The Long Night - Chapter 48

Yan Liao microwaved the leftovers from last night. It was a little salty, and he didn’t have much of an appetite eating alone.

The food would spoil if he put it back in the fridge. He took out a black bag, put the leftovers in it, and put it on the kitchen floor, thinking of throwing it away when he went out to walk the dog at night.

He pulled off the bedsheet, pillowcases, and duvet cover and threw them into the washing machine. There was a row of bottles on the cabinet: fabric softener, mite-removing disinfectant, laundry detergent, and citrus-scented beads. He added a little of each according to his mood, just like adding chemicals in a lab.

When the two of them first moved here, the bathroom was empty. Now, it looked very much like a home, a home where they had lived for many years.

He took out a new set of sheets from the wardrobe and put them on. He then took the duvet to the balcony to sunbathe. The midday sun was just right, baking the cotton wool warmly and giving off a warm scent.

No matter what he did, the puppy followed behind him, its eyes always on him, like a loyal attendant.

Yan Liao sat on the sofa and trimmed the dog’s nails. He also watched some TV shows for a while.

The entertainment news was reporting that Yu Xing was in the hospital to recuperate from an injury he got while filming. Yan Liao didn’t have a deep impression of this face, but he remembered the name. He thought that Ge Dong-lin could probably also take a few days off. That was good.

Yan Liao was bored at home, but he had actually gotten used to this kind of boredom to the point where he could enjoy it. The new year had a new vibe. Last autumn, he was stressed from staying at home all the time, so he searched for stress-relief videos on an app. Sometimes, he would watch people clean carpets and trim cow hooves for an entire afternoon.

For a while, he also liked to watch videos of people scraping soap. The background music was often from post-apocalyptic novels. He could almost guess the ending, but he still couldn’t help but want to keep listening.

In the evening, the sky suddenly became gloomy. Soon, it started to snow. The pure white snowflakes landed on the window for a while before disappearing. Soon, it started to rain again.

In Yan Liao’s memory, it seemed to have only snowed three times this winter. For the first snowfall, he and Tang Shaocheng went to the small plaza downstairs to build a snowman. It didn’t melt for many days, and a child even added a nose and mouth to the snowman. The second snowfall caused a traffic jam. Tang Shaocheng parked his car in a parking lot halfway there and walked back. Yan Liao went to pick him up with an umbrella. On the way home, they smelled the aroma of a mutton soup restaurant. They went in, ordered a mutton hotpot, and didn’t leave until the snow stopped. The third snow fell all night. He and Tang Shaocheng slept soundly. When they woke up in the morning, they saw a vast white world outside the window, as if they had traveled to a fairy tale world where houses were built with cream.

Tonight, he was home alone.

The clouds outside the window were gloomy, and the streetlights were a little dim, like the weather before the end of the world in a novel. He was at home. The projector on the wall was playing a funny variety show. The atmosphere was lively and comforting.

There were fruits and snacks on the coffee table. The dog was lying next to the sofa like a small piece of golden carpet, its two paws holding a ball of yarn and happily chewing on it.

This place was like a safe house in the apocalypse.

Yan Liao was very satisfied with the current situation. Even the variety show he wasn’t interested in usually became interesting. When a guest was thrown into the pool from a seesaw, he also laughed twice.

The puppy eagerly picked up the yarn ball, put it on Yan Liao’s hand, and “woofed” twice, telling Yan Liao to throw it so it could fetch it.

Yan Liao took the yarn ball from the puppy’s mouth. It was a little dirty. Every time he washed the ball, the dog wouldn’t recognize its toy and it would take a long time for it to accept that this thing was something it used to love.

“I’m going to throw it.”

Yan Liao raised his hand and threw the yarn ball very casually. Then he heard a series of crackling sounds, like firecrackers celebrating the new year.

The yarn ball, following his swift movement, obediently broke two vases.

The dog was dumbfounded.

Yan Liao was also dumbfounded with almost the same expression… Then he lowered his head and started to ponder.

Actually, he didn’t need to ponder. He had already thought of a solution in an instant. He had done this before.

“Are you willing to go through fire and water for me?” he asked sincerely.

The dog was dumbfounded again.

Yan Liao walked over with his phone, squatted down, took a picture of the broken vase pieces on the floor, and opened the chat with Tang Shaocheng.

