In the stillness of the night, Jiang Huan held Jiang Tong close with one arm, worried that the child might get cold because of his thin belly. His warm palm gently covered Jiang Tong’s small belly button, while his other hand slowly turned the pages of a book, his gaze quietly sweeping over each line of small text.
Shen Shanwu nestled in Jiang Huan’s embrace, leaning against the firm yet comfortable warmth. To pass the time, he picked up a pen and paper to doodle, the soft scratch of the pen against paper a reassuring sound for both of them, blending harmoniously with the occasional rustle of pages.
Whenever Jiang Huan looked up, he seemed tireless, his deep, dark eyes as steady as an abyss, showing no trace of fatigue. Every so often, he would raise his head to look around with a hint of alertness, glance over at whatever Shen Shanwu had been drawing, and then return to his book.
It wasn’t true that he couldn’t read, but it was true that his drawing skills were lacking. Shen Shanwu had drawn green mountains on both banks and a winding river, with a small boat breaking the waves on the water’s surface. The intention was to hint at “a thousand miles to Jiangling in a day,”1embodies themes of nostalgia, the bittersweet nature of separation, and the yearning for reunion hoping to please Jiang Huan. However, when he eagerly presented the drawing to Jiang Huan behind him, Jiang Huan examined it for a long time before finally hesitantly asking, “Did you draw… a monkey fishing for the moon?”
Shen Shanwu: “…”
Putting down the pen and paper, Shen Shanwu closed his eyes angrily. Keep the vigil by yourself, little bastard! Brother Shanwu will sleep.
Shen Shanwu was jolted awake, feeling something hard and unyielding pressing against him, which was quite uncomfortable. Instinctively, he reached out to push it away, only to find that the warm object quivered slightly when his fingers brushed against it.
“…” In an instant, Shen Shanwu was wide awake.
The clock hanging at the rest stop pointed to five o’clock; the outside world was still dark, and the other members of the Mountain Sea team were likely drifting in and out of dreams. Yet Shen Shanwu remained acutely aware, his body rigid, with his fingertip hovering just near that indescribable object.
Calm down… it’s just a normal physiological response. Jiang Huan is a twenty-one-year-old normal adult male; what’s so strange about it? Otherwise, with all this pressure, he’d have exploded by now.
After convincing himself, Shen Shanwu suddenly felt something was off. It seemed like his backside was pressed against Jiang Huan’s thigh. What kind of thing grows on someone’s thigh?
Just as he was thinking this, that mysterious object trembled again, its shaking frequency far beyond what a human organ could achieve. Shen Shanwu’s mouth twitched, and he nudged Jiang Huan’s abdomen with his elbow. “Captain.”
“…Huh?” Jiang Huan opened his eyes. Shen Shanwu deliberately turned his head and blinked innocently, saying in a pure, innocent tone, “Captain, there’s something hard pressing against my butt. It’s really uncomfortable.”
Jiang Huan: “…”
The lieutenant, who had just unzipped his sleeping bag halfway: “…”
In the next moment, the lieutenant quickly zipped it back up.
Jiang Huan gave Shen Shanwu a light slap on the head, urging him to wake up and quickly move to the side to cool off. He then took a small black communicator from the pocket by his leg, entered a password, and the screen instantly displayed three large red letters: SOS.
Shen Shanwu, putting on his shoes, squatted down to change clothes while watching the content on the communicator’s screen. Unfortunately, aside from the initial SOS distress signal, he couldn’t understand a single word of the encrypted message.
A quarter of an hour later, all the team members sat neatly gathered around Jiang Huan, attentively listening to their captain speak.
“I received a distress signal from the Anhe North Border Bellona team,” Jiang Huan calmly explained the content he had received on the communicator. “They are currently located in a mountainous area, about ninety kilometers away from us, with a total of five people. They encountered two mutated wild geese, and their vehicle along with all their gear has been taken over by the wild ducks. One person is seriously injured, two others are lightly injured, and they are surrounded by approximately three hundred zombies in a two-story farmhouse.”
Having assessed the difficulty of the rescue, the next consideration was the reward for the operation. Yao Wuque, though injured and bandaged, was still talking about how none of this mattered; what was crucial was how much Bellona would offer after the rescue was completed.
“The distribution of any salvaged supplies will be 70-30 in our favor,” Jiang Huan stated. “By the way, there are firearms and protective gear in the vehicle, as well as disinfection equipment, along with a half-vacuum-packed calf that was traded with Wuyou City a few days ago, two chickens, goat milk, and three hundred pounds of cabbage, and…”
The other details were just descriptions that could be considered optional, but the food was described very clearly. The Shanhai Unit’s attitude reflected that of the coastal base: while their technological capabilities and military strength were far superior, they lagged behind the bountiful Wuyou City when it came to food reserves.
