Before the apocalypse, this bastard was like this. After the apocalypse, he's still the same.
A leopard can't change its spots, and a dog can't change its nature!
Yun Ying threw the gauze at him. "Bandage yourself!"
Yu Yao grabbed her wrist and pulled the girl, who was about to run off, back.
"I wasn't deliberately being a pervert. Miss Yun, have some pity on me—I'm a normal man."
Yun Ying struggled desperately. "Yu Yao, let go of me!"
Yu Yao tilted his head back slightly, his Adam's apple bobbing. It was normal for Ability Users to feel some impulse after using their abilities. He used to be like this when he was alone too—mostly he'd take care of it himself or just wait it out for a while. He'd never thought about getting a girlfriend.
Who has time for romance in the apocalypse? Staying alive was already the most important thing.
He held onto her without letting go, turning his head to look at her. Yun Ying's face was flushed red with embarrassment, and she cursed him angrily, "All you think about is that kind of thing! Aren't you afraid you'll end up with kidney failure someday?"
Yu Yao laughed. "Then you've really wronged me. I'm not someone who's ruled by desire, don't worry—I won't wither away."
Physiological urges—only once or twice a month at most. Too much of that kind of thing harms the body. Yu Yao felt he didn't need it that badly.
That's what he used to think.
He looked at her fair, white face, his throat bobbing. He tightened his grip on her hand, his fingertips gently stroking her delicate skin.
She was so damn beautiful. Yu Yao was really afraid that one day he wouldn't be able to hold back and would sneak into her room at night, making her angry—wouldn't that scare her unconscious? This kind of thing was better when both parties were willing. No matter how rough things got, at worst he'd get a few slaps from her—it wouldn't come to losing his next meal over it.
Yun Ying's lips quivered, as if she'd been angered by him.
Yu Yao leaned in closer and heard her voice, faint as a mosquito's buzz: "Liar, you're a liar. You definitely haven't been sparing with your perverted ways."
He was clearly a lecher—the moment he caught her, he wanted to drag her to bed. How could he have the nerve to say he wasn't ruled by desire?
Having been apart from him all this time, Yun Ying felt certain Yu Yao must have other women. How could this bad dog possibly hold back? He was definitely just humoring her.
Yu Yao found it amusing. "How have I lied to you? You can rest assured—I don't have other women, I don't have a hobby of being a pervert to others, and I certainly don't do it with my hand every day—"
"Shut up!" Yun Ying grabbed a pillow and threw it at him.
Fine, fine, fine. Better to be kind and act like a decent person.
Yu Yao caught the pillow and let go of her hand. Yun Ying bolted.
He wrapped the gauze around himself that Yun Ying hadn't finished bandaging. Before long, He Fangchen knocked on the door and asked him, "Captain, my sister said some wounds are inconvenient for her to handle, so she asked me to come treat them for you. Are you available now?"
Yu Yao leaned against the headboard and refused without hesitation. "No need. I'll do it myself."
He rested for a while. The jasmine scent from her seemed to still linger in the air, burning Yu Yao so much that he couldn't calm down at all. He looked down—it was a rather exaggerated display of desire. No wonder Yun Ying overthought things. He really did seem like a pervert.
At the base it was fine—he could go take a cold shower, and if that didn't suppress it, he'd take care of it himself. But this wasn't the base. He could only force himself to calm down, empty his mind, and endure the pain.
It was truly unbearable. That little ancestor was driving him crazy with temptation.
The little ancestor was huddled outside, curled up next to Lu Yao, a full eight hundred meters away from the partition behind her, terrified that Yu Yao, that dog, would drag her back in again.
Lu Yao and the others were dealing with the zombies, the gunfire was loud and chaotic. Yun Ying guessed they probably hadn't heard what happened inside earlier, which was why her expression had only slightly improved.
That bad thing had no shame, but she still had hers.
Yun Ying also raised her gun to practice her accuracy. Even though Yu Yao said there were plenty of bullets, in the apocalypse gunpowder was extremely precious—she couldn't keep wasting it like that.
Lu Yao turned her head to look at her, saw the young girl's flushed face, and silently shook her head.
A little white rabbit targeted by a bad dog had nothing to look forward to but being eaten clean. Yu Yao really was strange—why did he have to fixate on someone else's wife?
