Chapter 46: Worldline Restarting…

Chapter 46: Worldline Restarting…

In the previous life, it wasn't just Mu Ye's hot-and-cold attitude and unreadable demeanor, but also his decision to disband the team, that finally broke Shu Hanqing's long-suppressed anger. He had a falling out with him, and against everyone's advice, went off on his own.

After drifting from place to place, Shu Hanqing ended up at the Central Base with nothing at all.

In the inner city where space was at a premium, that was the lowest point of his life—until Lei Zheng took him in.

From then on, Shu Hanqing started working under Lei Zheng.

Not long after, he naturally became Lei Zheng's lover.

Lei Zheng was a man of ambition and cunning. He never shied away from being seen together in public, keeping Shu Hanqing close, teaching him how to hold and aim a gun.

In the tangled, cutthroat politics of the Central Base—where it was dog-eat-dog—Lei Zheng also brought him along, teaching him how to set traps. Through constant exposure, he inevitably became just like them.

He became paranoid and hyper-vigilant. He knew all too well that to survive in this snake pit, without a cold heart and sharp eyes, he couldn't keep his subordinates in line.

As time went on, Shu Hanqing forced himself into becoming a half-assed schemer, seeing everyone as having ulterior motives.

Sometimes, when Shu Hanqing would gravely lay out for Lei Zheng which high-ranking official to be wary of or which captain to guard against, Lei Zheng would always wear that effortless, in-control look of his, lazily resting his chin on his hand, watching him with a knowing look, and nodding in agreement.

But Shu Hanqing felt that Lei Zheng wasn't taking any of it to heart—that look was clearly one of watching a self-important child.

His pride stung, and he shut his mouth, refusing to say more.

But then Lei Zheng would smile and lean over, scooping him up entirely, pressing him firmly onto his thigh, kissing the tightly pressed corner of Shu Hanqing's lips and coaxing: "Baby, tell me more. I want to hear who else in this base is plotting against me."

Shu Hanqing felt humiliated, and from then on, he stopped sharing his so-called sharp insights.

Lei Zheng never took his words seriously at all—he was simply enjoying the twisted pleasure of playing with his little canary.

As for where they first got together, the setting wasn't exactly classy—it was in Lei Zheng's office.

In fact, long before they actually ended up in bed together, the tension and unspoken attraction between them had already been simmering for far too long.

Shu Hanqing was perceptive. From the very beginning, he could sense the gaze Lei Zheng cast upon him—lingering on his skin, heavy with sexual intent.

Lei Zheng was a pro at this. His gaze roamed invasively from Shu Hanqing's face downward, lingering on his collarbones and waist.

He didn't rush to make a move, as if waiting for Shu Hanqing to walk right into his trap.

And at that time, Shu Hanqing had to admit—he was genuinely attracted to Lei Zheng.

A man—especially someone like Lei Zheng, in the prime of his life, wielding power and status—when he openly shows someone special attention and protection, if he were a respected elder, you could fool yourself into thinking it was brotherly care.

But Lei Zheng was not that.

Every time Lei Zheng looked at him, it was obvious he was thinking about getting him into bed.

So Shu Hanqing just waited—for Lei Zheng to finally make a move.

That time, Lei Zheng was sitting in the leather executive chair behind his desk, watching Shu Hanqing tidy up the mountain of papers on the desk.

Sunlight slanted through the window, lighting up dust motes in the air. Whether it was some movement Shu Hanqing made while flipping through the papers, or the slim outline of his back through his shirt as he bent over, something suddenly turned Lei Zheng on.

Lei Zheng's gaze darkened. He got up, came over, and hooked his arm around Shu Hanqing's waist from behind.

"You look so sexy like this."

Shu Hanqing was truly innocent back then. He thought about putting up a little resistance, but the next second, he was suddenly flipped over and pinned to the desk. Kisses came down thick and fast, burning him up. Shame and embarrassment nearly swallowed him whole.

Lei Zheng was a top-tier lightning superpowered individual—one in a million. His palms seemed to carry bioelectricity.

His hand moved down, roughly sliding beneath the hem of the shirt, roaming over Shu Hanqing's most sensitive waist and tailbone.

The shirt was pushed up to his abdomen without a shred of mercy, revealing an expanse of bare back—flawless as fine jade—heaving violently with startled gasps.

Lei Zheng, relying on Shu Hanqing's complete trust in him, held him up, preventing those weak knees from giving out entirely.

