Chapter 25#
Chapter 25#
Smiling Gas · 21
When the sky began to pale, the fire which had been burning through the entire night, finally began to die down.
As the temperature inside the truck slowly dropped, Yu Feichen felt a faint pressure on his shoulder—Anfield, asleep, had unconsciously leaned against him. His soft, lightly wavy hair fell with the movement, brushing across Yu Feichen’s shoulder and chest.
And not only that—Anfield’s left hand was resting on his left arm.
As the truck grew colder, Yu Feichen had become almost the only source of warmth. It was instinct for a sleeping person to seek heat, but the fact that Anfield trusted him enough to sleep without the slightest guard— that, Yu Feichen had not expected.
He lowered his head, looking at the hand on his arm.
Long, well‑shaped fingers, smooth skin, with faint blue veins beneath.
In Paradise, anyone could freely alter their appearance. Many people, eager to show off their strength, turned themselves into hulking giants like moving boulders. Yu Feichen never found that appealing—he preferred strength that appeared effortless. This was one of his few preferences where aesthetics were concerned.
—And Anfield’s hands, whether holding a gun or a knife, fit that aesthetic perfectly.
Outside, a squirrel clutching an acorn darted across the snow, the soft rustle snapping his thoughts. Yu Feichen suddenly realized what he had been thinking.
Anfield was certainly relaxed now. But he himself? He was being leaned on and held by a not‑quite‑familiar enemy officer—yet he felt no instinctive alarm. Instead, he had begun studying the man’s appearance.
The hand was beautiful, yes. But it was unquestionably a hand that had fired guns and been stained with blood.
And the officer truly did carry both gun and dagger, capable of being a threat at any moment.
Yu Feichen mentally calculated the probability of Anfield suddenly turning hostile, the way he calculated the odds of a teammate failing a mission—yet even so, his body refused to tense. That made him rather displeased with the man.
And somehow, during that internal struggle, the two of them had ended up even closer.
In the end, Yu Feichen simply closed his eyes.
The night passed uneventfully.
When dawn light washed over the mountains, the man in his arms shifted. Yu Feichen awoke instantly.
He watched as Anfield slowly opened his eyes. Those pale icy‑green irises were unfocused for a moment, then cleared, reflecting the faint morning light
Then, as if nothing were unusual, Anfield lifted himself from Yu Feichen’s shoulder—as though sleeping against someone for an entire night was as natural as breathing.
He withdrew his hand as well with the same nonchalant air, smoothing his hair slightly.
Then he quietly looked at the little girl who was still asleep.
Sometime in the night, she had slipped from Yu Feichen’s arms onto the floor of the truck, with only her head still resting on his leg.
She was healthy; she would be fine. And so Yu Feichen hadn’t bothered to pick her up again—just draped a bulletproof vest over her to block the wind.
The officer looked quietly back at him.
Truly, for someone taking care of a child… letting her fall to the floor was far from competent. Under that reproachful gaze, Yu Feichen knew he was wrong.
So he shelled all the acorns for breakfast.
He shelled, the little girl ate, and Anfield coughed.
After a round of coughing, blood flecked the handkerchief again.
Yu Feichen noticed.
Either the illness had worsened, or last night’s smoke had injured his lungs further.
“You need a doctor,” Yu Feichen said.
In such an undeveloped era, coughing blood was a grim omen, often meaning life had begun to fade.
“I know,” Anfield replied softly.
And the topic ended there. After breakfast, they left. The truck’s water tank had frozen, so they had to return on foot. Yu Feichen led the girl in front, keeping Anfield slightly behind him—letting his own body block part of the wind.
In the past, only those employers who paid extra would receive such treatment from him.
Later, when he realized some employers hired him only to waste time in low‑level worlds and ask pointless questions, he accepted only the dangerous missions from the Seventh Gate.
When they reached the south gate at seven in the morning, the sky was a cold grey‑blue.
