Chapter 44: Bitter Swallow ·2

Lin Shanyan looked up at him, making as if to vomit.

Worry flickered in Meng Duimo’s eyes as he braced to steady him and pat his back.

But in the end, nothing happened.

“Up close like this, you seem even more of a stranger,” Lin Shanyan said, lifting his gaze with a smile.

“From a distance, your silhouette looks like that old friend of mine. But get near, and you’re clearly not the man you were three years ago.”

Meng Duimo stared at him without moving, aching to point out how painfully thin he still was, his hand itching to reach out and touch his face.

Shanyan, I thought that after I left you, your life would get a little easier.

At the very least, you’d eat a few more happy meals and sleep a bit more soundly.

Bitterness welled up in Meng Duimo’s heart, but all he showed the world was a smile.

“We were never that close anyway.”

Lin Shanyan let out a soft hum and stepped aside to clear the path.

Meng Duimo headed into his bathroom. Lin Shanyan stood rooted in place, thinking to himself in silence.

Not close, huh. You went through a whole box of condoms in three days, you slut.

Back then, you couldn’t wait to move in with me, eat and sleep under the same roof—you dog. And now you’re putting on airs.

Wild snakes feared people, but not Meng Duimo. The moment it saw him crook a finger, it slithered over happily, tongue flicking, right into the palm of his hand.

Meng Duimo went downstairs and released the snake back into the rear hills, warning it to keep its distance from here from now on. He stood alone on the ground floor for a long while.

All of a sudden, he sneezed. He pulled out his phone and messaged Lin Shanyan.

[Meng Duimo]: You cursing me out again?

[Lin]: 1

[Meng Duimo]: Curse me more. I love hearing it.

No reply came from the other end.

That evening, the county leaders made a point of hosting a casual dinner in their honor, thumping their chests and vowing full cooperation with the investigation.

Xiao Xu sat beside Prosecutor Lin, his face flushed with satisfaction as he ate.

The native chicken stew was so fragrant! The wild crucian carp was so tender!

Only when he was half-stuffed did the young man remember the deputy director was still there.

“Brother Shanyan, these fried eggs are amazing.”

Lin Shanyan gave a low hum, his chopsticks idly nudging the food in his bowl.

Without thinking, he began identifying it.

These were chives.

That was a chicken leg.

He confirmed it several times, over and over.

Chives. Edible. Swallow it down.

The young female officer noticed and laughed. “Prosecutor Lin’s got the same habit as Brother Meng. At every group meal, no matter how good the food looks, Brother Meng always stares at it forever before taking a single bite—like he doesn’t even recognize what he’s eating.”

Lin Shanyan couldn’t muster a smile. All he felt was the hollow relief of a survivor, and he barely managed to twitch the corner of his mouth.

“What a coincidence.”

The county leaders were nothing if not hospitable, and they specially ordered a plate of eels.

“Here you go, Prosecutor Lin—this is our local specialty—”

Meng Duimo rose and intercepted the plate halfway.

“Set it here. He’s got a thing against these.”

Someone piped up curiously. “Oh, so that’s why Brother Meng skips poultry and Prosecutor Lin avoids eels?”

Meng Duimo rattled off a casual lie. “He used to eat everything, no restrictions. But after too many injuries on missions, my mom got into Buddhism and started nagging me to give up certain foods.”

“Hahaha, my grandma’s into that too!”

Lin Shanyan glanced up. His gaze lingered for a moment on the eels coiled on the plate like a little snake before he calmly looked away.

Once the casual dinner wrapped up, the group strolled back, chatting idly about the surprise raid planned for tomorrow.

Lin Shanyan still brought up the rear of the pack. In the darkness, he heard the calls of birds echoing through the hills and wilds.

Meng Duimo was surrounded by the others, trading jokes now and then. He came to a casual halt and turned to glance back.

The thick night had already swallowed their lines of sight. No one could see anyone else.

Meng Duimo stood there stubbornly for a moment, but he still couldn’t pick out where Lin Shanyan was.

Three years, and nothing had changed—or had it? Even their faces were different now.

The old Lin Shanyan had been gentle and shy. Meng Duimo had been green and reckless. Fresh out of school and afraid of nothing, he’d dared to shift into his true form and carry equipment straight into a drug den.

No one would peg a live target as suspicious. Signal jammers ran constantly, but snakes and birds drew no attention.

Meng Duimo could slither through the ventilation ducts all the way to the kingpin’s base. A few lookouts hit the dirt without a sound, and no one knew what happened before the SWAT team came storming in.

A flying bird had already scanned the full terrain with its high-altitude recorder, relaying live feeds of every zone and overseeing the entire enforcement operation.

A sharp-eyed thug spotted the snake and panicked, grabbing his gun to fire. But a falcon streaked in like lightning, snatched the flower snake in its beak, and vanished without a trace.

Later at the celebration banquet, someone muttered under their breath about how these two new faces hadn’t even shown up on site, yet they’d claimed the biggest shares of merit.

The leaders knew better than to elaborate, mumbling vaguely and keeping the secret under wraps.

There was no way to explain it. No one would believe the truth.

Back then, under the glaring lights of the awards stage, Meng Duimo had glanced sideways and seen Lin Shanyan smiling bright and bold. On impulse, he’d slung an arm around him, and the two posed openly for the cameras.

The flashes popped like fireworks. By the time the photos were done, spots danced in everyone’s eyes.

He turned around, lost in the night, and could no longer see where Lin Shanyan had gone.

“Brother Meng, who are you looking for?” his subordinate asked. “Is there something you haven’t told us yet?”

The man withdrew his gaze and strode forward.

