Seeing that the other kept looking down showing no reaction, Fu Yucheng pushed impatiently. “Alright, let go of me already, or I’m going to get angry.”
Bai Mo gently pursed his lips, and finally raised his eyes slowly, looking straight at the other man with dark eyes.
He says… he’s going to get angry?
The young man thought to himself, how angry would he be if I were to press against him boldly and forcefully kissed and bit at his pale lips?
From what he knew about the man, he would probably just tense up, and then, Bai Mo would be able to kiss him as much as he wanted, could even pry his lips open… he’d be dazed and wouldn’t struggle.
After a while, when he came back to his senses, he would, in all likelihood, slap Bai Mo… or punch him. Then he’d wipe at his lips fiercely, while stammering, cursing him out and calling him crazy…
And then? Would he abandon him?
No, at least not in a place like this.
The most probable scenario was that he’d remain cold the whole time, refuse to talk to him, and then find some random inhabited place and throw him there. Maybe, in the end, he’d add a stiff sentence such as, ‘You are practically an adult, so you should live independently.’
It’d be their end.
So? Can I just keep hiding from him?
Continue to endure forever just like this?
But in the future… in the future, if he fell in love with some girl… what should I do?
He also said before that, once Bai Mo became an adult, sooner or later the two of them would have their own separate lives, and that they couldn’t be together forever.
The young man couldn’t stop thinking about it, and he felt an uncomfortable choking sensation in his chest.
He couldn’t accept it.
Fu Yucheng saw the boy staring straight at him with his expression changing unpredictably. One moment he was gritting his teeth in anger, and in the next he looked anguished.
There was an inexplicable, horrible feeling in his heart, as if he was being stared at by the vertical pupils of some terrifying beast.
Under the dark gaze of the other, he couldn’t help but swallow his saliva softly. In the next moment, he felt that his brain must have been broken—Bai Mo, this brat, he was just a little kid. What was he thinking about?
Fu Yucheng calmed down for a while, and, when he saw an opening, he broke free from the boy’s grasp. “Enough drama, come on.”
Bai Mo’s thoughts were running wild, and suddenly, his arms were empty. He panicked inexplicably for a moment, and, almost subconsciously stretched out his hand to grab at the other, unceremoniously dragging him back. “Where are you going?!”
“Aren’t you done yet? Are you crazy? Let go!” Fu Yucheng was a little annoyed. Suddenly, he raised his knee and slammed it into the other’s abdomen. Then, when the boy bent over from the pain, he tripped his feet, twisted him around and twisted his arms, pressing him down.
The situation was reversed immediately.
Fu Yucheng pressed against Bai Mo’s neck fiercely with his forearm and pressed the boy firmly onto the deck of the bridge, making him unable to move at all.
He chuckled and patted the other’s cheek triumphantly. “Brat, so you grew some wings1 and want to rebel? You have a bit of fire in you. But I’m your older brother, I have eaten more salt than you have eaten-“2
The young man lay on his back, looking at the other quietly with a pair of dark eyes.
After a long time, he said softly, “You are not my brother at all.”
…and I don’t want to be your brother at all, either.
Fu Yucheng was taken aback for a moment.
He blinked, unable to think of a comeback.
Indeed, he wasn’t the brat’s real brother, no doubt. But these words… they were too hurtful.
For a while, the two of them stared at each other silently. Fu Yucheng suddenly felt a pang in his chest and his heart went cold.
He slowly loosened his hold, got up and patted the dust off of his body, casually saying, “Yes, you’re right, I’m not your brother.”
Bai Mo realized that the other seemed to have misunderstood something. Hurriedly, he got up, unable to restrain himself for a moment, and stammered, “That’s- that’s not what I meant!”
“Then what did you mean?” Fu Yucheng gave him a look.
The young man looked at him, not knowing what to do with himself, his mouth hanging open and even his white ears were flushed pink.
" "After a long time, he whispered as quietly as a mosquito, “I just- I don’t want you to be my brother. I want, I want…”3
As he talked, his slender eyelashes drooped lower and lower, and his voice became even quieter.
Fu Yucheng couldn’t hear anything, and he couldn’t help but move closer. “What do you want? Don’t squirm so much, speak louder!”
“I want…” When he was pushed like that, Bai Mo, with his face all red, wasn’t able to say anything.
The other man was stepping closer and closer, so close that Bai Mo could almost feel the warm breath coming from the other’s mouth, carrying a faint scent of tobacco.
“I want…” The young man’s mind was a mess. He gritted his teeth unconsciously, and then he simply grabbed Fu Yucheng’s collar and fiercely pulled him in.
At that moment, there was a loud, shrill wail, followed by a violent shake from the bridge’s deck.
Neither of them was able to keep their footing, instantly falling to the ground.
When he fell, Fu Yucheng felt something extremely soft brush past the corners of his lips diagonally, quickly sweeping over, but he didn’t pay it much mind and just turned his head to look ahead.
Once he could clearly see the source of the tremors, he momentarily froze and cursed in a low voice, “…how come it’s this crap again?!”
Right in front of the bridge, a fat sandworm, over 20 meters in length, slowly climbed from the quicksand onto the sloped bridge deck.
Although the sandworm was huge, it was also very flexible. It twisted its fat body and quickly crawled towards them. Its wide opened, hideous mouthparts were densely packed with small, sharp fangs.
“Fuck, out of the pan into the fire…”4 Fu Yucheng said, almost wanting to cry.
He reluctantly unsheathed the blue scimitar from behind his waist, no longer paying Bai Mo’s odd mood any mind, and he muttered, “Little Mo, hurry back to the car! Go!”
Bai Mo glanced at him, then ran to the off-road vehicle next to him.
Fu Yucheng watched the boy get into the car and finally heaved a sigh of relief.
He turned his head to look at the fast approaching sandworm and sneered. “Hmph, come at me!”
At that very moment, he heard the sound of hurried footsteps. The boy had unexpectedly returned.
Fu Yucheng looked at him incredulously. “Why are you back here again? Is there something wrong with your brain?! Are you trying to piss me off…? Get back in the car, quickly! Didn’t you hear me?!”
Bai Mo didn’t say a word, just pursed his lips slightly, expressionlessly holding up a crowbar that he had gotten from the car. It was made of iron, almost a meter long,5 one of its ends sharpened and shining.
He whispered, “Yu-ge, I won’t leave. Don’t waste your breath.”
Fu Yucheng raised his eyebrows. He wanted to say more, but the sandworm was already roaring before them.
This mutant sandworm was completely brown, its thick body covered with mottled patterns, and it had a pair of compound eyes6 the size of a dustpan. The mouthparts spewed a cloud of rotten warm gas, absolutely revolting.
Fu Yucheng firmly gripped the scimitar in his hand, his mind turning and already decided on a way to deal with it.
However, before he could move, Bai Mo let out a low roar and suddenly rushed ahead.
The sandworm let out a long hiss and turned to follow the moving prey.
In an instant, one person and one insect raced across the bridge. Fu Yucheng became anxious and couldn’t help but yell out, “Little Mo! What are you trying to do?!”
Bai Mo didn’t seem to hear him. Holding onto the guardrail with one hand, he lightly jumped over it, and, in an instant, the boy had already crossed the high guardrail and disappeared.
The sandworm rushed downwards as well.
Fu Yucheng quickly made his way to the side of the guardrail in just a few steps and looked down. Under the bridge, several dozens of meters below, there was nothing but rolling quicksand and a frantically churning sandworm. Where did the boy go?
His mind was blank, his breathing irregular, and even the hand holding his blade was shaking slightly.
For a moment, he couldn’t hear anything, just the rapid heartbeat in his chest, which seemed empty and distant.
How could…
How could this have happened?!
It’s my fault… it’s all my fault!
I’ve always been like this, never capable of protecting anyone…
He felt so dizzy that he couldn’t help but close his eyes, stumbling on his feet.
