“Drive faster,” Fu Qi urged in a low voice.
“Okay!” Lin Ye drove as fast as he could and tried to reassure him. “Don’t worry, Fu. Little Qin will be fine.”
Tian Li couldn’t speak, so he patted Fu Qi on the shoulder in consolation.
Fu Qi’s expression was tense.
He didn’t need reassurance. He only needed to reach the safe point as quickly as possible.
Once Qin Zhen was covered with the blanket, she stopped caring about what was happening outside, as happy as a hamster that had fallen into a granary. Unfortunately, Fu Qi was the one suffering.
He had to hold Qin Zhen and keep her movements under control while allowing her to toy with him without being able to stop her. On top of that, he had to maintain a solemn expression to fool Tian Li and Lin Ye. It was truly agonizing.
At last, they found a house by the roadside where they could take temporary shelter. While Lin Ye and Tian Li got out to clear away the zombies, Fu Qi lifted the blanket, tore Qin Zhen’s hand away from him, then wrapped her up like a caterpillar. After making sure no blood was leaking out and that nothing was exposed, he carried Qin Zhen into the house at a brisk pace.
Once inside, he told the other two to find some water, then locked the door.
When he turned around, he saw that the zombie had already broken free of the blanket and sat up. She looked…
The blanket had fluffed Qin Zhen’s hair into a wild mess, with every strand sticking out, making her face look especially small.
Small as it was, it was filthy. She had rubbed her face all over Fu Qi’s chest, leaving the dark-red blood from her own wound smeared across the tip of her nose, chin, and cheeks. She looked as though she had just crawled out of a garbage bin.
Yet this zombie, who had always been a neat freak, didn’t care in the slightest. She looked at Fu Qi, sniffed, and gave him a foolish, blissful grin.
“…”
Fu Qi felt that all his initial tension and guilt had been for nothing. He really wanted to pin Qin Zhen down and give her a thorough beating.
But when his gaze dropped to the blood-soaked clothes over her heart, what he actually did was walk over and ask gently, “Does it hurt?”
“Hee-hee!”
The zombie let out a silly laugh and stumbled toward him with her knees tangled together, only to trip over the blanket wrapped around her lower body and slam her head into Fu Qi’s chest.
Fu Qi: “…”
How could she be lecherous, clever, and stupid all at the same time?
He helped the zombie to her feet and asked in a low voice, “I asked if it hurts.”
At first, Qin Zhen had been disgusted and had smeared her own blood all over Fu Qi. Now she didn’t mind at all. Resting her chin against his chest, she tilted her face up and, after giving another foolish grin, replied, “It doesn’t hurt. It’s kind of numb.”
“I’m asking seriously!” Fu Qi wouldn’t let her rub against him anymore. He braced her by the shoulders and pushed her away. “There’s a bullet lodged inside you, and all you feel is numbness?”
Qin Zhen tilted her head and concentrated on the sensation. Then she sat up, lowered her head to look at her chest, and tugged at the torn fabric. “It does feel a little strange. It’s like there’s a hard stone stuck inside.”
“What do we do?” Fu Qi asked.
Qin Zhen didn’t know. When she had just emerged from the tomb, the two bullets had passed straight through her. This was different.
“Then we’ll take it out first.” Fu Qi decided to handle it according to the most normal emergency procedure. He pressed down on the zombie’s arm, trying to lay her back on the bed.
Qin Zhen still resisted. She wiped her face and said indifferently, “Why bother saving me? Just tell them I died. Then I’ll sneak out tonight and come back tomorrow as Zhen Zhen to find you!”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have a theory…” Fu Qi wasn’t completely certain about it, so he didn’t say more. “Until we confirm what’s going on, no one can know that Qin Qin and Zhen Zhen are the same person.”
Qin Zhen suspected that it might have something to do with her name.
But what could possibly be connected to her name?
She couldn’t think of anything, and she didn’t bother trying too hard. Whatever happened in the human world had nothing to do with a zombie like her—unless another zombie appeared one day.
“Then I’ll call myself…” She had no intention of being called Zhi Zhi, much less Lan Lan. “Then I’ll still use Ling Fei Xiye.”
