Chapter 6
The smog has been going on for more than a week now. When Qin Huai set out, most means of transportation had stopped. It was okay at first when he drove himself, but later some highways were closed. Qin Huai had no choice but to keep taking detours. It took him more than a week to walk the distance of a two-hour flight. He was not very hungry along the way, but he had only bread and biscuits. He hadn't eaten anything hot in such a long time, and he quickly drank up a bowl of noodles and even the soup.
Mu Nan, who was looking down at his phone, said when Qin Huai put down the bowl, "There's more in the kitchen."
Qin Huai said: "That's enough, it's too late, there's no need to eat too much."
Seeing that Qin Huai stopped eating, Mu Nan didn't say anything more. Although he had been looking for Qin Huai since his rebirth, now that Qin Huai was in front of him, he didn't know how to face him. After all, there had been so many years in between. If it was this time in his previous life, his first reaction to seeing Qin Huai might be crying or scolding, but more of it would be full of joy and closeness, instead of the even helpless silence like now.
It's different after all. After experiencing a lifetime and a death, some things are suppressed too deeply and it's not so easy to let them out.
Qin Huai saw that Mu Nan had her back to him, so he simply sat on the bed and turned Mu Nan around: "Nan Nan, let's talk."
Mu Nan couldn't help but scratch the phone case with his fingers, lowering his head and saying nothing.
Qin Huai asked, "Are you short of money?"
Mu Nan subconsciously looked up at Qin Huai, then quickly turned his head away without saying a word.
Qin Huai reached out and rubbed his head. Because it was cut too short, it was not as fluffy and soft as before. Instead, it was a little prickly. However, this substantial touch after many years still made Qin Huai happy, because Mu Nan did not resist his actions. Perhaps seeing that Mu Nan was not so resistant, Qin Huai's tense heart relaxed a little, and then he said: "Wang Xiaoli said you were looking for me. You were looking for me everywhere. What happened?"
Wang Xiaoli was the monitor of Qinhuai High School, but the relationship was quite ordinary. After all, he went abroad before finishing high school, and the only contact between them was in the same high school group. Not long ago, Wang Xiaoli suddenly sent him a message saying that Mu Nan was looking for him everywhere, so he hurried back, but was stranded at the airport due to thick fog. He waited anxiously all night, and after the thick fog dissipated, the smog would not dissipate. He could not wait any longer and drove back directly. At the end of the car, there was no place to refuel, so he finally carried his bag and rode a bicycle all the way back.
Mu Nan looked up at him. Although his expression was calm, his eyes were a little red. "If I don't look for you, will you never come back in this life?"
Qin Huai's eyes darkened: "I said I would come back."
Mu Nan wanted to say, you also said you would not leave, but he has grown up and doesn't take things for granted like he did when he was a child, so he swallowed this subconscious rebuttal and asked calmly: "If I don't look for you, when are you going to come back?"
Qin Huai's eyes flashed with some struggle: "When I think you still need me."
Mu Nan took a deep breath, his voice was cold: "Aren't you afraid that if you leave, I will die in a place you don't know one day, and you will never have the chance to see me again even if you regret it?"
Qin Huai's face darkened: "Nonsense, don't curse yourself."
Mu Nan pushed Qin Huai away and turned over to lie down with his back to him. He couldn't help feeling aggrieved. What did it mean that he still needed him? He clearly had never not needed him since he was a child.
Qin Huai sat on the bed and looked at him for a long time. He knew that this knot would not be untied in a short time, so he pulled the blanket beside him and covered him with it: "It's too late, go to sleep, I'll go first, this time I won't leave again, if there is anything, we can talk about it tomorrow, Nan Nan, no matter what happens, this time, unless you don't want me and you drive me away, I will never leave again."
Mu Nan ignored him, but listened attentively as he got up from the bed, put on his slippers, and considerately went out to turn off the lights for him.
However, when Qin Huai returned to his home, he was completely dumbfounded. One room was full of furniture, another room was full of earthen pots, and even the living room had only a small path for walking. They were all planted with vegetables. The vegetables had not grown yet, but some had already sprouted green shoots. There was also the sound of chickens crowing from the balcony.
Qin Huai was suddenly at a loss whether to laugh or cry. Turning his house into a plantation, perhaps only Nan Nan could do such a thing.
Qin Huai closed the door helplessly and tiptoed back to Mu Nan's room. Even the kitchen in his house was full of things. Apart from sleeping here, he had no space to find a place to stay for the night.
Although the layout of the house was different from what he remembered, the person sleeping next to him was still the one he was familiar with. Qin Huai, who was exhausted from traveling all the way, fell asleep quickly.
The curtains were drawn, so the room was pitch dark with the lights off, but once my eyes got used to the darkness, I could vaguely see the outlines of the people around me. Qin Huai was sleeping soundly, probably because he was very tired from the journey. He never snored when he was a child, but now he was snoring a little.
Mu Nan leaned towards Qin Huai, and his hand under the quilt quietly pinched the corner of the other's clothes.
