PSW - Chapter 52
Chapter 52
“Why are you trying to make me leave? Did I disappoint you?” Yu Yinan was in great pain; she didn’t understand. Zheng Yi had clearly been willing to take her along before! Was it because of what she said in the forest that disgusted Zheng Yi? Or was it because she was too weak and useless last night, making Zheng Yi feel she had lost her last bit of value?
But, but she had clearly heard… was it an auditory hallucination?
“Of course not, Jiejie, calm down. You did very well.” Zheng Yi said with a smile, “You should have more confidence in yourself. I’m just offering you a suggestion, my dear. You should know, staying by my side… isn’t a good choice.”
Yu Yinan stared fixedly at Zheng Yi, at the smile on her face, at how she spoke those words as if discussing the weather, all while soaking vermicelli in her hands.
Somehow, the scorching flames from last night seemed to burn up from her heart. Yu Yinan suddenly grabbed Zheng Yi’s wrist, forcing her to stop what she was doing. “Don’t smile. Don’t call me Jiejie. Zheng Yi, look at me. Call me by my name. If I don’t leave, what will you do? Kill me right here?”
Zheng Yi’s expression faded. She looked at her and suddenly sighed softly, “I’m giving you a chance, Yu Yinan.”
“So you want to go to hell that badly? The Zheng Yi you like isn’t there.”
“…Yes, I really can’t tell the difference. I don’t know, I don’t understand. I’ve never experienced what it’s like to like someone, what it’s like to have my heart flutter. I have no family, no friends. I don’t understand.” Yu Yinan tightened her grip on Zheng Yi’s wrist. Trembling slightly, she asked, both unwilling to give up and bold, “Are you angry that I fell for the fake you?”
Zheng Yi just looked at her, her gaze indifferent, not moved or angered in the slightest.
Yu Yinan deflated. She let go of her hand and said self-mockingly, “I don’t want any chance.”
“I know you are you. You are Zheng Yi.” Yu Yinan said this futilely. She wanted to explain, but it seemed powerless. In truth, Grandma Xu was very kind, and Chu Yi had a good impression of her too. If she stayed at the shelter, Yu Yinan could make new friends and meet other ability users. That would probably be a good life. The shelter was still under construction and would only get better and better. At least for ability users, it offered security.
She knew the old Zheng Yi was a disguise, that she didn’t exist. That warmth and support were both real and fake. The real Zheng Yi didn’t care about her that much, but she didn’t care about anyone. She was like the uncatchable wind—not even some hard-to-melt ice. She was simply the wind.
“I just… want to be a little closer to the real you.”
Zheng Yi went back to making her vermicelli soup. She methodically scooped the vermicelli out and placed it in cold water, then reheated the pot, whisked in an egg to create egg drops, added the vermicelli and greens together, and then sprinkled in the seasoning.
A bubbling sound arose, and rising steam lingered in the air.
“Aren’t you in pain?”
“…” Yu Yinan stared at her blankly. Pain, yes, pain… “I want the pain you give me.” She was intoxicated by the kiss from the real Zheng Yi, her heart fluttered at their embrace. She longed for Zheng Yi’s touch and hoped to gain her approval. She… she would become an independent person, she would face everything, and she wanted to fight for… to catch the uncatchable one.
She was always sincere.
A steaming bowl of vegetable and egg vermicelli was placed on the table. Zheng Yi took out a pair of chopsticks and handed them to her. “Eat.”
“Let’s continue the mission after the rain stops.” There was plenty of time, anyway.
“…Okay.” Yu Yinan took the chopsticks, sat down at the table, picked up some vermicelli, blew on it, and began to eat. She quietly glanced up at Zheng Yi’s expression and saw that Zheng Yi had also filled her own bowl in a perfectly ordinary manner and sat down to eat.
Was she giving her a chance?
She mulled over Zheng Yi’s words again and again.
Perhaps this was Zheng Yi giving her a chance to walk away safely, knowing her secret.
She would let her go, in every sense of the word.
Painful, cruel, repetitive…
She would leave, and then return to a normal apocalyptic life? Perhaps compared to being with Zheng Yi, life in the shelter counted as a normal apocalyptic life?
The bok choy was sweet, crisp, and tender. Eaten with the vermicelli after soaking up the broth, it was a delight to both body and soul. Yu Yinan finished the last of her noodles, then lifted the bowl and drank every last drop of the soup.
“We’re still the Two-Person Squad,” Yu Yinan said. “I choose you.”
As she wished, Zheng Yi just nodded and didn’t bring up the topic again.
After eating and drinking her fill, some color finally returned to Yu Yinan’s face. She clenched her fists. Last night’s rain hadn’t been completely useless; she could feel her own power growing. Zheng Yi hadn’t lied to her.
“I want to keep standing in the rain to hone my ability. Is that okay?”
Zheng Yi glanced at her. “As long as you can take it.”
“I’ll be going out later too. If you get hungry, eat the fruit and biscuits. These are for you.” Zheng Yi placed a bag of compressed biscuits and a bottle of mineral water on the table. “Don’t worry about me.”