“You’ll be Qin Qin,” Fu Qi said. “You have to survive.”
Qin Zhen was unwilling. She tugged at the bullet hole in her clothes and said, “The bullet hit my heart. Even if a human doesn’t die from that, they’d need several months to recover. They wouldn’t be able to run or jump, and they’d need someone to wait on them for everything…”
She had originally intended to say that it would be terribly boring. But as she spoke, an idea suddenly struck her, and she realized there was an advantage to being injured.
If she became a patient, wouldn’t she be able to cling to Fu Qi every day?
Besides clinging to him, she wouldn’t have to drive. She could lie in the back and play with her phone all she wanted.
“Okay!” She hurriedly changed her mind. “Let Qin Qin keep living!”
They had barely reached an agreement when hurried footsteps sounded outside. Qin Zhen quickly lay down, and after Fu Qi covered her with the blanket, he removed his own outer coat, which was stained with Qin Zhen’s blood, before going to open the door.
Tian Li and Lin Ye stood outside with water and medicine.
The two men wanted to come in and help, but Fu Qi refused them, explaining, “Qin Qin is a girl…”
The two immediately understood. A girl had been wounded in the chest, and treating her injury would require removing her clothes. The men ought to avoid being improper.
Tian Li grew anxious. “Who cares about that at a time like this? Fu Laoqi, did a zombie chew on your brain?”
No matter what he said, Fu Qi refused to let them help. He took the clean water and medicine bag, then shut the door in their faces.
After locking the door, he returned and told Qin Zhen to take off her clothes.
The zombie was no longer the innocent little creature she had been at first. She was embarrassed now and fidgeted for a long time without making a move.
Fu Qi said, “If I’d known you were the one who was shy, I would’ve said so earlier… I’ve taken the blame for being an old-fashioned prude for nothing.”
Qin Zhen stole a glance at him and whispered, “You’re not going to laugh at me, are you?”
“What would I laugh at you for?”
“For not being pretty.”
“If I wanted to laugh, I would’ve done it the first time we met,” Fu Qi said.
Back then, the zombie had been barely clothed. If the scraps of fabric covering her had been any shorter, she would have been indecent. She might not have been showing any less than she was now, with her clothes removed.
That reasoning made sense, but for some reason, the zombie no longer felt as carefree as she had back then. In the end, only after Fu Qi urged her several times did she crawl beneath the blanket to undress.
Qin Zhen felt that she might be growing more like a human the longer she spent around them. That was probably why she had begun to feel embarrassed.
She silently repeated to herself that humans and zombies were different. As time passed, the little bit of shame in her heart finally faded away.
It wasn’t that she had stopped caring. Fu Qi was simply taking far too long.
He was very professional. He spent ages cleaning and disinfecting the wound, and when he finally moved on to extracting the bullet, he was as meticulous as someone picking sesame seeds from a bowl. After what felt like half a day, he still wasn’t done, and Qin Zhen had grown impatient.
“Come on, hurry up!”
“I’m afraid it’ll hurt,” Fu Qi said.
“It won’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt at all.” Qin Zhen said, “Back in the tomb, when crossbow bolts pierced me and broke off inside, I would just find another crossbow bolt and stab it in to push the first one out.”
That was far too crude and brutal.
Qin Zhen didn’t care. “I’d heal by the next day anyway!”
That was true. The speed at which her wounds healed was far beyond anything a human could imagine.
This was the third time Fu Qi had seen her injured. The first had been in the tomb.
At the time, neither of them knew the other’s true identity. They had been strangers forced to work together, and Fu Qi had observed Qin Zhen’s injuries out of curiosity. He had personally witnessed the wound left by a crossbow bolt heal at astonishing speed.
The second time had been just after they emerged from the tomb, when Qin Zhen was shot by two foreigners.
The two of them still weren’t particularly close. Qin Zhen didn’t need anyone’s help treating her wounds—she was as lively as ever—and Fu Qi had no reason to help her.
This was the third time Fu Qi had tried to treat her injuries, and the third time he’d been rejected.
Fu Qi said, “If you treat it that way, you’ll be left with a huge hole in your chest. Didn’t you say you’d get itchy whenever air leaked through?”
