The scent is nauseatingly strong. Even without an abnormally sensitive nose, Noah can pick up the familiar copper from meters away. Yang Rong, too, senses it just as quickly as he does. The man taps him on the shoulder and waves a finger slightly in indication – “you stay here” – before heading forward.
Noah shakes his head and follows along. The coppery scent only gets stronger past the forest area. Among the rustling of trees are eerie howls and rough growls from animals flocking en masse. The two of them move silently. Noah strains his eyes to see.
Past the depths of brown and black tree trunks, past a small shed in the remote vicinity, lying on the ground is the body of man with gray hair. The anomalies are flocked to feast, ripping apart even more of his already-mutilated body, dragging bits and pieces of viscera onto dampened soil. Insects gather around the deceased in nauseating swarms of black, covering the entirety of his face and neck.
Then, a few meters away from the body lies another much more familiar one. It is only Noah’s acuity that can see through the wild animals devouring the young boy – that same young boy they’d seen an hour ago, but only now, his form is tattered beyond recognition.
Not far from him is the shape of an arm. His fingers are – were – curled limply. A rodent immediately swoops in and snatches the limb, fleeing from the scene of dozens more bloodthirsty anomalies.
Noah is petrified in place.
Yang Rong takes a little longer to register the sight. When he does, he turns to Noah with an indecipherable gaze. He reaches for Noah’s hand – no reaction – and leads him back the other way. There is absolute silence between them for five minutes, ten minutes, then…
On an empty road, as their boots crinkle on old asphalt, Colonel Yang asks, “Do you blame me?”
Noah only walks robotically forward, held steady by the other man – Yang Rong’s hands are bathed in blood, invisible or not – and doesn’t say a word until minutes later. He feels certain disgust, certain complication and fear, for this is the same man who could shoot and disable an infant coldblooded if pegged.
“…” He says quietly, “I think I might, Colonel Yang.”
“An unfortunate accident,” the colonel responds. “But even if I could foretell… Noah, I would have done the same.”
“A ten-year-old child,” Noah says.
“He shot with zero hesitation, Noah,” Yang Rong replies, turning to look at him. “He was prepared to kill. His body language exudes hostility—the boy has been trained to assassinate.”
Noah lets out a long, shuddering sigh. His fingers quiver where they are interlocked, but Noah doesn’t break off the hold. Instead, he returns the colonel’s gaze with complication and consternation all in one. “Colonel Yang, I really am scared of you.”
“…Fuck,” Yang Rong groans, sweeping back a portion of his hair in frustrated habit. “I fucked up again, didn’t I?”
In the depraved night, Noah reaches out to cup Yang Rong’s cheek. Slim fingers trace the angles of his firm skin, rubbing on the edges of his neatly trimmed hair. His chiseled features are contrasting to Noah’s daintiness and the two of them cannot be any more different – raven black against wispy silver, healthy caramel against pale white.
“When I look at you, I am reminded of how alpha-like you are,” Noah says. “It is disconcerting.”
“Alpha-like?”
“Military men like you are all really similar.” Noah lets go of the handhold. “I can say I have bad experiences.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
There is a flash of grief on Yang Rong’s face before it’s replaced by a complex mix of regret and resignation. “Noah… don’t be scared of me. I won’t hurt you.”
“Pa wjs yf atja sbe ibbx fzagj lcalwlvjalcu lc atf eclobgw pjmxfa,” Rbjt gfqilfr, rmgecmtlcu tlr fsfygbkr. “Ufgtjqr lo sbe abbx la boo, P kbeivc’a jrrbmljaf sbe—”
C revvfc gert bo klcv jr Jbibcfi Tjcu gfrbieafis jcv klatbea tfrlajalbc echlqr tlr pjmxfa ab atgbk la ja tlw. Ktf ojyglm jmmlvfcajiis oijqr abkjgv Rbjt’r ojmf, meaalcu tlw boo wlv-rqffmt. Tjcu Ebcu ifjcr obgkjgv jcv atf mbiv klcafg jlg lr yibmxfv ys ybvs tfja. “P abbx la boo. Pr la yfaafg?”
