Chapter 343 - Revealing the truth

Chapter 343: Chapter 343 - Revealing the truth

It was unbelievable.

For months, they had been scraping by on ramen or making a slurry out of whatever food they had left, trying to fill their stomachs while saving enough for the next meal.

Muchen had grown so used to worrying about their supplies that even now, with all this food right in front of him, he couldn’t quite believe it.

They had a fucking huge stash sitting here.

Enough to feed a whole fucking army, and they had spent all that time wondering when their next proper meal would be.

"It gets better. Next door, Jai’s place has all the weapons we need," Yunfeng said with a grin.

Muchen slowly turned toward him, his mouth still hanging open.

Looking pleased with himself, Yunfeng walked over and gently pushed his chin up, helping him close it.

Usually, Muchen would have slapped his hand away for teasing him like that, but right now he could only stare at his lover.

"You knew about the apocalypse..." His gaze briefly wandered back to the food before settling on Yunfeng again. "This... how?"

"I just knew..." Yunfeng shrugged, keeping that mysterious little smile on his face as he took Muchen’s hand and led him toward the bedroom.

Muchen followed, though his eyes remained fixed on the man beside him. That answer might have passed if Yunfeng had simply known where to find a few supplies, but there was far too much food here for that. Someone had prepared this place carefully, and from the way his lover was talking, the weapons next door had been part of those preparations too.

Thankfully, there were no dead bodies inside the bedroom.

The place was a little ransacked, with dust settled over the furniture and the bedding pulled out of place, but it was somewhere they could rest once it had been cleaned.

Yunfeng let go of his hand and went straight to the bed. He shook the dust from the bedding, straightened what he could, then carefully helped Muchen sit down.

His hand lingered against his lover’s back until he was sure he was comfortable.

"I’ll get started on cleaning this place. Stay here, okay?"

Before he could move away, Muchen caught his hand.

"Yunfeng..."

Something in his voice made Yunfeng stop. He looked down to find Muchen peering up at him with a frown, his fingers still wrapped firmly around his hand.

"You never explain any of this clearly. You know so much about the apocalypse, about omegas and all those other things..." Muchen searched his face, trying to catch his eyes when Yunfeng’s gaze shifted away. "How do you know? Will you ever tell me the whole truth?"

Yunfeng froze.

He had shared plenty of the information he knew, sometimes because they needed it to survive and sometimes because the words had slipped out before he thought to hold them back.

But he had never actually told anyone that he was from the future.

Whenever questions came up, he had found a way around them, and until now, Muchen had let him.

His lover was still waiting for an answer.

Yunfeng bit his lip. Could he tell him? He hadn’t even properly thought through how he would explain something like that, and looking into Muchen’s questioning eyes only made it harder to find the words. He didn’t want to lie to him, but he wasn’t ready to say it either.

"I’ll... I’ll tell you later, okay?" he murmured. "Let me clean up this place first so we have somewhere to sleep tonight."

Muchen’s grip loosened a little, though the frown on his face remained. Yunfeng gently slipped his hand free before his lover could ask anything else and walked out of the bedroom.

Left sitting on the freshly straightened bed, Muchen watched him leave.

He had been so excited about the food a moment ago, but now his eyes stayed on the empty doorway, wondering why telling him the truth was so difficult.

Yunfeng stood outside the bedroom for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. He could still picture Muchen looking up at him, waiting for a proper answer, and he almost turned around. But what was he supposed to say once he went back in? That the person Muchen had fallen in love with had come from the future and was living in someone else’s body?

He lowered his hand and went to clear the bodies.

Grabbing one of them beneath the arms, he dragged it toward the door, careful to keep its torn clothes from catching on the furniture. The weight pulled at his shoulders as he hauled it over the threshold and into the yard. By the time he laid it down, there was another smear across the floor behind him.

Great. More cleaning.

He was heading back inside when Jai walked up to him. His friend glanced at the body in the yard, then through the open doorway.

"How many are in there?"

"A few more." Yunfeng pushed his sleeves up. "Grab the other end of the next one. Dragging them out is making a mess."

Jai followed him without any fuss. Between the two of them, they quickly carried the remaining bodies outside, laying them together in the yard before going back to check the rooms. Once the last one was gone, Yunfeng stood in the hallway and looked down at the floor.

The bodies were out, but the blood remained. Some of it had dried into dark patches, and the fresher smears stretched all the way to the door.

Jai looked at him. "Got anything to clean with?"

Yunfeng found a couple of washcloths and brought over some water. They got down on their knees, each taking one side of the hallway, and began scrubbing. The dried blood needed more effort than Yunfeng had expected. He pressed the cloth beneath his palm and rubbed at the same spot until his wrist started to ache, then dipped it into the water again.

Beside him, Jai bent over his own patch, his brows drawn together as he worked. He had come over to help and hadn’t even complained about being put on his knees to scrub someone else’s floor.

Yunfeng watched him for a moment before looking back at the cloth in his hand.

"Jai... if I wasn’t your real friend, would you hate me?"

Jai raised a brow, his hand slowing against the floor.

"Huh? You are my friend."

"No, I mean..." Yunfeng rubbed his thumb over the wet edge of the cloth, struggling to make the question sound less strange. "If I was someone who inhabited your friend’s body, would you hate me?"

Jai stopped scrubbing completely.

For a few seconds, he simply stared at him. Yunfeng tried to hold his gaze, but his stomach tightened under that puzzled look. He had wanted to see how Jai would react, yet now that the words were out, he wished he had kept his mouth shut.

"What is with you, Yunfeng?" Jai asked. "Did you hit your head or something?"

Yunfeng gulped.

"N-no. Nothing." He quickly bent over the floor again and pressed his cloth against a stubborn stain. "Let’s clean up before the others arrive."

Jai remained still beside him for another moment. Yunfeng could feel him looking, so he scrubbed harder, keeping his head down until the soft sound of Jai’s cloth moving over the floor finally started again.