That night, Jiang Lingyue slept very uneasily.
She had a very long nightmare.
In the dream, she returned to the scene from the night before. The hotel doors were wide open, and she stood at the entrance, watching the survivors being torn apart one by one by zombies.
The child who had been held in the woman’s arms turned its head and stared at her with eyes that had no whites.
“Why… didn’t you save us?”
“Why didn’t you save us?!”
The dream shifted.
She was suddenly back on her university campus before she transmigrated. The sun was bright and birds were singing. Her friends and classmates pointed at her, whispering.
“Look, it’s her. The one who watched people die without helping.”
“So cold-blooded. She didn’t even save a child.”
“Murderer!”
“Murderer!”
“Murderer!”
Everyone’s faces began to twist, turning into the faces of zombies as they slowly closed in on her.
“No… it wasn’t me! I didn’t!”
Jiang Lingyue screamed and jolted upright in bed.
She gasped for breath, her whole body drenched in cold sweat. Her pajamas clung damply to her skin, making her feel extremely uncomfortable.
The room was pitch black. Only the pale moonlight outside the window shone onto the floor, casting all kinds of strange shadows that looked like ghosts lurking in the darkness.
Silence.
A deathly silence.
Yet in her ears, the accusations from the dream and the child’s crying seemed to echo endlessly.
Jiang Lingyue hugged her knees and buried her head deeply into them.
She thought she could remain indifferent.
She thought five years of surviving in the apocalypse had hardened her heart like stone.
But she had still overestimated herself.
Watching several lives disappear right in front of her, while she clearly had the ability or at least believed she did yet chose to stand by… that guilt was like a venomous snake, biting fiercely at her heart whenever midnight came.
She knew Gu Han was right. Her choice hadn’t been wrong.
But knowing that didn’t mean she could feel at peace.
After all… she had once been an ordinary person living in a peaceful era, taught to be kind and to help others whenever possible.
The more Jiang Lingyue thought about it, the more frightened and miserable she felt.
It seemed as if countless eyes were staring at her in the empty room.
She didn’t dare stay alone any longer.
Scrambling off the bed, she didn’t even have time to put on shoes. Barefoot, she stumbled out of the room.
She wanted to find someone.
A living person.
As long as she could feel that there was another living being in this hotel besides herself, that would be enough.
The first and only figure that flashed through her mind was Gu Han.
Her thoughts were a mess, and she had even forgotten which room he was staying in. She could only rely on instinct, searching door by door along the dark third-floor corridor.
“Gu Han?”
“Gu Han, are you there?”
Her voice trembled with a sob as it echoed through the empty hallway, sounding especially helpless.
Just when she was about to despair, a door at the end of the corridor opened with a click.
Gu Han appeared in the doorway.
He seemed to have been woken up. He wore only a black tank top and long pants, with a jacket draped over his shoulders, revealing the firm, smooth lines of his arms.
Under the moonlight, his features looked even colder and sharper.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, slightly frowning as he looked at Jiang Lingyue standing not far away barefoot and trembling.
The moment she saw him, the nerve that had been stretched to its limit in Jiang Lingyue finally snapped.
She couldn’t even tell whether she felt wronged or frightened, but tears rushed out uncontrollably.
She didn’t say anything. She just stood there looking at him, silently crying.
Gu Han froze.
He had seen all kinds of women those who would do anything to survive in the apocalypse, those who clung pitifully to stronger people, and those who fought like men.
But he had never seen someone like Jiang Lingyue.
The night before, she had watched several people being devoured by zombies without even changing her expression. That coldness had surpassed even many men he had seen.
Yet now, because of a nightmare, she was crying like a child who had suffered a great injustice.
These two completely opposite qualities existed in the same person, creating a strong sense of contradiction.
It left him… somewhat at a loss.
He watched her silently for a while before finally stepping forward.
He stopped in front of her, his tall figure almost completely enveloping her.
He didn’t ask why she was crying, nor did he say any words of comfort. He simply reached out, took off the jacket from his shoulders, and draped it over her cold shoulders that were trembling with fear.
His jacket still carried his body heat.
Warm and dry.
It drove away most of the chill in Jiang Lingyue’s body.
She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes.
Under the moonlight, his face was still stern and his gaze still deep, but it seemed… not quite as cold anymore.
“You had a nightmare,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
Jiang Lingyue sniffed and nodded, her voice thick with tears.
“I dreamed about them… They all turned into zombies and came to claim my life…”
Gu Han listened quietly without interrupting.
“Am I very cold-blooded? Am I a bad person?” she asked, looking at him like a criminal waiting for judgment.
Gu Han stared at her eyes clear and fragile after being washed with tears and remained silent for a long time.
So long that Jiang Lingyue thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then he slowly spoke, his voice calmer than the night itself.
“You’re not a bad person.”
“You’re just… an ordinary person who wants to live.”
Wanting to live.
Those words were like a key that instantly unlocked all the shackles in Jiang Lingyue’s heart.
That’s right.
Everything she had done was simply to survive.
What was wrong with that?
Her tears flowed even harder, but this time it wasn’t because of fear or guilt.
It was because… someone understood her.
She let herself cry for a while before gradually calming down.
“Thank you,” she said awkwardly, wiping her tears. “Sorry for disturbing you so late.”
“It’s fine,” Gu Han replied.
The atmosphere suddenly became a little awkward.
Jiang Lingyue held onto the jacket that still carried his warmth and lowered her head, not daring to look at him.
Now that she had calmed down, she realized that running to a man’s door in the middle of the night in her pajamas and crying like this was… extremely embarrassing.
“Um… I’ll go back now,” she said softly, turning to slip away.
“Wait,” Gu Han called out.
He looked at her thin back and her bare feet. After a moment of thought, he asked, “Are you… afraid to be alone?”
Jiang Lingyue stopped instantly, her face flushing red.
She didn’t want to admit it, but it was the truth. Every time she closed her eyes, those bloody scenes reappeared. She really didn’t dare go back to that empty room alone.
Seeing her silence, Gu Han understood.
He turned around, carried a chair out of his room, and placed it in front of her door.
Then he sat down on it, upright and still.
“I’ll stay here,” he said simply, looking at her. “You go in and sleep.”
Jiang Lingyue froze completely.
He… he was going to stand guard outside her door?
She looked at the man sitting on the chair, his posture straight like a silent guardian.
Something in her heart felt as if it had been gently bumped.
A little sour. A little soft.
“…Okay.”
She answered quietly, clutching his jacket tightly as she turned and walked back into her room.
This time, she wasn’t afraid anymore.
Because she knew that outside the door
there was someone there.