Overload

Chapter 99

After being ruthlessly kicked off the high-rise building, Song Qinglan free-fell from a height of 116 floors.

Suddenly, his entire body felt an upwards pull. Someone had grabbed his arm in the nick of time, causing him to hang in the air. Only the dark Shen Mian fell down into the depths below.

“Come up!!!”

Someone yelled from above his head. The words were forced out through gritted teeth.

Song Qinglan looked up. The person who had grabbed him was another Ji Yushi.

Half of Ji Yushi’s body was stuck on the railing. Because the speed and weight of a falling human body was more than what he could support, the arm holding Song Qinglan was in a very unnatural angle. His entire face was flushed red, “Quick…..come up!!!”

The veins on the back of his slender hand were bulging.

This Ji Yushi came from the new cycle. It was the Ji Yushi who disappeared in Song Qinglan’s arms earlier.

Clearly, Song Qinglan who was kicked to his death after teasing his boyfriend and his teammates who were about to meet their ends allowed for the new cycle to appear. Ji Yushi who was on the 115th floor managed to intercept him before his death.

One time and space, one floor apart, two Ji Yushi’s.

Two completely different treatments.

This strange and absurd experience was probably something only traversers like them would experience.

Song Qinglan immediately held onto the other party’s wrist and pulled himself up.

The railing was broken and crumbling. Bearing the weight of two people, it creaked dully, as if it was about to break the next second and send the two of them into the abyss below.

Fortunately, Song Qinglan had amazing arm strength. With Ji Yushi’s assistance, he managed to pull himself up, grab hold of the railing and use both the railing and Ji Yushi’s strength to successfully climb up.

After climbing over the railing, Ji Yushi rushed over before Song Qinglan could even have the chance to stabilise himself.

The two stumbled back a few steps. This time it was Song Qinglan who was pushed against the wall. Ji Yushi wasn’t weak and the impact on his back was painful.

The adrenaline from the fall still hadn’t subsided. Song Qinglan was still in a highly tense mental state.

He leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.

He couldn’t help but let out a few low laughs. He seemed to be very satisfied.

Immediately afterwards, he used an even greater strength to embrace the other party back. Relying on his height advantage, he buried his face deeply into the neck of the person in his arms.

It was hot.

This was real.

Tears couldn’t help but well up.

The two embraced tightly, wanting to squeeze each other into their bodies.

The kiss from when they first reunited was already done. Right now, they just wanted to completely take in the fact that the other party was real, feel the other persons presence and feel their heartbeat.

For Ji Yushi, only this would allow him to feel that he was truly alive.

Since returning to Ouroboros, he had always felt like he was about to go mad.

The moment he met Song Qinglan, he knew that he wasn’t alone and knew that it wasn’t a hallucination. He was finally able to return to the world called sanity.

This excited him more than anything else.

Ji Yushi’s heart raced very quickly, the blood pounding in his ears. Song Qinglan said something by his ear, but he didn’t hear him. He loosened his hand slightly and looked up, “What?”

His eyes were clean and clear, and filled with calmness and wisdom.

Only when facing Song Qinglan would those defences completely disappear, leaving only the trust and dependence that even he himself was unaware of.

Song Qinglan was left unable to speak by those eyes of his.

Time and space had changed, time flowed past like water.

The past that they had travelled through had eventually become the future they were approaching,

The past was the past.

Song Qinglan’s emotions settled very quickly. He was able to quickly toss the past aside.

He repeated what he said earlier, “I was just saying, this really is like fire and ice. As soon as I was kicked off by you, I was rescued by another you and pulled into your arms. Who knew dating would be this exciting?”

Ji Yushi’s position was directly below where he was earlier.

He had naturally heard the entire thing and was in fact a little speechless. What his other self did was completely within reason.

Song Qinglan continued to tease him “Advisor Ji, are you using the carrot and the stick method?”

Ji Yushi could only try and clear ‘his’ name, “Didn’t you say you were willing? I would call this granting your wishes.”

Song Qinglan raised his hand. A cold light flashed, and his military knife killed a zombie coming over, “You should be more reasonable. I haven’t kissed yet.”

“19 years ago, 4:05pm, at the kindergarten attached to Ning University, you kissed me for three minutes.” Ji Yushi easily recalled the past, “If you consider a kiss as three seconds and do the calculations…..Cap Song, you can still die sixty times.”

Song Qinglan narrowed his eyes.

Why didn’t he remember doing something like that as a child?

A small part of him wanted to know the details.

Ji Yushi expressed, “I don’t think you’re making a loss.”

“Why not?” Song Qinglan chuckled lowly. He put aside that matter for now and started to settle their accounts, “Just take the last one as an example. It was filled with the bitter taste of medicine. Speak honestly, how many did you take? You’re not listening to your family’s words anymore?”

Ji Yushi: “……”

“Refusing to confess?” Song Qinglan kissed the tip of his nose, “Come here, I’ll give it a taste.”

“Bang, bang, bang!!”

Gunshots suddenly exploded around them.

Zombies gathered from both sides. While overwhelmed by zombies, their teammates rushed over.

From a distance, the Song Qinglan belonging to the new cycle used the Shen Mian in his hands to clear out the zombies rushing over.

Sparks flew everywhere.

Song Qinglan looked back. His eyes met with his other self.

Perhaps it was because they have constantly been seeing their other selves in the other cycles, they had developed some immunity.

Except for the other Song Qinglan not quite understanding what the two of them were doing, they reacted to the situation quite calmly.

