AUS Chapter 73: Liu Jiang, Are You Using Me?

The wind finally picked up.

The belated night wind drilled through the gaps in the building, passing between us. I heard the sound of my leather jacket being whipped by the wind and saw the wind, in my place, caressing the silver hair on his forehead.

The faint sound of gunshots came from the distance, along with the creaking of steel-reinforced towers being twisted by the wind.

After the relief organization withdrew, the city had become restless. Everyone wanted to live in peace, but the result was that the city knew no peace.

Liu Jiang heard the gunshots too. His gaze immediately shifted in the direction of the sound. After a few seconds of silence, he turned to face me.

“Come with me,” he said.

We passed through the flooded steps and came to the outdoors, a place I hadn’t been in a long time. The post-sunset chill rushed to greet us.

We didn’t take the main avenue between the buildings, choosing instead to take a roundabout path. The night was pitch-black. I could see the faint glow of fires flickering in the distance from time to time, but I couldn’t say if they were traces of human civilization or a prelude to the collapse of all civil order.

In any case, I didn’t speak, nor did I ask where he was taking me. In the seemingly tranquil night, we moved forward without a word.

He was in front, I was behind. A distance of about half a meter always remained between us, never lengthening, never shortening.

Just like the me who had been chasing after him throughout the apocalypse.

But I was certain that this wasn’t a fruitless chase anymore—if I was willing to reach out my hand, I could grab him in an instant.

Gazing at his back, I raised a hand. He didn’t notice, his steps forward unwavering.

Under the faint moonlight, the light and shadows around us shifted. He twisted on a glow stick designed for outdoor use, and the path at our feet gained a slight outline.

In the end, I lowered my outstretched arm and continued to follow closely behind him.

His destination wasn’t far. We passed through a small path and arrived at an unlit underground parking garage. To my surprise, the elevator here was actually still operational.

The elevator arrived with a ding. We stepped inside. For the third time, I stopped myself from speaking the probing words I wanted to say and stood still beside him.

The elevator stopped on the tenth floor. We walked through a deep, dark corridor, and he opened a door in front of me.

Immediately, a warmth completely incompatible with the apocalypse washed over me.

A fireplace, a dark carpet, string lights, a camping sofa—just saying these words aloud reveals how much this felt like camping in the apocalypse. But when such behavior was applied to Liu Jiang, it somehow wasn’t so surprising.

He looked at me, I looked at him.

Then he took a step back, turned to the side, and gestured into the room with his arm, indicating for me to enter first.

It made time feel like it had rewound to when we were still in Liancheng. I was a brash kid, he was a clueless youth. Our relationship had progressed by leaps and bounds after we fought our way to friendship, and he invited me to his home for the first time.

Back then, before I entered his room, he had made a similar gesture, one that seemed unnecessarily gentlemanly, as if he were hosting a girl.

Alright, but it worked well on me.

I accepted his invitation and stepped inside.

This building wasn’t far from the one I was staying in. Although we had walked through dark passages for about twenty minutes, the actual distance between the two buildings was only a few dozen meters; they could be seen from one another.

The urge to throw a tantrum at Liu Jiang had passed. I now had no desire to question him about anything, although a voice in the back of my mind kept asking why I had never noticed he was so close to me.

This voice was suppressed by my superficial sense of ease and obediently retreated back into my stomach.

I raised my eyes and looked around the room, taking in the furnishings.

This place was originally a commercial building. The room we were in should have been the office of a medium-sized company. The once slightly empty room had been tidied up, the space cleverly reduced without feeling crowded.

A very Liu Jiang style.

I took a step forward, the tip of my shoe touching a book scattered on the floor. Looking ahead, I saw there was even a fireplace in his room.

Given the circumstances, I was too embarrassed to walk on the carpet with my shoes on.

By the time Liu Jiang came back in, I had already taken off my shoes on my own, stepped onto the carpet, and sat down on the sofa.

The sofa wasn’t any kind of expensive model, just like all the decorations in the room—one look was enough to tell they were collected from all over.

A heavy plaid blanket was draped over the sofa, covering the cracked leather and the missing chunks of foam. I reached back to smooth the blanket and my elbow bumped into something.

It was a guitar.

Seeing a guitar in Liu Jiang’s room was the most normal thing in the world, but connecting the apocalypse, a guitar, and Liu Jiang, I could only think of that night he suddenly appeared at my bedside in the hospital.

So he had been here all along?

I whipped my head around, only to suddenly see him holding two steaming mugs.

I don’t know when Liu Jiang had gone to make two cups of hot cocoa, but he was already standing behind me with them, blinking and quietly watching me as I sat on the sofa.

Seeing him frozen, I froze too. After a second or two, I hastily stood up to take the mugs from his hands.

Now we were both sitting in front of the sofa, but neither of us spoke the next word.

To be honest, it was a bit awkward.

My emotions had been on a rollercoaster all night, from the danger of escaping “Liu Jiang,” to the resentment of meeting the real Liu Jiang again, to now—I don’t even know how to describe my current emotions.

