When Lin Buyu returned to the villa with Jiang Ran, Suya, Nie Fei, and Xiao Jingcheng were all in the living room on the first floor.
Seeing Jiang Ran and Lin Buyu return together with calm expressions, the three exchanged glances but said nothing.
Nie Fei was practically begging Lin Buyu with his eyes to stay.
Realizing they had something to ask her, Lin Buyu waved Jiang Ran upstairs first. “You go ahead. I’ll be up in a bit.”
The way the three of them were exchanging signals was both obvious and rather foolish.
Jiang Ran wasn’t blind, so he noticed.
He glanced at Nie Fei, silently warning him not to say anything reckless, before heading upstairs.
The moment he was gone, Nie Fei and Suya pulled Lin Buyu over.
Xiao Jingcheng asked her, “Did Jiang Tao say anything inappropriate?”
Just thinking about it irritated Lin Buyu. That disgusting Jiang Tao hadn’t said a single thing worth listening to.
“What do you mean, say something inappropriate? He was practically spewing garbage.”
Hearing this, Xiao Jingcheng’s expression darkened.
“Did he insult Brother Ran again?”
A lot of the time, Xiao Jingcheng couldn’t understand why Jiang Ran continued to tolerate Jiang Tao and Jiang Congwen. They didn’t even have to stay at this base.
If they left the Yu Lan Base, plenty of other bases would be eager to recruit them.
It wasn’t just Xiao Jingcheng. Suya and Nie Fei also looked furious.
Lin Buyu nodded. “Yeah. He said a lot of disgusting things.”
“Damn bastard.” Nie Fei was more impulsive than the others. He immediately turned toward the door. “I’m going to teach that bastard a lesson.”
“Hey, come back.”
Lin Buyu grabbed his arm and yanked him back.
Nie Fei was a man who stood over six feet tall, yet he was abruptly dragged backward like it was nothing.
He could still feel the force of her grip, which seemed to have the strength of hundreds of pounds.
He froze and stared at Lin Buyu’s slender arm, suddenly questioning everything he knew.
“Was that… you pulling me just now?”
Lin Buyu knew exactly what had surprised him. She coughed lightly and changed the subject.
“Don’t go looking for trouble with Jiang Tao.”
Suya and Xiao Jingcheng assumed she was being softhearted.
Suya frowned. “You’re defending Jiang Tao?”
“Defending him? Why would I? A disgusting piece of trash like that doesn’t deserve me defending him.”
Just thinking about the things Jiang Tao had said—and all the things he had done in the past—made Lin Buyu grit her teeth in anger.
“Then why are you stopping me from going after him?” Nie Fei asked, confused.
Lin Buyu rubbed the tip of her nose.
“Because he’s dead.”
“Dead?”
The three of them spoke at exactly the same time.
Then they noticed the guilty look in Lin Buyu’s eyes and suddenly asked, uncertainly,
“Don’t tell me… you killed him?”
Again, all three spoke in unison.
Under their shocked gazes, Lin Buyu shyly ran upstairs.
“Aiya, don’t look at me like that. You’re making me embarrassed.”
Oh, come on.
The whole situation was bizarre.
The three of them struggled to process the news.
Suya stared blankly. “The little delicate flower actually killed someone?”
Xiao Jingcheng looked surprised. “After seeing the way she killed zombies, you still think she’s a delicate flower?”
Suya shook her head. “Not exactly. It’s just that someone who looks like her usually has a soft heart and is timid. I know she’s not timid, but it’s still a little hard to believe.”
Nie Fei looked at his own arm again.
Because he had been wearing short sleeves when Lin Buyu suddenly yanked him back, there were several obvious purple bruises on his arm.
They were marks left by her powerful grip.
He said solemnly, “I don’t think she’s a delicate flower.”
“She’s a steel flower.”
The three didn’t dwell on the matter.
Instead, they were more concerned about something else.
“Lin Buyu just killed Jiang Tao. Jiang Congwen probably won’t let this go,” Xiao Jingcheng said, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “We’d better prepare ourselves. We may have to change bases at any time.”
