Fu Qi couldn’t just keep taking a beating.
He tilted his head to dodge a blow and caught Qin Zhen by the wrist. “Baby, aren’t you supposed to be depressed? People with depression can’t be this energetic.”
“Stop policing us depressed people!” Qin Zhen snapped. “We can do whatever we want!”
She straddled Fu Qi’s waist and struggled to free her hands so she could keep hitting him. When she couldn’t, she pressed her knee against his chest instead. The shift in her balance sent Fu Qi rolling with it, and the Zombie let out an “oof” as she fell onto the bed.
Her hair had come loose, but she ignored it. She climbed back up, grabbed a pillow from the side, and started whacking Fu Qi with it.
Thump, thump, thump—the blows landed loudly.
“I’m sorry, I was wrong,” Fu Qi apologized, unable to open his eyes as he shielded himself with his arms. “I forgot the treasures in your tomb aren’t worth anything anymore. You can’t count as a rich woman.”
The Zombie’s heart was stabbed mercilessly. Her body trembled, and she clutched her chest as she collapsed onto the bed in agony.
Fu Qi brushed the bits of fluff from his face. Looking at her disheveled hair and utterly heartbroken expression, he tossed the pillow aside and lowered his head toward her. “Is not being able to become a rich woman really that devastating?”
The Zombie was in the middle of being sad and didn’t want to speak to that poisonous man. She turned her back on him and lay down, curling herself into a small ball. She looked pitiful.
Fu Qi chuckled. Leaning over, he lowered his head beside her ear. “Depressed again?”
Qin Zhen ignored him.
Sometimes Fu Qi thought he was pretty ridiculous himself. He had meant to comfort her, but somehow he always ended up making the Zombie even angrier.
He picked up the pillow and stuffed it into Qin Zhen’s arms. “I won’t block you. Get up and keep hitting me.”
Qin Zhen grabbed the pillow and roughly flung it away.
“Baby, get up and talk to me.”
“Little Zombie?”
“Qin Qin?”
No matter how many times he called her, Qin Zhen refused to respond. After a while, a hand appeared above her head. A broad palm pressed against her crown, its fingers threading through her hair. The sensation was pleasantly tingly and soothing.
Unfortunately, the Zombie wasn’t so easy to placate at a time like this.
“Don’t touch me!” She swatted Fu Qi’s hand away.
“Then what will it take for you to calm down?”
“I’m not calming down.” The Zombie’s voice was muffled and sullen. “You humans are heartless. You’ve driven a zombie to depression, and you still have the nerve to ask what it’ll take to make her feel better!”
Fu Qi let out a low laugh. “I’m sorry. I’ll give you money as compensation.”
“How much money do you have?” Qin Zhen demanded.
It wasn’t that she looked down on Fu Qi. In a world overrun by zombies, what good was money, even if he had it? Money had become nothing but scraps of paper. It couldn’t be exchanged for gold or used to buy internet access. Besides, he was still a student… No, wait.
“You’re a student?” The Zombie flipped over and looked Fu Qi up and down in confusion. “Don’t tell me you’re only eighteen.”
“Baby, aside from elementary and middle school students, people in college, graduate school, and doctoral programs who haven’t graduated yet can all be called students.”
Qin Zhen curled her lip. “Which one are you?”
“Which one do you think I am?”
Qin Zhen said, “I think you’re a pig.”
Fu Qi smiled and shook his head. “Baby, you’re so behind the times. We humans stopped calling people pigs a long time ago.”
“Then what do you call them?”
“We call them ‘baby.’”
“…”
Qin Zhen’s chest tightened. She glared at him angrily, then turned over and refused to speak to Fu Qi again.
Fu Qi’s hand returned to her head. As he slowly massaged it, he said in a leisurely voice, “My educational background is pretty good. Before the apocalypse, I was considered a top student. Unfortunately, the zombie virus broke out before I could graduate. About two years later, I was promoted to major. Although I eventually gave up the honors I’d earned, after all the missions I’ve carried out over the years, my prospects shouldn’t be bad once the apocalypse ends…”
Poor prospects were one thing; good prospects meant he wouldn’t be short of money.
The Zombie turned over again and glared at him. “Are you showing off to me? Fu Laoqi, you’re so inhuman!”
Fu Qi said, “…You have a very unusual way of thinking.”
“I’m telling you, I have depression! Stop attacking me with these roundabout—at, attacks!”
Every time Fu Qi saw the Zombie make a stern declaration, he wanted to laugh. This time, he managed to hold it in and coughed once. “I was complimenting you.”
“Then should I compliment you by saying there’s a hole in your head?”
The corners of Fu Qi’s mouth lifted, then he pressed them back down. “I don’t mind.”
But the Zombie minded.
“Don’t talk to me anymore. You’re annoying!” Qin Zhen turned away and continued sulking.
