Chapter 124.2 - Raising a Big Cat in the Apocalypse (3.2)
Chapter 124.2 – Raising a Big Cat in the Apocalypse (3.2)
……
Other than Ding Qiuyun being pragmatic and good at putting things into action, he also had quite the romantic side.
Before Gu Xinzhi arrived, he would often go out on patrol alone, speeding along abandoned highways as he searched for gasoline, food and other survivors.
Estimating that his engine was about to run out of fuel, he stopped the car and pulled out a fuel pump and spare diesel from the storage space under his seat, humming a little tune as he refuelled his car, occasionally sitting down to rest and stare out at the distant scenery.
He wasn’t in the habit of smoking, but in order to relieve pressure, he would often ask for a cigarette pack from his smoker teammates, and draw out the wastelands of the apocalypse on the pack with a carbon pencil.
By the time he reunited with Gu Xinzhi, he’d collected a thick stack of cigarette packs.
The first night he saw Gu Xinzhi again, they slept together.
One, because they liked it, two, as a stress reliever, and three, because the feeling of being reunited after the end of the world, was really worth celebrating.
This was the first time for both of them, so they were recklessly going about it entirely based on their few experiences of watching porn.
Ding Qiuyun’s close combat skills had never been as good as those of the delicate-looking Gu Xinzhi. It was the same in bed.
Gu Xinzhi wrapped his arms around Ding Qiuyun from behind. His left arm encircled his waist and gripped it tightly, while his right hand was splayed out across his throat, holding it protectively. Even though the force he used was light, it made Ding Qiuyun feel as if he could snap his neck at any moment.
The two’s bodies were pressed tightly together, their hearts pounding wildly in their chests,and the loud heartbeats echoing in their ears.
Under Gu Xinzhi, Ding Qiuyun reached out and clutched at the grass, coating his hands in dripping green.
When it was over, the two were covered in sweat, too tired to even move.
Gu Xinzhi leaned against the side of the tent, his legs spread open to allow Ding Qiuyun to lean back into his chest.
He lit a cigarette and asked Ding Qiuyun if he wanted one.
Ding Qiuyun didn’t smoke, but he took the initiative to grab his wrist, and took a drag from the cigarette in his hand.
According to Gu Xinzhi, when the apocalypse occurred, Gu Xinzhi had escaped from the army, wanting to go find Ding Qiuyun, but was too late and couldn’t find a trace of him.
“What a coincidence, I also went to find you,” Ding Qiuyun said, “When I went, the camp had already been attacked, probably by those vines that were growing nearby……”
When he brought that up, Ding Qiuyun began to laugh bitterly.
In today’s world, even flowers and grass could grow a consciousness. There was now no difference between killing humans and chopping up melons or vegetables.
Ding Qiuyun said, “I thought you…… were like my parents; already gone.”
That year, when the apocalypse struck, he had rushed back home to his parents’s house as fast as he could, only to find that his father’s heart disease had been triggered due to the sudden drop in temperature.
His mother had hurried downstairs to get medicine for his father, but had only been dressed in a thin layer of pajamas.
Because she had been too panicked, and they had lost both power and lighting, his mother had accidentally tripped, hit her head against the corner of the bed, and fainted.
By the time Ding Qiuyun had reached home, his Old Ding and Ding-jie were already gone.
Ding Qiuyun didn’t tell Gu Xinzhi about these things, only turning around to look at him, wanting to confirm that he wasn’t just a dream.
Seeming to have guessed what he was worried about, Gu Xinzhi grabbed his chin and kissed him.
Gu Xinzhi said, “See, I’m not dead.”
Ding Qiuyun pulled away from him, happiness pouring from his eyes without reserve. “En.”
He then asked, “How did you know that I’d come back?”
The place he’d found Gu Xinzhi again, was the city where Ding Qiuyun had originally lived.
Gu Xinzhi said, “I couldn’t find you, so I could only wait in the original place.”
Ding Qiuyun’s heart skipped a beat. “How long have you been waiting for?”
Gu Xinzhi said, “Ever since the cold began, I’ve been waiting in that supermarket. I thought, if Commander Ding needed supplies, he’d come here sooner or later.”
This wait, lasted a full two years.
