Twenty or so survivors clustered in the villa. Most of them sat on the carpet, exhausted. They were all kinds of people—middle-aged men and women, energetic young teenagers and adults, and even a couple of children and elderly.

A few highschoolers at the side joked with each other. Some doctors and nurses checked over the other survivors for minor wounds. A few of the ability users murmured quietly about the changes in their bodies.

Sitting on the stairs was Lu Hao, their rescuer. The young teenager had sharp sword eyebrows that gave his face a righteous, heroic look. Despite his young age, he was unnaturally calm as he called up survivors one at a time.

“What’s your name?”

“Age?”

“Do you have any specialized skills?”

Once people answered, he directed them to the side. His companion, a gloomy teenager, then took the survivors to their lodging. He showed them where they could bathe to get rid of any dirt and zombie matter, and gave them fresh clothes to change into.

Ji Ling’s turn wasn’t until the end. She had to wait, shivering, still sweaty and bloody, until it was early morning. When she trudged over to Lu Hao, the handsome teenager didn’t even glance at her.

“Name.”

“J—Ji Ling…”

The teenager in front of her wrote her name with rapid strokes. His hand was elegant and strong, like the kind of hands artists loved to draw. “Age.”

“Sixteen…”

“Special skills.”

Ji Ling pursed her lips, feeling sour. What could she do? She was useless. “I—I can cook… and clean…”

After writing those few short words, Lu Hao paused. Finally, he glanced up. His deep, naturally-aggressive eyes stared right at her, making Ji Ling’s heart thump. He was really attractive, so much more handsome than Zhang Lie. “And your ability?”

“A—Ability? I, I don’t have…” They lapsed into silence as Ji Ling stuttered into a stop.

Suddenly, Lu Hao smiled at her. The bottoms of his eyes crested just a little, and the wild, cold, and unapproachable atmosphere around him flew away.

He looked so gentle with just a tiny change of his expression, and Ji Ling couldn’t help but stare, entranced.

“Did you sleep very well?”

It took her a bit to register his question. “W—What?”

“Earlier tonight. Had you slept very well? For me, I had a hard time sleeping. I felt like I was having a nightmare, one where everything hurt…”

The gentle voice of the teenager in front of her was soothing, like he was trying not to scare her…

This feeling of kindness and concern made a dark and dry spot of Ji Ling’s heart feel moistened and revitalized.

She hurried to admit, honestly, “M—Me too. I, I had bad dreams, and it was so painful… and when I woke up, I-I realized my parents had, had turned into…” The rims of her eyes turned red as she teared up.

Lu Hao was still smiling at her softly. But then he spoke, and the words weren’t kind at all. “You might not have known this. People who woke up from disturbed dreams and heavy fevers at the start of the apocalypse—they either became ability users, or they became zombies.”

His gaze flicked up and down in assessment.

“So if you aren’t an ability user… are you a zombie?”

“N—No!” Ji Ling’s blood ran cold. There was no way she could be a zombie, one of those monsters! “I—I must be an ability user!”

“Then show me your ability.”

Ji Ling was stuck.

Her ability? What could it be?

Her mind flashed back—the zombies ignoring her, everyone around her acting like she didn’t exist. And these memories of the apocalypse blended with the memories of her normal life: the other students turning their backs on her, whispering and laughing as she passed. Her parents arguing and not even bothering to look at her…

No, no, it can’t be, it can’t be…

Everyone else was so powerful, like superheroes! Why? Why would her ability be to disappear like she didn’t exist?!

Ji Ling clutched her shoulders, her face distorting. She didn’t realize that in her distress, she’d activated her ability.

It didn’t cause her to turn invisible, but it was like the senses couldn’t perceive her—like even if someone stared right at her, their brain wouldn’t want to acknowledge her presence, leading to the feeling that ‘there was no one there’.

In front of her, Lu Hao’s brows furrowed in concentration.

Ji Ling’s ability was still only in its infancy. She wasn’t strong enough to disappear from the senses of more powerful zombies and ability users. She just had a distracting, slightly annoying psychological effect.

A clapping sound broke Ji Ling out of her mental spiral. She looked up to see Lu Hao with his hands together, having made the sound to snap Ji Ling to attention. “Alright. I’ve seen your ability.”

He wrote down some words in his notebook. When he raised his head again, upon noticing the tears in Ji Ling’s dazed eyes, he paused in consideration.

