Chapter 51 Greater Khingan Mountains - 6 Tang Bufan was stunned...
Tang Bufan stood there blankly, because the RV door opened slightly, letting in a rush of cold air, but Tang Bufan felt a little hot all over.
The warmth of Lu Yi's kiss still lingered on his forehead... Tang Bufan blushed.
Perhaps... Lu Yi's confession was the kind of confession he had in mind.
Afterwards, Tang Bufan continued eating with mixed feelings. Lu Yi said he wanted to ask Anderson to help take care of him, but Tang Bufan felt it was unlikely. That neurotic man didn't seem like the kind of person who would help, and Tang Bufan didn't really want to have too much contact with him.
"I can manage on my own," Tang Bufan thought, struggling to grip the fork and eat the meat slices with his trembling hands.
While they were eating, there was a knock on the RV door. Kai didn't open the door immediately, but instead told Tang Bufan, "It's Anderson."
Tang Bufan was a little nervous. He straightened his back and tried to look presentable.
"Let him in."
The car door opened, and the tall orc in the black leather coat stepped in with light steps.
"Hello, Madam~" He also gave Tang Bufan an elegant gentlemanly bow.
Tang Bufan frowned and told him, "I have a name. My name is Tang Bufan."
He noticed that this person didn't call people by their names properly.
“It’s all set in stone,” Anderson said with a smile, and sat down opposite Tang Bufan.
"Where is Lu Yi?" Tang Bufan asked him.
“He’s already gone.” Anderson rested his chin on his hand and stared at Tang Bufan.
Why did he leave in such a hurry...? Tang Bufan was quite surprised. Did the baring of fangs mean he had already entered his heat cycle?
“You look really ugly,” Anderson said bluntly. “You have a dead face.”
"...I'm about to die." Tang Bufan wasn't angry; he responded calmly.
On the small folding table were two plates, both filled with cold slices of roasted meat. Tang Bufan had already filled his stomach, so he stopped eating and didn't want outsiders to see his shaky, disheveled appearance.
"Why don't you let Lu Yi mark you?" Anderson asked curiously.
"And you? Why did you agree to let him take care of me?" Tang Bufan asked in return.
“Because he said he likes you, I find that interesting.” Anderson narrowed his eyes, his smile deep and meaningful. “He wasn’t lying, but I don’t think that’s enough.”
Tang Bufan was a little embarrassed, and a slight blush appeared on his pale face. He hadn't expected Lu Yi to be so straightforward in telling others that she liked him.
"...Our relationship will only be that of teacher and student." Tang Bufan then added, his tone complicated, "You're probably going to be disappointed. I won't date him."
He has his own agenda, and his health is a complete mess; he's simply not fit to be in a relationship right now. Tang Bufan sighed silently.
“Oh?” Anderson looked at him meaningfully. “In terms of stubbornness, you really are like Anna, but... that’s fine too.”
Tang Bufan was somewhat confused, while Anderson explained with a grin: "What you can't have is always the best. It's easy to kill someone, but to make someone wish they were dead, you have to let them meet the most special person at the best age, but not be able to have them. From then on, regret will gnaw at their heart like worms, forming a void... like a walking corpse."
Tang Bufan gradually became flustered and confused as he listened.
"Congratulations, your resistance faction has ruined the heir to the Western Federation," Anderson said sarcastically.
Tang Bufan's face darkened. Unlike Lu Yi, he didn't have a good temper and immediately ordered him to leave.
"Please leave," Tang Bufan said coldly. He shouldn't have let this person get in the car.
Anderson raised an eyebrow, remaining motionless: "Little Louis asked me to take care of you."
"I don't need it," Tang Bufan refused. "I'm capable of taking care of myself."
Anderson narrowed his eyes as he looked at Tang Bufan's hands hidden under the table: "Are you sure?"
Tang Bufan's trembling hands clenched into fists.
However, Anderson still got up and said lazily to Tang Bufan, "I will bring you the brewed medicine and roasted meat twice a day, and I won't care about anything else."
Tang Bufan hesitated for a moment, but ultimately did not refuse again with a firm stance.
Anderson left, and Tang Bufan sat there, resting his hand on his forehead in frustration, thinking about what Anderson had just said...
