Saving Unpermitted – Chapter 29

Table of Contents

Chapter 29: Special Mission 

People had a tendency to get sleepy when they were full.

Zhu Yanchen was very healthy now, so Shu Jun no longer needed to be so polite. He went half a circle around the big bed: “I don’t have a very neat sleeping posture, maybe I should sleep on the outside.”

Anyway, Monday didn’t need to be hugged by him anymore. It was now wrapped in a cloth, lying across the sofa near the purifier, exhaling and inhaling grumpily at the cloth covering itself.

“Wake me up at 6 tomorrow morning.” Shu Jun said to Monday.

The two of them had been doing an investigation inside an erosion zone for more than a week, so Shu Jun could understand Monday’s temper. Monday didn’t like him, but after the battle with Sweet Vanguard, it had savoured the great taste of victory. This thing had limited brain capacity and couldn’t understand too much information, but with a better life laid blatantly in front of its face, at least it wouldn’t want to run away anymore.

Shu Jun crawled into the quilt and almost shed tears the moment he felt the soft mattress beneath his back.

Being more restrained than Shu Jun, Zhu Yanchen didn’t go to sleep with a naked upper half. He used his very last shirt as pyjamas and kept himself steadily on the side against the wall. As the two men lay on one huge bed fully equipped with two quilts, the distance between them was more than one arm, yet there was still extra space.

Shu Jun murmured “good night”, happily wrapped himself inside the quilt and fell asleep faster than fainting.

……At this point, things were still considered normal.

At about 4 in the morning, Zhu Yanchen opened his eyes, feeling cold all over. He touched his chest but only found a thin shirt.

Zhu Yanchen: “……”

Before, in the erosion zone, they had to be on rotation to stand guard overnight, so Shu Jun didn’t have any stage to perform to his fullest. Now he had found a chance to rob off his partner — after more than ten years, this person’s habit of grabbing the other’s quilt hadn’t changed at all.

Marshal Zhu sighed from the bottom of his heart, lay flat and turned sideways, ready to drag his quilt back. Zhu Yanchen thought Shu Jun wouldn’t leave any opening — but he was completely defenseless, while the two quilts had been rolled into a ball, tightly clutched in his arms. Not only that, he was frowning from time to time, obviously not enjoying a good night’s sleep.

“…Don’t die…” Shu Jun muttered intermittently.

Zhu Yanchen was silent for a long while in the darkness, then he quietly reached out his hand and stroked Shu Jun’s frowning brows. Seeing the shadow between the man’s eyebrows disappear and his body relax a little, Zhu Yanchen once again grabbed a corner of the quilt and carefully pulled it out.

Within less than a blink, Shu Jun rolled one round and stopped at the edge of the bed, facing Zhu Yanchen with his back.

This makes me feel nostalgic, Zhu Yanchen propped his upper body up and took a deep breath. But just as he was about to try again, his arm came to a halt in mid-air.

Shu Jun didn’t wear a shirt when he slept, and at present, his entire back was exposed and his skin was glowing brightly under the dim light. He didn’t have a trace of fat on his body, and his outline was smoothly blending into the night, partly concealed behind a piece of clothes at his slim waist. Those muscles were light and beautiful, looking neither too thin nor too bulky.

At this moment, his back was slightly arched, just like a majestic beast ready for its hunt.

As Zhu Yanchen’s palm hung one centimeter away from Shu Jun’s shoulders, their body temperatures merged together. Still keeping that tiny distance, his palm followed along Shu Jun’s shoulders, slowly swimming to the man’s wrist, yet in the end, he didn’t touch it and simply withdrew his hand.

My state right now is seriously wrong, Marshal Zhu thought. In any case, he guessed he wouldn’t need his quilt anymore.

But before he could close his eyes, Shu Jun rolled off the bed with a loud bang. A few seconds later, an unamused growl could be heard from below. Sharp claws then appeared at the side of the bed, following which Shu Jun climbed back on in a daze and faced Zhu Yanchen’s questioning gaze.

“Huh?” Shu Jun murmured with a puzzled tone, for he had been too used to sleeping alone. Facing Zhu Yanchen, he was stunned for a moment, then his body relaxed again: “Oh… A Yan.”

Then he burst out: “Why are you so wet!… Well, you took a shower… That should be it…”

Zhu Yanchen touched his still-moist hair, feeling completely lost for words. This person was totally in a trance and his mouth was spilling nonsense. While Shu Jun was busy climbing into bed, he stretched his arms to rescue the two quilts on the floor.

That was when Shu Jun nicely jumped into him. 

