Chapter 64#

Gears of Fate 06#

The dormitory had no windows. In the place where a window should have been hung a conceptual painting of a machine puppet. No one would object to calling the desk a workbench; the tool box was piled with many small parts.

After entering the room, Anfield sat in the high-backed armchair in front of the long desk. It was a swivel chair, and with a gentle turn, he faced Yu Feichen’s side.

Yu Feichen didn’t sit down. His posture was casual, his back leaning against the door. Logically, with Anfield sitting and him standing, he should have the advantage of looking down, but he didn’t. Because Anfield’s expression looked as if nothing had happened, and one could even see three parts of inexplicable innocence. His whole body was written with “asking for a beating.”

Yu Feichen felt that at this moment he should be as calm as if interrogating a criminal. He suppressed the desire to maltreat animals in his heart, intending to hold out against Anfield to the end.

Anfield didn’t say a word, so he didn’t speak either. Until Anfield looked at him and said: “What’s wrong with you today?”

Yu Feichen: “Thinking about things from the past.”

Anfield’s expression showed no ripples. Yu Feichen suddenly remembered that since this person was so at ease in the outside world, he should also be an expert in dealing with people. Sure enough, Anfield wasn’t led by him, his voice only faint: “Why suddenly think of things from the past?”

Time passes day after day, and living people will all think of things from the past, either seeing objects and thinking of people, or seeing people and thinking of people. Ludwig once also shed a tear with his back to the Holy Son. When Yu Feichen asked at that time, he also said “thinking about things from the past.”

It’s just that their two so-called “things from the past” were definitely not the same thing. This person had experienced much longer years than him; those short few years on the mothership were just fleeting fragments in a long life.

From under the dormitory floor came the subtle sound of mechanical operation and vibration. The dormitory didn’t occupy much space, with metal walls on all sides. It was a small compartment inside a gargantuan object, both safe and dangerous. Safe because it was located inside such a heavy and precise fortress, dangerous because the small compartment was too minuscule compared to the whole. Back in the dormitory on the mothership, there was also this feeling.

Yu Feichen looked at every corner of the room and suddenly said: “Does it look like it?”

“Like what?”

Yu Feichen looked at the empty, semi-old metal wall—this scene was so familiar that he wanted to post a slogan on that wall. He smiled. It was indeed quite boring to keep it in his heart; he said what he wanted to say.

“Defend the Third Air Route, Dedicate to the Blue Sea and Blue Sky,” he said in a flat tone.

This was a slogan that could be seen everywhere in the rooms, corridors, and brochures on the mothership back then, and it even had to be sworn every morning.

Frost-green eyes suddenly looked up, and Anfield’s expression had such a violent fluctuation for the first time.

“So you still remember,” Yu Feichen said, “Officer.”

The purpose of striking first had been achieved. He walked a few steps forward to Anfield’s chair. This distance forced Anfield to look up to look directly into his eyes.

He looked at Yu Feichen.

It wasn’t impossible for Yu Feichen to recognize him as a companion for three consecutive worlds; after all, the same person always has similarities. But to actually trace back to that world an era ago, he didn’t understand the reason, nor could he guess what exactly Yu Feichen wanted to do, only feeling that his attitude was quite different and aggressive.

Anfield said: “It’s me.”

Admitting so candidly left Yu Feichen with nowhere to apply force. After staring deeply into those eyes for a long time, he said: “How long have you been in the Paradise?”

Anfield’s gaze was vacant for a moment, a smoky mist shrouding his eyes, like a winter morning with white fog brushing over green branches in frozen ice.

He said: “A long time.”

“How long?”

“…Forgotten.”

Yu Feichen was first slightly pleased by his clear memory of the Third Air Route, and then his heart was knocked by this melancholic and vacant gaze. The resentment brewed for a whole day dissipated by more than half, nowhere to be seen. He took a deep breath, wanting to pick up that tough emotion, but only one sentence echoed in his mind.

You’re still here.

He didn’t speak, but Anfield reached out his hand to him. But this person had grown tall, and Anfield couldn’t reach his cheek, and he stubbornly refused to cooperate and lower his head. Anfield’s fingers could only eventually land lightly on the side of his neck.

