CH 79.2

Chapter 79.2 – Return

At this moment, the current exploded on Lin Yeran’s spine, as if the lightning had struck him! He subconsciously lunged over and plopped his entire body in front of the screen.

The screen flashed snowflakes, and the audio continued to play: […I’ve been thinking, what on earth did I do to upset you? Is it because I always stay in Iron City and rarely come back? Or is it because I yelled at you earlier? Or…]

Lin Yeran listened carefully.

For fear that the next flash of lightning would disturb the data, with trembling hands and with the last trace of reason, he took out the flash drive from his coat pocket and connected to the machine.

[…Or that I’m always smoking and can’t quit? You always say that I will get lung cancer, and I will be bedridden when the time comes, and no one will take care of me.]

Lin Yeran clicked the screen and selected the signal source of the audio.

Selected, copied, and pasted.

Hurry up, faster!

His palms were sweaty. It had to work!

“Boom!” There was another thunderous sound, and the screen kept flashing. Every time the progress bar flashed, Lin Yeran felt that he was going to die.

”Boom!!”

The progress bar came to an end, showing “Copy Successful”!

At this moment, the screen flashed again, the audio changed, and the sweet female voice said: [Today, the Fengyang City Mutant Welfare Center officially opened, located at the top of Tower 4. Everyone is welcome to sign up for volunteers!]

Lin Yeran pulled out the flash drive, his back full of cold sweat.

‘…it worked,’ he thought, ‘I succeeded.’

Lin Yeran had processed too much data in his life. On a thunderstorm night, the message from the past appeared, like a ghostly, sly fish, riding the wind and waves.

Across the turbulent flow of thousands of data, it finally returned to him.

Before he had time to listen to the 2-minute audio, Lin Yeran was stunned for half a second, then suddenly realized something, jumped up from his seat, rushed to the first control room, opened the dispatch tower, and got in touch with the army.

After that, Shi Yuan found him in the main control room.

Lin Yeran held the flash drive, still smiling: “A miracle happened to me for the second time.”

Shi Yuan was also very pleasantly surprised, and advised him: “Let’s go downstairs first! When it’s safe, you can listen to Colonel Yan’s message!”

Lin Yeran no longer hesitated.

The two went down to the first floor safely and found a closed room to stay. Lin Yeran sprayed smell masking agent on the wall, while Shi Yuan sent a message to Lu Tinghan to tell him the situation.

They came down in time, and within two minutes, the water butterflies flew into the research center and danced in the corridor.

Lin Yeran, however, didn’t care about the danger anymore.

He sat down and connected the flash drive to his personal terminal with trembling hands. The 2-minute audio appeared clearly in the folder.

He clicked on it.

Yan Xin’s voice appeared: [Lin Yeran, I actually don’t know what to say. I’ve been thinking, what on earth did I do to upset you? Is it because I always stay in Iron City and rarely come back? Is it because I yelled at you earlier? Or that I’m always smoking and can’t quit?

You always say that I will get lung cancer, and I will be bedridden when the time comes, and no one will take care of me. I have guessed so many possibilities, how can I know what you think if you don’t always speak your mind? How do I know…you still love me?]

[This time, when I came to Iron City to see the sunset, I suddenly realized that some things cannot be forced, and it gets tiring after a long time. Maybe we are just not suitable, and maybe we should go our separate ways. In this way, I can continue to be frank and you don’t have to change yourself.]

Lin Yeran: “……”

He squeezed the terminal tightly, and the joints rattled.

Yan Xin: [But, I’m still not reconciled.]

[Before I die, I should be more free and relaxed, learn from the sad characters in those movies, say some cruel words against my heart and cut it off with you so that you won’t miss me anymore, then maybe you can find a handsome guy as a new love…]

[But I’m not reconciled. Everything I want from childhood to adulthood must be firmly grasped in my hands.]

His tone was smiling: [You taught me to use holographic text messages and said that I was a bumpkin; you scolded me to stop buying roses, that those things are the reproductive organ of plants, and to stop spending money stupidly; you said that I always grab your quilt when I sleep, you put away all the socks I threw on the sofa and told me to sleep in the garbage dump… It’s strange that in these not-so-wonderful moments, I feel like you still love me.]

There are only 40 seconds left in the audio.

[Remember before I left, I said I had been keeping a secret from you? Now, I’m finally going to tell you.]

Lin Yeran couldn’t help holding his breath.

[The secret is – in fact, I lied to you, I did not fall in love with you at first sight at all. Hahahahahaha! You didn’t expect it, right? Your charm is not that great, that was me coaxing you to play hahahaha!]

Yan Xin laughed loudly.

Lin Yeran: “……”

Lin Ye Ran: ??

His expression was blank for half a second.

Yan Xin burst into tears with a smile, his voice shaking: [I only fell in love with you the second time we met, you were standing in the sunlight in the corridor wearing a white coat, I glanced over and thought, how could there be such a good-looking person? Only after that.]

[Lin Yeran, I can imagine your expression, you must want to kill me, right? I waited for a long time to tell you this shit, and I still hid it like a treasure.]

[But this is the only thing I’ve kept from you, you see, I’m such a frank person. I hope you will be like me in the future, say what you want to say and do what you want to do. You need to be frank, otherwise, you will miss something.]

Yan Xin paused for two seconds.

He said softly: [Goodbye, Lin Yeran.]

The audio ended.

Lin Yeran held the terminal and did not move for a long time.

Shi Yuan thought that he was angry with Yan Xin’s childish secret – he waited 16 years to painstakingly find the message, and Yan Xin spoke of such things.

However, Shi Yuan quickly noticed that Lin Yeran’s shoulders were shaking.

At first, it trembled lightly, then violently.

Shi Yuan asked, “Mr. Lin, are you okay?”

He leaned over and found Lin Yeran laughing.

Lin Yeran laughed as much as Yan Xin, and laughed freely and heartily: “Yan Xin, this bastard, really f*cking owes a beating, how can there be such a shameless person in the world…”

He said while laughing, “I knew you couldn’t say good things. You haven’t changed in all these years.”

It was Yan Xin who spat out smoke at him and asked him if he wanted to have a relationship.

Lin Yeran’s face was full of tears with a smile.

He grabbed Yan Xin’s “dog tag” again and asked Shi Yuan, “You gave it to me, right? You came to the tower to find me that night, right?”

Shi Yuan did not answer.

Lin Yeran cried and laughed again: “I always thought I was drunk and dreaming. Then, you came to me again.”

Shi Yuan said, “Maybe, because I am an excellent employee.”

Lin Yeran wiped his face and patted him on the shoulder: “Excellent enough indeed. Thank you. He still came back to me.”

The convoy came to pick them up and drove to the transport ship in the distance.

Shi Yuan found Lu Tinghan on the city wall next to the transport ship.

Butterfly thunderstorms swept across the city. Lu Tinghan was in the city wall outpost, looking at the street through the floor-to-ceiling windows with reinforced glass, and the gloomy sky light outlined his facial features, cold and hard.

He had given the order.

Soldiers were running around, yet the situation was not promising. The transport ship must pass through a large storm cloud to reach the open wasteland.

Shi Yuan gently took Lu Tinghan’s hand.

Lu Tinghan clasped his fingers with him. He was silent, and there seemed to be a storm in his gray-blue eyes.

Until—

Until a faint light appeared in the sky.

The light was too small compared to the storm clouds, as if it would be swallowed up in the next second. But the magical thing was that despite the wind and rain, they remained there and were not extinguished.

The sky was gloomy.

As if in the dark ocean, a layer of fluorescent waves suddenly emerged, which gently surged to the shore, lighting up the world.

It was a swarm of jellyfish.

They floated lightly in mid-air, fluttering back to Fengyang City, their umbrellas covering billions of drops of falling rain. There were more and more jellyfish, making the sky brighter and full of their flowing bands of light.

In the wave of jellyfish, a white deer bigger than the tower slowly appeared.

It was completely wrapped in mist, pacing slowly, and gracefully walking into the city and butterflies. The water butterflies were attracted by it, they flew around its body, chased its huge deer hooves, and perched on its gorgeous antlers. Their colorful wings trembled in the wind, like a storm, and like a strange painting.

Everyone stopped moving.

They looked at the sky, where the light came from.

It was a night of reunion. The heroes returned home, so the transport ship went safely to the wasteland.

The rain curtain disappeared, and the group of jellyfish floated and went to an unknown distance. The ‘deer outside the high forest’ took the butterflies in the sky and followed after them.

Lu Tinghan and Shi Yuan were on the transport ship, watching the wonderful monster team leave side by side.

Lu Tinghan’s lower back was straight, looking far into the wasteland.

He saluted them.

Since then, no one had seen the group of jellyfish and forest deer again.