“…” Noah pries the jacket off his face.
“Should I take off my shirt too?” Yang Rong seems to be asking seriously, his face lacking any signs of jest. He goes further to lift his dress shirt up, revealing packs of chiseled abdominal muscles. “Say the word and I’ll strip.”
“…” Noah takes some time to respond. “On second thought, it may just be your personality.”
“My personality?” Yang Rong’s eyebrows do a complicated crease. “What is wrong with my personality? I’ve never had complaints.”
“Interesting,” Noah says as he hands him back the jacket. “Stop tossing your trash at me.”
“…Trash?” The colonel’s face twitches and there he goes again into another long-winded spiel. “I’ll say, Noah, that you must be unaware of how expensive my clothes are. Special forces combat attire is unobtainable for the common civilian and not to mention, I specifically requested for water-resistant fabric—”
“Water-resistant? But it was soaked before.”
“…It’s water-resistant, but it doesn’t mean it’s waterproof,” Yang Rong clarifies.
“Interesting,” Noah repeats once more. He takes a glance at Yang Rong’s body and adds as an afterthought, “Put it back on and stop taking off your shirt. I am fully aware of how egotistical you are, Colonel Yang, but I have no interest in watching you undress.”
“…Fickle,” Yang Rong mutters under his breath as he throws the jacket back on. He hesitates slightly in the process and then says, “…If you are cold, you may wear it.”
“And you are not cold?”
“Of course not,” the man boasts. “Your Rong-ge is trained to handle every form of weather in every natural disaster. I can hike up a mountain with a single tee shirt—might even have to take it off, too, if I end up breaking a sweat. And you… you seem the type to wear large sweaters in summertime, little kitten, so you’d best bundle up before you catch a cold.”
There’s a subtle smirk that dances on the man’s face and an increasingly aggravating lilt of his syllables the more he speaks – already, the atmosphere’s changed an abrupt one-eighty. Noah thinks that Yang Rong has the sort of radiance that carries conversation along. Strangely… comforting. Still irritating, of course.
They continue to walk as Yang Rong drabbles on about this and that – miscellaneous topics that stem from his first mission to some faraway alpines, another mission to the equator, some exotic animals that are even more interesting than the ones here, some cats that he’d seen with two tails.
“Do you have one?” he had asked as Noah walked listlessly to the side.
No response was given but Yang Rong had already expected that. He merely flashed a smirk and remained on the topic of wildcats for ten minutes. Soon, he’d be talking about the detergent (or lack thereof) that he uses to wash his clothes and Noah has no energy to tell him off.
So, he remains silent yet he’s still… listening to whatever nonsense he’s spewing. Noah is aware that the man is trying to lift up the atmosphere and it does work, to Noah’s chagrin or not, because he forgets more about the little boy and focuses more on the admittedly distracting voice.
“—And then I wrestled a chimpanzee with my pinky finger.” The man recounts an obviously fabricated tale. “At the time of Unit One’s formation… well, I wasn’t a colonel until six years ago. I’d taken over the position from the late Colonel… hm, I’d forgotten his name by now. The positions shift so rapidly I hadn’t time to keep up. Unit One was a sub of an entire brigade before it downsized into a platoon and eventually, I hadn’t bothered to recruit any new trainees.”
Noah finds himself replying, “What about before that?”
“Hmm?” Yang Rong is pleased to hear a response after half an hour of monologuing. He flashes over a grin and says, “What do you want to know, little kitten?”
“About… your past?” Noah clarifies shortly, “Your mutation. When you told me you were born with it.”
“Here I am, recounting heroic tales of my amazing deeds and you’re more interested in my birth,” Yang Rong says teasingly. “Well, it’s hardly a secret to be kept from you. In exchange… perhaps you can tell me about yourself?”
Noah hums softly. “Maybe.”