“Let’s go!” Zhang Xiaowen’s eyes lit up, and Yao Wuque wiped his mouth, nodding vigorously. The lieutenant cleared his throat, intending to restore order, but a loud growl from his stomach betrayed his true feelings.
Three hundred zombies were a problem for a fully armed and well-equipped team, but they were just a minor issue; the mutated geese were the real threat. This line of thinking didn’t apply to Shen Shanwu, however. For him, zombies and mutated animals posed no problem; he was simply considering how to persuade Jiang Huan to raise the stakes and take advantage of the situation. Ideally, he wanted to push the reward to an 80-20 split.
Jiang Huan was also inclined to carry out the rescue. The outward reason was “one party in distress receives support from all sides, building a community of shared destiny for humanity,” but the deeper reason was that “they were really offering too much.”
Having made the decision, Jiang Huan immediately replied to the distress signal using the small communicator. The message was simple: Coastal Shanhai 2h.
Throughout the exchange, Shen Shanwu watched Jiang Huan curiously. He had at least a Level 4 proficiency in English at one point, but ten years of disuse had left him completely forgotten. Shanhai was the pinyin for “Shanhai,” and 2h was fairly easy to understand, meaning “2 hours,” likely indicating their expected arrival time. As for the first part of the English message…
“Coastal, in English, means the coastal base.” Seeing Shen Shanwu’s curiosity written all over his face, Jiang Huan couldn’t help but explain, adding, “You don’t need to learn it; there aren’t many people left in Europe anyway.”
“…” Remembering the days of agonizing over vocabulary words, Shen Shanwu felt a surge of resentment.
Since they had all slept well last night, the team members were lively and full of spirit, with everyone but Jiang Huan—who was napping in the back—excitedly discussing how they should prepare the beef once they got it.
Shen Shanwu was quite happy as well; who wouldn’t be pleased to have meat to eat? To avoid disturbing Jiang Huan’s sleep, he and Yao Wuque sat together, flanked by Zhang Xiaowen and Zhong Yin. The latter insisted on squeezing into the same vehicle this morning, wanting to stay close to Yao Wuque, reasoning that she was afraid he might clash with Jiang Tong again.
“I have a good relationship with Jiang Tong,” Yao Wuque boasted without shame. “In the future, if anyone dares to bully Jiang Tong, they’ll have to step over my dead body first!”
Shen Shanwu: “…Thanks?”
Zhang Xiaowen couldn’t help but tease them, saying, “Come on, just admit it! What’s going on between you two, Wuque and Yin? Is there something going on?”
“Me and her? With her Amazonian build?” Yao Wuque made an exaggerated face. “Sorry, but I only like beautiful older sisters with big chests. She doesn’t have a single one of those!”
“Beautiful older sisters with big chests,” Zhong Yin replied deadpan. “Aren’t you just describing Xiaowen?”
“Exactly! I like Xiaowen the most!” Yao Wuque winked. “Consider me?”
“Please, please, please,” Xiaowen laughed. “I can’t handle that!”
Listening to their playful banter, Shen Shanwu suddenly became curious about Jiang Huan’s romantic history. He then asked, “Um, does the captain have someone he likes? Does anyone like him?”
“Whoa, getting curious about your future foster father?” Yao Wuque shook his head and sighed. “What a pity; I guess it’ll be hard for him to find someone.”
“Ah?” Shen Shanwu frowned in confusion. “If he doesn’t have anyone, then why say it’ll be hard for him to find someone?”
“Is it okay to tell Jiang Tong?” Xiaowen asked. Yao Wuque and Zhong Yin exchanged glances, hesitating. After a moment, the former rested his chin on his hand and said, “Although everyone knows about this and the captain hasn’t deliberately hidden it, I still think it’s better for the captain to explain it himself. Discussing it behind his back feels a bit weird.”
Zhong Yin nodded in agreement.
Their cryptic behavior only made Shen Shanwu more curious. He pursed his lips and lightly tapped the table. “If it’s something everyone knows, what’s the big deal about telling me?” Xiaowen quickly reassured him in a hushed tone, “Why don’t you just ask the captain directly later? I think there’s a 90% chance he’ll tell you.”
They had just gotten into the vehicle, and it would take at least another hour and a half to reach their destination. Shen Shanwu wasn’t so capricious as to wake Jiang Huan over this matter. He thought for a moment and speculated, “Could it be that no one likes the captain? That can’t be right.”
