Chapter 81.1 Savage Expansion (14)
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
Zhuang Lao was adept at making excuses to save Huo Nanjing’s face, causing the administrator to grow suspicious. Suddenly, a book fell to the ground in front of them and got burned. The administrator’s face turned dark, and he looked at the bookshelf. “What is this?”
Daring to do such a thing in front of him, even if it was a ghost, he would dig out the person’s corpse from the ground and destroy it completely.
Lin Zhaohe exchanged a glance with Huo Nanjing, and while the administrator wasn’t paying attention, they quickly slipped downstairs.
“Brother Lin,” Huo Nanjing said, “What should we do?”
Lin Zhaohe replied, “Let’s follow my boss’s instructions and burn down the library!”
Hearing this, Huo Nanjing looked horrified. He thought that setting the library on fire in front of that thing upstairs would be like a dangerous situation. If caught, there would be no escape. He weakly asked, “Do we really have to do this? What if you misunderstood your boss’s intention?”
Lin Zhaohe was furious. “How can there be any misunderstanding? Did he come all this way just to insult me?”
Huo Nanjing agreed, “That makes sense.”
Confronted with Lin Zhaohe’s anger, Huo Nanjing wisely kept his suspicions to himself. He knew that if he dared to question Lin Zhaohe again, he would face his overwhelming rage.
“What about the gasoline Jiang Wenxue left behind?” Lin Zhaohe suddenly remembered.
“The administrator probably took it and stored it. Let’s go check the utility room,” Huo Nanjing whispered. “What if he suddenly appears?”
Lin Zhaohe shared the same concern. In the library, they were definitely no match for that person. If caught, it would be a dead end. But if they wanted to escape, he believed it would be best to follow Zhuang Lao’s advice.
Luckily, the administrator was too occupied to pay attention to them at the moment. The occasional sounds of anger and objects being smashed from upstairs indicated his busy state. Lin Zhaohe planned to take advantage of this opportunity and set the library on fire before he came down.
After a few minutes, Lin Zhaohe found the utility room. With ease, he broke the lock and successfully entered. As expected, in the corner, he discovered several barrels of unused gasoline left by Jiang Wenxue. Originally, this gasoline was used for power generation during library blackouts, but now it had a different purpose.
Working together, they carried the gasoline and poured it throughout the first floor. They took out a lighter and threw it into the gasoline.
The fire quickly spread. In a matter of moments, the entire library was engulfed in flames. At the same time, the administrator on the second floor finally noticed something was amiss. He hurried downstairs, shouting in anger, “Who did this?”
Lin Zhaohe and Huo Nanjing, observing from the entrance after igniting the fire, both instinctively recoiled.
The dry books and bookshelves in the library provided the perfect conditions for the flames to engulf them. The administrator’s discovery came too late. By the time he descended, the entire first floor was engulfed in towering flames. He attempted to use his powers to extinguish part of it, but the library’s burning weakened him rapidly, rendering his efforts futile.
At that moment, the ground beneath Lin Zhaohe’s feet trembled slightly. The structure before his eyes began to blur, as if two identical paintings were forcibly merging together.
Surrounding scenery underwent a transformation, including the pitch-black sky and the moob, all crumbling and tearing apart like a shredded painting, fragments falling piece by piece.
Startled cries escaped from Huo Nanjing, standing beside Lin Zhaohe. Lin Zhaohe turned to look and saw Xiao Xiu disappearing.
“Xiao Xiu, my Xiao Xiu!” Huo Nanjing wailed in sorrow. He had carried Xiao Xiu, believing that after everything was over, she would return to her original form. But instead of that, the situation worsened. Xiao Xiu gradually faded away, ultimately transforming into a few pages of paper, landing desolately in his hands.
Everything else underwent rapid transformations—sky, ground, buildings, and even the entire campus. Amidst it all, Lin Zhaohe stood witnessing them turning into distinct black-and-white pages, scattered across the ground.
