41: Chapter 41 Unwavering until death

[ Ding! Successfully killed Level 12 Hidden BOSS · Li Wanqing, gained EXP: 1200! Free Attribute Points + 5 ]

[ Ding! Successfully killed Human · Zhao Yue, gained EXP: 0. ]

As Lin Yan's palm pierced through their chests.

Zhao Yue's hands were clamped tightly onto Li Wanqing's shoulders, his ten fingers embedded into her pale skin, knuckles white. He didn't know what would happen next, but he knew that if Li Wanqing struggled at the final moment, it would only make things uglier. So he held her tightly, using every ounce of strength remaining in his frail body over these past two years.

Li Wanqing felt the force on her shoulders.

Her eyelashes fluttered, and her gray-white eyes slowly turned toward Zhao Yue's face. Her vision was sluggish, as if she were viewing the world through a layer of frosted glass, but she was indeed looking at Zhao Yue.

She looked at his tightly closed eyes, the smile at the corners of his mouth that hadn't quite faded, and the dense network of scars on his arms trembling slightly before her.

She didn't understand. Why was he holding her so tightly? Why was his body trembling? Why were his eyes closed?

She wanted to ask, but only an airy sound escaped her throat. She wanted to push him away to take a look, but her arms were pinned by him, unable to move. So she just watched Zhao Yue in confusion, like a lost child looking at a map in her hands—she recognized every word, but simply couldn't understand it.

She didn't even notice Lin Yan.

Lin Yan's fingertips pierced through her back and into her heart.

The moment the bone spurs cut into her skin, there was no blood. There wasn't much blood left inside Li Wanqing's body. What gushed from the wound was a grayish-white mucus, carrying a faint, fishy-sweet scent, trickling down her snow-white skin. The bone spurs continued to push forward, passing through the muscles, through the gaps between her ribs, and through her heart that had long since stopped beating.

Then came Zhao Yue.

The fist punched out from Li Wanqing's chest and, without pausing, sank straight into Zhao Yue's chest cavity. The bone spurs pierced his heart—that heart, shrunken to the size of a fist due to long-term malnutrition, was like a punctured balloon under the piercing of the bone spurs.

Zhao Yue's body stiffened abruptly.

But his hands did not let go.

His ten fingers remained clamped tightly onto Li Wanqing's shoulders, knuckles white, veins bulging. That force was so great that it didn't seem like something a man weighing only forty kilograms, skin and bones, could produce. He pulled Li Wanqing toward himself, his forehead pressed against hers, his nose brushing against her nose.

Li Wanqing felt that force.

Her body was pulled forward by Zhao Yue, her forehead pressing against his. It was cool and thin, his cheekbones digging into her brow bone.

Her gaze was forced to shift slightly from Zhao Yue's face, focusing on his forehead. There was a scar there, left when he had hit the corner of the kitchen cabinet before she was bitten.

She remembered this scar.

Her fingers twitched, attempting to lift to touch the scar, but her arms were pinned by Zhao Yue and couldn't be lifted. So she just stared at the scar, and in her gray-white pupils, something was flickering slightly.

Zhao Yue's eyes never opened.

The smile still hung at the corners of his mouth—a desolate smile that swallowed all his unwillingness. His breathing had stopped the moment the bone spurs pierced his heart, but his hands did not loosen.

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

Li Wanqing could no longer feel Zhao Yue's breath.

His forehead was still pressed against hers, but his chest no longer rose and fell, his fingers no longer trembled; he was like a machine that had suddenly lost power, all operation ceasing in the same instant.

Her gray-white pupils slowly dilated.

Her mouth opened slightly, and from her throat came a faint, short "Ah." There was no roar, no scream, just a simple, meaningless airy sound like that of an infant who had just learned to speak.

She wanted to call out to him.

But she couldn't.

Her fingers finally broke free from Zhao Yue's restraint just a little, her fingertips reaching his cheek. It was cool and thin, his cheekbone digging into her fingertips.

Then her fingers stopped as well.

The system notification sounded in Lin Yan's mind, cold, mechanical, and devoid of any emotion. The EXP bar jumped forward a notch, but he didn't look at it.

He withdrew his hand.

The process of the bone spurs withdrawing from the two bodies was very slow, slow enough for him to clearly feel the resistance as every inch of the bone spurs pulled away from the muscle and bone. Gray-white mucus gushed from the wounds, trickling down Li Wanqing's chest, dripping onto Zhao Yue's legs, onto the quilt, and onto the concrete floor.

The two bodies still maintained their embracing posture, not separating.

Zhao Yue's hands were still clamped on Li Wanqing's shoulders, and Li Wanqing's fingers were still pressed against Zhao Yue's cheek. Their foreheads were pressed together, noses touching, like two statues frozen by time.

Lin Yan took a step back.

He looked at the two corpses held together and remained silent for a long time.

Two things on the ground were glowing.

A ring slipped from Zhao Yue's ring finger, rolling to the edge of the quilt, ring face up, the silvery-white metal glowing softly in the dim light. On the inside of the band, two lines of tiny characters were engraved, so small one had to get close to see them— "To hold your hand, and grow old with you."