Shu Jun hugged him ever so casually, as though Zhu Yanchen was a substitute for his quilt ball. He totally scrapped away his politeness earlier, replacing it with a tone that sounded obviously disgruntled: “A Yan, where’s my ‘good night’?” 

As Zhu Yanchen froze on the spot, surprise and sadness crashing his heart. The scene of more than ten years ago was overlapping with the scene before his eyes right now. He embraced Shu Jun, and, with a tad of uncertainty, planted a kiss at the top of the man’s hair.

Shu Jun hummed with satisfaction and fell asleep again. This time, he slept quite peacefully.

Zhu Yanchen didn’t close his eyes. In the darkness, he stayed fixed in the posture of hugging Shu Jun while his eyes stared intently at nothingness. He was familiar with the Shu Jun of this state, but he thought it was a time that had long been wiped out. Now it seemed that things could go back to where they used to be.

Originally, he only wanted to complete this life in silence, totally not expecting that he could really save Shu Jun. And he also never expected that Shu Jun would turn to save him. Things had gone far beyond his hopes, but now he wanted even more.

Perhaps this was the side effect of staying too close to each other. At this moment, for the first time, Marshal Zhu understood the taste of ‘greed’.

It didn’t taste bad at all.

Zhu Yanchen stretched out his hand again and pressed it against the other man’s cheek. Shu Jun was quite handsome, but his looks weren’t sharp, exuding a rather comforting air of friendliness. His mutated hair colour added a bit of wildness to him, but when he closed his eyes, this tinge of wildness turned into solemn trustworthiness.

Shu Jun obviously still had the impression of that time. Even if only a little fragment of his impression remained, it meant there was a possibility of recovery.

I want to grab everyone’s support, the position of the leader, and an ending without gunpowder. In that case, he might as well grab everything he ever wanted… such as this person’s memories that had all been crushed.

“Good night.” He whispered to Shu Jun.

Regrettably, another hour passed and the “bang bang dong dong” of somebody crashing onto the floor came again, and their warm hug was gone forever. Zhu Yanchen pulled the quilts back up with a blank expression, placed Shu Jun into the quilt and wrapped him into a roll.

At 6 o’clock in the morning, a miserable howl promptly came from Monday.

“Wake —”

“Up —”

Shu Jun slept soundly and his whole body felt refreshed. Seeing the quilt still remain on him, he felt that it had been such a long time that he hadn’t kicked his quilt away. However, on his side, Zhu Yanchen looked rather strange — He was wrapping himself like a mummy and lying straight while pressing his body firmly against the quilt’s corners.

Did he have this habit before? Shu Jun yawned again and neatly got out of bed. As the mattress shook, Zhu Yanchen woke up immediately.

“Let’s go, we’ll head to the morning market.” Shu Jun put on his coat. A good night’s sleep made his tone sound a little lighter.

Zhu Yanchen sat there for a few seconds before nodding slowly. Shu Jun placed the sword on his back and put one hand on the bedside: “How are you? Didn’t sleep well last night? How about I go talk to Uncle Pan and ask him to change us to a room with two single beds?”

“No.” Zhu Yanchen rubbed his temple: “I was just thinking about something. I slept well.”

“Are you two awake?” The person Shu Jun just mentioned appeared at once. With a knock, Uncle Pan’s voice came from the door.

Shu Jun flipped his wrist and threw the mask to Zhu Yanchen, then quickly put on his own.

Uncle Pan had somehow sobered up from the alcohol yesterday. Early this morning, he was still wasted, yet by now, he had fully taken care of all the mutated monsters’ skins. After casting a glance at the two of them having their masks on, he put a lighter-sized electronic wallet on the table and rubbed his hands.

“You’re not gonna believe it, so early in the morning, there’s really some NPC work available. I really don’t know what the higher-ups are so anxious about.”

“What’s the job description?”

“I only heard people talk about it when I went to sell the skins. It seems that someone would come over to recruit people tomorrow. If you two, alas, if you two really want to go, you can head to the Longevity Bar later to have a look. My two brothers, listen to your ge’s words, with your skills, just selling leather can already earn you a happy life…”

“Thank you ge. It’s okay, let’s go and see the excitement first.” Shu Jun smiled: “Did they say which team the mission came from?”

“Blackbird.” Uncle Pan smacked his lips: “The evil is here. In just a few days, they’re sending out another mission. If I have to say it, it must be because of Yi Ning’s intention to merge the teams. You see, the Blackbird is the strongest team, and now their captain is gone, while Zhu Yanchen, who is in charge of managing them, is also gone. The Blackbird team must have so little time to adjust to the losses, so they quickly appointed new management…” 

Shu Jun quietly clenched his fist, his sharp nails digging into his palm. He was still grinning behind the mask so that his tone came with a hint of smiling: “Anyway, that has nothing to do with us. It’s better if the team gets bigger, they can become more reliable.”

