Chapter 52: Do you know what these hands are meant to do?

"Ququ, are you still coming tomorrow?" The little chubby boy grabbed the doorframe with both hands, his face full of reluctance, while the other little kids nodded in unanimous agreement.

Qu Qu lied without changing his expression, "I'll come as soon as the snow stops."

The little chubby boy was delighted, waving foolishly, "Bye-bye Ququ, bye-bye Yanyan."

The snow had not stopped yet. Qu Qu reached out, and a snowflake with a very regular shape quickly landed on his palm. He turned to look at Yan Zhuo, "It looks like the little chubby boy really likes you."

Yan Zhuo adjusted his scarf to make sure no wind could get in. His voice was slightly husky due to his leaning posture, "Mhm, he's a chatterbox."

Qu Qu chuckled, "True, after all, he's a child raised by Song Chengfeng."

Yan Zhuo's hands were remarkably handsome, with slender finger bones and evenly proportioned flesh. Qu Qu had witnessed with his own eyes Yan Zhuo using these very hands to tear zombies to pieces, yet at this moment, these same hands were gentle, brushing past the soft black scarf like a lingering kiss.

He caught one of Yan Zhuo's fingers, "Do you remember Yang Tan?"

Yan Zhuo thought for a moment, "Her ability is flight?"

Qu Qu nodded, "Two years ago, her ability went out of control to protect me, and she fell into a coma after taking me out."

They stopped under a wide eaves, with snowflakes dancing behind Yan Zhuo, like countless shooting stars striking his shoulders. He maintained his leaning posture, only the tight lines of his face revealing a hint of resistance.

Clutching Yan Zhuo's hand a bit tighter, Qu Qu continued, "Wu Lang, the boss of Yuueshan—you just saw him, so you should already know. We ran into him on our way to City G. His true identity isn't some fitness coach; he's a mercenary."

"One of his subordinates possesses a healing ability with a sixty percent chance of curing Yang Tan, but it will take a long time. This is one of the reasons I stayed in Yuueshan. There is another reason. Give me a little more time, okay?"

Yan Zhuo's eyelashes drooped slightly, "Is A-Yan sure he wants to tell me all this?"

Qu Qu's eyes, reflecting the snow, were very clear, "Things always need to be explained clearly."

He did not want Yan Zhuo to belittle himself like he did today.

The accumulated snow on the eaves fell in rustling clumps. Yan Zhuo moved his somewhat stiff jaw, "A-Yan, do you want to know the reason why I became the way I am now?"

Qu Qu was slightly startled. He saw a snowflake land on the bridge of Yan Zhuo's nose, quickly melting into a trickle of water. He gently wiped it away with the pad of his thumb and replied, "Because of Yan Xingzhang."

Yan Zhuo's expression showed no surprise, "Mhm, you're so smart, you probably guessed it long ago."

"Before I was seven, I was raised together with dogs. Only after seven did I barely begin to live the life of a normal person, but I still had to take a lot of medicine every day, and be injected with a tube of serum every three days. Wen Xi is just like me; although on the surface she's his experimental assistant, in reality she was merely another subject of his human experiments."

The operating table on the second floor of Yan Xingzhang's villa resurfaced in his mind. There was no need to doubt it anymore—all of Qu Qu's guesses were confirmed. Yan Zhuo had truly lain upon it.

"On the eve of the college entrance exams, the frequency of the injections changed from once every three days to three times a day, until one night I completely lost consciousness." Yan Zhuo's voice grew lower and lower, his expression gloomy, "I was trapped in a sealed space, unable to see or hear anything. The only thing I could feel was pain, as if my body was torn apart countless times and then reassembled..."

"Stop talking." Qu Qu interrupted him, leaning forward to press his forehead against Yan Zhuo's, "If there are only painful memories, then don't talk about them."

Yan Zhuo shook his head, "Physical pain is secondary. What caused me the most pain was that I thought I had become a normal person, but Yan Xingzhang made me realize with crystal clarity that I was nothing more than a test subject, a monster that could hardly be considered human, someone who might go mad and hurt the people around him at any moment. Someone like me... how could I ever be worthy of you?"

