Chapter 26 Sentinel Direction | Gazing into the Abyss 3: Absolute Invasion
After drying her hair and changing into comfortable pajamas, Yuezhi stepped out of the bathroom and saw Pei Heng already sitting on her bed.
He changed into a dark gray silk nightgown, with the top two buttons casually undone, revealing his well-defined collarbone. The blanket was neatly draped over his abdomen, and his usual unapproachable, wild aura had subsided considerably.
A pair of exquisite gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and a thick book held in his hands. The warm yellow light from the bedside lamp outlined his focused profile, revealing a rare and refined intellectual charm.
The scene was so deceptive that Yuezhi couldn't help but chuckle. She walked to the bedside and said, "How childish! If you want me to stay with you, the study is so big, why do you have to squeeze into my room?"
It's really childish to come here early and linger.
Pei Heng looked up from the book. His eyes behind his glasses had lost some of their usual sharpness and appeared somewhat languid.
He didn't respond to her teasing, but simply lifted a corner of the blanket beside him, patted the empty space, and said in a low, almost imperceptible huskiness, "Come here, I'm not feeling well, I need you to get closer so I can help ease the discomfort."
"Not feeling well?" Yuezhi frowned in confusion.
“How could that be? Your pollution level is clearly…” she said, while subconsciously reaching out her mental tentacles to gently touch his mental landscape.
The feedback she received stunned her; the pollution level had quietly risen back to "5" without her noticing.
"What's going on? You used your power again?" She asked nervously, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"No." Pei Heng closed the book, took off his glasses, rubbed his temples, and said in a slightly tired tone, "It might be a side effect of the medication; my energy is a bit unstable."
When he mentioned medication, Yuezhi recalled his unusually pale face and tightly pursed lips when he came out of the medical center.
While the minute amount of contamination is not fatal, the drug-induced disorder can indeed keep a person in a state of instability, and if not treated promptly, it can be a long and arduous ordeal.
Without further hesitation, she lifted the covers and sat down beside him.
His cold aura, mixed with the dampness from his shower, instantly enveloped her.
Even though she was in her own bed with her younger brother, whom she had grown up with, next to her, Yuezhi felt inexplicably reserved.
His presence was too strong.
Even in his pajamas, his broad shoulders and toned arms were clearly visible, silently exuding the aggression of an adult man.
She suddenly remembered that people had said before that she and her brother didn't look alike at all, and their personalities were even more different. She was gentle and mild-mannered, while Pei Heng was extremely aggressive, wild, and flamboyant. They couldn't find any resemblance between them.
However, their blood relationship has been verified by genetic testing, an irrefutable fact that cannot possibly be wrong.
She tried to dispel the strange feeling in her heart and found a safe topic: "Aheng, perhaps you should participate in more group activities organized by the tower and meet some new friends. You can't keep relying on me and medication. You are so strong, you need a more stable way to manage your emotions. The current approach is really limited in its effectiveness..."
Pei Heng listened quietly without answering.
He put his glasses back on, the lenses reflecting the light, making it impossible to see the true emotions in his eyes.
"Sis, aren't you wearing a bra?"
With a "boom," blood rushed to Yuezhi's cheeks.
She was both embarrassed and annoyed, and lowered her voice: "Pei Heng! What kind of girl wears underwear to sleep in her own room?!"
Her ears were burning, so she quickly changed the subject and reached for the book he had placed on his lap. "Have you finished reading? I'm going to turn off the light and go to sleep."
Pei Heng let out a low, ambiguous hum, obediently letting her take the book away and put it on the bedside table, then took off his glasses again.
The lights went out, plunging the room into darkness.
Yuezhi lay down, pulled the blanket up, and could clearly feel the warmth emanating from the other body beside her.
She gazed at the blurry ceiling, a mixture of helplessness and indulgence in her voice, and murmured softly, "If others knew that the fearsome Sentinel No. 001 was a man who couldn't live without his sister and still clung to her even at twenty-one, I wonder what they would laugh at you for..."