After that first taste of addictive pleasure, things spiraled completely out of control.

Whenever Shu Hanqing sat at the desk handling official matters, Lei Zheng would come over, harassing him endlessly, utterly wicked.

But Shu Hanqing genuinely enjoyed it.

He enjoyed it so much that whenever Lei Zheng murmured a few low, husky "baby"s in his ear, that pleasure—like lightning superpower piercing through his skin, an overload of numbing ecstasy—would shatter his rationality, leaving Shu Hanqing with tears of physiological response at the corners of his eyes, limply wrapping his arms around Lei Zheng's neck, yielding and cooperating with whatever was asked of him.

In short, the moment Shu Hanqing nodded in that bewitched state, Lei Zheng never again gave him the chance to climb off of him in all the days that followed.

Not long after, Shu Hanqing unexpectedly ran into Mu Ye at the base.

He looked much more weathered. The moment they met, he said he had been searching for Shu Hanqing for a long time, hoping Shu Hanqing would leave with him, promising he would never disband the team again.

Shu Hanqing stood in place, silent for a long moment: "...Since I've already left, there's no need for me to go back. My life is good now."

He didn't want to look back. At that time, Shu Hanqing was holding onto a breath of foul air he couldn't spit out.

On one hand, he couldn't accept that all those years of fervent feelings, all those times he had swallowed his pride, had ultimately only earned him Mu Ye's flippant word: disband.

On the other hand, his pitiful self-esteem was running rampant. He thought he should be living even better than Mu Ye could imagine—he wanted to climb higher, high enough to look down on him, to make Mu Ye spend the rest of his life drowning in regret and pain over losing him.

Thinking back on it now, that mindset was a bit childish.

But it was entirely human nature. Just like any couple that parted without peace, after burning bridges, it's nearly impossible to genuinely wish the other well without any lingering resentment.

Shu Hanqing was also a flesh-and-blood mortal, not some magnanimous saint.

Lei Zheng's intelligence network was impeccable. When he learned that Shu Hanqing had met Mu Ye in private, even if he didn't say a word about it, jealousy churned within him.

That night, Lei Zheng wore a dark expression, pressing Shu Hanqing beneath him, gripping his chin: "The way you looked at that little captain of yours... what, you still like him?"

Shu Hanqing was being handled roughly, and he squirmed uncomfortably beneath the man. In his view at the time, he and Lei Zheng were nothing more than bed partners who had clicked—each taking what they needed—and neither had any right to pry into the other's past.

So he shot back defiantly: "What about it? Is that not allowed?"

Lei Zheng said: "Too bad. He came all this way escorting Rong Hua into the base. Looks like you're out of luck."

Shu Hanqing didn't understand what his chances had to do with Rong Hua. He was falling apart under Lei Zheng's teasingly light touch, and his body and soul both screamed in dissatisfaction at that maddening, surface-level stimulation.

Amidst the chaotic gasps, he gave up on himself and reached out to hook Lei Zheng's waist.

Lei Zheng let out a cold laugh, his large palm pressing down, firmly restraining those restless, kicking long legs.

Lei Zheng was ruthless to the bone, both in bed and out of it. His innate ferocity, his masculine charisma radiating within the confines of that narrow bed, was like a drug that clouded the mind.

That night, Lei Zheng worked him over brutally, nearly costing him half his life.

After that, Lei Zheng seemed to have something stuck in his craw, always picking fights and stirring up trouble. He'd keep dropping Mu Ye and Rong Hua's names around Shu Hanqing, needling him: "Rong Hua's pretty easy on the eyes, and his superpower's rare too. If I were Mu Ye, I'd pick Rong Hua, no question."

Shu Hanqing hadn't even thought of it that way. Back when he was in the Shengsu Squad, he'd never picked up on any spark between them, but Lei Zheng's smug, know-it-all look got Shu Hanqing second-guessing himself.

Could Mu Ye really have come to the Central Base for Rong Hua? He'd never even thought about coming here before.

Lei Zheng warned Shu Hanqing not to get any crazy ideas, and even went and took his ID badge.

In the Central Base's rigid hierarchy, that badge was the only way to get into the inner city or move resources—basically a pre-apocalypse ID.

Things were tense between them during that period, and it seemed unlikely they'd get back to the honeymoon phase. Then Shu Hanqing overheard a conversation between Lei Zheng and someone else.

