Chapter 94
Amidst the melodious accordion music, the farewell ceremony for Lu Wei officially ended.
People watched as Lu Wanqing carried the urn wrapped in the Seventh District’s battle flag and the national flag into the car and drove out slowly. According to custom, Lu Wei should have been buried in the Central District Cemetery, alongside those generals of equal high rank, for people to pay homage and respect.
However, Lu Wei was a loner in life and hated being disturbed the most. In death, she didn’t want to hear chattering voices even more.
After careful consideration, Lu Wanqing refused on her behalf. He only left a cenotaph in the cemeteries of the Seventh District and the Central District for future generations to mourn, and took Lu Wei’s urn into the ice plain zone.
“I heard from seniors that when she was young, she often ran here alone to zone out.”
Lu Wanqing got out of the car, reached out to support Shu Ci’s wrist, and feeling the chill, he directly put Shu Ci’s hand into his coat pocket, interlacing their fingers tightly inside.
Shu Ci felt the steady warmth in his palm and nodded. “It’s beautiful.”
At the end of the boundless snow-white ice plain, one could see the sea beyond the border, with small icebergs floating in the distance. Lu Wanqing pointed to a small ice-prism-shaped cave in the distance and explained to Shu Ci, “Go in there, and there’s a small hole that connects to the Chengxin Sea below.”
Shu Ci turned to look at him. “You want to bury her at the bottom of the sea?”
“Sleeping eternally at the bottom of the sea seeks peace and quiet; she would certainly be happy.” Lu Wanqing nodded, his eyes darkening a few shades. “Besides, your father and sister also left in the sea. I think… this counts as a kind of reunion.”
In life, they couldn’t meet, couldn’t acknowledge each other.
This couple shone in their respective fields, even giving their entire lives for their careers. From beginning to end, no one ever knew a single detail of their private lives. Whether it was love or hate was unknown.
Consider it giving them a chance to talk after death, to speak the words drowned out by sudden death in another world.
“No matter what was between them, I hold the deepest respect and love for them.” Lu Wanqing took a folded snowmobile out of the trunk, opened it, adjusted the parameters, and patted the back of the seat. “Without them, there would be no Shu Ci, this body, and I wouldn’t have had the chance to know you.”
Shu Ci’s eyes heated up. He straddled the seat, wrapping his arms gently around Lu Wanqing’s waist.
He had never thought about these things, yet Lu Wanqing had been thinking about Lu Wei’s funeral arrangements since returning to the Seventh District and taking back the mines seized by the Gu family.
Shu Ci turned his face, burying it in Lu Wanqing’s neck, and affectionately bit his hot gland. “Next time you randomly exude charm and say these things, can you carefully choose a place?”
That first half of his life, silent and with suppressed radiance, never left a shadow or gloom in Lu Wanqing’s heart. He loved many people in silence, loved this world where the sun rises and sets.
Just the feeling of being missed by Lu Wanqing felt like owning the whole world.
The more he was like this, the more attractive he was, and the more one wanted to love him with all their might. What this world hadn’t given Lu Wanqing, he wanted to give it all to him.
Lu Wanqing was immersed in studying the tuning of the snowmobile. Having not returned for too long, he didn’t quite remember how to drive it. He only read the surface meaning from Shu Ci’s words and asked casually, “Then where should I say it?”
Shu Ci rested his chin on his neck, not reacting for a moment whether he was asking seriously or setting a trap.
He blurted out, “In bed?”
The Alpha sitting in front of him froze for an instant.
Then came the roar of the snowmobile engine beneath them.
Lu Wanqing successfully started the new vehicle, extended his long arm, and pulled Shu Ci from behind to in front of him. With one hand supporting his waist and the other holding his head, he kissed him deeply.
Driving straight in.
The cold wind mixed with the heat of the tongue tip invaded. Shu Ci widened his eyes, feeling the burning touch and entanglement. Even wearing thick clothes, he could still feel their violently beating hearts as they embraced.
The subtle vibration of the engine seemed to reach the same frequency as their exchanged breaths.
“…Stop for a sec, my mom is still here!”
