Liu Wenzi held the doorknob in one hand and his cup noodles in the other. Staring blankly outside, he took in the scene that was happening.
The sky was scarlet and without a cloud to be seen. Red dust was covering the city in a thin layer of colour, eerily reminding Liu Wenzi of a photoshopped picture. The city had once been white and shining with its new skyscrapers, but now it was dirty.
Huge black shadows could be seen hovering around in the sky and smoky swirls were beginning to rise from all kinds of places.
Screams filled the air. It smelled like rust.
Liu Wenzi exhaled slowly. He looked at his cup noodles - they’d get soggy if he didn’t hurry - and used his foot to keep the door open. He twisted his body to peer over the fence at the side.
Weird crunching and wet noises came from the ground, where a messy-looking person was squatting over a pool of blood. The figure growled and turned to look up at Liu Wenzi. Half its face was missing, one eyeball hanging down. It snarled again.
Liu Wenzi shot a glance in the direction of the stairs and then back at his noodles.
With a shrug, he turned around and finally used his second hand to lift the chopsticks in his noodles. Hungry, he began devouring them.
A growl came from the direction of the stairs. Liu Wenzi looked at the distorted thing crawling towards him. With a blank face, he walked back inside.
“Nope.”
The door fell shut behind him and locked automatically.
Liu Wenzi rolled around in his bed and hummed softly. He had wisely used all of his money when the apocalypse started.
Namely, he had bought every game he could find and made sure to download a lot of ebooks and movies and series. Electricity wasn’t a problem - the facility had a generator.
What a great thing.
What do you need an underground facility for? ...People had said.
What? Why aren’t you doing your research in a normal base? ...People had said.
Why in the world do you need a farm down there? ...People had said.
hjZGjjlnDJGUMZjhMmènSl! ...People were saying. Zombies weren’t great at talking.
Anyway, the idea had been that Liu Wenzi didn’t need to leave the building for his work. Even if an earthquake or… other stuff happened. He could stay here all year.
And now he did! Great.
He didn’t have to go out at all. He still had enough games, movies and series to last a lifetime. He had a generator for electricity, a system that filtered water, a small farm for vegetables and fruits, could produce artificial meat, and due to his job had everything to create common medications.
He was perfectly content.
Liu Wenzi paused his game and, still humming, went to the kitchen as he stretched.
He was getting a bit hungry.
In a good mood, he opened the cupboard and suddenly froze. All joy fell away.
He… had… eaten the last box of cup noodles yesterday…
Liu Wenzii banged his hand against the table, tears brimming in his eyes. With a heart full of hate, he turned his head towards the sky (ceiling) and screamed:
“I curse you, goddamned zombie virus! How dare you make my lose my cup noodles!”
Qi Rong leaned against the ruins of the building and rubbed his tired eyes. His whole group was exhausted, which was no surprise given the huge amount of zombies they had encountered. For some reason, a lot of them had gathered around here. It was suspicious.
“Leader, you eat first”, one of the guys in his team said gently. They were all worried for Qi Rong - he was a fire ability user, which was incredibly useful, and they needed him strong and healthy.
“Thanks”, Qi Rong said, his stomach churning at the sight of the plastic cup. He missed freshly cooked food.
Goods like these were useful. They were filling and easily transportable, didn’t spoil as quickly.
With a deep sigh, Qi Rong opened the top.
“Give…”
The voice was like a call from hell, making them all jump instantly into a stance.
“Giiiiive…”
Not too far away from them, someone seemed to crawl over the ground. Qi Rong relaxed a bit when he noticed the person was alive, but he felt a chill when he saw a pair of blazing black eyes that looked like they wanted to tear him to pieces.
“Give… me… The cup noodles…”
The inhuman snarl was barely understandable.
Shocked, Qi Rong looked at his meal, which was emitting a strong scent. With an understanding gaze, he waved at his team, who lowered their weapons.
The stranger came closer and, when Qi Rong held out the cup, nearly jumped him. In two minutes, the whole meal was devoured.
The stranger was crying. “I… I missed them so much…”
“Are you a civilian? What are you doing out here?” Qi Rong tried to look under the messy hair but failed.
“I don’t remember the last time I saw someone so happy over cup noodles”, a team member laughed softly. “I’m sick and tired of instant food.”
“Huh?” The stranger - Liu Wenzi - looked up and blankly pointed behind him. “Do you want fresh stuff? I’ve got apples, pears, bananas, salad, tomatoes, potatoes… You can take a couple of kilos each. Hey, would you trade against some noodles?”
