Chapter 81 Beishan Town - 2 Tang Bufan stared blankly at the line of text...
Tang Bufan stared at the words, stunned, his mind blank. It seemed he had been proposed to, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly for a second before immediately closing.
No, no, no… this isn’t right. Tang Bufan quickly composed himself. He looked up at the orc opposite him, the young boy looking at him with a mixture of trepidation and hope.
“I don’t have a ring on me right now, but I broke one off a necklace.” As Lu Yi spoke, he took out a small, thin gold chain from his pocket and presented it to Tang Bufan with his hands folded together.
It was a small piece taken from the gold necklace he always wore; the orc carefully pried open the tiny gold ring with his fingers and then put it back together.
Tang Bufan stared blankly at the chain ring, then looked up in a daze. Lu Yi's golden-green eyes shone brightly, and her gentle smile carried the affection and flattery of a lover.
"When we return to the Western Federation, I will give you a proper ring, Teacher. Please don't mind this one..." Lu Yi's cheeks flushed slightly as she earnestly promised Tang Bufan, "I will make you happy!"
Looking at his youthful yet incredibly sincere expression, Tang Bufan felt a lump in his throat. He desperately wanted to agree, but...
Tang Bufan glanced down at the wishing note, his lips parted, then closed again. His silence made the orc's uneasy heart sink.
“You’re too young, Lu Yi.” Tang Bufan’s expression was complex. He pressed his fingers against the wishing note, raising his watery eyes: “You’re only 17…”
"18!" Lu Yi felt a little hot from nervousness, and he quickly corrected Tang Bufan: "The New Year is over, I'm 18!"
“…18 is still very young.” Tang Bufan knew this would upset him, but he still insisted on his opinion: “Marriage is a major life event, it can’t be decided so casually…”
"It's not casual!" Lu Yi said anxiously, his eyes slightly red. He still held the thin gold chain ring in both hands, his heart pounding, unwilling to put it down.
"I like you, teacher! I'm sure I want to spend my life with you! In fact, when I was with you for two months, I was already thinking that spending my life with you wouldn't be bad, even though I didn't know I liked you at the time..."
Lu Yi was a little agitated. He took a deep breath and said solemnly, "I know very well what I'm doing!"
He was very sincere, leaving Tang Bufan speechless. In fact, he was also not happy to reject Lu Yi, but getting married so soon... didn't seem right no matter how he looked at it.
A long silence followed. Lu Yi stubbornly held onto the small chain ring, his eyes fixed on Tang Bufan. Tang Bufan bit his lip, feeling a pang of heartache at Lu Yi's reddened eyes. Finally, he sighed helplessly and stretched out his left hand.
Lu Yi's eyes lit up instantly, a gleam appearing in them. As if afraid the man would change his mind, he quickly grabbed Tang Bufan's left hand, trying to slip the ring onto Tang Bufan's ring finger...
"Middle finger." Tang Bufan spoke, his gentle tone carrying seven parts doting and three parts helplessness: "Let's get engaged first."
Lu Yi was stunned.
Tang Bufan looked at him, his eyes fixed: "Getting married at 18 is really too early. It doesn't fit my values. If you were my son, I would be so angry I'd faint."
Lu felt a little wronged, but Tang Bufan's words were so forceful that he didn't dare to disobey. So after hesitating for a while, he obediently put the gold chain ring on the man's middle finger.
Tang Bufan smiled slightly, raised his hand to look at it, and found that the size of the chain ring was just right; Lu Yi had estimated his size very accurately.
"You're usually so well-behaved, but when you make a request, it's always something so outrageous." Tang Bufan glanced at Lu Yi helplessly again: "Who skips dating and goes straight to proposing?"
Although the result was different from what Lu Yi had expected, he was still happy. His voice was a little deep, and his face was shy: "Because I know that you like me too, teacher."
After he finished speaking, he looked at the wishing note still on the table, thought for a moment, reached out and took it, and stood up.
Tang Bufan watched him tie the wishing note to the wind chime, and he immediately felt a little embarrassed: "This... this doesn't need to be hung up, does it?"
"Before I married my teacher, it was an unfulfilled wish of mine," Lu Yi said earnestly, tying the wishing note up and then gently flicking it with his fingers, causing the wind chimes to tinkle with the wishing note.
"..." Tang Bufan sat there looking up, thinking helplessly that if he wanted to hang up, then hang up, anyway, no one would get on their car.
After Lu Yi hung up, he sat down again. The two looked at each other across the table and suddenly felt a little embarrassed, so they both lowered their heads and avoided eye contact.
They got engaged...
They're engaged!
"Let's eat," Tang Bufan said with a strange feeling, picking up his spoon again.
Lu nodded, unable to suppress a smile.
The young orc, cutting meat with a knife and fork, couldn't help but ask, "So when are we officially getting married?"
Tang Bufan was speechless: "What's the rush? Shouldn't a kid who's only 18 pursue freedom?"
"Liking you is the freedom I pursue."
Tang Bufan felt a jolt in his heart, then a smile appeared on his lips; he was charmed by the casual response.
Faced with the stubborn orc's stare, Tang Bufan thought for a moment before answering him while eating: "It'll be at least two years from now, right? We still have a lot of things to deal with right now. The world is so chaotic right now, who's in the mood for getting married?"
It's winter now, and the cold has temporarily stopped the spread of the mutated poisonous humans. But once the snow melts in the spring and the animals return to their habitats, the mutated poisonous humans will surely come out and cause trouble again.
Lu Yi understood, but he was uneasy. That organization had been looking for Tang Bufan, and Tang Bufan... he obviously hadn't given up on finding that doctor either.
