Chapter 77 16

Chapter 77.16

At He Lin's home, at night.

[Someone] watched He Lin silently staring at the dough in the bowl.

Li Shang explained, "I haven't finished kneading it yet."

He Lin didn't say a word, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Li Shang asked from the side, "Is the dough too wet again? It feels a bit sticky..."

He made a move to pour more dry flour into the bowl.

He Lin snatched the flour bag from his hand: "Let me handle it. The dust is dangerous too—don’t want it to explode later."

Seeing him take over, Li Shang breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to wash his hands under the faucet.

But He Lin had another idea, and he grabbed him: "Don’t wash yet. You’re covered in flour—it’ll all turn to paste in a moment." Then he called out, "Stay still!"

Li Shang stood there, unsure what method He Lin planned to use to rescue him.

The next second, He Lin pulled out his phone: "Come on, say cheese."

Li Shang: "!"

Damn it! This little brat has really crossed the line.

Li Shang’s face was cold, a vein throbbing on his forehead, his thin lips pressed together. Without any courtesy, he directly used a martial arts move, reaching out to snatch He Lin’s phone.

He Lin guarded his phone and dodged backward—he was no match for Li Shang fighting one-handed.

Li Shang stepped forward, launching a second move, reaching out toward He Lin.

He Lin turned his face aside but ultimately couldn’t avoid it. Li Shang didn’t use much force, intentionally brushing his fingertips across He Lin’s neck, leaving a few snow-white finger marks.

He Lin laughed while dodging.

Li Shang launched a few more moves at He Lin, covering the person in front of him head to toe in white.

It wasn’t until He Lin put away his phone and begged for mercy: "Stop, stop, I won’t take any more pictures," that Li Shang finally stopped and let him be.

"Stand still and don’t move," He Lin said, walking over and patting the flour off his clothes with a series of firm pats.

Li Shang: "..."

The patting from head to toe was quite painful, making him wonder if He Lin was deliberately taking the opportunity to get revenge.

Well, the flour that had been stuck to him earlier now scattered into the air from the patting.

For a moment, both of them were coughing from the dust.

He Lin held back a laugh as he looked at Li Shang. Some flour had stuck to Li Shang’s hair, as if it had been dyed silver. Even his long eyelashes were dusted white, only his pupils remaining dark.

He Lin knew he didn’t look much better himself.

He looked at Li Shang in front of him, then at himself, and a strange thought suddenly popped into He Lin’s mind: Could this be considered growing old together?

After dusting Li Shang off, He Lin finally let him go to the kitchen island to wash his hands.

.

He Lin reminded him, "Wash your face too." Before Li Shang could turn on the faucet, He Lin thought for a moment and pushed him toward the bathroom. "Why don’t you just take a shower? By the time you’re done, the dumplings will be ready."

Li Shang spread his hands: "I don’t have a change of clothes."

He Lin went to the bedroom and brought out a few items for him: "You can make do with mine for now."

He went to the bathroom, turning on the bath heater and hot water for Li Shang.

Li Shang stood in the bathroom holding the pile of clothes. The clothes were He Lin’s, and the shampoo and shower gel were He Lin’s too.

Just thinking about it made his heart race.

Li Shang was lost in thought.

The door was suddenly pushed open again by He Lin, who handed him a few clean towels: "Hurry up, or I’ll finish making the dumplings before you’re done showering."

The bathroom door closed.

Li Shang locked the door, changed into He Lin’s slippers, and began to shower.

The hot water washed away the sweat from the afternoon’s tension. Li Shang stayed under the water a bit longer, and after showering, he felt much more comfortable.

He Lin’s clothes were a bit big, and Li Shang felt somewhat baggy in them. By the time he finished drying his hair and stepped out, He Lin was indeed already cooking the dumplings. He had even cleaned the living room, which no longer looked like a snowball fight had taken place, with flour everywhere.

Li Shang glanced at the bowl placed to the side, which still contained half a bowl of dough covered with a damp cloth by He Lin. He asked He Lin, "Did you make too much dough?"

