Mei Nianxue bent down, pressed the blade against Fu Yucheng’s cheek, and grazed it gently. “Tell me, where should I start?”

Fu Yucheng felt the cold blade cutting his skin slowly, and answered offhandedly, “Using your hook is fine, but the scimitar won’t be the same. You wielding it would be a waste.”

Mei Nianxue patted his face with the scimitar, raised his eyebrows and said, “I’ll figure out whether the scimitar is good or not once I try it.”

Bai Mo grabbed Mei Nianxue’s wrist abruptly, and said hoarsely, “If you dare to touch even a single hair on his head, I… I’ll kill you.”

Mei Nianxue couldn’t help but sneer. “Brat, you can’t even protect yourself yet you still talk big! Very well, in that case, I will take care of you first.”

He slowly pried the boy’s hold off his wrist, placed his palm on the hard ice, and stepped on it.

“I want to see how hard your bones are.” Mei Nianxue looked down at the other in contempt and slowly pressed down on his slender fingers with the sole of his shoe.

Bai Mo pressed his lips tightly without saying a word, neither begging for mercy nor crying out in pain.

The ice sheet was silent. The only sound that could be heard was the creaking of bones crushed against the ice’s surface, a faint blood stain gradually spreading around Bai Mo’s fingers.

Looking at it, Fu Yucheng felt as if he were being stabbed, but his face remained expressionless.

Mei Nianxue raised an eyebrow. “This kid ended up like this because of you, yet you’re so calm. It’s no wonder Rong Yuan called you… cunning and heartless.”

“Is that so?” Fu Yucheng looked at him and his expression changed, becoming hard to read. “By the way, Mei Nianxue, you said earlier that you met Mo Ziwei… ten years ago, at sixteen. That means you will turn twenty-six this year, won’t you?”

Mei Nianxue blinked, not really understanding what the other meant for a while, and he slowly stopped moving his feet. “So what?”

Fu Yucheng smiled slightly. “Mo Ziwei’s younger brother, Mo Ziran, is much younger than you, but not by a full zodiac cycle… he’s nine years younger, and he turns seventeen this year. So you don’t share the same zodiac sign.”

Mei Nianxue asked impatiently, “What are you trying to get at?”

Fu Yuchang spoke slowly. “You were born in the Devil’s Antarctic, where everyone harassed and mistreated you, and you didn’t even have enough to eat. Of course, you wouldn’t receive a good education either. I guess you don’t know what your zodiac sign is?”

Mei Nianxue frowned at him. “What does it matter whether I know or not?”

Fu Yucheng smiled. “It’s alright if you don’t know it… It’s just that you may have made a very serious mistake.”

Mei Nianxue said coldly, “I think you’re only trying to gain time while waiting for reinforcements. Don’t worry, even if the people from Fort Hurricane come, I’m not scared of them.”

Fu Yucheng shrugged with an indifferent gesture. “Ah, you think I’m stalling for time…? Actually, what I wanted to say was related to Mo Ziwei. But, since you don’t care to listen, then nevermind.”

Mei Nianxue felt stunned for a while, and he couldn’t help but throw a glance at the head lying next to him. “Related to him? You didn’t know him, what can you know about him?”

Fu Yucheng nodded. “Of course, I never met him, but I think I may know him better than you do. Though, if you don’t want to listen to me, you can just kill me.”

Mei Nianxue stared at him for a long time before saying, “That’s right.

So if you dare to play any tricks,” he gestured towards the boy next to him again, “I’ll cut off his flesh piece by piece and feed it to you.”

“I have no interest in eating people.” Fu Yucheng smiled, but there was a cold gleam in his eyes. “And, after you listen to what I have to say, I don’t think you will, either.”

After a slight pause, he began to explain. “The zodiac signs complete a full cycle every twelve years. They are arranged in a set order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. The year you were born in determines your zodiac sign.”

“Ah? What the hell do you mean with all that nonsense?” Mei Nianxue snorted coldly, applying a little more force to his foot.

Bai Mo clenched his teeth tightly and said nothing.

Fu Yucheng glanced at the young man and continued. “Earlier, you said that Mo Ziwei gave you a wood carved figure. It was… a little tiger. You thought that he gave you a wood figure that he had scrapped when preparing his younger brother’s birthday gift, and you held a grudge because of it.”

