Renting a place
"Let's go," Zhang Yi told the two of them after Han Ling left. He actually had some suspicions, but felt this was not a good time to voice them.
The three found the rental office in the former government compound. It was an old two-story building, with the department responsible for rentals on the ground floor. The second floor had something to do with ability users; even Zhang Yi did not know what went on up there.
The man who received them was pale, plump, and middle-aged. Though nowhere near as fat as Meat Tower Chen, he was still a rare sight in an apocalypse like this. Hearing their requirements, he could not help casting a suggestive glance at Li Muran, but once he got a clear look at her appearance, he immediately turned away in disinterest.
"As you know, places like these are very much in demand..." Having confirmed that all three were ordinary people, he remained seated. Although he wore a broad smile, he made no attempt to conceal his contempt.
"That's why we're sorry to trouble you for your help. As you can see, we have a woman with us. We can't keep living in a place like that." Before he finished, Zhang Yi took out a handful of Corpse Crystals and set them on the desk in front of him.
The man glanced at the dozen or so Corpse Crystals before him, dissatisfied. His gaze fell behind Zhang Yi, and he noticed that although Nan Shao was smiling, there was not the slightest trace of amusement in his eyes. Instead, they gave him a faint chill. Instinctively, he wanted to shrink back, but then he thought, He isn't an ability user. What am I afraid of? He sneered. "How generous of you. Don't go breaking your friend's heart over it. Anyone who saw him might think I, Old Qi, was bullying ordinary people like you." He deliberately emphasized "ordinary people" to remind them not to forget their place.
Zhang Yi paused, then looked back and saw that Nan Shao was having trouble maintaining his smile. Understanding dawned on him. He lightly nudged him with his elbow and said, "Wait outside for me." Then he looked at Li Muran. "You go too."
Li Muran turned and left without another word. Nan Shao lowered his eyes, concealing his hostile gaze, and murmured an acknowledgment before leaving. Even though he had long since fallen into the dust and had begun learning to accept reality and lower his head, after a hard day of running around, being fleeced again and again left him unable to suppress the fury filling his heart any longer.
"Pah! What are penniless wretches doing trying to rent a place? Think this is still before the apocalypse?" Watching Nan Shao leave, the middle-aged man cursed disdainfully without lowering his voice at all.
Anger stirred in Zhang Yi's heart, but he kept smiling. He took out another handful of Corpse Crystals and put them with the first, while laying the length of rebar he held pointing downward in his left hand on the desk, still smeared with black-red zombie flesh, blood, and brain matter. "Please be generous and don't hold it against him. We went to the hospital today to get enough Corpse Crystals to rent a place, and killing zombies left him a little hotheaded. Look, even my rebar's gone blunt. I was meaning to ask you where we could buy weapons."
His gaze sweeping over the rebar, which gave off a heavy stench of decay, the man edged backward, fear showing in his eyes. "Putting filthy things like that up here-how am I supposed to receive anyone else? Take it down, hurry up and take it down. I'll take you to choose a place right now." He had been lucky: he was a local, and with a son who had a fire ability, he had landed a good position. As a result, he had yet to kill a single zombie himself. For all his usual arrogance, when someone truly carried an air of menace, he wilted involuntarily.
Sure enough, incentives alone weren't enough. Zhang Yi sighed silently.
The one-bedroom apartments were in the town's dormitory compound for single residents, at the foot of the mountain on the left. They had originally been built specifically for teachers and government employees. Of course, the factories in town also had employee dormitories, but almost all of those had at least two bedrooms and a living room, and they were at the foot of the mountain on the other side. By the time Zhang Yi and the others arrived, most of the apartments were occupied. Most people had chosen the second floor or higher; surprisingly, no one wanted the ground floor, probably as a precaution against zombies and bandits.
"Look how nice this ground-floor place is. It even has a yard backing onto the mountain. Spacious, too. People used to love growing vegetables and flowers in their yards." The fat man did his utmost to recommend the ground floor, painting a dazzling picture. "And there are quite a few of you..." Remembering there were only three, he paused, then skipped over that point and continued, "Even if you want to spice things up now and then, you could go a couple of rounds out in the open in the yard..."
"We'll take this one." Zhang Yi cut off his increasingly obscene remarks. He knew the fat man had misunderstood the relationship between the three of them, but there was really no need to explain things to someone like him. All he could do was keep him talking less.
"Pay this month's rent first. Here are the keys, and here's your rental card. Remember to come pay next month's rent two days in advance, or we'll automatically take the apartment back." Seeing that they had not rejected his recommendation, the fat man's expression improved slightly. He removed two keys from the bunch he carried and handed them to Zhang Yi along with a white card, adding a few words of warning. "The people living in this building are all ability users. They have bad tempers, so be careful."
"Thank you for the warning." Zhang Yi looked grateful and responded good-naturedly.
The fat man was satisfied. Only after he left did the three have the attention to spare to examine the apartment. They found that the door locks were all still secure. Although it had only one bedroom and a living room, land was plentiful in small towns, so the actual floor area was quite large. Including the bathroom and kitchen, it was a full eighty or ninety square meters. The bedroom contained only a single wooden bed still laid with cotton batting and sheets. Books sat on the desk and bookcase, thick with dust. Clearly, the people who had come in earlier had not been interested in these things and had left them largely untouched. The locks had probably been replaced later in a town-wide arrangement. Compared with the bedroom, the living room and kitchen were much messier, with empty bottles and jars, pots, spatulas, and chopsticks scattered everywhere.
"You stay here and clean up. Nan Shao and I can go back to get the others," Zhang Yi told Li Muran as he and Nan Shao put their backpacks on the sofa. Then, as though something had occurred to him, he hurriedly asked, "Do you have anything you need us to bring over?"
Li Muran pressed her lips together, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. But she felt that they would be spending plenty of time together from now on, and many things could not be avoided, so she said, "Just a plastic bag. Everything's inside. Just bring that over." It contained her sanitary pads and underwear, though they were wrapped in one of her jackets. That thought made her feel a little better.