An argument

Shanhu District.

"Fang-"

Yu Jingjing dropped to her knees with a thud and wailed at the mound of dirt before her, which looked like a grave.

"Fang-you hadn't even won Little Ye Ruan over yet! How could you just die like this? Take me with you-"

The sound of wheels came from behind her. Fang Ci sat in a wheelchair, watching her with a complicated expression.

"Yu Jingjing, are you out of your mind?"

Lu Jiayi, who was pushing the wheelchair, sucked in a breath as he caught the crucial detail.

"Fang Ci, you like Ye Ruan?"

Fang Ci looked embarrassed and said nothing.

Yu Jingjing turned around as though she had seen a ghost, then lunged at him with a meow.

Worried that this cat would crash into Fang Ci and break his newly splinted leg again, Lu Jiayi hurriedly wheeled him out of the way.

Yu Jingjing sounded aggrieved. "That idiot Li Rang said you were gone! He scared me to death..."

Li Rang happened to walk over just then, accompanied by four or five strangers and Zhao Quan, who had been lucky enough to cling to life all this way.

"You're the one who can't hear! I said Fang broke his leg, not that he was dead!"

Yu Jingjing froze, then gave a sheepish laugh. "Things were so dangerous back then. I didn't hear you clearly."

Still smeared with filthy blood and utterly exhausted, she simply sat cross-legged beside Fang Ci's wheelchair.

Li Rang rapped Yu Jingjing on the forehead with his knuckles, then shot Fang Ci a look and announced with exaggerated formality:

"Allow me to introduce Fang Ci, the deputy captain of our 0801 Team."

A middle-aged man in a suit and polished shoes stepped forward, bowing and nodding as he held out his hand. "Hello, Captain Fang. I'm Hu Fu, the director of this Printing Factory."

Fang Ci shook Hu Fu's hand, his gaze passing over Zhao Quan, who stood with his hands behind his back.

Gone was the man's usual affable demeanor. He hadn't said a word upon seeing them.

Fang Ci could more or less guess that Hu Fu had learned who Zhao Quan was.

Most likely, Hu Fu, the factory director, had connected with Zhao Quan, the official from South City.

Fang Ci smiled. "Thank you for being willing to take us in, Director."

Hu Fu waved a hand. "We're doing our part for the country. City H is riddled with danger now. We still have to rely on comrades like you."

"Our captain should come looking for us soon," Fang Ci said. "Could I trouble you to have someone keep an eye out for him?"

"Of course, of course." Hu Fu gestured for them to follow.

"Comrades, I've had rooms arranged for you so you can change your clothes. If you don't mind, join me for dinner in the cafeteria."

Fang Ci nodded. "Thank you. Sorry for the trouble."

Hu Fu was especially warm toward Fang Ci and the others, walking ahead with Zhao Quan to lead the way.

Lu Jiayi pushed the wheelchair behind them. "I wonder when the captain will find us."

Yu Jingjing wiped the filthy blood on her hands onto her clothes.

"It all happened so fast. I never expected a monster that smart. It was chasing us so hard I didn't have time to tie any cloth strips."

Li Rang sighed. "That Level Three Zombie overturned the bus, and even the bomb couldn't kill it. Let's hope we never run into it again."

They recalled the terrifying ordeal not long before, when a horde of zombies had surrounded the bus at an intersection.

Then, in a stroke of terrible luck, a gorilla-like level three monster had dropped from the sky, its exposed fangs as long as a forearm.

The monster had let out an eerie howl with incredible penetrating power. By the time they could react, the bus was already lying on its side.

The ordinary people had collapsed in droves, knocked unconscious.

When Fang Ci and the other special people came to, the monster was already plucking people through the windows and devouring them.

With such a vast difference in size, they could only try to suppress it with gunfire, but they hadn't expected its hide to be so tough.

Fang Ci had been flung away and broken a leg. At that critical moment, if not for the bomb Ye Ruan had given Yu Jingjing...

They probably would have lost half the First Team.

"Too bad Doctor Liu didn't make it."

Fang Ci sighed softly. "The dead are gone. What we need to worry about now is... him."

They followed Fang Ci's gaze to Zhao Quan's retreating back.

