Chapter 53 Greater Khingan Mountains - 8 The two were in bed...
The two cuddled on the bed, and Tang Bufan eventually fell asleep with his head on Lu Yi's arm.
Lu Yi's body temperature was very high, making it the warmest night Tang Bufan had ever slept in; he even felt like he was about to sweat.
Lu Yi woke up early the next day, but did not get up. Instead, he continued to lie on his side and watch Tang Bufan, gently rubbing his face with his fingertips.
Tang Bufan had very good skin, so smooth that you couldn't see any pores. It was pale with a bluish tint, and because of his low body temperature, it felt like cool, translucent jade.
Lu Yi liked it more and more as she touched him, and couldn't help but secretly kiss the man's forehead while he was asleep.
Then his fingers touched the man's lips again... The orc boy's eyes were deep, and in the end he did not choose to steal a kiss.
Tang Bufan was unwilling, and Lu Yi did not want to go against his wishes.
Tang Bufan slept until noon again. He nestled in Lu Yi's arms and opened his eyes groggily. He was always not fully awake when he woke up, and sometimes it would take him several minutes to remember things. He deliberately hid the fact that he occasionally suffered from amnesia, but Lu Yi actually knew.
So the two of them nestled together in bed, facing each other. Lu looked at his dazed eyes, unsure whether he was simply confused or had amnesia.
Tang Bufan hadn't forgotten Lu Yi today, but he thought he was dreaming. He stared at Lu Yi for a while, then suddenly hugged him and started crying.
“Lu Yi…Lu Yi…” Tang Bufan sobbed uncontrollably, his thin hands clutching Lu Yi’s sweater tightly: “The teacher shouldn’t have let you go out…I should have locked you in the RV…Lu Yi…”
He hadn't recovered from the fact that Lu Yi had been missing for ten days.
He cried, and Lu Yi felt sad too. She immediately hugged him and comforted him, "I'm back, teacher. I came back last night. Don't cry, don't cry."
Lu Yi already hated his heat cycle, and now he hated it even more. Not only was it inconvenient, but it also made Tang Bufan worry so much.
Tang Bufan cried himself to sleep again... Lu Yi stared at him speechlessly; he was clearly asleep.
After frowning and thinking for a moment, Lu Yi got out of bed. However, Tang Bufan woke up again shortly after he got up, and he only slept for less than five minutes.
He seemed to have forgotten that he had just cried while holding Lu Yi, and got out of bed rubbing his red eyes, which he himself didn't even realize were red, and yawning.
"I'm so hungry," he muttered. He hadn't had a good appetite since Lu Yi left, and although Anderson brought him barbecue every day, he hardly ate any.
"Vegetables or meat?" Lu Yi asked him.
"Food," Tang Bufan said, his spirits lifted, his eyes shining as he looked at Lu Yi, pleased that he was there.
Lu Yi first looked at the refrigerator and found that there were no vegetables left, so he opened the sunroof and climbed onto the roof of the car, intending to pick some fresh vegetables.
When Lu Yi opened the plant cultivation box on the roof of the car, he was stunned to find that all the vegetables inside had wilted. It turned out that the temperature inside had melted the snow water, which then froze and sealed the air vents, preventing the vegetables from breathing for more than ten days.
Lu Yi immediately smashed the ice on the surface of the incubator with his fist, cleared the air holes, and dug out all the wilted and rotten vegetables to prevent them from rotting even more inside.
After inspecting all four incubators, Lu Yi reluctantly picked a relatively good lettuce.
Tang Bufan was sitting by the window drinking warm water. He was obviously unaware of the matter, but Brother Kai must have known, but he didn't say anything because he didn't want Tang Bufan to worry.
After all, given Tang Bufan's physical condition, even if he knew, it wouldn't make a difference. He couldn't possibly climb outside at minus thirty or forty degrees Celsius to break the ice; his body definitely couldn't withstand another fever.
I need to find a way to get out of here quickly. With that thought in mind, Lu Yi pretended to be nonchalant as he washed the last remaining lettuce in the kitchen, tearing off the rotten parts.
“The beast tide has passed, we can continue on our way.” Lu said to Tang Bufan while washing vegetables, “I plan to ask Anderson for help.”
Tang Bufan put down his water glass and asked worriedly, "The whole mountain is covered in snow now, and the RV can't see the road at all. How are we going to get around? And aren't we on a hillside?"
