Chapter 42
Zhou Yuli told himself, no, that's too fast.
He can help Pei Zhao solve problems, but now, he can't own Pei Zhao.
He doesn't deserve it.
He is just a puppet and Pei Zhao is his master. He is not qualified and does not have the ability to fully protect Pei Zhao.
Zhou Yuli thought, if he had just kissed him and helped him solve the problem, for Pei Zhao, it would just be the loss of an insignificant tool. If one day, he met a more suitable person, or if he could no longer become a human being, Pei Zhao would just be disappointed that he had lost a tool.
Rather than losing a loved one.
In this way, Pei Zhao can be considered protected.
As for himself... he is not important.
However, as soon as he thought about the relationship between them as humans and puppets, all the excitement in his body disappeared. He was afraid that one day, the cruel reality would be before him, he would not be able to become a human being, and Pei Zhao would no longer be able to share his love with him, and Pei Zhao would be in trouble.
Thinking of this, his restlessness calmed down. He shuddered and belatedly realized that the water was icy cold, chilling the blood in his body.
Zhou Yuli came out of the bathroom with a sullen face, drying his hair. When the bathroom door opened, Pei Zhao's sleeping face came into view.
He propped up his head with his arms, looking like he was tired of waiting and fell asleep.
Zhou Yuli's heart suddenly softened and his expression became much softer.
Who cares about the future? Right now, this is already stolen time for him, so it’s good just like this.
The hotel only had double rooms. Although the store had money thanks to Bai Zhou and Lan Ji's management and they had some spare cash, they often slept in the same bed even in the dormitory, so there was no need to sleep in separate beds when they went out.
Zhou Yuli dried his hair, sat by the bed for a while, waited for the coldness on his body to dissipate, and then lay down next to Pei Zhao.
Pei Zhao was sleeping soundly, but when he felt someone beside him, he turned over habitually and hugged Zhou Yuli. The slightly cool temperature made Pei Zhao frown and mutter a few words.
"Zhou Yuli... kiss me..."
Zhou Yuli was stunned for a moment, then gently kissed Pei Zhao on the forehead, "Yes, kiss you."
A good night's sleep.
When Pei Zhao woke up the next day, Zhou Yuli had already bought breakfast and was sitting by the bed watching the news.
Pei Zhao was in a daze. He was used to staying in bed for a while after getting up. He squinted his eyes and kicked Zhou Yuli, "What are you looking at..."
Zhou Yuli walked to the bedside and bent down to kiss Pei Zhao.
Pei Zhao was stunned for half a second, and the memory of last night before going to bed came back to him. What Zhou Yuli did for him last night... Pei Zhao's whole body was hot, and he shrank into the quilt, looking at him nervously: "What are you doing?"
Zhou Yuli asked him: "Are you hungry? I bought breakfast."
It was clearly just a normal conversation, but Pei Zhao felt like he was about to drown in a pink bubble. He blushed and got out of the quilt. Zhou Yuli put a hand on his chin, and Pei Zhao rubbed it, sobering up a little: "Not too hungry yet... What were you watching just now?"
Zhou Yuli pressed a few times on the screen with his other hand and held it in front of Pei Zhao.
There was a news item on the screen, and below it was a video that was playing in an automatic loop.
"Recently, the number of missing college students has hit a new high. It is reported that the number of missing students from Hualien University has reached twelve in the past week..."
In the video, Pei Zhao still remembered that it was the principal whom they had met once at the freshman assembly. His brows were furrowed so tightly that they could almost pinch a fly to death, and he could not hide his haggardness in front of the camera.
"Don't worry, the school will do its best to support the police and find the whereabouts of the missing students..."
Pei Zhao frowned: "Have so many students disappeared from school recently?"
Zhou Yuli took back his phone, sat down on the bed, and let Pei Zhao lean against him: "Well, but I think something is wrong. I asked Bai Zhou, and Bai Zhou said there were no suspicious people nearby."
The campus they were on was in the suburbs, where the population was not dense, and anyone entering or leaving would attract a lot of attention. If there was such a large-scale kidnapping case, the people would definitely be hidden nearby.
Pei Zhao: "Have you met Bai Zhou?"
Zhou Yuli: "Yes, I went there this morning and gave him the puppet."
"Puppet..." Pei Zhao reacted, "What? Wait, did you bring him here last night?"
Pei Zhao remembered that when he came back, he handed the puppet to Zhou Yuli and then forgot about it. He didn't expect that this person would bring the puppet to the hotel. Doesn't that mean...
"He saw everything last night?"
Zhou Yuli paused and said, "We are in the bathroom, he can't see us."
"Nonsense!" Pei Zhao blushed, but this time he was angry. "The door was clearly open at the time. Where did you put him? Did he happen to be able to see it? You deliberately let him see it!"
Seeing Pei Zhao start to talk nonsense, Zhou Yuli didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "It's in the pocket of my clothes, head down, no one can see it, don't worry."
Pei Zhao obviously didn't believe it: "Really?"
Zhou Yuli lowered his head and kissed him: "Really."