He and Lu Yi really shouldn't have developed feelings for each other.
The snow fell thick and fast. Tang Bufan was alone in the carriage, shivering from the cold. Lu Yi's departure made him feel lonely and a little lost.
The snow swallowed all sound, and the mountains became very quiet.
On the third day, the snow piled up to the top of the RV, and Anderson had to make a way through it before he could deliver medicine to Tang Bufan.
“The mountain might be buried in snow.” Anderson said with a hint of schadenfreude, “If the snow really does cover this place, little Louis will get lost.”
Tang Bufan was stunned. He then realized that in such a layer of snow, there was no smell, no sound, and if even the mountains disappeared... Lu Yi would have no way to find his way back.
Tang Bufan got anxious. He found a time when the temperature was only around minus thirty degrees Celsius, wrapped himself in a cotton-padded coat and put on a wolfskin jacket, pulled down the folding ladder, and climbed up to the roof of the RV through the skylight.
As Anderson said, the mountain was covered in snow, and as far as the eye could see, there was only a vast expanse of white snow.
Tang Bufan heard from Kai Ge that this was a cliff halfway up the mountain, but Tang Bufan couldn't see the bottom of the mountain at all... The entire forest was covered by snow, and he didn't even know how far ahead he would fall.
The snow was still falling... Tang Bufan looked up and saw that the sky was gray and the clouds were thick, like a clump of dirty cotton.
Orcs' mating season can last from three days to a week. Lu Yi left for five days last time, so he should be able to return in two more days this time.
The premise is that Lu Yi can find a way back.
"Xiao Tang, it's time to come back." Kai called out to Tang Bufan through the car horn; he had been gone for far too long.
Tang Bufan's hands were indeed frozen stiff, so he shakily returned to the RV.
He had originally planned to put up a flagpole on the roof of the car so that Lu Yi could see it, but judging from the heavy snow... even if he put up the flagpole, it would be covered up.
Humans are incredibly small in the face of nature.
On the fourth day, the cliff was also covered by snow, and the RV was buried under the snow.
On the fifth day, Lu Yi did not return.
Tang Bufan was anxious, but thought he should wait a few more days. So on the sixth day, the seventh day, the eighth day... on the ninth day, he finally couldn't help but ask Anderson for help.
"Go find him!" Tang Bufan said anxiously to Anderson, "Climb to the top of the mountain and try calling Lu Yi!"
At this moment, the mountains became a sea of snow, the peaks became trenches, and the RV was like a sunken ship, unable to float to the surface.
Anderson, who came to deliver the medicine, brushed the snow off his head and rolled his eyes: "Little Louis is one thing, but what right do you, a human, have to order me around?"
After saying that, he couldn't help but complain, "I feel like I've become your servant."
“Now that Lu Yi is back, you don’t have to brew medicine for me every day anymore.” Tang Bufan knew he had no right to make demands of him, but he still coaxed him with hope: “Didn’t you want to see some fun? Now that Lu Yi is dead, you won’t have any fun anymore.”
“…That’s true.” Anderson was somewhat persuaded by Tang Bufan.
Tang Bufan pressed on, coaxing, "If you find him and bring him back, I'll show you our love-hate relationship."
"..." Anderson looked at him speechlessly, knowing that this person was just talking nonsense, but after hesitating for a moment, his desire to watch the show prevailed.
So he reluctantly said, "Then I'll go up to the top of the mountain and take a look."
After saying that, he turned around and disappeared into the thick snow.
Tang Bufan waited anxiously in the car until Anderson returned near dusk.
“The top of our mountain is covered in snow. I felt my way up to the highest rock, but there’s still a thick layer of snow on it,” Anderson told him. “I can’t get any further.”
The mountaintop was covered in snow, meaning Lu Yi was no longer visible. Tang Bufan's heart pounded with anxiety.
Anderson brought Tang Bufan Chinese medicine as usual, but Tang Bufan had no appetite and couldn't drink it.
He sat alone by the window, head bowed, facing the bitter medicine, like an old man in his twilight years, devoid of spirit.
