The Beautiful Top Being Pursued Relentlessly [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 18

The Rising Sun Base was located further north, already blanketed in thick ice and snow. Even ability users with enhanced genes couldn’t avoid donning heavy padded coats.

Iron chains were wrapped around the car tires to prevent skidding on the snowy roads. From a distance, one could see a grimy car parked by the roadside next to a withered tree. Thin ice had formed around the outer door handles; Jiang Yi had to exert considerable force to shove the door open, causing his momentum to carry him out. With a thud, he fell onto the ground, face-first into the snow.

In the passenger seat, Xie Cheng held a hot water bottle with a puppy pattern and cast a fleeting glance over.

“Hah, hah it’s freezing!”

Jiang Yi bounced up from the ground, stomping his feet a few times and brushing the snow off his coat. The clothes they wore were made of waterproof fabric, so they wouldn’t get soaked by the melting ice.

“Xie Cheng, are you cold?”

Xie Cheng leaned against the car seat, which was layered with cotton blankets. “I am.”

However, his true form as a plant was relatively cold-resistant; he didn’t need to worry about the extreme weather causing any actual damage to his body.

Hearing Xie Cheng say he was cold, Jiang Yi scrambled back into the car. After rummaging through the crates in the back seat, he fished out a cotton hat with puppy ears and pulled it onto Xie Cheng’s head. The soft puppy ears on either side of the hat hung down, resting snugly against Xie Cheng’s own ears.

Xie Cheng reached up and toyed with the puppy ears, finding the hat a bit uncomfortable against his forehead. He realized that because the brim was pressing down his hair, the tiny flower bud hidden near his temple was being squashed. The delicate stem and hydrangea bud felt cramped and irritating.

“Don’t move, don’t move let me do it.”

Jiang Yi knelt on the seat and leaned forward. He gently brushed aside the stray hairs on Xie Cheng’s forehead, lifted a corner of the brim, straightened the stem, and rescued the thumb-sized hydrangea bud.

“Has it been having trouble breathing lately?” Jiang Yi touched the tip of the tiny bud.

The bud, which was usually white with a hint of green, now looked a bit grayish-yellow, as if it were suffering from frostbite and on the verge of withering.

“What a nuisance,” Xie Cheng muttered. A blurry black shadow appeared in his vision the bud that had been smoothed down.

“This is part of your body; how could it be a nuisance? It’s not a bother at all, not at all. 

 ah! Hey!”

While Jiang Yi was rambling on, Xie Cheng impatiently plucked the entire small bud off. He pressed his fingertip against the tip of the flower, and the petals immediately scattered, turning into a loose clump of “wilted cabbage.”

Jiang Yi’s eyes filled with horror. He held out his trembling hands to catch the bud that had been detached from its host. “Does it. does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t.”

Jiang Yi’s eyes grew red, tears swirling within them. “But.  but hic.  I feel the pain.”

Xie Cheng was baffled. “Why do you feel the pain?”

“It just hurts to watch, waaa.”

Jiang Yi, on the verge of crying again, grabbed a tissue and carefully placed it over the “wound” on Xie Cheng’s temple. He then put his hands together and began to pray.

Xie Cheng: “…”

“What do we need to do to make it heal faster? Does it need water?” Jiang Yi pulled out a water bottle.

Xie Cheng: “No.”

Click—

Ignoring everything, Jiang Yi reached out and reclined the passenger seat. Before Xie Cheng could react, he was lying flat. Jiang Yi then leaned over him, their noses nearly touching. Holding a dampened tissue, Jiang Yi lifted the hat again and pressed the wet cloth against the spot. “Keep this on for a while.”

The temple didn’t actually change at all, but Jiang Yi wasn’t about to miss an opportunity for intimacy. His chin rested on Xie Cheng’s chest as he looked up, his gaze falling into a pool of quiet, rippled water.

Xie Cheng’s lashes lowered, his eyes reflecting the man lying in his arms. His gaze wasn’t particularly oppressive, but the calm scrutiny made Jiang Yi’s heart tighten. He swallowed hard.

Jiang Yi didn’t show any restraint. He craned his neck to kiss Xie Cheng’s jaw, gradually moving forward to kiss the tip of his nose.

“Stop messing around.” Xie Cheng’s breathing remained steady.

Both of them were wearing very thick padded coats; embracing felt like two giant balls of cotton being shoved together. The waterproof fabric rubbed together, making soft rustling sounds.

“The snow has stopped outside.”

Xie Cheng tapped the window, hoisted the “heavy” Jiang Yi up, and reached back to adjust the seat angle.

“If we move fast, we can reach the destination before dark.” Xie Cheng looked out the window.

Jiang Yi’s gaze lingered on Xie Cheng’s face. “We can’t enter the Rising Sun Base through the front gates.”

“Mm.”

“I know a place where someone can sneak us in.” Jiang Yi grinned.

Xie Cheng glanced at the “puppy” who was clearly seeking praise. “What a coincidence. I know a place too. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the same one.”

*****

“Hong-zi, has that shipment arrived yet?”

A sinister voice emerged from the mouth of a well, echoing against the cold walls and licking at their ears. Jiang Yi shuddered, stepped over a pile of zombie corpses, and turned around to offer his right hand to Xie Cheng, who was still wearing the puppy hat.

Xie Cheng scanned the surroundings, met his gaze, and placed his hand in Jiang Yi’s palm.

This was a no-man’s-land; at night, it was pitch black. Zombie corpses were strewn along the path, piled high near a dried-up well. The well was covered with an iron lid so no one would fall in, and layers of dried blood caked the area around it.

