PSW - Chapter 48
Chapter 48
So stupid.
She was gullible and not very bright before she knew the truth, but now that she knew, how did she seem even easier to fool?
Zheng Yi found it hard to understand.
She couldn't even put herself in Yu Yinan's shoes to figure out what on earth she was thinking.
[Oh, falling in love lowers one's IQ. Haven't you heard that joke? Some people don't even get love-addled brains when they fall in love; they just have no brains at all.] Sensing Zheng Yi's mood, Zero One spoke up at the right moment. [Besides, if the object of affection is you, being too clear-headed would be very painful.]
Zheng Yi pursed her lips, not bothering to reply to Zero One.
But Zero One didn't let her off, asking curiously: [If you were toyed with and deceived like this, only to find out it was all fake, what would you do?]
'I would never experience something like that.'
'But if it were me, they wouldn't see the next sunrise.'
[Ah, indeed.]
'Just kidding. My dear Zero One, it's just a little deception. I wouldn't go on a killing spree just for being tricked~' she said to Zero One, an impeccably sweet smile on her face as she reached her hand out to Yu Yinan.
Yu Yinan only hesitated for a moment before quickly raising her hand to grasp Zheng Yi's, as if Zheng Yi might retract it if she were any slower. A faint warmth spread from Yu Yinan's palm, and at that moment, she suddenly remembered what Chu Yi had said about the future high temperatures.
If the temperature soared above forty degrees, would Zheng Yi still be willing to touch her?
Value.
She had to become stronger. There were so many fire ability users, and there would be all sorts of other ability users with strange and bizarre powers. She had to be the one and only, irreplaceable one.
Zheng Yi led Yu Yinan back into the house. The moment they stepped inside, the facade of emotions and expressions vanished. She relaxed completely, her entire being entering a state of near indifference. She simply leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes to rest.
Yu Yinan was used to this. She rummaged through her luggage for a pen, paper, and the map of Pujie near the shelter that she had drawn. Although it had rough markings, it wasn't detailed enough. This mission was a good opportunity to refine it.
Host: Zheng Yi
Saint Points: 87
Backpack Slots: 5
Abilities: Water/Healing (Beginner)
Zheng Yi opened her information panel to check her Saint Points balance. Soon, the number changed drastically.
Host: Zheng Yi
Saint Points: 17
Backpack Slots: 6
Abilities: Water/Healing (Beginner)
She had spent 70 Saint Points to open a new backpack slot. The price for the next one had risen to 90 Saint Points.
[Eh? I thought you were going to buy that car.]
'What's the rush?' Zheng Yi glanced at the store. The system's modified car was still featured on the homepage.
Yu Yinan had never imagined that her promise to take Zheng Yi for a ride on her motorcycle would come to pass under such circumstances. For a fleeting moment, she felt a sense of things having changed, but she quickly dismissed the feeling. Real or fake, Zheng Yi was Zheng Yi. If she could, she wanted to know Zheng Yi's true heart more genuinely, more profoundly, to touch her real personality.
Zheng Yi no longer deliberately hid anything from her. Just like this morning when they set out for the mission, Yu Yinan followed Zheng Yi to the underground garage and watched as she tossed her luggage into a car, placed a hand on its body, and in the next instant, the entire vehicle vanished.
Then, Zheng Yi took out her motorcycle.
"Jiejie, the weather is warming up. It's the perfect time for a ride~"
"Mm," Yu Yinan grunted in response. She checked the fuel level, expertly got on, and tried to start the engine, which quickly roared to life. Without needing to be told, Zheng Yi easily swung onto the back seat and wrapped her arms around her waist.
Yu Yinan felt Zheng Yi rest her chin on her shoulder, her whole body pressing against her back, holding her tight.
"Jiejie, don't heat up. It'll get hot." Zheng Yi's voice was still soft, whispering by her ear like a spoiled child. But whether intentionally or not, her gentle breath also sprayed across the nape of her neck, making it tingle softly. That indescribable, numbing sensation struck her hard.
Yu Yinan composed herself, biting her lip as she stared ahead. The motorcycle started up in the next moment. After passing the identity check at the shelter's main gate and reaching the surface, she twisted the throttle hard. The bike shot forward instantly, the wind howling past them as they sped freely through the streets.
Her long hair flew behind her. It was only then that Yu Yinan realized she had forgotten her helmet.
…But it was exhilarating.
She hadn't felt this kind of exhilarating, unrestrained freedom in a long time.
"Faster," Zheng Yi's voice came from behind. In the rearview mirror, Yu Yinan caught a glimpse of excitement on Zheng Yi's face. She smiled along with her, glanced at the speedometer, and accelerated again.
