, "Do you know where nearby I can get cow or sheep milk? Milk powder works too, my dog is still weaning."

The brothers exchanged glances, and one of them said, "To the west, there's a beastmen kingdom in a subway station. They have those… uh…" He hesitated, cautiously watching Jie Lin Yuan's expression, "Beastmen milk slaves from wealthy families used to keep… they produce milk all year round…"

Jie Lin Yuan's appearance, derived from the preferences of the chief designer of mechanical war gods, was believed to necessitate some distinct, non-human traits. These were to consolidate and emphasize their cold-blooded cruelty, dominance, and oppressiveness on the battlefield. Ideally, just the sight of his silver hair and red eyes would be enough to send enemies fleeing.

This wasn't about the superficial preferences of the wealthy for bedroom amusement.

"Hmm," Jie Lin Yuan nodded, "Okay, thank you."

"But the beastmen kingdom doesn't welcome ordinary humans," the brother reminded. "They only accept those transformed with animal characteristics or implanted with animal genes. They wouldn't even help a normal human being eaten alive by the contaminated... Maybe your mutated dog could go in and find the milk?"

Jie Lin Yuan lowered his head, meeting Tianxia's gaze, which immediately wagged its tail to please him.

...Such a principle-less dog, not even mourning its former master for half a second, hurriedly finding a new home for itself.

Wu Yin, look at the pitiful life you led, dead without anyone grieving for you.

Back at his motorcycle, Jie Lin Yuan loaded the goods into the sidecar, put on his helmet, and couldn't help but look back, feeling a sense of unreality and suffocation in his heart, making it hard to breathe.

The road was pitch-black, with only the trees swaying in the wind, wastelands, dilapidated vehicles, and the wandering contaminated visible.

Tianxia hopped onto the motorcycle's back seat, heartlessly waiting for Jie Lin Yuan to start the engine.

Jie Lin Yuan took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, put one between his teeth. When they found these in the supermarket, the others were ecstatic, but Jie Lin Yuan had never smoked, so he just took one pack to try.

He raised his left hand, with blue electricity snaking between his index finger and thumb, sparking to light the cigarette. In the dense night, a flicker of crimson glowed intermittently as he took a drag, finding it uninteresting but not bothering to extinguish it, waiting for the cigarette to burn out.

I'll leave once the cigarette is out, Jie Lin Yuan thought, as if it was some solemn, sacred ritual that could resurrect the dead.

He mindlessly smoked three cigarettes, and it was only when he was about to light the fourth that he realized how foolish his actions were. Jie Lin Yuan threw the fourth cigarette and the entire pack to the ground, the muddy front wheel of the motorcycle rolling over them. Amidst the roar of the engine, he drove back the way he came without looking back.

……

After a simple shower in the RV for both himself and Tianxia, Jie Lin Yuan lay leisurely in the inflatable tent. Not needing much sleep, he took out the game console that Wu Yin always hogged, hunting all the animals that Wu Yin never caught, even capturing the Tiger King on the mountain and ordering it to learn to jump through fire rings in his private zoo.

Tianxia yawned, wanting to climb onto the bed but was kicked off by Jie Lin Yuan, reluctantly curling up with a small blanket at the foot of the bed to sleep.

The night was tranquil. Jie Lin Yuan lay in bed playing games for a while but soon grew bored and couldn't understand how Wu Yin could obsess over it all day long.

"Wuyin, Wuyin, always Wuyin..."

"Truly a haunting presence."

Xie Linyuan began to regret not bringing back that half of the corpse, pondering whether to dig it up again... But preservation would be too troublesome, the body would stink in a couple of days, too disgusting...

He turned restlessly in bed, sighed resignedly, and blinked his left eye to project the real-time surveillance recordings from the tent's top, rewinding through all the footage from Wuyin's return to the synthetic body till now.

"No need to obsess over it, it's just the face that I fancy after all."

