Chapter 10: A Kiss

Chapter 10: A Kiss

The air around him felt like it had been sucked dry.

Chu Lanting lay on the bed, eyes stretched wide, watching the face inch closer and closer.

He should've shoved the guy off, but his hands were pinned above his head.

Pei Du was way too strong; he couldn't fight his way out.

His breathing turned ragged, and mixed in with the faint jasmine scent at the tip of his nose was a woody undertone he could barely pick up on.

Thump, thump, thump.

His heart hammered, thumping from the lack of air.

Chu Lanting swallowed hard, blinked his stinging eyes, and forced himself to focus.

"What the hell are you doing? Let go of me!"

Being pinned down like this was unbearable, especially staring into those pitch-black eyes—Chu Lanting couldn't shake the terrifying feeling that he was about to be eaten alive.

The guy straddling his waist didn't say a word.

His eyes had changed, his face going cold and hard, making it impossible to read what was going on in his head.

Chu Lanting tugged at his trapped arms, and the next second, the guy's face suddenly loomed right in front of him.

His pupils shrank, and the sharp yell that had climbed up his throat died before it could come out.

A warm, wet touch landed on his cheek, and the second he realized what the guy had done, Chu Lanting's face soured.

"Snap out of it! Get off me!"

Like he was annoyed that his prey wouldn't stop squirming and just wait to be eaten, the usually blank-faced Pei Du finally showed a flicker of irritation.

He used his other hand to grab the delicate chin in front of him. Once he saw his prey had finally gone still, his expression smoothed out, and he leaned in again.

The faint woody scent at his nose had somehow gotten tangled up with the light jasmine.

Chu Lanting had never been this close to anyone in his life, and since fighting back hadn't worked, he had no idea what to do now.

It wasn't until their breaths were mixing, and he could make out the guy's sharp nose and deep eyes, that he snapped out of it and started struggling again with his skinny frame.

But the prey was already trapped under the beast's claws—all it had to do was open its mouth and swallow him whole.

No matter how much the prey squirmed, it couldn't get out from under the beast's grip.

"Pei Du, you can't do this to me!"

The shout echoed through the dimly lit room.

The beast hovering over its prey seemed caught off guard that he'd called his name.

Something flickered in those dark, unreadable eyes, and then Chu Lanting watched as the guy slowly shut them.

Then Pei Du's tall body came crashing down on top of him.

Caught completely off guard, Chu Lanting got crushed. He was skinny with a small frame—there was no way he could handle Pei Du's full weight on him.

His ribs nearly gave out, and his already big eyes stretched as wide as they could go from the sudden weight and the soft brush against his cheek.

It wasn't until he could barely breathe that he gritted his teeth and shoved the heavy body off of him.

The temperature on Planet 207 wasn't high—it was actually a pretty livable planet.

Especially at night, when it dropped three or four degrees, you'd need a blanket or quilt to sleep under.

Even so, after what had just happened, Chu Lanting was soaked in sweat.

Whether it was from holding his breath or something else, he couldn't tell.

After finally crawling out from under the guy, Chu Lanting lay on the bed, gasping for air.

The dim yellow light hit his face, showing off his flushed cheeks.

The only sounds in the room were his panting and the thunderous thumping of his heart, which only he could hear.

Once his heartbeat finally settled down, he sat up and looked over at the tall figure sprawled out, head hanging off the edge of the bed.

What had just happened was way beyond what he'd expected.

If the medical resources on 207 weren't so behind, he would've sent the guy straight to the hospital for a full check-up.

Can a person turn into a completely different person after losing their memory?

Or was it... had he gotten his memory back?

He left that thought with a question mark hanging over it, looked away, got out of bed, and carefully helped the guy back into a proper lying position.

While doing that, he caught a glimpse of those thin, pressed lips and suddenly remembered the soft, warm feeling that had brushed his cheek when Pei Du had collapsed on him before passing out.

When he realized his fingers had unconsciously drifted to his own cheek, the heat that had just left Chu Lanting's face came rushing right back.

He quickly looked away, carefully wrapped fresh bandages around the guy's chest wound, then picked up the basin and headed outside.

Outside, it was completely dark by now.

The town at night was a whole different place from the town during the day.

Or rather, in the slums of Planet 207, every night was pretty much like this one.

Resources were scarce here, so everyone pinched pennies, scared they wouldn't have enough for the next meal.

There were no streetlights on the roads, and the stone paths the ancestors had laid down years ago were long since full of potholes and uneven.

The night breeze was cool. Chu Lanting had already slept that morning, so he wasn't tired now.

He guessed the time—before he'd been thrown into this book, he would've been supervising evening study hall and prepping lessons right about now.

After being as busy as a spinning top for over twenty years, suddenly having all this free time made him feel itchy.

Standing under the eaves, he looked down at the hands that weren't his.

They looked a lot like his own—pale and thin, but not soft. Instead, they were covered in calluses, with scars on the fingertips and palms.

These were all marks of their fight to survive.

He grabbed a chair and dragged it over to the door of the room, leaving the light on so he'd know the second Pei Du inside woke up.

From some random corner, he dug out a yellowed notebook with two pages of doodles, and since Chu Lanting couldn't find a pen, he picked up a thin stick and hunched over the paper, writing something intently.

Books are the stepping stones of human progress.

In a relatively peaceful time, reading was the only thing that gave people hope.

There were no formal schools in this small town, and those who could read were few and far between.

Everyone was busy struggling to make a living, already numb to the world, to the planet itself.

But if everyone's numb, who's gonna save this planet?

Chu Lanting didn't think he had what it takes to change the entire planet, but he understood the principle that "a single spark can start a prairie fire."

He looked up at the darkening sky outside, saw the stars scattered across it, then looked down and carefully tore the notebook into small pieces, handling each one like it was precious, scared of ruining a single sheet.

He didn't have any great abilities either—before crossing into this world, he had lived a rigid, rule-following life; after coming here, with nothing left, he instead found a way to break through.

Though he didn't know whether the outcome would be good or bad, without trying, there wouldn't even be a result at all.