Pei Zhao finally calmed down, and was held down and kissed by Zhou Yuli for a while, and finally woke up completely.
After washing, eating breakfast and cleaning up, I looked at the time and it was only eight o'clock in the morning.
Pei Zhao yawned: "It's so early, I almost thought I had to go to the morning office."
There are not many early morning classes in their major, and they have hardly attended any this semester. Today is the weekend, but they got up very early instead.
Zhou Yuli was about to say something when his cell phone vibrated. He took a look and saw it was their roommate Zhou Ran.
"Brother Li?" Zhou Ran's voice sounded a little flustered. Zhou Yuli looked down at Pei Zhao and hummed.
"What's up?"
"That was close. You finally answered the phone. Is Pei Shen with you?"
Zhou Yuli frowned: "He's here, I'll give him the phone." Zhou Yuli handed the phone to Pei Zhao and mouthed: "Zhou Ran."
Pei Zhao answered: "What's the matter?"
"God Pei, I'm glad you're all okay. You went to the amusement park yesterday and didn't come back home at night without telling me. I was scared and thought something happened to you."
Pei Zhao thought of the news he saw in the morning and asked, "Is it Huada's missing case?"
"You've heard about it, too. It's scary. I heard from the club that the school and the police don't have any clues and they might close the school. Don't stay outside, come back early."
Pei Zhao didn't expect the matter to be so serious, but since the problem could not be solved for a long time, the school had to close for the safety of the students.
Pei Zhao told Zhou Ran that they would go back in the afternoon, and Pei Zhao agreed and left the door open for them.
After hanging up the phone, Pei Zhao looked unhappy.
“Something just doesn’t feel right.”
"Do you think there's something else going on behind the disappearance?"
Pei Zhao didn't nod or shake his head, but just said: "So many people disappeared for no reason, and the police can't find anything. This is not the last century, and the Internet is so developed, how could there be no clues at all."
Pei Zhao believed that this was definitely not an ordinary kidnapping case, but it was just a guess and there was no other evidence.
When they arrived at the store, Pei Zhao first told Bai Zhou the news that the school was going to be closed.
“When Zhou Yuli told me about it, I guessed it was serious, but I didn’t expect it to be to the extent of closing the school,” Bai Zhou said.
Lan Ji was wiping the counter and asked casually, "Are you sure it was man-made?"
Pei Zhao shook his head: "This is exactly what I'm worried about. Our world is relatively developed. If it's man-made, there won't be no news at all... That's twelve adults."
Bai Zhou nodded: "So you suspect it's related to another world?"
Pei Zhao hesitated: "I'm not sure, it's just a feeling."
Again, they have no clues, and talking about feelings is just a guess.
Pei Zhao sighed: "I'm just guessing. Things like missing persons will eventually be handed over to the police..."
"You said yesterday that something else had invaded this world. Could it be related to this incident?" Zhou Yuli suddenly asked.
Pei Zhao was about to give up, but after Zhou Yuli's words, he remembered what he was thinking about before what happened yesterday, the dark alley, the manhole cover, and the unclear...
Zhou Yuli grabbed his hand and said, "Go and have a look?"
Pei Zhao looked up: "Where are you going?"
Over there, Bai Zhou and Lan Ji had already started to lock the windows and close the shop. Lan Ji said, "Let's go to the alley where we were yesterday and find out what happened."
…
But surprisingly, when they went back according to their memory, they couldn't find the alley.
"Strange, I remember it was right here, why isn't it here?"
Bai Zhou turned around five or six times. Pei Zhao suspected that he had walked through the entire block. "I remember there was a hole in the ground, and it was pitch black inside, but I searched all the alleys, and there was no hole, not even an underground well."
He kicked a telephone pole on the roadside and said, "Have we entered another world again?"
Hearing this, Pei Zhao immediately tried to mobilize his body's energy, looked at his empty palm, and said with certainty: "Absolutely not, we are still in the original world."
These days, he has found the most convenient way to test whether he has traveled through time, which is to test whether he has super powers.
According to his observation, their super powers can only be used in non-native worlds. He has no way to use his powers now, which means they are still in the original world.
"It's still at the original time, so why can't I find it?" Bai Zhou was puzzled. He snapped his fingers impatiently, and sparks kept jumping out of his palms.
Pei Zhao also remembered that the alley they were in that night was a dark alley without street lights. There was an underground well in the alley without a manhole cover, and there was something inside...
etc.
Pei Zhao frowned. How could there be an uncovered underground well in the alley?
Underground wells are for urban drainage and are public buildings built in the later stages of urban and rural construction. However, there are only low buildings or bungalows here. The alleys in the middle are not only narrow, but also old-fashioned stone roads. There is soil underneath this kind of road, and it is impossible to support the weight of the ground under the premise of groundwater. How could there be underground wells?
Pei Zhao's breathing became rapid. There was only one answer.
That's not an underground well at all.
What they saw last night was the monster that ran out from another world, did not belong to this world, and devoured twelve Hua University students.
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