SGT CH112: He Could Have Not Been a Dodder Flower

◎He could have grown into an upright poplar tree◎

Aix had surely thought about him needing that crystal core.

But he still chose someone else.

Just like now, Aix surely knew he was unwilling to use a crystal core burdened with a human life, yet he still insisted on doing it.

For the first choice, Mousse could accept it for the sake of a human life.

But if that was the case, how could Aix, for the sake of a crystal core, make him bear the weight of another human life?

Mousse stared at Aix with blurry eyes, waiting for an answer.

Yet it wasn’t just an answer to these questions.

“I’m so sorry…”

Aix had never been good at facing Mousse’s tears.

The crystal-clear drops sliding from Mousse’s eyes made him stand frozen on the spot, utterly at a loss.

His jaw tightened, and he raised a hand to wipe them for Mousse.

The leather glove landed on the warm cheek but only smeared the tears further.

His gaze fell on the glove, and Aix paused for a moment.

He was a zombie. Even with neatly trimmed nails, there was a chance of scratching Mousse’s skin.

Once scratched, there was a risk of infection.

He couldn’t keep his ability active at all times, so he could only pay more attention to physical isolation and protection in his daily life.

Mousse had been too intimate with him recently, as if he were no different from before.

But as soon as he saw these thick protections on his body, Aix would realize that life and death separated them; they were no longer the same species.

He was a zombie, after all.

Aix slowly lowered his hand.

“I understand. You want a psychic crystal core, but you can’t accept bearing a human life for it.”

Aix said to him:

“Obtaining the psychic crystal core is my business. It’s my choice… the choice of a zombie.

“You’re just an ordinary person; of course you can’t stop a high-level zombie. You don’t need to feel burdened by this.

“After I bring back the crystal core, I will be at your disposal.”

Mousse was about to be driven mad by him.

Aix said he understood, but he didn’t understand anything at all.

Did he think that by taking all the blame on himself, by excluding him from it, he could accept a crystal core from a human with a clear conscience?

In Aix’s heart, just what kind of person was he?

Mousse could hardly breathe. His stomach spasmed, and he felt extremely unwell.

He took half a step back, leaning against the vehicle wall, steadying his breathing to calm himself down.

“At your disposal? How do you want me to dispose of you?”

Mousse pressed on his heavy chest, asking as he gasped for breath.

Worried, Aix reached out, wanting to touch Mousse, but under Mousse’s cold, resistant gaze, his outstretched hand froze in mid-air, only stiffly falling after a long moment.

“Anything,” Aix said in a low voice, eyes downcast.

If it could let Mousse get what he wanted, he didn’t care about his own end.

Looking at the potted mutated plants on the floor, Aix suddenly felt a bit fortunate that he hadn’t gotten rid of them.

“You can… kill me.”

Aix said: “Don’t do it yourself. A zombie’s flesh and blood are dirty. Let the mutated plants do it.”

These mutated plants were long accustomed to protecting Mousse and obeying his words.

Even if he was gone, they would continue to protect Mousse on his behalf.

Aix thought, this was also good. At least when he completely left this world, left Mousse, he could be a little more at ease.

But there was still some reluctance.

Aix looked up, his gaze falling on Mousse’s wide, astonished eyes.

He mobilized the muscles on his face, smiled at Mousse, and said:

“Don’t be sad for me, and don’t feel guilty. I am a zombie. I killed someone, and then you kill me. This is ridding humanity of a great scourge.”

[???]

[No way, Little Cake worked so hard to get the Scumbag Seme Value below 50, and you pull this stunt?]

[Never thought a BE could happen this way.]

[X-bro, I’m begging you, hold back a little. It wasn’t easy for Little Cake to lower this BE value from over ninety. Don’t let it all rebound overnight.]

[If this were a Scumbag Uke Rehabilitation Live Room, X-bro could max out the value in minutes.]

Mousse stared blankly at Aix.

He held back the sting in his nose, looked up at the dazzling lights on the vehicle’s ceiling, wiped the tears from his face with his hand, and found himself laughable.

“You really don’t understand anything.”

Mousse wanted to be angry, yet he also felt sad and found it ridiculous.

“You’d rather sacrifice your life and make me completely lose my lover, just to force a crystal core into my hands…”

Mousse’s expression was a mix of crying and laughing.

He looked up and questioned Aix.

“Did you think that what I care about is the crystal core?”

The crystal core was indeed important.

But some things were more important than a crystal core, more important than an ability.

Even more important than his own future.

“If I really cared that much about a crystal core, I wouldn’t have given you mine back then.”

What he cared about was never the crystal core.

It was Aix.

But the person he cared about most, the person he had exchanged his own ability and future for, was now telling him to kill him.

After saying this, Mousse closed his eyes deeply.

