Eating Garbage

Shang Jiudi stood at a distance, watching quietly as she clamped a hand over her mouth. Soft sobs escaped through her fingers. She was not such a fragile woman, but after such wild emotional ups and downs, she could not stop herself from wanting to cry.

Chu Han, who had already run far away and was planning to dump Jia Chunjie's corpse somewhere distant, suddenly frowned.

The Reforging System's mechanical synthesized voice rang out—

Shang Jiudi's loyalty has reached 50%. Points reclaimed: 0.1.

"Fuck!" Chu Han could not help cursing.

Why was this woman's loyalty still so low? It had only risen by 20%?

Once loyalty reached 90%, it would be locked. In other words, as long as a companion's loyalty reached 90%, it could no longer decrease and would only increase, though the process would be very slow.

But before it reached 90%, any carelessness could cause their loyalty to drop. This was utterly torturous. He could not exactly kneel and grovel before these people like they were his fathers, could he?

Among those who were loyal to him now, only Chen Shaoye, whose loyalty had reached 90%, truly counted as one of his people. Eighteen was young and easy to cultivate, but Shang Jiudi—

This woman was far too difficult to win over!

Chu Han had been gone for a long time, but Shang Jiudi did not remain outside. In her current condition, encountering zombies would only mean certain death, so she quickly returned to the second floor of the hotel.

Chen Shaoye and Eighteen were still lying in the hallway outside the room. If not for their alternating snores, anyone unfamiliar with the situation would have thought they were two corpses. Lying there looking half-dead in that dim corridor, they practically acted out a horror movie.

Shang Jiudi braced herself against the wall, enduring the dizziness brought on by her high fever. She came before Eighteen, sighed helplessly, and shook her small body. "Xiaoxiao? Xiaoxiao, wake up! Luo Xiaoxiao?"

Eighteen's real name was Luo Xiaoxiao.

Who knew what Jia Chunjie had fed the two of them? Shang Jiudi used every ounce of strength she had, yet she could not wake either of them. The dizziness struck again. She touched her forehead; her fever was nearly forty degrees Celsius.

She looked around at the dark surroundings. Thumping sounds occasionally came from the rooms nearby. There were zombies here, just not many, and they were weak enough.

She collapsed against the wall, not knowing what to do for the moment. Forget Chen Shaoye—even Eighteen was too heavy for her to carry now.

On a street near the hotel.

At one corner of the road was a garbage heap, filthy and reeking with a thick stench. All sorts of discarded, unfinished food had fermented together, forming heaps of thick sludge. Blackish green, slick and sticky beneath the palm, disgusting enough that it was impossible to tell what it had once been.

Xiao Yunfei and the other three hid within a pile of garbage. The strong odor could keep zombies away. They had chased Chu Han until they were gasping for breath, yet they had still lost him. Chu Han was simply too fast.

"Heh! Heh! I'm fucking exhausted!" One man panted heavily. Ignoring the stench around him, he flopped onto the rotten, foul-smelling garbage, drenched in sweat and unwilling to move another inch. Suddenly, a stabbing pain came from his hand, but he had no strength left to check it and paid it no mind.

"I'm exhausted too. How did that guy run so fast?" The others quietly voiced their dissatisfaction.

Xiao Yunfei was also panting desperately, his face full of unwillingness. He had given up on the idea of killing Chu Han and taking his gun. That man was too strong; he had no chance of beating him. But he needed Chu Han's help. He had to find him.

A chicken bone lay beside Xiao Yunfei's hand, with several scraps of unpicked chicken meat still clinging to it. The meat had already begun to rot.

He had not eaten his fill in several days. Looking at that chicken bone, he actually found it tempting and wanted to swallow it in one bite.

Suppressing the emotions that were close to breaking him, Xiao Yunfei carefully avoided the other three's gaze and suddenly shoved the chicken bone into his mouth!

He chewed desperately, crushing the bone with savage force before swallowing it in one gulp!

So disgusting! He wanted to vomit!

He was a social elite. He had plenty of money in the bank, enough to spend for a lifetime. He could not endure days like this. He wanted to return to the civilized age, where breakfast was a nutritious meal made by a housekeeper, lunch was the finest cuisine shared with a beautiful female secretary, and nights were spent moving through grand banquets, mingling with noble socialites.

That was the life he wanted, not eating a chicken bone someone else had discarded, one that had even rotted and begun to stink!

Bleurgh—

Xiao Yunfei suddenly dropped to the ground and vomited violently, spewing out every last fragment of the bone he had just chewed. Damn it! It was too disgusting, too foul, too revolting!

But he was so hungry!

"President Xiao!" The three hurried over to fuss around him. "President Xiao, what's wrong?"

Xiao Yunfei quickly composed his expression and put on a look of disgust. "A piece of garbage fell into my mouth just now. It was disgusting. It made me throw up yesterday's food!"

The man whose palm had stung earlier looked at what Xiao Yunfei had vomited up, confused. "We didn't eat chicken yesterday. We haven't had meat in days."

Damn it! Xiao Yunfei shot him a vicious glare, then immediately changed the subject. "He should be somewhere nearby. That man is good at using the terrain. His hideout must be somewhere remote!"

"Oh!" The man did not understand why Xiao Yunfei had glared at him and could not help muttering, "But we really didn't eat chicken. How did you throw up a chicken bone? You didn't eat garbage, did you?"

Xiao Yunfei's face instantly darkened. Anger surged through him. The dignity he had spent so long building seemed to have been trampled beneath someone's feet and crushed without mercy!

"How could I possibly eat garbage?!" he roared viciously. Then his gaze froze. He jerked backward and pointed at the man before him in horror. "What happened to your hand? Why is it bleeding?"

Xiao Yunfei's words immediately made the atmosphere between them tense. The other two instantly moved away.

Then they saw blood dripping from the hand of the man Xiao Yunfei had shouted at, glaringly bright.

"I-I-I... no, I think I got cut by some glass just now!" the man explained in terror.

"You're lying!" A vicious gleam flashed through Xiao Yunfei's eyes. Of course he knew it was a cut; the wound was obvious, and they had been very careful while running here. They had not encountered any zombies at all.

But Xiao Yunfei had no intention of letting him off.

"You were scratched by a zombie's nails," he declared.

Who told you to expose his embarrassment? Who told you to say something like that? You were still too green to play mind games with him! Was Xiao Yunfei's dignity something trash like you could challenge?

"President Xiao!" The other two hurriedly asked, "What do we do now? Will he turn into one of them?"

"Of course he will!" A certain desire flashed in Xiao Yunfei's eyes. "Being scratched by zombie nails or bitten will cause infection. Haven't we seen it before? We can't keep this person!"

Thanks to Meng Douzi and Innocent Little Sinian for the tips! Meng Douzi, you tip every day—you're amazing! And Innocent Little Sinian, did you tip me because the villain you asked for finally died? Hahaha! Also, what is going on in the book review section? What have you all been sending me? I'm blind—this is completely shameless!