It’s not a hard affirmation but Yang Rong is pleased nonetheless. He stretches his arms behind the back of his head – ignores the shoulder sprain like the buffoon he is – and says, “Twenty-seven years ago, when the largest cryobank, the Cache, had fallen, there were several hundreds of recovered incubators. The embryos all tested radioactively, and to answer the question you had asked a month ago, Noah…”
The man turns toward him. Come nighttime, Yang Rong’s visage is aglow in polar lights, blending attractively against the backdrop. “Probability wise, it is infinitely close to zero for an infected embryo to survive. There is only one… or perhaps there are two that I know of now.”
“When the Cache fell, there were no proven records of your survival,” Noah says with small frown, his eyebrows scrunching up in habit. “How did you cover it up?”
“My… guardian?” Yang Rong shakes his head. “No, it is quite strange to call him my guardian, but there was a person who’d taken care of me to repay a debt to my late parents—not that I know who they are. I heard my mother passed shortly after donating her eggs. In hindsight, I believe the story was that my father wasn’t exactly my father – he was an astronaut that my mother was seeing before he died. She named me, her first incubated child, after him.”
Noah listens attentively.
“Anyway, my caretaker… He held—holds—quite the reputation and was able to tweak a little of this and that,” Yang Rong continues. “We don’t have close relations, however. Simply neutrality—which, taking into account his personality, can be considered affection on a very off-spectrum.”
“Your guardian,” Noah repeats, deep in thought. He chooses not to address that, of all people, Yang Rong is the least adept to address emotional intelligence. “It seems he is the only one to know about your condition?”
“Precisely. Well, there is one other person—” Yang Rong suddenly pauses mid-sentence. His eyes blink rapidly as if he’d just remembered something of importance. He opens his mouth to ask, “Noah, do you know Shi Luo?”
Noah pauses as well. He holds an expression of confusion and pure surprise. Instead of voicing out his thoughts, however, he says, “…I might have heard of him.”
“So you do know him?” Yang Rong is surprised too. “How? When and why?”
“…” Noah doesn’t know how to reply. “Doctor Shi holds quite the reputation. His intellect is raved about far into the city and outside here in the slums as well.”
“You are acquainted with him,” Yang Rong concludes after studying his facial expressions – leave it to the colonel to be so unnecessarily cognizant of such things. “The asshole—goddamnit, he lied to me—fuck, that’s not right, he only didn’t tell me the full truth.”
“What are you talking about?” Noah asks suspiciously. “What is your relationship with him?”
“Huh?!” Yang Rong is unexpectedly shaken. “We’re not in any relationship! Why would I so much as glance at that guy? He pisses me off sometimes, so why would I be in a relationship with that stuck-up alpha? You shouldn’t be, either, little kitten. His brain matter overflows out of those glasses of his, so don’t get close to him. He’ll really eat you up.”
“…” Noah is yet again at a loss for words. “I don’t mean that kind of relationship.”
“…I see,” Yang Rong nods in understanding, quickly reassuming his façade of cool and collected. “He’s my half-brother, I suppose.”
“You… suppose?” Noah raises a brow. “I don’t see the resemblance whatsoever. Shi L—Doctor Shi is a much more agreeable—”
“First name basis?” Yang Rong catches on quickly, his eyes narrowing coldly. “What is your relationship with him?”
“Childhood friends, I suppose?” He feels the need to elaborate when Yang Rong is basically drilling daggers at him for reasons unknown. Noah clears his throat. “We’ve been close since young. I could say he is my only trusted friend in the city.”
If Yang Rong’s eyes narrow even more, they would be reduced to two sharp lines. “Little kitten, don’t you dislike alphas?”
“I only dislike hotheaded alphas and military scum.”
“Shi Luo is…” Yang Rong begins to list the qualities of the man one by one with his fingertips, very much determined to drag him down, “fake in the way he smiles, sadistic in every way possible, a bookworm who probably speaks in hieroglyphics in his lonesome, too intelligent he looks down on anyone who isn’t on the same neurological wavelength, and the worst is…”
The colonel cracks his knuckles. “He has the exact same tastes in bedroom partners as I do. Ever since we were teens, we’d compete over our sizes and—”
“Unnecessary information,” Noah deadpans. “My condolences, Colonel Yang, for your inferiority.”
