The car furiously drove through the streets, and not a single obstacle was spared on the path. The car streaked ahead with a surge of lightning tearing apart anything that came in front of it. Zombies, fallen buildings, abandoned vehicles—all of it became dust.
By the time Lu Hao arrived back at the SG and tore his way to Hong Sheng, what he saw was this:
A serrated knife tracing a red line on Hong Sheng’s neck.
And Ji Ling just standing there, gun in her hand. Letting Hong Sheng die.
A crackling noise erupted in the room. Static electricity permeated the air. The papers nearly floated off the floor, and the hair on everyone’s bodies lifted in a fascinating and eerie display.
And with a thunderous sound, lightning boomed through the room.
The man threatening Hong Sheng, and the hands he used to hold up Hong Sheng and use the knife on him, separated into two.
The lightning tore straight through his forearms and wrists, leaving a charred, gaping hole in the air between the man and Hong Sheng’s body.
For a split second, no one knew how to react. The two hands of the man fell limply to the floor with nothing to support them. When the pain and horror of losing his arms finally registered in the man’s mind, he opened his mouth to scream—but Lu Hao had walked over, standing in front of Hong Sheng.
Lu Hao turned his face to the man. The pure white, blazing eyes of lightning glanced at the man just once.
Hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity coursed through the man’s body. He spasmed, body violently jerking as he collapsed. He didn’t die immediately, but laid there suffering for an entire minute before his body finally gave out.
No one cared about him. Lu Hao only had mind for Hong Sheng, who was bleeding all over his face and neck. He quickly tore apart strips of his shirt to staunch Hong Sheng’s bleeding and said, “Hong Sheng—don’t worry. I’m here. We’ll go to a doctor. You’ll be okay.” Only the slightest trembling of his fingers as he pressed the cloth to Hong Sheng’s neck betrayed the panic running through him.
Hong Sheng’s dark eyes were half-lidded, his gaze lowered to the ground. He wouldn’t look at Lu Hao. He was so unresponsive. He must have been terrified. Lu Hao hushed and comforted Hong Sheng with soothing noises, and carefully took Hong Sheng’s hand. He wanted to guide Hong Sheng to put pressure on his own wound so that Lu Hao could carry him over to the medical wing.
But Hong Sheng resisted, and slipped his hand out of Lu Hao’s.
Lu Hao was stunned by his resistance, and didn’t react for a second.
“L-Lu Hao…”
A meek yet fervent voice sounded behind him. Disgust and hatred welled up in Lu Hao. He took a breath. All that kept him from cleaving Ji Ling to pieces was the worry that Hong Sheng would be even more disturbed.
Once he was sure he could control himself, he turned to glare at Ji Ling. Traces of white lightning coursed around his eyes.
“You were going to let him die.”
Pure, hot rage condensed in each word.
Whatever Ji Ling thought she was going to say, the words stuck in her throat. She opened her mouth stupidly, but nothing came out.
But once Lu Hao looked over at her, he noticed the photos and documents scattered on the floor.
Fuck.
The intruder had dug out the private detective’s records on Ji Ling. No wonder they were acting strange.
Whatever misunderstanding was in these two’s heads, Lu Hao didn’t have the patience to correct it here. He coldly told Ji Ling, “Get out.” And as a warning, sent a piece of lightning crackling at her feet.
Ji Ling jumped, the instinctive human fear sending her careening out the door. Lu Hao grabbed Hong Sheng into his arms and carried him out. He kicked the door closed behind him, and trapped an electric current into the metal of the door handle. Anyone who tried to enter the room would suffer a severe shock. He did this because he knew Ji Ling would try it.
He had more important things to worry about. Hong Sheng bleeding; Hong Sheng not wanting to look at him.
Lu Hao brought Hong Sheng to the medical wing. The doctors and nurses of the SG were swamped, but they quickly treated Hong Sheng and sent him out.
The white gauze wrapped around Hong Sheng’s neck made him look delicate and fragile. Lu Hao wanted nothing more than to hold him tight, and keep anything from touching him.
The base was still in the aftermath of chaos. Many people had died and were injured. The SG needed Lu Hao, but Hong Sheng needed him too.
“Hong Sheng,” Lu Hao called softly. He tried to reach for Hong Sheng, but Hong Sheng inched away from him. Lu Hao pursed his lips. “Don’t overthink things. I only care about you. I…”
Hong Sheng didn’t respond, and just laid down in his bed and covered himself up to the head with the blanket. It was a clear, I’m resting. Don’t talk to me.