“No luck finding him.”

The raid site was in an apartment building where, every weekend, crowds of believers gathered for sermons and tiered organizational activities. They handed out petty benefits while boasting of rejuvenation miracles and the leader’s divine powers.

The police task force swept in under prosecutorial oversight, breaking through the door like a hot knife through butter.

A few elderly folks, women, and children screamed. The organizers clasped their hands behind their heads, insisting it was all a legal gathering with nothing illegal about it.

The old building dated back to the eighties, its security door plastered with a Spring Festival couplet faded to a coppery rust.

The cramped room was packed with over a dozen people, the walls plastered with posters of snakes and humans.

Little Xu felt like he’d stumbled into a cult movie set. The half-snake, half-human propaganda portrait of the cult leader made him both nauseous and amused.

Not only were the walls covered in superstitious nonsense, but a censer etched with snake-scale patterns sat in the living room’s center, faint remnants of burned banknotes visible inside.

“This fake crap is so shitty. Couldn’t they at least liquefy it first?”

Lin Shanyan kept an eye on the seizure procedures and said offhandedly, “Go supervise the inventory of the contraband.”

“Got it!”

The police searched cabinets and drawers on site, unearthing stacks of propaganda pamphlets, crates of counterfeit health supplements and nutrients, and dozens of rubber fake snakes, plus eight jars of snake-soaked rice wine and liquor.

An old man who’d been squatting obediently nearby suddenly exploded in rage. “What contraband? This is the fruit of our cultivation!”

“You know nothing! Immortal Tong has saved countless lives over the years!”

His strength was enough to shove the young officer aside. He grabbed an ashtray and smashed it toward Lin Shanyan. Meng Duimo spun around to block it, slicing a gash across his knuckles.

“Brother Meng!”

“Don’t move!”

The old man kept spewing filth from his mouth until he was handcuffed and hauled away.

With shouts from the other officers, the dozen or so people squatting down behaved themselves, waiting sullenly to be taken in for questioning.

This was just a low-level outpost in Jingjin County. Fortunately, the man in charge was such a coward he trembled nonstop, spilling the central hub’s location in a warehouse and links to several nearby villages after a few questions.

The suspects were quickly carted off to the county bureau for statements, and there were so many the on-site vehicles were packed.

Lin Shanyan scrounged up some iodine and cotton swabs and handed them to Meng Duimo.

“Disinfect it.”

Meng Duimo sat in the car. “Get in. I need to tell you something.”

Lin Shanyan frowned. “Just say it.”

Meng Duimo casually extended his left hand to adjust the rearview mirror, exposing the still-bleeding wound.

Lin Shanyan fell silent, then climbed into the passenger seat.

He had zero desire to be alone with this man.

Three years apart, and everything from status to appearance had changed. They were nothing like before.

The other vehicles pulled away one by one. Meng Duimo didn’t turn the key, tending to the cut on the back of his hand.

It wasn’t deep, but it was a long gash.

Only Lin Shanyan could smell its intense aroma.

A scent all too familiar, one that made his breath catch.

Meng Duimo himself couldn’t detect it, but to Lin Shanyan, it was like stumbling upon a pot of steaming, fragrant meat stew after four or five parched days in the dead of winter without a drop to drink.

Hunger surged abruptly, every nerve quivering in its wake.

He took a deep breath, digging his nails into his palm.

The next instant, the iodine overwhelmed nearly all the scent, wiping away the bloodstains.

His focus, utterly fixated on that aroma, crashed into emptiness.

Lin Shanyan’s gaze faltered for a moment as he looked toward him unthinkingly.

The man seemed to be coaxing him.

“It’s not clean. Don’t think about it.”

He finished with his left hand, grabbed the car keys, then popped open the Swiss Army Knife and disinfected it with alcohol.

“What are you doing?” Lin Shanyan said coldly. “You like playing these games, huh?”

At the same moment, the man sliced open the pad of his right index finger, letting the blood flow freely.

The young man’s expression shifted drastically. He unbuckled his seatbelt to bolt, but his jaw was gripped tight, the bloody fingertip pressed straight to his lips.

“You—”

“It’s been a long time since you were fed, hasn’t it?” Meng Duimo murmured slowly.

His blood spread across Lin Shanyan’s tongue in an instant, igniting every hunting instinct while amplifying his greed.

He had always been his favorite food.

Fresh, warm, long-unseen snake blood.

Even as Lin Shanyan fought it with all his might, he couldn’t stop himself from licking the fingertip—and then biting down.

Reason no longer mattered.

Every instinct screamed for more, craving it, demanding he devour the man whole.

Another suck, best to bite right down and swallow it all—

“I haven’t tasted your blood in ages.” Indulgently, the man fed his fingertip even deeper, murmuring low by his ear. “Little Shanyan, I’m giving it to you so freely. You should take pity on me.”

Lin Shanyan snapped awake as if from a dream. He slapped away the man’s right hand and cracked a sharp slap across his face.

“Meng Duimo!”

The man froze in stunned laughter for a second before swooping in for a brazen kiss.

He gripped the back of the youth’s head, demanding his lips while his tongue delved deep, their canines nicking lips and tips in a savage tangle—like predators ripping into prey, refusing to break apart.

Ornate Forest Serpents fed by nature on birds, while Laughing Falcons preyed mainly on snakes.

His flesh and blood were the man’s perfect feast.

It should have been this way. It always had been.

He and he never should have crossed paths from the start.

They could have been enemies or total strangers, but they never should have met—much less grown addicted to each other.

“Stop running.”

He panted the words.

“Lin Shanyan, there’s no escaping between you and me.”