"Why are you so concerned about that long-lost son the Rong family just got back? You keep going over there yourself," the other person said with puzzled teasing. "What, trying to poach him? But don't you already have your best man by your side? Isn't that enough for you?"

From a distance, Lei Zheng's voice drifted over: "...They're different. They're not even close."

Back then, Rong Hua was the genius everyone at the Central Base couldn't stop praising—the star of the moment, untouchable.

He came to see Shu Hanqing once on his own, but after Lei Zheng's little digs, Shu Hanqing didn't want anything to do with him.

Shu Hanqing didn't know then that Lei Zheng and Rong Hua went way back to childhood, which was why Lei Zheng quietly kept an eye on him.

All he knew was that those casual words—"not even close"—had him lying awake half the night.

In the dead of night, Lei Zheng lay on his right side, breathing slow and even, dead to the world.

Moonlight from the floor-to-ceiling window streamed in, falling across Lei Zheng's chiseled face.

Shu Hanqing stared at that face, his hand itching, wanting nothing more than to slap him hard, shake him awake, and force him to explain what "not even close" really meant.

But he held back.

Shu Hanqing quietly sat up, threw on a coat, and walked barefoot to the cold, moonlit balcony.

The tip of his cigarette glowed in the dark, smoke curling upward, and he chain-smoked until the ground was littered with butts.

The bitter, harsh smoke burned down his throat into his lungs, leaving only a sour taste on his tongue. What was the point?

Shu Hanqing's mind churned, dissecting every word Lei Zheng had said that day, working himself into a frenzy.

He realized then that the way Lei Zheng humored him had always been nothing more than treating him like a plaything.

Lei Zheng allowed him to run around in a cage, allowed him to throw a fit, allowed him to act spoiled—but would never let him escape his grasp.

That was the freedom Lei Zheng granted him.

Not one inch more.

And so, Shu Hanqing grew a rebellious streak.

At that time, the Central Base was in the midst of a major purge in the military and political ranks, with several core leadership factions getting a bloody shake-up. Lei Zheng was riding high, poised to climb even higher and plant himself firmly at the top of power.

Driven by that bone-deep stubbornness, Shu Hanqing secretly made contact with Lei Zheng's greatest rival, Jiang Gu.

During that period, Mu Ye somehow got wind of it and came looking for him several times, but Shu Hanqing ignored him every time.

Finally, he decided to go have one last talk with that man and make a clean break.

But when Lei Zheng learned of it, he was uncharacteristically gentle, even straightening Shu Hanqing's collar for him. His tone was soft and gentle as he said quietly, "When you've had your fun, come back early."

That tolerant attitude, as if watching a kitten or puppy act up in the palm of his hand, irritated Shu Hanqing to no end.

If you need something from someone, you're under their thumb.

Shu Hanqing started pushing his power to the breaking point, punishing himself, no matter the cost. In less than a year, his rank skyrocketed, on the verge of breaking through to the formidable Blue level.

Not long after that, he received a top-secret mission from the higher-ups. To keep people from forming their own cliques, any registered superpowered individual could be assigned tasks.

Shu Hanqing, still in a huff with Lei Zheng, didn't tell him about the mission.

The base's internal conflict finally came to a head. Orders came down from above: secretly eliminate the traitors on the purge list.

Shu Hanqing was tasked with leading a team to surround and wipe out a group of fugitives who were making a desperate run for it, and Rong Hua was among them.

Rong Hua had always resented his powerful father. During this internal turmoil, it was said these fugitives had stolen the Central Base's most classified secrets and planned to cross the wasteland overnight, defecting to one of the other ten major bases.

When Shu Hanqing heard Rong Hua was among them, he swapped positions with one of Jiang Gu's men and took up guard at the first checkpoint.

He figured he'd just let Rong Hua slip through.

The sky had fully darkened.

A pale, oppressive moon slowly climbed above the treetops, casting cold light onto a derelict factory not far away.

In the darkness, the ruins stood in deathly silence, like a beast lurking in the shadows.

Shu Hanqing stood downwind, his military uniform different from the men under him—his fabric gleamed with a cold, dark blue in the moonlight, while his subordinates were all in inconspicuous black.

A biting wind howled across the open field.

A sharp-eyed subordinate quickly handed him a black windbreaker issued by the base, saying quietly, "Sir, the wind's strong at night, too cold. Please put it on."

The loose black coat draped over his tall, straight frame, its hem fluttering in the night breeze.

Under the cover of heavy darkness, that hint of blue was completely hidden, blending him in with the rest of his men.

