Hui Tian Ch117

Chapter 117

I love you.

Asia, Central Research Institute.

Yue Yang suddenly sat up from his dormitory bed. Outside the window, the weather was fine, and the afternoon breeze gently fluttered the curtains, bringing with it the laughter and cheers of people playing ball on the sports field.

…What day is it now?

Yue Yang’s whole body was trembling uncontrollably. He got out of bed, rushed to the desk, and picked up his phone to check the calendar. The date of June 28th was clearly displayed.

June 28th, five years ago, the night before the meteor shower. He had just obtained his dual master’s degrees and was specially recruited by the special forces, preparing to join training. Because the procedures were not yet completed, he was temporarily staying in the dormitory of the Central Research Institute.

Evolution had been completely reversed. They really came back!

With a thud, the phone fell onto the desk. Yue Yang’s muscles tensed, his chest heaving violently. After a while, he finally let out a breath of wild joy, excitement, and disbelief, and without hesitation, he rushed out the door.

If he remembered correctly, if everything really followed the original trajectory—

An orange basketball arced through the air on the sports field and swished cleanly through the net.

A handsome, fair-skinned, and well-built young man landed steadily, smiling and high-fiving his teammates. Loud cheers came from the side, “Nice shot, Fu Chen!” “Well done!”

Fu Chen walked to the sidelines, poured a water bottle over his head, and shook his hair vigorously, droplets of water reflecting the sunlight.

“I say, who will go call Lao Yue down? In a few days, we will all be going to the army, and he is still cooped up in the dormitory with his books.” He turned and laughed, “Tonight, I’ll treat everyone to hot pot at the place near the school gate…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a figure burst out of the dormitory building, sprinted over like a whirlwind, and hugged him tightly!

“?”

Half a bottle of water splashed out, and Fu Chen was almost knocked off balance. When he saw who it was, he burst into laughter, “What’s wrong with you, Lao Yue? You got so excited hearing I’m treating?”

“…I’m sorry,” Yue Yang trembled and murmured, a pang of bitterness and guilt overwhelming him, “I’m really sorry, you’re finally back, everyone is really back…”

Yue Yang rarely showed his emotions, but now he couldn’t control his tears. The surrounding voices and footsteps became a buzzing background noise. Some people were surprised, some were joking, and some came over to tease him, patting his back; all the noise converged into a vague roar, but Fu Chen’s voice was unusually clear, “Sorry for what? What’s wrong with you, Da Yang Yang? What are you apologizing for… Wait, did you kill all the goldfish in my tank again?! Let go of me! Tell me clearly! This time, I won’t forgive you even if I die…”

The crowd laughed, arms over each other’s shoulders, and the golden summer sunlight filtered through the treetops, casting colorful patches on the edge of the sports field.

“…No, it’s not that.” Yue Yang held his brother, wiped his face forcefully, his red eyes still slightly wet, but his hoarse voice was full of joy, “Let’s go! Tonight, the hot pot is on me. After eating, we’ll go sing KTV, and we won’t go home until we’re drunk!”

The group of people jokingly left the sports field, waving towels and shouting. Fu Chen was still bewilderedly asking questions, while Yue Yang forcibly hugged his shoulders. Unintentionally, he glanced back and saw a slender figure standing quietly under the shade of a tree.

It was the young Shui Ronghua.

She should have just come out of the laboratory, dressed the same as before, her long black hair tied up, hands in her white coat pockets, and her eyes carrying a hint of melancholy and loneliness.

Yue Yang was stunned.

Shui Ronghua forced a smile, turned, and walked away, her lonely figure quickly disappearing into the shade of the trees.

·

——That voice, which always existed in the depths of her mind, always responding whenever called, sometimes even noisy, disappeared.

Everything that didn’t belong to Earth had ultimately returned to the depths of the universe.

She no longer had to worry about Italdo taking over her body and causing trouble, no longer had to worry about her running off to find Shen Zhuo and demanding to eat people; and she no longer had to worry about waking up one day to find her home filled with mountains of Hermès bags and Chanel outfits. Everything returned to a time before it all happened. She left behind so many lively laughs and memories, yet it seemed she had never appeared in the story from the very beginning.

Shui Ronghua didn’t know where she wanted to go.