Mei Nianxue stared at the other man attentively. For some reason, he felt a slight panic in his heart, and he even forgot to keep stepping on the boy’s fingers.

“However, given your age, tiger is your zodiac sign.” Fu Yucheng’s smile was completely sardonic. “Mo Ziran’s sign is pig. Therefore, his birthday gift would obviously not be a wood carving of a tiger. You see, it’s good to have some basic knowledge. That way, you can avoid falsely blaming good people.”

Mei Nianxue muttered, “What… what do you mean?”

Fu Yucheng sighed and looked at him almost sympathetically. “You don’t get it? Or do you still not dare to admit it? Mo Ziwei carved that little tiger specially for you. It was a present prepared specifically for you, a unique, one of a kind gift.”

Mei Nianxue stayed still for a long time, and then his body suddenly trembled.

He was shaking imperceptibly, and his voice was hoarse. “It’s not possible, it’s not possible… he didn’t care about me at all. He discovered that I falsified the weather records and he immediately tried to kill me. How could he have… how is it possible…?”

Fu Yucheng shrugged. “Yes, he might have wanted to do something to you. But, after all, you killed him in the end, didn’t you? You said that, back then, even his sentience weapon, the Spectral Hook, didn’t listen to his commands…”

Fu Yucheng slowly continued. “The Spectral Hook was a sentience weapon that Mo Ziwei had bonded with. Even if his psionic power was one level below yours, you were young at that time and you had just developed your psionic power, too. Unless his mind had been completely in disarray, how could you be able to control his bonded sentience weapon in such a short time?

“You killed him easily because… his intent to kill you was far weaker than your intent to kill him.”

All the blood had left Mei Nianxue’s face.

Fu Yucheng looked at him and slowly revealed an extremely cruel smile. “After all, he picked you out of a trash can, healed your face, taught you how to control your psionic power, asked you to call him ‘brother’, and he made a wood carving of your zodiac sign, just for you… How could such a kind, such an indecisive person that had been so good to you, be able to kill you so easily?”

He stared at Mei Nianxue and slowly enunciated every word. “He cared so much about you, so he would not have been able to do it, at all.”

Mei Nianxue trembled involuntarily, his teeth clattering together. He muttered, almost unconsciously, “You’re just saying nonsense, you’re just saying nonsense, you’re just saying nonsense…”

Fu Yucheng sighed. “Mei Nianxue, you are so pathetic. You dare not admit your mistakes, so you can’t even face the fact that Mo Ziwei cared about you…”

He paused, then suddenly whispered, “How did his body taste?”

“You’re looking for death!!” Mei Nianxue roared, rushing forward.

In his extreme agitation, he even forgot to use his psionic power, and, holding the Spectral Hook horizontally with both hands, he attempted to strangle Fu Yucheng to death just with brute force.

The two rolled together amidst the ice and snow like two wild beasts, fighting against each other recklessly.

Fu Yucheng’s face turned red from being strangled. He gritted his teeth, desperately trying to reach for his Silent Blue Moon that lay next to him, but he was just a little bit too far away from it.

If only I could get a bit closer, I could grab the blade and kill him…

Bai Mo lay not far away, staring at them. The boy’s brain was buzzing and his eyes were bloodshot, but he couldn’t get up.

At some point, a light, continuous cracking sound echoed, the air gradually freezing with small ice prisms floating all over the sky.

Those ice prisms quickly began growing bigger and longer, shining with a cold light. And then, several of these sharp prisms struck Mei Nianxue’s back!

Mei Nianxue’s mind had been in complete disarray at that point, and his entire body was in the open, completely defenseless.

With just a faint whistling sound, four prisms a foot in length pierced his back.

Mei Nianxue’s face suddenly twisted as the four extremely sharp, crystal clear ice pieces swiftly burst through his chest.

Sharp and unstoppable.

The ice points approached Fu Yucheng, whose vision was getting blurry. He closed his eyes involuntarily, but the only thing he felt was a cold, damp sensation.

The four ice prisms suddenly turned into spring water when they reached him, gently splashing his face and leaving just a faint chill behind.

Bai Mo lay on the ice not too far away, gasping for breath, his face pale. “Yu-ge, I, I…”

Suddenly, Fu Yucheng understood something. He pushed Mei Nianxue aside, whose body had already gone limp, and practically ran over to the boy.

He knelt down next to his body, picked the boy up as gently as possible, and touched his forehead with a trembling hand.