In a hurry to prove something, Xie Linyuan quickly found the footage he was looking for. It was from their recent arrival at the southern camp, the sequence in the C area dormitory where they showered in order, with Wuyin still in a wheelchair, frail as a porcelain vase, the bathing task naturally falling to Xie Linyuan, the life assistant.

To be honest, at that time, Wuyin's physique, besides being clean, had nothing else notable, pale and reflective, very thin.

Xie Linyuan undid the waistband, pulled down the zipper, stripped off the last layer of clothing, letting it hang loosely over the knees, casually wiped it a couple of times, feeling utterly uninspired as he fast-forwarded the video.

He had almost recorded all of Wuyin's movements in the southern camp, and realizing this, Xie Linyuan felt like a royal historian documenting the emperor's daily life, silently lamenting that he and Wuyin had almost always been together.

Soon, he found the footage of him coaxing Wuyin to stay stable with him. Normally, his left eyeball's viewing mode mimicked a human eye, but the surveillance video offered a much broader perspective.

Xie Linyuan watched again how he exploited the vulnerabilities of this sixth sense-enhanced, cunningly beautiful man, gaining an upper hand with subtlety, and without any resistance from Wuyin, felt a rush of thrill and decisiveness.

"Indeed," Xie Linyuan thought with satisfaction, "I'm just enamored with his beauty."

"Otherwise, why would I be so leisurely watching his videos when his life was hanging in the balance...?"

Xie Linyuan skipped through several surveillance clips, and in a growing sensation, he dragged the progress bar to that rainy night when Wuyin was forced to painfully arch his neck.

The pale neck, the adam's apple moving up and down beside a striking black mole. Xie Linyuan watched this scene repeatedly, hating himself for impulsively pouncing the next second, tearing into that flesh.

If in a rational state, he would have repeatedly teased, savored, nibbled with his teeth until Wuyin broke down begging for mercy, melting into submission.

Xie Linyuan closed his eyes, stirring restlessly, his thoughts racing with imagined scenes that could have happened.

The video continued... His Highness arrived hastily, Wuyin found the chance to break free, Xie Linyuan regained clarity, Wuyin's palm pressed against his heart, causing him intense pain for a long while.

Over the heart... Xie Linyuan wondered if Wuyin's actions then had anything to do with his failed parasitic...

Soon, Xie Linyuan relaxed completely, lying on the bed with a sense of relief.

His breathing gradually became smooth, echoing inside the tent, seemingly intermingling with two different tones, one after another.

Xie Linyuan didn't pay attention, only feeling an increasing emptiness in his heart after the passion faded, and he slowly closed his eyes.

"What are you doing?"

Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out close to his ear, and Xie Linyuan's eyes snapped open in shock, sitting up abruptly, "Wuyin?"

He felt a tingling sensation on his back from the startling appearance of the elusive parasite, but oddly, Xie Linyuan saw no one in the tent. Yet, the voice had indeed sounded very close, as if whispering in his ear.

A hallucination?

Xie Linyuan thought incredulously, "Am I missing him so much that I'm having hallucinations?!"

"Xie Linyuan."

Wuyin's voice sounded again, clearly indicating his real presence, "What were you just doing?"

"Where are you?" Xie Linyuan quickly leaned over to check on Tianxia, who was sleeping on the floor; the dog seemed to have been awakened by the disturbance, stretching lazily on its blanket.

"Very nice."

Listening carefully, Wuyin's voice also seemed a bit odd, lazy and relaxed, a rare ease, "Let's do it again."

Xie Linyuan was stunned for a long time, slowly raising his hand to cover his left eye. Only then did he realize, belatedly, that his right eye was completely dark, seeing nothing.

"You, you're inside my heart?!" Xie Linyuan stood up in fright, then quickly adjusted his attire, but the next second, his right arm lost control, angrily slapping the back of his mechanical hand, making some bizarre gestures.

Xie Linyuan's expression turned rigid.

"Shall we try again?" Wuyin, still not quite accustomed, moved stiffly.

"No, not yet!" Xie Linyuan hurriedly pressed down his right wrist with his mechanical hand, "Let go of me now!"