Qiao Xi remembered the dog she and Qin Wang had raised together.
Its name was Cola, a golden retriever.
It was only because Qin Wang had once returned from the Qin family estate with dog hair stuck to his clothes.
Mother Qin, who had always looked down on Qiao Xi, took the initiative to invite her out, saying that a business partner had opened an animal-themed park and suggested she bring Cola along.
Qiao Xi suspected nothing and brought Cola to the appointment. Mother Qin used the excuse that she had something to discuss with her and had a servant take the dog’s leash.
The two had just reached the other side of the road when the servant suddenly let go of the leash.
Cola ran toward her with all its might, then was run over by a speeding car.
Blood matted its fur into clumps. It lay in the middle of the road, its body convulsing uncontrollably. In a panic, Qiao Xi scooped it up, wanting to rush it to the animal hospital.
But cars swerved around her one by one—no one stopped.
She called Qin Wang, but no one answered.
In the end, Mother Qin left in her car without a speck of dust on her clothes.
Cola grew colder and colder in her arms…
The scene before her overlapped with the memory of Cola’s tragic death.
Qiao Xi’s body trembled uncontrollably, tears streaming down in large drops.
Through her tear-blurred eyes, she saw Qin Wang standing beside her with furrowed brows, a look of concern on his face.
“Qiao Xi…”
She grabbed Qin Wang’s arm like a drowning person clutching at a lifeline, her voice thick with helplessness.
“Cola got hit by a car… Qin Wang… I want to take it to the hospital… but… but I can’t get a ride…”
Her pained and helpless appearance made Qin Wang’s heart ache.
He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “It’s all in the past. Cola was just an accident. You don’t have to blame yourself too—”
The person in his arms suddenly shoved him away as if provoked, staring at him with bloodshot eyes. “Cola wasn’t an accident!”
“Then what was it?”
Qin Wang frowned. “Are you going to say again that my mother did it on purpose?”
Qiao Xi said nothing, tears falling silently.
Qin Wang let out a sigh. “I know this affected you deeply, but it’s been three years now. The servant’s negligence caused Cola to be hit by that car, and my mother felt guilty too—she even apologized to you. Can you please stop holding onto this?”
Qiao Xi looked at him, and suddenly her tears stopped.
Right.
That was exactly what he had said back then.
He didn’t believe her, and he wouldn’t believe her this time either.
But even if he did believe her, so what? She was still his mother after all.
Qiao Xi lowered her gaze and stopped arguing.
She quietly walked over to Tuanzi, crouched down, and carefully gathered its charred remains.
Then, without a word, she headed toward the other end of the alley.
As she passed Qin Wang, her arm was suddenly grabbed. “Where are you going?”
“None of your business.”
Qin Wang’s fingers tightened with force, as if suppressing his anger. “It’s already dead. What are you going to do now? Bury it?”
“Qiao Xi, stop being crazy, alright?”
Qiao Xi glanced sideways at him and suddenly felt that the Qin Wang before her was utterly unfamiliar.
Meanwhile, Xia Manman leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed, watching with a half-smile.
“Never thought the great school beauty Qiao would be so compassionate—treating a mutant monster like a treasure.”
“Such a saint act. Honestly.”
“Now, now, that’s not fair to say.” The burly man from the northeast looked reluctant. “Who hasn’t raised a pet before, right? You keep them for fun, and it really hurts when they die.”
Xia Manman curled her lips in disgust. “Keeping a monster as a pet? How disgusting.”
“I didn’t see that little thing being aggressive at all…”
The fire-element ability user, wrapped in bandages, spoke coldly in Qiao Xi’s direction. “Monsters deserve to die. No exceptions.”
The temperature in the air dropped to freezing at that moment.
Qin Wang glanced at the fire-element ability user, his brow slightly furrowed.
The latter turned and went back into the general store.
Xia Manman looked at Qiao Xi with smug satisfaction, like she had just won a battle.
Watching Qiao Xi wrap the mutant rabbit’s charred body in her clothes, the bespectacled man wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I think Brother Li did the right thing. Who knows if that thing carries a virus—we can’t be bringing it inside!”
Qiao Xi said nothing. She pried Qin Wang’s hand off with force and walked toward the end of the alley.
Qin Wang didn’t stop her this time, only followed at a short distance behind, casually clearing away the zombies along the way.
Qiao Xi chose a patch of greenery, buried Tuanzi there, and sat beside it for a long time.
Tuanzi was a vegetarian. It had never hurt anyone, yet it was sentenced to death because someone said all monsters deserved to die.
Only because that person was stronger.
The rules of the world had always been made by the strong, but Qiao Xi had understood one principle since she was young: people must pay for their own actions.
