The Fake Son Wants to Live [BL]

Chapter 124: Chapter 124 - Cry

Dust still choked the air as Jian trudged forward, the small boy’s warm hand clasped tightly in his. The ruined city stretched out before them, its bones cracked and splintered, its heart still smoldering in the lingering fire of the Grayling invasion.

All around, the scent of blood, metal, and alien tar clung to the wind.

Tentacle-like shadows still crept through alleyways and shattered buildings. Jian had fought countless Graylings since the moment he landed in this godforsaken zone, his black-tar-drenched body a silent testament to the battles he had endured. Each of them, monstrous seven-foot beasts, moved with the fluid grace of deep-sea nightmares and struck with terrifying speed.

He had torn through the first group with bare hands, ripping flesh, bone, and pulsing tentacles with a precision that surprised even him. They screeched like dying whales, but their noise only pushed him forward.

The boy trailing behind him had seen everything. Jian could feel his wide eyes locked onto his back. Still, he followed.

Another wave of Graylings burst out from a cracked parking garage as they passed. Jian shoved the boy behind an overturned car.

”Stay here,” he growled.

The Graylings swarmed at once, their movement like a wave of hungry arms. Jian leapt forward, a blur of motion. He spun around the first, grabbing a writhing tentacle and using it to slam the beast into another. Their gelatinous bodies crunched sickeningly. One wrapped around his waist, lifting him off the ground.

With a snarl, he twisted, digging his claws into the monster’s eyes and yanking them free. Its tentacle released, twitching violently as it fell.

More came. Five. Seven. Jian lost count. The rhythm of battle consumed him—claws slicing, fists pounding, blood splattering.

A jagged screech broke the haze. Jian stood in the middle of corpses, body trembling with adrenaline, chest rising and falling as black ichor slid off his skin like rainwater.

Behind him, the boy peered out from the cover, eyes wide but silent.

”Come,” Jian said hoarsely, reaching back without looking. A small hand slipped into his again.

They moved together through the ruins until voices reached his ears—shouting, crying. Survivors.

Jian paused.

He followed the sounds and rounded a corner where a collapsed building had trapped several people beneath shattered concrete and twisted beams. They were trying to dig out, but most had no strength left.

A woman sobbed beside a crumbled pillar, her nails broken and bleeding. A young man pounded uselessly on a boulder, and a teenager screamed for someone named ”Lina.”

Jian didn’t think. He let go of the boy’s hand and strode toward the rubble.

”Move.”

They turned, startled. Some gasped at the sight of him. Covered in alien blood, his eyes glowing faintly gold from the strain of using too much power—he looked like a monster.

”Don’t hurt us!” one of them yelled.

Jian didn’t respond. He plunged his hands into the largest concrete slab and with a guttural growl, lifted it with sheer force. The group stared in stunned silence as he tossed the slab aside like a mere rock.

Underneath, two coughing children gasped for air.

Jian moved on. Beam after beam. Stone after stone.

Some thanked him, others cried, and a few just stared in horror.

The boy tried to help too, his tiny hands pushing at stones. Jian didn’t stop him at first—until he heard a cry of pain.

”Ah!”

He turned and saw the child clutching his hand, blood welling up from a deep cut. A shard of metal had torn his palm open.

Jian walked up to him and knelt, grabbing the hand to inspect it.

”Kids shouldn’t work,” he muttered.

He tried to sit the boy down, but the child pulled away, trembling.

”I... I’m trying to help,” he whispered, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes. He clutched at Jian’s blood-slick pants with his wounded hand.

Jian froze.

”You... You’re a small boy,” he said after a pause. ”You can help me too, but in your own way.”

He pointed to the cluster of injured survivors. ”Help them bandage their wounds.”

The boy’s eyes lit up immediately.

He nodded and dashed over. A woman with a wounded leg looked up as he approached. He knelt and tried to wrap the cloth around her knee. It was clumsy, and he fumbled with the bandage several times.

The woman ruffled his hair gently, smiling.

The boy looked mildly offended and backed away with a small pout.

But he didn’t stop. He went on to help another, and another.

Jian watched this from afar, something unfamiliar tugging at his lips.

A smile.

Sunset bled across the broken horizon. Shadows stretched long and the golden sky turned to deep orange.

The survivors gathered near the rubble, resting after the harrowing escape. Some had food, others did not. Jian didn’t care. Hunger was nothing new to him.

He sat on a flat piece of stone, the boy soon returning to his side.

His stomach growled.

He led the boy to a flat area amidst the rubble and made him sit. From his pocket, he retrieved a biscuit the cab driver had given him earlier. He handed it to the boy, who looked at it, then up at Jian.

The boy shook his head, offering the biscuit back.

”I ate well,” Jian lied gently. ”I don’t need it.”

The boy hesitated, then opened the wrapper, breaking the biscuit in half. He handed one piece to Jian, keeping the other for himself.

Jian took the half biscuit and bit into it slowly, the bland sweetness spreading across his tongue. But the warmth that filled his chest wasn’t from the food—it was from the boy. A small, broken thing offering him half of his only meal.

He stared at him for a moment, silent, then asked softly, ”Do you have any family left?”

The boy’s lips quivered. He shook his head, biting down hard as tears welled up in his wide, hollow eyes.

Jian’s chest tightened. He lifted a hand, rough and bloodstained, and gently rested it atop the boy’s matted hair. ”Cry,” he said, voice low. ”It’s okay.”

For a moment, the boy just stared at him.

Then his little body crumbled forward, his hands fisting Jian’s sleeve. ”Mommy...” he sobbed, the word torn from somewhere deep and broken. ”Mommy...”

His cries shattered the silence around them.

Jian sat beside him without a word, his arm wrapped protectively around the small trembling frame as the sun dipped below the ruins.