The heavy-duty RV sped along the road, not stopping until nightfall when it pulled into a village.
In the apocalypse, traveling at night was absolutely forbidden. Once the zombies' Semi-dormancy Period ended, their speed and sense of smell would increase dramatically at night. Forcing your way through at that time was asking to stir up a zombie nest.
The buildings here were all self-built houses, no residential complexes. Looking around, only some wandering zombies could be seen in the distant fields, quickly dealt with by Lu Yao and Lin Xizhi.
Cheng Zainan drove the vehicle to a courtyard with its lights off. He Fangchen jumped over the wall, confirmed no one was inside, then opened the gate from within. The RV drove in and parked in the yard.
Yun Ying was just about to get out when Yu Yao, emerging from the partitioned area, called out to stop her.
"Baby, you don't want me anymore?"
Yun Ying turned her head and glared at him. "Can't you walk by yourself?"
Yu Yao, supporting his waist and abdomen, walked over and naturally placed one hand on her shoulder, leaning weakly against her. "Not really. It hurts a lot."
Yun Ying: "…"
She really believed his ghost!
He Fangchen, who had been about to come over and help the captain, turned and walked away—he simply couldn't bear to watch.
Yun Ying was forced to serve as a crutch, supporting Yu Yao—who was more than a head taller than her—as they got out of the vehicle. The man still had some conscience; he didn't put his full weight on her.
Lu Yao and Lin Xizhi inspected the entire house, confirming there were no zombies inside and no survivors either.
"There are only three bedrooms here. One of them has a broken door that won't close, and one has no bed. But this house has the highest courtyard walls and is close to the main road, convenient for driving. Captain, what do you think—how should we arrange sleeping tonight?"
Yu Yao leaned against Yun Ying, having gotten a basic understanding of the terrain earlier.
"Old He and Cheng Zainan take the small room without a bed on the east side. Lu Yao and Lin Xizhi take the bedroom with a bed on the west side. I'll take the room without a door. We'll still rotate night watch shifts as usual."
Yun Ying pointed at herself. "Then what about me?"
Yu Yao looked down at the person held in his arms, squinted, and smiled. "Given your history of running away, you're staying with me."
Yun Ying: "?"
In your dreams.
Yun Ying bent down, trying to slip out of his embrace, but Yu Yao wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed her back. He held her and walked toward the room. "There's no door here. I don't have a hobby of acting indecently in public."
Yun Ying swayed left and right trying to shake him off. "I don't want to stay with you! Sister Lu, Sister Lin, save me—he'll hit people!"
Yu Yao's reputation was about to be shredded to pieces by her fabrications. He glanced back at the hesitant Lu Yao and Lin Xizhi and said calmly, "I have no violent tendencies toward women, and I won't do anything to your little Yun sister."
After they entered the room, He Fangchen shrugged and said, "Don't worry. He brought back a treasure—he dotes on her like anything."
The reason Yu Yao was so adamant about having Yun Ying stay right in front of him was simply that the past two days' events had grown far more serious than they could have imagined.
High-rank Zombies with supernatural abilities, animals that had gained a degree of intelligence after mutation—the apocalypse had only lasted eight months, not even a year, and the outside world had already deteriorated to this extent.
A village that seemed quiet and still might not necessarily be safe. He treasured one person too much; he had to keep her right under his watchful eye before he could feel at ease.
Yu Yao tidied the room briefly. There wasn't much inside, really—this family had probably fled early in the apocalypse.
In the early days of the apocalypse, rural areas had far fewer Zombies than the cities. Many people had the chance to rush to the safe base. Clothes were scattered around the room, no food—this family must have evacuated.
This room had likely been an abandoned storage room before. The bed had been piled with miscellaneous items, all of which Cheng Zainan had moved out when he came in. Yun Ying, face cold, rummaged through and found bedding in a compression bag that was still relatively dry, and spread it out.
She turned and walked toward the rattan sofa, kicking Yu Yao, who was lying on it: "I'm going to sleep."
Yu Yao had his arms crossed over his chest, his head on a throw pillow. "You want to sleep with me?"
Yun Ying's eyes went wide. "You're hogging the sofa!"
Yu Yao tilted his chin slightly and pointed at the made bed. "Isn't that empty over there?"
