Chapter 114: Yu Jiqing
After hugging deeply, Yu Jiqing pushed away from this embrace he found hard to leave and said, “Time’s tight. Some things I’ll explain later…” He did not know if, once they got out, the two of them would ever cross paths again.
“Let’s go.” They shared a look, and Yu Jiqing turned to leave.
Li Dong, worried, kept replaying the feel of that hug. One thought stuck: he was too thin.
“Eat first.” When Li Dong came out, Yu Jiqing was already seated. “Have something.”
On the table were the things he ate so often he could puke: compressed rations.
“What the hell…” Li Dong prodded the tray with a fork. He seriously doubted this was edible.
“Ahem. It’s all we have. Make do,” Yu said. Though it didn’t look good and didn’t taste good, it was nutritious.
“Alright.” Li Dong resigned himself.
Watching him eat, Yu said, “I’ll prep. When you’re done, we leave.”
“So soon?” Li Dong was surprised. He had not even had time to ask questions before Yu had already turned away to work.
Li Dong was not one to sit still. He brought his tray over and hovered while Yu worked three computers that looked nothing like ordinary rigs. “Can I watch?” he asked, staying at a safe distance.
“You can.” Ten fingers flew.
As an outsider, Li Dong could not make heads or tails of it.
Still, he pulled up a dining chair and sat beside him.
From the corner of his eye, Yu glanced at him now and then. Even knowing Li Dong could not follow, he explained, “I’m taking the base mainframe. I’ll shut every door and leave one passage. Then I need you to cooperate. Go to Lab 01 and fetch me the antidote.”
“…Then get me the route map and what I need to do, fast,” Li Dong said, recovering quickly.
“I will.” Yu took a secret breath and went on. “I’ll lock down the labs and trap the staff inside. When you reach Lab 01…” The monitor showed Lab 01. People moved inside. “You’ll meet them. Your job is to avoid killing if you can, while staying alive.”
“I won’t,” Li Dong said, finishing his food fast. “They’re scientists who barely use their limbs. They’re not much threat to me.”
Yu’s smile was unreadable. “Don’t assume that. If they’re kept here, they aren’t as simple as you think.” He added, “Outside is desert. Apart from a helicopter, nothing runs.”
“Then we…”
“We may die in the desert.”
The air went still for a few seconds.
Suddenly parched, Li Dong gulped more water.
“To cross the desert, I packed dry rations, water, and everything we can use.” Altogether, the load was not small.
Which was why even if he escaped the base, he would never cross the sands alone.
“I have comrades who have bled with me…” The last squad had died on their final mission, but, “If we get out, can I ask them for help?”
“No.” Yu refused at once, then met Li Dong’s eyes. “You’re the only one I trust.”
“The moment we move, someone here will tip off the one who hurt you,” Li Dong said.
“So the road will be dangerous.” Yu hit the final key. “Ready? I can give you ten minutes to breathe.”
What else could Li Dong say? Of course he was ready.
Right then, the base’s hired gun, Dr. Ouruiji, was fully focused on cracking the 103 security system Yu had built.
There was no way into that lab, short of cutting all power to the base, but that would cost them dearly.
This place did not only research the Time Machine, but it also also housed other projects that would not bear the light of day.
Ten minutes later, panic rolled through the base.
Doors clanged shut one after another. People found themselves locked in.
“Dr. Ou!” A higher-up called. “He’s in the mainframe. Take it back!”
Dr. Ouruiji, startled, dropped Lab 103 and lunged at the main control and he discovered that most commands were dead. The mainframe was in the enemy’s hands.
Hard to believe the enemy was a man in his early twenties.
Exceptional. Frighteningly so.
Li Dong wore neat long shirt and pants in Yu’s size, a touch tight on him, not ideal for throwing punches.
His cautious figure moving along the corridor filled Yu’s screen.
“Follow my prompts,” Yu said. “No one near you now. Move to the end of the hall, left, passworded door. That’s the supplies room. One inner room stores weapons.”
“Weapons? Just what I need,” Li Dong said, pace light and quick, his bearing all special forces efficiency.
“Password is XXX, XXX.” Yu watched him, intent. Entry smooth. “Last room on the right.” Another password lock. “Nervous?”
“What do you think?” Li Dong opened the door and whistled softly at the racks inside. “Nice. I’ll grab your favorite model. Two enough?”
Yu’s brows jumped. “My favorite model?” Since when did he know that?
“Oh, my bad,” Li Dong said with a grin. “Xiao Jun’s favorite.” So they were not the same after all.
