Chapter 5

After a month in the safe zone, I saw Liu Miao again.

I was crouching in the melon patch with Cheng Rui, eating watermelon.

Then I saw Brother Li bringing her toward us.

She still had that fragile, pitiful look. All she had to do was lower her eyes to make your heart ache for her.

And then there were the two of us.

The clothes we’d swiped from the department store were already in tatters. Our faces were grubby from running around the melon patch, too.

So Liu Miao didn’t recognize me at first.

When she did, her eyes filled with surprise.

As though she couldn’t understand why I was still alive.

Technically, I wasn’t.

I rolled my eyes at her. Cheng Rui copied me and rolled his too.

He’d become so much more human lately. Sometimes I almost wondered whether he might turn back into a person.

Brother Li knew nothing about our history. He cheerfully brought her over and introduced her as Liu Miao, one of the last batch of survivors. She’d just arrived and didn’t know her way around, so would I mind looking after her?

Privately, I cursed. This menace really did have nine lives.

I understood the idea that you had to look out for yourself or perish, especially in the apocalypse. But I couldn’t agree with it.

The worse the world got, the more we ought to help one another.

Take Brother Li and the others. They could easily have chosen not to risk their lives rescuing people, but they went anyway.

So, however much I hated Liu Miao, I didn’t refuse his request.

I even smiled and promised to take very good care of her.

Liu Miao, on the other hand, looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Long after Brother Li left, she finally dropped that gentle smile.

She folded her arms and looked at me with open mockery.

“Drop the act, Jiang Nian.”

I blinked at her, unsure what she meant.

“Don’t think I don’t know you’d love to kill me right now.”

At least she knew herself.

“But you should thank me. If I hadn’t locked you out, how would you have survived? There weren’t enough supplies in your apartment to keep both of us alive until help came.”

“Besides, you got rescued before I did.”

She looked at me with jealousy and resentment as she said it.

As though I’d stolen the rescue that should have been hers.

I was speechless. I honestly wanted to crack open her skull and see what on earth she kept in there.

“Jiang Nian, why aren’t you saying anything?”

She looked like someone who’d done something wrong and was desperately trying to make herself feel better.

Put all the blame on me, and she could go back to being that pure, delicate, kind little innocent.

For a moment, I actually felt sorry for her.

Perhaps the pity in my eyes stung what little self-respect she had.

Liu Miao lunged forward to hit me.

Before I could react, Cheng Rui stepped in front of me.

He seized her slender wrist with such force that it frightened me.

Hot tears streamed down both of Liu Miao’s cheeks from the pain.

A beautiful woman in tears. What a pitiable sight.

Even I felt sorry for her.

Cheng Rui, however, seemed to feel nothing.

He looked at her as though she were a heap of garbage.

Then his lips parted slightly, and I heard him spit out one cold command.

“Go!”

His voice was hoarse, and somehow very pleasing to the ear.

I looked up at him.

He looked so young, his cheeks lean, his features cold and sharp.

Cheng Rui had always been handsome, but at that moment he felt unfamiliar.

I carefully poked him to signal that he should let go, then pulled him quickly away.

Liu Miao’s furious curses followed us, like the barking of a cornered dog.

Only when we were back at our place did I finally speak.

“You…?”

Cheng Rui tilted his head at me, his eyes bewildered again.

“Cheng Rui?”

“Abba abba?”

It was as though I’d imagined everything. But I was certain of one thing: his consciousness was gradually returning.

I didn’t know whether this was normal for zombies.

But there was something strange about this outbreak. Even now, nobody had traced its source.

And these zombies were very different from the ones people used to invent.

They were sensitive to sound and loved sunlight. Most even seemed to retain human feelings.

Just a few days earlier, while I was walking with Cheng Rui near the wire fence, I’d seen a little girl leaning against it.

Not far away, on the other side, a zombie was crouching.

He was an elderly man.

Half of one arm was gone, and dried black blood covered the wound.

But the little girl didn’t seem afraid. She toddled toward him.

My heart clenched. Just as I thought she was in danger, just as I was about to charge out with Cheng Rui—

The old man reached out and gently stroked her head.

Then he stiffly walked away.

And he wasn’t the only one.

Granny Lin had also told me that after her son and daughter-in-law turned, they stayed guard downstairs for a long time. They only left once she and her grandson had been taken to the safe zone.

Did this mean these zombies could still be saved? Could they even regain consciousness like me?

I lowered my head in thought.

An alarm outside suddenly interrupted me.

That was the signal for a zombie attack.