In the instant she took a corner, the motorcycle leaned so low its body almost touched the ground, scraping sparks as it flew through the turn.
Only when they reached an uncleared area did Yu Yinan slow down.
"Jiejie, just leave the zombies to me. You focus on getting the map drawn, okay~?"
A massive torrent of water instantly enveloped a common zombie staggering toward them, smashing it against a shop's roll-down shutter. The immense force dented the entire metal door and created a huge bang.
In that same instant, it attracted all the nearby zombies.
Yu Yinan glanced at Zheng Yi, then took out the simple map she had drawn earlier and an enlarged map with the rough outline of Pujie from another atlas. She placed them on the motorcycle seat and began adding details.
Zheng Yi held nothing back, even deliberately making as much noise as possible to draw all the nearby zombies to them at once.
Yu Yinan had never seen such a devastatingly powerful stream of water.
A high-pressure water jet shot out, compressed and as cruel as a meat grinder, relentlessly slicing the converging zombies in half at the waist. The scattered upper bodies were still alive, their rotten faces opening mouths crawling with maggots, letting out low growls and roars. They even crawled forward, leaving sticky trails as they continued to move toward Zheng Yi.
Flames touched the corpse oil and quickly blazed into a conflagration, blooming into the most brilliant of flowers.
Zheng Yi glanced at Yu Yinan but said nothing about her unsolicited help, turning back to continue slaughtering the attacking zombies.
Yu Yinan hadn't seen how Zheng Yi had rescued those women, but from the words "total annihilation" and the fact that Zheng Yi had returned unharmed, she could guess it must have been a completely one-sided battle.
Now, she stopped her pen and watched as the long stream of water was wielded at will by Zheng Yi. Formless water became so sharp it could easily cleave a zombie in two. It could also transform into sharp blades of solid ice, freezing everything in an instant.
She could almost imagine how Zheng Yi had defeated those ability users. Zheng Yi's spirit… was too powerful. If an ordinary person was a small river or lake, then Zheng Yi was perhaps a vast ocean.
Watching Zheng Yi's effortless and almost indifferent cleanup, Yu Yinan felt an irrepressible flutter in her heart.
This might not even be Zheng Yi's limit.
Zheng Yi… just how strong was she? Yu Yinan couldn't imagine. She had always thought that no matter how powerful an ability user was, they were only stronger than ordinary people. Faced with a natural disaster or a zombie horde, their limited mental energy restricted what they could do. No matter how formidable one person was, their power was finite.
But Zheng Yi seemed unbound by such limitations.
…Would someone as strong as Zheng Yi really need her? Besides believing in Zheng Yi's Saint persona, providing her with warmth in the winter, and starting fires for her when needed, what other value could she possibly offer?
She wasn't irreplaceable. But she really, really wanted to hold on to Zheng Yi.
"What are you spacing out for?"
Yu Yinan snapped back to reality to see the ground littered with zombie corpses. The fire she had started earlier was not yet extinguished and was busy burning away all traces. She quickly used her ability again, making the flames fiercer and larger to burn everything away as fast as possible. "I… I'm sorry."
Zheng Yi glanced at her but didn't press the matter. She just scanned the map. "Let's go to the next area. You can continue drawing then. I'll call you when I'm done clearing it out, and you can set the fire."
"Okay." Yu Yinan agreed. She was happy to be of help to Zheng Yi, yet at the same time, she felt a pang of disappointment that Zheng Yi no longer called her "Jiejie." But she had learned to hide her emotions. After leaving home, she had lived alone for so long and grown to this point; naturally, she knew how to put on a front and conceal her feelings. It was just that with the previous Zheng Yi, as they spent more time together, she had rarely hidden anything from her.
She glanced at the street sign at the intersection, making a mental note of it. Just as she was about to start the bike, Zheng Yi, who had already gotten on, suddenly condensed a small ball of water from behind and brought it to her lips.
Yu Yinan opened her mouth and instinctively swallowed the water. Her tongue touched a piece of hard candy encased within the water. Wasn't Zheng Yi afraid she'd swallow it whole?
"Jiejie~ Pay a little more attention~"
Yu Yinan's heart beat even faster. Her emotions were too easily influenced by Zheng Yi. And Zheng Yi knew it.
Zheng Yi was doing it on purpose.
Clearing zombies, drawing the map, burning the bodies, and heading to the next area.
Yu Yinan and Zheng Yi's coordination improved, and their efficiency grew higher and higher.
When dusk fell, Zheng Yi didn't have Yu Yinan continue to the next destination. Instead, she randomly found a storefront, opened the door with her bare hands, sat down inside, and started a campfire.