Mentioning this made He Lin want to laugh. He barely held it back: "It’s fine. I added yeast to let it rise. I’ll steam them into buns later tonight."

"Mm," Li Shang nodded upon hearing this and was about to leave when he heard He Lin casually add from behind him.

"Enough steamed buns to last me another half month..."

Li Shang paused, then hurriedly left the kitchen. Behind him, He Lin’s unrestrained laughter finally burst out.

Li Shang pretended not to hear, sitting at the dining table with a cold expression.

A moment later, steaming hot dumplings were served. He Lin placed a plate in front of him: "Try my cooking."

Li Shang asked, "What dipping sauces do you have here?"

He Lin brought him sesame oil and vinegar, and even specially brought out MSG and salt. He told Li Shang, "Let me share a secret recipe: use sesame oil with MSG and and salt as a dipping sauce. It pairs perfectly with dumplings."

Li Shang grunted in acknowledgment and began mixing his own dipping sauce. He didn’t like vinegar—if his stomach was off, anything sour would give him heartburn.

He Lin, on the other hand, loved vinegar with his dumplings, even drinking nearly half a bowl of vinegar while eating them.

Back at the base, He Lin felt that Rong Qing’s sesame oil-only dipping lacked flavor, so he specially invented this method for him. The little dog had been incredibly proud of it at the time.

Li Shang picked up a dumpling while it was still hot. Wrapped in rich sesame oil, he took just one bite, and the familiar flavor flooded his taste buds. In that instant, Li Shang was certain—it tasted exactly the same as before.

He Lin’s dumplings were a true inheritance from his mother—they were really delicious.

Every bite of dumpling carried fragments of his and He Lin’s past. Just eating them made him unconsciously reminisce about old times, and he lowered his head without thinking.

The two ate quietly facing each other. He Lin, seeing Li Shang silent, asked him, "Does it suit your taste?"

Li Shang, still lost in his memories, casually replied, "It’s really good."

He Lin thought he was still upset about the kneading incident earlier. Recalling that his own laughter had been a bit excessive, he decided to offer some comfort: "Don’t overthink it. It’s totally normal to mess up kneading dough the first time. You’ll get better with practice. I wasn’t laughing at you earlier—I just thought it was kind of amusing."

After a moment, he added, "Some people really can’t cook at all. I once knew someone who invited me over for a meal and insisted on showing off by making mushroom fried rice. He ended up undercooking it."

Li Shang wasn’t comforted by He Lin’s explanation and asked flatly, "Oh, so did you see any little people?"

He knew that eating certain undercooked mushrooms could cause hallucinations, with "seeing little people" being a common effect.

"Not those kinds of mushrooms," He Lin said, biting into a dumpling. "It wasn’t that bad, but I didn’t even need to taste it to tell it wasn’t cooked through."

Hearing this, Li Shang’s hand suddenly stilled. He remembered something.

He Lin, on a roll, didn’t notice Li Shang’s changing expression and stiffening posture. He continued on his own, "That guy didn’t boil the mushrooms first—just chopped them up and tossed them straight into the pan. The rice was almost burnt, but the mushrooms were still raw. In the end, I had to cook the meal again with the leftover ingredients. Now that’s what I call someone who can’t cook, haha."

Li Shang’s face grew paler with each word. He pressed a hand to his forehead.

*The attempt to comfort was well-intentioned, but next time, maybe don’t bother—it’s like hitting a sore spot.*

That incident… it was probably something he had done.

It was likely the first time he had asked He Lin to help out at his apartment. They had missed meal hours, and the mushrooms had been a gift from a former teammate. Not wanting to order takeout and with ingredients on hand, he decided to cook for He Lin.

At first, Rong Qing thought cooking couldn’t be that hard. But after struggling in the kitchen for a while, the rice dried out, and the mushrooms still didn’t look right—they were tough and didn’t look the way he expected.

The pan was about to smoke, so Rong Qing figured it was probably done by then.

He served the fried rice on two plates, plopped them down confidently on the table, handed He Lin a pair of chopsticks, and said coldly, "Eat."

He had never been particularly picky about food texture or taste.

