Chapter 43

Gu An didn't know that every midnight, Chen Qi beside him would turn into a furry Husky.

The setting sun sank into the distant mountains, and the last ray of afterglow was swallowed up by the thick night, and the whole barren mountain seemed to be splashed with thick ink.

This place is rarely visited by people. Except for experienced hikers or novices who are ignorant of the world, few people set foot here. The rugged mountain road is not the only thing that makes people nervous. What is more frightening is the unknown wild animals lurking in the mountains.

The night was as dark as ink, approaching twelve o'clock, when an unsettling hissing sound came from deep in the bushes in the distance.

There were five tents on the open ground, three of which had fallen into a deep sleep, unaware of the approaching danger.

There were two left, and from one of them, the sound of a game could be heard from time to time, interspersed with the man's helpless whisper.

If Tang An and Chi Ying were here, they would definitely be able to recognize that this was He Chenzhou's voice.

In another tent, Shen Qi was looking at the back of Gu An's round head from across a distance as vast as the Great Rift Valley of East Africa.

The dim light from the mobile phone screen was reflected on Gu An's focused profile. At this moment, he was carefully extending his thumb, holding his breath.

That was the fingerprint unlocking method that Shen Qi had just taught him in the afternoon.

With a click, the screen lit up, and the face of a sleeping man suddenly caught my eye, so clear that even every eyelash was visible.

Seeing that this person looked exactly like Shen Qi, Gu An frowned and slid his fingertips, but the picture remained stubbornly frozen.

There was a rustling sound behind me.

Even though he was trapped in this frail human body, Gu An's perception was still as sharp as before.

He turned around suddenly, almost jumping away, his movements expressing strong resistance: "What are you going to do?!"

Shen Qi's outstretched hand froze in mid-air, his face filled with embarrassment. The night light hanging from the tent ceiling emitted a soft, milky-yellow glow, illuminating the disappointment in his eyes with exceptional clarity. "That lifelike painting is Chi Ying. I don't know how Tang An put it there, but I guess he must have loved it, which is why he did that."

Gu An's body trembled slightly, and he immediately turned away, avoiding those eyes that seemed to contain thousands of words: "I don't need you to teach me, I also know what love is."

He clenched his phone tightly, his voice low and hoarse, with a long-lost warmth.

"After all, you were my favorite person when I was little."

Shen Qi opened his eyes wide in shock: “Xiaobao…”

Gu An bit her lip and said slowly after a while, "Back then, you were the only one I had. I considered you my whole world. Later, you sent me to school, and after I met all kinds of people, I finally understood..."

His voice sank, like a stone falling into a deep pool. "Not everyone can be as powerful as you, coming and going without a trace. No one can be like you, ten years, a hundred years, without changing your appearance, without a trace of time."

Once the words in your heart are poured out, you can no longer stop them.

Gu An seemed to have given up. He took a deep breath and said, "I was afraid you were a man-eating monster. I was even more afraid you would think I was useless and discard me like a worn-out shoe. So I practiced hard and tried to catch up, until I realized that your long life was beyond the reach of me, Gu An, even if I spent my entire life."

Shen Qi's heart was shaken, his eyes instantly heated up, and he subconsciously reached out to touch the other person: "I..."

His fingertips missed again, but his palm unexpectedly caught a drop of hot tear, burning it so much that his fingertips began to tremble.

"I love you, Shen Qi."

Gu An's voice suddenly rose, filled with tearful accusations: "But I hate you even more. The days and nights I spent away from you cultivating alone, the dreams I'd always have of your unchanging face. You looked like this when I was a toddler, you hadn't changed an inch when I tied my hair, and even when I came back to look for you a hundred years after building my foundation, you were still the same as I remembered from my childhood, not a single bit changed!!!"

The tears finally burst out and surged down.

Shen Qi hated to see him cry the most. He struggled to get out of the sleeping bag and desperately hugged him tightly in his arms, apologizing incoherently: "I'm sorry! I didn't know. I never thought you thought this way! I thought you would accept me like your father did. I was wrong! I'm not human... You should be afraid of me. I'm sorry! I'm so sorry..."

He completely misunderstood, thinking that Gu An's fear came from the difference between humans and demons.

"No..."

Gu An struggled to push him away.

He wanted to scream out desperately.

My heart of Taoism is broken, my inner demons are defeated, my chance of becoming an immortal in this life has come to an end, and even if I die, I only have ten years left to live. To you, it is just a blink of an eye. When I turn into dust and disappear in this world, Chen Qi, will you still remember who I am, Gu An?

