Awakening

Yuan Anqing picked up the lukewarm drink from the dirt and looked up at the towering red monster.

The monster stared back at him. Although his pupils were pits of pure, bottomless black, Yuan Anqing could clearly see a heavy sense of anxious anticipation within them.

Yuan Anqing unscrewed the cap and took a slow sip. “Not bad.” He hadn’t expected the stolen drink to be a sugar-free tea, which was actually quite refreshing and easily washed away the metallic taste of blood in his throat.

The monster became instantly excited. His thick tail began to wag, the heavy movement snapping nearby pine branches like twigs.

“Can you talk in this form?” Yuan Anqing asked.

Zhuo tilted his massive, scaled head, his dark eyes blinking as if he genuinely didn’t understand the human words.

“Can you…” Yuan Anqing started to reach out, but his physical energy was entirely depleted. His vision blurred, his eyelids fluttered, and he fainted back onto the bed of pine needles.

Zhuo quickly used his massive tail as a cushion, catching Yuan Anqing before he could hit the hard ground. The originally obsidian, armor-like scales on the tail instantly became soft and plush, as if they had reverted into velvet skin.

The tea in the bottle spilled, splashing across Yuan Anqing’s borrowed jacket. Zhuo began to make anxious, low-frequency whimpering noises. He lay down flat on the dirt, his giant snout hovering inches from Yuan’s chest. After confirming the rise and fall of Yuan’s chest was fine, he began to panic about the wet, cold fabric of the jacket.

Zhuo was nervous and confused for a moment. He looked up at the sky, his eyes locking onto the helicopter hovering in the distance.

The observing guard in the cockpit braced himself. “…Are we under attack, sir? He’s looking right at us.”

“No,” Bai Tian said, silently taking off his thick tactical jacket. The weather had turned cold on the peak, and they were hundreds of meters up in the wind, so he had worn his heaviest layers.

“What are you doing?” the pilot asked.

“Throwing my jacket over,” Bai Tian explained, opening the cabin door slightly. “Zhuo’s mind is a mess, but he’ll catch the fabric to keep his Savior warm.”

In the spiritual void, Yuan Anqing suddenly opened his eyes and sat up straight.

“Senior?” Zhuo, who was sitting on the office chair beside him, tilted his head curiously. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Yuan Anqing took a deep breath, slowly exhaling the corporate air. He reached up to press his temples. “It wasn’t a nightmare.”

The red monster in his vision hadn’t attacked him; it had merely looked at him with an unbearable amount of worry.

“You haven’t even slept for five minutes,” Zhuo noted, looking at his watch.

“I’m not sleeping anymore.” Yuan Anqing had a strange, terrifying premonition that if he closed his eyes and fell back into the dream, he would lose his connection to the real world entirely. He had to stay awake.

Zhuo let out a disappointed “oh” and began to focus on his work papers.

“By the way, Zhuo,” Yuan Anqing looked at his young, horned colleague, his head throbbing. “I’m going to file a formal request with HR to have someone else take over your mentorship.”

“Huh?” Zhuo’s pen halted. He looked confused. “Are you going to separate from me, senior?”

Yuan Anqing nodded, his face a mask of professional detachment. “Yes. I think it’s for the best.” He didn’t want a colleague who harbored inappropriate, romantic feelings for him to stay by his side. It would bring him too much administrative trouble, and he preferred a quiet life.

“Just because I said I like you?” Zhuo asked, his voice dropping.

“I really mind that,” Yuan Anqing stared at him through his glasses. “If my previous polite behavior caused you to misunderstand my intentions, I apologize. But I must insist on keeping a professional distance.”

Zhuo fell silent. His shoulders slumped. He felt he should argue, to use his usual loud eloquence to defend himself, but he suddenly had no motivation to fight. He felt extremely, profoundly wronged.

Zhuo also knew he shouldn’t feel this way. After all, Yuan Anqing had no personal relationship with him; Yuan Anqing was just his senior at the company, and he had been a very competent, protective mentor. His request to keep a professional distance was entirely reasonable.

“You don’t need to… apologize,” Zhuo’s voice began to tremble and crack.

Yuan Anqing: “???”

“It’s me who caused you trouble, senior,” Zhuo sniffled, tears welling in his red eyes. He wanted to control himself, but his human emotions were too overwhelming. “I’ll just ask for a transfer myself.”

Yuan Anqing was deeply shocked. He didn’t understand where this level of raw, tragic emotion was coming from. He had never promised Zhuo anything, let alone betrayed him, yet Zhuo’s behavior was as if Yuan Anqing had abandoned him to die.