“Stuff mud into it. Once it’s plugged, no air will leak out.”
Fu Qi: “…”
After a moment of speechlessness, he said, “When I’m not around, I can’t control you. But now that you’re right under my watch, you have to listen to your captain.”
Captain Fu had decided to throw his weight around. The little zombie could only sigh and continue enduring the ordeal.
Lying there was unbearably boring, so she tried talking to Fu Qi. At first, he still responded, but later he became so focused on treating her wound that he stopped answering.
Qin Zhen stared at the ceiling, her eyes darting back and forth. Suddenly, she muttered to herself, “If you replaced the mud with cement, wouldn’t that be ‘cementing your heart shut’—cutting off all feelings and desires?”
For some reason, the thought struck her as hilarious, and she began to giggle under her breath. Her body trembled, making Fu Qi stop what he was doing.
Fu Qi had no idea where she’d learned such nonsense. He warned her, “If you keep moving around, you’ll have to continue abstaining from sex later.”
Qin Zhen immediately lay perfectly still.
The operation proceeded at a leisurely pace and did not end until more than two hours later.
Qin Zhen’s blood was dark red, similar to a zombie’s, and she had lost very little of it. The bleeding stopped two minutes after the bullet was removed. If Fu Qi hadn’t wrapped a bandage diagonally across her chest, no one would have been able to tell she was injured.
Once she was bandaged, she wanted to “pet the cat,” but Fu Qi dug out a thin summer quilt, wrapped her in it, and tossed her aside.
Fu Qi began tidying up. First, he gathered the blanket and clothes stained with Qin Zhen’s blood, along with the instruments used for disinfection, and packed them all together.
Then there was the water he had used to clean Qin Zhen’s wound.
It had turned a strange dark red—clearly not the color of water contaminated by an ordinary human’s blood.
Fu Qi fell silent for a moment, told Qin Zhen to keep quiet, and went outside.
The two people waiting anxiously outside immediately rushed over, bombarding him with questions about Qin Zhen’s condition.
Fu Qi replied, “She’s still unconscious. We’ll have to keep an eye on her tonight.”
After exchanging a few brief words, he took clean clothes and fresh water back inside. The clothes were for Qin Zhen; the clean water was for himself.
The wound on Fu Qi’s shoulder had started bleeding a little again after all the movement that day, though not much. After washing it with the basin of water, he pondered for a moment, then sliced open his own arm.
Blood dripped into the basin, deepening the pale red color.
The zombie was startled. Then, realizing what he was trying to do, she said gratefully, “Sweetie, you really are a good person!”
Fu Qi said, “Then be a little nicer to me from now on. Don’t keep—”
Before he could finish, the zombie covered her ears.
Because they had encountered people from Country A, they had been forced to change their plans. Their current stopping point was not only in the opposite direction from the base, it was also already very late, so they decided to stay the night.
As a seriously injured patient, Qin Zhen never left the room. Fu Qi watched over her nearby, while Tian Li and Lin Ye took the night watch. That was how the group spent the night.
The people from Country A were somewhere nearby. No matter how they looked at it, the group couldn’t stay there for long. At dawn the next day, they would have to continue on their way.
Naturally, Qin Zhen, a seriously injured patient, couldn’t walk. In fact, she didn’t even need to open her eyes. All she had to do was wait for Fu Qi to wrap her up and carry her to the car.
This was wonderful. Not only could she sit in the back seat, she could also openly lean against Fu Qi and touch him all she wanted.
There was just one downside: they had borrowed someone’s empty house for the night and made an absolute mess of it, which left the zombie feeling a little guilty.
Fu Qi poured the basin of water he had used to clean her wound onto the large tree outside the window. That alone would have been fine, but then he “accidentally” knocked over the basin containing his own blood.
The bloody water mixed with the bloodstained gauze he had taken off, all of it scattered carelessly across the floor.
The house had originally been no more than dusty. After they spent one night there, it looked like the scene of a murder.
“Sweetie, you have terrible manners!” the zombie whispered, her accusation brimming with righteousness.
Fu Qi said, “It’s fine. The people from Country A will clean it up.”
“How do you know they’ll definitely come looking for us?”
