AYLS -Chapter 155

Although Gu Huayuan had returned to the team, he hadn’t been assigned any missions yet. After all, he had been working in logistics for a few months, and he worried that his skills might have gotten rusty. So he trained with everyone every day, strengthening his individual combat ability and guiding the soldiers during their drills.

For the first few days, it was all physical training. Lin Qiao spent every day on edge, and every night before sleeping, she would ask Gu Huayuan whether he’d gotten injured.

And after hearing his answer, she still had to check him over from head to toe before she could relax.

“Could it be that we were wrong, and it really has given up?”

Gu Huayuan chuckled. “No rush. Someone else is more anxious than we are. We just need to wait.”

Lin Qiao said, “I am anxious. Every day I’m thinking about what it’s going to pull next. Isn’t it stupid? If it wants me unhappy, couldn’t it just hurt me or something?”

Gu Huayuan pinched her cheek. “Of course not—because it knows you care about me more.”

Lin Qiao froze for a second, then shyly pinched him. “Nonsense. I don’t.”

Gu Huayuan laughed. “Comrade Xiao Qiao, be loyal to your heart.”

“…I’m going to sleep.” Lin Qiao turned over and lay down.

Gu Huayuan leaned over and wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t resist, but her heart was pounding. She always felt that Gu Huayuan seemed to know more than he let on.

For example—did he know that she would eventually return to her own world?

But he never said anything. Maybe he hadn’t figured it out yet?

Lin Qiao felt quite pressured. She just wanted to deal with the fat cat as soon as possible.

After half a month of physical training, Gu Huayuan finally moved on to weapons training.

He had always known that ordinary physical training wasn’t enough to satisfy that parasite’s appetite.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Whether they could catch that parasite or not depended on this one attempt.

…

Lin Qiao had been uneasy the whole time, occasionally chatting with Fat Cat.

Fat Cat was even more distracted than she was, only replying once in a while.

Suddenly, Lin Qiao asked, “Fat Cat, do you think it’d be good if I stayed here for a few more years?”

Fat Cat replied, “Haven’t you always wanted to leave?”

“It’s just… I think this place is pretty nice. I want to do more things for everyone here.”

Fat Cat rolled its eyes. “Who are you trying to fool? Don’t think I don’t know. But if you want to stay, then stay.”

Anyway, you’ll definitely never finish your mission and you can’t go back. Makes no difference.

Suddenly, Fat Cat stopped responding entirely — it blocked Lin Qiao.

Lin Qiao: “…”

Her heart tightened. She felt a strange sense of foreboding, so much so that she couldn’t even keep working. She rushed outside.

Su Weizhen was working with her big belly sticking out. Seeing Lin Qiao so panicked, she quickly stopped her. “What’s wrong?”

Lin Qiao was so anxious her breathing was heavy. “Zhenzhen, I—I feel like something happened to Gu Huayuan.”

Su Weizhen’s heart skipped a beat. “Impossible, nothing would happen at this time.”

“It’s real, I really have a premonition. I have to go see.” Lin Qiao could never explain this to Su Weizhen, but she felt that something had happened to him — and this time the injury would be worse than ever.

He might even… not make it.

The more she thought about it, the more terrified she felt.

Seeing her like this made Su Weizhen uneasy as well.

After all, Gu Huayuan did have a tragic end in the original timeline. Maybe her appearance changed some events and caused things to happen earlier?

“Don’t panic. Let’s go find Xu Yuanzheng. You can’t just go straight to the training grounds.”

Lin Qiao nodded frantically. “Okay.”

They had barely walked far when Xu Yuanzheng rushed toward them. Seeing him didn’t ease their minds — in fact, it only made things heavier. Especially for Su Weizhen; in her previous life, Xu Yuanzheng was the one who delivered the bad news.

“Xu Yuanzheng, did something happen to my Huayuan?”

Xu Yuanzheng looked serious. “Don’t ask anything yet, don’t say anything. I’m taking you to him. Gu Huayuan said, the thing you two agreed on — you haven’t forgotten, right?”

Lin Qiao nodded. “No, I remember.”

Don’t be sad. Don’t break down.

Otherwise all of Gu Huayuan’s effort would be wasted.

Think of happy things. Yesterday he had told her so many sweet things.

These past few days, just to cheer her up, he had swallowed so much pride and said many things he would never normally say.

He even agreed to let her call him by a nickname.

She forced a smile on her face.

Seeing her like this, Su Weizhen felt distressed, but also forced a smile. “Look at how calm my Old Xu is — clearly everything’s fine, right Old Xu?”

Xu Yuanzheng grunted, “Let’s go.”

He didn’t take them to the hospital immediately but brought them to his office to sit and drink tea while waiting for news.

Lin Qiao asked, “Didn’t you say we were going to find Gu Huayuan?”

Xu Yuanzheng checked his watch. “Wait a little longer.”

Lin Qiao was about to question him when Fat Cat suddenly appeared — completely limp, sprawled on the floor like a pile of mush.

Seeing where Lin Qiao was, it opened one eye, struggling even to lift its eyelids.

It clearly had no strength left.

Lin Qiao’s heart instantly chilled, but she forced herself to think only happy thoughts. Before Fat Cat could speak, she directly blocked it, afraid it would affect her mood. So she didn’t hear its muttering:

“Too cruel… that native is such a dog…”

As she continued recalling the 108th sweet sentence Gu Huayuan had said to her, Xu Yuanzheng’s office phone rang.

