Gu Han ultimately accepted the chicken drumstick.
When the warm, oily chicken entered his mouth, even the faintest crack appeared in the expression of his eternally icy face.
He ate slowly and carefully, as if savoring some peerless delicacy.
Seeing him like that, the slight pain Jiang Lingyue felt over the loss of the food faded quite a bit.
Forget it she’d just treat it as a performance bonus for an outstanding employee. If you want the horse to run, you have to feed it some grass.
One roasted chicken shared between two people was quickly finished.
Jiang Lingyue licked her fingers with lingering satisfaction, feeling only half full. It seemed she would have to get more crystal cores in the future.
She gathered up the supplies scattered on the ground and said to Gu Han, “You worked hard today. Go get some rest early. Your room is on the third floor, Room 301 a deluxe single room. A reward for you.”
After saying that, she hummed a little tune and happily went upstairs.
Gu Han stood where he was. He looked at his hands still glistening with oil, then at Jiang Lingyue’s departing figure, his eyes dark and unreadable.
He walked to the sofa in the lobby and sat down, but he didn’t go upstairs to rest.
He needed time to digest everything that had happened today.
This hotel.
This woman.
And that… unbelievably delicious roasted chicken.
Everything felt like a mystery.
And he was right at the center of it.
The night grew deeper.
Jiang Lingyue took a comfortable hot shower, changed into clean pajamas, and lay on the soft bed, feeling as if her life had already reached its peak.
She had food and drinks, electricity and internet, safety without worries and outside there was even an S-rank powerhouse working for her and earning money.
Even a god wouldn’t trade this kind of life!
Just as she was happily preparing to sleep, a faint cry suddenly drifted in from outside the hotel.
“Help! Is anyone there?!”
“Open the door! Please, open the door!”
“There are zombies behind us! Save us!”
The voices were shrill and desperate, mixed with a woman’s sobbing and a child’s crying. In the silent night, they sounded especially piercing.
The smile on Jiang Lingyue’s face froze instantly.
She sat up abruptly in bed and listened carefully.
That’s right it was a cry for help.
There were people outside the hotel! And they were being chased by zombies!
Her first reaction was fear.
She instinctively covered her mouth and didn’t even dare to breathe loudly. Her heart pounded wildly. The comfort and peace she had just gained were instantly shattered.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then came violent pounding on the hotel’s front door.
“Is anyone inside? We saw the lights here! Please, have mercy let us come in and hide for a while!” a man shouted hoarsely, his voice full of despair.
Jiang Lingyue curled completely into the blanket, trembling.
What should she do?
There were people outside asking for help.
From the sound of it, there was more than one person there were women and children too.
Should she… open the door and let them in?
A thought rose uncontrollably from the bottom of her heart.
Before transmigrating, she had just been an ordinary person. She would soften even when seeing a stray cat on the roadside, and whenever she encountered someone in need, she would lend a hand if she could.
But now it was the apocalypse.
Human hearts were more terrifying than zombies.
This was a lesson she had learned through five years and countless bloody experiences.
Once, because of a moment of softness, she shared her food with a man who looked like he was starving to death. The man turned around and tried to rob all her belongings and even tried to kill her.
She had once joined a survivor squad. Everyone agreed to help one another and survive together.
But when they were surrounded by a tide of zombies, the captain who had always treated her the best pushed her out without hesitation to buy himself time to escape.
If she hadn’t been lucky, she would have died countless times already.
Since then, she had never dared to trust anyone easily again.
A saintly heart? In the apocalypse, that was a death sentence.
But…
Hearing the child’s heart-rending cries outside, her heart still felt as if it had been stabbed by a needle.
It was just a child.
If she didn’t open the door, they might… all die outside.
Would she end up carrying several lives on her conscience because of this?
Jiang Lingyue fell into a fierce inner struggle.
Reason told her not to open the door absolutely not. Who knew whether these people were good or bad? What if she let in a group of ingrates who coveted her hotel and her supplies? That would be like inviting wolves into the house.
But emotionally, she couldn’t be completely indifferent.
“System… can I let them in?” she asked in her mind, clinging to a last shred of hope.
Maybe the system had some way to distinguish good people from bad?
Warning: Personnel not recognized by the system cannot enter the hotel’s area. Anyone attempting to force entry will be attacked by the defensive barrier.
The system’s answer was cold and merciless, completely shattering Jiang Lingyue’s fantasy.
Unauthorized personnel could not enter.
Which meant that even if she wanted to play the saint, the system wouldn’t allow it.
Jiang Lingyue’s heart sank little by little.
She didn’t know whether she should feel relieved or disappointed.
The system had made the choice for her.
She didn’t have to struggle anymore.
Slowly, she got out of bed and walked to the window. Carefully, she pulled open a small gap in the curtain and looked downstairs.
Under the streetlight at the hotel entrance, five or six people had gathered.
A middle-aged man was frantically pounding on the hotel door. Behind him, a woman tightly held a child who looked only four or five years old. There was also a teenage boy and an elderly man, all staring in terror toward the direction they had come from.
On the street not far behind them, more than a dozen zombies were staggering closer.
Their situation was extremely precarious.
“Please! Open the door!”
“As long as you let us in, we’ll do anything you ask!”
The man’s voice had already begun to crack with sobs.
The child’s crying, the woman’s quiet sobbing, and the zombies’ hoarse roars mixed together like a dull blade repeatedly slicing at Jiang Lingyue’s conscience.
She bit her lip hard, her nails digging deep into her flesh.
I’m sorry.
I’m really sorry.
It’s not that I don’t want to save you I just… don’t have the ability.
And I’m afraid.
I’m even more afraid of you than of the zombies outside.
This hotel is my only support. I can’t take any risks.
Jiang Lingyue said silently in her heart, then slowly released the curtain.
She decided not to listen anymore, not to look anymore.
Out of sight, out of mind.
But the sounds were like a curse, constantly drilling into her ears.
Restlessly, she paced back and forth in the room. In the end, she couldn’t hold back and ran to the surveillance room.
She wanted to see what would happen to them in the end.
Perhaps it was the last thing she could do for them be a witness.
But when she turned on the surveillance screen, she discovered that Gu Han had somehow already arrived there.
With his back to her, he quietly watched the desperate scene on the monitor, his figure standing straight like a pine tree, his face completely expressionless.