I’ll Just Hold You for a While…
After Fang Anyu finished showering and came out, he saw Jun Yueyue standing there holding a plastic bag. He walked up behind her and very naturally wrapped his arms around her waist, then took the bag of barbecue from her hand.
He did not see Jun Yueyue’s expression. He rested his head on top of hers and, still holding her like that, closed the door and guided her toward the bed.
He had just finished showering, so his body was much warmer than an ordinary person’s. Through the poor-quality disposable bathrobe, that warmth pressed against her like a heater, pulling Jun Yueyue completely out of the icy nightmare she had fallen into and back to reality.
Fang Anyu placed the bag of barbecue on the table by the window, drew the curtains, and turned the air conditioning up by two degrees. Only then did he sit on the chair beside the table, open the insulated bag, take out a skewer, and instead of eating it first himself, handed it to Jun Yueyue.
Jun Yueyue sat on the edge of the bed. Her mind was still somewhat dazed because of the person who had just appeared, the man who looked exactly like Lei Ze, her captain from the apocalypse. When the skewer was brought to her mouth, she did not reach out to take it. Instead, she subconsciously opened her mouth. Only after taking a bite did the taste fully call her mind back into her body.
She glanced at Fang Anyu and reached out to take the meat skewer.
This should originally have been something worth thinking about deeply. Jun Yueyue should not have been able to eat. The person today, plus the earlier person who had a face exactly like her enemy’s, and even that familiar tree and scenery, were all very worth pondering over.
There might be coincidences in this world, but there could not be such fatal similarities happening again and again. Jun Yueyue’s mind was a mess, but her mouth did not stop for even a second…
Seriously—Fang Anyu was too much! He was eating skewers two at a time!
Jun Yueyue’s mouth was not that big, nor did she have that much strength. She wolfed down one skewer, and Fang Anyu had already finished two. She had not ordered that many in total. If this continued, she would lose out badly!
So all the deductions and guesses in her mind were squeezed away by the meat she could not even chew fast enough. She started competing with Fang Anyu. There were three small bags of skewers in total, with a bit of everything. The two of them devoured everything like a whirlwind, swallowing them almost whole.
After finishing, because their mouths were covered in chilli powder and oil, she and Fang Anyu had no choice but to shower and brush their teeth again.
Wearing matching bathrobes, they stood side by side in front of the sink brushing their teeth. Fang Anyu was taller than Jun Yueyue, and he rested his elbow on her shoulder while watching her through the mirror the whole time.
Jun Yueyue looked at herself in the mirror, eyes staring blankly, but in reality, her brain was running at high speed.
How was it possible?
The last time could be called a coincidence. Her extreme reaction could be explained as trauma triggered by seeing that face.
But how could she explain that big tree and that familiar scenery? She must have gone to that place while searching for supplies after the apocalypse, otherwise it would never have felt so familiar.
Even if there were many trees and roads in this world that looked similar, what about today’s “Captain Lei Ze”?
Jun Yueyue had been distracted the whole time and did not notice that Fang Anyu’s gaze had been fixed on her face. His eyes were especially bright, exactly the same as when he saw food. That was the look he had only when he saw something he liked.
By the time the two of them finished brushing their teeth, Jun Yueyue was still in that absent-minded state. Fang Anyu had slept for an entire afternoon, so he was very energetic now. Lying on the bed, he wanted to talk to Jun Yueyue. He sent her two messages. After Jun Yueyue read them, she replied:
Don’t disturb me for now. Let me stay by myself for a while. There’s something I can’t figure out.
Fang Anyu nodded and quietly sat beside Jun Yueyue, no longer disturbing her.
No matter how hard Jun Yueyue tried, she could not sort it out. She knew something was wrong. It was too much of a coincidence. But she could not figure out exactly what was wrong.
A parallel world?
But this was a novel world…
Then, an overlap of time and space?
But could a novel world overlap with a real world?
Was this world even real?
Jun Yueyue’s imagination ran wild. She thought of all kinds of possibilities. After all, her firm materialism had already completely collapsed in her previous life, the moment she discovered that dead people could stand up and eat humans.
She was very certain that she had experienced a world, a very complete world that she remembered from the time she was very young. She possessed all her memories from childhood to adulthood, all the way until the apocalypse descended, the fear, hardship, and the heart-rending pain of being abandoned, even up to the final moment when she had been torn apart and eaten by zombies. All of it was so vivid.
That could not be fake, because neither fantasies nor dreams could be so detailed.
She also clearly remembered that before she died, she had indeed read a novel like this. After coming back to life, she had become a character in the novel.
Then was there a possibility…
Jun Yueyue came up with many ideas. She got up from the bed, pressed her hand against the glass window, and looked downstairs at the flickering neon lights. Her breath formed mist on the glass. At some point, it had started raining outside again.
She stood like that for a very, very long time. Fang Anyu stood with her for a while, then fiddled with the remote control and turned on the television.
Jun Yueyue listened to the sound of the television. She stood by the window until her legs went numb. Only then did she pick up the phone, her fingers stiff as she dialled the number she had used to order the skewers earlier.