Ding Qiuyun didn’t have anything else to say.
He turned to face Gu Xinzhi and, kneeling on one knee, kissed him on the lips.
His gossip-loving teammate Yan Lanlan bounded over to listen in. “Commander Ding, what is Deputy Commander Gu to you?”
Ding Qiuyun, “A comrade-in-arms.”
Yan Lanlan, “Oh, a comrade-in-arms~~”
Ding Qiuyun aimed a playful kick at her. She dodged, laughing, the bell on her wrist jingling merrily.
When she ran to the door, she just so happened to bump into Gu Xinzhi and gave him a lively salute.
Gu Xinzhi glanced at her, then ignored her entirely, walking past her over to Ding Qiuyun and asking, “What are you frying?”
“Okra.” Ding Qiuyun’s eyes were bright. “I remember that you like eating them.”
Gu Xinzhi was a little shocked. “Where did you get them from?”
Ding Qiuyun planted a kiss on his lips, then said with a smile, “Don’t you worry about that. No matter what you want to eat, I can get it for you.”
In the apocalypse, this was the loftiest, as well as the best promise you could give anyone.
Ding Qiuyun would dig out his heart for Gu Xinzhi. After all, this was someone he’d regained after losing. To him, this person was especially precious.
Gu Xinzhi really liked《The Little Prince》. He’d told Ding Qiuyun about this when he was in the company. At that time, Ding Qiuyun had even laughed at him, saying that he was so old, why did he still like reading these children’s stories.
This time, Ding Qiuyun specially asked his teammate to get this book from an abandoned bookstore. Then, he meticulously illustrated all the stories in the book, filling a whole seventy-five cigarette packs in drawings.
On the day of Gu Xinzhi’s 26th birthday, Ding Qiuyun gave him this gift.
Gu Xinzhi, however, wasn’t very interested in the present, rather, pulling Ding Qiuyun into his arms, and taking a look at his hand.
Ding Qiuyun had been too focused on drawing over these past few days. The calluses on his fingers had all been worn red. Just from a glance you could tell that they hurt a lot.
Only after Gu Xinzhi kissed all his calluses, did he then look through the cigarette packs one by one together with Ding Qiuyun.
Gu Xinzhi told Ding Qiuyun, “My favourite part is the story of the little prince and the rose.”
The little prince who lived alone on a little planet planted a rose, cherishing and pampering her in every way that he could.
Once upon a time, he thought his rose was unique in the world. Only when he came to earth, did he find, there could be a full 5000 roses in a single garden alone.
Due to this discovery, the little prince was sad for a very long time, but after being enlightened by the fox, only then did he realise, that proud, arrogant rose who had been with him for a very long time was, to him, utterly unique and irreplaceable.
As he spoke, he wrapped an arm around Ding Qiuyun’s shoulder in a tight grip, and read the dialogue written on the cigarette pack.
……These were the words the little prince had said to the 5000 roses after his realisation.
“‘You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you’.”
At that time, Ding Qiuyun couldn’t understand what Gu Xinzhi meant by those words. He only thought that those words were incredibly inauspicious and reached out and patted him on the face as punishment.
Gu Xinzhi then kissed Ding Qiuyun into silence.
Even though Ding Qiuyun was immersed in the joy of reuniting with Gu Xinzhi, he didn’t forget about what he needed to do.
The whole world becoming cold and the artificial intelligences taking control was indeed the fault of humankind, but the sudden death of Ding Qiuyun’s parents had dealt Ding Qiuyun a huge blow.
And due to their under-the-table manipulations, over the past few years, Ding Qiuyun had lost many teammates to the hands of the new humans, or to the jaws of the evolved animals.
For him to not hate, to not resent them, was impossible.
Not long after Gu Xinzhi came, Ding Qiuyun chose another base station to destroy.
Who would have thought that when they made their move, the base station was actually surrounded by a pack of evolved hyenas.
Even though Ding Qiuyun and Gu Xinzhi fought with their lives to protect the group, Yan Lanlan still ended up trapped inside.
Upon noticing Yan Lanlan had fallen behind, Ding Qiuyun still wanted to rush back into the base, but without allowing a word of protest, Gu Xinzhi hoisted him up onto his shoulder and began to stride away.