Yu Jingjing cursed under her breath. "That bastard is so fucking lucky. I deliberately left him behind several times while we were escaping, but somehow he still caught up."

"At least Tang Cheng and Tang Yi got separated from us. That means he's lost one of his lackeys."

The day after Zhao Quan and Tang Cheng's conversation that night at the Scrap Yard, Gu Cheng had told several of his teammates about it.

While keeping their guard up around those two, they had also been looking for a chance to eliminate the threat.

Unfortunately, Zhao Quan valued his life far too much. Whenever danger struck, he was the first to scramble onto the bus.

Meanwhile, after driving a little farther, the Biohazard Vehicle finally reached a cloth strip Yu Jingjing had left behind.

Relieved, Gu Cheng turned to coax his rabbit.

Ye Ruan held a carrot stick between his lips like a mob boss smoking a cigarette, with one foot propped on a low box and a thoroughly sour expression.

Gu Cheng cleared his throat. "Baby, are you hungry?"

"No." Ye Ruan's little mouth kept moving. The carrot was crisp and juicy, crunching with every bite.

"I just didn't want to see you get hurt. Tell me yourself, wasn't that reckless? Doesn't it hurt?"

Spotting another cloth strip, Gu Cheng turned onto a bumpy road.

"You were the one who was about to cry."

Ye Ruan muttered his complaint. If he hadn't sensed Gu Cheng's unease, along with a trace of guilt and despair, he wouldn't have simply reached out to open the door.

Every one of them had prepared for parting, but when they actually had to face separation or death, they still couldn't come to terms with it.

After a long silence, Gu Cheng said quietly, "I'm sorry."

Ye Ruan went over and sat in the passenger seat, taking out the handful of jasmine flowers that had wilted completely.

"It's all right. You didn't do anything wrong."

Ye Ruan turned to Gu Cheng with a soft smile.

"Let's never argue, okay?"

Gu Cheng didn't hesitate for even a second. "Okay."

Sitting in the back row and doing her best to make herself invisible, Ren Fei'er breathed a sigh of relief.

Even when these two argued, it looked like flirting.

No, it didn't even count as an argument.

As far as Ren Fei'er was concerned, her big brother Ye Ruan was clearly just acting cute.

It had grown completely dark, making it impossible to keep traveling.

"We'll have to continue tomorrow," Gu Cheng said. "We haven't seen any cloth strips for a while, so they should be somewhere nearby."

"Mm. There's a market over there. Should we park inside?" A glimmer shone in Ye Ruan's red eyes.

Both of them had good night vision and could make out things within a hundred meters.

Gu Cheng was even better. If he changed back into a wolf, he could see everything within one or two kilometers at night.

The Biohazard Vehicle turned straight into the market and parked beside a wall.

Ye Ruan clambered out of the passenger seat and took down the dozen or so zombies hiding there with a few shots from his suppressed gun.

The market was small, its stalls arranged in a circle. It took five minutes to walk through it.

Once he was sure there was no danger, Ye Ruan turned back.

Inside the vehicle, Gu Cheng was cooking porridge and pancakes on the Cassette Stove. "Looks like it's going to rain. Wear something warmer to bed tonight."

Ye Ruan smiled and sat on the little stool opposite him, tilting his head up to look at him.

"I won't get cold if I'm hugging something fluffy."

Gu Cheng clicked his tongue. "Trying to trap me again, huh?"

"Are you getting shy, Captain?"

Ye Ruan stood and leaned closer, staring at Gu Cheng's ears.

"You're getting out of hand! Spoiled rotten!"

Gu Cheng covered his traitorous ears while adding chunks of sweet potato to the porridge.

"You actually get shy..." Ye Ruan clung to one of Gu Cheng's arms and rubbed his ear with his fingers.

"Tch. Are you asking for it?"

Gu Cheng scooped Ye Ruan into his arms, intending to give this naughty rabbit a fierce kiss, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ren Fei'er sitting quietly in the corner with her eyes closed, pretending to doze.

The girl's eyelashes were fluttering so hard they almost blurred.

Belatedly realizing this wasn't appropriate, Gu Cheng could only sneakily squeeze Ye Ruan's waist, though he wished he could stick his hand there with 502 Glue.