Zhuo couldn’t explain it either. He just felt an intense, crushing embarrassment. He tried to control his tears, but the more he tried, the more suffocated he felt.

Zhuo always felt that Yuan Anqing should like him. He felt as if his very biology remembered a timeline where Yuan Anqing loved him deeply, but this so-called “memory” was extremely unreasonable upon deeper thought. They had never met before this week, had they?

Yuan Anqing watched the young Zhuo holding back his tears. He didn’t understand the connection, and he didn’t intend to ask about the specifics. He had no interest in understanding someone else’s past. Asking would only add unnecessary emotional links to his tired mind.

[If it weren’t for the forced binding of the Savior system, you wouldn’t like him at all,] a cold, hollow voice suddenly echoed in his mind.

“Who?!” Yuan Anqing stood up from his desk, glaring around the office.

“Ah?” Zhuo wiped his wet eyes, looking up in confusion.

“No… I might be overthinking,” Yuan Anqing pressed his temples, his glasses crooked. He glanced at the wall clock, then said, “I’m going out for a smoke.”

“Aren’t you quitting?” Zhuo asked quietly.

“When did I ever say I was quitting?” Yuan Anqing retorted.

“You promised me on the balcony that you wouldn’t smoke.”

“Zhuo, do you have delusions?” Yuan Anqing felt his headache intensifying. “We’ve never had such a conversation in our lives. Your behavioral reactions are highly abnormal.”

Zhuo opened his mouth, then slowly slumped back into his chair. He could only defend himself in a tiny voice: “I don’t have delusions. I’m very healthy, senior.”

Zhuo didn’t continue to argue. He shrank his neck into his collar. “I won’t cause you any more trouble.” He pushed open the office door and walked out.

Yuan Anqing was a person who understood “boundaries.” His perfect sense of propriety made those who weren’t close to him feel at ease, but it also made those who wanted to approach him feel entirely helpless.

Zhuo was severely hurt by Yuan Anqing’s rejection, but his instincts refused to let him give up. He couldn’t explain why, but he felt that Yuan Anqing loving him was the only correct state of the universe, and the current Yuan Anqing who didn’t like him seemed… possessed.

Zhuo was confident, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think everyone in the world should automatically like him. But Yuan Anqing was different.

Zhuo had gone to other departments to gather information, eventually tracking down one of Yuan Anqing’s former university classmates.

“Yuan Anqing?” the senior colleague paused, then shook her head. “He was too solitary. I was in his class for four years, but I basically never had a single conversation with him outside of projects.”

“Was Senior Yuan Anqing very unnoticeable in school?” Zhuo asked.

“How is that possible? Look at his face!” She drew circles in front of her own face. “With a face like that, how could he be unnoticeable? And his academic grades were always top-tier.”

“But he has no friends,” Zhuo said, troubled.

“It’s entirely his own choice that he has no friends,” she shrugged. “Actually, he was quite a prominent figure at our university.”

“Huh?” Zhuo couldn’t connect “prominent figure” with Yuan Anqing’s flat energy. “I thought he just went back and forth between his dorm and the lab.”

“He did, but he was handsome, tall, and smart. He couldn’t hide his face just by walking back and forth,” she laughed. “A lot of people liked him back then. There were plenty of confessions, but as far as I know, they all led to nothing.”

“Was it because those people were too strange?”

“No. It’s more likely that Yuan Anqing himself is too strange. So many people pursued him, and he simply ignored all of them.” She looked at Zhuo. “I used to think he was just a narcissist looking down on everyone, but now I think he just has exceptionally low desires.”

“Low desires?” Zhuo lowered his eyes in thought.

He didn’t know what great truth he had realized, but in the following days, Yuan Anqing found himself unable to ignore Zhuo in the office.

Zhuo was naturally tall and imposing, and his recent outfits had become… exceptionally loud. The company had no strict dress code for employees. Zhuo had originally worn neat, dark commuting clothes. But lately, he seemed to have had a mental breakthrough. He developed a sudden interest in high-saturation colors.

He started wearing fluorescent yellow jackets, Klein blue sweaters, and bright orange shirts, accessorizing them with noisy keychains and phone straps. And his accessories always matched his high-visibility clothes.

Zhuo would swagger around the office like a giant, neon Christmas tree every single day. He was impossible to ignore.

