“Go to sleep,” he suddenly said.
Lin Buyu blinked. It was broad daylight. Why was he telling her to sleep?
Could he mean that kind of sleep?
She suddenly clutched the collar of her clothes, wondering whether a zombie and a human could even reproduce—and whether she would end up infected in the process.
The moment she realized what she was thinking, she wanted to slap herself. Her standards were getting lower and lower.
She edged a little closer to Jiang Ran and quickly changed the subject.
“Team Leader, when do you think our group will be going out on a mission?”
She wanted to go outside and find some things—sunflowers, marshmallows, and those spicy peppers.
“What do you want to know for?” Jiang Ran had already lain down and pulled the blanket from her, covering himself with it.
“Tsk, I accidentally said something you didn’t like, didn’t I? I want to go outside and find something you like to make it up to you.”
Trying to please me?
Jiang Ran glanced at her.
“Whatever I like, you’ll get it for me?”
“Of course.” Lin Buyu was determined to do everything in her power to win him over. However, she didn’t tell him the truth. Instead, she blinked her big eyes innocently and said flirtatiously, “Who told me you’re the man I fell for at first sight? Even if you wanted the stars in the sky, I’d pluck them down for you.”
Her words were sweet, but also terribly cliché—exactly the kind of lines shameless men used to sweet-talk women.
That little mouth of hers seemed honey-coated, but her mind was sharper than a sieve.
Jiang Ran laughed.
“Fine. We have a mission tomorrow. I’ll give you the chance to show me just how sincere you are.”
The next day arrived quickly.
Sure enough, it was Jiang Ran’s team’s turn to head out on a mission. Their objective was to search a hospital for medical supplies.
Medical supplies were the hardest things to find. After a year of the apocalypse, most hospitals had already been thoroughly looted.
The places that still had supplies were usually occupied by mutated zombies.
When Lin Buyu followed Jiang Ran into the military off-road vehicle, Su Ya and Nie Fei, who were already inside, were both stunned.
They looked at Jiang Ran one after another.
Su Ya was the more straightforward one.
“Brother Ran, you’re really taking her with us? What if she gets scared and cries?”
Lin Buyu was sitting in the passenger seat. Hearing this, she turned around and answered for Jiang Ran.
“Don’t worry. I won’t cry.”
She had changed her clothes today. They were a set Jiang Ran had tossed to her.
A white tracksuit—apparently, he had guessed that she liked white.
Paired with her clean, pretty face, the outfit emphasized her youthful and innocent appearance to an almost ridiculous degree.
She looked like a high school student.
Nie Fei couldn’t help asking the question that had been bothering him.
“Little Buyu, forgive me for asking, but how old are you?”
When you’re away from home, you get to decide your own identity.
Although she was already twenty-six, she lied without batting an eye.
“I just turned eighteen.”
What was wrong with pretending to be younger? She was a girl, after all.
The moment she said it, the experienced veterans in the vehicle nearly choked.
Looking at her innocent, blinking eyes, Nie Fei and Su Ya couldn’t help sighing inwardly.
Sure enough, she really was an inexperienced young girl.
Jiang Ran, who was driving, said nothing, but his dark eyes narrowed slightly.
Two vehicles set out together.
Xiao Jingcheng was driving the first vehicle. His ability could turn zombies to stone, making him particularly suitable for clearing the way.
After entering the city, they discovered that the streets were completely deserted.
Normally, once they entered the city, they would encounter countless low-level zombies wandering the streets.
But now, there wasn’t a single one.
Instead, the silence made everyone uneasy.
Nie Fei spoke into the walkie-talkie.
“Old Xiao, what’s the situation? Anything unusual up ahead?”
Xiao Jingcheng had already reached the city center.
There was no helping it. The hospital they were heading to was the best hospital in the entire city, and it happened to be located right in the heart of downtown.
Holding up his binoculars, he looked toward the hospital windows.
“Nothing. It’s really strange. There don’t even seem to be any zombies inside the hospital. Maybe there are ability users fighting somewhere nearby, which has attracted all the zombies.”
Nie Fei relayed the information.
