Before daylight had fully broken, Li Yingxue had already been gently shaken awake by Lu Yun.
He had been sleeping deeply. When he was awakened, his mind remained hazy, and his whole body felt soft and weak, as if he were sinking into a warm cloud and unwilling to leave it.
He lay on the bed for a long while before finally managing to prop himself up with his arms and sit upright. His long silver hair was slightly messy from sleep, a few strands sticking to his cool cheeks, making his pale, delicate face appear even more translucent in the dim light.
Lu Yun was already dressed and stood by the bed watching him. Seeing that he had steadied himself, he turned and picked up two items from the side—a plain-looking baseball cap and a clean face mask.
“Lift your head,” Lu Yun said, his voice slightly hoarse from sleep.
Li Yingxue obediently tilted his face upward. Lu Yun put the cap on him, pulling the brim low, then placed the mask over his ears and adjusted it to cover most of his face.
Lu Yun’s fingers occasionally brushed past his ears or cheeks by accident, carrying warmth and a faint roughness from calluses.
Once fully covered, only his eyes remained visible—still beautiful, even if unfocused.
Lu Yun examined him briefly. Only after confirming there were no obvious flaws did he say quietly, “Let’s go.”
Before leaving, Lu Yun briefly explained his findings from the previous day.
He had already roughly understood the situation in the small base. About half the people here were Supernatural Ability users, while the other half were ordinary humans. Most of the ordinary people had been brought in by relatives or companions who possessed abilities.
Of course, this was based on what Lu Yun had learned through his psychic perception. As for what he told Li Yingxue…
He said he had asked around yesterday, just hadn’t had enough time to get all the details.
In this base, true A-rank or higher Supernatural Ability users were extremely rare. The leader of the base was one of them, and the other… was the young man wearing the baseball cap who lived next door.
These two were the only ones who gave Lu Yun even a faint sense of something unusual.
Lu Yun’s gaze drifted toward the towering earthen wall in the distance. In the faint morning light, it stood like a silent beast, separating this enclosed space from the dangerous world outside.
Li Yingxue listened quietly. Following his gaze, he instinctively looked up as well—but of course, he saw nothing. So he leaned closer to Lu Yun, almost resting his chin on his shoulder, and whispered, “That wall… is there something wrong with it?”
The warm breath brushing his ear made Lu Yun’s earlobe itch slightly. He unconsciously turned his head away a little, still not fully used to such close, unguarded proximity.
He steadied himself and replied in the same low voice, “A defensive wall like that must be the work of an earth-type Supernatural Ability user. But at this scale, height, and thickness, anyone below A-rank in earth-type abilities absolutely couldn’t have built it alone.”
He paused, then pointed out the key issue. “But according to my observations yesterday, there is no earth-type ability user in this base at A-rank or above.”
Li Yingxue gave a small “eh?” and offered another possibility. “Then… what if several earth-type ability users built it together?”
“That’s also impossible,” Lu Yun rejected immediately. “Even though the ratio of ordinary people to ability users here is about one to one, the base itself is small. The total number of people isn’t large. The number of ability users is limited, and among them, I’ve only observed two or three earth-type users, mostly C-rank.”
A few low-level earth-type users were absolutely incapable of constructing such a massive and solid barrier.
The situation was strange.
If the wall had existed before the apocalypse, that was even more impossible. Who would build such a massive earth wall for no reason at the edge of a city?
“Could it be… a precognitive user?” Li Yingxue guessed. “Someone who foresaw the apocalypse and built it in advance?”
“I don’t know,” Lu Yun neither confirmed nor denied.
This seemingly ordinary small base clearly hid some unknown secret.
While they spoke, they had already arrived at the small square where daily tasks were assigned. They were a little late. Only three or four people were in line, and most of the remaining task boards were already taken—mostly difficult or unwanted jobs.
Li Yingxue immediately fell silent and lowered his head, trying to minimize his presence. He did not want any unnecessary attention.
But that was clearly wishful thinking.
The pair—the newcomer couple with their unusual dynamic—had already become the hottest topic in the base since the day they arrived.
People were extremely curious about Lu Yun’s “lover,” who was always carefully protected and supposedly had rare silver-white hair.
“Hey, bro, brought your wife out for a walk today?” a man in line teased, winking at Lu Yun while repeatedly glancing at the tightly covered figure on his back.
The term made Li Yingxue’s ears burn instantly. His hands hidden in his sleeves clenched slightly.
He had no problem calling Lu Yun “Darling,” but hearing such a label applied to himself felt awkward and humiliating.
Yet Lu Yun answered calmly without changing expression, “Mm. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone in the room.”
Li Yingxue felt his ears grow even hotter and lowered his head further.
They reached the wooden table where tasks were distributed. Only a few task boards remained.
Lu Yun casually picked one up. It read: Clear the zombies on the eastern outskirts of the base.
He tucked the board away and ignored all surrounding gazes, turning to leave while still carrying Li Yingxue.
Seeing his cold and unapproachable demeanor, the others lost interest and dispersed.
After leaving the heavy gate of the base and putting distance between themselves and prying eyes, Li Yingxue finally asked softly again, “Darling… that wall, what exactly is going on?”
Lu Yun repeated his earlier conclusion briefly and indifferently. “I don’t know.”
“Mm…” Li Yingxue stopped thinking about it. Figuring things out was exhausting.
Perhaps because the presence of living humans gathered together was too strong, it constantly attracted zombies and mutated creatures that craved flesh.
Thus, almost every day, the base issued similar missions to clear out zombies near the perimeter walls.
Lu Yun had no patience to search and fight them one by one. More importantly, he still needed to maintain his image in front of Li Yingxue and could not appear too effortless.
His method remained as simple and brutal as ever.
His psychic power spread like an invisible net. It pierced the low-level zombies wandering nearby. Silent force swept through them, and one by one, their heads separated from their bodies without a sound—so fast they could not even manage a proper scream.
Meanwhile, he continued walking steadily, carrying Li Yingxue on his back. Occasionally, when a “lucky survivor” zombie appeared in view, he would casually form a few water spheres to deal with it or take a slightly “dangerous” detour around it for show.
After clearing the designated area, Lu Yun found a sheltered and relatively hidden ruin, set Li Yingxue down, and said, “Rest here for a while.”
His gaze, however, once again drifted subtly toward the distant towering earthen wall.