“So here I’ve got the potatoes… Do you like potatoes?” Liu Wenzi was half singing as he spoke, jumping between the lines of shelves with growing plants. He had a whole box of cup noodles newly added to the room.
Not that it would last long, but Qi Rong had talked about cooperation.
“Uh-huh”, one of the team members said.
“This place is amazing”, Qi Rong said awkwardly, looking around. He had never heard of such a facility but it was incredibly high-tech.
“Yeah, my father bought it for me before he died. He was eccentric”, Liu Wenzi said. He didn’t notice everyone staring at him when he called his father eccentric.
“I see. So you’ve been living here”, Qi Rong said after clearing his throat. He couldn’t help but feel that Liu Wenzi’s name was a bit familiar, but the man looked so unkempt that he couldn’t recognize his face.
“Yup.”
“The zombies can’t come in because the walls are so thick”, another guy guessed.
“Exactly.”
“And because of the automatic weapons”, Qi Rong continued guessing.
“Correct.”
“Cool”, a man dryly said at the side.
“Sooo…” Qi Rong forced a laugh. “Do you think you could turn these ...off?”
Liu Wenzi looked back at the group of people huddled in a corner, lasers pointed at them and three huge, robotic hounds installed with firearms glaring at them.
“Oh yeah, I forgot that they do that”, Liu Wenzi laughed. “Down.”
The lasers and hounds pulled back.
“Sorry. Don’t get many visitors here”, Liu Wenzi said with a soft shrug.
Qi Rong forced another laugh.
Yep. He was sure Liu Wenzi had an eccentric father.
Qi Rong found himself sitting on Liu Wenzi’s bed, his comrades sitting on the floor around him. Liu Wenzi himself was sitting… on a gamer chair.
Qi Rong was usually proud of his ability to read people, but he failed at the weirdo in front of him. Maybe because of the hair covering his face, or because the man was simply too ridiculous.
“I can’t give you the weapons. Most of them are installed anyway and I need them here”, Liu Wenzi said thoughtfully. “But I can build some of them for you if you get me the materials. The simpler ones, anyway.”
Qi Rong’s face twitched. Liu Wenzi was--
Weirdly overpowered.
“That would be great”, he said kindly, trying to be as polite as possible.
“Wait, lemme…” Liu Wenzi mumbled something to himself and shoved some stuff around on his table. Grumbling, he gathered his hair together and tied it into a ponytail.
Suddenly, all quiet murmurs in the room turned quiet.
“What the fuck”, someone said, and the words were exactly what everyone thought.
“Hey, now I know who his father is”, the man who had commented on the potatoes before now said equally dryly.
Liu Wenzi’s gorgeous face was clearly a younger version of the man who had stormed the world with his inventions, gotten filthy rich, and died during an experiment. He was known as the world’s greatest and most handsome weirdo.
That man didn't go in pain. He went laughing in madness.
Qi Rong felt his throat turn tight. “... Ge1Older Brother?”
“Eh?” Liu Wenzi blinked a couple of times and squinted at Qi Rong. Then he snapped his fingers. “I know you! You were that… that… The kid of my old guard! The brat who always said he wanted to marry me!”
The crew’s heads snapped over to face Qi Rong, who slowly lowered his head between his shoulders.
“Huh, that’s cute”, Yang Yu - potato man - said with a mischievous smirk. Liu Wenzi wasn’t talkative… but Liu Wenzi exchanged stuff for cup noodles. Including words. And stories.
Qi Rong wasn’t too far from snapping his comrade’s neck. He was bright red by now, hearing all the stories about his shameful past. He couldn’t be blamed in his opinion, Liu Wenzi was a gorgeous man and an equally beautiful child.
It wasn’t weird that Qi Rong had had a crush on him!
“Yeah, he’d hold my sleeve or stare at me all the time. His dad would have to carry him away.” Liu Wenzi sucked up another fork with noodles. Everyone watched him with great interest. “I remember that his dad died during one of my dad’s missions… Dad put up a painting of him in the hallway in return. Was a bit weird.”
Qi Rong remembered that painting. Originally, it was supposed to be a statue, but his father’s last words had been “Don’t let Sir make a statue of me.” and Liu Wenzi’s father had honoured that wish.
“Ge- ...I mean, Liu Wenzi, thank you for trading with us.” Qi Rong pushed a snickering Yang Yu away and tried to show a cordial smile. “We will definitely leave one of our phones here for you, so we can contact you. It’s a special type.”
“No need”, Liu Wanzi rejected him.
“It’s fine”, Qi Rong said. “It’s worth it. It’s the most ideal way to do this trade.”