Driving in icy and snowy conditions poses a risk of wheel slippage even on flat roads, let alone on slopes, making accidents extremely easy to occur.
“The hillside is full of frozen animals now. I initially thought they were in the way, but now I think they might be helping us.” Lu put a bowl of lettuce in front of Tang Bufan: “Their uneven corpses can make the RV more stable. As for the road conditions, I can scout ahead.”
"Run over their corpses down the mountain?" Tang Bufan frowned, still feeling uneasy about piles of wild animal carcasses because of his nightmares.
“Yes.” Lu nodded.
"Oh!" Tang Bufan felt a strange sense of nightmare turning into reality, and he couldn't help but stare at Lu Yi.
"What's wrong?" Lu Yi asked, puzzled by his gaze.
Tang Bufan reached across the small table and gently pinched Lu Yi's face; the real touch made him feel comfortable.
"I'll pinch you." Tang Bufan chuckled, teasing Lu Yi.
Lu Yi accepted his teasing and blushed slightly.
Time was short, so Lu Yi left the RV to go find Anderson.
Anderson lay lazily in the small cave, a bearskin beneath him, a fire beside him, and snow outside. He was watching a movie with his personal AI, thoroughly enjoying himself.
"Didn't I tell you to brew medicine for the teacher?" Lu Yi noticed that the pot for brewing medicine was placed aside, so he went over to pick it up and dug a large pot of snow at the entrance of the cave.
"You're back, aren't you?" Anderson wasn't surprised by his appearance; he had heard the commotion last night.
Lu put a pot on the fire to melt the snow, then grabbed a handful of dark brown dried herbs from a burlap sack in the corner and stuffed them into the pot.
He also added a slice of ginseng, a few goji berries, and red dates, all of which are good for health.
“The beast tide has passed, and my teacher and I need to leave. But it’s not easy for the RV to go down the mountain; the tires are very slippery, so we need your help,” Lu Yi said to Anderson, sitting on a rock patiently decocting Chinese medicine.
"No way." Anderson refused curtly, looking at the movie projected in the air. It was a tragic love story about a human and an orc, and it was quite funny.
"Please." Lu Yi looked at him earnestly: "The teacher's life is slipping away every day, we can't delay any longer."
"Then mark him," Anderson said sarcastically. "Don't you like him?"
"...The teacher doesn't want to be a sub-beastman; he wants to go back." Lu Yi's voice lowered a few decibels as he looked down at the burning fire, the firelight illuminating his handsome face: "I've decided to help him realize his dream."
"You don't think I'll praise you for telling me this, do you?" Anderson sneered. "Besides, how could a wanted criminal like him possibly go back?"
“There are people waiting for him in the underground city in the East District,” Lu Yi told the truth.
"Is it that organization?" Anderson stopped watching the movie and turned to look at Lu Yi, his expression becoming slightly serious. "The mutated poison people are rampant. You should have already noticed that the resistance organization is using poison people to eliminate orcs. Have you thought about what kind of relationship your teacher has with that organization?"
"...Do you think the teacher is a member of that organization?" Lu Yi asked him.
"Isn't that right?" Anderson retorted. Even though he hadn't spent much time with Tang Bufan, he still keenly noticed that Tang was acting strangely and had intricate connections with that mysterious organization.
“He’s not,” Lu Yi denied on behalf of Tang Bufan.
Anderson looked at him sneer: "Did he tell you that? You believe him just because he says so?"
“He’s definitely not.” Lu Yi continued to defend Tang Bufan. He hesitated for a moment, then told Anderson, “He was actually a victim of that organization as well. He was a neutral party and was framed for being wanted.”
"I think you've been blinded by love." Anderson rose from the animal skin, sat down with a sneer, and stared at Lu Yi. "He's a liar, not only clever but also a smooth talker. Have you ever wondered why someone from the East District would be in the far West? And how he could have run into you so coincidentally?"
In the post-apocalyptic world, airplanes are gone, and even vehicles are a luxury. In addition, the ground is desolate and wild beasts roam freely, making it extremely difficult to cross continents. Furthermore, the massive earthquake a few years ago created the Asian Rift Valley. It is very strange that Tang Bufan, a person from the underground city of the Eastern District, would appear alone in the Tarim Basin.
What's even more bizarre is that he encountered Lu Yi in the vast desert, while the whole world was buzzing about the fact that the head of state's youngest son had run away.