“That was for convenient assassinations,” Yu said. “My favorite is something you also know…”
“Mm. You like them bigger, right?” Li Dong fired off a shameless line.
The air froze.
“No, no, I’m kidding.” He scrambled. “This one, right?” He quickly chose the gun Yu had used when they first met.
“No problem.” Yu pressed a fist to his lips and coughed softly. “Time’s short. Hurry. I’m waiting for the antidote.”
“OK.”
Armed, the lean shadow slipped back into the corridor.
Straight to Lab 01.
“Are they armed?” Li Dong asked as if he were running a game, chatting with the doctor while he moved.
“No guns seen,” Yu said. “Still, be careful.”
He tracked Li Dong’s feed while frowning down Ouruiji’s counterattack.
Shots crackled over the earpiece. Yu typed at speed and missed whatever had happened on the side monitor.
A minute or two later, the voice in his ear brought relief.
“I have the antidote. Heading back,” Li Dong said. “You ready?”
“Reinforcing…” Sweat snaked down Yu’s brow. He did not blink, mind blazing as his fingers spilled out characters that wove into a thorny wall.
Li Dong was thorough. Along with the antidote, he brought back syringes.
“I’m here. Open up.”
Yu tapped the last key and sagged, turning to the door.
It was his face. Only him.
“Any adverse reaction if we inject now?” Li Dong asked, setting things in order and moving quickly.
“No.” Yu closed his eyes and offered his wrist.
He trusted Li Dong.
Trusted the Number One he had watched for something that felt like a century.
“It may sting a little…” Li Dong lowered his head, hunting the pale, fine vein, and slid the needle in. “Pig brain me, I forgot iodine, but we should be okay, right?”
“Doesn’t matter…” Yu flinched, then pressed his thumb to the puncture. “What’s on the desk comes with us. We go now.”
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Li Dong said, worried.
“I’m fine,” Yu said.
Li Dong hoisted the black pack, plus guns, clothes, hats, and one modified mini laptop, everything they might need.
“Here.” He only handed Yu a gun. He did not want Yu carrying anything else, just in case they needed him to defend himself.
“Mm.” Before they left, Yu took one last look at the lab that had held him for most of a year. His face was calm.
“Move.” Burdened with the pack, Li Dong took long strides down the empty hall.
Yu raised his left wrist. A mini-computer there hooked to the base cameras, giving him a view of the facility.
He monitored their surroundings for anyone approaching.
At the first hint, he would call it out for Li Dong to guard against.
“Bullsh**!” Dr. Ouruiji raged in his office as his orders were cut off again and again.
The higher-ups kept calling, pushing for solutions.
“He has the mainframe and he locked us in. He may be out already,” the doctor warned them. “You know what this means. Decide what to do.”
He did not know who the true paymaster was behind the money that had hired him.
Zhou Jing hung up and, after a long think, called his own boss.
“What is it?” The official in downtown B City had just left a meeting and was heading out to eat with colleagues.
“Boss, he might have escaped,” Zhou said, bracing for it.
“What?” The fury on the line was loud. “Useless!”
Zhou Jing was thoroughly scolded, feeling resentful inside. “Even if they leave the base, they won’t get far. I’ll send men.”
“How many people do you plan to tell?”
“We’re locked inside. We can’t go out.” Otherwise he’d go himself. “Boss, do we let him go or kill him? You have to decide now.”
If the base was exposed, everything was finished.
After ten seconds of silence, a long sigh. “Zhou Jing, kill him. As fast as possible.”
For the third call, Zhou dialed a contract killer.
Jobs that required a helicopter were not ones many took.
But some did, just needed time to arrive.
That window was Li Dong and Yu’s only chance, if they could find cover before the hit team arrived.
“They’ll hire killers. We can’t stay exposed on open sand.”
Yu had accounted for all this. He had not accounted for his own lousy stamina. After just half an hour he was gasping and could not keep up.
“On my back.” Li Dong swung the pack around to his chest.
The space behind was for the delicate, soft-bodied doctor.
“You sure?” Yu asked, doubtful.
When he was easily lifted up, his whole soul floated, feeling unreal.
“If you’re thirsty, drink. Don’t push yourself,” Li Dong said. Even with a cap, the sun beat down and made the world swim.
“You drink. I can hold it,” Yu murmured obediently against his back. He could not see the cracking skin of his own lips. He was just hot and dizzy, very dizzy.
“Night will be better.”
