Jiang Si finally saw Shi Zuo An, who was being restrained at the top of the stairwell.
His face was covered in large red marks from the force used against him.
After struggling to breathe for so long, the tip of his nose had turned red, and his eyes shimmered with involuntary tears as he gulped for air like it was a lifeline.
“Shi Ge… Song Zi Qiao, watch out!”
The unfamiliar man’s fist sliced straight toward Song Zi Qiao’s face. Jiang Si’s pupils shrank, and at the same time, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the woman who had been knocked aside had already gotten back up.
That kick hadn’t seemed to affect her movements at all.
She was still unnaturally fast.
Song Zi Qiao tried his best to dodge, but before he could even catch his breath, the woman’s baton followed right after him!
Jiang Si grabbed the steel rod Xia Ao had dropped on the ground, braced both ends with her hands, and blocked the woman’s strike head-on.
Taking advantage of the brief moment when the man and woman were tied up, Xia Ao dashed up the stairs to check on Shi Zuo An, who had collapsed on the floor.
It wasn’t just oxygen deprivation from being choked, he must have been ambushed the moment he came in. There was a swollen lump on the back of his head where he’d been struck.
Now slumped against Xia Ao’s chest, his consciousness was a little hazy.
“How are you?” Xia Ao pried his eyelids open, checking how his pupils reacted.
They could still focus.
He must have dodged with all his strength when he was hit, dispersing at least half the force.
Otherwise, just thinking about the woman’s strength was enough to make Xia Ao shudder in lingering fear.
Shi Zuo An shook his dizzy head, sharp stabs of pain pulsing from the injured spot.
But fortunately, the pain helped clear his mind. He forced himself to focus and struggled up from the ground.
The two people in the stairwell were clearly both highly trained fighters. Jiang Si and Song Zi Qiao, who had rushed in later, were already showing signs of being suppressed.
This couldn’t go on.
Xia Ao racked his brain, but how were they supposed to deal with this?
“St-stop… stop it!” Shi Zuo An panted, half leaning against Xia Ao as he tried to halt them, but the man and woman didn’t even turn their heads.
It was as if they didn’t consider him worth noticing at all.
“I’m telling you to stop, otherwise I’ll detonate the Molotov cocktail in my hand, and none of us will make it out alive!”
He actually had a Molotov cocktail on him!
Everyone immediately froze, staring at the small glass bottle in his hand.
It was filled with clear liquid, tightly sealed, with a short strip of cloth protruding from it.
In his other hand, he held a lighter, dangerously close to the bottle.
The woman twirled her baton in a flourish and then drew it back to her waist.
“What are you people doing?”
“Big sister, I was just about to ask the same thing! You came up here and started beating people up, my friend’s shoulder almost got fractured from your blows!” Song Zi Qiao raised his steel rod and pointed at her, ready to start yelling.
But the woman shot him a sharp glare, and he immediately went quiet again.
“This is the place we found first,” she said coldly.
“Hey! You guys—”
“Song Zi Qiao, shut up,” Shi Zuo An cut him off, stopping the situation from escalating further. “The supermarket is big. We’re not trying to take your territory. We’ll just grab a few things and leave.”
The woman seemed to realize something, furrowed her brows, and whispered something in a language Shi Zuo An couldn’t understand to the burly man beside her.
“We have no ill intentions. On the contrary, it was you who started attacking us first,” Shi Zuo An added, showing the wound on his head.
The woman stared at him silently for a moment before speaking. “I can’t make that decision. Whether you can stay here or not has to wait until my boss returns.”
What a ridiculous person! Showing them this much courtesy!!!
Song Zi Qiao was fuming.
This supermarket wasn’t her property, why should the first ones here get to claim the whole place?
Totally unreasonable!!!
But Shi Zuo An was still negotiating, so he couldn’t just butt in.
“When will your boss be here?” Shi Zuo An asked, equally annoyed, but knowing full well that his skills were no match for the two of them, he forced himself to stay calm.
The woman whispered again in her bird-like language to the burly man, who then pulled out a small notebook from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. After carefully checking something, the man began speaking.
“#%…&…”
It was the same language they couldn’t understand.
The woman noticed this and was about to translate for them, but before she could say a word, Xia Ao, who had been silently observing the whole time, interrupted.
He stepped forward and began to speak with them.
This guy looked every bit the thick-browed, big‑eyed sort, yet when he opened his mouth, it was bird language too.
The rest of them couldn’t understand a word and could only stare dumbfounded as Xia Ao carried on the conversation alone.
They could only tell from the deepening crease between Xia Ao’s brows that the discussion had likely turned unpleasant at some point.
After a while, the exchange finally ended. Xia Ao took a step back, and the short‑haired woman came over with him.
“Hello, my name is Matilda. Ansel and I are both from Country D. I’m very sorry, he doesn’t speak the national language. If there’s anything, you can communicate with me.”
Matilda stood straight in front of them and, as a gesture of goodwill, extended her hand.
“What just happened was a misunderstanding. I hope you won’t take it to heart.”
Shi Zuo An frowned at this, just like that, brushed off so lightly?
He didn’t reach out.
While he hesitated, a voice leaned close to his ear. “Don’t clash with her right now. We’ll talk about the rest later.”
Xia Ao lowered his voice and whispered to him.
With that, Shi Zuo An had no choice but to extend his hand as well, reluctantly shaking Matilda’s.
After that, she and Ansel left the stairwell.
“What was that about?” As soon as they were gone, Shi Zuo An immediately grabbed Xia Ao’s arm and pressed him for answers.
