“Time to sleep,” he said abruptly.
Lin Buyu blinked. In broad daylight? Sleep?
Wait—does he mean THAT kind of sleep?
She instinctively clutched her collar, her mind suddenly racing with zero-gravity thoughts about whether a human-zombie romance carried a transmission risk.
The moment she realized where her thoughts were straying, she felt like slapping herself. Get a grip, girl. Your self-respect is plummeting.
Scooting a little closer to Jiang Ran, she hastily deployed her trusty subject-change tactic. “Group Leader, when is our team heading out for our next field mission?”
She was eager to get outside to scavenge a few specific items—like sunflower seeds, marshmallows, and maybe some of those ridiculous chillies.
“Why are you asking?” Jiang Ran was already lying down, casually yanking the blanket off her to pull over himself.
“Tsk. Weren’t you annoyed by what I said earlier? I just want to head out, find something you like, and make it up to you.”
Trying to play up to him?
Jiang Ran cast a side-glance at her. “If I like it, you’ll go fetch it for me?”
“Of course!” Lin Buyu was, after all, fully committed to reforming him with love. Hiding her true motives, her large, bright eyes fluttered innocently as she delivered a shamelessly smooth line: “Who can blame me when Group Leader is the one who stole my heart at first sight? Even if you asked for the stars in the sky, I’d pluck them down for you.”
It was sweet, cheesy, and sounded remarkably like a line a scumbag would use to fool gullible girls.
Her mouth is coated in honey, but her mind has more holes than a strainer.
Jiang Ran let out a quiet laugh. “Fine. We have a mission tomorrow. I’ll give you your chance to prove your devotion.”
The next day arrived in the blink of an eye.
True to his word, it was Jiang Ran’s team’s turn to head out. Their objective: scavenge medical supplies from a local hospital.
Medical supplies were always the hardest to gather. A year into the apocalypse, most hospitals had already been stripped bare. The few untouched areas that remained were almost always overrun by mutated zombies.
When Lin Buyu climbed into the military off-road vehicle beside Jiang Ran, both Su Ya and Nie Fei—who were sharing the ride—looked thoroughly astonished.
The pair exchanged glances before looking at Jiang Ran.
Su Ya was the more direct of the two. “Ran-ge, are we really bringing her along? She’s not going to end up crying her eyes out from fright, is she?”
Sitting in the front passenger seat, Lin Buyu turned around to answer on Jiang Ran’s behalf before he could: “Don’t worry, I won’t cry.”
She had changed into a fresh outfit today—one Jiang Ran had tossed to her. It was a comfortable tracksuit, rendered in pure white, as if he had somehow guessed her preference for the color.
Paired with her clean, striking face, her youthful, innocent vibe was almost aggressively pronounced.
She looked like a high school student.
Nie Fei couldn’t suppress his curiosity any longer. “Sister Buyu, if you don’t mind me asking… how old are you actually?”
Out here in the wasteland, identity is whatever you make it.
Though she was actually twenty-six, Lin Buyu unblushingly claimed, “I just turned eighteen.”
Hey, what’s wrong with a girl acting a little young?
The moment the words left her mouth, a few of the hardened veterans in the car nearly choked on their own breath.
Looking at her big, fluttering eyes, Nie Fei and Su Ya couldn’t help but sigh inwardly—she really is just a naive, sheltered little girl.
Jiang Ran, who was behind the wheel, didn’t say a word, though his dark eyes narrowed slightly for a split second.
Two vehicles set off in total.
Leading the convoy in the front car was Xiao Jingcheng; his special ability allowed him to petrify zombies, making him the ideal scout to clear the path.
Upon entering the urban district, however, they found the streets completely deserted.
Usually, venturing into the city center meant encountering hordes of low-level zombies wandering the pavement. Finding not a single one in sight only made the silence feel eerily dangerous.
Nie Fei raised his walkie-talkie. “Lao Xiao, what’s the situation up front? Anything unusual?”
Xiao Jingcheng had already driven deep into the heart of the city.
There was no alternative route—the hospital they needed to search was the finest in the city, situated right in the center of downtown.
Peering through his binoculars at the hospital windows, he reported, “Nothing so far. It’s strange—there don’t even seem to be any zombies inside. Maybe a fight broke out between power-users somewhere nearby and drew them all away.”