Suya nodded. “Then I’ll go get my iron hammer.”
Nie Fei couldn’t resist making a sarcastic remark.
“You’re practically a female bodybuilder now. Why are you still carrying around an iron hammer?”
Suya turned around and punched him squarely in the back.
“Mind your own business.”
Meanwhile, upstairs, Jiang Ran stood by the window, looking down at the people walking below.
From here, he could see the ordinary civilians living on the other side.
They had no supernatural abilities, nor did they possess any skills necessary to maintain the normal operation of the base. As a result, they were forced to squeeze into that cramped cluster of buildings.
More than a dozen people were packed into a tiny room, each room barely eight or nine square meters.
Although they were safe from zombies inside the base, many of them were living lives worse than death.
Xu Feiyan, the leader of Group B, treated the women here like prostitutes in a brothel, forcing them to serve the members of Group B.
These women were different from those who willingly chose to become someone’s bed partner.
Their skills from before the apocalypse were useless here, and they refused to become men’s playthings, so they could only perform hard labor.
Yet even then, they had no control over their own circumstances and were still subjected to coercion.
Xu Feiyan could steal other people’s wives and even their daughters. He committed all kinds of atrocities.
And yet, someone like him held considerable authority within the base as the leader of a supernatural ability group.
The women had reported him countless times, but nothing ever came of it.
Jiang Congwen was far more tolerant of ability users than ordinary people.
Many people were furious, but they didn’t dare speak out.
Xiao Jingcheng had once asked Jiang Ran why he didn’t leave this rotten base.
Because of what Jiang Tao had said, they assumed he was staying because of his grandfather’s dying promise—to protect Jiang Tao and Jiang Congwen.
Jiang Ran let out a cold laugh.
Before he awakened his ability, this damned world had tortured him until he was barely capable of living. Almost every trace of his humanity had been worn away.
And yet they still expected him to preserve some imaginary sense of morality.
He had promised his grandfather that he would not kill Jiang Congwen or Jiang Tao.
And because Jiang Congwen tolerated the crimes committed by ability users, Jiang Ran had to remain here.
Only by staying could he keep people like Xu Feiyan under control. With him here, they didn’t dare go too far.
His grandfather had died to save him.
But…
What Jiang Tao had said was true.
His grandfather loved him.
But he also loved Jiang Congwen and Jiang Tao.
When his grandfather realized that Jiang Ran intended to kill Jiang Congwen and Jiang Tao, he knew there was no point trying to persuade him.
So, even though he knew Jiang Ran could have avoided the zombie lunging toward him, his grandfather deliberately stepped in and took the zombie’s attack for him.
He used the fact that he had raised Jiang Ran since childhood to make one final request: to spare Jiang Tao and Jiang Congwen.
He had even asked Jiang Ran to protect them when they were in danger.
Before that, Jiang Ran had believed that his grandfather truly loved only him.
But it turned out that no one in this world had ever genuinely loved him.
People who grow up starved of love are the easiest to become pathetic over it.
And Jiang Ran had made that mistake again and again.
Every single time, he ended up facing abandonment.
From the very beginning, he had known that when his grandfather made that decision, his thoughts had been centered on Jiang Tao and Jiang Congwen.
He hadn’t spared even a thought for Jiang Ran’s feelings.
And yet, despite knowing all this, Jiang Ran still carried the burden of that moral obligation.
When Lin Buyu pushed open the door, she saw Jiang Ran standing with his back to her beside the window.
He was tall and slender, his lonely silhouette looking as though he had been abandoned by the entire world.
Lin Buyu thought about all the things Jiang Tao had said.
On her way to find Jiang Ran, she had read through every hidden part of his story.
So that was why he was cold and heartless.
Because his parents had never loved him.
His parents had been joined through a business marriage, a marriage that caused both of them to miss the people they truly loved.
His mother had become pregnant with him because of an accident.
As a result, both of them regarded him as a disgusting existence.