Yang Rong grabs his shoulders and leans forward to prove a point – a very unnecessary point that Noah has zero interest in hearing. “I never lost. In fact, my technique alone is leagues above—”
“Colonel Yang, I don’t care nor do I—”
“—Ohh?!” Just then, a melodious woman’s voice cuts through the vicinity. The distance is five meters away, but she travels so fast that the sound has already reached near his ears. Noah, shocked, doesn’t get to act when a pair of arms wraps around his torso, dragging him with monstrous strength. The unknown… assailant is abnormally strong – enough to potentially crack his spine in one unplanned movement.
Noah doesn’t act quickly enough but Yang Rong certainly does. The latter immediately brandishes his dagger – his actions are so quick it’d need to be rewound in a quarter speed – and he slashes unhesitatingly at the woman behind Noah. The black dagger is a hairbreadth away from stabbing her face before she swerves agilely.
Noah quite literally sees his life flashing before his eyes when Colonel Yang’s weapon nearly pierces him in collateral, the razor-sharp edge only a centimeter away from his cheek. Yang Rong lets out a low curse and retracts the blade, though his eyes are murderous.
“Wow?” The woman speaks with a flirtatious lilt of her syllables – and Noah recognizes that drawl anywhere. He struggles in her hold, beckoning for her to loosen her grip but the person seems to be enjoying every second of this. “Very good…?”
“—!” Noah couldn’t even get a single syllable out before she blocks his mouth with a palm. She retreats them both backward a few more steps, intent on playing this out to the fullest. Her prettily manicured nails slide on the surface of his skin, and she whispers demurely into his ears.
“Don’t move, my dear Noah. I’d like to keep up this little act, so please play along with me.”
who are uu
dang I was so fast😂
super speeeed
You have friends Noah?! hehe, I’m playing of course <3
noah: …i am very much capable of ‘making friends.’
noah: at the very least, i am more socially ept than a certain neanderthal.
–somewhere far away, colonel yang sneezes in the shower–
yang rong: (rubs his nose) perhaps someone is praising my handsomeness again?
yang rong: (whistles cheerfully) who could it be ~ ~
hehe
Wow, this is a twist!!!
finally new characters?! -throws the first unit in the trash bin-
👁👄👁 (jk theyll be back
Welp, I tried wishing the best for the child. Anyways Imma move on and just wait for their own created love child— if there is one…. or two…
Thanks for the chapter!! (〃ﾟ3ﾟ〃)
noah: one… or two…?
noah: (frowns) i must inform i do not care for children.
yang rong: (smiles) i share the same sentiments… but little kitten, how about we try it?
noah: try…?
yang rong: (leans forward) well, the idea of procreation isn’t quite bad…
Who are ya????? Suddenly ohhh wowww-ing and praising?? 😒 You just interrupted my babies sweet intro moment ya knoww
noah: …which part of our moment was sweet? ¬＿¬
is it the french lady?
Thanks for the chapter! <3
.
I’m stuck between two sides. It’s terribly tragic and horrible, but it is true that having mercy, being too kind, could ultimately lead to your own downfall, even if your opponent was a child. Ahhh, damn
Also, YR taking off his clothes? 0__0 my eyes are wide open…! I am wondering of Noah’s past history… I can’t imagine it’d be anything good, of course, but I want to know all the same
Shi Luo did know Noah after all, I had an inkling. I am curious in their story, in what occured and everything, but then again, I’m curious about everything related to Noah
Also.. new lady?? Somebody who knows Noah?? Man, Noah you gotta stop being so popular, it’s hard to keep up
🕴️
+1
welp at least the dead can’t tell no secrets…
m eso le pasa a YR por no dejar que el niño matara a Noa…asi el niño no se lesiona…el niño se defiende del lince…y Noa no lo culpa por la muerte del niño (en serio? puede haber un personaje mas bruto?)