Mu Nan didn't know when he fell asleep. He was thinking about things in his mind, thinking about how to tell Qin Huai about the future. He certainly couldn't tell Qin Huai about his rebirth, but he could tell Qin Huai about the space. Even though they had been separated for so long, the unfamiliarity he felt towards Qin Huai was only because of the gap in these years, but the unfamiliarity brought by time did not affect his trust in Qin Huai at all. Trusting Qin Huai was like trusting himself. As he was thinking, Mu Nan fell asleep unknowingly, and after falling asleep, he fell into that terrible dream again. In the dream, he returned to his previous life and was blocked in the house by a group of gangsters.
Although he had a knife in his space, there was a group of people on the opposite side, and two of them were even holding crossbows. How could he defeat them all alone with just a kitchen knife? It was obviously useless to resist. He said he didn't want anything, and they could take whatever they wanted. Those people found a few bottles of water and half a tortilla in his room. It was not known whether they thought it was too little or they just didn't intend to let him go. During the fight, he didn't even feel the knife stabbing him until they suddenly kicked him away and ran away in a swarm. Only then did he feel the pain and the bleeding that couldn't be stopped no matter how hard he tried.
Mu Nan suddenly woke up from his dream. The suffocation and fear before death seemed to have not yet dissipated from his body, especially the place where he was stabbed, which was still full of hideous pain.
Qin Huai woke up when Mu Nan moved. He reached out and saw that the person next to him was sweating. He quickly got up and turned on the light. Seeing Mu Nan's face covered in cold sweat and pale, with one hand covering his stomach, he immediately asked nervously: "What's wrong, Nan Nan? Did you have a nightmare, or are you feeling uncomfortable? Do you have a stomachache?"
Mu Nan took a while to come back to his senses from the nightmare. His body was sticky with sweat. He shook his head at Qin Huai and said in a weak voice, "It's okay. I just had a nightmare. I'm going to take a shower."
Qin Huai saw him walk into the bathroom with weak steps. Fearing that something might happen to him, he stood at the door and called out to him every once in a while. He was relieved only when he got a response.
Mu Nan took a shower, and his head was throbbing with pain after waking up from a dream. He glanced at Qin Huai, who could not hide his tiredness, and said, "Go to sleep, it's okay."
Seeing him turn over and lie down, Qin Huai leaned over and touched his cold palm: "What happened? You were scared like this by a nightmare." As he said that, he reached out and touched his stomach. He just saw Mu Nan wake up from a nightmare and seemed to hold his stomach for a while as if he was in pain.
Mu Nan, who was lying on the bed, was silent for a long time before speaking: "Do you believe in the end of the world?"
If Mu Nan had asked this before, Qin Huai would have thought he had seen something and asked casually, but seeing how scared he was just now by the nightmare, and thinking about Mu Nan looking for him everywhere and using up all the money he had deposited into his account, his heart suddenly started pounding: "Nan Nan, why are you asking? What happened?"
When Mu Nan was silent just now, he had already thought of an explanation. He had never thought of hiding the space, and it was naturally impossible to hide the hoarding of goods from Qin Huai. Everything had to have a reason: "More than three months ago, I started having nightmares. I dreamed of the heavy rain not long ago, the thick fog, and the haze. There will be many disasters in the future. I don’t know if they will happen, but some have already come true. The dream was so real that I can’t treat it as a dream at all."
The person he trusted most in the world was Qin Huai. Qin Huai had been by his side since he was born and still in the incubator in the hospital. Before he went to kindergarten, he almost grew up on Qin Huai. Either Qin Huai came to his house to sleep, or he went to Qin Huai's house to sleep. But he had to sleep with Qin Huai, otherwise he would cry and make a fuss.
Although they grew up and the situation of being stuck together and unwilling to separate improved a lot, they were still together almost every day, from Qin Huai doing homework while he played, to Qin Huai helping him with his homework, Qin Huai had never been absent from his life before the day they separated at the age of fifteen. So this trust was deeper than blood ties. If he couldn't even trust Qin Huai, then tomorrow would be completely meaningless to him.
But rebirth has nothing to do with trust. The meaning behind rebirth is too heavy. He doesn't want Qin Huai to bear something that he shouldn't bear in this life.
Qin Huai said in a deep voice: "So the epidemic caused by this smog will kill many people, and after the smog, there will be severe cold and heat, earthquakes, droughts, and all kinds of disasters?"
Mu Nan hummed, and Qin Huai put his hand on his head: "I believe you, I believe everything you say." What's more, Mu Nan's condition could not deceive him. Even though they had been separated for many years, he had always known Mu Nan well. Even though this matter sounded a little unbelievable, he chose to believe it without hesitation.
Qin Huai reached out and pulled him into his arms, then pressed him down to lie down: "Sleep with me for a while longer. Even if the sky falls, that will happen after you wake up. Don't be afraid. No matter what disaster happens in the future, I will be with you and will never leave you again."
Mu Nan turned sideways, with his back to Qin Huai, and muttered softly, "Liar."
Qin Huai smiled and said, "I will never lie to you again. I swear."
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