Vixen Above, Mensao Below (54)

There was a split-second of silence, and then...

"You!" Ye Minzhe roared.

Shuu—

Air whistled through his clothes as Ye Minzhe lunged forward, catching Long Aotian by the legs, the two boys tumbling on the ground in a whirl of limbs.

"Ahhh!" Ding Xiuxiu screamed.

Ye Minzhe's elbow rose up in the air, and his fist plunged into Long Aotian's face. He nailed him with his fist repeatedly in the face, until blood poured from his mouth and nose. Ye Minzhe grabbed his head and slammed it against the ground.

Before Ye Minzhe could continue, hands grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him away. Gong Qiye and Ouyang Che struggled to hold back Ye Minzhe as he tried to attack Long Aotian on the ground, his eyes filled with burning rage. Long Aotian had long since turned into a bloody heap, vomiting blood.

"Brother Minzhe, stop!"

"Stop, Ye Minzhe!"

Long Aotian struggled to his feet, his face a mess of black and blue. Blood continued to drip down from his broken nose, and his mouth was cut in several places, looking very painful.

"What...I said...was the truth. Ye Jia had been bitten. You need to stay...stay away from her."

"He's right."

At the sound of her calm voice, Ye Minzhe turned to look at Song Jia, breaking away from Gong Qiye and Ouyang Che. She had rolled up the hem of her pants, showing them her bleeding ankle. Against her fair skin, the sight of the horrible wound became very jarring to the eyes.

Ding Xiuxiu's eyes widened in fear.

"She's going to turn into one of those crazy people!"

Gong Qiye narrowed his eyes, regret flashing across his expression. "Ye Minzhe, you need to get away from her. There's one last pilot left, and we managed to convince him to fly us to Nanjing. But we need to go now."

Ye Minzhe didn't listen to them. He stared at the wound on her ankle and his heart ached. She had just recovered from a cold, and now she was bitten. It must be very painful.

"Jia, if that's what you're worried about, then I don't mind at all. Why don't you come down? We need to treat your wound so that it won't scar. Don't keep standing like that, you'll hurt yourself."

Song Jia looked at Ye Minzhe's expression, which was only filled with concern. Contrary to his expectations, him pushing her away wasn't what she was worried about.

What scared her the most was that his reaction would be exactly what he was showing her right now.

"Ye Minzhe, I don't want to infect you." Song Jia's vision was swirling, like she was riding a ferris wheel that was spinning too fast.

Dots of lights became stretched lines of light, their faces looking back at her blurring in and out of focus.

"Ye Minzhe, she's infected!" Gong Qiye shouted in frustration. "Are you crazy? Let's go!"

Ye Minzhe stretched out his hand to Song Jia. A short distance separated them, but it seemed as if he could cross it in just a moment, bridging the gap between him and her.

"Jia, stay with me."

Ye Minzhe's jet-black curls shone under the moonlight, thick eyelashes framing his eyes of the same color. Startlingly handsome, like a prince that stepped out of a monochrome painting.

He had looked the same way when they first met, only now, he didn't have the arrogance he showed her before. He stretched out his hand, his eyes silently beseeching her to take it.

Song Jia pressed her lips and shook her head. She would not take the chance of infecting him. Even now, she could feel her body changing, about to turn into something else.

"Ye Minzhe, I can't."

Ye Minzhe's pupils shrank at her refusal. He suddenly grabbed the knife that Gong Qiye was holding. Song Jia's eyes widened.

"Ye Minzhe!"

"Brother Minzhe!"

The knife was very sharp, and Ye Minzhe didn't hesitate to press it tightly against his throat. The cold metal brought every sensation on his skin into sharp focus. Blood dripped down, staining the front of his shirt.

His eyes gradually cooled down.

"Jia, you want to die and leave me behind? Then I'll die with you."

Ding Xiuxiu's knees weakened, and she collapsed on the ground, her face pale with shock. Ouyang Che clenched his fists.

Gong Qiye shouted, "Ye Minzhe, did you become a complete lunatic?!"

He actually wanted to kill himself!

Long Aotian had stayed down, his lips cracking as soon as he tried to smile. He coughed out blood, staring at Ye Minzhe that was standing in front of him.

He thought, So this is how the arrogant young master looks like when he falls in love. Intense, violent, and completely crazy.

Somehow, Long Aotian wasn't surprised. He was just surprised that all of his affection had been received by Ye Jia.

Even before he boarded the cruise ship, Long Aotian had already received the memories of his past life. He knew that the cruise ship would turn into a feast for the undead, feeding from the healthy flesh of uninfected humans. He still boarded it despite this, knowing that his only salvation would come from those monsters that would spread across the ship.

Long Aotian had been diagnosed with cancer several months ago. He had always been a sick kid, which was why he hated going to the hospitals. Despite his parents pressuring him to have daily check-ups, Long Aotian resisted them and played truant with his friends.

Of course, he also soon began to discover that he was different from his male friends. He wasn't interested in girls, and every time he played basketball or games with Ye Minzhe, his heart would unknowingly speed up. He tried to resist his feelings, but it was a futile attempt from the get-go. In the end, he could only hide it, going to the red-light district on his own and seeking pleasure in the arms of other people.

He kept close to Ding Xiuxiu, envying the way she could directly confess his feelings to the one person he would never be able to. But still, he managed to endure. He knew that Ye Minzhe didn't like anyone, not girls, nor boys as far as he knew.

In fact, he was the one who suggested to Ouyang Che to try and tempt Ye Minzhe with a 'different' partner. Even if he wasn't his first time, Long Aotian only wanted to gamble. If by chance that Ye Minzhe was actually...then, maybe, his repressed feelings for several years might bear fruit.

With this new hope, Long Aotian felt a complicated mixture of hope and anxiety, excitement and dread. There were several times that he nearly exposed his feelings in front of Ye Minzhe, making him receive a strange look from him.

In the end though, it seemed that Ye Minzhe wasn't really interested in anyone.

Although Long Aotian was disappointed, it was also a good thing. As long as Ye Minzhe stayed alone, he would accompany him, even if it was only to the extent of so-called friendship.

And then Ye Minzhe started taking an interest in Ye Jia.

Long Aotian felt a sense of crisis he never had before. In his past life, after he had accidentally gotten infected, he discovered that terminally ill patients had a long incubation time before turning into zombies. Sometimes it would take months, or years, before they would become truly infected. Although it was only for a short period of time, the zombie virus could lengthen their life span.

Maybe because their cells were unhealthy and abnormal, so the virus had a hard time infecting them. After all, it needed a healthy host to survive.

This was also why zombies ignored them. Long Aotian had to capture a zombie and drain his blood just so that he could infect himself. It was the reason why he carried a medicine bottle everywhere he went.

After he became infected, unable to control his jealousy, Long Aotian started to target Ye Jia.

When he knew that Ye Minzhe discovered he didn't try to protect Ye Jia from the zombies, he couldn't bear to look at him face to face after breaking his promise.

He fled from the ship and after a while, he sent Ding Xiuxiu the copy of the video he had recorded of Ye Jia and their teacher's affair.

Of course, this was something he had done before Ye Minzhe showed an interest for Ye Jia. Since Ye Minzhe hated his half-sister, he only wanted to help him gather more evidence against Ye Jia so that he could drive her away.

In the end, the video in his hands managed to serve a different purpose.