After the apocalypse, everything had collapsed. People were busy trying to survive, so naturally, there was no demand for entertainment.
But at certain moments, as Yu Yinan and Zheng Yi sat across from each other staring at the fire, they would think of the phones and computers from before the apocalypse, of all the different games and forms of entertainment, and couldn't help but feel a bit of boredom.
But that boredom was somewhat dispelled by the fact that Zheng Yi was sitting opposite her.
"Before the apocalypse, your family background…" Was that a lie too? Yu Yinan started to ask but stopped halfway, not wanting to know. She swallowed her words, lowered her head to stare at the dancing campfire, and resonated with the flames, controlling the naturally leaping fire to form other shapes.
"It was true," Zheng Yi said, looking at Yu Yinan, her tone gentle. "Jiejie, I just concealed some things."
"For example, I was the one who killed him. My mother went mad because of me." Zheng Yi shrugged slightly and chuckled. "Who told him to get drunk and not know who he was touching, trying to get handsy with me?"
"My family came looking for me…"
"I was the one who sent the note. I just didn't expect there to be such foolish parents in the world."
Their relationship seemed to have changed, yet it also seemed the same. This moment of confession made them feel closer, more intimate, yet also seemed to push them further apart. The campfire between them crackled and changed into the shape of a rabbit before quickly collapsing back into its original form.
"I just made some harsh threats, verbal ones." Yu Yinan had no intention of holding Zheng Yi accountable. She looked at Zheng Yi through the flames. The fire cast a red glow on Zheng Yi's cheeks, and the warm tones softened her features. Yu Yinan's voice dropped a little, and her gaze followed, once again fixing on the campfire. "I couldn't bring myself to do it. Is that… very cowardly?"
"Do you… look down on me, hate me for being like this?"
"Jiejie, I'm not some kind of spiritual guide." Zheng Yi's voice remained gentle, but the words she spoke were exceptionally heartless. Of course, she knew Yu Yinan was seeking some kind of validation, some sense of security, but to her, was Yu Yinan really any different from anyone else?
Was she even worth the effort of looking down on or hating?
"…If I had killed them, would you see me differently?"
Zheng Yi subtly frowned, not understanding how Yu Yinan's thoughts had jumped to this. "Jiejie, I'm a Saint, you know~ What do you take me for?"
Yu Yinan was a bit stunned. She didn't know either.
She just wanted to be closer to Zheng Yi.
But she couldn't find a way.
"Jiejie, what are you thinking?" Zheng Yi asked sincerely. She really wanted to know what kind of jumbled mess was in Yu Yinan's head and how she came up with such strange ideas.
The current Yu Yinan seemed contradictory and awkward. She seemed to want to change herself but didn't know where to start. She was still lost, yet driven by a desire she herself didn't understand.
Stubborn, pure, yet her soul didn't seem so dull and uninteresting anymore.
"I'm thinking…" Yu Yinan looked at the burning flames, and for a moment, she wanted to let herself burn along with them, to turn to ash. She thought about Zheng Yi's honesty at this moment… it should be honesty, right? An almost ruthless honesty, yet it drew her in. "I'm thinking, it would be nice if you could hug me."
A slightly teasing smile appeared on Zheng Yi's lips. She looked at this fragile little puppy and deliberately asked, "Hug you like before?"
Yu Yinan seemed stumped by the question. She instinctively nodded but then caught herself and shook her head vigorously. "No, not like that."
"Like now, hug me."
"Like now how? I'm not hugging you right now." Zheng Yi tilted her head from the other side, as if she truly didn't understand what Yu Yinan meant. Her dark eyes looked at Yu Yinan innocently, exuding pure obedience and naivety.
Yu Yinan wrinkled her nose, looked down at the campfire, and fell silent.
"What should you call me?" But Zheng Yi didn't seem to intend to end the topic there.
"…Zheng Yi," Yu Yinan whispered her name.
"Jiejie, look up at me." Zheng Yi's voice softened a couple of notches. "What should you call me?" she asked gently.
Yu Yinan obediently looked up at Zheng Yi, meeting those dark eyes that reflected the firelight. She opened her mouth. "Zheng Yi?"
Soon, she realized the answer Zheng Yi wanted. "Saint?"
The time wasn't right; there was no way she could get Saint Points from this.
But Zheng Yi smiled. She stood up, walked over to Yu Yinan, and leaned down to give her a hug.
"Jiejie, you're so good~"
Watching this series of actions, Zero One felt an urge to advise her but didn't know where to start. It hesitated, then finally let out a deep sigh, looking at Yu Yinan with a sense of frustrated disappointment.