“That absolutely can’t be!” Yao Wuque declared proudly. “There are definitely people who admire our captain—enough to line up from the front gate of the Coastal base all the way to the Yellow Sea!”
“Then that means the captain doesn’t have someone he likes…” Shen Shanwu began to feel uneasy again. Just because he didn’t have someone he liked at the moment didn’t mean he never would, and what Yao Wuque had said about it being ‘hard to find’…
Suddenly, Shen Shanwu recalled Yao Wuque’s earlier comment about being “curious about his future foster father,” combined with the phrase “hard to find.” He had an epiphany: “The captain likes men, doesn’t he? That’s why it’s hard for me to have… that.”
The three in front of him were all enjoying their playful banter about Jiang Tong. Zhang Xiaowen said with a smile, “Unfortunately, you guessed wrong. There are definitely men among those who like our captain.”
“…” Shen Shanwu pouted. “Then it can only mean that the captain doesn’t like anyone.”
The other three exchanged glances again and, after a moment, nodded thoughtfully. “Who knows? I was wondering why the captain raised a dog.”
“Stop talking nonsense… But no matter what species the captain likes, it doesn’t solve that key problem.”
“True, that key problem is really crucial.”
“If the key problem isn’t resolved, then talking about anything else is pointless.”
……
Shen Shanwu: “……” Key problem, key problem—you guys are the key problem!
The only one unaware of the captain’s little secret, Shen Shanwu angrily closed his eyes. After waiting for an hour and a half, as soon as Jiang Huan woke up, he couldn’t help but pounce on him. “Captain~”
Jiang Huan was slightly bewildered by Jiang Tong’s overly enthusiastic attitude, only to hear Jiang Tong curiously ask, “Captain, the older brothers and sisters said you don’t like humans but like ‘ri dog.’ What does ‘ri dog’2Literally, it translates to “day dog,” it is a play on words that combines “日” (rì), which means “day” or can be associated with sexual connotations, and “狗” (gǒu), which means “dog.” is intended to be playful and silly, possibly implying a “dog” in a sexual or suggestive context, akin to the English slang “f*ck dog” (though it’s not an exact translation). mean?”
In an instant, Jiang Huan’s icy cold gaze pierced through Yao Wuque, Zhong Yin, and Zhang Xiaowen like a sharp blade. Yao Wuque hurriedly tried to defend himself, saying, “Captain, no! We never said anything about ‘ri dog’—that word was made up by Jiang Tong!”
“I don’t even know what it means; how could I make it up?” Shen Shanwu retorted, then timidly grabbed Jiang Huan’s hand resting on his knee and asked, “Based on Brother Wuque’s reaction, is ‘ri dog’ a bad word? If so, I won’t say it anymore.”
Jiang Huan held Shen Shanwu’s hand in return and said softly, “Good.” Then, his tone shifted as he coldly addressed the other three, “When we get back to the Coastal base, Zhong Yin and Zhang Xiaowen will run three laps around the training field, and Yao Wuque will run six laps.”
Yao Wuque let out a tragic scream, “Captain!!!”
Zhang Xiaowen, on the other hand, looked at her precious Jiang Tong in disbelief, clutching her chest as if she might burst into tears, comforted by Zhong Yin, who had grown used to this kind of situation.
After the fragrant tea aroma had dispersed, Shen Shanwu, in a very good mood, followed the others as they got out of the car. Jiang Huan certainly didn’t plan to let him sit idly by and wait for things to happen. In this rescue operation, Shen Shanwu had also been assigned a task, which was simple: protect himself and kill one zombie.
To avoid attracting any zombies with the strong scent of mutated beings on him, Shen Shanwu wrapped himself up tightly, fearful that his odor would scare them away.
When Xiaowen learned that Jiang Tong would also be going deep into the battlefield this time, she became extremely worried. She began to wrap more clothes around Shen Shanwu, putting a mask on him, then a hood over that, followed by a helmet, making him look like a ball—he could barely draw his knife.
“Xiaowen,” the lieutenant hesitated to speak, “it’s 35 degrees outside; aren’t you worried about Jiang Tong getting heatstroke?”
“…Oh no!” Xiaowen suddenly realized, “Then we’d better make this quick!”
Alright, maybe he could just pretend to be hot… or even faint? Shen Shanwu realized what it meant for life to be like a play, entirely dependent on acting.
However, he had no idea that compared to the person he was about to encounter, these were merely trivial issues.
Of course, if Shen Shanwu had known in advance that he would be spotted by that person after taking off his mask to drink a glass of cool water—and that they would call out his name—he wouldn’t have hesitated between pretending to be hot or fainting.
He would have chosen to stay in the car and never get out, no matter what.
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