“Du… du… du…”
The waiting tone felt as long as a century.
It was already past two in the morning. After a long time, someone finally answered.
It was still that familiar male voice. Only now, his voice was full of impatience, exactly like during the apocalypse, every time they had to gather early for a mission briefing. His irritation seemed about to spill through the phone.
“Who is it…”
Anyone who was woken up in the middle of the night—especially after working hard all day, finally closing the stall, and only just falling asleep—would be irritable. When Jun Yueyue heard that familiar voice, her throat went dry. She opened her mouth but could not speak for a while.
“Hello?! Who is this?! Calling in the middle of the night and not saying anything!”
The call was quickly cut off. Jun Yueyue’s breathing was rapid. She licked her lips, then with trembling fingers, dialled again.
This time, the moment the other side picked up, he started cursing. “Who the hell are you?! What do you want!”
Jun Yueyue took a deep breath and asked in a trembling voice, “Are you… Lei Ze?”
The voice on the other end paused for a second. When he spoke again, he was a little more polite. After all, anyone who could call out his full name must know him. Even if he could not tell who it was, it would not be good to keep cursing.
“Oh, yeah, that’s me. I was asleep just now. Who are you? Calling at this hour—something wrong?”
The hand Jun Yueyue used to hold the phone trembled terribly.
Her most absurd guess had almost been confirmed by Lei Ze’s words.
The other side still could not hear anyone speaking and continued asking, but Jun Yueyue hurriedly hung up. The phone slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. She almost could not stand and leaned forward against the glass, gasping heavily. It was as if her nose were filled with the smell of rot, and when she closed her eyes, all she saw were vast patches of blood.
Outside, the rain began growing heavier again. Carried by the wind, it struck the window with a crackling sound, like a monster trying to break out of its cage, baring its ferocious fangs at her.
Fang Anyu saw that something was wrong with Jun Yueyue, but remembering that she had told him earlier not to disturb her, he only glanced at her a few times and did not go over.
This wildly heavy rain also brought Jun Yueyue’s sealed memories back to life.
One year before the apocalypse, there had been one month when heavy rain fell continuously for an entire month. It happened all across the country. Many buildings collapsed, factories stopped working, and some places suffered long power cuts. Back then, the disaster had only just begun to take shape…
Thinking of the situation later in the apocalypse, a wave of desolation surged through Jun Yueyue’s heart.
That phone call just now had almost confirmed her most absurd guess.
Perhaps she had not transmigrated into a novel at all. Perhaps she had existed within the novel all along.
After dying and coming back to life, she had not travelled from one space-time into another…
Her whole body subconsciously tensed. She slowly moved away from the window, retreated to the bedside, and collapsed onto the bed.
Perhaps she had only been reborn into someone else’s body!
But how could that be? If the world she had once lived in had originally been this novel, then there were still many things that could not be explained.
She had read this novel all the way to the end. The final ending was simply the male and female leads happily living together. The extras were also very ordinary, with the two of them having children. There had been no apocalypse plot at all.
Jun Yueyue had never even heard of Qiuhai City.
But if the guess she had just confirmed was true, she could boldly make another assumption: if the author of this book only wrote up to the point where the male and female leads got together and then ended it, but after that, the male and female leads continued living in the unwritten world of the book… and then the apocalypse suddenly came to that world?
Then Fang Anyan, as the male lead, would definitely dominate in the apocalypse.
But in the base where Jun Yueyue had lived, people from all sorts of places had often come seeking refuge. She had never once heard, during the apocalypse, of an ability user named Fang Anyan, or some big-shot base leader by that name.
Jun Yueyue had fallen into a dead end. Her mind continuously followed her current guess and imagined it in different directions, but no matter how she thought about it, she could not arrive at an answer that explained everything.
Time passed minute by minute, second by second. The clock hands pointed to 3:15. Outside, the rain was still falling. Jun Yueyue had remained stiffly seated at the edge of the bed for a long time. Fang Anyu finished watching an entire movie and yawned sleepily. Turning his head, he saw that Jun Yueyue was still sitting there, thinking about who knew what. He rolled across the bed to her side, reached out, held her shoulders, and pushed her down onto the bed.
Only after Jun Yueyue lay down did she realise that her waist and back were already unbearably sore. She simply kicked off her shoes, adjusted her position slightly, and lay on the bed. Then she turned her head and looked at Fang Anyu.
Previously, whenever Jun Yueyue lost control, as long as she saw Fang Anyu, she would quickly sober up. After all, Fang Anyu was a character from the novel world…
But now, looking at Fang Anyu, her feelings were extremely complicated, and there was also a trace of disbelief.
Could it be that they had originally been people from the same world?
During the apocalypse, when Jun Yueyue followed the team out to search for supplies, plants had begun growing wildly after the end of the world. Most of the city was broken walls and ruins, and it was impossible to tell where was where. But she had been to many, many places and had met many people. She had never heard of Fang Anyan, let alone Fang Anyu.
Fang Anyu took his phone and sent Jun Yueyue a message:
What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that? Your complexion looks bad. Are you uncomfortable somewhere?
