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When Qin Jiu returns to the capital, he's greeted with two horrifying news.
One, a zombie infection has rapidly spread across the nation.
Two, his chief instructor is amongst the first to be infected.
Upon receiving this news from Wen Yuan, Qin Jiu goes straight into the confinement room in which the limp figure of You Huo is bound.
He's the military's youngest and most outstanding officer, after all. Naturally, they can't bear to let him go ransacking the streets and infecting others.
But Qin Jiu knows this isn't a matter as simple as “worrying for public safety".
"He's been unresponsive to any external stimulus," Yi Wusi explains, his shaky voice tinged with indescribable emotions from the speaker on the ceiling. "Any other zombies we've seen so far will go berserk at first whiff of blood, Chief Instructor You included, yet after he tastes blood or flesh on his tongue, he'll back away in an instant, as if—"
"Disgusted," Qin Jiu finishes for him, the murky depths of his pitch-black gaze lowered to the unmoving man shackled to the bed.
Clad in nondescript clothes, the current You Huo possesses none of that frigid, domineering aura of a chief instructor. He's adorned with chains around his wrists and ankles instead of shining golden epaulettes, as if a war criminal who betrays the crown. His chin is tucked low until it touches his collar, features hidden by his raven-black bangs, no different than the stance of his fearful trainees when he scolds them with succinct, yet piercing words.
To any unaware officer, it's like the person inside this confinement room is not Chief Instructor You Huo at all.
When Qin Jiu arrives at the edge of the bed and cradles You Huo's jaws, a thought escapes his mind unbidden, carried forth by his low voice. "My dear, you're so heavy."
And it's because the upper half of You Huo's face is gone, his eye sockets replaced by the smooth expanse of a lustrous black gem. The infection has crawled downwards to the side of his angular jawline, crystallized flesh and muscle tugging at the corner of his lips as if to imitate a tender smile.
And reflected on the gem's unblemished surface is Qin Jiu's equally loving smile.
If one looks at the surveillance camera, they'll be sure to discover that ever since entering the confinement room, never once does Commander Qin lose his smile.
It's almost as if what sits in front of Commander Qin is not a mutated zombie with a disfigured face and shoulder where black gems propagate, but still his beloved husband Chief Instructor You.
No matter his appearance, no matter his state, Commander Qin will always love him.
His colleagues Chu Yue and Yi Wusi, who stand on the other side of the one-way glass, inexplicably shudder seeing such an indulgent expression on Qin Jiu's face.
After a moment of silence, Qin Jiu asks. "Where do you keep his eyes?"
"Huh?" Snapped awake from his trance, Yi Wusi echoes incredulously. "Eyes?"
"Yes," Qin Jiu reaffirms, his own gaze never once departing from You Huo's profile. It'll be an act he loathes the most at this moment. "I heard from Wen Yuan that his eyeballs fell off his skull when the crystals began to spread. Where are they now?"
"Please wait…" Yi Wusi can only thank the Heavens for granting him steady fingers right now as he searches the database. "Found the log! It's said that Chief Instructor You's eyes are kept by the researchers to be studied—"
"They're going to experiment on his eyes?" The veins on the back of Qin Jiu's hand tighten, his voice carrying the jagged ends of a combat dagger. "Unforgivable. How dare they? Whatever belongs to my dear belongs to me as well. Tell them to surrender those eyes to me."
Yi Wusi frowns. "But, Boss, you have no rights over the research team—”
"It's an order." Qin Jiu finally tears his eyes away from You Huo and directs them to his own reflection on the glass. However, Yi Wusi flinches because Qin Jiu's glare seems to land directly on him, as if he can tell where Yi Wusi exactly stands outside the room.
Qin Jiu's smile remains rooted in place, but it's bereft of any semblance of warmth.
Cold, insincere, a predator’s suppressed anger.
"And I won't accept a "no". Understand?"
"Order received." Unexpectedly, it's Chu Yue who answers him, startling Yi Wusi. There's a glint of tacit understanding in her deep green eyes, born from years working side by side together. "I'll make sure to pass along your order to the head researcher."
"Many thanks, Chu Yue." And Qin Jiu's countenance relaxes once more, as if his previous aggression is a mere illusion casted by the interspersed shadows in the room.
Silence returns to drape its solemn curtains over Qin Jiu and You Huo. The former's palm glides to the side and cups You Huo's still intact right earlobe where a sparkling earring is etched on fair flesh, so conspicuous that it can be easily seen from meters away.
To call this earring a piece of You Huo's love won't be so off the mark. After all, he bought it because of a remark Qin Jiu said a long time ago, in a distant autumn where they had yet to establish their relationship.
This way, even if darkness shrouded You Huo's entire person, Qin Jiu would always be able to find him, his earring both Qin Jiu's north star and most dependable lighthouse.
Later, after they had their first kiss amidst the warning alarm, surrounded by cleansing fire and crumbling towers, Qin Jiu bought You Huo a matching earring for his left earlobe.
"My dear," said Qin Jiu from years long past, pink lips full with unadulterated affection brushing against You Huo's sensitive ear, “if I also left myself by your ear, would you be able to always hear me?”
"Of course," You Huo whispered back, his melodious voice guarded within the jut of his throat, and so Qin Jiu dived down to take a bite of the forbidden apple.
How sweet. How delicious.
This was the echoes of You Huo's love.
This is Qin Jiu's most treasured possession.