She slowly walked along the tree-lined path. The summer wind brushed past her temples, bringing the sounds of students playing and chasing each other in the research institute, car horns blaring as they drove away on the street, the bustling under the traffic lights; this noisy world had clearly returned to the familiar old days, but she knew something had disappeared, forever changed.

Driven by an inexplicable force, she walked into that subway station again.

There was no ability detector at the ticket gate, and there were no ability shielding devices on the platform. The subway roared past, people coming and going, and no one noticed the young female doctor sitting on the bench, staring blankly at a floating point in the air.

Yes, she thought.

This is the platform.

“… An unidentified spiritual entity appeared at the subway station, holding over a hundred passengers hostage in the carriage, and had a fierce confrontation with the Central Supervision Office, ready to start a massacre at any time…”

The platform was urgently cleared, and the people from the Central Supervision Office and the Research Institute were on high alert. More than a hundred men in the carriage were trembling with fear. Shui Ronghua stood behind Shen Zhuo and heard Director Gao stutter out the translation from the extraterrestrial radiation detector, “She… she said being in a spiritual state is very weak, having a physical body feels much better, and she really hates men, so… Wait! She said she likes Dr. Shui!”

Shui Ronghua was stunned, her eyes looking past Shen Zhuo to the open subway carriage door.

It looked empty there, but she knew a witch was clinging tightly to the door, like a skinny, alarmed cat, frightened but pretending to be fierce, confronting this large group of people.

“Seizing a body by force is very difficult; she doesn’t want to do that, so she needs someone to voluntarily let her possess them…”

“I volunteer,” Shui Ronghua’s trembling voice blurted out.

Amidst the voices stopping her from all directions, the female doctor walked forward, opened her arms, and tried to make her voice gentle and sincere:

“I… also am willing to like you, so please don’t hurt me, okay, Italdo?”

That was the first merging of their souls.

A straightforward and sincere integration, a deeply connected bond, until finally becoming indistinguishable from each other, as if it could really last forever.

In truth, it was just a fleeting encounter across light-years in the universe.

“Attention passengers, the next stop is the Central Research Institute. Doors will open on the right. Passengers alighting, please prepare in advance…”

The train screeched to a halt at the platform, the doors opened, and passengers jostled to exit.

A sudden figure stepped out of the train, crossed through the crowd, and slowly walked forward. Her curly red hair flowed like long seaweed, the right side of her body revealed strange bones, and her intact left side face seemed slightly awkward.

Shui Ronghua sat dumbfounded on the bench, her eyes blank and incredulous.

“…Hello, doctor, I am a spirit,” the witch’s voice trembled with a strange sob, “I like you. I won’t hurt you; may I stay with you?”

Shui Ronghua opened her mouth, but no sound came out; her vision was blurred by hot tears.

A hand reached out in front of her, the scarred palm trembling:

“If you agree, my name is Italdo.”

At the edge of the crowded platform, a heart-wrenching cry suddenly erupted.

The female doctor covered her face with her hands, tears streaming down her cheeks, as if after years of wandering through fate, she finally returned to her starting point. The invisible witch tightly embraced her, their tear-soaked hair tangled together.

·

When Rong Qi was erased by causality, all his primary connections on Earth were completely wiped out—those he had resurrected would die again, while those who had directly died by his hand could return to life.

However, the series of catastrophic consequences triggered by evolution had lasted for five years and were not primary causes, thus being excluded from Bai Sheng’s ability to erase.

Fortunately, humans possessed the Sphere of Time. Reversing the timeline was equivalent to an all-channel amplifier of causality. When Shen Zhuo reversed the entire universe’s timeline back five years, it brought the erasure effect of causality back to five years ago, effectively erasing Rong Qi on the night of the meteor shower, thus nullifying the five years of evolutionary history.

This left only one downside—the spatial-temporal storm was too intense, and the eye of the storm was too large.

The storm’s eye, with a radius of thousands of miles, covered the entire Shenhai City, extended into North China, and even affected half of the central area. After the reversal, over a billion people still remembered the events of those five years, including evolution, superpowers, Rong Qi, and the International Supervision General Administration; the vast bewilderment suddenly enveloped these billions of people.

Within hours, countless pieces of news exploded like a bomb, causing shock, suspicion, and fervent pursuit, triggering an unprecedented global-scale public opinion storm that lasted for years.