Lu Hao couldn’t force him right now. His hands tightening to fists, Lu Hao leaned down and softly pressed a kiss through the blanket over Hong Sheng’s face. “I’ll come back and explain after I take care of the base.” Hong Sheng didn’t answer, but the lump beneath the blankets trembled.
Lu Hao left Hong Sheng’s room. He set a trap on Hong Sheng’s door similar to the one on his own, and for a few hours, went to go sort out the mess at the base.
The dead bodies of the enemies were piled up to be thrown out the base, and the bodies of allies were to be buried at the back of the SG territory. Earth, metal, and wood ability users were organized into repair teams, and everyone else was on high alert.
Lu Hao directed the SG members and kept everything in order. People were on edge, terrified after the attack. It hadn’t even been long since the start of the apocalypse, but the awfulness of human nature had already come to the surface.
Something like this wouldn’t happen again once the core of the SG grew in power, but in these beginning stages where Lu Hao was the only one they could rely on, tragedies and power struggles were inevitable.
Hours later, Lu Hao was finally free. He went to Hong Sheng’s room and sat next to Hong Sheng, who had left the blankets and was curled up miserably into a ball on his bed.
“Do you remember what I said after we saw her in the bakery?” Lu Hao asked.
Hong Sheng didn’t answer, but Lu Hao didn’t need him to.
He continued, “I said that she’s the person I despise the most. I kept an eye on her because of this.”
Lu Hao reached out to brush his fingertips against the fine strands of Hong Sheng’s hair. Hong Sheng lowered his head in a sulky manner, leaving Lu Hao a little speechless.
“Are you worried that I like her?” Seeing Hong Sheng’s fingers twitch in a telltale sign, Lu Hao continued to coax him. “I don’t care about her. I’m angry that you got hurt. You’re the most important person to me, and if anything happens to you…” He paused, and a frightening look crossed his eyes. “People who can’t be trusted shouldn’t be kept near you. I won’t let this happen again.”
He needed to keep closer guard of Hong Sheng at all times. Hong Sheng was self-sufficient, and Lu Hao had thought the ability users in the SG would have been enough to keep guard.
There was no excuse. He’d failed to keep Hong Sheng safe. “As for Ji Ling, she can’t stay. I’ll send her out tomorrow.” He planned to quietly kill her in the city. That wasn’t something he would tell to Hong Sheng.
But Hong Sheng finally reacted. He spoke in a low, muffled voice, tinged with a bit of pain from his throat wound. “…You don’t like her?”
“I really don’t,” Lu Hao was quick to respond, wanting more than anything to prove his innocence. “She and I are incompatible. We can’t coexist. It’s not like you and me, where we can get along so well and I can only love you more and more each day.” He shamelessly let loose these sappy words, hoping to spark a little joy in Hong Sheng.
Unfortunately, Hong Sheng barely heard it. Instead, he was mulling hard over something in his head. “…Is she useful for the SG?”
Lu Hao paused. It was difficult to predict Hong Sheng’s train of thought. He could only answer sincerely. “She was. Her ability is unique, and at its peak, even I can’t guard against it. If she could be on our side, she would have been a powerful hidden weapon. But she’s greedy and selfish. She chose to betray you even though you were her savior and had never treated her wrongly. The only reason why she could stay in the SG in the beginning is because I didn’t want to waste your effort in saving her.”
Here, he hesitated. There was another reason, the truth of why Lu Hao had investigated Ji Ling in the first place. But the knowledge of her secrets came from the previous life, and even if the veneer between him and Hong Sheng was only paper thin, Lu Hao still hesitated to rip it.
But Hong Sheng deserved to know. So Lu Hao told him, “There’s something else. Ji Ling… She had an artifact, something powerful. I purposefully hired investigators to follow her. If I’m right, it can help us develop a cure for the zombie virus.”
Here, Lu Hao gripped Hong Sheng’s shoulder.
“I’ll show it to you another time. Maybe you can figure it out. I kept the documents on her in case they recorded any hidden habits or clues. I hadn’t thought they’d get dug out like that, and make things easy to misunderstand.” He leaned down, coming close to Hong Sheng, just enough that Hong Sheng could see his face if he looked up. “Do you believe me?”
Hong Sheng was silent for a moment. He was thinking about things, and whatever went on in his mind was something Lu Hao couldn’t see. He could only wait for Hong Sheng to share with him. But what Hong Sheng ended up saying pulled Lu Hao’s mood all the way to the bottom. “If she’s useful then… she should stay.”