Nie Fei relayed the message word for word. Gripping his walkie-talkie, Jiang Ran spoke in a cold, firm tone: “Wait until we arrive so we can enter together. Don’t act rashly.”
“Copy that.”
As Lin Buyu listened to their exchange, she felt a strange, unsettling pull.
To be precise, it was a mutual attraction.
It felt as though she were drawing the zombies toward her, just as they were pulling at her. She could sense a group of formidable zombies waiting for her not far away—a summons pulsing directly from her own kind.
However, lacking a core, she couldn’t pinpoint the exact direction of the call.
Her brow furrowed as Jiang Ran pulled up right behind Xiao Jingcheng’s vehicle.
He pushed his door open and stepped outside, with Nie Fei and Su Ya following close behind from the back seat.
Shaking off her disorientation, Lin Buyu quickly scrambled out to join them.
Jiang Ran stood at the front, hands on his hips, scanning the hospital’s surroundings with a sharp gaze.
As Lin Buyu drew near, he suddenly spoke up: “Hey, bedmate. Didn’t you say yesterday that if I wanted the stars in the sky, you’d pluck them down for me?”
Why pull out cheesy pickup lines at a time like this?
Faced with the utter bewilderment written across Nie Fei and the others’ faces, Lin Buyu didn’t feel the slightest bit flustered.
“That’s right! Why, Group Leader? Is there something you want?”
A faint curve touched Jiang Ran’s lips, though the smile failed to reach his dark eyes. “I want you to go into the hospital and scout the path for me. Will you go?”
Scout the hospital?
Is that all?
For a zombie like Lin Buyu, that was a piece of cake.
“Of course!” With a bright, dazzling smile, she blew a kiss in Jiang Ran’s direction. “I didn’t expect what Group Leader wanted to be so simple. Don’t worry—whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”
With those words, she spun on her heel and sprinted toward the hospital building like a moth to a flame.
Her sprightly, bouncing figure looked for all the world like the naive, sheltered little princess Xiao Jingcheng had made her out to be. She appeared entirely oblivious to his true intention.
Yet, right from the start, Jiang Ran had known she harbored her own motives. He was willing to bet she knew precisely why he was sending her ahead.
To absorb every unknown hazard.
In short, she was being thrown out as bait.
Jiang Ran simply stood there, watching her swift figure dash deeper into the complex.
Even Su Ya felt a twinge of reluctance. “Group Leader, do we really need to test her like this?”
Xiao Jingcheng glanced at Su Ya, inwardly noting how naive she was being. How could she possibly think Ran-ge is sending her in just to ‘test’ her? He’s quite literally using her as bait.
Still, was Lin Buyu truly foolish, or just recklessly confident?
She had charged into an unknown, dangerous hospital all on her own.
The moment she stepped inside, Jiang Ran moved. But by the time he made his first step, Lin Buyu had already reached the second floor.
Standing by a second-story window, she waved down at Jiang Ran, who had just arrived at the main entrance.
“You can come in now! There aren’t any high-level zombies here.”
The moment those words echoed down, Jiang Ran froze in his tracks, his dark pupils dilating in shock.
He stared up at Lin Buyu as she waved from the window frame.
She knew. She wasn’t foolish at all—she had understood his intention entirely.
If she knew I was using her, why did she still go in?
Lin Buyu, however, didn’t share any of Jiang Ran’s complex scheming. Her logic was simple: she was a zombie, so she had nothing to fear from other zombies.
So what if she was being used as bait?
Besides, she never expected someone she’d just met to treat her with comradeship or loyalty right off the bat. Without expectations, there was no disappointment—Jiang Ran was merely her target, nothing more.
It wasn’t just Jiang Ran; Xiao Jingcheng and the others were equally stunned when they heard her call out.
She had known all along why the captain sent her in.
Jiang Ran moved swiftly into the hospital, with Xiao Jingcheng, Nie Fei, and Su Ya following close behind.
When the four of them regrouped with Lin Buyu, the very first thing she said to Jiang Ran was: “So, how was I as bait? No timidness, no hesitating steps.”
There was even a hint of pride in her voice.