Chapter 95 You Are Here

Wrong weight?

What's the meaning.

"All limited edition Vesperis watches have a uniform weight of 161.8 grams, symbolizing perfection and eternity."

Yu Xiaotan weighed the watch. "I have at least ten limited edition watches from different series. Yours is clearly the wrong weight. It should be a little heavier."

He turned the watch over and looked at it. "But it is indeed a genuine one... Have you modified it?"

“…”

Chen Luan lowered his eyes and fixed his gaze on the watch he had worn for many years. A crack ran across the deep-sea blue dial, as if dividing the blue into two irreconcilable halves.

It was warm in the command base, but Chen Luan suddenly felt a little cold for no reason.

The coldness seemed to seep out slowly from the gaps between the bones, running all the way from the spine to the top of the head.

His Adam's apple rolled, and he heard his own voice, which was a little difficult:

"……No."

I have worn it for so many years and have never had it repaired, let alone modified.

So, that's not the weight of this watch...

When was it added?

Chen Luan's fingertips tightened uncontrollably, and he felt a slight cold numbness beginning to spread from the tips of his fingers into his blood.

The pair of light-colored lips pursed lightly, and uttered a few hoarse syllables:

“Where can it be demolished?”

"What?" Yu Xiaotan didn't seem to understand.

Then, those gray eyes that seemed to have suddenly been frosted raised their heads and looked at Yu Xiaotan: "I want to... open it and take a look."

“Where can it be demolished?”

His tense fingers dug into his palms, so hard that his knuckles began to turn a pale white.

The winter chill seeped in from outside the window, and Chen Luan remembered that winter many years ago when he was wearing this watch in a warm car.

They wished him a happy birthday.

It was clearly a gift, a token of his appreciation that he had always cherished.

It was the first gift from his most important family.

But.

...What if it's not what he thought?

What if?

Jiang Xun has always been very well behaved, hasn't he?

He was the first one to recognize him and call him brother.

What if it was just some unimportant accessories that were modified?

In any case, no matter what, he couldn't jump to conclusions before seeing it with his own eyes.

He must confirm it himself.

Chen Luan did not go home.

After finishing the report on the traces of primitive wild beast activities found in f6164 and the actual combat training teaching accident, Chen Luan followed Yu Xiaotan directly to his manor on the outskirts of Qiwei City.

Didn't tell anyone.

The old watchmaker whom Yu Xiaotan had contacted in advance had been waiting in the manor for a long time.

The snow had stopped after a few days, and the white sun was hanging brightly in the clear sky, illuminating the snow-covered ground so brightly that it was a bit dazzling.

The sun looks very bright, but it doesn't feel warm when it shines on your body. Instead, it feels like a chill mixed with glass shards that penetrates your throat with every breath you take.

Chen Luan held the cold watch in his hand and followed Yu Xiaotan silently into the manor house.

By the floor-to-ceiling window illuminated by the sunlight and reflected snow, Chen Luan handed the watch to the old watchmaker.

The dial, as blue as an abyss, was fixed on the cushion. Chen Luan stood beside the table, his eyes lowered as he watched the old watchmaker use special tools to skillfully and lightly unscrew the tiny screws.

“Click.”

The sound of the back cover being opened made Chen Luan's lips tighten.

His heartbeat began to pound in his chest, and Chen Luan even felt sweat beginning to seep out of the palms of his clenched hands.

The metallic luster flickered in front of the eyes, revealing the internal mechanical movement structure.

But on the edge of the movement full of mechanical beauty, a black micro-electronic component is abruptly embedded.

The black dot, no bigger than a fingernail, began to spread the moment it caught Chen Luan's eyes, gradually spreading to the entire field of vision.

There was a loud buzzing sound in my ears.

Chen Luan's eyes flickered and he had to support himself on the edge of the table with his arms.

All sounds seemed to disappear, leaving only a sharp tinnitus that rose from the depths of the soul in the vast emptiness.

All the past events were pulled together into threads, gathered together, wrapped around his throat, and shattered before his eyes.