Jiang Ran held the walkie-talkie and said coldly, “Wait until we get there. We’ll go in together. Don’t act recklessly.”
“Copy that.”
As Lin Buyu listened to their conversation, she began to sense something very strange.
More precisely, she could feel a powerful attraction.
And it was mutual.
She seemed to be attracting the zombies on the other side as well.
She sensed that a group of extremely powerful zombies was waiting for her somewhere nearby.
It was a call from her own kind.
But because she no longer had a crystal core, she couldn’t accurately determine where the call was coming from.
She frowned.
It wasn’t until Jiang Ran stopped the vehicle behind Xiao Jingcheng’s that she came back to her senses.
He opened the door and stepped outside. Nie Fei and Su Ya followed from the back seat.
Lin Buyu shook her head and hurried after them.
Jiang Ran stood at the front, hands on his hips, surveying the area around the hospital.
Lin Buyu approached him.
Suddenly, she heard him say, “Little bedmate, didn’t you say yesterday that even if I wanted the stars in the sky, you’d pluck them down for me?”
Why was he suddenly bringing up cheesy pickup lines at a time like this?
Seeing the complicated expressions on Nie Fei and the others’ faces, Lin Buyu didn’t feel embarrassed at all.
“That’s right. What’s wrong, Team Leader? Have you thought of something you want?”
The corner of Jiang Ran’s lips curved upward, but there was no warmth in his eyes.
“I want you to scout the hospital for us. Will you do it?”
Scout the hospital?
That simple?
For Lin Buyu, who was a zombie herself, it was practically child’s play.
“Of course.”
She beamed at Jiang Ran and blew him a kiss.
“I didn’t expect what you wanted to be so simple. Don’t worry. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”
With that, she turned around and dashed toward the hospital like a moth flying into a flame.
Her cheerful figure and bouncing steps made her look exactly like the innocent little princess Xiao Jingcheng had described.
She seemed completely unaware of his intentions.
But Jiang Ran had known from the beginning that she had ulterior motives.
He would bet anything that she knew exactly why he was sending her inside.
To shield everyone else from unknown risks.
In other words, she was being thrown out as bait.
Jiang Ran simply watched as she raced deeper into the hospital.
Even Su Ya couldn’t bear to watch.
“Team Leader, are you really going to test her like this?”
Xiao Jingcheng glanced at Su Ya, thinking to himself that she was just as naïve.
How could she think Brother Ran was sending her in merely to test her?
He genuinely intended to use her as bait.
But was Lin Buyu actually stupid, or was she simply confident in her own abilities?
She had rushed headfirst into an unknown hospital all by herself.
The moment Lin Buyu stepped inside the hospital, Jiang Ran moved.
But just as he was about to follow, Lin Buyu had already reached the second floor.
She stood by a window and waved at Jiang Ran, who had just reached the hospital entrance.
“You can come in now. There aren’t any high-level zombies here.”
The moment he heard those words, Jiang Ran abruptly stopped.
His dark pupils widened.
He stared at Lin Buyu, who was waving at him from the second-floor window.
She knew what he was trying to do!
She wasn’t actually stupid.
Then why had she gone inside even though she knew exactly what his intentions were?
Lin Buyu didn’t have nearly as many complicated thoughts as Jiang Ran.
Her reasoning was simple.
She was a zombie.
She wasn’t afraid of zombies.
So what if she was being used as bait?
She had never expected someone she’d only just met to immediately develop some sort of comradeship with her.
If you didn’t expect anything from someone, you couldn’t be disappointed.
To Lin Buyu, Jiang Ran was nothing more than the target of her mission.
It wasn’t just Jiang Ran. The moment Lin Buyu called out those words, Xiao Jingcheng and the others were equally stunned.
She knew why the team leader had sent her inside.
Jiang Ran immediately rushed into the hospital.
Xiao Jingcheng, Nie Fei, and Su Ya quickly followed.
When the four of them regrouped with Lin Buyu, the first thing she said to Jiang Ran was:
“I did a pretty good job as bait, didn’t I? I didn’t cower, and I didn’t hesitate either.”
She even looked rather proud of herself.