“No really, it’s fine”, Liu Wenzi said uncomfortably.
“Hm?” Sensing something was off, Qi Rong tilted his head. Liu Wenzi lifted his hands and held them up in a gesture to keep his distance.
“I hate phones and phonecalls. Don’t give me a phone or I’ll have to answer it. That’s a hassle.”
“I don’t like this thing”, someone of the crew complained quietly, warily staring at the mini robot that very much looked like an overgrown spider with way too many legs, following them around.
“Better than the lasers”, Yang Yu sighed. If they had this thing, they could approach the area without a problem and Liu Wenzi could locate them. It had a tracker.
Everyone had originally planned to stare at their teamleader to make him awkward, but the weird spider thing had gotten all attention - gods, this thing was creepy and oh my god it was coming over here ewwww!!!
Qi Rong ignored his screeching and shrieking comrades and looked at Liu Wenzi, whose head was barely peeking out of the door on the ground. The building had toppled down a long time ago.
“Sorry for intruding and thank you. We can really use the medicine and the food”, Qi Rong said genuinely. “Can we… Can we count on you to help us find a vaccine for the virus?”
“Eh, sure”, Liu Wenzi replied easily. “As long as I can check it out alone. I don’t want others wandering around, stealing my noodles.”
No one is gonna steal your instant food.
… Was what Qi Rong didn’t say.
“I’ll bring a sample back the next time. Some of our scientists have already found information. Same with the DNA of mutated humans.”
“Mutated humans?”
“Those with powers.”
“Powers?”
“Like me.”
“Like you?”
“... How long have you been in this shelter?”
“Since the start.”
“Oh.”
That was… not an issue, actually. Liu Wenzi was probably the safest human on Earth right now.
“Oh, by the way, do you still have that circular pendant my dad gave you?” Liu Wenzi suddenly seemed to think of something and stopped retreating back into his home.
“I do, yes. At home?” Qi Rong could only reply in confusion. The pendant was a gift from one of his birthdays.
“Good to know that. Sorry for being so rude then, husband. I’ll make it up to you next time”, Liu Wenzi said seriously.
Qi Rong’s eyes widened. “W-What did you just say?”
“Well, it does contain a valid document of marriage for the both of us. If it had been destroyed, alright, but since it exists, we’re legally married. Just thought it would be good to know that.” Liu Wenzi reached out a hand to pat Qi Rong’s shoulder. “Okay, I’m gonna go back to my game now. See you.”
With a loud thud, the trapdoor closed, followed by a number of mechanic clicks from the locks.
Qi Rong’s brain needed a moment to process the info. Somewhere behind him, Yang Yu gave off choking sounds from trying to hold back his laughter.
In a panic, Qi Rong tried to pull the door open again.
“Liu Wenzi! Liu Wenzi, goddamnit, come back here and explain!!”
Liu Wang squished his cheeks with a happy smile. His son didn’t react much - already used to the treatment - but the other kid in the room looked like he wanted to cry.
“RongRong, do you like Wenzi?” Liu Wang’s eyes were bright with mischief.
“Like!” Qi Rong sniffled and tried to protect Liu Wenzi with his short, chubby arms. He looked more adorable than anything.
“Then do you want to marry him?”
“Yes!”
“What about you, Wenzi?”
“Eh…” Liu Wenzi blinked tiredly. Marriage sounded like a very troublesome thing.
Qi Rong, tense, tugged at his sleeve. “We… We can eat together!”
… Liu Wenzi never ate with anyone, as his father was always out and about. For Qi Rong, this was a terrible thought, but Liu Wenzi didn’t mind.
… Much more interesting was that Qi Rong’s family always ate stuff that Liu Wenzi had never seen before.
“Okay.”
“Yay!” Qi Rong giggled happily.
Liu Wang nodded seriously. “Perfect. Then here, sign this. Then you’ll be married. I mean, write your name here.”
He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to the two children.
Qi Rong blushed. “I can’t write yet…”
“I’ll show you”, Liu Wang offered ‘kindly’.
He snickered happily as the two kids wrote down their names in uneven letters.
“Sir?” The shout echoed through the hallway and dangerously into the room. Liu Wang flinched and nervously watched the kids finish their words. “Siiiir… Where are youuu…”
“I’m here”, he shouted the moment he had the piece of paper hidden in his pocket.
Almost instantly, a suspicious and dark face looked into the room, scanning the two unharmed children. “What are you doing, Sir?”
“Uh, nothing?” Liu Wang showed an innocent smile.
It only made Qi Yan more suspicious.
Because that damned Liu Wang’s hobby was messing with his own son, and poor RongRong would get caught up in it!