When the surging emotions were like a flood and were about to break through the dam of reason, a dazzling white light suddenly flashed.

The warm body in my arms shrank instantly, replaced by a furry and warm thing.

Gu An's mind went blank, but his body was faster than his consciousness, and he instinctively threw the thing away.

“Ouch—”

A shrill dog howl was heard, followed by the dull thud of a heavy object falling to the ground.

A somewhat funny-looking black and white dog fell on its back and was howling in pain.

Gu An stared at the ugly dog ​​on the ground in disbelief, his voice changing tone: "...Chen Qi?!"

The dog whimpered in grievance.

Gu An staggered back a step and almost subconsciously wanted to open the tent and rush out.

But the next second, he suddenly stopped, gritted his teeth, turned around, picked up the dog that was still whining on the ground, hugged it tightly in his arms, and stumbled towards the tent of Bu Suanzi and He Miao.

While there was chaos and war here, Tang An and his companions lived a peaceful life over there.

The second season of "Prisoner of Heart" is out. Tang An paid Chi Ying a fee to buy some things for him, and he also brought back a bunch of delicious food.

It was daytime and the sun was shining brightly. Tang An, who had already finished a set of Eight-Section Brocade, was lying on the beauty couch, with his legs crossed, humming a song while watching the second part. Chi Ying was beside him, peeling grapes for him.

Tang An turned a page and sighed softly, "I confess. The sugar-coated bullets here have given me the dangerous idea that it might be a good idea not to go back."

Chi Ying's hands were extremely fast at peeling grapes, a skill she had acquired while peeling crayfish and removing crab roe for Tang An.

The crystal clear flesh piled up like a small hill in the white jade plate.

Hearing this, he casually stuffed a plump fruit into Tang An's mouth, his fingertips seemingly brushing against her warm lips unintentionally, and chuckled softly, "I confess too. Ever since you came, I've rarely thought about my family. The company's bankruptcy is no big deal."

Tang An glared at him with a grape in her mouth: "Then you are much more heartless than me. At least I still care about my parents who raised me with so much hardship."

Chi Ying tutted his words and stuffed another one in his mouth: "So you still say you don't want to go back?"

Tang An put down the book and raised his finger seriously. "First, I said it's okay not to go back, not that I don't want to go back. There's an essential difference. Second, I made a premise. I repented."

Chi Ying: “…”

Once again, he fed the grapes precisely into that eloquent mouth.

"Okay, then I confess."

These grapes were planted in Gu An's backyard, but they did not grow in the way Tang An knew. Instead, they grew on the water surface. Before they fully grew, they were just caviar-like seeds. After they were fully mature, their appearance was very similar to modern purple grapes. They also needed to be peeled, and the taste was similar to grapes, so he and Chi Ying both called each other grapes.

Tang An took a bite of the grape and glared at him unhappily.

A week had passed since the second call with Gu An, and there was still no news from Su Chengyue. Chi Ying even suspected that she had met with an accident.

The lesson of losing track this time made him reflect hard, and he thought about learning some tricks from martial arts novels, such as posting a thousand-mile tracking talisman, or simply casting a poison.

Upon hearing this brilliant plan, Tang An made no comment, but voted down the proposal with a simple and crude reason: "Can you draw talismans? Or cast a spell?"

Chi Ying thought seriously for a moment: "Oh, then I really can't."

I had to give up in disappointment.

And just like that, another week passed.

The two's previous carefree and relaxed demeanor was quietly replaced by a sense of urgency to meet the deadline.

Tang An's headaches, foot pains, and chest pains became more and more frequent, and Chi Ying also found that he would occasionally flash back to modern society without warning.

One day, when Tang An learned about this, his heart sank: "Are you going back?"

Sitting on the ground, Chi Ying rubbed his swollen temples and asked irritably, "What the hell are they doing?"

Obviously, he had no expectations for this possible return and was even a little resistant to it.

Tang An lowered his eyelashes, staring intently at the homemade bamboo fishing rod on the water, and tried to force a relaxed smile: "That's good, it means they may have found a way, and..."

Chi Ying frowned. "What about you? Did you have a flashback?"

Tang An paused, then said in a natural tone, "I had a flashback too, like when I almost fell just now."

Chi Ying's gaze lingered on his face for a long time, so long that Tang An could hardly maintain his smile and subconsciously avoided his gaze.