“…You’ve grown up,” Anfield said softly.

Yu Feichen was prepared to announce a break with this person. He didn’t expect Anfield’s few light sentences to turn into such a tender scene. He firmly refused to lower his head.

You’ve grown up. These words sounded harsh because they came late, missing the age when he would still be moved by such words.

Sincerity or pretense didn’t matter; late is late.

Yu Feichen said: “Why did you take me to the Paradise?”

“You sacrificed yourself in the crash; I have responsibility.”

Sure enough, it was just like him bringing back Bai Song himself. As for why he wasn’t continued to be taken to the Gate of Eternal Night like Bai Song, Yu Feichen didn’t want to ask further; maybe it was because less money was paid to the Tower of Creation.

His voice was slightly hoarse: “I didn’t want to go.”

Anfield blinked: “But you agreed.”

Yu Feichen: “…”

He felt a bit like hitting someone. Best to hit to death.

Yu Feichen said: “I wasn’t clear-headed.”

A thoughtful look appeared in Anfield’s eyes, thinking about the feasibility of stuffing Yu Feichen back.

After a long while, he said: “There’s no way now.”

“I hadn’t seen you when I first arrived in the Paradise,” Yu Feichen said: “Why are you following me again now?”

“When you first entered the Gate of Eternal Night, I was worried you would encounter danger.”

Sounded like the truth, but the fact was more like a paralyzed person finally seeing a usable wheelchair. Yu Feichen knew he had completely lost the upper hand in the dialogue. The plan to announce the break of the relationship was officially announced broken at this time. He directly dropped a sentence “Go to sleep,” then turned and walked away to wash up.

The bathroom door was slammed shut. Anfield looked at Yu Feichen’s blurred figure behind the door, lowering his eyes in thought.

He finally, late and slowly, discovered one thing: this person seemed to be… a bit angry. He hadn’t seen anyone getting angry in front of him for many eras, so he only felt it was strange just now and didn’t think of anything.

But coming to the Paradise with an independent identity—is there anything worth being angry about?

In front of the washstand, Yu Feichen looked at himself in the mirror. His eighteen or nineteen-year-old appearance was youthful, and he hadn’t improved much in a hundred years. He turned on the brass faucet and immersed his face in the icy cold water. Scenes from the past surfaced one after another. That emotion had existed for a long time, stretching over an era, and it had to be completely eliminated in a grand and spectacular way, but at this time it was picked up high and dropped lightly. His heart was full of irritability.

After coming out, he saw Anfield lowering his head and tinkering with a pile of parts on the desk. The kerosene lamp shone there, and the blonde hair and parts sparkled with bright light together. “Anfield climbs a ladder and falls to his death” was not impossible. Yu Feichen didn’t care what Anfield was doing, went directly to the top bunk, hung up his jacket, pulled the quilt, closed his eyes, out of sight, out of mind.

But the subtle sound of parts colliding still reminded him all the time who he was sharing a room with at this moment. Actually, he still had many things he wanted to ask Anfield, and the one he wanted to ask most was: what about the future?

—Will they continue to experience dungeons together like this in the future?

But he didn’t want to ask, because this “future” was completely in Anfield’s hands. The reason this person pretended not to know him, he could also guess—the two were not acquaintances, so whichever day he stopped being with him, Yu Feichen wouldn’t know. Come as he wished, and he could withdraw at any time.

The power he had obtained was after all still small; too many things could not be controlled.

The light of the kerosene lamp gradually dimmed, and the sound on Anfield’s side also stopped. Yu Feichen cleared his head, intending to fall asleep.

However, there was a subtle sound from the ladder. Someone had quietly climbed to the top bunk.

Yu Feichen still had his eyes closed but was very awake. He could hear it was Anfield—this person walked a few steps toward the head of the bed after climbing up, his movements intentionally slowed down. When he reached the head of the bed, he knelt down lightly and then leaned over to stuff something under his pillow.

Then he intended to leave.

Yu Feichen opened his eyes.

