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“So, how did you learn about Xinjialuo?” Chu Muge casually asked while keeping her hands on the steering wheel. “Was it also because of those flyers?”
Gu Yao had seen those flyers too, back when Chu Muge first rescued her from the dark room.
The siblings nodded. Bai Caixie gave a firm answer: “Yes.”
Chu Muge rolled her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and said, “Well, they sure printed a lot of those.”
Her tone was unmistakably laced with disdain. The young man picked up on it and asked if she was familiar with the place.
Familiar? Chu Muge squinted, recalling the place. It felt as close and familiar as home.
“It’s alright, I guess,” she said casually. “I have an old friend there.”
Old friend?
The term piqued the siblings’ curiosity and even made Gu Yao glance at Chu Muge silently.
“His dad is in the military, very wealthy, and he’s a classic rich and handsome type,” Chu Muge said, giving Gu Yao a sideways glance, locking eyes with her. “And he was your childhood friend.”
Lu Boyuan.
Gu Yao quickly averted her gaze.
At this point, Chu Muge wasn’t supposed to know Lu Boyuan.
They had only been in the same school before the apocalypse and had never interacted at all.
Gu Yao opened her dictionary and started practicing her handwriting.
“When you get to Xinjialuo, remember to take care of your belongings,” Chu Muge said, glancing upward thoughtfully. “Don’t flaunt your wealth, got it?”
Bai Caixie nodded.
Chu Muge, having received memories of the place, knew better than anyone how “safe” Xinjialuo was.
You could say it was unsafe, despite its walls, weapons, powered individuals, and self-sustaining resources like electricity, water, and crops. But calling it safe? Beneath the surface, danger lurked everywhere.
The military and powered individuals smiled on the outside, but their relationships were far from harmonious behind the scenes.
The military wouldn’t let powered individuals dominate, and the latter wouldn’t back down either.
Some of the powered were already immune to bullets, and during a zombie apocalypse, you couldn’t exactly turn on each other and start shelling your own city, could you? After all, they were all human. They had to coexist. The military even had their own powered members, an eclectic mix of people. It was chaotic, to say the least. Not to mention, there would be mutated zombie hordes to contend with later on.
Chu Muge didn’t need to guess. If a conflict broke out, it would be a lose-lose situation for both sides.
Or maybe, not just both sides.
Powered individuals were technically part of the forces, but they were like a bunch of rebellious troublemakers, giving everyone headaches.
Bai Caixie stretched lazily. With his broken right arm, the motion looked somewhat comical.
He commented that he had once fantasized about an apocalypse but never expected it to actually happen.
Sitting in the same car with others, heading toward a shared destination, just trying to survive.
“Hey, have you ever thought…” The young man asked, “where did this virus come from?”
Chu Muge casually replied, “Maybe it came from aliens.”
After saying that, she noticed three pairs of eyes all looking at her. She shrugged, squinting as she added, “What? I don’t know either.”
The topic cast a heavy silence over the group. Gu Yao thought for a moment, tore open a beef jerky packet, and began munching on it.
A short-haired girl, who had been secretly observing her, couldn’t hold back and asked, “Is she… uh, eating beef jerky?”
The scene was as jarring as seeing a tiger eating vegetables.
Chu Muge glanced at Bai Caiwei through the rearview mirror and asked coolly, “What about it?”
Then she reached out and ruffled Gu Yao’s hair. “Senior is very well-behaved.”
Gu Yao squinted her eyes as she gnawed on the beef jerky, slapping Chu Muge’s hand away.
I’m not a pet!
But to others, she did seem well-behaved, quietly nibbling on the jerky.
The car sped along the road.
Chu Muge was used to silence, but the overwhelming quiet, punctuated only by the sound of wheels turning, made the young man uneasy. He needed to find a topic to break the tension. “Uh, by the way, how much longer until we reach Xinjialuo?”
Chu Muge gave him a sidelong glance. “You want to go there, but don’t know the way?”
“...This kind of stuff was our parents’ job,” Bai Caiwei said.
The atmosphere grew heavy again. Chu Muge thought for a moment and said, “We still have to pass through a city.”
“A city?!” Bai Caixie was startled.
Chu Muge nodded calmly and then deliberately added, “Yep, one of those gloomy cities crawling with zombies, where you never know what might jump out at you in the dark.”
