Yu An asked in a daze, "Are you really Xie Chiyuan?"
"Yes." Xie Chiyuan tugged at a tuft of hair sticking up on his head, finding it quite pleasant to the touch. "Do you still have feelings for me? You called me 'husband' right off the bat."
Yu An retorted: "I didn't!"
If someone's so good at labeling him, they must be a real big shot.
After Yu An realized it was true, she looked at his arm and suddenly felt a little nervous.
"Xie Chiyuan."
"What's wrong?"
Yu An grabbed Xie Chiyuan, who was leading him forward, and reached out to pull his arm: "Did I bite your arm? Did it bleed?"
Xie Chiyuan looked down and saw that the skin wasn't broken, but there were clear teeth marks.
He deliberately exaggerated: "There was bleeding."
Yu An panicked and quickly grabbed him, saying, "Let me see!"
If Xie Chiyuan really bleeds, he'll be finished! Yu An doesn't want anything to happen to someone who can protect humanity.
The two of them pulled each other as they walked.
When Yu An saw Xie Chiyuan's arm and realized he had been fooled, he almost wanted to give him another bite.
The streets, lit only by red streetlights, appeared deserted and quiet.
Yu An walked for a long time without finding any passersby. He couldn't very well call out to Xiao Jiu in front of Xie Chiyuan, so he could only call out to Pei Si every now and then.
"We were standing together just now."
Yu An wondered, "How did they all suddenly disappear?"
Xie Chiyuan was observing the surroundings.
The abandoned city of Elm is not particularly old; according to records, its population has always been over 200,000. Although some escaped after the apocalypse, no survivors have left since a month ago.
Xie Chiyuan was listening intently to everything around him. At the same time, he didn't forget to answer Yu An's question: "The mutant's ability is causing trouble, but don't worry, Pei Si won't be lost."
"Can you make people disappear in an instant? Is this kind of superpower magic?"
As soon as Yu An finished speaking, Xie Chiyuan abruptly stopped in his tracks.
Yu An was following behind him when, caught off guard, her face bumped directly into his back.
"magic."
Xie Chiyuan repeated the word, his dark eyes slowly narrowing: "I remember now, there's a troublemaker under Chi Niao who really likes to do magic tricks."
He encountered a little trouble after he came in.
However, among those causing him trouble, no one from the Red Bird Organization has been found yet.
Xie Chiyuan, thinking about the mutant codenamed Magician, didn't notice Yu An rubbing his nose and instead looked in a certain direction.
I stared at it for a while.
Ignoring the pain in his nose from the collision, Yu An pointed to the street corner ahead and reminded him, "There's a magician there too, with a huge sign!"
The place Yu An pointed to was a building that was flashing with colorful lights.
A huge sign hung on the building, featuring a photo of a man dressed in a black tuxedo, top hat, and clown mask. Next to the photo was the word "Magician."
But the sign displayed wasn't for a magic show; it was for a casino.
The magician is the host.
"It wasn't like this just now," Yu An thought carefully. "Could this be a haunted house that suddenly appeared out of nowhere? Let's not go in."
He didn't want to go into the haunted house.
Xie Chiyuan loosely gripped his wrist and walked towards the casino, saying casually, "With me here, what's there to be afraid of?"
Yu An muttered softly, "Even with you here, I'm still scared. You don't know how to catch ghosts."
Xie Chiyuan: "..."
Xie Chiyuan glanced back at him and gave a somewhat perplexing explanation: "There are no ghosts in this world. Didn't you take any science classes when you were in school?"
Yu An paused for a moment, then said frankly, "No."
He learned his knowledge in research institutes; he never attended formal classes. Apart from attending kindergarten for a year when he was three years old, he never went to school again.
My vague memories of kindergarten seem to be that when we were playing house, some of the other children put a red veil over his head. Then they took his hand and said they were going to take him away to be someone's bride.
Xie Chiyuan was speechless, but he just held his wrist and made up for the science lesson he missed.
They hadn't walked more than a few steps.
The two arrived at the casino entrance, where instead of the traditional stone lions, there were two life-size stone statues of magicians, one on the left and one on the right.
Yu An looked at the magician's statue and shook Xie Chiyuan's hand.