Sure enough, Bai Mo’s skin was boiling hot.

At that moment, the countless ice prisms covering the sky shook violently, producing soft sounds. At the same time, the surface of the ice underneath them also began to crack. The icy surface, which had only been a foot thick before, began to freeze more, thickening rapidly, becoming one meter deep, five meters, ten meters…

The boy’s psionic power was out of control.

Of course, Fu Yucheng knew that Bai Mo’s psionic power had always been unstable, and it was common for him to lose control when he was extremely excited, but he had never seen him lose his control to such a degree.

He felt very anxious, but the only thing he could do was to continue stroking the boy’s hair, comforting him softly. “It’s okay, it’s okay, calm down…”

Bai Mo’s body was trembling uncontrollably. With a lot of effort, he moved his pitch-black eyes and looked at Fu Yucheng. “Yu-ge, I, I don’t feel well… Am I going to die?”

Fu Yucheng said softly, “No, you won’t. Although your injury is serious, Mo Ziran can heal it.”

Bai Mo murmured, “But my head hurts… I feel uncomfortable…”

Fu Yucheng pursed his lips, not knowing what to say.

Mo Ziran could treat the stab wound on his torso, but if he had suffered a serious loss of his psionic power between the serious injury and the agitation… If things continued the same, his psionic power would probably collapse…

Fu Yucheng’s heart kept sinking.

He closed his eyes and, while gently stroking the teenager’s hair, he whispered in a low voice, “Don’t be afraid, I will find a way, you will be fine… for sure.”

Bai Mo softly coughed a couple of times and grabbed his sleeve gently. “I’m not afraid… so don’t leave.”

Fu Yucheng said dumbly, “I won’t.”

The young man seemed to feel relieved. His eyes slowly rolled over, and his gaze fell on the scimitar, shining a faint blue where it lay on the ice in the distance.

He couldn’t help but remember Mei Nianxue’s words.

That blade was… the sentience weapon of the Imperial prince, Rong Yuan, a treasure from the Central Empire. The Silent Blue Moon.

Fu Yucheng and that man… after all, they… but…

The boy felt confused. He felt his head hurting, and his thoughts were completely jumbled. He said without thinking, “You… your scimitar… I don’t understand. Don’t… don’t leave to find someone else… I will treat you better…”

Hearing his incoherent words, Fu Yucheng soothed him. “Stop talking, Mo Ziran and the others will be here soon. Let’s heal your injury first, and then slowly repair your psionic power.”

Bai Mo didn’t hear what the other man was talking about at all. He could only feel a searing pain in his mind, and his consciousness gradually slipped in an unpleasant way.

He murmured, “I…I like you.”

This sentence was light and quiet, but the ice field had been extremely quiet as well, so Fu Yucheng could hear him clearly. He couldn’t help but shake slightly.

In fact, he had already had a vague hunch before, but he had not been sure.

His life had been extremely complicated. Although he appeared to be a casual, generous person, he had a callous, resolute heart. He had never had issues rejecting others.

However, at that moment, Fu Yucheng, who never struggled speaking his mind, was left speechless by the boy’s simple ‘I like you’, and he didn’t know how to answer him.

He couldn’t bear to refuse him nor could he respond.

He could only remain silent.

After finally saying that sentence, Bai Mo’s consciousness seemed to somewhat return for a moment, and he dropped his gaze almost helplessly, as if he didn’t dare to look at the other. Even his shoulders were tense.

Seeing as Fu Yucheng hadn’t said anything for a long time, the boy pursed his lips, mustered up his courage, and spoke again.

He pressed his lips together and finally opened his mouth, his voice trembling almost unnoticeably. “I wouldn’t have dared to say it before… but… I’m afraid that I won’t be able to hold on for much longer… Don’t, don’t be angry at me, don’t hate me.”

There was a burst of unspeakable pain in Fu Yucheng’s heart, a burst of extreme sorrow, and then he whispered, “No, I don’t hate you.”

“Ah…” The young man relaxed a little, and his thoughts gradually became muddled again. “Don’t leave me, or go find others… I will give you all, better things… I will work hard, I will give you everything…”

Later, his eyes began to lose sight, and his voice became lighter and softer, “…is that okay?”

His voice was too small, and Fu Yucheng could not hear anything anymore, so he could only nod to everything and agree in a dull voice. “Yeah.”