“Good morning, Senior!” Zhuo, wearing a fluorescent green jacket, raised his hand to greet Yuan Anqing by the elevator.

Yuan Anqing silently raised his hand in response, his eye twitching. “Morning.”

After that initial rejection, Zhuo didn’t make any further physical moves. He didn’t disturb Yuan Anqing or cause him trouble, neither in actions nor words.

“Senior, have you had breakfast?” Zhuo cheerfully entered the elevator, standing close beside him.

“No. No need.” Yuan Anqing heard a sharp jingling sound. He looked down and saw a row of brass bells tied to Zhuo’s neon-yellow waist chain.

Yuan Anqing: “…”

Why?

“Senior, do you like this accessory?” Zhuo tugged at his bell, producing a crisp, metallic chime. “Should I send you the shopping link?”

Yuan Anqing averted his gaze. “No, thank you. I’m just curious… why did your taste in fashion change so drastically?”

“Drastic change?” Zhuo rubbed his dark hair. “I’m planning to dye my hair neon pink next week, actually! I think I look much more handsome this way.”

“I noticed that after changing my style, more people stare at me on the subway,” Zhuo added proudly. He thought his new look was quite stylish. In reality, he had noticed that since changing his outfit, Yuan Anqing’s gaze had lingered on him far more often.

“Do you truly think this is handsome?” Yuan Anqing asked.

“Don’t you like looking at me?” Zhuo retorted.

“It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just…”

“You think my outfit looks completely ridiculous, right?” Zhuo jingled his bell again, smiling.

Yuan Anqing was speechless. He felt Zhuo had a remarkably clear self-awareness, which made it even worse.

“But you did look at me more because of this,” Zhuo pointed out triumphantly.

“You did this just to attract my attention?” Yuan Anqing asked.

Zhuo thought for a moment, then nodded solemnly. “This is the only way I can think of that doesn’t actively disturb your life or make you feel uncomfortable.”

Zhuo’s face was aggressively handsome, and putting it together with these flashy, neon clothes created a massive sense of visual incongruity. But Zhuo sincerely believed his outfit was a masterpiece because it kept Yuan Anqing’s eyes on him.

“You…”

“Shh, shh, shh!” Zhuo quickly covered Yuan Anqing’s mouth with his hand. “Don’t say it! Don’t refuse! What I wear is my own business!”

Yuan Anqing shut his mouth beneath his palm.

“If… if it still bothers you, I can change back,” Zhuo whispered, his red eyes soft. “But please don’t say the words ‘professional distance’ again. I’ve been seriously keeping my distance! I haven’t tried to touch you at all lately!”

“If you call me delusional again, I’ll really cry,” Zhuo pouted. “I know I’m guilt-tripping you, but I don’t want to be sad.”

The elevator doors opened. Yuan Anqing glanced at the neon giant beside him. “You haven’t bothered me, Zhuo.”

Yuan Anqing left the elevator first, and Zhuo was left standing inside, his eyes widening in pure joy.

For the next few weeks, Yuan Anqing saw a colorful, vibrant Zhuo every single day. Zhuo got along well with everyone in the office, and by extension, Yuan Anqing somehow got pulled into the social circle too. Yuan Anqing didn’t dislike this new, slightly livelier routine. He realized he liked having Zhuo’s noisy, happy presence around.

One morning, when Zhuo again asked Yuan Anqing if he wanted a meat bun, Yuan Anqing reached out, took a bun from Zhuo’s paper bag, and took a bite. “Delicious.”

Zhuo was incredulous. He stared at Yuan Anqing, his mind completely blanking. “You… you actually ate it!”

Yuan Anqing didn’t know how to respond to the shock. He dryly said, “You offered.”

“Yes! I did! But you actually ate my food!” Zhuo excitedly punched the air, then, as if he had won some great war, cheered in surprise and started hopping around Yuan Anqing’s desk like a giant, happy dog.

He was too excited. Yuan Anqing looked at the surrounding colleagues who were staring. He wanted to say something like “you’re being absurd,” but looking at Zhuo’s radiant, happy face, he couldn’t bring himself to kill the mood.

Zhuo’s smile was infectious. He was massive, and hopping around looked ridiculous, but it made Yuan Anqing’s chest feel warm.

In the spiritual void, the “Awakening” continued to pull at Yuan Anqing’s soul.

The male and female skeletons of his predecessors hovered before him under the dead starry sky.

“A dream,” the male skeleton spoke. “Emotions, desires, living… in the end, it is all just a fleeting dream. Only death is real.”