But that was a matter for later.

North America, late at night.

In the top-floor ward of a private hospital, Bai Sheng finally slowly opened his eyes.

The moonlight shone through the floor-to-ceiling curtains, casting a silver-white glow. Half of the spacious ward had been converted into a small office, complete with desks, chairs, and a computer. Shen Zhuo was standing by the window on the phone, his formal shirt buttoned up to his throat, giving the impression of austere detachment, and his eyelashes casting a long, sharp shadow.

“…Label it as mass hysteria for now, I will make a confidential report to the UN Security Council, and then we will selectively disclose some details to the public…”

The moonlight outlined his graceful, delicate profile. Bai Sheng couldn’t take his eyes off him, his heart brimming with hot, overflowing affection.

“The rest can be discussed with Amatullah and a few others. I’ll consider international relations after handling my current matters,” Shen Zhuo concluded his call with his usual calm and powerful tone, “That’s all for now.”

He hung up the phone, and Bai Sheng looked at him almost greedily, laughing hoarsely:

“Well, Director Shen. While your husband is struggling between life and death, you start working as if nothing happened. So heartless, huh?”

Shen Zhuo turned to him, seemingly unsurprised, smiled slightly, and walked to the bedside, planting a kiss on his handsome brow.

“Don’t push it. You’re now the only S-class evolved being in the world, stronger than a bull.” Shen Zhuo leaned down, peering closely at Bai Sheng with soft laughter in his eyes, “I planned to have you electroshocked if you didn’t wake up tonight. Good thing you were sensible.”

Shen Zhuo was about to stand up but was pulled back by Bai Sheng, who grabbed the back of his neck, forcing him to maintain this position, his upper body pressed against Bai Sheng’s chest.

Their eyes met, breath mingled, their noses almost touching, every eyelash visible.

Five years later, Bai Sheng had hardly changed compared to now, but Shen Zhuo appeared more refined than during his time as a supervisor. His features carried a kind of gentle and profound charm, like an ink painting delicately rendered on ivory. Bai Sheng could almost imagine him in this manner, looking down from a podium, unsmiling, facing the focused gazes of hundreds of students; it was a past he had never been able to personally participate in, yet now it was within reach, almost tangible.

A secret joy of fulfilled possessiveness warmed his heart slightly, and after a while, he murmured to himself:

“Shen Zhuo.”

Shen Zhuo raised an eyebrow: “Mm-hmm?”

Bai Sheng smiled, staring at him without blinking, and called out again: “Supervisor Shen.”

This bastard Bai really liked calling him Supervisor Shen. The title that everyone spoke with a hint of reverence or even fear always carried an indescribable tone of teasing, mockery, and intimacy when it came from Bai Sheng’s mouth.

Especially in bed, when he was at the peak of excitement and had no other way to express himself, he would repeatedly call Shen Zhuo this way in his ear, forcing Shen Zhuo to respond when pushed to the limit, always clamoring for the satisfaction of his insatiable desire.

Shen Zhuo chuckled softly: “…What nonsense; there’s no Supervisor Shen anymore.”

But Bai Sheng stubbornly refused to let go, his thumb repeatedly stroking his lover’s ear, his eyes filled with a fervent and obsessive glow, and he intensified his tone:

“Professor Shen.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Shen Zhuo regretted correcting him earlier because these three words from Bai Sheng’s mouth sounded even more frivolous, more lingering, and carried an indescribable undertone of affection.

Shen Zhuo rubbed his forehead with one hand, his cheeks slightly flushed: “Can’t you behave normally? There’s still a lot of work waiting for me outside…”

His words were abruptly cut off because Bai Sheng suddenly raised his hand, his strong arms effortlessly pulling Shen Zhuo onto the bed. The indoor slippers fell silently to the floor, and the bed frame emitted a slight creak as the center of gravity shifted.

The upper part of the hospital bed was raised, and Shen Zhuo straddled Bai Sheng’s waist. They looked at each other, their breathing slightly labored and heavy with restrained intensity.

“I’m so happy,” Bai Sheng said softly, “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

“…”

Shen Zhuo gazed down at him, a barely perceptible warmth in his eyes under the moonlight.