The corners of Lu Hao’s lips twitched in anger. “Are you still feeling like she deserves any mercy? She was about to let you die.”
But Hong Sheng just sullenly picked at his blanket, and he looked so sad that Lu Hao couldn’t bear to fight him on this. Whatever Hong Sheng was thinking, Lu Hao would make sure that even if Ji Ling got to stay, she wouldn’t have it easy.
He reached over to hug Hong Sheng, and this time, Hong Sheng didn’t push him away. “Fine. I listen to you. I’ll do whatever you say, okay? Sheng, don’t be angry with me anymore.” He took care not to touch any of Hong Sheng’s injuries. In his arms, Hong Sheng quivered, and then slowly relaxed into his embrace, his body leaning on Lu Hao.
The ends of Lu Hao’s eyes curled in happiness. That was better. He cuddled Hong Sheng sweetly, and bent his head to nuzzle against his hair.
No one would take Hong Sheng from him.
True to his word, Lu Hao didn’t let Ji Ling live an easy life.
Early in the morning, the next day, Ji Ling received the shock of her life.
“You’re going out with the point team.” One of the SG members who distributed tasks came up to Ji Ling. Regardless of Ji Ling’s lack of reaction, he passed her a small sling bag containing a walkie-talkie, rations, and binoculars.
“W-what do you mean?”
“Your assignment says you’ll be heading out to F City and joining the exploratory team. Their missions usually last a couple of days at a time, so bring whatever essentials you need that you can fit in your pack.”
Dumbstruck, Ji Ling quickly refused, saying that there must be some sort of mistake; she’d never gone out of the base this entire time. There was no way she could go back to F City and sleep where all the zombies were!
And not only that, she was injured. Her right hand was burned, singed with electricity, from the time she’d tried to open Lu Hao’s room. She’d never admitted where she got the injury, and had just let everyone assume it came from the attack on the base. Her hand was still wrapped up and needing treatment, otherwise it’d scar.
But the SG members around didn’t care. They just looked at her impatiently, and one of them even scolded her for being spoiled and not wanting to contribute to the base.
Ji Ling really felt like something had to be wrong.
Wasn’t she liked by Lu Hao? Didn’t he secretly care for her and take photos of her?
Why was she being bullied like this?
In desperation, she tried to find Lu Hao and figure out what was going on. But wherever she went, it was like she had hit a stone wall. The SG guards didn’t let her go upstairs to his room, and she couldn’t even see him around the base, like he was avoiding her.
No matter how much she cried and begged, she had no choice but to go out to F City.
On the other end, Lu Hao personally oversaw Hong Sheng’s recovery. Once the knife wounds had healed to sensitive pink scars, Hong Sheng was finally free to exercise and work. But the first thing he did was go with Lu Hao to the closed research wing.
There, Lu Hao took out the jade pendant belonging to Ji Ling and handed it to Hong Sheng.
“This is it. Anything special about it that you can see?”
Hong Sheng held the jade in his palm and looked it over. It seemed ordinary to him, just as it did to Lu Hao. He shook his head and gave it back.
It seemed like Hong Sheng’s high observational skills didn’t help. Research still had to be done by professionals. Lu Hao didn’t let himself feel disappointed; with or without Ji Ling’s secrets, humanity would still find a way forward.
The SG stabilized as the survivors settled into their roles and gained experience dealing with zombies. Lu Hao appointed standout members to leadership roles, freeing Hong Sheng from having to deal with everyday base needs. Hong Sheng retreated into his workshop, then stunned the base with the inventions and tools he made.
Not only did he make explosive weapons to help with base defense, but he even came up with an invention to distract zombies in critical moments. With this, the field members’ survival rates would go up.
The way the SG members viewed Hong Sheng became a lot more positive. Everyone knew that he was second-in-command, but after he shared his inventions, he gained genuine admirers.
A team returning from F City surrounded Hong Sheng in a circle. Hong Sheng froze up, expecting the worst—and was completely befuddled when the team spoke over themselves to express their thanks to him. They’d gotten trapped in an underground lot after attracting too much zombie attention, and when things seemed hopeless, they’d used Hong Sheng’s invention to lure the zombies away just enough to escape.
Once the team finished thanking Hong Sheng and begging him to send them more tools for next time, they peacefully went away, leaving Hong Sheng staring into space with a question mark over his head.
When Lu Hao saw these kinds of peaceful interactions between Hong Sheng and the other survivors of the base, he smiled. This was how things were meant to be.