Zero One had been worried that Yu Yinan would go insane, but after waking up, she hadn't. She seemed to have returned to her old self. But if she was the same, why was she still following Zheng Yi?
So that one day, on a whim, Zheng Yi could cut open her heart?
A human heart was just an organ. How could it possibly hold another person, let alone find Zheng Yi inside it? Delving into such a matter was uninteresting and even a bit horrifying, but if you tried to think of it romantically… remembering the blood and Zheng Yi's undisguised madness that day, Zero One simply couldn't bring itself to do so.
For a moment, Zheng Yi had genuinely wanted to kill, and she had genuinely wanted to see.
Zero One sighed. It figured it was probably still just a system. Even with an emotional module, it couldn't truly comprehend the thoughts of these two people. It could understand, but it didn't truly comprehend.
Yu Yinan was a person, a living, breathing person. Her childhood was clouded, but then she had sprouted like a small tree, breaking through the earth and growing upward. Just as she finally saw the sunlight, the apocalypse struck like a torrential downpour, and she met Zheng Yi.
Zheng Yi never intended to save her, but Yu Yinan was warmed by her… she must have been, right? When Zheng Yi put on her act, even Zero One was fooled by that facade. How could it demand more from Yu Yinan?
[She… might be like a little puppy afraid of being abandoned, but she's a person, not a dog.] Zero One's mechanical voice was dry.
Zheng Yi might have heard, but she paid it no mind. In fact, after Zero One's words, she released her embrace, tilted Yu Yinan's chin up, and leaned in to kiss her.
Yu Yinan froze completely. Her thoughts were put on pause, her body so stiff she didn't know what to do. She didn't even know where to put her hands, which were clenched into fists at her sides. Her vision was filled with nothing but Zheng Yi, and she even forgot to breathe.
Cool fingertips brushed against her burning cheek. Zheng Yi straightened up, a smile on her face as she gently wiped the corner of Yu Yinan's lips with the pad of her thumb. "Jiejie, you're about to catch fire."
As if waking from a dream, Yu Yinan jerked back, her palms pressing against the ground as she turned her head away in slight disarray. Her heart was pounding like a drum. As if possessed, she swallowed, feeling even more parched as her entire body was dyed pink. "I…"
As soon as the word left her mouth, Yu Yinan realized her voice was choked with tears. She clamped her mouth shut as if burned. But when Zheng Yi stood up to go back to her seat, she instinctively raised a hand, wanting to grab her dangling fingers.
But she only raised it halfway before curling it back and letting it fall.
Yu Yinan's heart was in even greater turmoil.
She was becoming unlike herself.
"Jiejie." But Zheng Yi sat down beside Yu Yinan, took her hand, and began to play with her fingers. "My bad. I shouldn't have teased you."
"Are you angry with me?" Her voice grew lower and softer, like a spoiled child's.
"No." Yu Yinan closed her eyes as if accepting her fate and sighed out the word, "No."
"Then why aren't you looking at me?"
So Yu Yinan opened her eyes and met Zheng Yi's gaze. Zheng Yi was still holding her fingers. Seeing the satisfied smile on the other woman's face, Yu Yinan felt for the first time that time was passing so slowly, so agonizingly.
[Host!]
Fortunately, Zheng Yi let her go.
But when it was time to make their beds on the floor for the night, just as Yu Yinan lay down on one side, Zheng Yi, wearing only a thin shirt, slipped into her covers, draped an arm over her waist, and pressed up against her. This wasn't the first time Yu Yinan had shared a bed with Zheng Yi; they had slept in each other's arms throughout the entire deep freeze.
Zheng Yi's actions weren't even improper in any way; she was just resting her arm on her waist.
But Yu Yinan's body was stiff, and she couldn't sleep.
Her heart was a mess, and her mind was a mess. It seemed her sickness had gotten worse. She couldn't do anything, and she didn't know what to do.
She was like a burning puppet, on the verge of turning to ash.
She lay with her eyes open in the darkness, on her side, unable to see anything clearly. Suddenly, she felt a coolness on her cheek. She raised a hand to touch it and realized that, for some reason, she had started to cry.
Yu Yinan didn't know when she fell asleep, nor when Zheng Yi got up.
When she opened her eyes, Zheng Yi was already cooking noodles on a small stove and had just taken them off the heat.
"Jiejie's awake? Here, the clean water is over there. Wash up and come have some noodles." Zheng Yi smiled gently, portioning the noodles into a bowl. For a moment, it made Yu Yinan feel as if she had returned to their life during the deep freeze.
She blinked, got up, and put on her down jacket. She glanced at the lighter on the table but said nothing, just silently picked up the basin of water, took the toothbrush and toothpaste Zheng Yi handed her, and went to the side to wash up.