Breakfast is always delivered on time when he just enters the office,

A gathering place that can always be found accurately when gathering with friends,

Every time I get a call shortly after coming out of the contaminated area...

And that time in Huilang Mountain, Chen Luan convinced himself for a long time that it was a "coincidence".

Go further,

It was the welcome at the bar door.

"Encounters" again and again,

Now that I think about it, it's more like...

Pursuit and interception.

His heart felt like it was being gripped by a hand covered in thorns, squeezing him so tightly that he couldn't breathe.

The coldness that seeped out from the gaps between the bones seeped into the blood vessels through the cold fingertips, and flowed to every part of the body with fine, dense and sharp thorns.

A churning, burning sensation began to well up in Chen Luan's stomach.

The pair of gray eyes that suddenly lost their luster were fixed on that abyss-like black spot, and all the scenes in front of them began to distort and rotate around that tiny point.

In the dead silence, Chen Luan's Adam's apple rolled with difficulty.

...It shouldn't be like this.

It shouldn't be like this.

That was clearly the first gift, the first gift from family.

It was the first real warmth from home that he grasped in this era that did not belong to him, after many years when no one remembered his birthday since his sister passed away.

In that small but warm carriage, the wandering and homeless soul from the dust of history found a small sense of belonging for the first time.

For many years to come, those gentle gazes, the warmth of those hugs, and every little bit of life together gradually melted into the weight of his soul.

This is his brother, his family,

He really exists in this world.

To him, it was not just a birthday present, but a symbol of "home", a place where his soul, which did not belong here, could reside.

It was the ray of light that lifted him out of the gray haze of the past several times, and it was also the indestructible obsession that supported him when he was in danger many times.

With this little weight on his wrist, he will always know that he cannot get lost and cannot stop.

Because there are still people waiting for him to come home.

He is no longer the captain of the Cloud Thorn team who always keeps to himself.

He had something to worry about again, a new anchor to hold his soul back and prevent it from drifting away and getting lost.

So even later, when the two pairs of eyes that had been staring at him began to be filled with an overly hot temperature and moved closer step by step, he gradually lowered his bottom line in the tug of war that he could not tell whether it was love or family affection, until he indulged himself to such an extent.

At that time, Chen Luan thought, let it be. He had finally come to this world and finally found a warm spiritual harbor again. He was always willing to spoil her a little.

He thought that the original sincerity was at least pure, but the boundaries had gradually blurred over the years.

Right or wrong, he can always slowly reconcile in the future.

After all, that was his brother, his family,

He is willing to spend some time to understand the other person and himself.

Those ambiguous emotions, those moved heartbeats,

Who is mistaking?

as well as,

Is that love?

But--

The pair of misty gray pupils fell on the broken watch with some numbness and emptiness, and the corners of Chen Luan's lips suddenly raised up an extremely slight arc with mockery.

But if,

Was it wrong from the beginning?

What if it wasn't what he thought from the beginning?

That's just,

He thought it was his first gift,

He thought it was the warmth of home,

He thought he...

The bond of the soul.

That small piece of out-of-place black was like a burning flame, burning his eye sockets so much that they began to ache and sore.

From the beginning, it was not a gift, not a blessing, not acceptance,

But it is a vain attempt to control him, possess him, spy on him,

Invisible chains.

It's poison wrapped in honey and deception dipped in icing sugar.

It's not that he hadn't thought about the possibility that he was being tracked, but that shouldn't have happened so long ago, and certainly not on this first gift that he had always cherished.

And that was Jiang Xun.

It was Jiang Xun, the good boy he always thought of.

She would hug him and softly call him "brother", and her gentle eyes would immediately bend when she saw him. She was always dependent on her good brother Jiang Xun...

...They're all fake, right?

They're all fake.

All the cuteness, obedience, gentle care, and subconscious dependence...

It's all fake, right?

It seemed as if he had never truly understood Jiang Xun.

Ever since he gave this so-called gift at the age of fifteen, he has been living under their surveillance and control under the guise of being a family member for so many years. Is that right?

