233: 5.43 He Can Hear Us?!

5.43 He Can Hear Us?!

When Lu Yizhou and Terra emerged from the isolation room with a newly formed bond and fresh outfits, it was already late into the evening. Lu Yizhou glanced at the clock on the wall and frowned. It's six past twenty. Had they really spent such a long time locked inside the room? Judging from the blush rising on Terra's face, his lover seemed to be mulling over the same thing.0

"Oh God." He buried his face into his palms. "Did we really spend 14 hours fucking?"

Lu Yizhou gave him an amused look. "You were sleeping soundly for four full hours."

"Ten hours then!" Terra threw him a scathing glare as if daring him to deny his claim once more. Lu Yizhou compliantly kept his mouth shut. "Ugh, what would Doctor Wyatt think we were doing in there?"

Of course, he was a doctor. He must have known what they were doing, especially after supplying Terra with the porn website and flimsy nightgown to aid with his mission. Lu Yizhou didn't voice any of that out loud. It was endearing how thin his lover's face was after all of the seduction attempts he had done that almost caused Lu Yizhou to lose his soul. Lu Yizhou pulled him closer by his waist and dropped a kiss on his temple. "Are you hungry? We should search for food first."

As soon as Lu Yizhou said that, Terra's stomach growled loudly. The guide let out a choked sound and glared at his own belly as if it had betrayed him. Lu Yizhou huffed out a quiet laughter, his heart so fond that he didn't know what to do with all these feelings. 

The entire hospital had been evacuated and the sunset poured a golden glow through the open window. They walked along the empty hallway, footsteps echoing against the wall. Monroe and Blackie had come out at some point, going ahead of them with Monroe flapping his wings in earnest whilst Blackie perched on top of it, curled up into a loaf. "Do you want me to carry you like that?" Lu Yizhou asked, just for the sake of teasing.

Terra harrumphed, albeit his face was slightly red. "You don't even have your wings anymore. Don't bother, I don't want you to collapse out of exhaustion." 

Just as he said it, Monroe skittered midair and both spirit animals tilted dangerously to the side. Blackie held on to the horned eagle with a loud, concerned 'mroow!' just as Monroe regained its balance and glanced back at the cat with mirth in his eyes, chirping happily. If not for his eagle feature, Lu Yizhou thought it must be smirking. In the end, Monroe earned a furious bite of Blackie's sharp teeth on his horns just as it deserved. 

Terra abruptly burst out into laughter beside him. "You and your spirit animal are such a tease." His features were illuminated by the orange sunset, eyes sparkling in the hues of gold and brown, curving in its full effervescence. With his long ponytail swaying behind him, he looked like an angel. Lu Yizhou didn't ever want to stop looking at him. Terra's laugh abruptly turned into a choked cough and he directed a flushed glare toward Lu Yizhou. "You— stop projecting your feelings into me like that!"

Lu Yizhou didn't even know he was doing it. His chest just felt so full, that if he didn't transmit it into their bond, he was going to explode. He raised a brow. "Like what?"

"Like—" Terra sputtered incoherently before stomping his feet in anger. "You know what I am talking about! You are just as annoying as Monroe!"

In front of them, the horned eagle let out a series of chirps, offended in more ways than one. Lu Yizhou ignored it of course.

He spared a brief glance toward where the CCTV was moving along with their movement, deliberately pulled Terra close to him and kissed the anger out of his lips. When he broke away, he saw from the corner of his eyes that the CCTV had moved to face the wall and smiled. Terra's confusion, anger and exhilaration traveled to him through their bond and he stroked the guide's hair to ruffle his feather. "We should hurry. Doctor Wyatt has been waiting for us with food." Hearing the unspoken question in Terra's mind, Lu Yizhou replied. "Sweetheart, I can practically hear their heartbeats and smell the food from here."

***

Terra only realized why Lu Yizhou was using the plural pronoun when they arrived at Doctor Wyatt's office and found that the doctor wasn't alone. To be exact, he was currently cuddling with a huge, burly man in the small couch in his office, which didn't look comfortable at all. The burly man quietly disentangled himself and stood up, pulling the thin blanket to the sleeping Doctor Wyatt's neck with a soft expression before walking toward them. He was so fucking huge — taller than Lu Yizhou by almost half a head — and there was just something… something intense and dangerous in the way the man carried himself that made Terra hide behind Lu Yizhou's back and clutched tightly on his shirt.

The burly man stopped a few meters away with a helpless look, perceiving Terra's wariness. He gave a proper salute toward Lu Yizhou. "General Kai."

Lu Yizhou returned with the same gesture. "General Ethan, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintances. You are… Doctor Wyatt's sentinel?"

General Ethan. Terra almost gawked at the name. As oblivious as he was to the world, he had still heard of General Ethan's name, quite often at that. A rank S sentinel who was also hailed as the war's hero. He had fought on the border to purge the enemies that intended to seize the land under their control. The war had already concluded by the time Terra was born, but General Ethan's name never ceased to be heard. He disappeared soon after the war, presumably to tend to his injuries and take the long due vacation. Despite the current technology, no one could find out anything about his personal life, not where he lived, his age, and certainly not his bonded guide. 

