Chapter 503: The Thirty-First Day of Transmigrating into an Alien War Novel

Chapter 503: Day Thirty-One in the Alien War Story

An Cheng didn't press the issue. He simply sat there, looking up at An Yi, and began to pour out his heart.

He said that from the first time he saw An Yi at eight years old, he thought this little brother was unbelievably beautiful, and he wanted to protect him, to take care of him.

He said he'd known for a long time that his feelings for An Yi weren't brotherly—he would feel jealous when An Yi smiled at others, would lie awake all night whenever An Yi was upset. It was only in the past year that he'd finally figured it out.

He said he had struggled, had suffered, had tried to bury those feelings he shouldn't have, tried to go back to being just the "big brother."

But he just couldn't.

"I want to be by your side forever." He looked at An Yi. "I want to take care of you, want to protect you, want to become the most important person in your life."

An Yi watched him in silence.

His expression stayed calm the whole time. He listened to An Cheng's confessions, listened to the pain and struggle, listened to the almost desperate pleas.

The more An Cheng talked, the more bitter he got.

He'd hoped to see An Yi get angry, to see An Yi reject him, even to see An Yi's disgust—anything intense would've been better than this... calm.

This calm hurt worse than any rejection.

Because it meant An Yi just didn't care at all.

Didn't care about his pain, his struggle, his feelings.

He dropped his head, his voice so quiet it was like he was talking to himself:

"I've said everything I needed to say."

Then he raised his head, looking at An Yi, his eyes full of nothing but resolve: "But I'm not giving up."

He said: "Whether you accept it or not, no matter how you look at me, I'm not giving up."

An Yi still said nothing.

He just sat there, quietly watching An Cheng. This young man who had taken care of him, protected him, and given him all his gentleness and patience since childhood, now baring his most vulnerable heart, waiting for An Yi to stab it with his own hands.

He really had liked An Cheng before.

Had liked this "big brother," back before An Cheng's feelings changed.

Of course, even now, that was still the case.

How could he not be affected, being held so completely in someone's heart, worried about and cared for?

For the past ten years, An Cheng and An Qionglan had been the two most important people in his world.

They were family, they were loved ones, they were... what he could call his "home."

Over the past year or so, as An Cheng's feelings shifted, he'd been thinking too.

Thinking about how to handle this relationship, how to respond to these feelings, and... what he truly wanted.

After a long moment, An Yi sighed softly.

The sigh was so light, like a feather drifting down, but in the silent living room, it was jarring.

"An Cheng."

He said his name—not "brother."

An Cheng looked at him, a faint, almost pathetic glimmer of hope in his eyes.

He watched An Yi sit up straight on the sofa and lean toward him, the space between them shrinking until An Yi could see his own reflection in An Cheng's eyes, and An Cheng could see An Yi's lashes trembling.

"Do you know what 'forever' really means?"

An Yi asked suddenly, his voice so soft, like he was talking to himself, or maybe asking him.

An Cheng was caught off guard.

He looked at An Yi's face, so close to his own, at the emotions swirling in those always-calm eyes—emotions he couldn't quite read.

He leaned in even closer, until their breaths almost mixed: "To me..."

He said: "It means from this moment until the end of my life, every day, every second, being by your side."

An Yi sat back and leaned against the sofa.

The sky outside had gone completely dark. City lights poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting shifting shadows across An Yi's face.

In that light, his always-gentle eyes looked especially deep in the dark, like a bottomless lake, like an unreachable starry sky.

"Then how long can you stay by my side?"

An Yi asked, the corners of his mouth lifting into a faint smile.

An Cheng looked into his eyes and said, each word deliberate: "Forever. Until I stop breathing, until my consciousness fades, until... there's no trace of me left in this world."

Every word seemed ripped from the depths of his heart, burning hot and tasting of blood.

An Yi looked at him, and smiled.

This smile was more visible, shallow ripples of amusement spreading in his eyes—tinged with a hint of helplessness and indulgence.

For a second, An Cheng almost thought—

he'd said yes.

His heart pounded wildly, blood rushed to his head, his ears rang. He almost stood up, almost reached out to hug An Yi, almost...

But the next second, An Yi spoke up.

"That's still too short."

Too short?

An Cheng froze.

What did he mean by that?

A human life, seventy or eighty years—compared to "forever," it really wasn't long—if he could be with Xiao Yi, then even a few decades would be painfully short, heartbreakingly brief.

But An Yi's tone, An Yi's gaze, the almost sighing calmness in his voice...

Made him instinctively feel that the "short" An Yi meant and the "short" he understood weren't the same thing.

Short as a mayfly that lives and dies in a day, short as the morning dew, short as a snap of the fingers.

"Why do you say that?"

An Cheng asked without thinking, his brow furrowing slightly.

He looked at An Yi, at those eyes that gleamed almost too bright in the dark, at that face so delicate it looked almost unreal, at that calm that didn't match his age—a stillness weighed down by too much...

A vague, overwhelming dread suddenly surged in his chest.

As if something important—something he'd always overlooked, never been able to see—was suddenly taking shape in the dark, its outline coming into focus.

An Yi didn't answer.

He just turned back to look out the window, gazing at the night view, and then said softly:

"It's nothing."

Light as scattered dust.

But the unease in An Cheng's chest only kept growing.

He watched An Yi's profile, watched his faint reflection in the glass—so faint it seemed to melt into the night outside, as if it could disappear any second, as if it had never even been there.

Suddenly, images flashed through his head.

Things he'd ignored for a long time, or maybe deliberately chosen not to think about.

An Yi's endless energy, his always-perfect health, his weirdly strong strength, his unshakable confidence, his crazy speed, the stuff that just appeared and vanished without a trace...

And... Xiao Yi had never actually tried to hide his weirdness from him or their mom.

That knowledge and insight way beyond his age, that understanding of how the world really worked...

It was just that he and their mom never thought to look in that direction.