Rong Qing still couldn’t remember whether he was trying to prove himself or encourage He Lin. But as He Lin stared at the fried rice with a troubled expression, he calmly sat down opposite him, picked up a bite, and was about to eat it.

He Lin, panicking, snatched the chopsticks from his hand and asked cautiously, with a hint of fear, "Wait, Captain Rong… you haven’t… cooked before, have you?"

In the silence that followed, He Lin resignedly stood up, took the "last supper" his dear Captain Rong had so carefully prepared, and went to the kitchen to salvage it, single-handedly saving his own skin.

While Rong Qing felt slightly embarrassed, he unexpectedly discovered that He Lin was quite skilled in the kitchen.

After that, He Lin started cooking for him.

Li Shang thought that maybe if they kept talking, He Lin would remember more. He continued along the same line, "Who was that person?"

He Lin answered directly, "Our captain, Rong Qing."

Even though Li Shang had braced himself somewhat and knew He Lin was recalling something, hearing the name spoken aloud by He Lin still made him shudder—whether from excitement or nervousness, he couldn’t tell.

*He remembered his name.*

He Lin didn’t notice Li Shang’s reaction and went on, "Our base’s infamous Lovecraftian chef—Captain Rong Qing, the man who could single-handedly take out the entire base with his cooking."

Li Shang’s face turned green. He really wanted to retort, *No need for the extra titles when introducing me, thanks.*

He stuffed a dumpling into his mouth to stop himself from speaking.

Wasn’t that incident during a Spring Festival when those staying at the base made dumplings together? While mixing the filling, Detachment Commander Shi asked him to fetch some seasoning, and he accidentally brought baking soda instead of salt?

It was purely an accident. He’d studied chemistry—how could he not know the difference? He was just distracted, thinking about the post-holiday training plan.

Besides, He Yuan noticed it in time, and the baking soda wasn’t added.

Everyone had comforted him back then…

Li Shang chewed his dumplings with gritted teeth.

*Those guys pretended to comfort me to my face, but behind my back, they were talking about me like this?*

He Lin continued, "He also once made me curry noodles. How should I put it… I can’t even describe it properly. It looked like something someone had just vomited." He paused. "Actually, if he wanted to kill me, he could’ve just done it directly. No need to go through the trouble of inviting me for a meal."

Li Shang remembered that incident.

Okay, that time was his fault. He really owed He Lin an apology.

He Lin had caught a cold and had a fever, resting in his dorm. Li Shang went to check on him out of kindness.

As he was about to leave, He Lin said he couldn’t taste anything and wanted to eat curry rice.

Later, back at his apartment, Li Shang found a packet of curry paste in the kitchen and decided to try making it. Since there was no rice at home, he boiled some noodles instead.

He thoughtfully added sliced sausages, packed it all in an insulated container, and brought it to He Lin’s dorm.

To encourage him, He Lin ate it all—every last bit, leaving nothing behind.

It was meant to be a gesture of care, but the result was that He Lin’s cold didn’t get better, and he ended up with three extra days of gastroenteritis.

Li Shang had always suspected the curry paste might have been expired, never considering that his cooking skills were to blame. Now, it seemed some things were impossible to deny.

Sitting in the dining room now, Li Shang couldn’t help but wonder if He Lin eating everything back then wasn’t out of encouragement but rather to protect himself—or maybe to ensure he had a way out.

At least if Li Shang hadn’t eaten any, he could’ve called an ambulance for He Lin. Otherwise, both of them might have ended up worse off.

He ate a few more dumplings.

Li Shang stared at He Lin. *Has he remembered or not? Why are some details so accurate, yet something still feels off?*

He couldn’t help probing carefully, while also trying to save face: "So your captain was just a terrible cook, but he treated you well, right? Why… why do you dislike him so much?"

At this, He Lin actually answered, "I’ve been remembering bits and pieces lately."

Li Shang looked up, ready to hear his answer.

"It’s not very clear. I keep feeling like something’s weird. The dreams are fragmented, and I can’t connect the dots myself. Maybe because they’re disjointed, I keep having nightmares over and over." He Lin paused here, putting down his chopsticks and sitting up straight. "I hope someone I trust can help me make sense of these things. And that person—it has to be you, since you were with me at Tianning Base."