“Ji Ling.” At the call of her name, Ji Ling looked up. This time, Lu Hao looked at her without a smile and without a frown. He spoke slowly, in a solemn tone far too mature for his age. “Any ability can be useful. Any person can have worth. Hong Sheng saved you because he believed your life was worth saving. In the apocalypse, you’ll see the worst parts of humanity, all of the selfishness that comes in our nature. You’ll see people do horrible things beyond imagination, all for their own survival, or… for their own twisted sense of power.”

At this, Lu Hao’s gaze grew darker, and sharper.

“Sometimes, the ones you think are human, are monsters more disgusting than the zombies.”

But just when it seemed his expression was about to change, it smoothed over. Lu Hao was an impassive observer, a judge whose gaze weighed Ji Ling down. Though he sat right in front of her on the stairs, for some reason, it felt more like he was high above, looking down at her.

“Even in a world as cruel as this, there are good people. Those are the ones I want to gather here. People who’ll keep their humanity in a world with none.”

He paused, and the way he looked at Ji Ling turned more contemplative.

“When this is all over, I want us to leave behind decent survivors who’ll make the world better. So—work hard. Don’t betray Hong Sheng’s belief in you. As long as you put your efforts into doing good and helping humanity, there’ll be a place for you.”

 

 

Ji Ling hadn’t known it, but that was an ultimatum.

Lu Hao was willing to give her a chance. Put down his revenge, and let her live a good life in the SG, as long as she chose a different path and didn’t betray the human race.

But her young and ignorant teenage self didn’t understand that.

As she lay curled up in her cot, the soft breathing of the woman who shared the room with her filling her ears, Ji Ling thought about how naive Lu Hao’s words were.

Goodness in humanity? Decent people? Don’t make her laugh. Humans were all pigs. Selfishness was the way of survival. Other people would gladly kick you down, so you had to kick them down first.

But Lu Hao liked people who could pretend they were better. Ji Ling understood. He liked that veneer of nicety, that compassionate and gentle mask that people with savior complexes liked to put on. Ji Ling could do that. She could be ‘nice’, and ‘kind’, and ‘help’ other people.

And if she did that, she would be able to stay, right?

If she did that, he would like her a little better?

A small part of her, a vulnerable part of her, still felt crushed by Zhang Lie’s betrayal. One day she’d grind him to a paste and make him regret how he’d treated her. But beneath the anger was a deep emptiness.

In this desperate situation, she clung to that tiny hope Lu Hao presented to her. Not everyone would instantly reject her. If she worked hard… she could find people who’d treat her well, right?

A fervent and teary look entered Ji Ling’s eyes, and she went to sleep with a smile.

 

 

Over the next critical days at the start of the apocalypse, Lu Hao organized the survivors into groups. The field teams went out to save people in the city and bring back survivors who could help the base. The security teams stayed at the villa to fend off both zombies and frantic people who wanted to break in or take over the base. And finally, the logistics teams took care of the base’s upkeep, from taking care of food, laundry, and other mundane needs, to treating injuries and housing new base members.

Ji Ling chose to stay in the logistics team. She wasn’t physically strong and couldn’t fight with weapons, so she wasn’t any use elsewhere.

In those first days, while Lu Hao was still sorting out the responsibilities of the new recruits, Ji Ling had the most contact with Hong Sheng.

Although Hong Sheng’s eyes still terrified her with that sociopathic intensity that came out of them, it helped how he always kept his head down. Even if it made him gloomy and depressing, at least he wasn’t scaring her.

Hong Sheng handed tasks to Ji Ling every day. At first it was just housekeeping tasks, then he had her running around the base, checking in with different teams and keeping track of the base personnel. He was forcing her to do the talking that he didn’t want to do, she noted bitterly. She was still a shy teenage girl, what was up with making her talk to all of these grown men and women every day?

If it were her normal life, Ji Ling would be paralyzed by the social anxiety, not wanting to engage with people only to get mercilessly mocked and rejected. But there were so many things that needed to happen every day, and whenever she hesitated to do something, Hong Sheng would raise his head and just look at her with that horrible stare of his.

So Ji Ling went and ran around, because even the hostile eyes of strangers were nicer than Hong Sheng’s.

She noted down what teams were going out of the base, what teams were returning, who was injured, who needed accommodation, how many rooms were occupied, how many people needed feeding…

At the end of the day, Hong Sheng called her over to tell her, in a stilted manner, “You worked hard.”

It was barely praise. But it made Ji Ling’s expression waver. It was the first time someone had ever praised her for her efforts.