Looking in from the entrance, everything was bleak. The ruins looked slightly different from the night before. Yu Feichen glanced toward the walls—the charred marks were covered by a thin layer of dust.
Clearly, forthisversion of the facility, the fire had happened days ago.
—Then this was undoubtedly the facility as it would have been on the 31st. His guess about the time had not been wrong.
Anfield stepped forward and touched the dust on the gate to confirm it.
Then he took one step forward and went inside.
Yu Feichen remained outside, unmoving.
In the cold morning light, Anfield half‑turned to look back at him.
Those pale icy‑green eyes—marked by their faint tear‑mole—gazed at him calmly, as if waiting for him to speak. Yu Feichen said, “I’ll stop here.”
What had happened last night could never remain hidden. Within two or three days, Black Badge troops from surrounding posts would sense something wrong and come to investigate. When that happened, the events at Oak Valley Concentration Camp would cause an uproar.
Nearly all soldiers dead, all captives escaped—to the Black Badge Army, it was a disastrous defeat. The colonel was dead and could not be held responsible. In the end, as the only surviving officer, all blame would fall on Anfield.
Yu Feichen believed Anfield knew this as well.
They looked at each other in silence.
After a moment, Yu Feichen said, “You can come with me to Sasha.”
Anfield shook his head.
He slowly turned back, looking toward the ruined remains. Yu Feichen saw only his back, but could imagine his expression.
In the cold wind, Anfield said softly, “This is my country.”
Yu Feichen understood the unspoken meaning. This was his homeland—one he could not abandon, no matter how stained with sin or overrun with ruin.
It was an answer Yu Feichen had expected, yet he still felt a faint regret.
“Take care,” he said.
“Farewell.” Anfield’s voice drifted on the wind, like a snowflake falling: “Thank you.”
He did not turn back. Yu Feichen took the girl’s hand and led her toward the misty, pale distance.
Their footsteps marked the snow—three sets when they arrived, only two when they left.
The little girl dragged her feet, stopping again and again, then tugged his hand: “Why isn’t the officer coming with us?”
“Where are we going?”
“What is he staying there for?”
“I don’t want to go,gēgē, I don’t want to…”
Yu Feichen didn’t answer until they climbed a ridge, then he looked down at her—her face was streaked with tears, cheeks flushed red from the cold. She cried and stubbornly kept turning back toward the facility.
Children’s lives and emotions were too fragile, too unpredictable—things he was never good at handling.
Yu Feichen sighed inwardly, knelt down on one knee, and gently wiped her frozen tears away with his sleeve.
Aside from last night’s terror, she had been a very obedient child. Now she lowered her head and whispered through her sobs, “I don’t want to be separated…”
Yu Feichen watched her for a long moment. His face looked expressionless, but he was actually pondering his choice of comforting words carefuly.
“You have a place you’re meant to go,” he said at last. “And you’re destined to part from many things.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the girl’s eyes were completely filled with grief; his attempt at comfort had the opposite effect.
Silence is often better. He should remember that.
He ruffled her hair lightly, then stood and looked down the mountain.
From the ridge, the entire facility lay in view.
He also saw Anfield.
The officer in black uniform and cloak stood quietly before the crematorium tower—half cement gray, half charred black.
As Anfield stared at it, the wind stirred up the ashes, the hem of his cloak fluttered, while a few crows perched at the top of the tower.
For some reason, the scene held a strange solemnity amid the ruin—as though last night’s flames had truly burned away the sins.
After looking at him one last time, Yu Feichen then turned away. He lifted the girl and walked south, never looking back.
Just as he’d told her—in a lifetime, one must grow used to partings.
Having traveled through countless worlds, in the beginning, he had once found things worth cherishing, but in the end, only Paradise and the Tower of Creation were eternal.
Setting aside the events of the facility for now, he followed his planned route. Even with a child in his arms, his pace barely slowed.
Five days later, they arrived in Sasha.
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Note: gēgē, or gē means brother, not necessarily biological. Can be any older male seen as a brotherly figure.
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-Syeki
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