Chapter 16: The First to Leave His Mark on This Body

Chapter 16: Marking This Body First

The atmosphere in the camp snapped taut in an instant, like a stagnant pool about to boil, seething with violence ready to blow.

Not far away, Sang Mai, who had been chewing on an unlit cigarette, turned his head at the sight—especially catching Mu Ye following behind, half his body soaked through with blood—and his temples started pounding like crazy.

What the hell kind of mess is this? he thought. One after another—hugging and hating at the same time.

Cursing inwardly, Sang Mai still spat out the straw in a hurry, furrowed his brow, and strode forward, moving as if to check the wound on Mu Ye's shoulder.

After all, that blood was way too obvious—Mu Ye's hands were covered in it, plain as day in the dancing firelight.

Yun Ying, who had just been whispering to someone nearby, sucked in a sharp breath at the sight: "...Captain, what the hell happened to you? How did you get hurt like this from one trip out?"

Mu Ye's fingers clenched tightly around the blood-stained string of rosewood prayer beads. Under the weight of all those stares, he shook his head expressionlessly and forced out a flat "I'm fine."

His face, usually spotless, had gone pale with a sickly green tinge.

Lei Zheng, who came over next, swept his gaze across the group, glanced at Shu Hanqing, then zeroed in on Mu Ye's left shoulder, where blood was still steadily soaking through: "...Captain Mu, you'd better get that wound properly wrapped right now. There's still a long, hard stretch of road ahead, and your team can't afford to lose its backbone."

Mu Ye was quiet for a long beat before muttering a low "Fine."

In the suffocating chaos, Shu Hanqing was the first to let go.

Expressionless, he unwound his arms from Rong Hua's waist, didn't so much as glance at Mu Ye, and silently sidestepped into the freshly pitched tent.

Rong Hua's frame followed right on his heels, squeezing in after him.

The moment he entered the tent, Rong Hua frantically began tugging at Shu Hanqing's jacket, firing off questions about whether he was really hurt.

That flash of dependence and vulnerability Shu Hanqing had shown outside the camp was pure poison to Rong Hua—utterly intoxicating.

Especially the way Shu Hanqing's eyes, still faintly glazed with unshed tears from the intense emotional surge, stared fixedly at Rong Hua—the cold, exquisite allure in his eyes wrapped around Rong Hua like a damp, soft cloud, swallowing him whole and drowning him.

Rong Hua felt like he was sinking into a swamp he couldn't climb out of. He knew one more step meant falling into a point of no return, yet if Shu Hanqing so much as crooked a finger, he would follow willingly—and love every second of it.

But the second he thought of Mu Ye coming back to camp soaked in blood, right on Shu Hanqing's heels, Rong Hua ground his molars in fury.

Shu Hanqing had been messing around with Mu Ye behind his back again.

He'd been so good just now, painstakingly putting that farm game back exactly the way it was, then waiting at the camp entrance like a loyal dog for Shu Hanqing to return—only to have someone snatch his prize the second he turned his back. He never should've let Shu Hanqing go out alone, period.

"Did you two come across a high-level zombie on the way back?"

Shu Hanqing chucked the bloody dagger into the corner and said flatly: "No."

Rong Hua's mind raced, instantly picking up on the unusual murderous aura rolling off Shu Hanqing. He raised an eyebrow: "Then that gaping hole in Mu Ye's shoulder—you did that?"

Shu Hanqing didn't say yes, didn't say no.

The second he thought of how Mu Ye had pushed him, resentment flared. Who the hell did Mu Ye think he was?

His silence was all the answer Rong Hua needed. Rong Hua grabbed Shu Hanqing's waist and started griping: "Then why didn't you call me when you made your move? I've long been sick of his phony act. What if you couldn't handle him on your own?"

Shu Hanqing raised his eyes a fraction, taking in the snarling little wolfdog in front of him, and sounded a little helpless: "...You hate him that much?"

Rong Hua's face went stiff: "I didn't hate him this much before. But ever since I found out you used to like him, I've wanted to rip that face right off him."