Unfortunately, the spot he grabbed happened to pull at the muscle Xia Ao had just been struck on earlier.
With just a light tug, Xia Ao sucked in a sharp breath from the pain.
“Are you okay?” Shi Zuo An jumped in alarm, quickly moving behind him and lifting his hand to pull up his clothes.
“Hey, hey, slow down!”
Xia Ao was just about to stop him when he felt a chill on his back, his shirt was gone.
A hand with faint calluses pressed against the warm skin at his waist…
Huh? Wasn’t it his shoulder that was injured?
He almost thought his own perception was off, when the hand behind him shamelessly gave his lower back a squeeze before slowly moving up to his shoulder.
It crept upward along his spine, the strange ticklish sensation making his hair stand on end.
“What are you doing?!” When he really couldn’t take it anymore, he turned his uninjured side and grabbed the hand causing trouble behind him.
Caught sneaking in a little personal indulgence, Shi Zuo An remained perfectly composed and called out to Song Zi Qiao.
“Song Zi Qiao, your Xia Ge keeps moving around, I can’t properly check his wound. Come over here and help me hold him down.”
“Alright, got it!” Song Zi Qiao ran over excitedly, helping push Xia Ao’s hand back from reaching behind, and tugged at his shirt from above. “Xia Ge, you’re injured, so behave yourself. Although I really don’t approve of you having physical contact with Shi Ge, this is a critical moment, we need to prioritize your injuries!”
As he spoke, he even turned on a flashlight for Shi Zuo An so they could see more clearly.
Jiang Si, who was witnessing the whole scene: …completely baffled.
The flashlight’s beam lit up the cramped space, revealing the wound on Xia Ao’s back.
A long, stripe-shaped bruise stretched across his sun‑tanned skin.
The assailant had used enough force that the bruise had already turned purple in such a short time.
Shi Zuo An reached out a finger and pressed gently on it.
Xia Ao was pinned down by the two of them, letting them mess around as they pleased. But his gaze drifted toward the shelves outside the door… he had a nagging feeling he had forgotten something.
Suddenly, a drop of thick liquid fell onto his back.
He remembered what he had forgotten!
Shi Zuo An’s injury was far worse than his!!!
“Shi Ge! Your head… why is it bleeding?!” Song Zi Qiao and Jiang Si rushed in and immediately started fighting the strange couple, completely oblivious to Shi Zuo An’s condition.
On top of that, his wound was on his head, hidden under thick black hair.
If you didn’t look carefully, you wouldn’t notice it at all.
Shi Zuo An stared blankly at the small spot of blood in the empty stairwell.
“How strange… but it doesn’t hurt?”
Of course it doesn’t hurt! His adrenaline is going into overdrive!!!
Everyone hurriedly helped him lie down. Jiang Si went outside to get purified water and clean gauze, while Song Zi Qiao was sent to look for disinfectant like iodine.
“Don’t worry, it really doesn’t hurt.” Shi Zuo An lay flat, resting his neck on Xia Ao’s kneeling thigh, giving him a perfect view of Shi Zuo An’s anxious expression.
The once-handsome face now looked a bit wrinkled and scrunched up.
“Shut up,” Xia Ao said, exasperated, patting him on the butt and nudging him slightly to the left so the injured spot was exposed.
He took the purified water from Jiang Si and carefully rinsed the wound.
“Shh—” Pain finally returned to Shi Zuo An’s body. The moment the cotton swab touched the wound, he instinctively curled his legs.
Jiang Si looked at the baby‑fist-sized wound and felt goosebumps all over.
He quickly placed the supplies within reach of Xia Ao, so he could continue helping without interruption.
“Xia Ge, I’ll go get him some medicine. Besides painkillers, does he need anything else?”
“Check if there’s any anti-inflammatory medicine as well.”
“Got it.”
With that, Jiang Si stepped out.
The small stairwell was left with just Shi Zuo An and Xia Ao.
Xia Ao was being extremely careful, but the cotton swab still accidentally brushed the wound, and Shi Zuo An couldn’t help letting out a small cry.
The hand tending the wound immediately paused and softly asked, “Are you okay?”
His anxious expression made Shi Zuo An smile.
“Just because I said it hurts doesn’t mean you can stop treating it.”
“…How did you end up running into those two?” He couldn’t stop, but they could talk to distract him a little.
Shi Zuo An recalled what had happened and began explaining from the start.
“After you left, I focused on looking for zombies. But from the open areas, I could tell there weren’t any, so I thought I’d check the corners.”
“When I first went over, the stairwell door was closed. When I pushed it open, that woman hit my head. My mind went blank, and my whole body went weak.”
“Later she threw me onto the steps and ignored me. I tried to climb up the windowsill and sneak out while she was tying her shoelaces, but then that man, Ansel, appeared.”
“He was even stronger, grabbed my hands, and I couldn’t move at all.”
Xia Ao tilted his head and noticed the deep red marks on his wrists.
Shi Zuo An continued, “I don’t know how they figured out I wasn’t alone, but the woman exchanged a glance with Ansel and flung the stairwell door wide open… and then you came in, and she tried to ambush you from behind the door.”
After that, everything that followed was exactly what Xia Ao had just experienced.
Xia Ao cleaned the blood that had spilled with a cotton swab. Since Song Zi Qiao and Jiang Si hadn’t returned yet, he used gauze to temporarily stop the bleeding.
As the gauze covered Shi Zuo An’s hair, Xia Ao’s hot palm inevitably rested on the back of his head.
Shi Zuo An stayed silent, lying quietly on his side, carefully feeling the warmth of Xia Ao’s skin.