QT: Don't fall in love with the Male Lead

Chapter 114: Don't look for a needle in the vacuum of space

Maybe Shen Yun would look more intimidating if he didn't look like a stiff breeze could do him in.

Xi Zirui smirks. "What if the information is stored in my retinas? Then what?"

Shen Yun scowls, his thin lips trembling in annoyance. He might just go ahead and do it out of pure spite, but a sickly growl from the corner of the room draws his attention.

Su Xueyi is trying to get up to his feet with great effort, holding himself up against the wall.

Shen Yun tilts his head towards him and the two goons stride to Su Xueyi's side, moving in and oddly coordinated rhythm as they pull him up to his feet.

The two drag him towards Shen Yun, supporting him under the arms to keep him upright.

"Commander Su, so kind of you to join us," Shen Yun says, patting Su Xueyi on the cheek. "Can you shed some light on what went on aboard Captain Xi's ship?"

Su Xueyi's upper lip curls up in disdain. "With pleasure."

"Commander Su looks tired, why don't we let him rest first?" Xi Zirui says, glib.

Shen Yun's withering look only makes Xi Zirui grin wider.

"Don't worry about me starbird, I feel just fine," Su Xueyi smirks, and turns to Shen Yun. "He's fucking your merchandise, Dr. Shen."

Xi Zirui groans.

Well, when he puts it that way.

Shen Yun gives Xi Zirui a disgusted look. "Androids are no better than animals."

The snarky grin vanishes from Xi Zirui's lips. He glares at Shen Yun with open hostility.

"What a coincidence, I feel the same way about you."

He expects the feeling of the scalding hot drink splashing his face, not the punch Su Xueyi lands on his jaw.

"Dr. Shen is free to do with him as he sees fit, but I would like to keep him afterwards," Su Xueyi says, shaking out his fingers.

Shen Yun accesses Xi Zirui cryptically, his dead-fish eyes drawn to the thin line of blood running down the corner of his mouth. "Is Commander Su attached to his arms and legs?"

Su Xueyi shakes his head with a delighted grin.

Shen Yun nods. "Good, because soon enough, neither will he."

That doesn't sound promising, but Xi Zirui can always bite off his tongue if things become too awful.

He'll miss Han Yu, and Little Thunder.

But that's a familiar feeling by now.

He's never not missing the lives he leaves behind.

Maybe it has something to do with what Han Yu suggested -- with him not having a life of his own -- being just as adrift as everyone else.

"Doctor, the ship is being hailed," one of the goons tells Shen Yun, a warning message flashing on the dark pane of his sleek chrome helmet.

Xi Zirui comes to an unpleasant conclusion.

Those aren't helmets, those are their faces. 

Shen Yun's goons are probably Androids he modified for his own use.

Confirming this, a holo screen is projected in front of the goon's face, as if he is nothing but a tool for Shen Yun's convenience.

On the screen Xi Zirui sees Han Yu, sitting on the pilot's cabin of the Irregular.

His heart tightens painfully at seeing Han Yu's face pinched with worry and fear. He looks so young in this world, although technically he is the oldest he's ever been, with at least 60 years on the original Xi Zirui.

His disheveled hair partially obscures one of his eyes.

"I want to make a deal," Han Yu says, his gaze wandering across the frame as if he's trying to catch a glimpse of Xi Zirui.

"What are your terms?" Shen Yun asks, appalled at the mere thought of coming to an agreement with an Android.

"My life for Xi Zirui's," Han Yu says, his jaw set in a tense line. "I'll voluntarily hand myself if you let him go."

Shen Yun scoffs. "You don't have a life." His thin eyebrows climb up his forehead in mocking disdain. "Humans have lives, you have an expiry date."

"Fuck off you sickly bastard," Xi Zirui growls, unable to stop himself.

He gets an elbow to the ribs for his trouble, and the sight of Han Yu's frantic eyes trying to find the source of his voice.

"Don't hurt Xi Zirui." Han Yu's voice drops to a lower register, making it clear his words hide a threat.