Having composed herself, the two walked back side by side.
Qiao Xi suddenly asked him, “Why did we break up back then?”
Qin Wang’s steps halted abruptly. He shot her a cold glare, his voice as if laced with ice. “You have the nerve to bring that up?”
Qiao Xi hadn’t expected such a simple question to stir such a strong reaction from him.
“Forget it then.”
She left those words and walked ahead on her own.
Qin Wang, as if provoked by her dismissive attitude, suddenly grabbed her wrist and pressed her hard against the wall.
“Forget it? Why should we forget it?”
His tall frame loomed closer, an oppressive aura washing over her. “It was you who broke up with me, and you who refused to take me back. I stood on the rooftop calling you, and all I got was being called a lunatic.”
“Truly heartless, Qiao Xi.”
“Do you know what I was thinking while lying in the hospital?”
“I was thinking,” his voice trembled at the end, carrying a suppressed sob, “I was thinking that if only you would come see me once.”
“Just once, and I would forgive you, and keep being your dog.”
“But you didn’t. Not even once.”
Qin Wang’s expression was like a snarling dog, as if he might lunge at her and tear her apart at any moment.
Qiao Xi turned her face away, avoiding his scorching breath. “For this, you should go ask your dear mother.”
“I may be heartless, but I’m nothing compared to her. She’s the truly cold-blooded one.”
“What do you mean?” Qin Wang grabbed her chin, forcibly turning her face back to make her look at him. “What do you mean, Qiao Xi? Why does everything between us have to drag my mother into it?”
“You say she’s cold-blooded, but back then when your mother was making a fuss about buying your brother a car, wasn’t it my mother who gave her two million?”
“Qiao Xi, do you even have a conscience?”
Qiao Xi froze.
That part wasn’t in her fragmented memories. She searched her mind desperately, and suddenly a scene flashed through her thoughts—
Her mother holding up a phone in front of her face, pointing at a picture of a Mercedes E300 and saying, “What do you think of this car?”
“Your brother just got his license. Shouldn’t you, as the older sister, show some generosity?”
Qiao Xi’s thoughts drifted away. Seeing her stay silent, Qin Wang released her with a sneer in his eyes and pulled out a tissue to wipe his hands.
As if he’d touched something dirty.
When she was only a few steps from the grocery store, the bespectacled man poked his head out from the door crack. “Miss Qiao, you’re back just in time.”
“Brother Li’s back wound is deep, and we’re running low on medicine. Please, Miss Qiao, help us out!”
Li Chuan was that fire-element ability user—and the one who had killed Tuanzi.
Qiao Xi didn’t respond, stepping inside.
Against the wall inside the room was a single bed. Li Chuan lay on it, bare-chested, face down, revealing a wound running from his shoulder down to his side. The flesh was turned outward, and in some places, the wound was deep enough to show bone.
Indeed, it was a serious injury.
“Much obliged.” Li Chuan glanced at her.
His words were polite, but his eyes clearly carried a hint of condescending certainty, as if he knew Qiao Xi couldn’t refuse.
Thinking of Tuanzi struggling in the flames, Qiao Xi’s eyes turned cold.
First he kills her friend, then he asks for her help.
Qiao Xi found it ironic, but despite the urge to kill him burning in her heart, she showed no resistance on the surface.
She leaned down to examine the wound on Li Chuan’s back and casually asked, “You have a grudge against zombies?”
Her fingertips pressed at the edge of the wound, and Li Chuan’s body instantly tensed. It was a long moment before he spoke in a hoarse voice, “My parents and little sister… were all killed by zombies.”
This kind of thing wasn’t uncommon in the apocalypse.
“You avenged them.”
Her tone was a statement, because with Li Chuan’s strength, killing a few zombies was effortless.
But Li Chuan shook his head. “It got away.”
“Got away?”
“Yeah.” Li Chuan’s voice was raspy and low. “It was a zombie that could disguise itself as a normal person, and it could think. That’s how it tricked my parents into opening the door…”
Qiao Xi’s heart tightened.
The zombie he described was very much like herself.
So she wasn’t unique.
She had kin after all.
And it had escaped from Li Chuan, which meant it was no pushover.
She steadied herself and turned to look at the others in the room. “My method of treating him is a bit special. Could you all step outside for a moment?”
Qin Wang had just walked in when the words “special treatment” hit him like a brick.
His brow twitched, and he instinctively thought of that scene in the clothing store.
“No.” Qin Wang’s voice was cold as he stopped her. “You can’t treat him.”
Everyone was taken aback.
Qiao Xi turned to look at him. “Then you do it?”