Extra 1 - Celebrating Mid-Autumn: A Wave of Silver Light Reflects the Passing of Years

"Major, you're blushing. Haven't you ever showered with a soldier before?"

"Calling Attenborough Squad, calling Attenborough Squad."

"Attenborough, please reply if heard!"

"Attenborough, if there are any more survivors here, please answer, please answer."

"Don't... ruins... don't enter..."

A flare lit up the glittering night sky. In a downpour, thousands of zombies crowded outside the factory ruins, roaring. A helicopter with a rope ladder arrived. Guan Yue wore infrared sunglasses as he jerked the control stick.  

The helicopter roared down to the ground. Guan Yue jumped out of the cabin and fell onto the parking platform atop the factory ruins. He landed and rolled to take refuge in the corner as he fired several shots, accurately hitting and causing the corpses on the roof to explode.  

Tianhe was trapped under by concrete slabs as he laid on the ruins of the basement. His whole head and body were covered with blood. 

The raindrops dripped down into the basement. Ten meters away from him was a zombie that was also trapped. The zombie repeatedly struggled to free themselves...

The red light of the communicator flashed two meters away from him. The sound of a deep voice mixed with the rain and thunder accompanied by the sound of firearms rang out. 

"Do not enter the ruins," Tianhe said quietly, "Attenborough Squad has been totally wiped out... repeating, completely wiped out, over!" 

The sound of an explosion suddenly reverberated, and debris fell from the ceiling, followed by a sudden burst of gunfire. Guan Yue kicked open the iron door and bit at a grenade pin, pulling it out to activate the grenade. Then, he went to the basement and threw it with his backhand. 

Tianhe felt as if his eardrums were about to be shattered. He was immediately blinded by the light from a flashlight.

The world seemed to quiet down as Guan Yue took out his flashlight. There seemed to be only the sound of water left in the world. 

"You're the only one left?" Guan Yue asked. 

Tianhe was immersed in the water. He said exhaustedly, "Isn't someone else supposed to come rescue?"

With the sound of footsteps, Guan Yue stepped forward. He put down his equipment and began to pry at the cement board with a steel bar as he knelt on one knee. Tianhe let out a painful groan. Guan Yue supported the cement board on his shoulder and dragged him out from the bottom. 

"What's wrong with you?" Guan Yue asked. 

"My whole body hurts, you shouldn't have come to save me."

Guan Yue took Tianhe's arm and looped it over his shoulder, dragging him out. 

"Sacrifice oneself for others," Guan Yue said, "sublime faith." 

"What can I do?" Tianhe said. "Only wait for the ground to explode..."

Soon after, there was a "peng" sound. Guan Yue had shot and killed the zombie on the other side of the basement, startling Tianhe.

"Don't suddenly scare me like that!" Tianhe said, annoyed. 

The both of their bodies were wet and they were in great distress. However, Tianhe could still feel the burning body temperature of the Special Forces officer around him. Through their uniforms, he was passing heat to him. 

He thought he saw Guan Yue smile.  

As the downpour lessened a bit, Guan Yue took Tianhe and led him away from the abandoned factory. 

"How come there's only you in your squad?" Tianhe said. 

"Because I'm on vacation," Guan Yue answered. 

Tianhe, "...."

As they struggled along the muddy road, Guan Yue stopped and looked at the other end of the mountain. 

"Now listen, Wen Tianhe. Your name is Wen Tianhe. You're a mechanic, aren't you?" Guan Yue lowered his head and said, his breathing became heavy.

Tianhe turned to face him. They looked at each other. Suddenly, Tianhe felt that the man in front of him was somewhat familiar-looking, as if he had seen him somewhere before. A cold face, heroic facial features, and brows as sharp as blades. 

Guan Yue took off his infrared sunglasses and gazed at Tianhe. 

"Later on, you'll go down the foot of the mountain. There is a mountain crossing tunnel. There may not be any zombies there, it all depends on your luck..."

"Wait," Tianhe said, "you want me to run away by myself?"

"After you leave the tunnel, keep walking forward. There should be a food station five kilometers away. There will be communicators inside, use them to send a signal to the rescue base..."

"What's your name?" Tianhe said, "Are you alright? Hey! Wait!"

His voice trailed off as he staggered, falling into the mud. Tianhe knelt down beside Guan Yue and turned him over. He untied his cross-country jacket and looked at his arm. Thunder flashed across the sky. There was a purple-black bite mark on his shoulder. 