A cool breeze blew against Lin Zhaohe’s face, gently brushing his cheeks. He watched as the grand library transformed into an entirely different appearance…
A familiar face appeared in his field of vision.
Overwhelmed with inexplicable joy, Lin Zhaohe’s exhausted heart surged. He almost sprinted towards Zhuang Lao, a radiant smile spreading across his face without him even realizing it. “Boss—”
Zhuang Lao’s face also lit up with a smile as he extended his hand towards Lin Zhaohe.
Like an exuberant puppy, Lin Zhaohe leaped into Zhuang Lao’s embrace, pressing himself tightly against Zhuang Lao’s chest, feeling the warmth through their clothes. He choked out, almost sobbing, “I thought I would never see you again!”
Zhuang Lao: “You’re so clever, how could you not see me?”
Lin Zhaohe was ecstatic beyond measure, his pitch-black eyes sparkling like a dog that had finally found its owner. If he had a tail, it would be wagging so vigorously it might take flight. He didn’t even realize that Zhuang Lao had lifted him up in his entirety, keeping him suspended in the air for quite some time before setting him down again. He hummed and said, “Boss, boss, am I amazing? I can understand what you mean.”
Zhuang Lao’s voice was indulgent. “Amazing, my Lin Xiao Puppy is the most amazing.” Looking at the person in front of him, once lost and now found, he couldn’t help but plant a kiss on Lin Zhaohe’s head, his voice gentle as he said, “Must have been tough. I’ll give you a raise.”
This time, Lin Zhaohe didn’t even need to mention it. Zhuang Lao brought it up first.
While the two of them engaged in playful banter, Huo Nanjing emerged from the sorrow of losing his beloved. He looked at the few pieces of paper in his hand with a slightly bewildered expression. “Why does it feel like I no longer recognize my girlfriend?”
The sweet memories he shared with Xiao Xiu seemed to fade away, transforming into the perspective of an outsider. The waves of empathetic sadness swiftly receded. He stared blankly at the papers in his hand, inexplicably feeling like a fool kneeling on the ground. He brushed off the dust from his knees, stood up from the ground.
Huo Nanjing looked at Lin Zhaohe, who had experienced so much with him, and saw that Lin Zhaohe had successfully embraced his husband—no, sorry, his boss.
Instantly, a sour and deeply resentful expression crossed Huo Nanjing’s face as he thought to himself, why is it that when things are over, people find their destined partners, while he himself was deprived of his only paper-cutout wife.
The good news was that his girlfriend hadn’t turned into some strange creature. The bad news was that he didn’t have a girlfriend to begin with.
After Lin Zhaohe and Zhuang Lao finally finished their affectionate display, Lin Zhaohe snapped out of his excitement and realized how intimate their actions had been. Instantly, embarrassment washed over him, and his face turned crimson.
Zhuang Lao, unaffected by the situation, noticed Lin Zhaohe’s discomfort and naturally patted his head to comfort him.
Huo Nanjing’s resentful gaze, resembling a vengeful spirit, was hard to ignore. Lin Zhaohe finally noticed him, but before he could speak, he heard Huo Nanjing exclaim, “I lost my wife! You owe me a wife!”
Lin Zhaohe admired him and said, “Do you really want a wife like that?”
Huo Nanjing shuddered as he remembered Xiao Xiu’s final form. He decided to let it go. Previously, he had overlooked Xiao Xiu’s shortcomings out of his courageous love. But now that love was gone, and so was his courage. Xiao Xiu had become the protagonist of a horror story, while he became a mere observer.
It wasn’t just Xiao Xiu who disappeared. The surrounding fusion area vanished as well. The dense jungle that was there before was nowhere to be seen. Min’an Street returned to its original appearance. Lin Zhaohe and the others stood at the entrance of his high school library. The library, as it was now, bore no resemblance to his memories.
Once the tightly wound nerves relaxed, all the discomfort that was previously unfelt surged through Lin Zhaohe’s body. He experienced excruciating pain all over, especially in his lower back, where it burned fiercely. Even his bones throbbed with aches.