So Hong Sheng wasn’t all that bad, if she ignored how uncomfortable he made her.

But over time, her opinion on him changed.

The first thing that made her waver was when she accidentally caught Hong Sheng and Lu Hao acting intimately.

Ji Ling had been feeling anxious and depressed and wanted to be alone, so she’d gone to the back of the villa, where a small garden had been planted.

There, she’d stumbled upon Lu Hao hugging Hong Sheng. He’d completely wrapped him up with their bodies pressing together in a way that was far too close to be brotherly.

Even though people had noticed the two owners of the villa were closer than usual, it wasn’t until Ji Ling saw the look in Lu Hao’s eyes that she understood their relationship.

Love, joy, gentleness. Lu Hao looked at Hong Sheng with an expression Ji Ling had never seen in her entire life. Even when Zhang Lie had been dating her, he had never come close to looking at her that way.

And for the first time, Ji Ling felt a surge of jealousy toward Hong Sheng.

It wasn’t fair.

Hong Sheng wasn’t good-looking, he didn’t have a good personality, and he was uncomfortable to be around.

Why would someone like Lu Hao treat him like he was a treasure?

But it wasn’t as if Ji Ling was in love with Lu Hao. She quickly moved on. But subconsciously, she’d already begun comparing herself to Hong Sheng.

And then, not long after the Survivor Guard was established, the ability users started to get restless.

“Hey,” one ability user mumbled to another. “Why the hell do we work so hard, just to get lumped in with the rest of these guys?”

“I saw an ability user out in the city who had his own harem of girls.”

“I saw a guy who cleared out stores with his gang and took as much as he wanted.”

“Ability users like us should be able to kill anyone that pisses us off.”

“We work so hard to kill zombies, why should we get treated the same?”

“Why the hell should we follow orders?”

The resentful eyes of a small group of ability users fell on Hong Sheng, the useless regular human at the top of the SG.

Hong Sheng was a weakling that relied on Lu Hao to act so tough. The arrogant ability users cursed him out in private, mocking him in all kinds of ways. If they took over the SG, trash like him that couldn’t even talk would be better off cleaning the shit out of toilets and being used as bait for zombies.

Ji Ling, who secretly listened in on their conversations, slowly absorbed their complaints.

That’s right. She was an ability user.

Compared to her, a regular human like Hong Sheng was garbage.

Even though she had started off respecting Hong Sheng as her savior, over time, her gaze grew more and more tinged with disdain.

Compared to that first day of the apocalypse, Ji Ling had transformed herself. Her eyesight had gotten better ever since she unlocked her ability, so she didn’t need her glasses anymore. She saw how other people detested Hong Sheng for keeping his head down all the time, so she forced herself to raise her head high and look people in the eyes. She practiced a gentle smile and a soft way of speaking, and in this way, she made a better impression on people.

She wasn’t the old Ji Ling anymore, the ugly and annoying Ji Ling who was bullied and ostracized. Now she was an ability user blossoming into the prime of her power.

But Hong Sheng.

He was just as pathetic and miserable as ever.

Every time Ji Ling saw him, she felt like she was looking at her old self.

It was his whole demeanor. The way he couldn’t even lift his head to look at people when they were speaking, the shifty and stiff way he reacted to anyone other than Lu Hao. He was clearly someone low in the hierarchy, someone who deserved to be stomped on by people more popular than him.

Even though Ji Ling had been in that spot all her life, she was desperate to rise up, make herself feel like she was better and more important. So when she saw someone like Hong Sheng, she couldn’t help but want to stomp on him to prove her place.

The only thing that held her back was that he’d been the one to save her. She choked down her impulses each time, and did her best to face him with gentleness. But inside, there was a cold scorn and jealousy that just wouldn’t die out.

 

 

The SG had quickly gotten up and running; more survivors arrived day by day. And by now, everyone knew the two leaders of the SG were very deeply affectionate with each other.

“Sheng Sheng.” Lu Hao leaned over and breathed on Hong Sheng’s ear.

Hong Sheng jumped in shock. The machine parts in his hands dropped straight down, but Lu Hao grabbed them before they could hit the ground. This conveniently let him wrap his arms around Hong Sheng. Lu Hao pulled him close, snuggling against him.

“Why are you so shy?” he teased. Hong Sheng’s face was bright red, and his body was trembling in Lu Hao’s grasp.

All around were other survivors in the SG base, watching the duo in bemusement. It was incredible. Even at the end of the world, people in love wouldn’t stop showing off everywhere.