Uncle Pan didn’t notice any strangeness: “Of course. In short, that’s how things are now. By the way, about your anti-erosion remedy—”

“A while later, we’ll be heading to the city. We’ll definitely help you ask.”

“Good, good.”

At the same time, another captain also wasn’t having a very pleasant morning.

Luo Duan was kneeling on one knee, the dark red blood continuously pouring from his wound, looking almost like fine threads.

“Stop!” The doctor outside the training room yelled: “He can’t fight anymore. He must receive treatment as soon as possible!”

Luo Duan lowered his head, buried his face in the shadow and smiled to himself. Just like what he had expected, after more than a week of continuous challenges, he finally suffered a serious injury.

The medical team escorted him to the treatment room and the emergency bed slid across the corridor. Luo Duan turned his face to the side and looked at the path leading to the floor underground.

All the game manuals had explained that the bottom layer of any stronghold must be the storage floor used by the NPCs, so no one paid any attention to this detail before. However, the headquarters were located in Y City, a place where supplies were abundant, so to think that they had to specially renovate the space below the training floor, where dangerous mutated monsters were kept, to make it into a storage floor was rather odd.

After Luo Duan successfully got in here, he had been very patient.

Luo Duan retracted his gaze, closed his eyes and began to silently plan his breaking-in route.

He kept his eyes closed calmly until the nurses sent him to the special ward. In all fairness, the special ward had a pretty good layout, complemented with vases of brightly coloured artificial flowers.

The TV was hung on the wall opposite the bed and readily tuned onto an intelligence channel that the players often watched, which was now broadcasting morning news. Confirming that everyone had left the ward, Luo Duan raised his eyelids and glanced at the screen.

“…At 5 o’clock in the morning today, a large Erosion Marsh appeared 300 kilometers northwest of the ruins of X City. The initial blur scans show quite some strange results, and the experts are doing their best to interpret the data…”

“…We’ve decided to send the strongest team to check it out. The Blackbirds team will set off in five days…” 

In the past, Luo Duan might envy the Blackbird team — This was a ‘special mission’ that only the champion team could lay their finger on, which enabled the Blackbird team to earn a lot of contribution points and field experience. Moreover, the mission sounded more research-oriented than combat-oritented, so the loss of combat power wouldn’t be too severe.

It seemed what they would encounter out there might not necessarily be what mankind thought was their greatest enemy. No one knew what the Blackbird team would have to go through now that Shu Jun was gone.

Luo Duan sneered coldly.

A rustle suddenly came from the side of the hospital bed, sounding a bit like a mouse gnawing on paper. Luo Duan turned his head and the sight before his eyes made him stop breathing. 

The flowers were melting.

The colours of the flowers melted little by little, heavily dripping along the vase. Then they crawled in all directions, flowing up the wall in thin threads before spreading out like mold. A moment later, the colours gradually turned to greyish-black as they lined along the pale wall, looking like blood veins that had gone dead.

Something condensed on the ceiling and a lump of liquid the size of an apple slowly hung in front of Luo Duan.

“Ahhhhh…” That thing wriggled as it made a hoarse noise. Its movements were weird and stiff, like a spider with no legs.

Luo Duan didn’t scream and his eyes were icy cold. Everything before him was too peculiar, or perhaps his condition was too serious that he was having hallucinations.

“Ah……”

That thing heaved another sigh.

“I…help you… I help… you…”

Not expecting that this thing could actually speak, Luo Duan was taken aback. Before he could react, the door was aggressively pushed open. The lump of liquid quickly retracted back to the ceiling and the veins seeped into the wall, as if they had never existed.

“Are you Luo Duan of the Groundwater team?”

Ai Xiaoxiao walked into the ward and scanned Luo Duan’s eyes: “Well, you wound is fine, you can’t die. Just don’t mess around.”

“Are you my doctor?”

“No, just a passer-by.” Ai Xiaoxiao blew out a bubble and shrugged nonchalantly: “I heard that there’s a severely injured patient, so I’m just here to look at your eyes.”

Luo Duan: “…”

Ai Xiaoxiao ignored Luo Duan’s complicated expression. She frowned and touched the wall closest to her, but the wall was cold and flat, looking completely normal.

“If you feel uncomfortable, remember to call the doctor.”

She muttered and wiped her hands.

“Also, why is there an empty vase in the special ward?”