In an instant, more and more zombies rushed out from the surrounding rooms.

Without saying much, Song Qinglan pulled Ji Yushi away from his other self, “Leave this place first!!”

With this pull, he noticed that something wasn’t right. Ji Yushi’s right arm was soft and angled strangely.

No wonder the embrace was a little awkward earlier.

Song Qinglan’s expression changed, “Your arm———”

Song Qinglan was an adult with a height greater than 1.9 metres and weighed more than 70kg.

Having caught something of that size and weight from a height, something like this wasn’t surprising.

Ji Yushi unconsciously changed diamond bird to his left hand, “Go!!”

Song Qinglan returned to his senses.

The Ji Yushi he likes had never been someone who needed protection.

*

Having experienced far more missions than just Ouroboros, the tacit understanding between the two no longer needed words. Working together, only half the effort would be required to achieve twice the result.

Everyone saw that they were able to open a path using just Diamond Bird and a few energy grenades.

“So, what’s the current situation?” Ji Yushi retreated as he fired and he asked this question, “Role-playing or mission review?! I remember I was dead.”

“Dead?” Song Qinglan broke a few zombie necks. When he looked back, his eyes were fierce, “This is just a bigger cycle.”

They retreated to a corner.

The teammates immediately joined in, sending blood and dust flying.

“A new time anchor, a bigger cycle.” Song Qinglan explained quickly and briefly, “Done by Tianqiong. Tailored for the two of us.”

Someone as intelligent as Ji Yushi immediately understood what he was talking about—-Tianqiong had set up a new time anchor for them, allowing them to return to their current time from the future. It was no different from what they encountered in the Ouroboros mission, and the initial time anchor was even borrowed and used to forcibly stuff them into the cycle.

If that was the case, the condition for this time anchor must be the same.

He was indeed dead, but Song Qinglan wasn’t.

He looked at Song Qinglan. The other’s handsome eyes and determined profile all told him a certain fact.

After his death, Song Qinglan had followed after him.

Regarding the time anchor, regarding what happened during those times, it seems that it had been destined for a long time.

Ji Yushi had a lot of things he wanted to say but now wasn’t a good time.

Countless holes were blasted into the wall sending dust scattering. Song Qinglan even spat out a mouthful of dirt and smashed a zombie’s head with a fist hook. He continued, “It named this cycle 【Overload】.”

Ji Yushi: “Overload?”

That’s right!

They didn’t belong to any of the existing cycles in Ouroboros and in these cycles the two of them were unique entities.

From the time anchor’s point of view, every cycle occurred at the same time, so them appearing in different cycles was a high probability event. After all, the addition of them could be regarded as an overloaded state.

No wonder the other party they saw in each cycle didn’t retain memories of the last cycle.

Despite this, Ji Yushi was still shocked.

He was shocked by the so-called ‘Tianqiong of all eras’, and even somewhat understood the meaning of ‘departing from the traditional linear development of time and having all eras exist at the same time’.

For example the twelfth squad returning to 1456, for example their current situation…..If there was no so-called ‘Tianqiong of all eras’ claiming itself to be the parent system to control it, and this terrible possibility was allowed to continue indefinitely, such a situation would be everywhere. By then, there would no longer be a boundary between life and death.

This kind of development depended entirely on——

“Have to thank your father who sacrificed and dedicated himself to the world.” Song Qinglan spoke without emotion, “Seems like it’s not like he didn’t do anything for you.”

Ji Yushi was stunned.

In fact, ever since waking up and discovering that he was back in Ouroboros, he had never thought of Sheng Yun.

He returned to that day and died once.

After witnessing everything, he seemed to have completely separated the past from the present.

Even if he returned to the cycle, he was no longer the Ji Yushi who was burdened by the past.

Song Qinglan observed the situation outside and saw that their teammates were all approaching them, “This is the current situation. It is best that we can both wait until the black wall comes so that we can return to the capsule together. The problem is that we’re not in the same cycle.”

“It’s not difficult.” Ji Yushi pondered and said, “As long as we ensure that our cycles overlap when completing the mission and we complete the mission just before the paradox occurs, we will be able to go back together.”

Song Qinglan also thought of it, “It indeed isn’t difficult.”

During his encounters with Ji Yushi in these cycles, Song Qinglan was also able to gradually reach the answer.

But he liked to listen to Ji Yushi analyse their situation.

“Then you will have to find me every time before I die.” Song Qinglan said, “Since I’m so eye-catching, it shouldn’t be hard.”

He had said this but there was no reaction behind him.

Song Qinglan looked back. The space next to him was empty. Ji Yushi had disappeared again.

The teammates not far away had also disappeared.

The zombies that had just been killed by them came back to life.

Song Qinglan’s heart felt empty.

He lightly punched the wall and sat down.

Three or four zombies charged towards him from around the corner. He didn’t show any intentions to move.

“Bang, bang, bang!!”

Several gunshot sounds.

A bloody hole was blown through their heads. One by one, they fell to the ground.

The stench of blood filled the air.

A tall and slender figure wearing a black combat uniform appeared from around the corner. His right hand held Diamond Bird and his left hand stretched out.

Song Qinglan raised his arm and held onto that hand.

He borrowed their strength and stood up.

“So fast this time.” He said.

“Yeah.” Ji Yushi replied, “Afraid of making you wait too long.”

Song Qinglan lowered his head and kissed those lips.

Ji Yushi hugged his neck and responded to the kiss.

Gunpowder scattered across the air.

They were each other’s salvation.