“Isn’t there another way?” the short-haired girl asked.
“Nope,” Chu Muge replied, shaking her head. Then she added, “And we’ll also need to cross a water route.”
“Water route?!”
There shouldn’t be any routes nearby requiring a boat, right? Xinjialuo isn’t an island.
Chu Muge shrugged in response to the young man’s puzzled gaze but didn’t answer.
They would find out soon enough.
The vehicle sped along the road, eventually slowing down and coming to a stop.
The outline of a city was faintly visible in the distance.
It was getting late, so they decided to rest and enter the city the next day.
As time passed, the sun disappeared without notice, replaced by a bright moon.
The night sky in the apocalypse was stunning, with stars scattered like a painting, tranquil and breathtaking.
The car’s interior lights were off, blending it seamlessly with the pitch-black night outside.
The short-haired girl leaned against her brother’s uninjured left shoulder, eyes closed in rest.
The young man leaned his head against the car window, breathing evenly.
The only ones still awake were the zombie dog and Gu Yao.
Zombies didn’t need sleep but could enter a standby-like state to accelerate the passage of time.
Gu Yao sat with her eyes half-closed, her pale gray pupils dull and lifeless, but at one moment, they suddenly brightened, regaining a flicker of vitality.
She turned to look at the driver’s seat, it was empty.
The night was peaceful, punctuated by the faint chirping of insects.
Chu Muge sat on a large rock by the roadside, her back to the car, basking in the moonlight.
Her tang dao rested beside her on the rock as she sat there, silently gazing at the moon, as still as a sculpture.
Soft footsteps sounded behind her.
Chu Muge shifted slightly, tilting her head to glance at Gu Yao approaching her.
With a relaxed smile, she softly called out, “Senior, come here.”
The rock was big enough for two people to sit.
Once Gu Yao sat beside her, Chu Muge gently hugged her and said, “I can’t sleep.”
Gu Yao lowered her gaze slightly, meeting Chu Muge’s eyes.
Gu Yao didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t suffer from insomnia because she didn’t need sleep at all.
Chu Muge sighed, released her, and said, “Senior, I really like you.”
Gu Yao looked away, her gaze settling on the bright moon in the sky.
Chu Muge’s focus had shifted entirely from the moon to Gu Yao. Smiling faintly, she softly said, “It’s enough that I like you.”
That lonely feeling crept up again.
Gu Yao turned her gaze back to her.
Though Chu Muge still smiled, a subtle melancholy lingered beneath it.
To Gu Yao, if Chu Muge had cat ears, they would surely be drooping.
Gu Yao saw negative emotions in her. How could she dispel them? Comfort her.
But how? Do something Chu Muge likes.
Gu Yao blinked and thought.
What did Chu Muge like?
“Senior…?”
Chu Muge was stunned as Gu Yao’s serene face, bathed in moonlight, slowly leaned closer. Before she could react, their lips met.
Chu Muge’s eyes widened as she looked at Gu Yao’s face, so close, seemingly searching for some kind of answer.
The kiss was soft, like cotton candy, and ended quickly.
Chu Muge touched her lips with her fingers, as if confirming whether the kiss had really happened.
Looking at Gu Yao’s composed expression, Chu Muge suddenly understood her intent.
She chuckled softly. “Senior, you did this to comfort me, didn’t you?”
Gu Yao nodded honestly.
Chu Muge sighed, her tone tinged with melancholy again. “But kissing… that’s something only people who like each other should do.”
Gu Yao blinked and thought.
[Like.]
She found herself unable to grasp the meaning of the emotion anymore.
She must have known before, whether she liked Chu Muge or not.
Like or not like, it should have been a simple conclusion.
But now, it was impossible to tell.
Still, kissing seemed to make Chu Muge happy.
Gu Yao thought for a moment, then leaned toward Chu Muge again. Under her gaze, she kissed her lips once more.
To Gu Yao, the concept of “liking” felt distant and unfamiliar.
She didn’t know if she liked Chu Muge.
But kissing was the only way she knew to bring a sparkle of joy back to Chu Muge’s eyes, like tiny, glistening gems under the moonlight.
Not knowing whether you like someone and still kissing them, Gu Yao was being such a rogue.