Chapter 60

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< | Table of Contents | >>>]

—–

Chapter 60: Purgatory Reunion (XII)

It was getting late at night, so reason told Qi Leren that it was time to rest, but the warm night wind was rare in the Underground Ant City, and the person sitting beside him was the lover he had met after a long separation. Qi Leren felt no drowsiness at all, as if he could talk to Ning Zhou all night.

They did talk for a long time, and even Ning Zhou, who has always been taciturn, said many things about the past.

“Winter swimming in Neverland? That’s too cold!” Qi Leren was stunned by Ning Zhou’s hobby, and his teeth chattered with cold when he listened.

“…Fortunately, it wasn’t as cold as when we were ashore.” Ning Zhou said and added seriously, “Really.”

Qi Leren was skeptical. Even though he had been baptized by Maria’s power and had a strong resistance to low temperature, Leviathan had left a psychological shadow on him in their fight underground. Under that terrible temperature, it seemed that the human soul would be frozen and crack. Neverland was in the polar regions, and the temperature of the polar night was also terrible. Even the polar days weren’t much better.

Enjoying swimming in the winter in Neverland… It was really a hardcore hobby.

“It must be very cold once you come out. After going under? You must freeze as soon as the wind blows, right?” Qi Leren is getting colder and colder.

“If you wipe your body with ice and snow first, it will soon heat up,” Ning Zhou said.

Qi Leren was really shaking now, rubbing his hands and saying, “I feel cold now!”

Ning Zhou immediately reached over and wrapped his rubbing hands: “Is it still cold?”

Qi Leren froze, and the body temperature of another person was warm against his hand, which made him really shiver. The two people were motionless together, holding hands together for a long time without separating.

Ning Zhou’s eagle flew in from outside, and landed on the railing of the terrace. It walked from one end of the railing to the other with his head held high, and then turned and walked back in a different posture. However, no matter how coquettish and enchanting it was, these two people ignored it. It was so angry that it began to tell the time: “Two o'clock, two o'clock, staying up late to die suddenly, endangering health!”

It really spoiled the mood, and Qi Leren glared at it gloomily: “It’s late, we should go back to sleep.”

“Hmm.”

Actually, both of them didn’t want to sleep. But considering each other’s health, they left the terrace tacitly, crossed the living room, and came to the two bedrooms that were side by side.

Two bedrooms separated by only one wall.

“Goodnight,” Qi Leren said with difficulty.

“Well, good night,” Ning Zhou also said.

I said good night and should go back to my room to sleep, but a feeling of reluctance overwhelmed him. Qi Leren looked at his toes and said, “Sweet dreams.”

“…You too.”

It was really time to go this time, but after a few hours, they could sit together for breakfast again. Compared with the long separation before, such short hours were just a blink of an eye.

But they were still loath to give them up.

“What do you… what do you want to eat tomorrow?” Qi Leren asked.

“Anything’s fine,” Ning Zhou said.

The evening breeze blew all the way from the open door of the terrace to them, and the first light from far away projected the gauze curtain on the clean marble floor. The soft mood was like a lingering love song playing continuously, while they were like people sitting aimlessly on the bus in the afternoon, listening to the little love song drowsily in the warm sunshine, half dreaming and half waking, only thinking about this song. Don’t wake up from this dream. Don’t wait for the bus to reach its station.

“Then… then I’ll go to sleep.” At this moment, Qi Leren restrained many impulses, such as telling him he was afraid to have nightmares, admitting that he still wanted to talk, and kissing Ning Zhou’s beautiful blue eyes.

He tried to treat this relationship in a mature way, and he also tried to make himself behave properly enough. Therefore, he held this treasure carefully, and only wanted to hold it firmly in his arms, but he was afraid that he would break it if he tried too hard.

“Well, then goodnight,” Ning Zhou whispered.

Qi Leren had already rested his hand on the doorknob and pushed open the bedroom door. The imaginary gentle love song finally ended when the bus stopped, so he said softly, “Goodnight.”

Ning Zhou also opened the door of the other bedroom. He said, “Goodnight.”