The sound of rain died down. Three hours later. 

Tianhe opened the door of the rescue station sideways and flipped on the electric switches. The sound of "hum-- hum--" was incessant and the dim light in the rescue station was turned on. 

He laid Guan Yue flat on the ground and took off his military coat and boots, checking to see if his body had any other bite marks. 

He looked at the chains and metal plates on Guan Yue's collar: Special Forces "Yingyue", Major, Guan Yue.

Tianhe suddenly remembered! It's him! One day when the mechanics were training, he saw Guan Yue at the edge of the field. He was training another team and had looked at them from a distance for a while. 

"Guan Yue?" Tianhe wiped his bloodstained, muddy face with a wet cloth. As he patted his face, he whispered, "You'll be alright."

Tianhe opened the medical box. He bit the electronic needle tube and cleaned Guan Yue's wound with a suture medicine. He had injected three kinds of serum into him. 

Guan Yue's ECG was a straight line on the medical instrument. 

Tianhe threw the equipment aside and knelt down. He listened to his heartbeat and then began to perform CPR on him. 

In the darkness, Guan Yue saw a little light. In the endless night, spring, summer, autumn, and winter rotated. Snowflakes fell and meteors crossed. 

"You're not like anyone else, because..."

The snowflakes flew all over the sky and turned into pages flying on the river, like a loud concerto. 

Guan Yue suddenly opened his eyes and got up, kissing Tianhe's lips carelessly. 

Tianhe let out a sigh of relief and leaned on the wall. He looked at Guan Yue helplessly and started laughing. 

Guan Yue's wheezing became more and more severe, he felt as if his head was about to crack open. He looked at Tianhe and then at the medicines scattered all over the ground. 

"The third serum?" Guan Yue asked. 

"The last one found in the factory," Tianhe said, "just right."

Guan Yue slowly sat up. Tianhe laughed, "I remembered. You're Instructor Jiang Zijian's colleague. I saw you on the other side of the field when we were training." 

Guan Yue glanced at Tianhe and then said, "So there was no error in the report. There really is a formula for the third phase serum in the factory research room."

Tianhe said, "Yes, the teammates have successfully taken the serum away."

"You were left behind to hide their departure, then detonate manually."

 "It's very calculative," Tianhe said. "As long as the third phase of the serum can be produced, everything can go back to normal. Isn't that good?"

"It doesn't matter even if dawn is around the corner and you can't see it?"

"It doesn't matter," Tianhe faintly said, getting up to pack things. "As long as you know that dawn is coming."

Guan Yue also got up. The two men were drenched. Tianhe was undressing himself on the side, whilst Guan Yue was inspecting the room, and then perceiving that this was a rescue station.

"Thank you for coming to my rescue," Tianhe said again. "Why did you come?"

"Because it's near." Guan Yue stooped to pick up his cross-country jacket and hung it aside to dry.

"Really?" Tianhe asked suspiciously. "Where did you come from?

Guan Yue didn't answer, avoiding Tianhe's gaze.

Tianhe, "I couldn't carry all your weapons, so I had to throw some down the road."

Guan Yue, "The biggest mistake of a mechanic is being unarmed and defenseless. If you couldn't save me, you'll die as well."

"It doesn't matter if I would have died too." Tianhe smiled. "When I was carrying you through the tunnel, in case you had an early seizure and couldn't make it in time, I thought it would be nice to be bitten to death by you."

Guan Yue turned on the communicator. The rescue base had yet to respond.

"Wen Tianhe?" Guan Yue asked, when he didn't hear any movement for quite awhile. "Where are you?"

Tianhe pressed a couple push buttons in a room, turned the faucet, and then looked at the water pressure gauge.

"I'd like to take a bath," Tianhe said, "but there's not enough stored water."

Guan Yue went in to have a look. Tianhe added, "There's only enough to wash once."

"Enough for you to wash then," Guan Yue said.

"You too," Tianhe said. "We can bath together."

Guan Yue, "......"

Tianhe, "?"

The mist rose in the tiny single bathroom, and Guan Yue could only press half of his body against the glass as Tianhe scrubbed his body that was covered with bloodstains and sludge.

"What?" Tianhe spoke. "Major, you're blushing. Haven't you ever showered with a soldier before?"

Guan Yue, "Mechanic, have all of you never been beaten up by your instructor?"

Tianhe, "Instructor Jiang is very nice, he never hits anyone. He even often helps us rub our backs. Uh...... Are you single, Major? Looking at your body, it seems like you've been single for quite a long time."

