After dinner, Xiao Jinyang and Wu Ci scrambled to wash the dishes, while Han Chao proposed playing poker.
“What are we playing for?” Pei Huaiye asked.
Busy with work in the past, he never had time to play these little games. Ironically, it took the apocalypse to finally leave him completely at leisure.
It was thanks to him being reborn that he had this opportunity and free time; otherwise, like in his past life, he would have been busy killing zombies and searching for supplies every day—where would he find the time to play cards?
Even catching a breath of air had been a luxury.
He had never figured out why he was such a love-brain in his past life. Shen Shuhe shedding two tears had been enough to spin him around her finger.
In this life, she could cry an entire ocean and he wouldn’t even twitch an eyebrow.
Besides, he had a well-behaved and cute little idiot by his side who possessed zero scheming nature—countless times better than Shen Shuhe.
Fortunately, Ning Ran couldn’t hear his inner thoughts, otherwise she would have already started cursing him out.
“Wild-ge, just playing a couple of casual rounds—what stakes should we put up?” Han Chao was most afraid of Pei Huaiye asking about stakes, having lost all his meager belongings to him previously. Though his own Boss would end up returning them in the end, it still felt humiliating, didn’t it?
“Chao-ge still has two packs of cigarettes left. Should we take those off him?” Xu Sui was terrified that Pei Huaiye wouldn’t know what Han Chao had left.
“Get lost! Is there any other brother out there who sells out his own like you?” Han Chao stretched out his leg to kick Xu Sui, though unfortunately he missed.
Watching the group interact so harmoniously, Ji Hengyuan merely smiled, trying his best to blend in. After all, when Pei Huaiye introduced them earlier, he had used the phrase “my brothers,” which was a disguised acknowledgment of their existence.
Once the stakes were settled, Ji Hengyuan joined the game. He had nothing to lose anyway, so his penalty would simply be running errands more often.
The playing cards slapped loudly against the table. Unable to make sense of it, Ning Ran circled around the players over and over before finally stopping behind Han Chao.
“Wow, a person wearing clothes!” she pointed at the cards in Han Chao’s hand and spoke up.
Han Chao’s face stiffened, and he used his hand to shield his cards: “Go play somewhere else, little spy.” Standing behind him to leak intel to the Boss—nobody played like this.
Pei Huaiye raised his head to glance at her, the cigarette in his mouth shifting slightly: “What else?”
A ready-made spy; it would be a waste not to use her.
“There’s a red heart…”
Alright, the Queen of Hearts.
“There’s a little clown wearing a crown…”
Darn it, not paying attention for a second, Han Chao had let her see clean through his entire hand.
“Boss, this is blatant cheating!” Han Chao wailed.
Ji Hengyuan chuckled quietly to the side. Nothing could be done—who asked him to be on the same team as the Boss?
The ones losing were bound to be Han Chao and Xu Sui.
“Exactly, this is cheating. Even if we win, it’s not glorious,” Xu Sui chimed in as well.
“If those two packs of cigarettes of mine get wiped out, I’m taking yours to smoke,” Han Chao felt like taking a couple of bites out of Xu Sui to vent his hatred right now.
“Tch, like it’s that easy to lose.” Looking at his own hand, Xu Sui felt victory was securely in the bag.
Round after round of cards were played. The more he played, the less confident Xu Sui felt. Raising his head to look at Ji Hengyuan, he flashed a look begging for mercy.
Ji Hengyuan gave a radiant smile: “Sorry, Old Xu, I’ll take my leave first.” Laying down the cards in his hand, he became the leading winner.
Pei Huaiye looked at the cards in his hand, then glanced at his brother: “Are you calling or not? If not, I’m going out.”
Holding the Big Joker and a 2 in his hand, he instantly trapped Han Chao and Xu Sui at the table.
Han Chao’s lonely remaining two packs of cigarettes were forced down to one.
Over the next few rounds, it was evenly matched, with wins and losses evening out. Finding the game uninteresting, and noticing Ning Ran nodding off like a chicken pecking at rice on the sofa, Pei Huaiye tossed his cards aside, said “You guys play,” and pulled Ning Ran upstairs with one arm around her.
With a mischievous tone, Han Chao tossed out: “Wild-ge, keep the noise down.”
Pei Huaiye: “Letting you win those two rounds was purely me acting like a fool.”