A little… too comfortable?

In the apocalypse, in a sanctuary painstakingly carved out, listening to the crackle of firewood in the fireplace, holding a cup of hot cocoa, with the person I had been searching for right beside me.

It was like a dream.

I felt I should ask him what on earth had happened.

After we both silently finished our cocoa, I placed my mug on the coffee table. Seeing that I was about to speak, he suddenly seemed to remember something.

He said to me, “I roasted a chicken.”

Where did a chicken come from?

“Instant chicken from the cold storage,” he answered immediately, seeming to have read my doubt.

But instant chicken was something people ate even before the apocalypse—it’s just that after the apocalypse, what was once a daily convenience for office workers had become a rare luxury for ordinary people.

My attention was stolen by the scent of spices that suddenly rushed into my nose. It smelled incredibly fragrant.

“Do you want to take a shower first?” he asked me again.

He stood up, put down his mug, and pointed me in the direction of the bathroom.

“I modified the water heater myself. It’s a bit slow to heat up, but the temperature is fine,” he said, rubbing his nose, looking like he was showing off his work. 

“Want to try? By the time you’re done, the roasted chicken will be ready.”

My brain unhelpfully conjured up a warm and toasty scene.

A scene with me, and him.

I finish my shower, put on dry pajamas fresh from the dryer. The evening news is playing on the TV in the living room. We’re sitting around the table. We prepared dinner after getting off work, so it was a bit of a chaotic rush, but at least it tasted okay.

—This was exactly the scene from my dreams.

In reality, although the useless decorations from my dreams were missing, the important parts were all there.

There was me, and him. Okay, and the roasted chicken.

Anyway, when I came back to my senses, I was already standing in the bathroom holding the towel Liu Jiang had handed me.

The bathroom in Liu Jiang’s place was a converted office restroom. It was small, but fully functional. I turned on the showerhead and sat on the toilet, waiting for the water to heat up.

Gazing at the slowly rising steam, the elation that had been churning inside me began to dissipate.

Because I realized that, since a moment ago, I seemed to have been ignoring something.

The sudden happiness had pushed me to a high point, making me abruptly forget the path I had taken to get here, and also forget the words I had wanted to say all along but never managed to.

And, it probably wasn’t my imagination—Liu Jiang seemed to be hiding something.

What he served up was a steaming hot meal, but I didn’t know what he was hiding behind his back. Was it flowers or scissors?

Why?

Could it be that in this apocalypse, I was the only one trying to move towards the midpoint between us?

The water grew hot, splashing against my cold ankles. I looked down. That sliver of warmth felt like it was trying to hold me back, telling me to enjoy this moment of peace and not to probe for the truth.

Should I do that—just shut up and enjoy it for now?

I stood up and silently plunged my head into the hot water.

Fifteen minutes later, the bathroom door opened from the inside. Liu Jiang was busy at the dining table. He heard the door open but didn’t have a free hand to turn around, so he just gave me instructions.

He said, “Perfect timing—it’s fresh out of the oven. Go dry your hair and eat it while it’s hot!”

He was about to turn and grab the utensils behind him, but my voice stopped his movement.

I said, “Don’t move.”

It was a completely random command, but he was incredibly obedient, staying crouched where he was, his hand suspended in mid-air as he reached for the utensils.

I said, “Sit.”

The dining table was right next to the sofa. There was a wooden chair in front of him. This request was as random and meaningless as the last. He paused for two seconds, then pulled out the chair and sat down.

There was no other sound in the room; even the crackling firewood had gone quiet.

I approached him from behind and pressed down on his shoulders.

Through his clothes, he should have been able to feel the warmth of my skin, fresh from the hot shower. It also wouldn’t be hard for him to discover that I wasn’t wearing anything.

The second he realized this, his shoulders trembled. This time I didn’t tell him not to move, but he was very obedient and didn’t move at all.

I walked from behind him to in front of him, my hands never leaving his shoulders. Now we were face to face.

He looked up at me, his eyes on mine and nowhere else.

“Yang Pingsheng,” he said my name, “What are you doing?”

Yeah, what was I doing?

I had only dried my hair. Water was still dripping from my body. I could feel the warm droplets leaving my skin, one by one, and falling onto his fully clothed body.

I probably looked a bit desperate.

And I was. My mouth moved close to his ear, and I asked him in a voice only we could hear, “Want to do it?”

He froze, from his words to his actions. It took him a long time to come back to his senses, stammering, “You haven’t eaten.”

I laughed. 

“Oh, you still remember I haven’t eaten?”

His brow furrowed, as if he didn’t understand what I was saying.

I straightened up, still in no hurry to get dressed, and lowered my gaze to meet his eyes. 

“Then tell me everything I don’t know.”

He had said it himself, he knew everything that I didn’t.

Seeing him not reply, I continued, “Or are you planning to send me back to the As Usual Project after I’ve eaten my fill?”

I took a step back, getting off him, and stood before him.

I asked, “Liu Jiang, what exactly are you using me for?”