As soon as he finished speaking, Pei Heng beside him stirred. He gave a muffled "hmm" in a nonchalant tone, then naturally turned to lean against him.
He skillfully wrapped his arms around her waist, leaned his head closer, and rested his forehead between her shoulder, neck, and armpit, like a large adult wolf seeking security. He was almost half-lying down beside her, greedily breathing in the warm and peaceful scent emanating from her.
"Let them be," he mumbled, then stopped moving, his breathing gradually becoming steady and long.
Yuezhi's body stiffened for a moment.
Even though she was used to his closeness when he was emotionally unstable, such intimate sharing of the same bed still made her feel somewhat uncomfortable.
But soon, his dependent posture and the steady, strong heartbeat transmitted through his pajamas dispelled her restraint, and she gradually relaxed. Just like when she was a child, she turned to the side and gently hugged him back, patting his back lightly with one hand.
In the darkness, she closed her eyes, suppressed all her chaotic thoughts, and gradually fell asleep.
*
Yuezhi slept soundly and fell into a dream without warning.
The dream was filled with faded images, like old photographs re-flowing, carrying a damp and oppressive atmosphere.
When she was fourteen, she was sitting in the back seat of a car with eight-year-old Pei Heng. The family was going to a newly opened amusement park, and everyone's face was filled with expectant smiles.
But the car malfunctioned for some reason and suddenly went out of control. Her father swerved the steering wheel, and the car crashed into the guardrail. The huge impact knocked her unconscious.
Her clearest memory was of her wearing a faded orphanage uniform, holding the hand of Pei Heng, an eight-year-old boy who was only up to her chest. He had soft black hair and eyes like obsidian that had been soaked in water, and he timidly tugged at the hem of her clothes.
The shadow of their parents' death in a car accident has not yet faded, and they depend on each other for survival in the welfare home.
In her third year at the welfare home, when she turned sixteen and was about to enter the workforce, a fire broke out at the welfare home. Flames soared into the sky, and thick smoke made it impossible for people to open their eyes.
That damned, twisted instance entrance grew like a malignant tumor in the hidden basement of the orphanage.
The rescue came too late. Sticky, tentacle-like monsters with eerie patterns surged from the ground, waving wildly and setting everything ablaze. Screams, cries, and the deafening roar of collapsing buildings filled the air.
She watched helplessly as a thick roof beam, engulfed in ominous black flames, crashed down, striking Pei Heng precisely as he ran towards her.
She heard herself screaming in agony, the sound piercing her throat.
The world seemed to slow down. She watched as the small figure was crushed under the heavy beams, and bright red blood instantly seeped out, forming a glaring red pool beneath him. Black flames coiled around him, devouring his clothes and skin.
She lunged forward recklessly, gripping the scorching beam with both hands, trying with all her might to lift it. Her nails cracked, and she felt a burning, sticky pain in her palms, but she couldn't feel it.
Strangely, her hands were somehow stained with some kind of cold, slippery liquid, like the slime inside some monster, or perhaps... a living shadow.
Despite the presence of this strange liquid, the black flames, powerful enough to incinerate steel, did not burn her.
Even so, her strength was still too weak; she couldn't move it and could only watch in despair as the flames slowly devoured her brother's faint breath.
"Save him...please save him..." She was forcibly dragged away from the fire, powerless to do anything.
For the next few days, she remained in a daze until she saw Pei Heng again in the rescue hospital filled with the smell of disinfectant.
He lay on the white hospital bed, his body wrapped in bandages, his face pale and bloodless.
His eyes were open, his beautiful, dark eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, as if his soul had been ripped out. He was unresponsive to everything around him, as if his mind had been completely destroyed by a tremendous shock.
"Aheng..." She trembled as she rushed over and carefully hugged him, her tears soaking the bandage on his chest. "Aheng, it's your sister, your sister is here..."
She cried for a long time, and her eyes were swollen and painful.
