Chapter 12: Departure
The siblings waited in the living room. When they saw Chu Muge leading Gu Yao out, Bai Caixie, sitting on the sofa, looked up and asked, “So… are we just sleeping for now?”
He glanced outside. “After all, it’s already so late.”
Chu Muge nodded, taking Gu Yao’s hand. “I’ll go check the rooms with Senior Sister first. We’ll divide them up later and change out their mattresses while we’re at it.”
There was no way Chu Muge would sleep on a bed someone else had used.
Except Gu Yao’s.
The young man nodded but hadn’t spoken yet when he suddenly realized that the doll-like, prettily dressed zombie had been silently staring at him.
Bai Caixie: ?
Is there something on my face?
He instinctively touched his cheek, wincing when his fingers brushed a wound.
Gu Yao averted her gaze.
It was late, and finding a place to rest was the priority. Following the directions provided by the siblings, Chu Muge located the master bedroom. She opened the door, stepped inside, and her eyes lit up.
On the desk in the master bedroom was a knife stand displaying a Tang Dao, as if it were an exhibit.
Glancing at the fire axe in her hand, Chu Muge casually let it drop to the floor with a clang.
Walking up to the stand, she picked up the Tang Dao and unsheathed it. The sharp blade glinted coldly in the dim light. She blinked.
This wasn’t some cheap imitation from the market. The blade gleamed with deadly precision, perfectly balanced and structurally sound. She had no idea where the bald man had managed to find such a weapon.
Then again, in the apocalypse, breaking into homes wasn’t illegal anymore. Whatever you found, you kept.
Feeling triumphant with her new weapon, Chu Muge’s efficiency skyrocketed, even when it came to changing the bedding.
She and Gu Yao replaced the dirty sheets with clean ones and swapped in fresh mattresses. Once everything was set, Chu Muge decided to collapse onto the bed for a proper rest.
The night was quiet and still. The lights went out, and the siblings drifted off on the living room sofa. Outside, scattered corpses lay in disarray, their mangled forms bathed in the pale, chilly glow of the high-hanging moon.
Gu Yao lay in bed, next to Chu Muge, her eyes wide open as she stared at the pitch black ceiling.
When she had been staring at the young man earlier, it wasn’t out of curiosity, it was recognition.
She’d realized something: if it weren’t for the wound on his face, the broken arm, and the different hairstyle, she might have mistaken him for the short-haired girl.
Yes, mistaken them.
This was the startling realization she’d had.
Lately, everyone’s faces seemed slightly off to her. Blurred. As if they all looked the same, indistinct, like trying to tell apart dogs of the same breed and coat color.
First, her emotions dulled. Now, face blindness?
It felt as though she was drifting further away from the label of "human," no longer part of the same species.
Like how humans view chimpanzees.
But Chu Muge wasn’t a chimpanzee.
Gu Yao turned her head, gazing at Chu Muge’s closed eyes.
Even she was becoming hard to recognize.
The fleeting beauty of the girl’s face had begun to blur, gradually becoming something akin to a template.
Gu Yao thought about it for a moment and decided it might be the fault of the crystal core.
After consuming the crystal core from that powered individual, she seemed to have grown stronger and clearer-headed, but at the same time, she’d unknowingly developed face blindness.
Gu Yao gazed at Chu Muge’s face, as if trying to commit every detail to memory.
As she stared, her hand gently rested on Chu Muge’s cheek.
Feeling the touch, Chu Muge’s long lashes trembled slightly. She opened her hazy eyes and softly asked, “Senior Sister, what’s wrong?”
Gu Yao didn’t answer. Instead, she continued to run her hands over Chu Muge’s face, as if engraving its features into her memory.
And that’s exactly what she was doing.
This was Chu Muge.
Her fingers traced the bridge of Chu Muge’s nose and brushed lightly against those long, fluttering lashes.
Chu Muge didn’t move or speak, obediently allowing herself to be touched.
Gu Yao’s fingertips moved across every part of Chu Muge’s face, outlining its contours as if writing a map over and over again.