Their meeting seemed like a carefully orchestrated coincidence.
Lu Yi frowned slightly, his golden-green eyes looking at Anderson: "What do you want to say?"
“You know what I’m trying to say.” Anderson didn’t believe Lu Yi hadn’t figured it out.
The two orcs faced each other across the fire, then Lu Yi calmly lowered his eyes and added a piece of firewood to the fire.
The air was filled with the aroma of medicine.
“He wasn’t sent by that organization to get close to me,” Lu Yi said. “Like I said, he was also a victim of that organization.”
Anderson's eyes turned cold: "So now you believe him and not me?"
“I believe him, and I believe you.” Lu Yi didn’t expect Anderson to be so wary of Tang Bufan, even though he had only been deceived by Tang Bufan once. He then asked him strangely, “Besides, didn’t you want me to be hurt by him? Why are you worried about me?”
Anderson choked for a moment before saying irritably, "If you weren't the successor to the throne of the Western Federation, who would care about you? But my family all live in the Western Federation, and if you fall into the hands of that organization, it will seriously affect the Western Federation."
Anderson's tone hardened after he finished speaking: "If I had known he was someone sent by some protest organization to get close to you at that gas station, I would have strangled him."
Lu Yi's heart sank, and his brows immediately furrowed. He hadn't expected Anderson to actually have murderous intentions towards Tang Bufan.
After a moment of deep thought, Lu Yi sighed softly: "Teacher is a very kind person. I know he seems suspicious, but once you get to know him, you'll understand that he is stronger and more upright than most people in the world. It's just that he is too weak and has to force himself to be cold and ruthless in order to survive. If you don't believe him, then come and live with us in the RV."
Lu Yi extended an invitation to Anderson, though he was actually reluctant to let Anderson join him in the car. However, he needed Anderson's help to leave the RV.
Furthermore, Lu Yi also wanted to try to dispel Anderson's suspicions about Tang Bufan through daily contact.
Anderson was surprised by his invitation and raised an eyebrow: "What, aren't you afraid I'll just get in the car and kill him?"
"If you wanted to kill him, you would have done it already." After the past six months, Lu Yi's opinion of Anderson had changed. Anderson was indeed insane when he was first released from the mental hospital, but now... he vaguely saw the witty and elegant commander he once knew in Anderson.
He even began to doubt the veracity of the human's accusations of violence against Anderson from back then.
“I saw he was about to die, so I couldn’t be bothered to kill him.” Anderson said with a look of disdain, then added with a hint of disgust, “Besides, your beat-up car is so small, with only one bed. How are three people supposed to live there?”
“I’ll sleep in the bed with the teacher, you can sleep on the floor.” Lu Yi generously gave his floor bed to Anderson.
"Heh." Anderson sneered.
"..." Lu Yi felt embarrassed by his laughter and realized that he was being a bit unreasonable. This was not the way to ask for help. So after thinking for a moment, he reluctantly said, "Then you can sleep on the bed, and the teacher and I will sleep on the floor."
He laid five layers of animal hides on the ground, which should be able to block the cold air from the floor and prevent Tang Bufan from catching a cold.
Anderson was satisfied, but he didn't agree immediately. Instead, he sat there with his wrists on his knees and began to think.
"Please." Seeing that he was wavering, Lu immediately played the emotional card again: "You taught me to be gentle and kind to humans."
Anderson's silver eyes trembled slightly as he looked at Lu Yi's face, which resembled Anna's, with a complex mix of emotions, as if he could see the little boy trembling behind him again.
Lu Yilian even learned to speak from him. The little beastman, with his ugly face that couldn't yet control his form, called him Anderson in a childish voice, "Anderson, Anderson..."
It's grown so big in the blink of an eye.
“…If it weren’t for my father’s request, I wouldn’t have bothered bringing you along.” Anderson was annoyed and looked impatient, but he compromised: “Fine, I’ll just watch you two have some fun in the car.”
After he finished speaking, he added a sarcastic remark to Lu Yi: "You have really bad taste in partners."
When Lu Yi saw that he had finally agreed to help, he breathed a sigh of relief and a smile appeared on his handsome face.
“No, my judgment is the best.” Lu Yi looked at the boiling medicine pot, his heart softening: “Teacher is the best in the world.”
Anderson rolled his eyes, then lazily lay back down on the animal skin, muttering angrily, "Disgusting."
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