Yun Ying caught on and pointed at herself. "I sleep on the bed?"
What else? His precious darling sleeping on the sofa?
Yu Yao laughed softly and pulled his windbreaker over himself. "Go sleep. Last night you did nothing but talk bad about me—you barely slept, right?"
Yun Ying's little face flushed red. She stammered in protest: "Who—who was talking bad about you!"
He wasn't deaf. Worried the girl might run off again in the middle of the night, he'd kept his eyes open the whole night on watch. The three girls had gossiped and cursed until five in the morning before sleeping, and some of it was inevitably rumor. Yu Yao had taken the opportunity to set the record straight.
"I've never been married. I really don't remember anything from before the apocalypse, but I'm certain I was unmarried." Yu Yao spoke with his eyes closed. "And there's no eight-year-old grown son, and no scumbag behavior of abandoning a wife and child."
Yun Ying knew better than anyone that Yu Yao had never married, and certainly had no grown son. Though he had proposed and she had pretended to accept, she'd run off before they could get the certificate.
Yesterday Lin Xizhi and the others had just been repeating rumors from the base. Yun Ying couldn't exactly clear Yu Yao's name for him—her current persona was that of a "married woman who doesn't know Yu Yao."
"…We were just joking. It's rumors spreading around the base. Remember to clear them up when you get back."
Knowing she was in the wrong, she shuffled back to the bed and lay down. There was no lamp in the room, only moonlight from outside the window. In the yard, Lu Yao and Cheng Zainan were still on night watch.
Yu Yao suddenly spoke: "Yun Ying, do you still have family?"
Yun Ying lowered her eyes, thinking of her parents who had passed away young, and said softly: "No. They died in a car accident. I'm the only one left on my household registration."
"Don't you have an older brother?"
Yu Yao's voice rose in the room.
Yun Ying's rusty brain suddenly caught up. Back when she'd first reunited with Yu Yao, what had she said?
She had an older brother—an older brother she'd been separated from after the apocalypse.
How could she make something up and then forget it later!
Yun Ying opened her eyes and saw that Yu Yao had at some point rolled onto his side, his head resting on his bent arm, staring at her without blinking.
"Today I heard you call out to him again. Who exactly is this 'brother' you keep calling for?"
When facing the giant spider and staring death in the face, the person one calls out for is usually the one they trust most deep in their subconscious. When they first met, even in her unconscious state, she had also been calling for "brother."
Yu Yao couldn't deny his own suspicion and jealousy. "Brother" was such a sweet term of address—especially coming from her mouth, so soft and obedient, brimming with reliance. But that person just wasn't him.
Yun Ying gripped the blanket tightly, knowing she couldn't get past this without giving an explanation. She fabricated a story with remarkable composure: "I have a biological older brother! He—he…"
Her long lashes lowered, her small mouth pursed, and she looked like she might cry.
"I lied to you. Actually, my brother is dead. He died in the early days of the apocalypse. He died horribly. I… I just refused to accept reality. I didn't believe my brother was dead…"
Yu Yao: "…"
Yu Yao closed his eyes, suppressing that inexplicable bitterness in his heart, and sighed softly: "Sorry."
He opened his eyes and saw Yun Ying's blanket trembling in little jerks. Thinking she was crying, he sat up wanting to hold her.
From under the blanket, Yun Ying said in a choked voice: "Don't come over. I want to cry for a while."
Yu Yao sat back down, watching the lump of her blanket.
She'd clearly said it was her biological brother, yet he still felt somewhat sour. A man could make her depend on him so much that she instinctively called for him when in danger.
After sitting for a while, Yun Ying poked her head out from the blanket and asked in a low voice: "Do you have family?"
Yu Yao sat on the sofa, the two of them facing each other across the aisle. He was silent for a moment.
Yun Ying blinked and blinked, thinking to herself that Yu Yao absolutely must not have any memories. If he was going to have amnesia, he should forget everything completely.
Yu Yao's long lashes lowered as he said calmly: "Yes."
Yun Ying: "…You do?"
Wasn't he supposed to have amnesia?
Yu Yao said: "My parents have passed away, but I seem to have a younger sister."
Yun Ying's heart leaped into her throat.
Yu Yao raised his eyes to look at her, his gaze heavy: "I have a younger sister, about the same age as you. I'm looking for her."