He hesitated a little when he put his fingers on the keyboard. Should he complain first, or should he say, “I miss you”?

Anyway, there was no option to admit his mistake.

The dog was circling behind him, barking.

It wasn’t that the dog was being tricked. It just liked to circle.

Yan Liao hadn’t thought about what to say yet when a call from an unfamiliar local number suddenly popped up on his phone screen.

It didn’t look like a spam call. He answered it and said, “Hello.”

“Hello, Mr. Tang made an appointment for the dog to have a deworming treatment at the pet store today. Is it convenient for you to come over now?”

Yan Liao looked up at the clock on the wall. It was a little past eight. It wasn’t very late, but he turned his head to look out the window. It was still a mixture of rain and snow.

Countless tiny raindrops on the window glass gathered into winding water trails, like a crying, wet face.

Yan Liao frowned and asked, “Today?”

“If you miss today’s appointment, you’ll have to wait another week,” the mechanical female voice on the other end was a little cold, but what she said was very considerate. “We’ll provide a ride. It only takes half an hour.”

“Oh, okay, thank you.”

After hanging up the phone, Yan Liao remembered that he hadn’t given the address, and the other party hadn’t asked for it. Maybe Tang Shaocheng had left it when he made the appointment. He didn’t think too much about it.

Dinner was frozen dumplings from the fridge. He also cut up some ham and broccoli for the puppy and sprinkled some turmeric powder in its bowl.

The TV show was still playing in the living room. Yan Liao wasn’t bored while eating. He was about to go wash the dishes when he heard a slow knock on the door.

The puppy suddenly pricked up its ears and barked loudly at the door.

“Are you also afraid of taking medicine?”

Yan Liao rubbed the puppy’s head, got up, and walked to the entrance. When he opened the door, a gust of wind from the corridor blew in. His hair was ruffled, and he narrowed his eyes slightly.

Against the light, he saw a tall, strong figure with his face covered by a black mask, only revealing a pair of eyes as sharp as a cold blade.

“You…”

Before he could say anything, the person quickly took out a cloth and covered his mouth and nose. An unpleasant smell entered his respiratory tract, as if a tornado had attacked his nerves. He suddenly felt dizzy.

He vaguely heard two fierce barks. As his vision slowly turned gray, he saw the puppy pounce on them and then get kicked back into the living room. There should have been a “bang” when the door closed, but there was only a strong, continuous ringing in his ears.

Everything in front of him was blurry.

He tried to think of something to prevent himself from losing consciousness, so many trivial things piled up in his mind in an instant, running in opposite directions: the trash in the kitchen hadn’t been thrown away, he hadn’t taken the clothes out of the washing machine yet, who would feed the dog tomorrow morning, and how was the dog doing now?

He vaguely remembered a long time ago, after he had caused trouble, he had to ask Tang Shaocheng to help him clean up the mess. He asked guiltily, “Did I cause you trouble again?” Tang Shaocheng hugged him and stroked his hair. “Why do you always think that? I like you, so everything I do is my choice. Does thinking this way make you feel less stressed?”

Yan Liao didn’t know why he suddenly thought of this conversation.

His body was suspended in the air. It seemed to be lifted by two or three people.

His consciousness went out.

The plane landed safely on a vast lawn.

Qin Yun-qi and Yu Xing walked out, both of them unharmed.

The person in charge of the rendezvous opened the car door and said something that Yu Xing couldn’t understand. He respectfully invited them to get in the back seat.

The look of determination on Qin Yun-qi’s face was very much like his father’s, but he didn’t realize it himself.

He used some modern technology. His old-fashioned father definitely wouldn’t understand how he made a plane disappear into thin air from all the surveillance.

On the plane that was used as a decoy, Yu Xing jumped out with him with a parachute. After landing, he vomited violently and weakly asked him what had happened.

Qin Yun-qi took out a handkerchief, gently wiped the filth from the corner of his mouth, and said casually, “It’s nothing. The original plane was broken. We’ll take another one.”

Yu Xing didn’t ask any more questions and obediently followed his arrangements. It had always been this way. He accepted everything without asking for the cause and effect.

From beginning to end, there was only one person who knew what he was going to do, and that was himself.

His plan was never to smuggle or elope; it was to fake his death.