“…All over something this small, she wants to break up with you?” Shi Zuo An was puzzled.
Wasn’t that a bit too casual?
But no matter what, if someone chooses to break up, it still makes sense to hear the other party’s side.
The three of them unanimously decided that Xia Ao and Song Zi Qiao would go knock on her door, trying to trade a bottle of drinking water and a pack of instant noodles that Shi Zuo An had brought for two fever-reducing pills.
Although Shi Zuo An protested vigorously, insisting he had enough strength to walk up to the fifteenth floor himself, he was still forcibly overruled.
“Shi Ge, you stay home and rest, we’ll definitely bring the fever medicine back to you!”
…Where did they get that confidence?
The bedroom door wasn’t closed again, and from the main door came the sound of a lock turning.
Then, a “bang,” and the room instantly fell silent.
Shi Zuo An lay on the bed, bored and staring blankly.
Being taken care of by someone else was nice, of course, but the frustration of not being able to witness the full drama gnawed at him even more.
He rolled left and right on the bed, curiosity keeping his mind in a heightened state of alert.
Even five minutes felt unusually long.
Before the team out to get the medicine could return, Shi Zuo An finally couldn’t wait any longer. He leapt out of bed, rinsed his mouth quickly in the bathroom, and rushed downstairs.
The stairwell was still dimly lit.
Going down was far easier than climbing. Shi Zuo An’s right hand gripped the railing, and within a minute he reached the fifteenth floor.
He had been slightly worried about how to find Song Zi Qiao’s ex-girlfriend’s apartment.
But as soon as he stepped out of the stairwell, he ran straight into Song Zi Qiao, who was standing at the door being “punished.”
“Why are you coming down?”
“What are you standing here for?”
Song Zi Qiao awkwardly scratched his chin. “Xia Ao is helping you get the medicine.”
“And you?” Shi Zuo An teased, feeling a bit schadenfreude, he had guessed the door correctly. “Locked out by your ex-girlfriend?”
“……”
Brutally mocked.
Shi Zuo An was swaying his body, ready to tease Song Zi Qiao some more, when suddenly the door behind them opened.
Xia Ao muttered: “So many people.”
“Hi~” Now it wasn’t just Song Zi Qiao who was embarrassed.
“Weren’t you supposed to stay upstairs and rest?”
Shi Zuo An looked at the ceiling, looked at the floor, anything but Xia Ao.
After a long moment, he mumbled: “I really don’t feel bad anymore.”
“Oh? Who was just sitting there with arms out like a zombie, waiting for someone to pull them up?”
“……”
“Giggle~” A burst of laughter suddenly cut in.
A head peeked out from behind the door, half-blocked by Xia Ao’s body.
It was a girl with shoulder-length short hair, smiling at them, her eyes curved beautifully.
“Ah, sorry.” The girl stepped out and greeted Shi Zuo An cheerfully. “Hi, I’m Jiang Si. The cold medicine is for you, right?”
Xia Ao had actually managed to trade for an entire box of cold medicine.
“Hello, I’m Shi Zuo An.” He greeted her from a distance.
Hopefully he wouldn’t pass his cold to this kind girl.
The narrow corridor suddenly felt a bit crowded with all four of them squeezed in.
Shi Zuo An was just about to say thanks and urge Jiang Si back to her room when Song Zi Qiao, who had been ignored the whole time, finally got a chance to speak.
“Ah Si, I really didn’t mean it! I called someone to unclog the toilet afterward too!”
Jiang Si’s smile vanished instantly. “Song Zi Qiao, are you out of your mind? You really had to bring this up now?”
“But I don’t want to break up with you!” Saying this, he actually reached past the fallen Xia Ao to grab Jiang Si’s hand. “Don’t be mad anymore~”
Ohhh~~
Song Zi Qiao’s coquettish tone and pleading posture left the other two watching completely dumbfounded.
Shi Zuo An raised a brow and flicked a glance at Xia Ao beside him: Shall we get out of here?
OK.
Xia Ao, rare for him, read the expression perfectly and quietly made a hand gesture near his pant seam.
The two were about to slip away when, surprisingly, the argument beside them ended just as quickly, the door “slam!”ed shut, and Song Zi Qiao was left empty-handed.
He stubbornly knocked on the door a couple more times.
“Enough, if she doesn’t want to talk to you, stop bothering her,” Shi Zuo An quickly stopped him from making any more noise.
“But—”
“No buts.” Xia Ao’s face was stern, his tone merciless. “You go back too. Wandering around while running a fever, do you not value your life at all?”
The two, punished without mercy, had no choice but to shut up and obediently follow Xia Ao back home.
Once home, Xia Ao intended to boil some water on the stove but found that the gas had been cut off too.
Now their resources were truly depleted.
In the end, he had to mix the remaining hot water from the thermos with some cold tap water so Shi Zuo An could take his medicine.
While Xia Ao was busy fussing around like a caretaker, the patient at the table couldn’t let go of his curiosity, pestering Song Zi Qiao with endless questions.
“Did you really break up over something as small as clogging the toilet?” Judging by Jiang Si’s attitude, it didn’t seem that simple.
“…That morning I brushed my teeth and accidentally used her toothbrush.”
“Hmm?”
“But I thought we were in a relationship, and the next step would be living together. Is using the wrong toothbrush really enough to make her so disgusted with me?”
Not a bro move, you’re kind of gross!