“I thought you would die. On the way to find you, I kept thinking about what to do next if you died. I had to ensure the evolution was completely reversed, that Rong Qi was utterly erased and would never return. Then I would explain to Amatullah and the others how to wrap things up; I would arrange a grand burial, where our two children would support our coffins, and the final step would be to bury our ashes together.”

“Of course, scattering them into the sea would also work, letting the ocean currents carry them to see the flourishing world we saved, the valleys and rivers we never had the chance to visit, with every flower blooming on the earth after the rain being my dedication to you.”

“That’s wonderful,” Bai Sheng murmured in a tone of reverence, as if afraid of waking something, “This isn’t a dream, right?”

Their hands clasped tightly together, palms pressed with no reservations, even their heartbeats were clearly felt against each other’s skin, rapid and unmistakable.

“…Don’t be foolish.” Shen Zhuo’s eyes held a gentle amusement, “Even if I died, you have to live on. Just scatter my ashes into the sea, and from then on, whenever you hear the sound of raindrops under the eaves after a rain, it will be me passing by the window to see you.”

Bai Sheng opened his mouth but said nothing more, only smiling at him, his eyes shining with a bright and intense light.

Shen Zhuo knew what that meant.

He just stopped arguing, but his inner thoughts remained unchanged.

Bai Sheng had sharp brows, but his eyes naturally carried a hint of tenderness, making him look affectionate. Yet when he stared at Shen Zhuo, there was an uncontainable joy and fervor, bursting from his heart, flowing through his veins to his eyes, so intense it was impossible to conceal.

A sudden impulse surged up Shen Zhuo’s throat.

“I love you,” he said softly.

At first, Bai Sheng didn’t react, staring blankly at the pillow, then after a few seconds, his eyes widened.

This was actually the first time he heard Shen Zhuo say these three words.

Although he often said these words to Shen Zhuo, he never expected any verbal response. Even in bed, despite often coaxing, tricking, and using all means to make Shen Zhuo respond to many intimate words, he never coaxed out these words.

He even carefully avoided trying.

——After all, Bai Sheng was still young and couldn’t completely restrain himself. Sometimes he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to hear Shen Zhuo voluntarily say these three words in the future, under what circumstances and in what scene. Those romantic fantasies always included expensive flowers, grand ceremonies, dramatic scenes, and a self full of confidence and pride, but he never thought it would be now, in this moment.

Naturally, as feelings arose.

Just like that, so easily.

“I have heard many people say that my mother was very wise and never showed any emotion to the mortal world, and therefore she never knew any pain. Over the years, from being a student to becoming a professor, from the research institute to the inspectorate, many people have said that I am just like her.”

“But when I read her manuscripts from when she was alive, I always felt that she and my father got along… really well.”

For someone like Shen Zhuo, who expresses his emotions in a very restrained manner, getting along really well essentially meant that the couple was harmonious and loving.

“…So later on, I thought, maybe others looked up to her from below and couldn’t fully understand her.”

Shen Zhuo paused, gazing at Bai Sheng, as if carefully outlining with his eyes the familiar features of his eyebrows, eyes, nose, and lips, not even missing the naturally defiant strands of hair standing up. Then he smiled slightly:

“But now, I think I can understand how she felt back then.”

Thump, thump.

His heart pounded against his chest as if it were about to leap out of his throat the moment he opened his mouth. It took Bai Sheng a while to hear his own trembling, unsteady voice: “I…”

In the moonlight, Shen Zhuo’s eyes were serene and soft.

“I also…”

Bai Sheng could barely hear his own hoarse voice, his eardrums roaring with the rush of blood, until Shen Zhuo lowered his eyes, bent slightly, their chests and heartbeats pressed together, and their breath and lips intertwined.

“…I am too.” Bai Sheng murmured in between their kisses, as if immersed in the sweet warmth of honey, his soul shivering with deep tremors, “From the very first moment I saw you, I have always… always…”

Their noses brushed against each other, and Shen Zhuo whispered: “I know.”

The lights in the room gradually dimmed.

Two closely entwined silhouettes leaned against the hospital bed, their cheeks touching, their necks entwined, and their mingled breaths spiraling through the gap in the curtains, rising into the vast night sky.

The stars slowly moved in their ancient orbits, the boundless universe covering the distant, expansive earth below.

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