In the warm, yellow, dim afterglow of the kerosene lamp, the blonde boy in a white silk shirt with a collar pin was looking down at him, like some character in a fairy tale.

Yu Feichen: “What are you doing?”

Anfield didn’t show a hint of the embarrassment of being caught, bit his lip, took that thing out from under the pillow again, and handed it to Yu Feichen.

Yu Feichen held it in his hand to look. A crudely made mechanical rabbit, with eyes made of unknown red crystals, ears made of several semi-overlapping small gears, and skin using thin tin sheets with high flexibility.

Anfield came with the attitude of offering a humble apology, although he hadn’t yet completely figured out the source of the temper he was being given today.

“For you,” Anfield said, “Seven.”

Yu Feichen’s movements stiffened.

There were eight people in their dormitory back then. They were assigned numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight when they were in school. Later, there were ten spots in the entire school for boarding the mothership, and all members passed the selection. On the ship, they were still roommates and still referred to by numbers. Over time, others on the ship also called them that way.

Including the officer.

“I’m not called Seven,” he said stiffly: “My name is Yu Feichen.”

Anfield’s gaze suddenly softened a lot. This person’s expression today already had a bit of softness from knowing he was in the wrong; now his entire demeanor could almost be called gentle.

He said softly: “Yu Feichen.”

Yu Feichen gave an “un-huh,” accepting this name. He continued to flip the mechanical rabbit with one lame leg over and over to inspect it, and finally said: “You’re very perfunctory.”

Anfield denied it, claiming materials were limited.

Yu Feichen put the rabbit back under the pillow and looked straight at Anfie: “Officer, you’re not acting anymore?”

When pretending not to know him, his whole person only revealed the word coldness.

Anfield frowned and continued to deny this statement. Yu Feichen ignored him; the appearance of this shell was too deceptive, anything said sounded true.

Finally, Anfield tucked in the corner of the quilt for Yu Feichen and said: “To be able to get the qualification to enter the Gate of Eternal Night in just one era, I’m seeing it for the first time.”

Being praised by the officer was something the former Seven ostensibly disdained but would feel was not bad if he got it. Yu Feichen accepted it candidly. He said: “No one led me, so I just did it blindly.”

Anfield suddenly understood something.

“I had other things at that time and couldn’t get away.” In the silence, he said softly, “The Paradise is calm and friendly; I thought you could handle it.”

Yu Feichen turned his head away.

If it were the him who had just arrived in the Paradise for a year, the only possible reason for forgiving that matter would be that the officer was already dead.

The reason for the him an era later to forgive this matter was, however, that the officer was still alive.

After looking at the ceiling for a while, he said: “I forgive you.”

Forgiving so easily. He didn’t even forgive when Anfield spoke the excuse; when he wanted to hear this person’s reason, he had already forgiven.

He only ever wanted to hear a “sorry,” accepting the steps handed over by this person himself. He had never held the upper hand.

Anfield reached out and combed the short hair at his temples for him, saying: “Sorry.”

Yu Feichen: “It’s okay. What happened to the mothership in the end?”

After a moment of silence, Anfield said: “I did my best.”

Yu Feichen didn’t ask further, only saying “thank you.” He heard the implication but was very calm. This was foreseeable; the situation was too severe at that time and not something that could be controlled by human power. He had experienced so many worlds and had never encountered such a dead end again.

Anfield continued to smooth his hair, like coaxing a child. Yu Feichen felt he hadn’t been naive to this degree yet, and suddenly had some complaints, brushing his hand away.

Anfield didn’t bother him further and said: “Good night? I’m going down.”

Yu Feichen: “Just stay here.”

When Anfield hadn’t come up, he always felt something was pulling between up and down, making him unable to sleep well.

Anfield didn’t refuse. Yu Feichen moved inward slightly and then watched Anfield pull open the quilt and put himself in. Just as he was about to lie down, Yu Feichen said again: “Wait.”

Anfield paused in mid-air: “?”

Yu Feichen took the mechanical rabbit out from under the pillow and stuffed it near the pillow on his side, saying: “Okay.”

You’re pressing on my rabbit.