This realization made Chen Luan feel as if he was hollowed out from the inside, crushed by a sense of emptiness and coldness, and turned into ashes.

Everything he cherished was an illusion tailor-made to hunt him down.

All the things he indulged step by step became his own absurd plan of thinking he was a good brother.

From the beginning,

They are not family.

no.

It's just a

Deception in the name of family,

A hunt with bait tailor-made for him...

He was so caught up in it that he didn't even realize it, and he took the bait himself, allowing everything that happened in the past.

My stomach cramped, and the burning and stinging sensation could no longer be suppressed and rose up.

Chen Luan clenched the broken watch in his hand tightly and bent down suddenly.

But his heart was being squeezed so hard that it could not be controlled and beat irregularly. His throat seemed to be blocked by a sharp stone. He felt as if he was trembling and his stomach was burning, but he could not vomit anything out.

His vision went dark and the sharp buzzing sound in his ears almost drowned him.

A sour feeling rushed from his nose into his eye sockets, and a slight taste of rust came up in his throat. Chen Luan coughed violently a few times, wiped his eyes, and held onto the corner of the table to steady himself.

A hand reached out and patted Chen Luan's shoulder.

"Hey, are you okay?"

“…”

Chen Luan shook his head and swallowed the fishy sweetness in his throat.

There is only one last step left.

One last verification left.

He wants to see it with his own eyes.

He had to see it with his own eyes.

Watch how he tears himself apart.

The light reflected from the phone screen shone into the bloodshot, dark eyes.

Several missed calls.

And several unread messages.

【Unhappy: Is it out? 】

[Bottled Hat: What do you want to eat tonight? I'm going to buy groceries.]

【Unhappy: Brother, aren’t you home yet? 】

【Unhappy: Qiao Zhile told me that you guys had already returned to school.】

【Unhappy: Where are you now? I am worried about you. 】

Chen Luan's finger paused on the screen, and the corners of his mouth curved upward in a mocking arc.

Shouldn't you know best where I am?

The sharp edges of the watch in my hand poked at my palm.

For the first time, Chen Luan chose not to reply to the message from Jiang Xun.

A moment later, the phone rang again.

Chen Luan lowered his eyes and watched the screen light up until the long ringing sound ended automatically and then went out, then he pressed the power button.

The light from the window makes the place bright.

Chen Luan spread the disassembled watch on the table and looked up at the clear blue sky.

"Guess how long it will take for them to find us?"

The sound was as light as a gust of wind.

Yu Xiaotan came over with a glass of red wine and sat on the armrest of the sofa where Chen Luan was. "If you guessed right, will you come with me?"

As she spoke, she reached out to pick up Chen Luan's collar, then leaned over and looked into Chen Luan's gray eyes with her delicate eyes: "I just have a lot of tricks, but I know how to respect people."

Chen Luan leaned against the sofa, half-closed his cold gray eyes and glanced at him.

The exquisite and beautiful alpha tilted her head and blinked. "How about it? Think about it? I promise not to put small parts in your watch."

"But you can pretend for me!"

In the silent air, Chen Luan was silent for two seconds, then grabbed Yu Xiaotan by the back of his neck and threw him away: "...You don't have that kind of weird habit."

The light that slanted through the window to Chen Luan's feet began to gradually slant.

Chen Luan was the only one left in the room. He looked through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows at the open, empty gate of the manor. In the air that seemed to have stopped flowing, he became a silent, empty monument.

Until he saw a car coming from a distance.

Two familiar figures got out of the car.

Finally, a sigh-like chuckle filled the air.

Time began to flow again in this place that had almost stopped.

When the Jiang family's twins pushed open the tightly closed door, they were dazzled by the bright light coming in from the floor-to-ceiling window.

Motes of dust danced in the beam of light.

Chen Luan sat quietly in the beam of light, his skin becoming almost transparent under the cold white light.

He turned around and curled the corners of his lips towards the two familiar pairs of eyes, but his gaze was as calm as a pool of stagnant water.

"You're here."