Zhuang Lao noticed his weakness and lifted him up from the ground.
Lin Zhaohe was feeling a bit embarrassed, but Zhuang Lao whispered softly, “Don’t strain yourself. You might ignite again.”
Lin Zhaohe: “?” Ignite? What ignite?
Before Lin Zhaohe could comprehend, Huo Nanjing walked over. He claimed to be a three-dimensional living person who had gotten separated from the main group while merging. After the fusion, his memories had changed, and he believed he had become a character in a novel.
“So, you’re a student at this high school?” Lin Zhaohe asked.
“Yeah,” Huo Nanjing scratched his head, recalling his identity in the three-dimensional world. “I’m a senior this year, about to take the college entrance examination.”
Lin Zhaohe: “Which university are you preparing to apply to?”
Huo Nanjing: “I’m not sure yet. It depends on my performance in the final exams.”
Lin Zhaohe: We’ve saved an academic genius, how wonderful.
But before he finished his thoughts, he heard Huo Nanjing say that if he performed well, he would study automotive repair, and if not, he would become a hairdresser.
Lin Zhaohe: “……” Why did he have any strange fantasies about Huo Nanjing?
Once the source material was destroyed, the degree of fusion rapidly decreased. In the blink of an eye, the bizarre monsters and environment vanished, the mist dissipated, and the scene before them transformed into a three-dimensional street.
Lin Zhaohe was seriously injured, held in Zhuang Lao’s arms, grimacing in pain. Soon, Lin Yan and Yun Yuzi arrived as well, appearing somewhat disheveled. It seemed they had experienced a fierce battle. Fortunately, everything had settled now, except for the events that took place in the library. They weighed heavily on Lin Zhaohe’s heart like a stone.
Why did all the characters he had written suddenly appear? And why were there books marked with his pen name that he had never written? These questions lingered in Lin Zhaohe’s mind, forming one unsolvable knot after another.
The journey back was smooth. On both sides of the street were various shops. Seeing familiar sights and the usual small stores, Lin Zhaohe nestled in Zhuang Lao’s arms, thinking that if he could wake up early tomorrow, he would definitely come to this steamed bun shop and have a few chicken broth-filled buns.
“Kid, where do you live?” Yun Yuzi asked Huo Nanjing. “I’ll take you home.”
Huo Nanjing: “I live in Xicheng Baiyun Residential Area. It’s quite inconvenient for you. I can take a cab myself…” He looked around, realizing suddenly that there were no signs of life on the street, let alone taxis.
“Then let sister here take you home,” Yun Yuzi said. Huo Nanjing wasn’t someone who liked to put up a front.
Yun Yuzi nodded and was about to leave with Huo Nanjing when the boy suddenly remembered something. “Brother Lin, what’s your communicator number? I’ll send you the pictures of you and your husband.”
Lin Zhaohe, who had been half-asleep, immediately woke up upon hearing those words. His eyes widened in surprise. Before he could say anything, everyone erupted in astonishment. Yun Yuzi was excited, rubbing her hands together, talking about husbands and photos. When did Lin Zhaohe cheat on Zhuang Lao behind his back? They never expected that despite his honest appearance, he would engage in such a scandalous affair.
Ignoring the wound on his back, Lin Zhaohe struggled to break free from Zhuang Lao’s embrace and shouted at Huo Nanjing, “Send it to me, don’t send it to them!”
However, it was already too late. Yun Yuzi grabbed Huo Nanjing and Lin Zhaohe couldn’t move a step. When he turned his head, he realized that Zhuang Lao was holding onto him.
“Boss!” Lin Zhaohe’s eyes welled up with tears.
Zhuang Lao whispered, “What ‘husband’?”
Lin Zhaohe: “……” Could he say that Zhuang Lao was his husband?
If you enjoy this novel, support the Translator ginevre on her ko-fi account :))
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