Listening to Li Dong’s hoarse voice, Yu bit down hard, heart aching. “I’m dead weight…”
To save his strength, Li Dong kept his mouth shut.
He trudged on, one deep step and one shallow, sweat evaporating before it touched the ground.
He desperately hoped for nightfall.
By night, the temperature would drop. And in a sea of sand, night was the best camouflage.
It all ran to Yu’s plan. Two hours after they left, the sun sank, and the desert cooled.
Li Dong pulled on the clothes he had prepared. Then they continued walking.
The two to three hours until midnight were the most comfortable temperature time in the desert. Yu Jiqing recovered considerably.
Afraid Yu would die of dehydration, Li Dong all but pinned him and poured water down his throat.
And said, “Know your limits. Don’t act tough and slow me down.”
Yu clutched the man’s shirt with one hand and touched his dry lips with the other. “Ahem… I’m better now.”
The image of being carried for so long made him guilty. “Are you tired? Want to rest?”
“Nonsense. Of course I’m tired,” Li Dong said. “Don’t slack. Keep moving.”
He glanced at the moon’s position. “You sure this is the right way?”
“Yeah.” Yu forced himself to keep pace. “Our current position is approximately XXX. Walk another twenty kilometers and we should exit the desert.”
With other terrain for cover, they would not be so easy to find.
“Are you tired?” Half an hour later, Li Dong asked again.
Breaths behind him were uneven. “Five minutes.”
Yu Jiqing nodded and sat down heavily.
“You researchers are weak as hell,” Li Dong said, sitting beside him. “That muscle-wasting drug. Does the antidote stop the damage or reverse it?”
Yu panted a long time. “Find ways to improve it myself later.”
Meaning, for now just stopping damage.
Li Dong nodded. “Then rest twenty. I’ll carry you for another stretch.” He could not keep it up without a break. Too f***ing tired.
He lay flat for the twenty minutes, letting every muscle go slack.
“What did they feed you growing up?” Yu murmured. He could not see how soft his eyes were then, gentle as moonlight.
When the twenty minutes were up, Li Dong got up on the dot, slung the drowsy doctor onto his back, and walked.
Half an hour later they stopped to eat. He fed the nodding-off scientist, then made him walk on his own for the rest.
In the second half of the night, helicopters thundered so close it felt like they were above their heads, terror prickling their nerves.
Fortunately, they successfully disappeared into the woods before dawn.
It took three days and nights to go from wilderness to people, burning through all their food.
Afraid of the net tightening around them, they never stopped.
They arranged a car and went back to the city.
They didn’t go straight back to City B though. Instead, settled in a second-tier city to recuperate.
“From here on, let me handle it,” Yu said coolly on day seven back in the city.
“You found the suspect?” Li Dong could read him.
If Yu was this cold with anger, the person must be close to home. He did not pry.
“Yes.” Yu paused, looked away. “What are your plans when I’m gone?” These days together made him frantic.
If only he were an ordinary person without a pile of problems, how good that would be.
“Me?” Li Dong glanced around the small two-bedroom. “First priority is a job, I guess.”
He had given all his money to his comrades’ families. He was broke.
Yu was speechless. He could not picture this man “getting a job.” “Give me an account. I’ll wire you money.”
“No need,” Li Dong said with a smile. “You not coming back?”
Yu considered it. “Hard to say.” He said, “B City’s a mess. No guarantees.”
Li Dong remembered what Yu had said. Big family, tangled ties.
“Be careful. I’m a retired soldier. Aside from muscle, I can’t do much for you.”
“Nonsense,” Yu said at once. “You’ve already done a lot.” He left the rest unsaid. “I leave tomorrow. First train.”
“I’ll see you off,” Li Dong said.
“You don’t sound like you’ll miss me,” Yu said lightly.
“Because it isn’t the right time for it,” Li Dong said.
Yu Jiqing still left. Once gone, over half a month without news.
Li Dong found work anyway and thought about what to do.
He was an old soul, age forgotten, but his ID said he was twenty-eight.
That was not the problem. The problem was… starting a business, bored; making money, bored; enjoying it, bored.
All fucking bored of it.
Feeling that at his age, Li Dong knew he was in trouble.
He was not used to being single and felt life alone was dull. He wanted a partner.
While he was mulling how to find one, a court summons arrived.
He was ordered to appear next month on the first as a witness in a… military case?
Seeing the case type, Li Dong dragged a hand over his face.
He had never thought his comrades’ nameless deaths would ever get a chance to be rejudged.
He packed immediately and went to B City.