Everything that happened last night felt like a dream.
While drawing the map, Yu Yinan was still a bit dazed, but she quickly focused. She recalled yesterday's route and the division of areas, carefully marking them on the map. By the time she finished detailing that section, Zheng Yi had cleared out most of the zombies.
She carefully rolled up the map and put it away, then used her ability to incinerate the corpses on the ground. The raging flames quickly consumed all traces of the battle. When it had burned enough, she actively extinguished the fire, then got on the bike and waited for Zheng Yi to get on and hold her waist securely before heading to the next area.
Yu Yinan's route was to clear areas progressively outward, with the shelter as the center. This made the first few days of clearing much less difficult and much more efficient.
After two days of this, they finally arrived at the school from before. This area had already been cleared, with only a few scattered zombies left. Zheng Yi didn't even get off the bike; she sat on the back and controlled streams of water, turning them into solid ice to perform long-distance exorcisms.
If only the apocalypse would just stay at this level, Yu Yinan couldn't help but think as she watched the common zombies being killed so easily.
The zombies would eventually be completely eradicated, people could work to overcome the extreme weather, the lost tree of technology could be climbed again, the destroyed civilization could be repaired, and the survivors would continue to multiply, just divided by their special abilities.
But it would never be possible to return to the world before the apocalypse.
"Should we go to the hospital?" Yu Yinan asked, looking at the city hospital on the map. Although the area-clearing mission included it, teams were generally not required to go inside to clear out the zombies trapped within. The hospital covered a huge area, with three separate rehabilitation zones alone. The main complex, outpatient building, surgery building, and internal medicine building were all fully equipped. The floors between the buildings were connected, but now that the elevators didn't work, clearing it would be very troublesome.
If an ability user was cornered by a zombie horde in a hallway and couldn't break out quickly, they would be trapped. Once their mental energy was depleted, death would be the only outcome.
Of course, none of this would likely be a problem for Zheng Yi.
"The area-clearing doesn't include that," Zheng Yi said, glancing at Yu Yinan. "Just clear out the ones that step out of the hospital gates. Don't worry about the ones inside."
"Okay." Yu Yinan obediently agreed. She rode the motorcycle with Zheng Yi, circling each of the buildings. She had thought the sound of the motorcycle would draw all the zombies down, but as soon as they got close, before the zombies could even squeeze out, the main gates were frozen shut by a layer of solid ice.
Zheng Yi did as she said, only clearing the zombies wandering outside the gates and ignoring every single one inside.
The mission continued day by day, and the map of Pujie became more and more detailed. The two-month deadline Chu Yi had given them seemed far too long. It had only been a week, and the map of Pujie was already more than half complete, and they hadn't encountered any dangers they couldn't handle.
Even the enhanced zombies were no match for Zheng Yi.
It wasn't until they reached a road near one of Pujie's mountains that they discovered the dense green forest had spread down from the mountain. Green vines and weeds completely covered the road, and interwoven tree roots had cracked the asphalt, forcing their way out of the ground like giant snakes coiling and occupying the space.
The bungalows and tourist buildings near the mountain were all submerged in green, and even the highway further away had been encroached upon. On the houses on either side, climbing ivy clung to the walls, looking like natural green curtains from a distance, possessing a kind of natural beauty.
Perhaps it was because of the initial downpour, or the melting of ice and snow after the deep freeze, or maybe the wandering common zombies and living creatures in the vicinity had all become nutrients for the soil. In any case, the plants here were growing too well, too lushly. Their life force was vigorous. From a distance, it looked like a dormant green behemoth, its maw a dense forest waiting for prey to walk right into its trap.
Unlike zombies or mutated beasts, this static vegetation, this vast expanse of lush green, was the most dangerous thing of all.
Yu Yinan took out the original map of Pujie, carefully checked their position, and looked toward what was originally a tourist spot for mountain climbing.
"Sugui Mountain… We're on Suping Road." Yu Yinan propped up the motorcycle and spread out the map, suggesting to Zheng Yi behind her, "Why don't we circle around it first to determine the extent of its expansion?" She was a fire ability user. If they really had to go in and fight… plants, she should be able to have a considerable advantage.
However, Yu Yinan looked at the vast expanse of green with some difficulty. Her mental energy… probably couldn't sustain it.
The map still had to be drawn, but rushing in… perhaps they didn't need to take the risk?
"Then let's circle it first and see its range." Zheng Yi stared at the boundless green, the curiosity in her eyes completely unconcealed. She said with a hint of excitement, "Jiejie, I've never seen a mutated plant before!"
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