His body felt as if all its strength had been drained. Only by leaning against the vehicle wall could he barely stand, preventing himself from sliding to the floor.

He had never thought that one day, he would take the initiative to tell Aix about this.

He had imagined that Aix might discover it himself and then try his utmost to be better to him.

Or that he might blame him, thinking he shouldn’t have done it.

Or perhaps have no reaction at all, even becoming colder toward him.

Just as Mousse was not good at expressing love, he was also not good at asking for affection.

When his parents divorced and left him, the only thing Mousse could think of was to hurt himself to gain some attention.

But he wouldn’t run to his parents and tell them: I skipped class, I dyed my hair white, I went drag racing…

Instead, he secretly hoped they would notice his changes, come to ask him, to care for him.

But he received nothing.

Perhaps, after giving away the crystal core, he had also hoped Aix would notice his change.

During that time, due to the separation from the crystal core, Mousse’s mental state was once very poor.

He was listless all day, groggy, spending most of the day in a stupor.

Aix might have noticed, but simply attributed his poor condition to other things.

Fortunately, Aix was very good to him, protecting his safety, caring for his body, keeping his clothes spotless and his hands unstained by blood.

Even if Aix had forcibly had sex with him against his will the night he became an ability user.

His protection of him was irreproachable.

It was just that Aix was perhaps too slow, never discovering the matter of the crystal core.

Even though Aix had gained two abilities overnight.

While other ability users, zombies, or mutated creatures would only awaken one ability.

Even though he was groggy all day in front of Aix.

It wasn’t until Aix obtained a healing ability and healed his body that his condition improved.

Even though crystal cores of all types couldn’t grant him an ability, yet he was extremely persistent about the psychic crystal core…

Over time, Mousse gradually lost hope and also lost the interest to bring it up.

He never thought that one day he would take the initiative to mention this to Aix.

That would seem like demanding repayment for a favor.

Given their relationship, if it came to that step, it would be too ugly.

Even now, saying it under these circumstances seemed very ugly.

Now that it’s come to this, this is the only way.

Mousse wearily raised a hand to support his forehead, not wanting to open his eyes and face it.

His nose still stung a little.

It was probably the belated sense of grievance and sadness.

Aix had wanted to reach out and support Mousse, but his words left him frozen in place, as if struck by lightning.

“Si-Si… my psychic ability is… from you?”

Aix’s voice still carried a trace of uncertainty.

But immediately, many scenes from the past flashed through his mind.

After a night of high fever, he woke up to find Mousse sitting on the sofa chair in the room, his wrist wrapped in a bandage.

When Mousse learned he had awakened abilities, and dual abilities at that, he showed no surprise.

Instead, Mousse’s body weakened rapidly; he was often mentally exhausted and exceptionally lethargic.

He thought of the times he brought back crystal cores of various attributes for Mousse.

Mousse went from curious and expectant to completely indifferent, merely going through the motions of trying them.

But for the psychic crystal core he had never encountered, Mousse had an extremely strong obsession, as if certain he could trigger an ability with it.

And upon learning he had given away the psychic crystal core he obtained, Mousse was so angry for the first time, refusing to acknowledge him, giving him the cold shoulder for a long time.

Everything seemed to have a traceable path.

It was just that he had never thought in that direction.

Plunder and Psychic were both abilities he gained on the night of his awakening.

All abilities obtained through the Plunder ability could not be upgraded.

With the sole exception of the Psychic ability.

The Psychic ability even had a crystal core in his body; he could clearly sense it.

All of the above made him never doubt that the Psychic ability wasn’t his.

Even if the Psychic ability didn’t match his fighting style at all.

He was more accustomed to exhilarating close-quarters combat, not mental manipulation.

Aix raised his hand and pressed it to his heart, feeling the crystal core embedded in it.

Through that crystal core, he seemed to be able to feel all of Mousse’s emotions.

Sad, sour, aggrieved…

All the emotions mixed together, causing his long-numb heart to throb with pain.

Ever since gaining his abilities, his perception of Mousse’s emotions had been exceptionally sharp.

It was a completely different feeling from when he used his psychic ability to probe others.

He didn’t even need to mobilize his ability to naturally sense Mousse’s emotions and be drawn in by his joys and sorrows.

Unable to ignore, unable to escape.

It was as if those were emotions arising from his own heart.

“This psychic crystal core is yours; my psychic ability originally belonged to you.”

The signs already indicated the truth; no doubt was needed.

Aix pressed on his fiercely aching heart, almost wanting to tear it out.

Aix didn’t understand.

“How did it end up in my body?”

As he spoke, Aix thought of something, and his face turned deathly pale.

“I plundered your ability?”

“No, not exactly plunder…”

Mousse stroked the scar on his wrist, feeling a little tired.

He avoided Aix’s outstretched hand, leaned on the vehicle wall, and walked to the sofa chair to sit down.