In the gap when Lu Wanqing withdrew, he lost all shame, panicking and claiming Lu Wei, this “biological mother” who didn’t belong to him at all. That withdrawal was too iconic; whenever this happened, the next wave to greet him would be overwhelming.
That was the horn for Lu Wanqing to launch an attack.
He couldn’t just gnaw at each other endlessly in the ice and snow like this.
An enticing chuckle spilled from the corner of Lu Wanqing’s mouth, making one want to catch that laughter with a kiss. He leaned down and pecked the corner of Shu Ci’s mouth. Shu Ci saw his own watery, bright and beautiful eyes in his gaze.
This deep kiss was too intense. For a moment, Shu Ci suspected Lu Wanqing was about to treat this place as the location he had suggested.
Outside… outside was better left alone.
Blushing and panting briefly, he pressed his forehead against Lu Wanqing’s shoulder. Lu Wanqing put the hood of his coat on for him and asked in a low voice, “Sitting steady? Hold tight.”
Before Shu Ci could recover, he instinctively wrapped his arms around him.
The snowmobile flew forward instantly. Where the tracks passed, snow mist like wings rubbed up on both sides.
“Whoa—”
Shu Ci shouted loudly, looking at the looming sea through the snow mist.
The ice plain was not like a valley. His loud shouts had no echo, as if swallowing all the sounds he shouted, incredibly refreshing.
“Stupid—f*cking—plot—”
“I—will sleep with—Lu Wanqing—”
“You—mother—mph!!!”
“…” Lu Wanqing freed a hand and covered his mouth.
Who knew what words would pop out of this person’s mouth. There were quite a few brothers stationed in the border area; he couldn’t afford to lose face like this.
Shu Ci wasn’t annoyed either. If he wasn’t allowed to shout, he would watch the scenery.
After admiring it for a while, he turned around in Lu Wanqing’s arms again, leaning his back against his chest, looking at the driving direction ahead. Lu Wanqing drifted as if showing off his skills and stopped in front of a cave.
Shu Ci jumped out of the vehicle and looked him up and down. “Did you know? I used to hate it most when screenwriters wrote men acting cool by drag racing and drifting in scripts.”
Lu Wanqing: “?”
Shu Ci hooked the corner of his mouth and lightly kissed a snowflake on the tip of his nose. “But I suddenly discovered that if my good husband plays the role, I might ascend to heaven on the spot.”
Lu Wanqing’s heart trembled.
No matter how he helped him relieve himself these days, he had never heard Shu Ci use that form of address. Hearing it off guard, he froze in place, not knowing what to say.
Whether Shu Ci ascended to heaven wasn’t clear, but he was about to.
Boots crunched on the ground. The two didn’t speak anymore, hands hanging by their sides tightly clasped as they walked into the cave. White mist drifted faintly in the air.
Although called a cave, the outermost part was actually a purely natural arch formed by slanted thick tree trunks, with sharp icicles hanging down. Lu Wanqing raised his hand to protect the top of Shu Ci’s head, turned his face, but saw his gradually solemn expression.
“What’s wrong?” Lu Wanqing squeezed his hand.
Shu Ci stopped, his fingertips tapping the side wall of the mountain rock. “Is this place… some tourist attraction?”
“No,” Lu Wanqing said decisively. “This entire area is a restricted zone. Photography is completely prohibited.”
Shu Ci frowned and looked around. The further he walked in, the more familiar he felt this icy cave was, yet he didn’t know where he had seen it. If not on TV news or the internet, where else could it be?
Once he fell into deep thought, he easily got lost in it, forgetting where he was.
Lu Wanqing half-embraced him to lead the way, his gaze falling on Shu Ci’s long eyelashes.
“Has it never been promoted in the media as a landmark of the Seventh District?” He still didn’t believe it.
“No. However… if it was ten or twenty years ago, there might have been video data then, but it wouldn’t have been circulated.” Lu Wanqing thought for a moment and told him truthfully, “Yu Xingxing told you about the rebellion back then, right? This was the stronghold of the most treacherous traitor back then.”