"I shouldn't have let Lu Yi leave that day..." Tang Bufan said dejectedly in the dimly lit RV, filled with regret. "I'm always like this, abandoning others to survive... First it was Uncle Wolf and Eberron, and now it's Lu Yi. If he dies..."
"Xiao Tang, Lu Yi won't die." Kai Ge's mechanical electronic male voice gently comforted him: "He just can't find his way back. Let's wait patiently."
“But it’s been ten days already…” Tang Bufan’s eyes reddened.
"He won't die." Kai, being an AI, actually used a commanding tone: "Drink the medicine."
The emotional module that Lu Yi upgraded for it appears to be a success.
Under its command, Tang Bufan finally picked up the medicine bowl with trembling hands.
Perhaps it was a case of what you think about during the day manifesting in your dreams at night, because that night, Tang Bufan had a nightmare.
He dreamt that he was in a dark and terrifying mountain, shrouded in thick fog, with the sky filled with grotesque birds with distorted features, and the ground piled with the carcasses of wild beasts.
Black rain, whether blood or sewage, fell from the sky. He hugged Chen Fei amidst the pile of wild animal carcasses and wailed.
Everything was distorted, like a Van Gogh painting. Suddenly, the birds in the sky gathered into a giant hand, and a distorted male face wearing glasses emerged from the clouds.
"Come up..." He roared like a giant, his voice deafening and heavy, as a giant hand formed by a flock of birds reached out towards Tang Bufan.
Tang Bufan held the child tightly in his arms, but was terrified by the giant hand. So he picked up Chen Fei from the pile of beast carcasses and ran away.
"Come up..." The giant face in the clouds continued to roar, its blurry features becoming increasingly distorted, while the flock of birds formed a giant hand, trying to lift Tang Bufan and the student in his arms into the sky.
Tang Bufan was so frightened that he ran blindly, and suddenly tripped over a corpse. The child in his arms was thrown out. Tang Bufan opened his eyes wide in horror and saw that it was a rotting child's corpse!
His heart stopped beating, and just then, the corpse at his feet suddenly emitted a strange cry:
"teacher……"
"..." Tang Bufan looked down, his face pale, and saw the orc boy's rotting corpse crawling with maggots...
"Lu Yi!"
Tang Bufan suddenly opened his eyes, his face covered in tears.
The car was quiet and dimly lit. Tang Bufan's heart was pounding, and he had to take several deep breaths to recover from the aftereffects of the nightmare.
"Xiao Tang, it's a nightmare." Kai turned on the car lights: "Don't be afraid, I'm here."
But Tang Bufan didn't need its comfort; he needed Lu Yi.
“Lu Yi… Lu Yi…” Tang Bufan sat on the rusty iron bed, raised his hand to cover his face and wept bitterly.
Once he woke up, he couldn't fall back asleep. Tang Bufan didn't know how long he had been crying. He gradually calmed down, put on his cotton-padded coat, and sat by the car window.
He just sat there blankly, and Kai didn't disturb him. Then he reached out and picked up the rose music box, a pretty ornament that he and Lu Yi had picked up from the gas station convenience store. His thin fingers turned the knob on the side.
A clear and melodious tune emanated from the music box, and a bright red rose slowly rotated inside the glass dome. Tang Bufan couldn't help but close his eyes as he listened to the music.
"Come here, teacher will give you a little red flower." In the dark little supermarket, he smiled at Lu Yi, whose face was illuminated by the oil lamp's light, and he smiled too.
“Teacher, you’re just teasing me again…” His face was flushed.
Tang Bufan lowered his head and curled the corners of his mouth. He seemed sleepy, or perhaps he was immersed in the music. The old RV was cold and quiet, with only the crisp music flowing like a stream.
With a "bang," the car window was suddenly smashed.
Tang Bufan suddenly opened his eyes and turned to look at the window. The glass was covered with frost. The man broke off a piece of ice, revealing golden-green eyes like gemstones.
Tang Bufan was in a daze until Lu Yi smiled at him from outside the window, which snapped him out of his reverie.
“Lu…” Tang Bufan’s voice was hoarse, unable to hold back his emotions of regaining what he had lost, and tears streamed down his face:
"Lu Yi!"
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