At that moment, with a deafening screech, the sandworm below the bridge suddenly turned its head, and it suddenly leapt up into the air, like a scallion pulled up from dry earth.7
After searching in the quicksand for a long time, the sandworm hadn’t been able to find its prey after jumping off the bridge, either. The sandworm realized it had been fooled, and now it jumped back to the bridge in anger, intent on swallowing its prey!
There was a flash of cold light, fast as lighting, coming from the shadow beneath the outside of the guardrail.
A sharpened iron crowbar swept out into the air, plunging straight into the sandworm’s soft abdomen.
And Bai Mo was the one holding it.
The boy turned out not to have jumped down, instead hiding quickly in the space beneath the outer side of the guardrail after jumping over it, and he had waited for a good chance.
It was then, when the sandworm desperately climbed upwards, that Bai Mo struck it, easily slicing it from top to bottom.
The crowbar, which was eighty centimeters long, was plunged deeply into the sandworm’s abdomen.
Then, using the force of the sandworm’s sudden jump, the simple crowbar split the behemoth in half with a high-pitched tearing sound.
The sandworm’s huge body dropped upside down with a heavy, loud bang onto the center of the bridge’s deck.
Bai Mo was still clutching the crowbar in his hand, leaning against the sandworm’s hideous, ringed abdomen. His face was covered in blood and gore.
As he panted, he slowly lifted his head and smiled at Fu Yucheng, who was running towards him. “Yu-ge, it’s okay, I…”
Fu Yucheng had just barely breathed a sigh of relief when his face suddenly changed. “Little Mo, watch out!”
At some point, another sandworm had quietly climbed up the bridge pier, appearing behind Bai Mo.
This sandworm was slightly bigger than the one from a moment ago, and its body was also covered in mottled patterns. It seemed to be a sandworm of the same type. They were a pair of male and female sandworms.
Bai Mo’s ears were ringing and he didn’t understand what Fu Yucheng, who was running towards him, had said. Before he could find out, the sandworm was already at his back, and it suddenly raised its upper body, opening its huge mouthparts.
Simultaneously, Fu Yucheng swung his arm viciously.
The scimitar came flying.
With a soft sound, the blade, glowing with blue light, pierced the sandworm’s left compound eye.
The sandworm let out a miserable scream, and rolled around violently.
While it was roaring and thrashing around, Fu Yucheng had already arrived and pulled Bai Mo up. “What are you waiting for?! Run!”
The two ran with all their strength, but they didn’t get very far. The bridge came to an end and they found themselves facing the flowing quicksands.
“Fuck!” Fu Yucheng cursed, and then quickly turned around, just to see that the huge mutant sandworm was already just a short distance away!
It opened its hideous mouthparts, and its huge body suddenly rose up in the air and then came straight down.
In an instant, the two of them could clearly see the densely packed, tiny fangs covering the mouthparts of the sandworm—
And at that moment, a crimson pillar of fire, the size of a truck, crossed the sky and struck the sandworm!
The sandworm let out a horrible hiss, convulsing and twisting, and its charred, blackened body fell down weakly.
Before it had even crashed down, a gigantic creature suddenly leaped out of the sand, into the air, and took a bite out of the sandworm, landing heavily on top of the bridge.
The bridge shook violently.
All of this had happened in a matter of seconds.
Fu Yucheng and Bai Mo stared at the behemoth before them, speechless for a moment.
The monster that was eating the sandworm was a huge mutant lizard.
This mutant monitor lizard was forty or fifty meters long, and its scales were a flawless, bright red. At this moment, its gaze slowly swept towards the two of them. The pair of golden vertical pupils showed no emotion. It looked exactly like an ancient beast from a legend.
It was an extremely rare mutant fire lizard!
Fu Yucheng murmured: “There are fire lizards this big in the quicksand stripe? Francis never mentioned… Damn, he’s a scam of a zoologist.”
Sandworm cockblock! Apologies for the delay, been busy with studying T_T
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