Fu Qi said, “Because I studied under the Three Pure Ones. I can divine the future.”
“The Three Pure Ones belong to our Daoist tradition. Don’t you dare insult them!” the zombie protested as she swung the pillow Fu Qi had prepared for her at him.
Fu Qi snatched the lumbar pillow away before it could hit him. Taking advantage of the momentum, he pulled the zombie into his arms and reached for her clothes.
Before long, his hand had brushed across Fu Qi’s chest, making her too embarrassed to reach any farther.
Fu Qi, however, had no such reservations. He held her against him, undid the bandage, and took a look. After only one night, Qin Zhen’s wound had already healed into nothing more than a brown scar.
Fu Qi lowered his head and examined it carefully. He even lightly rubbed it with the pad of his finger. When he finished, he was about to ask Qin Zhen whether it still felt numb when he looked up and saw her hunching her neck, eyes squeezed shut, looking as though she didn’t dare watch.
“…What are you doing?”
Qin Zhen opened her eyes a sliver, then quickly shut them again. In a tiny voice, she said, “I-I’m a little embarrassed…”
Fu Qi gave a muffled laugh. “You know how to be embarrassed?”
Of course she did.
The zombie said softly, “I’m a girl too, you know.”
“Yes, you’re a girl too.” As he spoke, Fu Qi rewrapped the bandage. Once he had finished, he casually helped her put her clothes back on.
To the outside world, Qin Zhen was a seriously injured patient whose wounds required frequent disinfection, so she was dressed very lightly—just a blue shirt.
Fu Qi fastened every button up to the very top, checked her makeup, then shook out the summer quilt and wrapped her in it.
“Movie Queen Qin, are you ready?”
Qin Zhen entered character in an instant. Her expression changed, and she weakly collapsed toward Fu Qi.
Fu Qi caught her, hooked an arm beneath her legs, and lifted her into his arms. Then he tugged the summer quilt up to cover her head as well and pushed open the door.
Tian Li and Lin Ye were already waiting outside. They had spent the entire night helping pass things in and out without ever entering the room, so they had no idea what Qin Zhen’s condition was really like. When they saw Fu Qi emerge, they hurried over to check on her.
“Fu, your shoulder is injured, and you stayed up all night looking after Little Qin. Let me carry her,” Lin Ye offered.
Fu Qi said, “No need. Let’s get her into the car and lay her down first.”
Covered from head to toe, Qin Zhen let out an appropriately timed, “Mmm… it hurts.”
Lin Ye immediately stepped aside.
“Could someone go get the pillow from the bed?” Fu Qi took two steps, then turned back as though he had just remembered. “Qin Qin can lean against it. It’ll be more comfortable.”
Tian Li’s legs were injured, so Lin Ye took the task without hesitation. When she entered the room, even she was startled by the bloody scene covering the floor. She tiptoed over to the bed, grabbed the pillow, and hurried back out.
Of the four “people,” three were injured, so Lin Ye was the only one who could drive.
Tian Li sat in the passenger seat. Fu Qi sat in the back with Qin Zhen half-reclining in his arms.
Fu Qi didn’t actually want things to be this way. First, it was far too intimate. Second, he still remembered that Qin Zhen was supposed to be abstaining from sex. He had promised to hold fast to his principles and couldn’t give in so easily. Third—and most importantly—he knew that anything rare was precious. No matter how valuable something was, if it became abundant and too easy to obtain, people would stop cherishing it.
He had originally intended to let the “critically injured patient,” Qin Zhen, lie down, but when he tried to put her down, the zombie clung to his collar and refused to let go. With no other choice, Fu Qi became her human pillow, letting the zombie recline half-sitting in his arms.
Once they were settled, Fu Qi gave them a rough account of Qin Zhen’s condition. “The bullet was close to her heart. Fortunately, it didn’t go in very deep. Her life isn’t in immediate danger.”
After that, the vehicle started moving, and they discussed their next route as they went.
“They were clearly heading east, so how did they end up circling back?” Tian Li found it impossible to understand. He sighed. “But since they’ve come back, they’re probably surrounding the base now, waiting to ambush us.”