This storyline had seriously gone off the rails.

According to how that crappy book was supposed to go, the world shouldn't have turned into this kind of mess at all.

Feeling Rong Hua's scorching palm clamped on his lower back, a thought—one even he thought was ridiculous—flashed through Shu Hanqing's mind.

—Rong Hua was so desperately in love with him now. When the day came that the Thunder Mark in his body was finally gone and he packed up to leave the Shengsu Squad, would Rong Hua follow him off a cliff like this too?

But thinking that far ahead was pointless right now.

After all, the Thunder Mark—the Superpower that was tightly suppressing his high-level abilities—still hadn't been fully removed from Shu Hanqing's body.

As for the plot system in his head, how much real power it had was still anyone's guess.

Once he got his peak strength back, that would be the real foundation for Shu Hanqing to flip this world upside down.

Rong Hua looked down and caught the faraway look in Shu Hanqing's eyes.

His face changed in an instant, his voice dripping with jealousy and resentment: "Were you just thinking about Mu Ye again, huh?"

Shu Hanqing: "...What are you talking about?"

Without letting him get a word in, Rong Hua threw his long arm out and yanked Shu Hanqing's whole body into his chest.

"Don't think about him. Only think about me."

He grabbed Shu Hanqing's sharp jaw, shoved forward without a word, and bit down like a madman on that red, slightly cool lower lip.

The tent instantly filled with wet, suggestive sounds.

Shu Hanqing's spine tingled, his brows knitting as he shoved hard against Rong Hua's iron chest, panting out a low rebuke: "...Stop it. We're outside."

Just past the thin canvas was the camp, where anyone could walk by at any second. Not a single sound inside would go unnoticed.

But Rong Hua's eyes went dark.

He pulled back half an inch from the wet kiss, his slender fingers twitching as he whipped out an unopened condom from his pocket like a magician.

A low, rough laugh rumbled from Rong Hua's throat, his eyes burning with excitement: "...We've never tried it outside before. I can have my vines seal this place off completely, inside and out. I promise, those people out there won't hear a single sound."

*

In the end, he caved.

Countless dark-green vines burst from the ground like a tide, sealing the entire tent shut, inside and out, without a gap.

—No entry. Outsiders keep out.

Rong Hua's arms were terrifyingly strong, locked around him like iron bands, his predatory possessiveness smothering.

Shu Hanqing was genuinely terrified of some embarrassing noise slipping out and humiliating him. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to roll over between gasps, grabbed the younger man's shoulder, and coldly ordered that he be on top.

His slender fingers traced the back of Rong Hua's neck, the fragile carotid artery hammering under his fingertips, and Shu Hanqing's own brow twitched along with it.

At times like this, the fawning, innocent act Rong Hua usually wore would disappear without a trace.

His handsome, sharply cut face went blank—cold, aloof, holding total dominance in the dark.

Until the long, drawn-out frenzy finally wound down.

Shu Hanqing was like a man dragged out of the water—completely wrecked, gasping, sprawled out on the ice-cold mat.

At this moment, his physical state presented a bizarre contrast with his cool, aloof face.

The black markings on his back writhed and convulsed crazily across his skin with each ragged breath, turning his once flawless pale back into a ruined canvas—like a brush drenched in black ink had been slashed across it in a chaotic, failed mess.

Violent and cruel black Thunder Marks covered his entire back, creeping up his slender neck to behind his ears, and spreading relentlessly down toward the sharp hip bones on the other side.

A few days ago, Shu Hanqing had made up an excuse that they were just tattoos, and that dumb dog Rong Hua had actually believed it without a second thought.

But at this moment, when Rong Hua's fingers unconsciously traced those black patterns again, they abruptly froze.

His Superpower instinctively sensed that deep within those black marks lurked an extremely terrifying residual energy—one that definitely didn't belong to Shu Hanqing.

It was an intensely unpleasant feeling.

Like a predator who had come before Rong Hua, stronger and earlier, and had already claimed this body with his brand.