"He's so narcissistic."
Yu An felt compelled to comment on this high-profile behavior. After thinking for a moment, he added a comparison: "Even more narcissistic than you!"
Xie Chiyuan: "?"
Xie Chiyuan's eyes darkened slightly, and he freed one hand.
After a while.
When Yu An was led inside by Xie Chiyuan, the ahoge (a stray hair on his head) on his head looked even more upright. He had a rather unhappy expression on his face, looking like a wronged child.
As you step inside, the noise seems to instantly fill your ears.
The room was filled with people, some sitting, some standing. They were excitedly shouting out bets and swiping cards, comparing who would win and who would lose.
The moment Yu An and Xie Chiyuan entered, all the noise seemed to freeze for a second.
A second later, the noise resumed.
The welcoming waiters were dressed in magician-like tuxedos and wore clown masks. However, many other staff members wore similar outfits throughout the venue.
"Welcome! Is this your first time here? Would you like to exchange for chips?"
The clown magician asked with a smile, "Newcomers get a discount when exchanging chips! Sir, what will you use to exchange? Eyes, fingers, heart, and this pretty little kid next to you can all be used as collateral."
Caught off guard by the mention of his name, Yu An was so startled that he immediately grabbed Xie Yuan's arm.
This place felt like a haunted house to him from the moment he entered; he had felt uneasy ever since. The various people inside were even more like ghosts, none of them looking like normal people at all.
Startled, Yu An stopped putting on a long face. He clung to Xie Chiyuan's arm and stammered, "I... I can't use it as collateral."
The clown mask's gaping mouth stretched even wider.
He asked with great interest, "Why can't you use it as collateral? I can offer a very high stake. If your husband wins with that stake, he can have everything."
"For example, he can win back a missing teammate."
"For example, he could find out the whereabouts of his relatives."
"If he wins in the end, he can also win the title of one of the city's survivors."
The clown magician used a gentle voice to throw out one temptation after another. These temptations reached Yu An's ears, making the latter almost hesitate to choose him.
In Xie Chiyuan's eyes, he was just an ordinary suitor.
Compared to teammates, family, and so many other survivors...
Yu An was extremely frustrated. If he were Xie Chiyuan, he would have felt the same way too—
"Why all this nonsense?"
Xie Chiyuan coldly interrupted the clown magician, tossing out a card with a menacing glint in his dark eyes: "Go exchange it for chips."
Since it's a casino, exchanging money for chips is the most normal exchange.
The clown magician held the card tossed into his arms, his grin slowly closing until his face became completely expressionless: "Exchange it with money. One million can only get you one hundred chips."
"Go ahead and exchange it," Xie Chiyuan said nonchalantly. "I still have some pocket money in my card."
The clown magician, with a gloomy face, took the card to redeem it.
Not long after.
Yu An was dumbfounded, holding a huge pile of chips.
Xie Chiyuan picked up the stacked chips and held Yu An's hand firmly with his other hand.
Yu An held back for a long time, but he couldn't help asking, "Do you have this much pocket money in your card?"
He always had very little pocket money while working at the research institute.
Xie Chiyuan turned his head away and scoffed, "I was faking it."
Seeing that Yu An was still in a daze, he lowered his voice and explained, "That card doesn't have pocket money; it's my savings for getting married."
Yu An: "..."
Yu An asked instinctively, "Aren't you a staunch non-marriage advocate? Why do you still have a savings account for a wife?"
Xie Chiyuan was stumped by the question.
His gaze fell on Yu An's pretty and obedient face, and for some reason, he thought of that "husband" he had called her earlier.
Almost as if possessed, he blurted out, "What else should we call the salary card used to buy a wife if not 'wife's savings'?"
This time, Yu An understood immediately.
The clown magician wants Xie Chiyuan to pawn him in exchange for chips.
Xie Chiyuan didn't use him as collateral; instead, he took out his card.
so--
In other words, he is Xie Chiyuan's wife.
Having figured things out, Yu An lowered her head and helplessly held Xie Chiyuan's hand.
He scratched Xie Chiyuan's arm with his fingers, so much so that he wanted to scratch Xie Chiyuan's arm until the skin was bald.
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Author's Note: