“Qiang!” Shen Jiabin barked with a dark frown. “Sit down! We’re discussing what to do next. We’re almost out of food. Now isn’t the time to think about that sort of thing!”
His words sounded as if he were defending Lin Mancha, but they carried another meaning beneath the surface.
No one present was stupid. On the contrary, they were all among Jiangcheng University’s elite. Everyone understood what he was really saying.
Once they found food, Shen Jiabin might no longer stop Zhuang Qiang from forcing himself on Lin Mancha.
“He’s right, Qiang. You’ve gone too far,” another handsome man in a basketball uniform said. “And the next time you speak to Jingyan, you’d better watch your tone.”
His name was Gu Fanghua. Everyone knew he had been pursuing Tang Jingyan for a long time. He was her devoted bootlicker through and through.
Whenever a matter involved Tang Jingyan, he would always be the first to defend her. Whatever she said, he supported unconditionally.
Tang Jingyan dared confront Zhuang Qiang only because both Shen Jiabin and Gu Fanghua stood behind her.
Shen Jiabin was her cousin, a fact every member of the basketball team knew. That was also why the other two men had never dared make a move on her.
Zhuang Qiang’s cheek twitched. He reluctantly sat back down and shot Gu Fanghua a cold glance, but said nothing more.
He was clearly wary of Shen Jiabin.
Meanwhile, Lin Mancha—the focus of the argument—hugged her knees tightly. Despair and uncertainty filled her eyes as she repeatedly tugged at the hem of her dance skirt.
The confrontation left the atmosphere oppressively heavy, and the group fell silent.
At that moment, the other woman in yoga clothes, who had not joined the discussion, suddenly stood and pointed into the distance.
“Look! That strange man is running this way!”
From where she sat, she had a perfect view of Xiao Yi sprinting across the campus.
He moved with astonishing speed. Ordinary zombies could not react before he flashed past them, and any zombie that happened to block his path was cut down with a single decisive slash.
The others hurried to their feet and looked in the direction she indicated.
“Who is he? Why have we never seen him before? Is he really a student here?” Tang Jingyan asked as she watched Xiao Yi’s agile figure. “If someone this powerful attended our university, surely we would have heard of him. If he’s willing to join our group, our chances of surviving the apocalypse will increase enormously!”
“Powerful? What’s so impressive about him?” Gu Fanghua raised a pair of binoculars and sneered arrogantly, though the sourness in his voice was impossible to miss. “I think that loser once tried to join our basketball team. Brother Bin threw him out, and he nearly became the team’s favorite joke. He’s nothing but a useless level-ten cripple.”
“At least he has the courage to fight his way outside!” Lin Mancha said admiringly. “Yesterday, I saw him rescue a girl and take her into that strange city. That is what a real man looks like!”
She glanced fearfully at Zhuang Qiang. The remark had been deliberately aimed at him.
“A real man? Hahaha!” Zhuang Qiang burst into mocking laughter. “That brat had better pray he never falls into my hands. If I catch him, I’ll beat him until he crawls like a dog!”
“Hmph! If I had a blade like that, I could kill as many of these stupid zombies as came at me!”
Shen Jiabin stared covetously at the long-handled Mo blade in Xiao Yi’s hands, which sliced through flesh and bone like paper.
“If a level-ten cripple can move freely through a zombie horde, then it should be even easier for us!”
“He’s getting closer!” Tang Jingyan cried in surprise. “He’s coming straight toward us! What does he want? Is he here to save us?”
Everyone could now see the powerful man racing toward the gymnasium, his Mo blade carving a path through the zombies as the distance between them rapidly shrank.
“Save us?” Shen Jiabin sneered. He was still furious that Xiao Yi had ignored their cries for help the previous day. “Do we need a level-ten cripple to save us? That loser probably couldn’t survive over there and has come begging to join our group!”
Read 30 chapters ahead on Patreon and support Gugugu Novels:
/cw/GuguguNovels