But no one expected that this top-secret operation would leak somehow, and another group suddenly showed up.

Shu Hanqing was on the outer defensive perimeter when an ambush struck from behind.

The attack came too fast, too vicious. Facing overwhelming force, Shu Hanqing didn't even have time to order a retreat, and he couldn't see who the attacker lurking in the shadows was.

He only managed to shield the person beside him, and a violent bolt of purple-gold lightning, like a gleaming blade, pierced straight through his back from behind.

In the blink of an eye, Shu Hanqing felt his organs shatter to pulp under the overload of that terrifying current.

Purple-gold lightning, he thought.

It was Lei Zheng.

His body trembled violently, his legs gave out, and he collapsed to his knees. Thick, scalding blood gushed uncontrollably from his mouth, instantly staining the front of his clothes, while cold sweat soaked through everything in the searing pain.

All strength drained from Shu Hanqing in an instant, and he collapsed helplessly into the cold dust of the ruins.

Not far away, amidst the smoke-filled wreckage, Lei Zheng stood with a cold expression, directing his men to clean up the battlefield.

He turned his head and ordered his trusted aide to lead a pursuit of the fleeing remnants.

The aide told him that Shu Hanqing seemed to be on this mission too, but at the second checkpoint.

Lei Zheng said, "Clean up Jiang Gu's people now. I won't show my face for what comes next. If you run into him, don't hurt him. Our goal is to let them go, or else when I get back, who knows how he'll make a scene with me."

But the moment the words left his mouth, a trembling voice came through: "B-Battalion Commander Shu?"

Lei Zheng turned at the sound. Moonlight poured down like water, illuminating the scattered rocks not far ahead.

A face he had been yearning for day and night caught his eye.

All he could see was a profile, deathly pale in a pool of blood, smeared with grime.

But for Lei Zheng, even if the man were reduced to ashes, he would never mistake that silhouette.

In that instant, every sound around him seemed to be torn away.

Lei Zheng's subordinates followed their commander's gaze, and when they saw the person on the ground, they all froze as if plunged into ice water, not even daring to breathe.

"...This isn't right, Battalion Commander Shu shouldn't be here. How did you get your information!"

Lei Zheng carried Shu Hanqing back to the inner city, draining his top-tier superpower without regard for the cost to keep Shu Hanqing barely alive.

He burst into the central base's laboratory, eyes bloodshot, holding a gun to Yan Shenyun's forehead, forcing him to save Shu Hanqing.

Yan Shenyun only stared coldly at the half-crazed base ruler before him: "You've shattered his internal organs. How am I supposed to save him?"

He looked at the man in Lei Zheng's arms, and a flicker of pity crossed his eyes.

Lei Zheng was in a daze, his eyes bloodshot, consumed by despair.

Suddenly he remembered the zombie king that had been the subject of recent rumors—according to rumor, the core crystal of that monster held immense energy.

If he could just go out into the wasteland, kill it, and take that crystal, maybe he could bring Shu Hanqing back to life.

Yan Shenyun told Lei Zheng to set Shu Hanqing down.

But Lei Zheng wouldn't let anyone touch Shu Hanqing.

That wasteland, built on mountains of corpses and seas of blood, became the place where Lei Zheng's life would end.

In the final moments of the battle, his superpower exhausted, Lei Zheng was surrounded and cornered deep in the canyon. Zombies surged in like a flood.

He half-knelt on the ground, covered in blood, yet his arms still held Shu Hanqing's body tightly against his chest.

Thanks to his superpower, Shu Hanqing's face was so rosy he looked as if he hadn't died at all.

Lei Zheng's fingers touched his face, and suddenly a voice boomed from nowhere. The voice said that if Lei Zheng gave up resistance and willingly died right now, then in exchange, Shu Hanqing would fully come back to life in the near future.

In a world without Shu Hanqing, what reason did he have to live?

Lei Zheng agreed. Using his superpower, he sealed every memory, every love, and every hatred from his life into the Thunder Mark on Shu Hanqing's body, hoping Shu Hanqing would not forget him.

—If my death can truly buy your rebirth.

Then no matter how many times I have to walk this path, I would die for you a thousand times over.

After Lei Zheng took his own life.

The next moment, that cold, mechanical electronic voice boomed across the night sky.

—"Alert: Lei Zheng deceased."

—"Alert: Shu Hanqing deceased."

—"Core data restarting... Worldline restarting..."