“I took out the crystal core myself and gave it to you. As for the ability… I didn’t expect you would gain the psychic ability because of it.”

At that time, Mousse had already sensed a dangerous and powerful ability awakening inside Aix.

At the same time, Aix’s sanity was collapsing.

He could lose consciousness at any moment, becoming a walking corpse dominated by predatory instincts.

Back then, Mousse only thought of using the psychic crystal core to stabilize Aix’s mind and save his precarious sanity.

But when the psychic crystal core encountered the awakening Plunder ability, it remained in Aix’s body and became Aix’s ability.

This was not within Mousse’s expectations.

Not plunder.

The confusion in Aix’s heart did not lessen; instead, it grew.

“But, why would you give your crystal core to…”

Before Aix could finish his sentence, he abruptly thought of something.

Back then, at his teammate’s request, he had given the psychic crystal core to the healer because the healer was injured by a zombie and showed signs of infection.

Aix subconsciously raised his hand, touching his arm, then moved it to his heart.

At that time, he had also been injured by a zombie.

The more serious wound was on his arm. Mousse had cleaned, disinfected, and bandaged it for him, almost scraping off a layer of his flesh.

There was another wound, on his chest.

The zombie’s claw had barely grazed it, not even tearing his clothes, but the skin was broken.

Aix hadn’t even noticed it at the time.

It was only later, when he was showering, that he discovered a short, shallow scratch on his chest.

If it weren’t for the fact that he was showering before being intimate with Mousse, he might have even thought Mousse had scratched him.

“Back then, I was already… infected?”

Aix had always thought he was very lucky to have his body’s potential stimulated after being scratched by a zombie, awakening an ability and becoming an ability user.

He never considered the other possibility.

That he was infected back then and showed signs of turning into a zombie.

The reason he didn’t turn into a zombie was because Mousse dug out his psychic crystal core and gave it to him…

Mousse did not refute.

He leaned back quietly in the sofa chair. When the mutated morning glory tentatively wrapped around his finger to soothe him, he gently flicked its petals.

He was indeed in a bad mood, but not as terrible as the mutated plants thought.

Just like he cared about the crystal core, but not as much as Aix thought.

Back then, he could give up his own ability for Aix.

How could he now, in order to gain an ability, let Aix die?

Tearing open the old scars to talk about them.

It was very painful at the moment of speaking.

But after saying it, it was surprisingly much more liberating.

Having said this much, Aix should finally give up the idea of “taking a psychic ability user’s crystal core for him, and then being killed by him,” right?

Mousse yawned wearily, feeling a bit sleepy.

“Let’s leave it at that. Wash up and go to sleep. We don’t want the crystal core, and let’s not go to Haicheng either.”

As for where to go next, he would think about it tomorrow.

Even if it was aimless, just driving the RV with the mutated plants, going wherever they ended up, that would also be quite good.

Like a journey with no destination.

As long as he and Aix were still together, everything would still be beautiful.

Mousse stood up, looked at Aix standing motionless, still trapped in his own emotions, and felt a bit awkward.

He actually didn’t know how to face Aix after revealing his past sacrifice.

There was some apprehension.

Hoping Aix would love him more.

Yet fearing Aix’s attitude toward him would change.

Mousse chose to temporarily escape for one night.

He went into the bathroom to wash up, then came out in his pajamas, walked past Aix, and slipped under the covers.

Aix’s gaze focused on Mousse’s soft hair exposed outside the quilt.

He wanted to go forward but didn’t think he had the right to get close anymore.

Mousse had given his crystal core and ability for him, yet he had known nothing.

He had taken it for granted as his own.

Even that night when Mousse explored his body and touched his chest.

He had thought that Mousse, seeing he had abilities, had decided to deepen their relationship and offer himself to him.

He had thought Mousse was always deceiving him.

Everyone thought that Mousse followed him only to latch onto him, to profit from him.

Perhaps even Aix himself had once thought so.

He never dared to believe Mousse truly loved him.

But what kind of benefit could compare to possessing an ability oneself?

Only love could make a person abandon everything.

He once had Mousse’s love…

So, all that time ago, the love he longed for had already fallen upon him without reservation.

But he had failed that love.

Mousse could have been more than a dependent dodder flower.

He could have grown into a tough and upright poplar tree.

It was he who occupied Mousse’s ability, who seized the future Mousse could have had.

Aix pressed a hand to his heart.

A phantom pain arose in his heart again.

Every time he left the base for a mission, he was extremely anxious, only wanting to return to Mousse’s side.

Every second away from Mousse was exceptionally hard to bear.

Perhaps it wasn’t just him missing Mousse.

It was also this psychic crystal core, wanting to return to its original owner.

Listening to Mousse’s gradually steady and even breathing, Aix slowly took off his gloves.

And plunged his hand into his chest.

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