Hearing this, Li Shang also set down his chopsticks and straightened up. Suppressing the slight stir of emotion in his heart, he felt both touched that He Lin saw him as someone trustworthy and happy that his memory was showing more signs of returning. But seeing the rare confusion on He Lin’s face, he grew serious.

"I suspect my captain…" He Lin said to Li Shang with dead seriousness, "wanted me dead."

The words hit like a bolt of lightning. Li Shang’s heart skipped a beat, the earlier flutter vanishing instantly. His pupils contracted sharply, and he was so shocked his lips started trembling.

He wondered if he had misheard and asked again, "What did you say?"

"Not like the joke earlier—I’m serious," He Lin repeated with extra gravity. "I don’t know if I did something to offend him, or if there was some other reason."

He Lin had pondered and searched for a long time before arriving at this conclusion.

Once he realized this, he probably identified the crux of the problem.

Why he inexplicably disliked that person, why he alone had forgotten that person, why his aversion was so intense that just hearing his name would cause him to vomit blood from stress.

Perhaps it was because that person wanted him dead.

He wasn’t entirely sure of this answer, but he had no other better or more reasonable explanation.

Thinking this way made him feel wronged, heartbroken, and confused.

Yet he simply couldn’t find a more plausible answer.

Li Shang also seemed stunned by this answer. "No, that can’t be…" he said, his voice trembling.

Faced with Li Shang’s stunned expression, He Lin didn’t think much of it, treating it as a normal reaction, and continued to explain, "I know this idea doesn’t make logical sense, and it doesn’t align with the base’s regulations, but I can’t shake the feeling that my captain might not have wanted me to survive."

"That night in the duty room, when I was having a nightmare, it was you who woke me up. In that dream, I was reliving the prisoner abuse training—he was holding my head underwater for a long time, and I almost died. And it wasn’t just that one time. There were others…"

Lost in thought, He Lin completely failed to notice that Li Shang, sitting across from him, had turned as pale as a ghost.

He pointed to his own head and said, "I made it through just because I’m resilient. With injuries like these, if I’d been even slightly unlucky, I would’ve died for sure. After I returned, during my recovery, my captain hardly ever showed up. He was deliberately avoiding me—he even blocked my number. He was absent from my discharge ceremony, too. But he was at the base that day, with no training or missions scheduled."

He Lin laid out his case seriously, with logic and evidence. From his perspective, it all made perfect sense.

But every word he spoke felt like an ice pick stabbing into Li Shang’s heart, making his limbs go cold and his blood ran cold.

Every dumpling he’d eaten seemed poisoned, with countless hands reaching out from within, tearing at his stomach and intestines. Suddenly, Li Shang’s stomach churned violently, and a sharp pain shot through him.

That scene reappeared vividly before his eyes.

The voice carried by the wind seemed to bypass his ears and plunge directly into his brain, instantly shattering his world and sending him spiraling into an abyss.

"Rong Qing, you’re too late!"

Li Shang couldn’t speak or breathe. Darkness flickered before his eyes, and every joint in his body creaked from tension.

At that point, Li Shang could no longer hold on. He staggered to his feet, stumbling toward the bathroom—he still remembered where it was.

As soon as he reached the toilet, he lifted the lid and began to vomit.

His entire stomach felt as if it had been turned inside out by a hand, constantly squeezed and twisted. The pain was excruciating, and the spasms were so violent he couldn’t suppress them even by pushing down. Under the intense pain, his heartbeat accelerated in sync with the contractions of his stomach. Li Shang gasped for breath, collapsed to his knees, completely broken.

He knelt on the floor, vomiting until there was nothing left in his stomach, and then continued to dry heave.

He Lin didn’t understand what was happening to Li Shang. One moment they were chatting and eating normally, and the next, Li Shang seemed to have lost his soul and suddenly rushed off to vomit.

The bathroom door was closed but not locked. He Lin stood outside, hesitating whether to go in. His hand was already on the doorknob, but when he heard the sounds from inside, he held back.