"He doesn't like attention." Ethan's eyes drifted to Doctor Wyatt, so soft and tender that it was clear to see how much the doctor meant to him. "He said he has already received enough scrutiny for being a S rank guide. He doesn't want to be seen together with me and making everything worse." The General chuckled at that. "Look at me, I made it sound so unpleasant but I assure you, you don't want to go out to the supermarket to buy groceries only for people to point their fingers at you and call you names. I know how terrible it is. In a way, life like this is good. It's very peaceful even though part of me really wants to shout it out to the rooftop, you know?"

Lu Yizhou hummed in understanding but only Terra knew that the sentinel had tuned out somewhere in the middle of General Ethan's sentence. Ethan was practically a living legend among humans yet Lu Yizhou didn't seem interested even a bit! He was just so endearingly mean, Terra loved him very much. His eyes suddenly met Ethan's through Lu Yizhou's shoulder and shivers ran down his spine, the subconscious reaction he had developed every time he met someone he couldn't defeat.

His hands were suddenly held by a pair of broad palms and he looked up to meet Lu Yizhou's concerned eyes. Terra quietly shook his head and stepped out of his back. "I apologize—"

"No, no, don't be. It's alright." Ethan looked even more flustered than Terra was and he looked so awkward with himself, as if wanting to make himself smaller but didn't know how to. "I know that I look kinda… menacing. It's nothing new, seriously. You're General Kai's guide, Terra, am I right?" He smiled yet somehow he managed to make it look like he was baring his teeth. "I have heard so much about you from Wyatt."

"What is all this commotion about?" Doctor Wyatt sat up on the couch, stretched his waist and yawned. In an instant, Ethan disappeared from the spot and reappeared beside the doctor, fussing over him. 

It was only when Lu Yizhou directed him toward the table did he realize that he had been staring at them for too long. There were a lot of dishes spread out and Lu Yizhou began to pick Terra's favorites, placing them in front of him. Terra gave him a smile and picked up his chopsticks. Even while eating, Terra couldn't get the image of General Ethan and Doctor Wyatt out of his mind. Such devotion, peace and domesticity… he really wanted to have something like that. To grow old with someone he loved, to know that he wouldn't wake up alone when he went to sleep at night, to build a home where he belonged. Lu Yizhou quietly squeezed his hand, and Terra heard the sentinel's answer in his mind as if he was saying it out loud.

We will. This time, we definitely will.

Terra swallowed down the lump on his throat and buried his face into his food, shoving his cheeks like a squirrel. In his defense, he was really hungry. Starving. Having two session of intense fucking with his inexorably hot and sexy sentinel really drained the strength out of his body.

Doctor Wyatt sat opposite them after Terra almost finished eating. "You came out earlier than I expected." It was fortunate that Terra had swallowed otherwise he would definitely choke and die on a piece of shrimp. "What?" Doctor Wyatt raised a brow whereas General Ethan's face had looked as red as a tomato. "When it was our turn, we took two whole days."

"Wyatt." General Ethan groaned in mortification. It was soothing to know that Terra wasn't the one who couldn't stand the doctor's blunt words. "Too much information there."

"Right." Doctor Wyatt mercifully changed the topic. "I have already negotiated with the higher ups — well, it's actually Ethan who did it but it's not really important. The point is, we will have the hospital to ourselves for two more days before you have to report to them, General Kai. The King is locked in my drawer and Joshua, is that his name? He is currently being watched by Lieutenant Yves. His condition is strange, to say the least."

Lu Yizhou frowned. "Lieutenant Yves? Why is he here?" 

Doctor Wyatt scoffed. "He offered to do it in our stead. Don't worry, Ethan is watching over them 24/7. There won't be any accidents."

They couldn't know for sure, Lu Yizhou grumbled inwardly. After all, Yves and Joshua were the main protagonists of this world, the darlings who had fucking huge golden fingers at their disposal. Who knew what would happen if they were left alone? If Yves' brain suddenly went offline again, it wasn't impossible for Joshua to entice him into setting him free. If it happened, he would hire a hitman to cut Yves' throat and drain his blood before letting him die.

[666: Host, that's illegal!!]

[I am prohibited from eliminating the protagonist myself. Who knows? I might invite my acquaintance to Yves' house who was accidentally a hitman and then the whole situation goes out of my control and leads to Yves' unfortunate death. It's all a series of coincidences. I don't see it coming.]

[666: HOST…!] How—How scary! But Host is right, it's indeed a loophole in the rules, just like what happened to Rosemane in the third simulation. Host didn't kill her but he was still one of the main reasons why the female protagonist was executed! Sneaky Host! How… exciting!

Lu Yizhou felt a pull on his shirt and turned to find Terra's confused eyes. The guide craned his neck to whisper into his ears. "Who are you talking to? What main protagonists?"

Shock flashed through Lu Yizhou's eyes at the same time with 666's panicked screech.

[666: H—H—HE CAN HEAR US?!!]

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