“Come inside and talk first,” He Lingyu said, bringing the woman in.
For some reason, even though He Lingyu had seen her clinging to Yuan Gaofei, there had not been the slightest emotion in the woman’s eyes.
Mu Qingfeng did not say much. He followed He Lingyu into the restaurant.
He needed to hear a reason not to kill her.
Hua Yue poured her a cup of warm water. The woman held it in both hands and spoke slowly.
“I’m not like them. I’m an ordinary person. Everyone knows that in the apocalypse, an ordinary woman can hardly survive. But for my child, I wasn’t afraid of anything. I followed nearby residents and brought my child to Gaofei Base to seek shelter.”
At the thought of her child, the woman’s lips lifted slightly, then quickly fell.
“But after we entered the base, Yuan Gaofei’s men noticed me, and they forced me to his side.”
He Lingyu studied her face and nodded. She truly was beautiful. No wonder Yuan Gaofei, that filthy lecher, had set his sights on her, even with her having a child.
The woman’s eyes reddened as she continued. “For my child, I didn’t dare resist. I only begged to keep my child with me. At first it was fine, but later…”
Her eyes widened. Hatred surged out like a flood. “Later, Yuan Gaofei complained my daughter was noisy at night, and he… he ordered his men to kill her!”
Crystal tears slid down her cheeks. Her body sagged at once.
He Lingyu finally understood where that monstrous hatred came from. What mother could watch her child be murdered and not hate?
“Then why… did you stay by Yuan Gaofei’s side?” He Lingyu asked.
The woman gave a short, bitter laugh. “My child was gone. I had nothing left to hold on to. I wanted him dead. But I had no ability to kill him myself, I couldn’t even take him down with me. Still… doesn’t he like this skin of mine?”
Her voice turned icy. “So I stayed. I waited for a chance to drive a wedge between him and Pi San. I just didn’t expect him to fall here.”
The expression on her face was hard to name, not quite satisfaction, not quite grief, tangled and sharp.
He Lingyu had not expected that. For a moment she did not know how to respond.
She looked up at Mu Qingfeng, seeking help, but Mu Qingfeng looked even less able to speak. His blood was still hot from the fight.
He only left a single sentence behind.
“Go.”
Then he went upstairs.
He Lingyu froze in place, but the woman was clearly strong-willed. In the short time it took, she had already wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.
She stood. “Thank you.”
Then she turned to leave.
She could not stay here.
These people letting her go was kindness, but she could not remain and stain their place with her past.
She touched the necklace at her throat. Inside the silver pendant was her daughter’s ashes.
She would find somewhere to lay her child to rest, and carry on living for her, to see this world on her daughter’s behalf.
If she still could.
He Lingyu stopped her, though she did not tell her to stay. The woman had cleared her suspicion for now, but He Lingyu remained cautious and did not want her inside the restaurant long-term.
Still, the story left a strange ache in He Lingyu’s chest. She decided to show a bit of mercy. She handed the woman enough food to last a while, hoping that this ill-fated woman would live.
The woman stared at He Lingyu for a long moment. “Thank you.”
She did not linger, she turned and left the restaurant.
“Boss went upstairs, and he still hasn’t eaten,” Fatty said quietly.
Everyone could tell Mu Qingfeng’s emotions were off, but none of them could find the right words. No one knew how to comfort him.
In the end, Hua Yue spoke. “When my daughter first died, I was like that too. Talking won’t help. He has to digest it himself. Now that he’s avenged, in a few days he’ll be better. It’ll still hurt, but he’ll gradually recover.”
Everyone nodded.
This kind of wound could not be soothed by persuasion. All they could do was wait, and stay with him.
They waited three days.
On the third day, Mu Qingfeng’s door finally opened, revealing a face covered in stubble.
“Boss! You finally came out!” Fatty shouted, overjoyed.
For three days, Mu Qingfeng’s door had stayed shut. He had not even come out to eat. They had worried, but they had agreed silently not to disturb him.
Even ability users could not handle three days without food. Without any small talk, Mu Qingfeng went to the kitchen, took an employee meal, and ate like a man starved.
Only after the last bite did he speak.
“Sorry to make you worry. I’m fine now.”
After that meal, everyone could feel his spirit had returned. He still looked unkempt, but the air around him was different.
Once he recovered his strength, Mu Qingfeng went back upstairs, cleaned himself up, and came down looking refreshed.
“No word from Jiaowo Base yet?” he asked.
At that, He Lingyu grew gloomy. Hadn’t they agreed? Why was there still no news?
Mu Qingfeng saw her pout, the kind that could hang an oil bottle, and he chuckled. “If you want to finish the task that badly, I’ll help you.”