The phone rang, but it was not beside Jun Yueyue. The two of them looked toward the floor at the same time. Fang Anyu got out of bed, picked up the phone, and handed it to Jun Yueyue.
This phone was really impressive. But this time, it had already been dropped twice, and there was still no sign of it breaking.
After Jun Yueyue read the message, she waited for a while before replying:
Maybe I ate the skewers too quickly just now. My stomach feels a bit uncomfortable.
She typed it by hand instead of using voice input, because right now, she did not want to say a single word. There was an indescribable exhaustion that left her whole body listless, as if she had been beaten down by frost.
This guess was too terrifying. If it was true, then at some unknown point in the future, she would once again experience that insane world and have to struggle to survive in that world again. In that case, what meaning did her rebirth this time even have?
When Fang Anyu saw Jun Yueyue say her stomach was uncomfortable, he hurriedly typed with concern:
I’ll go warm a towel for you to press against it.
At this hour, medicine could not be bought. Besides, it was still raining so heavily outside. After sending the message, Fang Anyu was about to get up, but Jun Yueyue wrapped her arms around his waist and stopped him from rising.
Jun Yueyue had never been this fragile, this haggard, this lost before. Her complexion really was bad. Her expression, her entire mental state, was wilted.
If one had to describe it, it was about the same as working hard on a farm for thirty years only to return overnight to square one…
This damned world… had made her lose the will to survive.
Although one Lei Ze, along with the earlier coincidences, could not completely prove her guess, Jun Yueyue was truly so tired at this moment that she did not even want to open her eyes.
She hugged Fang Anyu’s waist. If she did not grab onto something right now, she always felt as if she herself might not be real either. Perhaps in the next second, she would turn into foam and drift away like the little mermaid in the story…
After all, if everything she guessed was true, then in this novel world, Fang Anyu was at least a second male lead, while she was someone the author had never even written about. From rebirth to death, she had struggled to survive outside the plot… She did not even count as cannon fodder.
Thinking this, she hugged Fang Anyu even tighter, like someone in violent wind and waves clinging to a piece of driftwood. The rest of the bed had become an ocean where she could not find solid ground. Only the person in her arms made her feel a little real.
“Don’t go… let me hold you for a while…”
Across two lifetimes, Jun Yueyue had never been as weak as she was in this moment. She knew Fang Anyu could not hear her, and she had not intended for him to hear. It was more like she was speaking to herself.
“I’ll just hold you for a while…”
She needed to rest properly.
Her face was pressed against Fang Anyu’s waist. Forget hearing her—Fang Anyu did not even see her speaking. But Jun Yueyue was holding him so tightly, and before this she had sat on the edge of the bed without speaking for so long. Fang Anyu knew her emotions were not right. He did not know what he could do to make Jun Yueyue happy, but at the very least, he could quietly accompany her.
So he did not get up. Instead, he lay back down again. Since she had said her stomach felt uncomfortable, Fang Anyu thought for a moment, rubbed his hands together to warm them, then tentatively lifted Jun Yueyue’s bathrobe and placed his hands against her stomach.
Jun Yueyue did not refuse. She did not lift her head at all. Her face was still buried against Fang Anyu’s side. But since Fang Anyu’s waist was still being hugged by her, this position was a little awkward. After he warmed his hands twice and pressed them against her stomach twice, Jun Yueyue shifted slightly onto her side, flattening her sideways stomach a little to make it easier for Fang Anyu to warm it with his hands.
Actually, her stomach did not hurt. What hurt was Jun Yueyue’s heart. But the warmth transmitted through her skin from Fang Anyu’s warm, dry palms—although it was a little far away—seemed to reach her heart like light. After several times, it really did not hurt as much anymore…
The lights in the room were on, and another movie automatically began playing on the television. On the bed, two people lay intimately together. Fang Anyu patiently warmed Jun Yueyue’s stomach with his hands again and again. Jun Yueyue held him like that, and without realising it, she fell asleep leaning against Fang Anyu.
She was too tired…
During all those years in the apocalypse, she had been like someone climbing upward from a pit. Halfway up, she had fallen back down. She had thought she had died from the fall and no longer needed to climb. But when she woke up again, not only had she not died, she realised that perhaps she had to start climbing all over again…
The next morning, Jun Yueyue was already awake, but she still did not want to open her eyes. Her whole person was unbelievably negative. Fang Anyu had also been awake for a long time, but because Jun Yueyue did not move, he had not moved either, since Jun Yueyue’s hand was still wrapped around him.
Although lying in the same position all night had made Fang Anyu very uncomfortable, he truly liked the way Jun Yueyue held him like this. Her head was buried against his side, only half of her face showing, and she had not let go of him all night…
As Fang Anyu looked at Jun Yueyue like this, a very strange emotion rose in his heart, one he had never felt before.
He did not know that this was the feeling of being relied on. No one had ever relied on him before. His heart felt indescribably soft. He could not help reaching out to touch Jun Yueyue’s hair. His movements were very light, afraid of waking Jun Yueyue. Even though he felt uncomfortable, he could not bear to get up at all.
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