Guan Yue unexpectedly simply "hmm'd" and didn't counterattack Tianhe again.

After showering, Tianhe and Guan Yue each went out shirtless. They placed their clothes in the machine to dry and then had a simple meal. Tianhe kept trying to communicate with the rescue base and sent out SOS signals.

Guan Yue, on the other hand, only sat lazily, gazing at Tianhe's pretty, fair back.

"No response," Tianhe said helplessly, restlessly opening the drawer and closing it again, flipping out a Tchaikovsky album that might have been left behind by the last troop guarding this abandoned rescue station.

"They've already developed the serum," Guan Yue said, "and will probably leave us hanging out here for months on end with no time to spare."

"Once all the food has been consumed, you can use me as the food," Tianhe said. "My meat should taste better than yours, you have muscles, it'll be too hard for me to chew."

Guan Yue, "That's settled then. Don't contact them again, the electric current sound is annoyingly loud. Let's listen to the music."

Tianhe stuffed the CD into the player, and within moments, soft music began to play.

"Major, before you came to my rescue," Tianhe angled himself in the swivel chair toward Guan Yue, "where were you?"

"Told you. I was on vacation." Guan Yue faced Tianhe. "Is this important?"

"Vacation, where?" Tianhe asked. "Is there a vacation spot in the vicinity?"

" At the 23rd District," Guan Yue said.

Tianhe, "So you traveled halfway across the earth to come rescue me from the factory."

"You're welcome." Guan Yue politely said, "I even drove a helicopter that I stole from the fifth military base. I'll have to pay them back for it with my retirement pension."

Guan Yue got up amidst the music and headed to the window, as a subtle noise caught his attention.

Tianhe asked, "Major, has the rain stopped? It seems like it."

Guan Yue looked out of the window. The rain had indeed stopped. The dark clouds dispersed, presenting the full moon of the Mid-Autumn night on the horizon.

From all sides of the wilderness, however, nearly a hundred thousand zombies had gathered and were headed toward the rescue station, their footsteps making a slight noise as they stepped into the water.

Guan Yue turned his head and looked at Tianhe. 

Tianhe raised his brows at Guan Yue inquiringly; he soon immediately realized what was going on, then his expression turned grave.

Guan Yue closed the curtains casually, looked at Tianhe for a moment, and then asked, "Wen Tianhe, have you ever learned to dance?"

Tianhe looked a little lost, then smiled. "A little bit."

"Then, how about a dance?" Guan Yue asked seriously.

"Sure," said Tianhe. "There's nothing to do here anyway."

Guan Yue reached out and pulled Tianhe up amidst the soft and fine music from the record player. Outside the rescue station, the dark mass of zombies were approaching this lonely place.

Everything in heaven and earth were far away from them, with only the music hovering in a new world. Guan Yue put his strong hand on Tianhe's waist, then whispered, "Did you notice me that day too?"

"Which day?" Tianhe then understood and said softly, "Yes, that day you were standing behind our instructor with gloves on and no hat...."

Guan Yue, "Then why didn't you recognise me earlier?"

Tianhe cooperated with Guan Yue's steps and said, "Can't quite believe that you'd actually come to my rescue. Anyone here, you probably would have......"

The zombies approached, surging towards the entrance of the rescue station, overpowering the barbed wire, climbing up the walls from all sides, and issuing stuffy roars.

But even when the heaven rends asunder and the earth cracks, the music flowed on, and the dance steps that stepped across life and death continued, as they crossed over the river of great consequence and the sprawling space of time.

"You're not like anyone," Guan Yue said in a low voice.

"Attention, Yingyue, Attenborough一! This is Major Jiang Zijian. Rescue is already on the way. Launch pinpoint strike! Over!"

"Attention, Yingyue, Attenborough! This is Tong Kai of the Aviation Force."

The comms blared, and in the sound of symphonic music, several jet planes whiffed with tailing flames, shooting missiles, and the roof of the rescue station was then lifted off.

Guan Yue abruptly hugged Wen Tianhe tightly, and together, they looked up quietly at the night sky.

As if fireworks bloomed, the earth, with the rescue station at its center, exploded, creating a shock wave and spreading above them as a silver moon appeared, shining brightly on the earth.

Guan Yue cradled Tianhe in his embrace, lowered his head, and kissed him.

Contributors

Joyce

Chicken Gege

wth

yummers

Mariabel

PM87