“Don’t look like this. We are family, right? Trust me a bit.” Liu Wang wrapped an arm around Qi Yan and happily chirped the words.
Something about the tone made Qi Yan shudder.
Once Liu Wenzi - who remembered everything - told Qi Rong about the truth of the matter, the team leader was relieved to have left everyone else outside while he had returned into the building.
“This…” Qi Rong rubbed his forehead and mentally lamented his fate.
Behind him, not visible to either of the two young men in the room, Qi Yan had closed his eyes and was taking deep breaths to calm himself.
“Sir…”, he growled, trying not to glare down the equally invisible man who was lying on the floor and laughing out loud.
Liu Wang sat up wheezing and wiped away some tears. After his death, he had stuck to Liu Wenzi’s side and not passed on - his son was way too interesting!
Qi Yan had, surprisingly, also stayed behind and was likewise sticking to his old boss as a loyal employee.
Or maybe he just worried that a ghost-Liu-Wang could still cause a mess on Earth.
“Come on. Isn’t it cute?”, Liu Wang laughed, his beautiful face looking even more ethereal with his obvious joy.
“My poor son”, Qi Yan mumbled. Although he liked Liu Wenzi a lot, it was still that guy’s son.
“So your father… made us sign a marriage certificate when I was just three years old?”, Qi Rong asked with a dumbfounded expression.
“Yep.” Liu Wenzi nodded.
“Hehehe…” Liu Wang snickered again and proudly puffed out his chest. Qi Yan glared at his boss.
“Why in the world would he do such nonsense?!”
Liu Wang was still snickering. It was clear that both Qi Yan and Qi Rong simply thought that Liu Wang was that kind of person, but Liu Wenzi simply shattered that illusion.
He picked up a piece of gum and began chewing on it as he raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t it because Dad had a huge crush on your dad but was too cowardly to do anything, so he mirrored that onto me and made his son marry his crush’s son?”
Qi Rong spit out the water he had just drunk.
Meanwhile, Qi Yan’s head whipped around to look at Liu Wang with a shocked expression. Liu Wang was frozen, his body in a stiff position.
The awkward laugh did nothing to hide the red colour on his cheeks and surprised but guilty expression.
“A...ha...ha…”
Qi Rong looked at the ceiling. For some reason, he had a feeling that in the afterlife, his father would hit his boss for such a stupid reason.
“I’m sorry. I will make sure that it gets invalidated.”
Liu Wenzi looked exhausted. “Won’t that need me to go out and sign stuff? ...Ehh… Let’s just leave it.”
Qi Rong swallowed a “no, marriage documents aren’t that important anymore” and simply nodded in understanding. “Well, alright.”
Why?
Because… it was a great excuse to get away from the annoying women trying to seduce him. If he said he was married, then that was ideal.
Surely that was what it was.
Liu Wenzi’s dark eyes were sparkling under the sun (fluorescent) light and his neat (messy) hair framed his white (okay, this is buullshit, he’s just pale) skin.
He looked like a beautiful noble (no, he’s just a shut-in).
Qi Rong pushed down the ridiculous (honest) thoughts and smiled.
“So… take care of me?”
“Likewise”, said Liu Wenzi, very much meaning exactly that. Where else was he supposed to get his cup noodles from?
Liu Wang needed to swallow a single time before his handsome face was back to its usual mischievous expression.
“Geez. That brat sure is imaginative.”
Qi Yan stared at him with squinted eyes.
“Come on, you know you’re my good brother? I simply thought it would be funny if my son lost his blank face when he’d have grown up and realized he was married. I mean, it failed, but it was worth a try.” Liu Wang shrugged and followed after Liu Wenzi, who - once again - led Qi Rong to the surface.
Qi Yan walked behind Liu Wang wordlessly, too close for comfort, and continued to stare with squinting eyes.
Everything about his expression screamed disbelief.
Liu Wang breathed in deeply and steadied his face. He shot his subordinate a pretty smile. “Seriously. There’s no way I’d have those feelings for you.”
Qi Yan’s eyes narrowed further.
He slammed his hand against the wall, stopping Liu Wang from going forward, and encasing him.
Liu Wang froze. He tilted his head up at the slightly scruffy, manly face right in front of his.
He… He… He was in his mid-thirties (kinda)!!! He was too old to be wall-slammed!!!
“Oh?”, Qi Yan said in a low and husky voice that made Liu Wang tremble. He leaned in further, enough for their breaths to mingle. “Repeat those words again, won’t you?”
… Liu Wang squeaked.