Because the first was just five days away, he put his affairs in order, then left.
Before going, he asked the boss lady for a month’s pay in advance. She gave it without a word.
In B City, he stayed with a comrade.
Hearing the news, the comrade alerted the others.
Li Dong thought about it and also notified the families of the fallen, whether they came or not.
If they could manage it, why would they not come?
The friend hosting him was shocked. “Dong-ge, a year or two and you’re a different man. Where’d you strike it rich?”
“Rich my a**. I’m a waiter at a cat café,” Li Dong said. In truth, shift lead.
“Get out,” the man said, not buying it. That bearing, that presence, a waiter? He was not blind.
“Really.” Li Dong smiled. “It’s called Cat Café, in XX City. If you come, drinks on me.” Saying it, his mind strayed to the young doctor who had said he would wire him money.
How was he now?
Had he cleared up his family mess?
In a blink, it was the court day.
Families of fallen comrades who could come all rushed over because they’d also been notified by the court.
Li Dong was a witness. Before court, a lawyer had contacted him.
From the lawyer’s attitude, he figured out this verdict was for real; the other side had no chance of overturning it.
This was good.
On the stand, Li Dong did his duty. Everything he knew, everything he should and should not say, he spilled like beans to the judge, the jury, and the gallery.
The rest was not his to decide.
When the gavel fell and the verdict was read, some let out a long breath, some quietly cried.
Li Dong did not. He did not cheer either. This was what should be.
His still-upright figure quietly left the crowd.
Though not knowing where his next stop was, standing in the sunlight, breathing this city’s much-criticized garbage air, he felt he possessed this world.
“Hey?” A tall figure leaned against a pillar at the courthouse door, eyes burning on the man ahead.
Plain shirt and trousers, and blinding.
“Who?” Li Dong turned back against the light, lifted a hand to get a clear look. “Well, if it isn’t Dr. Yu.” He wanted to say, long time no see, but it had only been a little over a month.
“Don’t be so formal…” Yu tugged at his mouth. “If you don’t mind, call me Jiqing.”
Li Dong ignored that. “Your family mess, all settled?” After all, they really weren’t that familiar. Being formal was appropriate.
“Mm.” Yu came down the steps. He looked rosier, more alive. “And you?” He tipped his head back toward the courthouse. “How did it go?”
“How else? Bad men got the law they deserved,” Li Dong said. Then it dawned on him. He cocked his head. “Your doing?”
“More or less.”
Getting a positive answer, Li Dong nodded. As he thought, so that was why it had moved so fast.
“Well then, I’ll go rest. Flight to X City tomorrow,” he said.
“You really mean to settle in X City?” Yu asked.
Li Dong took a few steps, then looked back. “Where else?” He was an orphan. Feed himself and no one else was hungry. Anywhere was the same.
Pretty bleak, thinking about it. Still needed to quickly find a partner.
“Stay in B City. Let’s work together,” Yu said.
“Work together?” Li Dong smiled at him. “Do business or build a life?”
“Either works.” Teased, Yu felt a spark of embarrassment. On his face, though, he went full Guan Yaoming-style blunt. “If you can love them, why not me?”
He believed he was not a hair worse than any of them.
“Then come here,” Li Dong said, crooking a finger.
When Yu came over obediently, Li Dong closed his eyes and leaned into him, hugging him. His calm face finally crumpled as he buried it in Yu’s shoulder, voice rough. “Let me lean on you. I’m… a little fragile right now.”
Yu froze, helpless, then stopped thinking and crushed the man to his chest. His heart clenched out of nowhere. He held on and remembered with him all the things that would not let go.
“Don’t be sad. I’ll stay with you from now on,” Yu said, clinging hard. “I cleaned up my family mess and the fallout. I can be with you with no worries.”
“So you were after me from the start?” Li Dong rasped. “No, you were always after me.” A statement, not a question.
“Yes,” Yu murmured. “I like you too much…” Ahem. That sounded too much, but he could not take it back. “I love you. Very, very much.”
And you do not know there has always been a pair of eyes on you, following you.
Jealous of you kissing those virtual people, jealous of how good you were to them.
Every day he thought, if they were together in real life, it would be happiness.
When he finally met him, he tread carefully and made plans clumsily.
“I know,” Li Dong said, lifting his head. His eyes were only a little red. “Then I’ll announce it now…” He leaned in and kissed the corner of his new partner’s mouth. “My last partner, Yu Jiqing.”
Author’s Note:
【Main story complete. Continuing with extras today. Hugs to everyone】
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