“Death is the truth of this universe, the true eternity,” the female skeleton added. “Living is merely an accident. Why stay anchored to a brief splash of water?”

They looked at Yuan Anqing, waiting for him to surrender his mind to the void and join them in eternal rest.

But Yuan Anqing looked at the black threads of nothingness wrapping around his legs and frowned. He recalled his life—his real life.

His memories of Earth were indeed a highly detailed, protective “dream” he had constructed for himself to escape the crushing weight of his Savior duties. He had lived as a tired, numb office worker because that was his comfort zone—a place where he had no expectations, no ties, and therefore no pain. He had planned to just exist there until his body collapsed.

But then, Zhuo had been pushed into his office. Zhuo had barged into his quiet life with his neon jackets, his stupid bells, his terrible cooking, and his absolute, unhinged devotion.

Zhuo was a monster of pure desire. He had no boundaries, no filter, and no shame. He had forced Yuan Anqing to look at him, to worry about him, to hold him, and to feel again.

Without Zhuo, I would have reached ’emptiness’ long ago, Yuan Anqing realized. I would have quietly closed my eyes and dissolved into this void without a fight.

“I can’t abandon reality right now,” Yuan Anqing said to the skeletons. “I’ve just started dating.”

The two skeletons tilted their heads in profound, dazed confusion.

A Savior… in love?

“I don’t want to discuss this further.” Yuan Anqing’s eyes flared with a brilliant, active gold. He reached out and grabbed the black threads of nothingness.

Then, he did something completely un-Savior-like. He balled his fist and punched the black mist of nothingness squarely in the face.

THWACK!

The black mist, trapped by his golden threads, recoiled. Yuan Anqing picked up a spiritual chair from his memory and slammed it into the void, completely scattering the dark energy.

Zhuo’s spiritual form appeared in the void, roaring in fury because the “emptiness” was trying to steal his Savior. Seeing Yuan Anqing stomping the black mist into pieces, Zhuo’s protective anger instantly turned into awe. “You look so cool like this, senior!”

“Huh?” Yuan Anqing adjusted his glasses.

“Like this!” Zhuo gestured excitedly. “Your cold, deadpan face while stepping on monsters—it’s beautiful! After we get out of here, can you step on my back like that?”

Yuan Anqing: “…We’ll discuss your specific fetishes later.”

With a final, golden surge, Yuan Anqing completely crushed the last of the void’s influence. A translucent, golden figure emerged from his own chest—his Savior soul.

“Long time no see,” the golden figure said.

Yuan Anqing looked at himself. “I like him, don’t I?”

“Yes,” the golden figure pointed to his chest. “You like him so much that you broke through the Awakening just to stay alive.”

“I don’t want to die in an empty room anymore,” the golden figure whispered. “I’m afraid of death now. Because of him.”

The golden Savior soul slowly merged back into Yuan Anqing’s body, returning his memories while keeping his human desire to live.

In the real world, the helicopter hovered over the mountain clearing.

“Morning!” Zhuo’s human voice rumbled softly. He was cradling Yuan Anqing tightly in his arms, his tail wrapped around Yuan’s waist.

Yuan Anqing opened his eyes, the gold fading back to a deep, warm black. He looked up at Zhuo’s handsome face.

“Do you… do you remember me?” Zhuo asked, his voice trembling with sheer panic.

Yuan Anqing nodded.

Zhuo’s red eyes immediately overflowed with tears. “You scared me to death, you bastard!”

But before the monster could cry further, a heavy tear slid down Yuan Anqing’s own cheek. Yuan Anqing reached up and touched his face in surprise.

Crying? Why was he crying? He felt no physical pain.

“WAAAH!” Zhuo instantly panicked, seeing the wet track on Yuan’s face. “What’s wrong?! Are you hurt?! Is it your stomach again?!”

Yuan Anqing shook his head. He wrapped his arms tightly around Zhuo’s neck, burying his face in the monster’s chest. “I’m just… really happy to see you again, Zhuo.”

“Wuwuwu!” Zhuo sobbed, holding him so close there was no space between them. He gently patted Yuan Anqing’s back with his massive hands, his tail coiling around them securely. “Don’t cry… please don’t cry…”

Yuan Anqing closed his eyes, listening to the rapid, terrified, beautiful heartbeat of the monster.

“You were right, Zhuo,” Yuan Anqing whispered against his chest. “I’m not brave at all.”

“I’m terrified of dying.”

“I’m terrified of leaving you alone.”