The last thing Ding Qiuyun saw, was Yan Lanlan reaching a hand out from the pile of attacking hyenas.
The silver bell on her wrist jingled, the sound of the bell accompanied by Yan Lanlan’s hoarse cry, “Quickly go! Don’t care about me!”
However, in the end, Yan Lanlan was still just a nineteen year old girl. She had truly overestimated her ability to stay strong in the face of death.
After they’d run far away, Yan Lanlan’s shrill screams, mixed with the sound of the hyenas gorging themselves on human flesh, sounded from the direction of the base station: “Commander Ding! Commander Ding…… Help me, I don’t want to die——”
In the truck, it took four or five people holding him down to stop him from jumping out of the truck.
As Gu Xinzhi drove the car away, he glanced back at the distant base station, then withdrew his gaze.
Only after the truck had driven far away did Ding Qiuyun give up on struggling.
His eyes bloodshot, he lay flat on his back in the back of the truck, utterly drained of strength. In his ears still rang the sound of the bell on Yan Lanlan’s wrist.
Dinglingling, dinglingling.
Yan Lanlan was a long-time member of the team, having been by Ding Qiuyun’s side since the team was first formed. Her death, was a huge blow to Ding Qiuyun.
He kept thinking about what had gone wrong with the plan.
Gu Xinzhi couldn’t bear to see him like this. He hugged him, gently consoling, “It’s not your fault.”
Ding Qiuyun replied, “From the moment she started calling me Commander Ding, she became my responsibility.”
Ding Qiuyun wasn’t stupid. He thought that they were probably being targeted.
It seemed, attacking their base stations, and destroying the places where AIs stayed, had indeed caused the AIs to panic.
But with Yan Lanlan as a precedent, Ding Qiuyun was no longer willing to let everyone go out to face danger where the wind and waves were fiercest (heart of the struggle). Even though a few young people volunteered themselves, wanting to continue the attack on the AIs, Ding Qiuyun came up with ways to appease them, planning on addressing it again after they got through this period of danger.
But not even a week later, their temporary hideout was attacked by a group of new humans.
In the end, three youths were caught.
None of them were willing to become slaves of the new humans. One even attempted to commit suicide.
The new humans, finding that these old humans were unwilling to cooperate, cut off their heads and hung them up on the highest tree in the area.
Out of the group that had boarded the truck and were fleeing in a hurry, someone saw the familiar heads of their friends, swaying, surrounded by branches and leaves, like huge, full coconuts.
He wanted to call for Ding Qiuyun, but when he opened his mouth, he swallowed his words back down.
Ding Qiuyun had his back to the tree, his teeth gritted so hard that his mouth was full of blood.
Gu Xinzhi wrapped his arms around Ding Qiuyun’s shoulders, but Ding Qiuyun was still drawn up like a bowstring pulled taut.
His mind was racing frantically, trying to figure out how those new humans, who didn’t have any superpowers, had found them.
Could it be that they’d been spotted and targeted while they were retreating a few days ago?
But Ding Qiuyun had always been one to do things properly. Even after losing Yan Lanlan, he had forced himself to focus on observing their surroundings, and hadn’t noticed any tail.
He had also thought about whether it was an internal issue, but he had checked everyone’s belongings and found nothing like a tracker.
The people with him had all been his comrades-in-arms for many years, so he of course wouldn’t suspect them.
Even over the next, considerably long period of time, Ding Qiuyun never stopped thinking about this mystery.
Only after a very long time had passed, when Ding Qiuyun, with only seven people left in his group, was captured by a group of new humans, did he find out through his interrogation that most of the new humans had made an agreement with the artificial intelligences.
The targets they aimed at, were old humans who dared to attack the artificial intelligences like Ding Qiuyun, as well as new humans who dared to “wallow in the mire” with the old humans, not willing to use them as slaves.
Upon being captured, Ding Qiuyun had already made up his mind to not give out the whereabouts of Gu Xinzhi and his other teammates who’d fled.
He would rather die.
However, after being forced to watch the hanging of his companions, all the while thinking that he soon would receive a similar release, the group of new humans surrounding him didn’t seem to have the intention of killing him.