With Pei Huaiye leaving and Xu Sui stepping down, Xiao Jinyang and Wu Ci joined in. Playing without stakes, they just traded wins and losses for amusement.
Half-carried upstairs by Pei Huaiye, Ning Ran suddenly woke right up the moment she touched the pillow: “Brother sleep!”
Without Pei Huaiye accompanying her, she couldn’t sleep peacefully.
“Wake up and go wash your face and brush your teeth; don’t be so sloppy.” The master bedroom upstairs had an attached bathroom equipped with all necessary toiletries.
Ning Ran gave an “Oh”, ran off barefoot to wash up, then ran back barefoot to pull back the quilt and climb into bed.
Fortunately, the room was carpeted and reasonably clean, causing Pei Huaiye’s slight mysophobia to vanish.
Tidying himself up, he glanced down at the mechanical watch on his wrist: 11:05.
Downstairs was still going strong.
Understandably so—ever since the apocalypse began, everyone’s nerves had been wound up to the highest degree. Having finally reached a safe place, appropriately unwinding was hardly objectionable.
At 11:30, the downstairs session wrapped up, and everyone scattered to rest in their respective rooms.
With plenty of rooms upstairs and down, there was more than enough space to accommodate everyone.
The wind picked up during the night, blowing the leaves outside the window into a rustling chorus. In the distance, the tall mountain resembled a crouching beast in the night, semi-encircling the entire base.
Ning Ran was sleeping soundly in bed, her mouth half-open with drool dripping down.
Disgusted by her, Pei Huaiye used her own jacket to wipe it away. Snuggling closer, she took a bite out of his hand: “Yummy meat!”
A foodie without a doubt!
Early the next morning, when the two went downstairs, Han Chao had already prepared breakfast.
Rice porridge paired with baozi—entirely homely fare.
Pei Huaiye ate four baozi and a bowl of porridge. Turning his head, he saw Ning Ran happily cradling a baozi and gnawing on it, completely devoid of any table manners.
Han Chao teased her: “Are the baozi tastier, or is the meat tastier?”
Wasn’t there meat inside the baozi? They were pure meat filling.
Pondering for a moment, Ning Ran used practical actions to tell him that both the meat was delicious and the baozi were delicious.
Watching her carefree appearance, Pei Huaiye momentarily zoned out, snapping back only when Xu Sui asked him when they would be leaving.
“We leave right after eating.”
The base was peaceful enough to feel like pre-apocalyptic times, making it easy for people to develop greedy attachments. And once people harbored such thoughts, they would forget the cruelty of the outside world and indulge themselves.
“Alright, I’ll pack up simply, and we’ll head out after eating.” Saying that, Han Chao dug into his food with large mouthfuls, and Ji Hengyuan’s group sped up their eating as well.
After breakfast, Ning Ran followed Pei Huaiye into the car.
This time, Pei Huaiye drove, with Ning Ran sitting in the front passenger seat. Han Chao, Xu Sui, and Ji Hengyuan’s group crammed into another vehicle.
For no other reason than the fact that when Han Chao drove, a couple tossing dog food at each other would be sitting right behind him—one fussing while the other coaxed. Fearing he’d be stuffed to death with forced affection, he refused to share a car with Pei Huaiye under any circumstances.
The moment he left, Xu Sui naturally followed suit.
Left with no choice, Pei Huaiye had to drive by himself.
It was as if nails had been planted into Ning Ran’s backside; she twisted and rocked back and forth, refusing to sit still for a single second.
The vehicles rolled out of the base and headed toward Huacheng. Along the way, they encountered quite a few squads out on missions. Unacquainted with one another, they identified identities solely through the base cards.
Pei Huaiye had no plans to take on missions, driving along leisurely. Whenever they passed a town, they would stop—collecting supplies if there were any, and killing zombies for target practice if there weren’t.
A week passed, and the capabilities of Ji Hengyuan and his group had improved significantly.
Another evening arrived as the group passed through a small town. This place hadn’t been ravaged by the earthquake; at the very least, the houses and roads remained completely undamaged.
“After returning to Huacheng, I plan to pull Cheng Lichuan out for training. He can’t cook meals for us for the rest of his life,” Pei Huaiye stood beside the off-road vehicle, gazing at the sunset glow in the distance.