Another ring slipped from Li Wanqing's left middle finger; after her mutation, her fingers had become thinner, and the ring could no longer stay on, so it had been tied to her finger with a red string to keep it from falling. The red string broke, and the ring fell to the ground with a crisp sound. The silvery-white ring face also glowed, with the same two lines of characters engraved on the inside— "To hold your hand, and grow old with you."

Lin Yan bent down and picked up the two rings.

[ Obtained Equipment: Until Death Do Us Part · Zhao Yue · Level 15 ]

[ Quality: Purple Epic ]

[ Effect: Max HP + 8000, Physical Defense + 200, Magical Defense + 200. After equipping, when the target's HP is below 20%, automatically trigger the "To hold your hand" effect—share HP with the target wearing "Until Death Do Us Part · Li Wanqing" for 30 minutes. Cooldown: 24 hours. ]

[ Equipment Requirement: Level ≥ 15, Constitution ≥ 50 ]

[ Description: He did not let go of her hand until his death. ]

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[ Obtained Equipment: Until Death Do Us Part · Li Wanqing · Level 15 ]

[ Quality: Purple Epic ]

[ Effect: Max HP + 8000, Physical Defense + 200, Magical Defense + 200. After equipping, when the target's HP is below 80%, automatically trigger the "And grow old with you" effect—share Attack Power with the target wearing "Until Death Do Us Part · Zhao Yue" for 30 minutes. Cooldown: 24 hours. ]

[ Equipment Requirement: Level ≥ 15, Constitution ≥ 50 ]

[ Description: She didn't understand what was happening until the end, but she remembered his face. ]

Lin Yan held the two rings in his palm; the silvery-white metal pressed against his skin, cold but not bone-chilling. He glanced at the equipment requirements: Level 15, Constitution 50. He was currently Level 13 with 47 Constitution, still missing 3 points of Constitution and 2 levels.

Next to Li Wanqing's corpse was a skill book glowing with a pale blue light.

[ Obtained Active Skill Book: Life Gift ]

[ Quality: Blue Rare ]

[ Skill Effect: Consume 30% of your own current HP to restore an equal amount of HP to the target, and additionally restore a shield equal to 20% of your own Max HP for the target, lasting 30 seconds. Cooldown: 5 minutes. ]

[ Learning Requirement: Level > 10, Constitution ≥ 30 ]

Consuming his own blood to heal others, and even providing a shield. For a "human blood pack" like him, with HP exceeding 35,000, this was a tailor-made support skill. As long as his teammates didn't die, one heal from him could bring them back from low health to full health.

The conditions were met, so he learned it immediately.

Lin Yan packed everything away, then carried Zhao Yue and Li Wanqing downstairs.

"Find a place to bury them," Lin Yan said.

No one asked why.

The square was very quiet, with only the whimpering sound of the wind blowing through the gaps in the steel plates, like someone crying in the distance.

Shen Bing found a rusty shovel in the corner—it had been brought up by Zhao Yue, likely used to clear debris when welding the steel plates. Han Yi dug up a few steel pipes in the stairwell, and Ma Chen used his shield as a shovel. The group dug a large pit in the flowerbed of the ruins downstairs.

The pit wasn't deep; the soil was hard, and there were too many concrete blocks in the ruins, making it very difficult to dig. The edge of Ma Chen's shield rolled, and one of Han Yi's steel pipes bent.

Lin Yan placed them into the flowerbed; their bodies were very light, so light they didn't feel like two adults. Zhao Yue's weight might have been down to forty kilograms, and after Li Wanqing's mutation, her body tissue had atrophied, so she wouldn't be much heavier than Zhao Yue. The two of them held together might not even weigh as much as one person.

When placing them into the pit, Zhao Yue's hand was still clamped on Li Wanqing's shoulder, and Li Wanqing's fingers were still pressed against Zhao Yue's face. Lin Yan didn't try to separate them; he let them maintain that posture and placed them into the pit together.

Shen Bing handed over the two rings; she took them from Lin Yan's hand to look at them, then handed them back.

"Aren't you burying them in there?" she asked.

Lin Yan looked down at the two silvery-white rings in his palm, the light on the ring faces flickering in the sunlight.

"No. They can't use them anymore, but I can."

The sentence was said very plainly, but Shen Bing understood another meaning. It wasn't "I can use them," but "I will remember them."

Song Shiyu walked over from the side, holding a few flat stone slabs she had picked up from the ruins. Lin Yan stood the slabs up in front of the pit one by one, using his short blade to carve words onto one of the slabs. He carved very slowly, the tip of the blade scratching crooked marks onto the stone surface, but every stroke was carved very deeply.

"Tomb of Zhao Yue."

"Tomb of Li Wanqing."

There were no dates of birth or death, no eulogies, no titles like "Beloved Wife" or "Loving Father"—just two names.

Lin Yan stood in front of the two new graves, silent for a long time.

Shen Bing stood beside him, not speaking.

The wind blew across the flowerbed, carrying a faint, fishy-sweet scent—the smell of the grayish-white mucus from inside Li Wanqing, which hadn't completely dissipated yet.

Lin Yan tucked the two rings into his carapace belt and turned to walk toward the City Center.

"Let's go."