Someone as proud as Li Shang would never want to show his vulnerable side to others.

Thinking this, He Lin turned around to pour a glass of warm water.

By the time he returned, Li Shang had opened the door, having cleaned up a bit.

He pressed one forearm against his stomach, and He Lin supported him.

Li Shang returned to the dining table without a word.

His hands were still trembling as he accepted the warm water He Lin handed him.

He Lin stood beside him, at a loss, unsure how to break the silence.

Though shaking all over from pain, Li Shang gritted his teeth and changed the subject.

He picked up the previous topic, forcing himself to speak to He Lin: "Your dream isn’t accurate. I remember the base’s capture and interrogation training was harsh, but as a captain, his biggest fear was something happening to his team members. You must’ve remembered wrong."

Seeing how unwell Li Shang was, He Lin initially didn’t want to continue discussing the matter. But since they’d already broached the subject, he felt the need to clarify things, to prove he wasn’t just venting without cause.

"Actually, we weren’t supposed to go through that ordeal. During the capture and interrogation class, Long Gu was away on a special mission, and another instructor took over. When he returned, he reviewed the footage and insisted that instructor had gone too easy on us, that the training wasn’t rigorous enough. He had the leadership gather new recruits from several teams for an intensive boot camp. They took us hundreds of kilometers away to a frozen wasteland and put us through a full week of capture and interrogation training, along with various assessments."

Li Shang took a deep breath to suppress the pain in his body and spoke with difficulty: "That matches what I know, but with so many people present, he wouldn’t have singled out any one trainee during such an assessment…"

In the past, he could tolerate He Lin’s remarks, at most viewing it through a strange lens.

But this time, it was simply too far-fetched. He Lin could question his training methods, but he couldn’t doubt his care for him. That was his bottom line.

Li Shang’s body was barely holding up, but he couldn’t swallow this injustice. He had to make things clear to He Lin.

Otherwise, he would die unsettled.

He Lin, however, still remembered the near-death agony from his dream: "When I was a kid, I once fell into a frozen lake. I probably have some PTSD—a fear of water. He was clearly targeting me. He specifically switched positions with another instructor and kept pushing my head underwater. I almost died…"

"Is that so…" Li Shang pressed hard against the spasms in his abdomen, forcing himself to sit up straight as he continued rationally analyzing, "I haven’t heard about this. If he had gone too far, it would’ve been impossible to keep it under wraps. If you were in danger, at the very least, medics would’ve been called."

Li Shang’s analysis was more reasonable. He Lin tried hard to recall what happened afterward—whether medical teams had been alerted.

But he couldn’t remember. All he could recall was the endless feeling of suffocation. Just thinking about it made his head ache and his chest feel tight and uncomfortable, as if he’d forgotten how to breathe: "Maybe I was just lucky. I don’t remember the exact timing, but I’m sure it went way beyond the training duration. It felt exceptionally long…"

Bearing the intense pain, Li Shang continued: "These assessments are conducted openly, with at least two other instructors present. How could he have extended the time on his own? Could you be mixing up this memory with another?"

He Lin couldn’t recall the specifics, but he knew it was the water torture—constant drowning, being pulled out only to be forced to vomit water by strikes to the abdomen, repeated as long as the victim didn’t drown to death.

This torment could last an entire day.

Sometimes they’d even hang people upside down and immerse them in water.

You’d want to die but couldn’t—hence the name "water hell."

And this was just one of the many torments He Lin had endured. Li Shang didn’t resent He Lin for saying these things.

His heart went out to him.

He even wanted to hug his poor kid.

Sitting at the table, Li Shang felt cold sweat trickling down his temples. He looked at He Lin, his eyes welling up. But he couldn’t outright dismiss He Lin’s claims. He could only guide him, letting him reflect on the past and identify the inconsistencies himself. That way, he could help resolve He Lin’s internal conflict without hurting or triggering him.

He Lin thought it over for a moment. Though Li Shang’s words differed from what he’d experienced in his dream, he admitted: "Your analysis does make more sense."

Li Shang looked at him and concluded: "So, you might have been wrong about your captain."