The two stopped by the well and crouched down. Xie Cheng pointed at the lid and whispered, “There are people down there. The entrance is right here.”

“Then let’s crawl in.” Jiang Yi mimicked his whisper, pressing his palm against the lid to pry it up.

“Are you sure you know someone in there?”

Jiang Yi patted his chest. “Of course.”

Xie Cheng asked one more time. Like many stories, this place had a famous name.

The Black Market.

In the original plot, the owner of the Black Market, Zong Liao, was one of Xu Le’s lovers. During a cold war between the two protagonists, a heartbroken Xu Le fled the base and encountered lover number one, two, three… he couldn’t remember which one it was.

Xie Cheng wasn’t interested in the protagonists’ love-hate drama, but he could gather from the plot that the Black Market had a secret underground tunnel leading into the Rising Sun Base.

And wait.

Xie Cheng pulled 222 out. Why does Xu Le know Zong Liao so early?

Um. I don’t really know.

He’s making zero progress with the main lead’s romance, yet he’s developing things with others remarkably fast, Xie Cheng noted.

The Immortal New Lead is right.

Xu Le.  Xie Cheng pointed to his own head. I suspect there’s something extra in there.

For instance, he seemed to know very early on that these men would be devoted and obedient to him.

Xie Cheng didn’t say more. His attention returned to the well. He watched Jiang Yi circle the lid like a crab for several turns without opening it. Finally, he just kicked the lid away with a single strike.

“Watch out, Xie Cheng!”

Jiang Yi jumped in front of Xie Cheng, two balls of fire igniting in his palms as he looked around cautiously. However, after a long silence, nothing happened.

Xie Cheng pushed him aside. “What are you doing?”

“I was afraid of dangerous traps.”

“The Ghost Market wants to do business; they wouldn’t make the entrance that complicated.”

Xie Cheng walked forward but was stopped by Jiang Yi’s arm again. “Let me go in first, please?”

“As you wish.”

In the freezing cold, the two traveled light. Jiang Yi used his fire ability as a makeshift flashlight to illuminate the narrow passage. The air underground was stagnant and foul, smelling of damp rot and metallic blood.

Xie Cheng hesitated for a moment before putting on the puppy-patterned mask Jiang Yi had stuffed into his pocket.

After descending several flights of stairs, the voice from before rang out again. “What are you worried about? No matter how strictly they check up there, they won’t find us down here.”

A rougher voice replied, “What do you know? I heard the Central Base teamed up with a few others to form a special investigation unit specifically to look into our kind of business.”

“What’s there to fear? We still have the Boss.”

“The Boss?”

“I’ll tell you a secret our Boss has connections everywhere. Who would dare touch the Black Market?”

“True, true. Brother Mang, I’ll follow your lead.”

“One more thing. The Boss wants to find someone. We haven’t found a trace yet, so we need to put in more effort. This is the guy’s portrait. Memorize it.”

Separated from these two by only a few wooden crates, Xie Cheng and Jiang Yi hid in the shadows, their bodies pressed close together. Hearing the word “portrait,” Jiang Yi cautiously peeked his head out. He saw a fat man and a thin man holding a clear sketch. The face on it.

Jiang Yi’s expression darkened instantly. Veins popped on his clenched fist as he pressed it hard against the wooden crate.

The person in the portrait was Xie Cheng.

The fat one was “Brother Mang,” and the thin one was “Hong-zi.” Hong-zi squinted, memorizing the face, and lewdly rubbed his chin with a snicker. “This little face is quite something”

Before he could finish.

CRAAAASH!

Jiang Yi smashed through the wooden crates and lunged forward. He grabbed Hong-zi by the hair and slammed him into the ground. Pinning him down with a knee, he rained down punches one after another. Every punch landed solidly. Hong-zi was pinned to the floor, completely unable to fight back.

“Who the hell are you?!”

Brother Mang gasped in shock and swung a knife, but his ankle was caught by a vine and yanked back. He slammed onto the ground, and his own blade twisted, lodging itself right into his arm.

Blood sprayed everywhere.

“AAAAAGH!”

Screams echoed through the tunnel.

Xie Cheng walked over indifferently. With a flick of his finger, a vine surged upward, hanging Brother Mang upside down.

“The person in your portrait,” Xie Cheng replied flatly. He picked up the blood-stained sketch from the floor, leisurely tore it into tiny pieces, and dropped them.

Xie Cheng looked down at the literal “hot-headed” Jiang Yi and nudged his arm with his toe. “Get up.”

Jiang Yi slammed Hong-zi’s head into the floor one last time and stood up huffily. “I’m angry.”

“Then continue.” The Immortal indulged his outburst.

The flames atop Jiang Yi’s head slowly died down. With his messy hair, he lowered his head and leaned against Xie Cheng’s shoulder, showing him his reddened knuckles.

“It hurts,” Jiang Yi muttered.

Xie Cheng glanced at the two men who had fainted from blood loss, then lightly patted Jiang Yi’s head. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“I want you to blow on it. I want a kiss.”

“We’ll talk when we get back.”

“Okay.” Jiang Yi never pushed too hard when told no; he stepped back obediently and asked, “Xie Cheng, what do you think they meant by ‘shipment’?”

Xie Cheng replied instantly: “People.”

“What kind of people?”

“Ordinary people, ability users. it could be anyone.”

“What do they want people for?”

Xie Cheng’s eyes turned cold. “Human experimentation. To research a vaccine for the zombie virus.”

And He—an ability user who could not be infected was the ultimate test subject.

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