In the confinement room, Qin Jiu leans down until his lips, feverish with affection and obsession, kiss against the earlobe held ever so carefully in his calloused hand.
"My dear, I'm home."
And for the first time after he's infected in that blazing sunset, You Huo stirs into life.
Two well-defined hands, carved by violence and awkward honesty alike, shoot forward to take Qin Jiu's face into their palms, their force unbelievably strong that Qin Jiu’s spine bends into an arch. His movements akin to a rusty robot, those slender fingers start to gently trace Qin Jiu's features, as if learning how to love the other person again after eons long being blind.
When You Huo's fingers find the cheerful, crinkled corners of Qin Jiu's eyes, his butchered lips part, ragged breath heavy with a hint of longing,
"Qin... Jiu...?"
"I'm here." And Qin Jiu laughs, love tainting his cheeks with the crimson of elation.
No.
It'll be too shallow to call it love.
To Qin Jiu, it's something more—more consuming, more encompassing, his blush drawn by the teeth of gluttony and the tongue of greed rather than the hug of kindness.
"My dear, you've slept for quite a while," Qin Jiu says, peppering both You Huo's smooth cheek and crystal-festered jaw with gentle kisses, deafening his ears to Yi Wusi's warnings and Chu Yue's concerns from the speaker.
"You can no longer stand by my side, you can no longer see me, you can no longer taste my cooking. How pitiful."
In another person's mouth, these sentences may sound condescending, but when they come from Qin Jiu, each syllable is woven with an air of intoxicated adoration.
Qin Jiu's smile blooms wider, the flush on his cheeks deepening in tandem to the roar of heartbeat in his ears.
"Then, since my dear can no longer give me a kiss, I'll be the one to give it to you, okay?"
And so, under the glass eyes of four surveillance cameras in the confinement room, Qin Jiu surges forward to kiss this rotten crystal bearing the appearance of his husband.
At once, You Huo's hands, previously delicate on Qin Jiu's face, snatch his husband's shoulders in an unforgiving grip. As if this kiss has set his decaying body on fire, You Huo tears apart Qin Jiu's lips and bites down savagely onto the unguarded flesh.
"FUCK!!" Outside, Yi Wusi frantically tries to open the door, only to find that it won't budge a single millimetre. "What's happening?! Boss!! Open up!! Haven't we told you that the infection is passed on through biting?! Boss!!"
"Qin Jiu! Xiao-Huo!" Chu Yue slams her shoulder against the door, but also to no avail. "What the fuck are you two doing?! Stop it!!"
But neither Qin Jiu nor You Huo register the frantic voices coming from both the speakers and beyond the door.
All of their senses are consumed with the other—Qin Jiu drinking his own blood that mixes with You Huo's saliva of shattered crystal, You Huo feasting on the only blood and flesh that he finds delectable.
"Qin Jiu," You Huo's speech comes as a clearer rasp this time, finally having his appetite sated by his husband. "Qin Jiu, you're home."
Lunacy is now the stars that brighten Qin Jiu's pitch-black eyes. With blood pouring down from his chin and onto his prominent collarbones, he looks just as obsessed as the infatuated zombie in his embrace.
"I'm home, my dear," Qin Jiu sings, his smile perpetually frozen on his face.
"With this, we'll be together forever."
When the soldiers finally manage to smash through the door, it's to the sight of You Huo clutching Qin Jiu's head as he devours the commander's eyeballs straight from the skull, white teeth sinking into willing flesh and dying them red with the blood that explodes.
Some fall to their knees in shock.
Some vomit on the spot from disgust.
Unfortunately, there's nothing they can do to save the upper half of Qin Jiu's face. Their infected commander is now the mirror of his chief instructor—both eyes gone, hollow sockets with leftover tissues exposed to the world. In the next hour, crystals will replace those gaping maws, completing Qin Jiu's transformation into a zombie.
The next day, Chu Yue sneaks into the confinement room in the middle of the night. She has strongly coaxed (read: threatened) Wen Yuan to erase any traces of this meeting later, so she swallows no fear in her throat when she enters the room.
There, sitting on the bed with their backs leaning against the wall, are her sworn friends for life, now reduced into a pair of zombies who will slaughter anyone daring to separate them apart. She even suspects that they're thankful for the chains binding them together.
"Qin Jiu, Xiao-Huo, can you hear me?"
Qin Jiu tilts his head, already overgrown with black and red crystals, but doesn't offer her any more response.
Chu Yue takes a deep breath before she approaches the bed with a glass case in hand. "Qin Jiu, I've brought you Xiao-Huo's eyes as per your order. The research team didn't oblige, by the way, so you left me no choice but to steal them from the lab."
At this, Chu Yue swears the torn smile on You Huo's face curves just the slightest bit higher.
"Hand them over." Qin Jiu can only outstretch one hand because his other is clasped tightly by You Huo's fingers. "Love is fair, both in life and death, won't you agree?"
As a benevolent sister-in-law, Chu Yue can only laugh until tears spring from her eyes, her chest heaving with twice the grief that it almost tastes like madness on her tongue. "Yes. I suppose it really is fair."
But perhaps it's only because it's Qin Jiu and You Huo themselves who forcefully alter the definition of "love" into their own terms. Equal in strength, equal in obsession—how can fate dare to disobey them?
Thus Chu Yue leaves the room with a lighter heart, locking the sound of hungry fangs tearing into flesh behind her.
Mine, yours, in life and death.