He Lingyu blinked. “You’ll help me? How? Are you going back to Jiaowo Base again?”
“No need for that,” Mu Qingfeng replied. “The task is to cooperate with a base and open a cooperation route, right? Jiaowo Base works, and Gaofei Base works too. Want to try being a base leader for fun?”
He patted her head and dropped the bomb casually.
He Lingyu looked like she had been patted dizzy. She stared up at Mu Qingfeng, dumbfounded.
“Me? A base leader? Huh?”
“Speak properly, stop messing around.”
He Lingyu flailed. “Brother Mu, who isn’t speaking properly here? You want me to be a base leader? For what, to lead them straight into ruin?”
She was genuinely shocked, and genuinely confused. How could someone so smart say something this absurd? She was an ordinary person. How would she even take over Gaofei Base?
Mu Qingfeng’s tone stayed calm. “Do you still want to finish the task?”
One sentence, and He Lingyu fell silent.
Then she grinned up at him, shamelessly honest. “Hehe, I do.”
“Good. Wait,” Mu Qingfeng said. “While you’re waiting, think of a name for the base.”
With that, he took Fatty and Xiao Yan and left.
He Lingyu watched his back and felt like he had somehow gotten even more dazzling.
Things went smoothly.
At first, the people in the base did not know Yuan Gaofei was dead. No one dared pry, and no one could imagine anyone killing him and an entire squad of ability users.
Mu Qingfeng entered the base, eliminated the remaining criminals cleanly, established new order, announced a new leadership, and burned the bodies with a single fire under everyone’s gaze.
The civilians did not care who sat on top. As long as they lived, being someone’s beast of burden was all the same.
Someone in the crowd shouted, “If all the ability users are dead, who’s going to go out and find food for us?”
In truth, even when the ability users had been alive, the civilians had never gotten anything good, only enough to keep their bodies from failing. Now, with a new leader, they wanted to see if they could squeeze out more benefits.
Mu Qingfeng did not entertain it. He only said, “There’s a restaurant not far outside the base. If you want to eat, go there. They take cash, gold, and crystal cores. You have hands and feet, do you really want to live your whole life waiting for scraps?”
“But… the zombies…” The objections weakened.
What they feared most was zombies. They were ordinary people. If they ran into zombies, their odds of survival were thin.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Mu Qingfeng said. “We’ll clear the zombies along that route. We’ll open a dedicated road to the restaurant.”
He called it clearing, but it was really just walking the route carefully again.
Since the restaurant opened here, zombies had become scarce in this area. Mu Qingfeng was not sure if that was his imagination, but the emptiness felt real.
Some people who had been to the restaurant before began cheering. Others, confused, grabbed whoever was nearby.
“That restaurant is really that good?”
“It’s truly good!” the man said, already drooling. “Those meat buns, seriously. We thought it’d be another Yuan Gaofei, but it’s cooperation with that place instead!”
After that, the crowd stopped making noise and began looking forward to what cooperation would bring.
“I won’t use force to suppress you,” Mu Qingfeng continued, voice firm. “But don’t expect to freeload. There will be tasks. Work more, eat more. Distribution by labor. This base doesn’t welcome people who live off others. If anyone is found freeloading, they’ll be expelled.”
His words carried weight, and they also brought hope.
When Yuan Gaofei was in power, he squeezed them without limit. Even if they worked, they never ate their fill.
So nobody was dissatisfied. Instead, they felt life might finally become something livable.
“That’s all for today,” Mu Qingfeng said. “On the way back, we’ll mark the route. Later, we’ll also send people to escort you.”
The moment they left the base, Fatty asked, “Boss, you said we’ll mark it. With what? We don’t have road signs.”
Mu Qingfeng turned to Fatty and smiled.
A gentle, pleasant smile.
Fatty shivered. Boss was smiling, so why did it feel so cold?
He learned why very quickly.
“Boss! How far have we gone? How much longer?” Fatty whined.
He asked every ten minutes, and each time he asked, he used his earth ability to build another marker.
He was furious inside.
Boss was basically a labor boss!
Making him use his ability to mark the whole route back, just because one of them was fire-type, one was mental-type, and only he was earth-type.
Who understood his suffering?
Tonight he was going to eat until he felt whole again.
When they returned to the restaurant, He Lingyu sat at the counter, chin propped on her hand, frowning so hard her brows knotted.
Mu Qingfeng walked right up beside her, and she still did not notice.
Thunk.
“Ow!” He Lingyu rubbed the top of her head and looked up, baffled.
Mu Qingfeng’s voice held amusement. “Your face is scrunched up like a bun. What are you thinking about?”