“…Really? Pro- promise me.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t lie to me…”

“Yeah.”

…

The humble medical room in Fort Hurricane was deadly silent.

Fu Yucheng sat on the sofa next to the hospital bed with a thick, snow-white plaster cast over his right hand. He wiped his face tiredly with his left. “How is he?”

Mo Ziran hesitated. “I repaired the stab wound on his back and the damage to his hand. However, his psionic power…”

A doctor in a white coat also walked over and shook his head. “The medical resources here are limited. We have no equipment for treating psionic power, and we have no staff that is an expert in the field. We can’t do anything.”

Fu Yucheng closed his eyes. “Then, what’s going to happen to him?”

The doctor hesitated a bit before saying, “If he doesn’t get treated soon, he may suffer from a psionic power breakdown and get brain damage. At that point, I fear that…”

“I understand.” Fu Yucheng stood up and walked to the bed.

The boy was unconscious, sleeping, his face paler than the sheets in the medical room.

Mo Ziran walked over as well, a bit worried. “Yucheng-ge, you haven’t slept for several days…”

Song Lan frowned. “Fu Yucheng, you have to sleep. Even if you wear yourself down to nothing, it won’t help.”

Fu Yucheng stared at the boy on the bed blankly, ignoring them.

He stayed for a while, then suddenly asked, “After such a big mess, has there been any news from the Central Empire?”

Mo Ziran nodded. “I just received news that the White Rose Palace will send a spacecraft over to find out about the current situation here.”

Fu Yucheng murmured, “The White Rose Palace, the White Rose Laboratory…”

Mo Ziran wondered, “What are you talking about, Yucheng-ge?”

Fu Yucheng muttered, “Perhaps, there’s a place that can save him.”

He paused, then turned to look at Mo Ziran. “Ziran, after the people from the White Rose Palace arrive, step forward and hand him over… to their people. He’s an S-class manipulator. With his psionic potential, the White Rose Laboratory will definitely save him.”

Song Lan crossed her arms and frowned deeply, without saying a word.

Mo Ziran hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Then what about you? Are you going with him as well?”

Fu Yucheng shook his head. “I’m in a very complicated situation, but I can’t explain it just yet. But in short, I will be leaving before the people from the White Rose Palace arrive.”

“You’re leaving? Then… Then we have to hurry up and heal your psionic power.” Mo Ziran paused before adding, “However, when Bai Mo was unconscious, he kept pulling at your sleeve and refusing to let go… If he doesn’t see anyone when he wakes up, he will definitely be sad.”

Fu Yucheng rubbed his eyebrows wearily. “In his situation, his psionic power needs to be repaired first, and then he has to undergo long-term psionic rehabilitation… After he’s done, he will be an S-class special category psionic manipulator. From then on, his future will have no limits, but to get to that point it’ll take several years to achieve all of that.”

He looked at the pale face of the teenager, and said to himself, “When you’re young and ignorant, some matters seem important enough to define your entire being. But, over time, as you meet new people, they will slowly fade away. This might be… good for him.”

Mo Ziran opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but, in the end, he didn’t speak.

Song Lan shook her head speechlessly, then turned around and left.

…

After a long time, Bai Mo and Fu Yucheng were finally left alone in the room.

Fu Yucheng sat quietly on the edge of the bed, slowly combing through the boy’s soft, thick hair with his fingers while staring at the distant horizon outside the window, not knowing what to think about.

“Mhm…” Bai Mo mumbled in a daze, seemingly feeling the gentle touch.

Fu Yucheng came back to his senses and looked down, brushing the sweaty dark hair covering the boy’s forehead to one side.

He looked at his young, handsome face, feeling heavy and uncomfortable.

The frown that had formed between Bai Mo’s eyebrows gradually relaxed, the corners of his mouth raising slightly, and his pale cheeks had also recovered some color, as if he were dreaming of something extremely beautiful.

In his sleep, he gently pressed his cheek against the man’s hand, clingy and completely trusting.

Fu Yucheng froze up minutely, and couldn’t resist closing his eyes.

After a long time, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Fu Yucheng: lying to boys that are in love with him and running away from the planet to avoid them since the year 2384

How did you guys like this season finale? This is the last chapter in the Fort Hurricane arc, and we’re halfway through the novel! Thank you everyone for reading so far, I read all of your comments