At this moment, those patterns stared back at him through the thin skin, watchful and threatening.

Shu Hanqing couldn't be bothered to lift a single finger. His eyes were half-lidded, his pupils still hazy with a lingering, wet sheen of desire.

＊

The lingering vines slithered through the darkness like sticky, soft snakes, still stubbornly creeping around.

Shu Hanqing irritably raised his leg and kicked hard at the annoying vine that was trying to coil up from his ankle toward his thigh, his voice extremely hoarse: "...Are you ever gonna stop?"

His eyes half-closed, drowning in a tide of exhaustion, he failed to notice Rong Hua's dark gaze fixed on him from above—a gaze so scorching it could swallow a person whole.

Outside, dawn was just beginning to break. A faint, sickly pale glow of dawn appeared on the distant horizon.

The dull thud of combat boots crunching over gravel echoed through the camp again. They had to continue their journey.

Shu Hanqing was still half-asleep.

Before his consciousness could fully return, he could only let Rong Hua, like a hungry cub at dawn, pressing against his lips, pecking and licking tirelessly, clinging to him for ages—until Rong Hua had patiently dressed him piece by piece in his tactical gear, and only then did Shu Hanqing fully wake up.

They quickly choked down a couple bites of food with cold water, and the convoy broke camp and roared off toward their next target.

They had rested an entire night at the gas station campsite.

Yet Mu Ye, sitting in the car, still looked drained and exhausted. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot and raw, as if he'd been staring wide-eyed all night without a wink of sleep.

The wound on his left shoulder, where a dagger had been driven through, was still bloody. He hadn't let Yun Ying touch it—he'd treated and bandaged it himself.

Rong Hua had volunteered to switch to the car behind with Shu Hanqing.

In the front seat, Mu Ye's body went slightly stiff.

Through the rearview mirror, he looked deeply at Shu Hanqing, who followed Rong Hua without resistance as Rong Hua grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the other car. From start to finish, Shu Hanqing didn't look back even once.

Sang Mai, in the driver's seat, watched the two of them, then turned to look at Mu Ye's handsome but deathly pale profile in the morning light. He opened his mouth to say something comforting but couldn't find the words.

In the car behind them.

Yun Ying was sitting in the passenger seat. She'd only switched to this car in a hurry because she'd sensed the murderous, suffocating tension among the three men in the front car and wanted to get away from it.

But before the car even started moving, she turned her head and saw Rong Hua and Shu Hanqing casually push the door open and climb in, startling her badly: "Xiao Rong! Brother Shu! How did you two end up in this car as well?"

Rong Hua arched a proud eyebrow, leaning half his body back against the rear seat, his tone dripping with provocative arrogance: "What else could it be? Hanqing doesn't want to see certain people who kill his appetite."

The driver this time was an earth-type Superpowered individual from the team named Qi Zhuo, who'd long been close with Yun Ying. Though rumors were flying around the team, the two had yet to officially confirm their relationship.

Yun Ying let out an "oh," turned back around, but couldn't help sneaking a curious glance at the back seat a moment later.

What met her eyes was Shu Hanqing sprawled across the back seat, using Rong Hua's thigh as a pillow. He seemed utterly drained, deeply exhausted, one hand unconsciously clutching Rong Hua's clothes as he sank into sleep.

And Rong Hua just sat there in silence, head bowed, staring at the sleeping face of the person in his arms.

In that cramped, bumpy car, the atmosphere inexplicably turned suffocatingly intimate.

Rong Hua raised a hand, carefully shielding Shu Hanqing from the harsh sliver of morning light streaming through the window. His tender, gentle demeanor was a total contrast to the prickly, sharp-tempered kid he used to be.

That sticky, clingy vibe was enough to make anyone feel like they might melt into the air.

Yun Ying, leaning back in her front seat, rubbed her arms in discomfort, feeling goosebumps rising in droves. These two, who could each kill a man without blinking on any given day, were disgustingly clingy when it came to love.

Especially Rong Hua, that edgy little punk.