In the weightlessness of her touch, Chu Muge reacquainted herself with her eyebrows, her eyes, her nose, her lips, and her jawline.
She rediscovered her existence.
The blurry impression of her face became clear again. Gu Yao gently caressed her, blinking her gray-white eyes.
With each step of her evolution, it seemed she was moving further away from humanity.
Now, with a hint of face blindness, she could barely distinguish Chu Muge anymore.
That wouldn’t do.
In this world, the only person she was familiar with and could trust was Chu Muge. Without realizing it, Gu Yao had already made her into a kind of lighthouse.
A lighthouse’s face couldn’t be forgotten. If it was, the light would go out, and Gu Yao would lose her way.
She could fail to recognize anyone else, but not Chu Muge.
The next morning, after a quick cleanup, the group prepared to set off.
The cat ears on Chu Muge’s head had vanished. Tang Dao in hand, she stepped out of the house.
The scent of blood outside had dissipated somewhat, though a metallic tang still lingered in the air. Surveying the vehicles parked in front of the house, she noted one car with a dented frame from the previous fight and another, a small sedan, that wasn’t ideal either.
After some thought, she settled on an SUV.
Though it wasn’t as sturdy as the one they had driven earlier, it was undamaged and airtight, and the new seats offered a comfortable ride.
The group loaded their supplies into the SUV. Stroking her chin thoughtfully, Chu Muge glanced at the back seat and casually said to the siblings, “You two can sit with it.”
It?
The short-haired girl, Bai Caiwei, blinked in confusion, until she saw the dog. Tail wagging wildly, it charged toward them, its decayed body gleaming grotesquely in the sunlight.
Bai Caiwei: … Someone save me.
A few minutes later, the engine roared to life.
Chu Muge sat in the driver’s seat, fastening Gu Yao’s seatbelt with practiced care.
On the road, faint rustling sounds came from Gu Yao’s direction. It sounded like something sliding over paper.
Curious, Bai Caiwei craned her neck and asked Chu Muge, “… What’s she doing?”
Chu Muge glanced over briefly and replied, “Practicing her writing.”
Practicing?
The short-haired girl was momentarily stunned.
Gu Yao, her expression impassive, nodded and handed a sticky note to Bai Caiwei in the back.
Three words were scribbled on it:
[白菜薇?] (Cabbage Wei?)
The handwriting was wobbly and uneven, with a question mark at the end for good measure.
Well, it did deserve a question mark. Bai Caiwei forced a smile and said, “The second character doesn’t have the grass radical.”
Gu Yao nodded and began furiously scribbling again.
The second sticky note arrived soon after:
[白采薇!] (Bai Caiwei!)
Bai Caiwei’s eyes lit up. She nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes! That’s me! You’re amazing!”
Gu Yao: uvu
“Then, what about me?” The young man’s eyes sparkled. “Write mine too?”
Chu Muge shot him a sideways glance, her expression indifferent.
Who does he think he is? My Senior Sister isn’t here to perform tricks.
But Gu Yao nodded.
Chu Muge rolled her eyes and kept driving silently.
Forget it. Gu Yao was having fun.
Gu Yao was clever. Knowing that the two were siblings, she started with the second character as Cai (采). But when it came to the third character, she got stuck.
Which Xie?
She quietly opened a dictionary and began searching through the pinyin.
No clue.
Her eyes wandered, landing on a character at random.
“This one’ll do.”
When the young man received the sticky note, it read:
[白采?]
The young man: ???
What the heck is this?
To be fair to Gu Yao, her handwriting was already messy. Complex characters became jumbled, resembling mosaics.
The young man stammered, “Uh, my third character isn’t this…”
Gu Yao glanced at him, shook her head, and turned her attention forward, clearly done with the conversation.
Gu Yao knew it wasn’t the right character. But this one was cool, okay? All those dense, intricate strokes, it had been a lot of work to write.
She’d written such an impressive character to cover up the fact that she didn’t know his name.
Gu Yao had always believed that the more strokes a character had, the more impressive it was. Being able to write something like this was already a feat.
So what if it was wrong? Look how cool this character was. No need to fuss over details.
Tnote: 