Lu Hao was extremely sticky. He loved to tease Hong Sheng, and whenever there was down time, he always went to go hug Hong Sheng, grab his hand, and kiss him on the cheek.

But Hong Sheng, he was so shy that if it weren’t for Lu Hao always tugging him close, it seemed like he’d run away and bury himself in the dirt to escape the embarrassment.

The survivors who saw them couldn’t believe their eyes. Lu Hao, out on the field, was a zombie-killing master who could smile even when his face was specked with blood. And Hong Sheng, he was a depressing, lifeless guy who looked more like one of the zombies Lu Hao killed.

But as soon as the two got together…

“Hong Sheng, look, I brought back your favorite snack. Say ‘aaah’.”

Hong Sheng covered his completely red face, blocking Lu Hao from feeding him the piece of candy. He seemed to mumble something, but since he was buried in Lu Hao’s arms, only Lu Hao could hear what he said.

One of the survivors, a woman in her thirties, stared bleakly from where she was innocently minding her own business. She couldn’t help but rub her aching jaw. Too much sweetness, her teeth hurt.

Now that Lu Hao had brought people to survive the first wave of the apocalypse, the SG was in a period of rapid growth and expansion.

The villa, and the Survivor Guard base, was temporarily set up as a refugee camp. The number of people it could permanently support was very few, but Lu Hao intended to shelter the refugees first and wait until the military outposts got set up. Once the safety zone was established, the refugees could return to F City.

In the meantime, he had to keep the base secure even as it expanded.

The core SG group was made of a select few people he vetted. As long as survivors abided by the rules and contributed to the base, Lu Hao wouldn’t turn them away.

But for troublemakers…

After Lu Hao watched Hong Sheng scamper away, his expression grew cold.

“Get out.”

Over thirty ability users and regular survivors were tied up and thrown to the gates of the base.

They angrily cursed and desperately pleaded, but even in the face of these many overlapping cries, Lu Hao was like stone.

“What the hell?! You can’t do this to us!”

“You’re sending us to die!”

“Please, let me back in! I didn’t mean it, I swear—“

“I made my rules clear.” With his arms crossed, Lu Hao lazily flicked his gaze across the faces of these lowlifes. Some of them had been overheard discussing how to rebel and take over the SG. Others were more straightforward cases of harassers, thieves, and thugs.

The SG had no room for people of questionable moral conduct. The most it could accommodate was one Ji Ling, at the mercy of Hong Sheng. No one else would even get a chance.

“Get them in the trucks. Drive them back to the city. I won’t leave you to die at my doorstep, but I won’t let criminals hang around like leeches. We’ll drop you off at a place without zombies. Whether you live or die is your own fate.”

As Lu Hao said, the SG members packed the lowlifes up and brought them to the city. Some of the ability users broke free and tried to struggle, but were instantly subdued by Lu Hao’s lightning.

In the end, two whole truckfuls of people got thrown out into scattered abandoned buildings throughout F City. Lu Hao didn’t toss them all out in one place, otherwise, if they banded together, these lowlifes would be a disaster to any survivors in the area.

The trucks attracted waves of zombie attention, which served as target practice for the SG members. Before heading back to the base, they detoured to some warehouses to pick up larger amenities like toilets, showers, bed frames, and other things they needed to expand the SG base’s lodging facilities, and loaded them up into the trucks.

It was an efficient and clean handling. The only way it could be cleaner would be if Lu Hao directly killed and silenced the people he threw out, but Lu Hao hadn’t been given any reason to commit murder. With the Survivor Guard’s ethos of preserving human life, Lu Hao had to live by example and show a sliver of mercy.

Unfortunately, this decision would come back to bite him.

Conniving, opportunistic eyes stared at the SG base. It hadn’t only been the disloyal ability users inside the base that had wanted to take it over, but powers from the city that licked their lips with greed. Even in these first days of the apocalypse, word had spread of the isolated villa that was a safe haven from zombies. It was a perfect stronghold for surviving the apocalypse, and it was only defended by a few ability users.

When those lowlifes were thrown out by the SG, some of them were snatched up and forced to spill everything they knew about the villa and its defenses.

Those powers angling for the SG base didn’t make their move on the land right away, but waited for the right moment.

All of a sudden, SG teams heading to the city faced attacks and harassment from organized groups of other survivors, some of them even being trapped and nearly killed.

And once Lu Hao went to the city to investigate, the hidden powers went to the villa and launched their attack.