The zombies burned with terrifying shrieks. Qi Rong breathed heavily, feeling the drain of using his powers. Behind him, the rest of the team looked relieved.
“Damn, this place attracts zombies like flies”, Yang Yu cursed unhappily. “It’s cause they can smell Liu Wnezi being here, can’t they?”
“Probably”, Qi Rong said worriedly. “It’s good he’s underground. He probably wouldn’t be able to survive out here on his own.”
Everyone nodded at those words. Liu Wenzi, the shut-in, would only suffer in the apocalypse. It was good that the survivor’s capital decided to work together with him.
They kept on walking into the direction of the facility, the creepy spider thing in front of them. Soon enough, they noticed that everything was quiet.
“Did the number of zombie corpses here increase…?”
A bit closer, everyone was surprised to see Liu Wenzi, sitting on a piece of concrete, surrounded by a mountain of corpses.
At his feet were a couple of firearms and a long sword that looked… basically like straight out of a game.
“Did you bring food?”, Liu Wenzi asked before everything else, his eyes glued to the boxes the group carried.
“We did”, Qi Rong said, a bit distracted. “You… You killed all these?”
Liu Wenzi tore his eyes off the boxes and patted Qi Rong’s shoulder. “Dear husband… Don’t underestimate me. I survived my dad.”
Qi Rong remembered the ridiculous man who liked camping in rainforests, exploring active volcanoes and going deep-sea diving without correct equipment.
For some reason, that explanation sounded surprisingly feasible.
Qi Rong felt surprisingly happy being married.
For one, he indeed had a great shield to avoid flirts in the city and he also wasn’t invited to orgies and the like anymore.
Then was the fact that his husband’s status gave him additional boost, as the city went wild over having the cooperation of Liu Wenzi who - as he found out now - had a facility on his own because he was called the greatest scientist of at least the past centuries.
Lastly was that his husband was such a beauty. He was also uncomplicated.
The team slept in another room, but Qi Rong was allowed to share one with Liu Wenzi. His heart was beating quickly - theirs was a very unusual relationship and he wasn’t sure how to proceed.
Liu Wenzi was very much to his liking, both in character and appearance, so he wasn’t worried about cultivating feelings. He was, however, worried about how Liu Wenzi wanted their relationship to go.
He had such an unreadable face!
Liu Wenzi watched Qi Rong pacing around nervously. The whole day he had treated Liu Wenzi not quite as an equal spouse, but more of a wife.
Liu Wenzi thought it was hilarious. The guy was so nervous, it was pretty adorable. He had a good idea of what was going on in that one’s mind.
He let it happen. It didn’t bother him and was a great amusement.
Especially because Qi Rong, who seemed to think of Liu Wenzi as a weak person who only survived thanks to his tools, had overlooked a couple of crucial points.
Firearms were heavy on long term. Swinging a sword was also hard. Staying thin and trained in an underground facility you never left also meant you somehow burned calories.
… The training room that the team had not found yet stayed behind a closed door.
Liu Wenzi was really looking forward to Qi Rong trying to push him down.
Ultimately, Liu Wenzi had to admit he had more of his father’s mischief than he liked.
Liu Wang watched his son’s smirk with a proud expression. If Liu Wenzi became more mischievous, that would be so much fun to watch!
“He sure is similar to you”, Qi Yan’s dark voice said right next to Liu Wang’s ear.
The pretty man shuddered and tried to dart forward, but a muscular arm surrounded his waist and easily dragged him back. Like a wet puppy, Liu Wang looked up at Qi Yan’s emotionless face. Only the sparkle in his eyes revealed that the bodyguard felt a lot of Schadenfreude.
And why wouldn’t he?
That boss of his had basically tortured him with his nonsense when he was still alive. Now they were dead, and it was time for the roles to switch.
Qi Yan knew that Liu Wenzi’s mother had been purely a sort of surrogate to Liu Wang, who wanted a son but no marriage. He himself had long gotten past the divorce with his own wife. The thought of dating a man was a bit weird in general, but Liu Wang was an androgynous sort of beauty that was feminine enough for it to be acceptable for Qi Yan.
That was the physical part anyway.
As for the emotional one…
What kind of bodyguard would go along with Liu Wang’s nonsense for all those years, no matter how high the pay?
But if Liu Wang knew that, he’d have a sort of leverage again, and Qi Yan enjoyed seeing his boss so at a loss on how to defend himself.
It could stay a while like this.
Seeing as it was evening, Qi Yan comfortably picked up a squealing Liu Wang and dragged him out of the room.
Their sons needed their private time now.
Too funny XD
I love your stories