Downstairs, Xiao Yan placed Wang Duoduo on the ground and handed him a lollipop. Sucking quietly on the candy, the child stared with wide, round eyes at the two people who remained tightly entwined before him. He was still far too young to comprehend what had happened upstairs.
Mu Li’s complexion was rather poor. Burying his face deep in Xiao Yan’s chest, he took a deep breath of Xiao Yan’s scent to settle his racing emotions. Although Xiao Yan’s movements had been swift enough just moments ago, he had still caught sight of the scene. He was hardly a fool and naturally understood what it implied. Confronting this sort of reality face-to-face for the very first time left an indescribable taste in his heart, and he clearly needed time to adjust.
“Are you alright?” Xiao Yan gently patted Mu Li’s back. In his past life, he had long grown accustomed to such atrocities, having witnessed horrors far more cruel than this. Initially, he too had burned with fury and a sense of injustice, but human nature was twisted and complex, and after seeing enough, he became completely numb. In the apocalypse, the hardest people to keep alive were the elderly and children, followed closely by women. Without a powerful backer, anyone attractive, regardless of gender, was inevitably reduced to the plaything of the strong. Whether it was voluntary or not ceased to matter altogether.
Mu Li shook his head. Wrapping his arms tighter around Xiao Yan, he murmured in a muffled voice, “I am fine.”
Lifting Mu Li firmly into his arms, Xiao Yan suggested, “Let us go sit in the car for a while.”
“Wait, Duoduo is still here.” Subconsciously looping his arms around Xiao Yan’s neck, Mu Li cast a sideways glance at the child staring at them with intense curiosity. His face instantly flushed with acute embarrassment. The two of them had apparently remained glued together like this for a good ten minutes straight, all while the child watched the entire display. It was simply too awkward.
The ground floor was an absolute mess without a single proper place to sit. Figuring that the situation upstairs would likely take a while to resolve—having sensed earlier through his psychic awareness that bloodshed was inevitable—Xiao Yan wanted to spare his darling’s appetite and suggested moving to the vehicle, completely forgetting that a child was standing right beside them.
Leaving a child behind here unattended was naturally unsafe. With no other choice, Xiao Yan had to set Mu Li down, scoop Wang Duoduo up into his arms instead, and take his little darling by the hand with his free hand. Viewed from a distance, the group genuinely resembled a happy family of three.
An hour later, Wang Hao and the man who had previously been tied up shouldered heavy burdens wrapped in bedsheets as they descended the stairs. Xiao Yan glanced at the bundles through the car window; what those packages contained required no explanation.
Sitting spread-legged across the flattened back seat of the SUV, Mu Li was keeping Duoduo company by playing with building blocks, his back turned toward the front. With the vehicle’s excellent sound insulation, he naturally remained entirely unaware of the proceedings. By the time the two men finished assembling the blocks together, two full hours had slipped by. Throughout this time, no zombies had approached, nor had any other human figures appeared; the surroundings remained deathly quiet.
Only when the cleanup inside was nearly complete did Xiao Yan call out to Mu Li to step out of the car.
The villa’s interior had already undergone a basic tidy-up, losing its earlier chaotic state. Standing in the center of the spacious hall, Wang Hao lowered his head slightly the moment he spotted Xiao Yan entering. “Boss.”
Standing beside him was his eldest brother-in-law, Zhao Wen, a man in his forties with an honest, earthy demeanor who now looked equally nervous as he followed Wang Hao’s lead and addressed Xiao Yan as “Boss.”
“Mr. Zhao is too polite. Just call me Xiao Yan,” Xiao Yan said, setting Duoduo down. Instead of running toward his father, the child immediately latched onto Mu Li’s leg, displaying a clear sense of reliance.
Taking the boy by the hand, Mu Li led him over to a cleansed chair and sat down, though his ears remained tuned to the conversation unfolding nearby.
Glancing toward the upper floor, Xiao Yan asked, “Is everything settled?”
“Resolved. Those beasts were just passing through, led by an ability user. My brother-in-law kindly took them in, but never expected…” Wang Hao left the remainder of the sentence unsaid, yet everyone understood.