After answering, he exhaled deeply, then stood up. “Let’s go. We’re going to find Gu Huayuan.”

Lin Qiao and Su Weizhen followed quickly.

Lin Qiao asked nervously, “Nothing happened, right? Right?”

Xu Yuanzheng replied, “Actually, I don’t know either. I’m just following the plan Huayuan arranged earlier. The specifics… I don’t know.”

Su Weizhen: “…” So you know nothing at all.

Xu Yuanzheng drove his three-wheeler with the two of them straight toward the hospital.

Recognizing the familiar road, Lin Qiao tensed up again and shut her eyes, continuing to recall those 108 lines of love.

At the hospital, she followed them blankly to a ward. The soldier at the door greeted her as sister-in-law and let her in. “Go see the Captain. Our Captain… seriously… not very lucky this time.”

Though also lucky in some ways.

Inside, Gu Huayuan lay in bed, his upper body wrapped entirely in bandages. The moment Lin Qiao saw him, she nearly burst into tears, but held it back with all her strength.

Her voice trembled. “Gu Huayuan…”

He opened his eyes and smiled at her. “You’re here.”

“…”

“You…”

“Remember what we said before? When you feel sad…”

Lin Qiao couldn’t care anymore — she rushed over and kissed him. After that, she asked, “Does it hurt?”

Ignoring the question, Gu Huayuan asked, “How is it?”

“It’s like a pile of mush.”

Gu Huayuan gave a small laugh.

“You’re still laughing? You ended up like this. If I had known, I would never have agreed to it. It’s too dangerous. It must hurt so much. Just looking at you hurts.”

His pale lips moved slightly. “Even if you didn’t agree, I would’ve done it.”

“My Xiao Qiao can’t be bullied by a parasite.”

Lin Qiao’s heart melted instantly. “Actually… it didn’t bully me that much. I’m pretty strong.”

“Not acceptable,” Gu Huayuan said firmly.

Lin Qiao: “…”

Seeing Lin Qiao’s touched expression, Gu Huayuan chuckled. “I lied. I said it for myself. I don’t want to be bullied by a worm.”

“You’re awful!” Lin Qiao said in shy annoyance.

With Gu Huayuan interrupting like that, she actually forgot to feel sad and heartbroken.

He knew she was like this—her mind only ever held one thing at a time, she couldn’t multitask.

“Xiao Qiao.”

“Mm?”

“This time I made such a huge sacrifice. Could you… maybe consider agreeing to a request from me, seeing how badly I’m hurt?”

Lin Qiao asked, “What request?”

“I haven’t thought of it yet. Just reserving it first.”

If it were any other time, Lin Qiao would’ve definitely pressed him for details. But looking at his current state, her heart softened completely. “Okay.”

Gu Huayuan smiled. He didn’t know whether, if he asked her to stay by his side for a lifetime, she would actually agree.

But he still wanted to save that hope. If a lifetime wasn’t possible, then ten years. A year. A month. Or even one day.

As long as when the time came for her to leave, he could bring it up and fight for just a bit more time with her, he’d be content.

Ever since he learned about the worm’s existence, he understood—Xiao Qiao wanted to go back.

The way the worm interacted with her made it obvious. It couldn’t control her, yet she had never thought of resisting it before. If the worm hadn’t attacked him this time, she probably still wouldn’t have thought of resisting.

Which meant this worm had something Xiao Qiao needed.

The worm brought her here, so perhaps once certain conditions were met, it could take her back as well.

So deep down, she wanted to return.

She never once considered staying for herself.

But he wasn’t in a hurry anymore. Traveling between worlds couldn’t possibly be simple.

And now that the worm’s energy was depleted, he still had plenty of time to fight for her.

Gu Huayuan didn’t think Xiao Qiao didn’t love him.

Love and the desire to return home—these weren’t contradictory.

For example, if he were asked to go to a completely foreign world, it would mean abandoning the beliefs and ideals he had upheld for so many years. Even for love, he couldn’t give up the motherland he fought and lived for.

Outside the room, Su Weizhen and Xu Yuanzheng had just heard from the scouts what happened during Gu Huayuan’s training.

The commotion had been huge.

Saying his life had been in danger wasn’t even an exaggeration.

But Captain Gu was truly lucky.

It turned out that during this training session, they were practicing single-soldier artillery rounds.

As a scout, mastering all these individual weapons was mandatory.

Everyone else had trained normally, but when it was Gu Huayuan’s turn, the barrel suddenly exploded.

Everyone only heard a loud bang, and Gu Huayuan collapsed to the ground. They rushed over to rescue him, only to find that Captain Gu had only suffered a concussion. His injuries were all superficial. He was immediately sent to the hospital. The officers from the regiment rushed to inspect the site and found that the barrel had indeed burst, but the damage wasn’t severe.

Because the shell… was a dud.

“What’s strange is that the thing was a dud, yet it still exploded. Thankfully it was a dud—otherwise Captain Gu would’ve really lost his life.”

Xu Yuanzheng also felt chills hearing this. Su Weizhen’s face had turned completely pale.

Was fate really impossible to change?

No. She still had to tell Gu Huayuan everything—cleanly, decisively. He should just leave. Go live an ordinary life.

She glanced at Xu Yuanzheng beside her, her heart full of turmoil, then finally reached out and held his hand.