Over the past several days, they had been making their way south in fits and starts. They had already passed through the harshest stretch of wind and snow. Now the snow fell quietly, making a soft rustling sound that gave Qin Zhen the feeling that she was still inside her tomb.
She had spent a very, very long time alone in that tomb. Every day, she either cleaned the burial chamber and washed her husband, scribbled and drew on the stone walls and inside the coffin, or simply stared into space. The sound she heard most often back then was this same soft, unhurried noise—the tiny insects crawling around in the depths of the tomb.
It was hard to say whether she liked that kind of life or not. She was a zombie, after all. Zombies were supposed to live in places like that.
Humans and zombies belonged to different worlds. Once she had made enough money to install internet access, she would still have to return. But since she had come out this time, she ought to cherish the present. There would be plenty of time to stare into space later.
With that thought, she suddenly turned over and shouted, “I’m not a pervert!”
The moment she turned onto her back, she abruptly met Fu Qi’s lowered gaze.
He was still in the same position as before, lying on his side and watching her. She had no idea how long he had been looking.
Qin Zhen froze for a moment. “Why are you looking at me?”
“I’m not looking at you. I’m staring into space.”
He smoothly picked up on what Qin Zhen had said and asked, “If you’re not a pervert, why do you keep staring at me?”
It was a rather pointed question. Qin Zhen answered stiffly, “I’m… observing hu—humans.”
“What are you observing humans for?” Fu Qi asked. Then he answered himself, “To study their weaknesses so you can lead an army of zombies in an attack against humanity later?”
Qin Zhen kicked him in the shin through the blankets. “I’m observing humans because I’m going to… going to…”
What was she going to do?
The Zombie’s thoughts spun for a moment. Then, remembering their earlier conversation, she suddenly had an idea. Her eyes grew determined, and she announced loudly, “I’m going to write a book!”
“Write a book?”
“Mm. I’m going to write books and make money…”
At first, she had only said it offhandedly. But as she wove the lie together, she gradually began to feel that it was actually a pretty good idea.
All the human novelists had died. Once the apocalypse ended and everything had to be rebuilt, she would be among the first novelists of the new era—the creator of humanity’s spiritual entertainment. By then, she could gain both fame and fortune. Maybe she would even win some kind of award. Wouldn’t that be better than washing dishes?
Besides, she didn’t need to sleep. She had plenty of time to write.
“Exactly!” The Zombie, who had been gloomy moments earlier, suddenly became full of energy. “I’m going to become an author!”
Fu Qi said, “My cousin used to want to become an author too.”
“And then?”
“Then she couldn’t even write an eight-hundred-character essay for her Chinese exam, so she had no choice but to give up writing and take up dancing instead.”
Qin Zhen: “…”
Fu Qi continued, “What kind of genre do you want to write?”
Qin Zhen had no idea. The notion had simply come to her on a whim, and she hadn’t read many novels before Fu Qi threw them away.
But when you got right down to it, writing a novel was just telling a story.
Although she was a zombie, she had never met a tomb raider besides Fu Qi, so she certainly couldn’t write horror stories. Realist fiction was out of the question too. Everything in her memories was far too ancient, hopelessly out of touch with the times. No one would like it.
Qin Zhen thought and thought, then picked the simplest option. “I’ll write about romance.”
Fu Qi asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
No… probably not? She had no memories.
But she did have a husband.
Qin Zhen didn’t feel guilty in the slightest. “Romance is easy, isn’t it? You just hold hands and kiss.”
Fu Qi said, “But you have to describe what holding hands and kissing feel like. Do you know?”
The Zombie was at a loss for words.
She sat there awkwardly for a while, then quietly clasped her own hands together, trying to figure out what it felt like…
Before she could feel anything, she heard a low chuckle beside her. She looked up and saw Fu Qi gazing at her, amusement filling his eyes.
Qin Zhen felt her face grow hot.
Of course, that was purely a psychological sensation. A zombie had no body heat.
Having been laughed at, the Zombie felt deeply humiliated. She clenched both hands and picked at her fingers, enduring the embarrassment for a moment before deciding she couldn’t just take this insult lying down. She ought to beat this audacious human up and teach him what happened when someone mocked a zombie!
Qin Zhen had just made up her mind and was about to put on a stern expression when the back of her hand suddenly grew warm. A large hand covered it.
She was lying slightly on her side, and Fu Qi was lying beside her in the same position. The hand that had originally been tangled in her hair, making her scalp pleasantly tingle, had reached over the top of her head and dangled down from her shoulder, covering the hand she had curled against her chest.
Perhaps because a zombie’s body was so cold, that hand felt especially hot by comparison.
It pressed tightly against hers, rubbing lightly. The warmth seeped through the back of the Zombie’s hand and into her blood, then spread along her veins throughout her body. Qin Zhen felt as if she were burning up, as though she had fallen into boiling oil and was about to be cooked.