The man named Zhao Wen reddened with suppressed grief. Unlike urban areas where water and electricity outages immediately crippled daily life, their rural household possessed massive grain stockpiles and lacked for nothing. Thus, the moment the apocalypse began, he had tightly bolted his doors and windows, surviving in peace for a time. Two days prior, that group of thugs had suddenly pounded on their door, claiming to be travelers fleeing for their lives who had gone several days without food. Harboring no defenses against fellow human beings, he had opened the door and welcomed them inside. Initially, the men behaved decently, but the moment they laid eyes on his daughter, their true colors surfaced. As an ordinary civilian, how could he possibly hope to match them? Even his elderly parents had lost their lives while trying to shield the girls during the struggle.
Guilt tore fiercely at Zhao Wen’s heart. Over and over, he cursed his foolishness in opening the door to let wolves into the house, unaware that refusing entry would have yielded the exact same outcome. Once targeted by such predators, escaping unharmed was impossible.
“As long as everyone is still alive, that is what matters,” Xiao Yan remarked, opting not to dwell on platitudes. Reaching into his backpack, he retrieved a box of medicine and tossed it to Wang Hao. After catching the item, Wang Hao froze for a second before realization dawned. Nodding respectfully at Xiao Yan, he turned away with the medicine in hand, though he paused as if rethinking his approach and handed the package over to Zhao Wen instead, offering a parting nod to Xiao Yan. “Thank you, Boss.”
That box contained emergency medicine for children. When passing through a pharmacy earlier along their journey, Xiao Yan had swept up every single pharmaceutical product in sight, and the supplies were finally coming in handy.
Carrying the medicine, Zhao Wen headed upstairs. Possessing enough tact to read the room, Wang Hao scooped up his son, retreated into the kitchen, and assumed the duty of preparing a meal, leaving the space entirely to Xiao Yan and Mu Li.
Ready-made ingredients filled the kitchen, and Wang Hao used his own conjured water supply, having already achieved steady mastery over his supernatural abilities.
Taking a seat beside Mu Li, Xiao Yan wrapped an arm around his waist to pull him onto his lap. “Are you hungry?”
Mu Li shook his head. Giving Xiao Yan a gentle nudge, he whispered, “Put me down.”
With outsiders present, he inevitably felt somewhat self-conscious.
Acting as though he heard nothing, Xiao Yan pressed a kiss to the corner of Mu Li’s lips and murmured with a soft chuckle, “The rabbits in the spatial realm have grown up. I will take you to see them after we finish eating.”
“So fast?” Lowering his voice to match, Mu Li leaned his head close against Xiao Yan’s so only the two of them could hear.
“Mhm.” Xiao Yan himself felt rather surprised. To this day, he still could not fully fathom how his spatial realm operated; it had simply materialized inside him out of nowhere. The living creatures placed within it seemed to have benefited from drinking the stream water, exhibiting an astonishing rate of growth. Barely a few days had passed, yet they were already fully grown and had even begun breeding.
Her curiosity piqued, Mu Li remembered the small hamsters they had purchased earlier, which were also stored inside. If Xiao Yan had not brought up the rabbits just now, he would have completely forgotten about them.
Entering the spatial realm required avoiding the presence of others. Xiao Yan had consistently concealed his identity as a spatial ability user in front of Wang Hao, as the secrets of the dimension must never be exposed to outsiders.
While the two of them murmured quietly together, Zhao Wen hurried back downstairs. The man certainly had not anticipated walking into such an intimate display off guard: Mu Li was straddling Xiao Yan’s lap, their postures closely resembling a kiss. Overwhelmed by sudden awkwardness, Zhao Wen hastily bolted straight into the kitchen.
Caught in the act, Mu Li’s face flared a brilliant shade of red, resembling a ripe peach. Burying his face deep in Xiao Yan’s chest, he adopted the strategy of an ostrich, camouflaging himself entirely.
Dinner was served quite a while later. Facing Zhao Wen, Mu Li still felt a lingering trace of awkwardness, though fortunately the man merely picked up the food trays and retreated upstairs immediately to keep his wife and children company.
The meal consisted of a salted pork and winter melon soup, boiled salted chicken, and freshly steamed rice, making for a simple yet satisfying meal.
Once they finished eating, Wang Hao stayed behind on the ground floor to stand guard, while Zhao Xin took the child upstairs to continue consoling her sister-in-law and niece. Under the pretext of resting, Xiao Yan and Mu Li slipped quietly into the spatial realm.