With the marriage in place, at least Tang Bufan will think of him in everything he does in the future.
Lu Yi thought to himself, "Am I more important to the teacher than Chen Fei now?" He tried to calm himself down so as not to rush Tang Bufan.
Tang Bufan was still struggling with this dilemma. He was a 28-year-old man, and he was engaged to an 18-year-old... No matter how he thought about it, he felt uneasy.
What if the father of this person wants to hold him accountable? Tang Bufan groaned inwardly as he ate his lunch. To be honest, Lu Yi's father was not someone to be trifled with; after all, he was the powerful figure who had sent Anderson to a mental hospital and kept him there for ten years.
“I’m so much older than you, I’m too embarrassed to go to your father’s house to propose marriage,” Tang Bufan couldn’t help but mutter to Lu Yi.
"?" Lu Yi was a little confused, not understanding the meaning of Tang Bufan's words, and asked innocently, "What does 'proposing marriage in person' mean?"
"..." Tang Bufan was speechless. Well, this child doesn't even know how to propose marriage.
As a 33rd-century Westerner, Lu Yi truly had no idea what it meant to propose marriage in person.
The RV slowly made its way south through the wilderness. After leaving Beijing, the weather noticeably improved, probably because there were more trees in the wilderness.
The environment in urban ruins is much worse than that in the wilderness.
Tang Bufan, having eaten his fill, took off his shoes and lay down on the booth sofa to rest. Lu Yi was tidying up the kitchen. Tang Bufan wanted to help, but Lu Yi refused.
“Teacher’s hands are very beautiful, I don’t want you to do any work.” Lu Yi told him very seriously, “I want you to touch my hands with your beautiful hands.”
"..." Tang Bufan didn't know where to start complaining.
Tang Bufan's hands weren't delicate before. He started helping with chores at home when he was in elementary school, and he even worked part-time in a Western restaurant during college. His palms had long since become rough. But now...
Tang Bufan lay there facing the car window, raising his hand. His five fingers, held together, were slender and long. His skin was fair with a hint of blue from the veins. A few rays of winter sunlight shone through the small gaps between his fingers, and the gold chain ring on his middle finger sparkled beautifully.
Is this the effect of a complete cell renewal throughout the body? Tang Bufan clicked his tongue in amazement, turning his palm over so that the calluses he used to have were no longer visible.
After Lu Yi finished tidying up the shelves, he came over and tried to squeeze onto the sofa with Tang Bufan, but Tang Bufan lifted his foot and pushed him to the opposite side.
"Sit across from me, why are you squeezing in?" Tang Bufan was wearing socks, and Lu Yi was speechless as Tang Bufan stepped on his toes.
The sun was shining brightly outside, and there were even signs of melting snow. Tang Bufan, feeling hot in his wolfskin coat, opened the window to let in some fresh air.
Lu Yi looked at him from across the room, watching the black strands of hair on the side of his face rise and fall in the wind, and as he looked at him, he couldn't help but smile again.
Suddenly, a loud "bang" came from ahead, and the RV then lifted up and fell down, the wind chimes jingling as it swayed. It was the RV crashing through the rusty highway guardrail and driving from the wilderness into the abandoned driveway.
A thousand years ago, large white poplars were planted on both sides of this road. Now, those poplars have grown very tall, densely packed together, surrounding the long road that stretches for thousands of miles.
Tang Bufan looked out the window at the thick white poplar trees receding into the distance and asked Lu Yi, "Where are we now?"
Looking at Lu Yi, he raised his wrist, and Evelyn projected the map into the air, indicating that their light was getting closer and closer to the small town.
"We should arrive at that town around dusk," Lu Yi said, glancing out the window again at the few mud houses that had just passed through the gaps in the poplar trees.
Those were the earthen houses of low-level orcs, and signs of human habitation were slowly appearing around them.
Realizing that Tang Bufan didn't understand the Eastern Federation, Lu Yi said to the man lying on the sofa, "Teacher, let me explain the basic structure of the Eastern Federation to you, so you won't give yourself away."
Tang Bufan, who genuinely didn't know, nodded: "Go ahead."
"The head of the Eastern Federation of Orcs is Guo Wen, who is 56 years old this year. He lost his wife early in life and has never remarried. He has only one son named Guo Shen, who is also the future head of the Eastern Federation. In addition to the two of them, there is another person in the Eastern Federation who is extremely powerful, namely Guo Shen's partner, Pei Zhishu."
"The First Lady of the Eastern Federation?" Tang Bufan became somewhat interested, because he might also reach this position in the future. "The name sounds like a man's."
“He is male,” Lu Yi continued. “He is not a human prisoner, but the eldest son of the Pei family in the underground city. He was sent up by his family to marry into the Guo family. Because of his rise to power, the Pei family has now become the second largest family in the East District underground city after the Yu family.”
Tang Bufan had only paid attention to the Yu family before this, because the Yu family had issued his arrest warrant, and he really didn't know anything about the Pei family.
After thinking for a moment, Tang Bufan asked, "Since that doctor was able to create a false identity for me, he must have some big shot in the East District Underground City supporting him. Who do you think it is?"
"It's hard to say." Lu Yi looked at Tang Bufan and told him, "There are currently three major forces in the East District Underground City: the Peacekeepers, the New Business Alliance, and the Academy of Sciences. The Yu family controls the Peacekeepers, and the Pei family belongs to the New Business Alliance, but judging from the advanced science and technology of the Rebooters organization, it seems more like the Academy of Sciences."
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