She didn’t understand what was happening. Fu Qi had held her hand plenty of times before, yet she had never felt this way.
As her thoughts surged, Fu Qi’s fingertips shifted. They slipped between Qin Zhen’s thumb and forefinger and, following the gap, pushed their way into her palm.
Qin Zhen clenched her hand almost instinctively.
“Holding hands,” Fu Qi said. “Do you know what it feels like now?”
“…”
The Zombie found this deeply strange. She felt as though her blood were boiling, as if her heart were pounding away and pumping blood through her entire body.
But her heart didn’t beat.
After forcing herself to calm down, she met Fu Qi’s eyes. “Are you—are you trying to use your charms on me, so you can trick me into continuing to work for you humans for free?”
Fu Qi asked, “Is it working?”
The Zombie would never admit it!
She had just said she wasn’t attracted to looks!
“No!” She gripped Fu Qi’s fingers tightly. His hands were a little rough, rubbing against her until something in the depths of the Zombie’s heart began to itch. “I’m a respectable zombie, not a human. I don’t have such—such weird tastes as you humans. I don’t do cross-species romance!”
Fu Qi was silent for a moment. “I have no objection to you clarifying your sexual orientation, but there’s no need to attack all humans indiscriminately, is there?”
“You humans are all perverts,” Qin Zhen said firmly, refusing to change her position. She even produced an example. “Last time we watched a movie, the tomb raider fell in love with a female zombie. He even wanted to kiss her! Shameless!”
Fu Qi was rendered speechless. He nodded and pulled his hand out of Qin Zhen’s—
It didn’t budge.
He lowered his head and looked at the little blue-black hand gripping his fingers tightly. Then he exerted force.
When he pulled, Qin Zhen pulled just as hard.
Fu Qi tugged for a while, like someone trying to yank up a stubborn radish, but couldn’t get free. He stared at her. “Let go.”
The Zombie said nothing. Not only did she refuse to let go, she tightened her grip until his fingers turned pale.
“So this is a test of strength now, is it?” With one hand restrained, Fu Qi sat up and shook his arm. “Fine. Come on.”
An adult man’s strength was considerable. The Zombie fought back, scrunching up all her features as she strained. Gritting her teeth, she forced a sound from her throat.
“Ngh—!”
Just as she was about to be lifted right off the bed, Fu Qi’s fingers finally slipped free of her palm.
Fu Qi flexed his numb fingers and said, utterly speechless, “How do you manage to say one thing and do the exact opposite?”
She talked about keeping their species separate and claimed anyone who crossed that line was a pervert, yet she kept sneaking glances at him and making her move. He could barely pry himself loose.
The Zombie argued, “I’m just preparing for my money-making career!”
Fu Qi exposed her without mercy. “You’re just a shameless flirt!”
“…”
The Zombie felt a little guilty. She slumped there for a moment, then snorted and lay back down.
Fu Qi lay down as well and pulled the blanket over himself. “Don’t touch me again.”
Qin Zhen was about to say, “As if I’d want to,” but the words stopped at the tip of her tongue when she realized that she did, in fact, kind of want to.
She said nothing. Curling up, she placed against her chest the hand that had just held Fu Qi’s fingers. It seemed as if the warmth and sensation from that moment still lingered in her palm.
She rubbed her palm and savored the feeling for a while, then rolled over to face Fu Qi. Softening her tone, she said coaxingly, “Sweetie, even though we’re different species and can’t be in love, I’ll allow you to help me find out what romance feels like.”
Fu Qi said with his eyes closed, “I don’t allow it.”
Qin Zhen fell silent. After a while, she climbed to her feet, leaned close to Fu Qi, and whispered, “Then can I force—force you to be mine?”
Fu Qi said, “…No!”
“Why not? Aren’t we good teammates? You have to help me.”
Fu Qi said, “Because I’m a conservative man. I never get involved in that sort of casual, just-for-show nonsense.”
“What if I insist on forcing you to be mine?”
Fu Qi opened his eyes and glanced at this ambitious yet timid zombie. “Then I’ll go die. A good man would rather die than surrender.”
The Zombie was unhappy. “What a poser. You were trying to seduce me just now.”
Fu Qi closed his eyes and said nothing.
Qin Zhen shut up dejectedly and lay back down, but an itch lingered in her heart. No matter how she looked at it, she felt she had been the one who lost out again.
After a few minutes of sullen silence, she sat up and suddenly yanked the blanket off Fu Qi. She pulled it into her arms and declared, “This is mine! I didn’t force you to be mine, so don’t even think about forcing me to give up my blanket!”
Fu Qi: “…”
He regretted it now. He should never have tried to comfort her. He would have been better off leaving her depressed.