There was a passage connecting to the Chengxin Sea in the cave. As long as it was hidden enough and the equipment was sophisticated enough, the neighboring country across the sea could land here silently.
The internal turmoil stirred up by the Gu clan was a psychological shadow for the warriors of the Seventh District of that generation.
Internal trouble and external aggression, the people had no means of livelihood, and they had to kill each other and suspect each other because of factional stances.
“If you…”
“Ah!”
Lu Wanqing’s words were cut off by Shu Ci’s scream. The two had already walked to the center where the cave dome was highest. Shu Ci’s eyes lit up, and he ran toward the ice rock over there.
Shu Ci brushed the snow off the ice rock with his sleeve, his fingertips tapping the crystal ice bed.
“I remember.” He turned over, sat cross-legged on the ice rock, and looked up at Lu Wanqing. “My mindset is fast becoming like a native of your world… I filmed a movie with this ice and snow scene!!!”
Lu Wanqing looked at Shu Ci on the ice rock, his pupils trembling.
He walked forward quickly, reached out, and lifted Shu Ci off the ice rock.
“Oh, I’m not afraid of catching a cold.” Shu Ci curled his lips and looked around nostalgically again.
He wanted to design a thrilling rescue in such an environment back then. He traveled to many places to find many caves, and finally, with post-production synthesis and special effects, he created a scene almost identical to the one before him.
This place was purely natural!
Wait… Shu Ci’s breath hitched slightly.
So, in the world where he truly existed, he simulated the same scene from this book world?
Then, which is the real world?
…
Lu Wei’s ashes drifted quietly from the cave entrance, silently merging with the seawater. The two touched foreheads, wrapping themselves in the remaining warmth on their bodies as they left.
On the return journey, the heater was turned up high, making Shu Ci drowsy.
Lu Wanqing looked at his sleeping face and gripped the steering wheel tightly. He pursed his lips and said nothing, but the auditory hallucinations of wind and snow uncontrollably flooded his ears.
The traitor incident was his first time hovering on the border between life and death.
That day, after saving Yu Xingxing from the traitor, he stepped over a path of corpses to get out. In the ice and snow, without a thick enough combat suit, without a snowmobile for transport, wearing the thin clothes of the service team, freezing in the wind and snow, he trudged to find the traitor’s trail and stop them from opening that line of defense at Chengxin Sea.
He vaguely heard a scream and ran toward the sound.
Running into that cave just now, he saw the fully equipped traitors and invaders. In a desperate fight of one against many, he was prepared to drain all his pheromones.
In the end, unable to distinguish whose blood was on him, he left no one alive.
Afterward, he collapsed on the ice rock from exhaustion. The wind blew with a pain that felt like it could slice skin, continuing relentlessly. If no one came to save him, he might have frozen to death in the cave.
He once thought that place would be his burial ground.
Before losing consciousness, the voice that led him there still lingered in his ears. The military doctor spent a full half-year re-examining him, but Lu Wanqing never figured out if that was his hallucination.
And now, something seemed to gradually reveal a clue.
Just like that dream at the base, just like hearing Shu Ci’s reminder on the ship in the Third District, he always felt the voice came from the soul from another world in the passenger seat.
“Ah!”
Shu Ci kicked his legs, his body lurching forward violently, but stopped by the seat belt, he didn’t fall over.
His pupils trembled, and some distant memories echoed in his mind.
He suddenly remembered that the script idea for that thrilling rescue back then came from his own dream. He dreamed he was trapped in an ice rock in a cave, screaming helplessly.
But the dream was like sleep paralysis; he couldn’t wake up no matter what. No one responded no matter how he screamed. His legs were imprisoned, unable to move at all.
In the last second of waking up, he saw a figure stumbling into view in front of the ice rock.
Upon waking from the dream, he immediately recorded that inspiration of isolation and helplessness, but he always felt he had missed something. Later, dedicated to replicating the scene in the dream, he put in a lot of effort, but those details were impossible to trace.
For example, before opening his eyes.
That dream face that fell from the sky… causing his heart to stop.
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