Shi Zuo An’s expression twisted in disgust, making Xia Ao, who was holding the medicine, think his fever had worsened. He urged him to lie back down immediately.
Deprived of the right to chat, and with the medicine kicking in, sleepiness soon overtook him.
Shi Zuo An slept deeply and comfortably. When he woke up again, the curtains had been thoughtfully drawn, letting not a sliver of light through the gap between the rod and the fabric.
Had he really slept all the way until night?
He got out of bed, his headache was gone, only his nose still felt a little stuffy.
The glass of water on the nightstand was empty, so he went to the living room to pour some more.
The entire city’s lights were out, the living room was pitch black.
The sofa emitted occasional, uneven snores.
Shi Zuo An turned on his phone, careful not to use the flashlight, relying only on the faint glow of the screen to guide him.
He took a few sips, finally easing the burning dryness in his throat.
Glancing over the master bedroom, the door was tightly closed, probably fast asleep. Shi Zuo An put down the cup and returned to his room.
He opened the curtain just enough to create a ten-centimeter gap.
He had never seen a night sky this bright in his life. Stars dotted the dark canopy, and the moonlight poured straight onto the rooftops across the way without a single cloud in sight.
Staring at the sky for a while, Shi Zuo An began to think about his plans for the future.
Outside, zombies roamed freely, water, electricity, and gas had all been cut off, and it wouldn’t be long before social order was completely overturned.
In such a situation, his small, shabby apartment had even been turned into a free attraction by rude zombies…
Fortunately, none had broken in while he was asleep, otherwise, it would have been like a frog in a jar, there was no way he’d still be alive at this point.
And then there was Xia Ao.
Setting everything else aside, this person was ridiculously good. Even in a time when resources were everything, he was willing to take in a stranger whose name he had only just learned.
When Shi Zuo An fell ill, Xia Ao was willing to trade precious food to get him medicine.
If the timing and circumstances allowed, and if he were still a teenager or in his early twenties, maybe he would even have been tempted to feel something for a first love that could finally break his lifelong single streak…
Thinking this, Shi Zuo An shook his head hard, pushing the thought out of his mind.
He was crazy to be spouting such youthful, sentimental nonsense in the middle of the night!
With nothing else to do, he grabbed his backpack and set it on the bed.
He confiscated all the food inside… keeping only a piece of chocolate for emergencies.
Below that were a power bank and a small knife.
The power bank was 20,000 mAh, but only three bars of charge remained, enough to fully charge a phone about four times.
No matter what, he had to use it sparingly!
In the innermost compartment lay a thick notebook with a red cover. Since he couldn’t sleep, he opened it to flip through.
The title page had a name, the corners were curled, and the blank spaces were filled with numbers scribbled in pencil.
His thumb traced over the slightly worn pages…
“Knock, knock!”
“Knock, knock, knock!!”
?
Who was so impatient to knock at this hour?
Shi Zuo An carefully distinguished the sound, it came from the front door. Someone was knocking in the hallway outside.
He stuffed the notebook back into his backpack, barefoot, and tiptoed to the door.
“Knock, knock, knock—” The knocking grew even more urgent and still didn’t stop.
Song Zi Qiao’s snores continued, showing no sign of being disturbed.
Shi Zuo An turned off his phone screen and pressed against the door, peering through the peephole.
Pitch black outside.
Fortunately, the person out there seemed to realize that knocking for half an hour wouldn’t get anyone to open the door.
The knocking stopped, and a dim light lifted, falling on a person’s skin.
Messy black short hair covered most of her face, with a bright patch highlighting her chin in a sharp, inverted triangle.
The woman looked terrified, occasionally glancing to the left.
!
At this late hour, Shi Zuo An’s hair stood on end.
He almost thought he had encountered a ghost in the middle of the night. But looking closely, it was Jiang Si, the girl he had just met earlier that day.
He opened the door to let her in and was about to ask what had happened when the girl put a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture.
Both stayed frozen in their positions. A few seconds later, footsteps echoed again in the hallway.
The soles of the shoes thudded heavily on the floor, clearly belonging to an adult male.
The man patrolled back and forth twice, failing to spot Jiang Si, before the footsteps gradually faded away.
Jiang Si motioned for Shi Zuo An to step inside.
At 1:18 a.m., all four of them were squeezed into the secondary bedroom at Xia Ao’s place.
Song Zi Qiao had been a little grumpy when first woken, but when he saw Jiang Si, he immediately rushed over like a loyal puppy.
Both Shi Zuo An and Xia Ao were speechless, grabbing Song Zi Qiao by the collar to pull him back while Jiang Si got down to business.
It turned out the man who had been patrolling the hallway tonight lived diagonally across from Jiang Si on the fifteenth floor.
His surname was Zhang, living alone, unemployed, wandering around all day with unknown intentions.
He was heavily built and survived on leftover takeout. Trash piled up in the hallway, and only after it started stinking and attracting bugs would the building’s cleaning staff take it away.
If one accidentally bumped into him in the hallway or elevator, he would always look Jiang Si up and down with ill intent.
This morning, when the three of them left Jiang Si’s apartment after changing medicine, they probably lingered at the door long enough for Old Zhang to notice them.
Once the three left, the apartment was left with only Jiang Si inside.
That’s when Old Zhang got the wrong idea: if he could break in, both the beauty and the food would be his for the taking.