This long farewell was finally over. Qi Leren, who closed the door, put his head on the door panel, cleared his mind, and pressed the weight of his body against the upper half of the door.

Qi Leren had the illusion that he had thought a lot, but felt that he hadn’t thought anything. He wanted to recall the farewell with Ning Zhou just now, trying to find some inappropriate action, but as soon as he recalled it, he was knocked down by shy emotions.

It was probably that talking with Ning Zhou had relieved the mental stress he had been feeling. Now, Qi Leren really was a little sleepy. He dragged his tired feet and fell on the bed, slowly moving towards the side against the wall until he reached the innermost part of the bed.

He had seen the layout of Ning Zhou’s bedroom before, and the bed was on the side against the wall. That is to say, at this time, they were only separated by one wall. If you spoke while in a dream, maybe the other person would hear it.

Thinking this, Qi Leren couldn’t help laughing.

A brain washed by love always made the people who had fallen in love do some strange things, and Qi Leren was no exception. He slept in the bed on this side against the wall, reached out, and quietly drew a heart on the cold wall.

When he realized what he was doing, he flung up the quilt and covered his face.

What the hell was he doing? Qi Leren let out a cry in his heart, half ashamed and half collapsed, and spontaneously formed two debate teams with an abnormal split in his mind to start quarreling about the topic of love.

Qi Leren felt obliged to be more mature, especially when it came to falling in love. He was four years older than Ning Zhou! Ning Zhou, who was only twenty-one this year, should still be a boy in college in the real world, and he had already entered the workforce. In terms of experience in love, both of them were tragically equal at zero, but Qi Leren had lived in the 21st century with modern information and open communication. His theoretical level beat Ning Zhou, who was almost equal to the man living in the medieval Vatican. Moreover, when studying, Qi Leren had still had many experiences of being chased by girls.

Even Qi Leren himself felt very strange. When boys the same age as him had been affected by hormones and began to desperately want to fall in love, he had not been attracted to the lovely young girls, and of course, he was not attracted to the same sex. Although sometimes he had seen friends showing love, he had had a feeling of “love is really good”, but he had never started a relationship with someone he didn’t like purely to seek this feeling.

Maybe, before he realized it, he had been waiting for someone who was destined to appear, but the world was too big, and there were too few people one could meet in his life. How lucky would he be to find the right one?

But he had met him. This romantic miracle had consumed his whole life’s luck—so that there was something wrong with his beloved’s gender—but he still felt lucky.

He should cherish this luck and protect Ning Zhou.

Along the way, Ning Zhou had really suffered too much. I really hope to make him happy… Half-asleep, Qi Leren finally fell into a deep sleep with this thought.

He had a dream.

It was not an endless near-death experience, but a very relaxed and happy dream.

In his dream, he “flew” in the blue sky and rode on the back of a black dragon.

The black dragon carried him from the ground, blasted away the land and mountains that blocked them, passed through underground lakes and flowing red lava, and they broke free from the bondage of gravity and marched fearlessly toward the sky.

The world was bright, clear, peaceful, and beautiful.

The wind under the clear sky blew his hair, and Qi Leren pushed the unruly hair on his forehead to the top of his head, watching the vast world under the rising sun, breathing the air that had no bloody smell, and being as happy as a child.

Flying at such a high height, the world under his feet was like a large sandbox, and the river reflecting the light of the sunrise spread from one end of the earth to the other end, like a ribbon shining with silver and blue light. In the vast wilderness, the earth was like an emerald carpet, but when a gust of wind blew, the carpet turned into green waves, rushing forward one after another. The peak of the mountain near the horizon was covered with a thin layer of ice and snow, but the foot of the mountain was full of colourful wildflowers…

The dragon flew over this reborn land, casting a cloud-like shadow, and then the sun shone brightly.

They flew too fast. In the blink of an eye, they have already passed through deserts and plains, and were still flying farther to the east. They might even fly over the vast sea and the fog at the end of the world, or they might fly towards the place where the sun, the moon, and the stars were located.

Where on earth were they going? The Qi Leren in the dream didn’t know. He only feels that they were like this world…

Becoming one.

—–

[<<< | Table of Contents | >>>]