Chi Ying suddenly smiled, fixed his fishing rod, stood up, walked to Tang An, squatted down, and held his cold hand: "That's great."

His smile was so warm that it almost burned people: "We can finally go back together."

This smile was so beautiful, so beautiful that it made Tang An's heart tremble violently.

He tried to move the corners of his mouth and replied, "Yeah."

Tang An lied.

Since last week, this body has had serious problems. When it first took over, the excruciating pain had tortured him to death. Later, it subsided, and he thought it was just a transitional reaction of the soul and the body rejecting each other. Who would have thought...

Tang An calmly withdrew his hand and pointed at the water: "It seems the fish has taken the bait."

Chi Ying was immediately attracted and returned to his seat: "That's quite a movement, it looks like it's a big fish."

The sound of splashing water covered up Tang An's suddenly disordered breathing.

Don't panic. Next time you call, ask Gu An what's going on. Maybe it's some congenital deficiency. It's not a big problem.

He comforted himself.

Another month passed in the blink of an eye.

At five or six in the morning, it was almost dawn.

Chi Ying woke up earlier than Tang An and sat quietly at the head of the bed. His hand was gently covering the hair of the person next to him, and all he saw was a dazzling frosty white.

Recently, Tang An's hair had faded from its dark color to silver-gray at an alarming rate. What was even more frightening was the loss of spiritual energy in his body, like a water bag with a big hole in it. No matter how Chi Ying tried to seal it, it was of no avail.

He could only watch as Tang An's life faded away irretrievably like an old man suffering from a strange disease.

Although Tang An tried his best to cover it up and avoided close contact with all kinds of excuses, the truth would eventually come out. In this strange and alien world, the two depended on each other and were almost inseparable. It was only a matter of time before the secret was exposed.

In the silent room, Tang An was sleeping soundly. As his physical condition worsened, he spent longer and longer periods of time in a deep coma.

Chi Ying's fingertips lightly brushed the white hair at Tang An's temples, and she leaned down, carefully placing a restrained and cherishing kiss on the other's smooth but bloodless forehead.

"It's okay." He whispered, his voice so soft as if he was afraid of disturbing the sleeping person, but more like he was trying to convince himself, "I'm here, nothing will happen."

He just stood there quietly until he sensed Tang An's imminent awakening, then he quietly got up and left.

The air still lingered with the refreshing scent of Chi Ying.

Tang An's eyelashes trembled a few times and he slowly opened his eyes. He subconsciously raised his hand and his fingertips touched the lingering coolness on his forehead. He was stunned for a long time before he supported his soft and weak body and sat up.

When he got out of bed, his legs and feet felt numb and weak. He held on to the edge of the bed for a long time before he could barely stand.

In the dim bronze mirror, there was reflected a face so pale that there was not a trace of blood, and glaring gray hair that could no longer be suppressed by willpower.

He gathered a weak spiritual power at his fingertips and brushed it through his hair with difficulty, temporarily turning it back to black.

She picked up the rouge on the dressing table, dipped a little, and clumsily applied it on the faded lips and sunken cheeks, trying to bring back a trace of false vitality.

Time passed in silence until familiar footsteps sounded outside the door and Chi Ying called out cheerfully, "Baby? Are you awake? I made you some Tremella soup."

Tang An hurriedly put away her rouge box, quickly straightened her clothes, and tried to put on a smile, saying, "I'm coming!"

The door creaked open from the inside.

Chi Ying was holding a steaming sweet soup with a gentle smile on her face.

However, the moment that smile touched Tang An's face, it seemed to be frozen and froze on his face.

With a clang, the delicate porcelain bowl slipped from his suddenly weakened hands and shattered into pieces.

The crystal clear white fungus and sugar water splashed onto Tang An's trouser legs.

Chi Ying's tall body seemed to have all the bones pulled out, and he fell straight forward to his knees.

"Chi Ying?!" Tang An's pupils suddenly shrank.

The people on the ground were silent.

Tang An's blood ran cold. He ignored the sharp fragments on the ground, knelt down, and reached out his trembling fingers to Chi Ying's nose.

No breathing.

"Chiying——"

A heart-wrenching wail shattered the tranquility of the early morning.

The huge grief and despair hit Tang An's heart like a heavy hammer, and his throat suddenly felt sweet.

"Puff!" A mouthful of blood spurted out, splashing on Chi Ying's unconscious clothes, and also dyeing his own vision red.

The scene before his eyes was completely plunged into endless darkness. Tang An's body fell softly and hit the cold ground heavily, without a sound.