His words were filled with self-loathing. Qu Qu listened in a daze. The eaves could only block the snow, and the cold wind seeped into every corner of his body, but he had no heart to care. Suddenly, he remembered what Wen Xi had once told him: "That is a very painful memory for Yan Zhuo. He probably won't tell you. When facing the person one loves, one always wants to retain a shred of dignity."

Laying bare all his secrets, exposing them completely—what kind of feelings must the current Yan Zhuo have harbored while speaking those words?

His heart felt as though it had been gripped, sending sharp waves of pain radiating from the deepest part of his chest. Qu Qu's throat was dry, and he spoke with difficulty, "Don't say that."

"Is A-Yan heartbroken?" Yan Zhuo's eyes were somewhat red, his lips trembling. "If you pity me because of these words, then you've fallen into my trap. This is just my lowly means to make A-Yan feel sorry for me."

He stood up, the hem of his exquisitely textured trench coat swaying in a gorgeous arc. "Yuueshan is A-Yan's responsibility. As for me... will A-Yan like me a little more out of pity?"

"I..."

Before he could even utter a single syllable, his lips were blocked by a finger.

"A-Yan needs to think carefully before answering." He looked down at Qu Qu from above, "A monster like me, if abandoned once more, will go mad."

The lips touched by the fingertips were soft and warm, and the color of Yan Zhuo's eyes deepened. "Mere partiality cannot satisfy me. I am very greedy, and I want a great deal more."

A gentle kiss unexpectedly fell upon his finger. Yan Zhuo's figure paused slightly, and he heard Qu Qu say in an indulgent tone, "How much is enough to brand my whole body with your mark? You've already accomplished that."

He gently pulled down his collar, revealing the mottled hickeys on his neck. Not just here, but his waist, chest, and the inner thighs were similarly covered in flushed, ambiguous marks that had yet to fade.

Qu Qu tilted his head up and emphasized once more, "Only you, Yan Zhuo."

Yan Zhuo's thoughts plunged into sudden chaos; it seemed he was always destined to be defeated when facing Qu Qu.

"Several ability users from Yuueshan went missing, and Wu Lang's people followed the clues all the way to the Yefeng Research Institute. We suspect that the Yefeng Research Institute is using ability users for experiments, and furthermore... the scientist rumored to be hidden within the Yefeng Research Institute is most likely Yan Xingzhang." He spoke in a flat tone, leisurely explaining, "Wen Xi seems to have investigated this long ago. This cooperation was reached privately between her and Wu Lang, with the sole purpose of luring the people from the Yefeng Research Institute here."

He gripped Yan Zhuo's wrist and shook it gently, coaxing him, "How about I help you kill Yan Xingzhang? Such beautiful hands shouldn't touch filthy things."

He met Yan Zhuo's gaze, poked out the tip of his tongue, and licked the corner of his mouth, "Do you know what these hands should do the most?"

He shouldn't have followed up on the prompt. His mind was still relatively clear, yet his body refused to obey. "What?"

Qu Qu led his hand to his chest, slowly sliding it down in an immensely seductive posture, "Caress me, tease me, give me pleasure."

He uttered these face-flushing words with a calm expression, as if he were doing something completely ordinary.

Beneath his palm was clearly thick, soft clothing, yet Yan Zhuo felt as though he had truly touched smooth, bare skin.

As if scalded, he abruptly withdrew his hand.

The corners of Qu Qu's lips lifted slightly. Although two years had passed and the little wolf had grown much fiercer, he was still just as easy to coax as before.

His ears would still turn red when he was teased.

The wheelchair rounded the corner, and the wishing bottles hanging on the trees tinkled incessantly. A motionless figure stood beneath the street lamp, looking as though he had been frozen stiff, with colorful children's fairy tale books scattered all over the ground at his feet.

As they drew closer, they could see that this person was Song Chengfeng. Qu Qu frowned and called out his name.

As if a switch had been flipped, Song Chengfeng snapped out of his trance, his eyes revealing wild joy as he grabbed Qu Qu's forearm, speaking in an excited tone, "I saw it!"

He muttered the same phrase over and over, gripping Qu Qu's hand tighter and tighter.

Yan Zhuo stepped forward and dragged him away, "What did you see?"

"I saw it! It was definitely her, I found her!" Song Chengfeng took a step back and then turned to run away, leaving the fairy tale books he had worked so hard to find scattered in the snow, some even trampled by his own feet.