“Most of the bases in the central region are under government control. It would be difficult for them to get in, so they’re probably worried we’ll enter one and find reinforcements,” Lin Ye added. He then asked, “What are those foreigners doing here? Why are they attacking us?”
Tian Li said, “Why else? It’s because Fu Laoqi went and dug up their ancestors’ graves!”
Lin Ye said, “Huh?”
Qin Zhen was similarly affected by those words.
She had to pretend to be seriously injured, which meant she couldn’t speak or move. And she had to keep up the act for several days. It was unbearably uncomfortable.
To make sure she obediently kept pretending, Fu Qi had given her his phone.
At the moment, the zombie was hiding under the summer quilt and secretly poking at the phone. On the other end was Chen Xiang, who only had a vague understanding of their situation. The two of them had already coordinated beforehand, so they only typed messages and didn’t send voice recordings.
Chen Xiang knew a great many things. News of new missions, improved phones, new types of viruses, tsunamis, earthquakes—the latest information from all over the country and beyond could be found with him.
With her back against Fu Qi’s chest and his arms around her, Qin Zhen held the phone in her hands. After reading some of the fresh news Chen Xiang sent, she would tilt her head and rub against the chest beside her ear, resting against the sound of Fu Qi’s heartbeat. It was indescribably comfortable.
But the moment she heard the word “grave,” she snapped out of her blissful daze and reached one hand behind her to scratch Fu Qi.
The scratch landed right on Fu Qi’s waist and abdomen.
His abs tensed, and his arm tightened slightly. Through the summer quilt, he caught Qin Zhen’s arm and quickly said, “I did collapse a grave, but it wasn’t theirs.”
“Give me a break.” Tian Li exposed him at once. “They’re chasing after you so relentlessly that I’m starting to suspect you stole some priceless burial treasure from their ancestor.”
The moment Tian Li finished speaking, the hand beneath the summer quilt tried to reach back and scratch again. Fortunately, Fu Qi had anticipated it and stopped her one step ahead.
“Don’t make things up. If I were going to steal anything, I’d steal treasures from within our own borders.” As Fu Qi spoke, he gave the hand he was holding a gentle squeeze through the quilt, soothing the person beneath it while warning the others outside. “Watch what you say. Don’t disturb our Qin Qin.”
At the mention of Qin Qin, the two people in front both glanced back, each wearing a different expression.
Their posture was undeniably intimate.
Not that there was anything wrong with it. After all, Qin Zhen was “critically injured” and still unconscious. Since she couldn’t sit up by herself, she did indeed need someone to hold her.
Tian Li mainly thought the sight was an assault on the eyes. Lin Ye, however, was different. He peeked back several times through the rearview mirror before asking hesitantly, “Brother Fu, you and Little Qin… are you two a couple?”
Fu Qi said, “What, do you like our Qin Qin?”
“I do like her,” Lin Ye admitted shyly. “There are so few girls in the apocalypse to begin with, and she’s so cute…”
Fu Qi said, “I advise you to find someone else to like.”
“Ah…” Hearing the possessive declaration in those words, Lin Ye said, “Sorry, Brother Fu. I didn’t know you two were that kind of relationship…”
There was nothing to hold against him. It wasn’t his fault. If anyone was to blame, it was the person sitting beside him—Tian Li.
Tian Li had realized he should be embarrassed too. He said, “Well, what a mess… But there’s nothing to be done. Little Qin has such a good temper, she’s loyal, and she’s pleasant to talk to. From the first time I saw her, I knew she was a good girl. Naturally, a lot of people would like her…”
With the life-saving favor between them, Tian Li spoke as though he had never been the same person who had asked a few days ago whether Qin Zhen had something wrong with her head.
Fu Qi was just about to speak when he felt the hand he was holding through the summer quilt begin to struggle.
He let go and pretended to adjust the quilt, covering for Qin Zhen. Then he lowered his head and saw the zombie holding up the phone, typing furiously with a finger-sized sausage. After several hurried jabs, she flipped the screen around for him to see.
The phone displayed: He likes me?!!!
There were three full exclamation marks after the question mark.
After showing it to Fu Qi, she took the phone back and continued typing.
She was slow at typing, and by the time she finished, Tian Li had already continued speaking.