Finally, she felt the tiny body in her arms move very slightly.
Then, a pair of thin arms slowly and tentatively embraced her, the force was very light, but it carried a heartbreaking attachment like a dying person clinging to a piece of driftwood.
Later, as he grew taller and more mature, and after awakening as a Sentinel, his hair gradually turned white, and his eyes became increasingly dark. Occasionally, when he looked at her, his eyes held a sticky, unsettling quality, as if he wanted to devour her.
...
She always thought that her brother's morbid attachment to her was due to the trauma of the fire and his near-death experience, which left him with indelible psychological scars.
And wasn't it because of her fear of losing him again that she repeatedly compromised, indulged, and even actively satisfied all his dependencies?
But at this moment, in her dream, when she snapped out of this thought, she was horrified to find that her surroundings had changed.
She wasn't in the hospital or the orphanage; she was lying on her familiar bed, but the sensations in her body were so eerie that they sent chills down her spine.
She was completely naked, tightly enveloped in a cold, viscous, living black liquid.
The mucus seeped into every pore, covering every inch of her skin, clinging to it, wriggling, and bringing a nauseatingly slippery sensation.
They rushed into her mouth like water, robbing her of her breath, but instead of bringing the pain of suffocation, they brought a twisted sense of happiness from the inside out, a feeling of being completely possessed, a strangeness and a will to survive that intertwined, making her unable to think.
"Sister...don't leave me..."
It's Pei Heng's voice!
"ah!"
Yuezhi was jolted awake from her nightmare, her heart pounding. However, the scene before her filled her with even greater terror.
She lay prone on the bed, a hot, sweaty male body behind her, heavy breathing on the back of her neck, strong arms tightly wrapped around her waist, making it impossible for her to escape...
It's Pei Heng!
His strong chest pressed against her back, sweat dripping from his body, sliding down her spine, sending shivers down her spine.
The air was filled with a fishy/muttony smell, which strangely overlapped with the sticky feeling of the black slime in my dream.
What are they doing? Is it channeling people out of their way? Or...?
"No, Ah Heng...stop!" She struggled in panic, gripping the sheets tightly, her voice trembling with tears.
The young man obediently listened, burying his face in her neck, his burning lips pressed against the sensitive skin of the back of her neck, his voice hoarse, already lost in a daze: "Sister...it's okay...it'll be over soon..."
"Ha!"
Yuezhi suddenly opened her eyes, breathing heavily, her forehead covered in cold sweat.
Before me lay the familiar dimness.
The pale moonlight filtered through the gaps in the curtains, casting a narrow, quiet beam of light on the floor.
She was lying peacefully in her pajamas on her bed in her room. Beside her, Pei Heng was sleeping quietly, one hand resting naturally on her waist. His breathing was steady and long, and his handsome profile appeared harmless in his unconscious sleep, as if he had a childlike purity.
Was everything just now... a dream?
Yuezhi was still shaken; her heart was pounding wildly in her chest, and her body was tense from the recurring dreams she had experienced.
The feeling of being invaded and possessed was so real that even now, when she looks at Pei Heng's hand on her waist, she can feel the nerves under her skin throbbing faintly.
Panic, embarrassment, heart palpitations, and a touch of shameful, decadent feeling emanating from the depths of her dream... all sorts of emotions swirled and churned within her, leaving her momentarily at a loss.
Turning her head, she looked at Pei Heng's sleeping face, a face with sharp features that was completely different from the chubby little dumpling in her memory.
She recalled the unexpected car accident, the fire at the orphanage, his empty eyes in the hospital, his usual dependence, and the occasional chilling obsession he displayed.
She carefully hugged her younger brother, who evoked a complex mix of emotions within her.
I buried my face in the crook of his neck, which exuded the fresh scent of cedar, as if only in this way could I dispel the biting chill and absurdity brought by the dream...
In the shadows she couldn't see, Pei Heng, who should have been asleep, had a satisfied smile on his lips.
The smile vanished into the darkness.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