Su Xueyi moves towards the holo screen's field of vision. "What are you going to do about it, Tin Can? The good doctor is going to clip the starbird's wings, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Shen Yun hums in agreement. "You do seem to have no bargaining chips. From the looks of it you're in Captain Xi's ship, which is still tethered to my own. What's stopping me from going over to get you?"

Han Yu smirks. "My expiry date, as you called it." 

Shen Yun frowns.

Han Yu elaborates. "I've rigged the Irregular with explosives, if you don't agree to the trade, I'll blow myself up, and your ship will be severely damaged by the blast."

He glares at Shen Yun through the holo screen. "You've gone to such lengths to get me back, I doubt you'd want all your effort to go to waste."

Xi Zirui's heart beat a furious tattoo inside his chest.

What's Han Yu's gamble? Why is he risking himself like this?

Han Yu doesn't wait for an answer before making his demands. "Bring Xi Zirui to the tunnel connecting the two ships, and I'll switch places with him. He'll go back to the Irregular, and I'll go with you."

Su Xueyi scowls. "Doctor Shen..."

Shen Yun raises his hand in the air to silence him. "It's a deal. We'll meet in ten minutes."

Han Yu nods, and cuts the transmission off.

Shen Yun turns to Xi Zirui with a mocking smirk. "Well, you certainly know your way around an Android. You made him want to martyr himself for you."

He tsks theatrically and shakes his head, and then fixes his eyes on the goon in front of him, standing still even with the holo screen gone. "Then again, it is right that an Android would forfeit its existence for a human."

---

No one says anything in front of him, but Xi Zirui is certain Shen Yun is not planning on fulfilling his end of the bargain. 

He's overly conscious of the electric pulse aimed at his back all the way up to the tunnel, closed off behind the hatch door.

Shen Yun gives the signal and the depressurization chamber opens for him and Xi Zirui, the hatch door following along after the pressure stabilizes, revealing a suspend corridor in space, connecting the two ships together.

Han Yu stands on the opposite end, his gaze fixed on Xi Zirui.

One of the goons pushes Xi Zirui forward. "Go, and no funny business," Shen Yun says. "We'll see each other soon."

Xi Zirui walks slowly across the tunnel, trying to give Han Yu time to do whatever it is he's planning, trying to give himself time to come up with an idea.

His mind is hopelessly blank, filled with white noise.

Han Yu smiles at him as they draw nearer, and Xi Zirui tries to draw strength from his easy gait and relaxed posture.

He has a plan, Xi Zirui knows it.

They're supposed to keep walking as they meet each other in the middle of the tunnel.

Han Yu exchanges a meaningful look with him, when they meet. "Xi Zirui shouldn't look, he should close the hatch as soon as he gets to the other side and never look back."

His fingers brush across Xi Zirui's wrist fleetingly, and then he continues walking.

Xi Zirui is certain that Han Yu's words, which can be interpreted by Shen Yun as a final goodbye, are instructions for him.

He might not know what Han Yu is planning, but he has complete trust in him.

He lowers his head and crosses the final distance into the Irregular. Han Yu has almost reached Shen Yun by the time Xi Zirui turns around one last time, just as the hatch door slides shut in front of his eyes.

No sooner has the door closed than Xi Zirui hears a deafening bang, and then the sudden silence of depressurization as the air is sucked out of a place, and sound with it.

When he looks outside the window he sees the tether connecting the two ships disintegrating into nothing, crumbling away from Shen Yun's ship, and leaving the open door behind it, a view of an empty depressurization chamber behind it.

No sign of Shen Yun or Han Yu.

Xi Zirui looks into his own ship's depressurization chamber but he sees no one in the small square of space between the hatch door and the rest of the cabin.

He gazes frantically out the window again, looking for any sign of Han Yu.

Suddenly, strands of hair float up in front of the tiny window, and a few moments later a face. 

Eyes wide in terror, all the capilars burst from the sudden depressurization, flooding his sclera with red. His thin lips pulled away from his teeth in the rictus of death.

Shen Yun.

Xi Zirui watches him float up gently over the Irregular, his body bumping into the ship in its aimless trajectory through the void.

At his feet, Little Thunder meows.

Xi Zirui looks out the window again, and continues to see no sign of Han Yu.