After a long time, the crowd consciously moved to either side, forming a path like Moses parting the Red Sea. Their leader walked over to Ding Qiuyun.
When Ding Qiuyun lifted his head, a thunderbolt suddenly rang in his head.
In those few seconds, it was as if someone had fired a gun into his eye sockets, piercing through his eyes with pain, and making his head hurt like it had been filled with countless bullet holes from fine bullets.
Walking towards him, was Gu Xinzhi.
The upper half of Gu Xinzhi’s body was covered in fresh blood, some of it even having splattered over his cheek and the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t have a hint of evilness about him, still that delicate yet cold Gu Xinzhi.
In that short span of a few moments, Ding Qiuyun thought about a lot of things. He thought about where the blood on his body had come from, thought about the ten or so companions who had been led away by Gu Xinzhi, thought about those three heads hanging on the three, thought about the sound of the bell on Yan Lanlan’s wrist, and thought about the unexpected reunion that day, and what Gu Xinzhi had once said to him.
He’d said, I couldn’t find you, so I could only wait in the original place.
When Gu Xinzhi came to a stop in front of him, only then did the ashen Ding Qiuyun look up and ask, “Did you really wait for me for two years.”
Knowing what he was talking about, Gu Xinzhi easily answered his question, “Yes, and while I waited in that supermarket for two years, I killed a lot of new humans.”
He then said, “So they grew afraid of me, and let me become their leader.”
Ding Qiuyun his own hoarse voice saying, “You…… betrayed……”
Gu Xinzhi replied easily, “En.”
……Just like when he had told Ding Qiuyun about him defecting from the army, his tone was relaxed, as if to him, Gu Xinzhi, as an unevolved old human being, betraying the old humans and joining the AIs and the new humans was something as natural as could be.
Ding Qiuyun asked, almost as if he was sleep talking, “……Why.”
Had he been threatened.
Or was it because of some other reason……
“There’s no need to think too much about it.” Gu Xinzhi seemed to be able to tell what he was thinking. He stroked Ding Qiuyun’s cheek with a hand coated in the blood of Ding Qiuyun’s companions. “I’m not afraid of them, and there isn’t anyone who can threaten me. But I knew that the AIs were very upset with your continuous destructive behaviour over the past few years, and wanted to get rid of you. You can’t keep living with the risk of dying at any moment…… You can’t, I won’t allow it. So, I needed to protect you.”
Like the first time he had kissed Ding Qiuyun, Gu Xinzhi cupped his face in his hands, and said in a soft voice, “They promised me that as long as I helped, and completely eradicated all of Commander Ding’s troublesome helpers, they wouldn’t continue to pursue Commander Ding.”
Ding Qiuyun looked up at him, feeling like he’d fallen into a nightmare.
But the hanged corpses of his companions were still within sight, and the tears that rolled down his cheeks were startlingly hot.
His voice was teary, “Gu Xinzhi, if you fucking have the guts just come at me! ——”
Gu Xinzhi stroked his cheek. “I am coming at you. ……It’s always been this way, right from when we were in the army, it’s always been like this.”
His Deputy Commander Gu squatted down and stared calmly at Ding Qiuyun, who’d fallen to his knees. His voice turned a little warmer. “You clearly always liked me, but weren’t willing to face it. If not for the machines going out of control that one time, how would you have known how important I actually was to you?”
Then, he pulled Ding Qiuyun into his arms and whispered, “I just didn’t know that you would end up being injured so seriously. Sorry, I’ll keep it within bounds in the future.”
Commander Ding lay stiffly in Deputy Commander Gu’s embrace. After a long period of silence, he inexplicably began to laugh, laughing so hard that his entire body was shaking.
His former comrade-in-arms, had killed his present comrades-in-arms, and even said, it was all for him.
How funny.
Gradually, Ding Qiuyun got tired from laughing, and the only thing left in his eyes was a boundless fatigue and emptiness.
Three days later, Ding Qiuyun finally found an opportunity in prison, pushing away his guards and committing suicide by jumping off the building, thereby atoning for his comrades’ deaths.
……
After he was done watching all of this world’s information, the only thought Chi Xiaochi had was, please wait a moment, let me stroke this leopard to suppress my shock.