“Little Lin, don’t be upset either. Little Qin is one of five sisters, right? Surely she has some single sisters just as cute as she is. Fu Laoqi, don’t you agree?”
Fu Qi said, “Ask her yourself when she wakes up.”
After that, Tian Li brought the conversation back to business. “How about you find somewhere safe and drop me off? Fu Laoqi, help me get someone to come pick me up. My foot isn’t convenient, but as long as we don’t run into the people from Country A, I can manage on my own for three days.”
“Let’s keep moving for now,” Fu Qi said. “We’ll run into someone eventually.”
He lowered his head as he finished speaking, just in time to see Qin Zhen finish typing and hold the screen up for him.
Fu Qi focused his eyes and saw the message:
It’s all fake. He only likes the pretty face I created with makeup. Once I take it off, he’ll be scared to death, just like Xu Xian.
The zombie couldn’t speak, but to match the gravity of her words, she wore an extremely serious expression.
Seeing her like that, Fu Qi imagined her looking like a stuffy old man, waving one hand as she solemnly delivered the speech.
The corners of his mouth curved into a tiny smile, which he suppressed before looking up.
“Then let’s keep moving for now,” Tian Li said. “If all else fails, I’ll go with you. We’ll fight those blond monsters to the bitter end!”
“Brother Tian, if you can do it, so can I!” Lin Ye said. “I’m not much good in a fight, but I can certainly be a driver.”
They were injured, crippled, or both. They really did need a driver.
Fu Qi smiled and said, “All right. But there’s one thing you need to remember. If those people from Country A ever capture you, you must insist that the item is on me.”
Tian Li and Lin Ye reacted quickly. The former raised his eyes to look at Fu Qi through the rearview mirror, while the latter exclaimed in shock, “Brother Fu, you really did take something valuable from them?”
Fu Qi said, “It isn’t theirs.”
After meeting his gaze through the rearview mirror, Tian Li asked a different question. “So the item actually isn’t on you?”
Fu Qi replied, “When it needs to be there, it will be.”
His answer was so vague that the moment he finished speaking, something scratched at his chest.
Fu Qi lowered his head and saw Qin Zhen holding up her phone to show him the new message she had typed.
It read: Tell him! Tell him all five sisters already have boyfriends, and you’ve reserved every one of them!
Fu Qi: “…”
Setting aside the delay in this conversation… Last night, he had only just been saddled with the reputation of being an old-fashioned man. And now he was supposed to take on the reputation of a scumbag who had claimed all five sisters?
He might as well stop calling himself Fu Qi and change his name to Fu Trouble.
Fu Qi lifted the edge of the quilt and stuffed Qin Zhen underneath it, forcing her to behave.
But the zombie couldn’t sit still. After being quiet for a while, she began secretly searching for him again, her fingertips scratching back and forth over his chest like tiny insects crawling across it.
Fu Qi kept a straight face and endured it.
After a while, that disobedient finger finally lowered, as if it had settled down.
Fu Qi had just relaxed when his collarbone suddenly turned cold. Something soft pressed against it. Before he could realize what it was, a damp sensation and two rows of teeth bit down.
It didn’t hurt, but the tingling numbness felt as if an electric current had shot straight into his bones, flashing toward his brain like lightning.
Fu Qi’s back went rigid, and the arm around Qin Zhen’s waist suddenly tightened.
Qin Zhen was pulled upward, and the top of his head slammed into Fu Qi’s chin with a heavy thud that echoed through the car.
“What happened?” the two people in front asked.
Fu Qi pressed down the corners of his mouth and answered in a low, hoarse voice, “…Nothing.”
The teeth had already left his collarbone, but the damp sensation remained, as though countless invisible threads were still winding around the spot.
Fu Qi tried his best to ignore it. With a stern expression, he adjusted the summer blanket wrapped around Qin Zhen and looked down at him with dark, heavy eyes.
He saw Qin Zhen holding up his phone, his face full of confusion. His mouth opened and closed as he silently mouthed the words on the screen:
“He said I’m cute—I… am… I… cute?”
Fu Qi: “…”
Not cute.
Not cute at all.
You’re only annoying.