Yu Yinan instinctively wanted to ask where Zheng Yi was going, but the words that came out were: “Be safe.”
She tucked the things from the table into her clothes, took out the four fruits from yesterday, and wanted to share them with Zheng Yi, but saw Zheng Yi wave her hand. “You eat them. I’m leaving now.”
“Okay.” Yu Yinan put the fruits back in her pocket, took one out, wiped it, and took a bite. It was full of juice. She watched Zheng Yi walk out the door, and the sweet juice in her mouth suddenly turned sour and bitter. She lowered her gaze, swallowed, and quickly finished the fruit. Then, pulling herself together, she also headed outside.
The rain was still falling. She stepped into it, and the burning sting once again spread across her skin with each drop. She looked into the distance but couldn’t see any sign of Zheng Yi.
Yu Yinan closed her eyes for a moment, then quickly focused her mind, trying to block out the omnipresent pain, and began to gather her flames.
Zheng Yi found an open spot, placed several buckets directly on the ground, and focused, controlling the rain in the air and directing all of it into the buckets.
[So you came out just to collect rainwater.] Zero One thought for a moment and concluded that this rainwater was quite useful. If the rain stopped, at least Yu Yinan could still take a bath in it if she wanted to continue using it to get stronger.
Once the buckets were full, Zheng Yi raised her hand and used her ability to push the rain away. She then took out the truck and placed the buckets, filled to the brim with rainwater, in a corner.
After doing all this, Zheng Yi glanced at Sugui Mountain from a distance. She wondered what kind of changes the mutated plants would undergo after this heavy rain.
She had no interest in going there twice in a short period. She just noted the location, planning to wait for the mutated plants to develop a bit more. It wouldn’t be too late to harvest them once they were a little more mature.
During this heavy rain, zombies in many places tilted their heads back and let out long roars, causing the ordinary zombies around them to submit and draw near, all while being drenched by the downpour.
There were also mutated beasts that writhed on the ground in pain, viciously gnawing their own flesh and blood as they thrashed and struggled in the downpour.
Shelters and survivor camps everywhere faced this second great rain. Many ordinary people, with death in their eyes, ran recklessly into the rain, even opening their mouths to the sky to drink the downpour. There were also ability users who, after accidentally getting touched by the rain, convulsed in pain and hid back inside, terrified and unwilling to take another step out.
Most of these shelters collected the rainwater. Those with the means had already begun to study it—though with everything destroyed and tools scarce, progress was extremely difficult.
A full day and night of rain caused plants to grow wildly, making many shelters that had planted crops ecstatic. Some people even put on raincoats, endured the occasional burning pain from accidental contact, and began to plow and sow seeds through the night, hoping for a miracle.
The heavy rain finally stopped on the last night, and the sky cleared. The people, filled with anticipation, came to the planting area, only to fall into deep thought as they stared at the overturned, messy, damp soil and the clear drag marks.
The potatoes and sweet potatoes had grown legs and run away. Even the newly sprouted fruit trees had grown legs and run away. Although some seedlings remained, their growth speed was nowhere near that of the mutated plants that had fled.
“…How can fully grown potatoes grow legs and run away? Aren’t mutated plants still plants? How can they grow legs and run away?!” An ability user from this unlucky shelter refused to accept reality. He clutched his head. “A cooked duck can really fly away, and potatoes can grow legs and run. What kind of apocalypse is this?”
“Wood-type! Where are the wood-type ability users? Gather all of them! The tracks are still here. No matter how fast the plants can run, they can’t have gone far. We have to find them!”
“Mutated plants are still plants. Wood-type ability users can definitely control them.”
“Boss! Boss, forget about the potatoes! Someone among the ordinary people turned into a zombie and has already bitten several people! Xiao Zhang from the healing department was over there treating a child with a fever, and he got bitten too!”
“What?! Didn’t I say to isolate everyone who was in the rain?”
But now, it was too late for any of that.
The sky cleared after the rain, marking a new beginning for the apocalypse.
It also triggered new turmoil in many shelters and survivor camps.
The heavy rain ended, and the temperature rose rapidly. The weather, which had previously required a jacket to ward off the cold, suddenly became so warm that even a single layer of clothing felt hot.
Yu Yinan rode the motorcycle with Zheng Yi, wearing only a thin long-sleeved shirt. They moved quickly through various areas with Zheng Yi, clearing out the zombies. During this time, they also encountered mutated beasts, likely former pets from the city before the apocalypse. Although mutated, you could still see traces of “cats,” “dogs,” or “guinea pigs” in them.
If a typical squad of ability users had encountered these mutated beasts, it probably would have taken them some effort to deal with them. But they encountered Zheng Yi, so their fate was no different from the ordinary zombies before them. Even the subsequent cremation of their corpses was exactly the same treatment.
[Didn’t you want to tame a mutated beast?] Seeing how decisively Zheng Yi killed it, Zero One couldn’t help but recall the mutated beast they had met during the extreme cold period.
‘Too stupid, too weak.’ Zheng Yi glanced at the decapitated zombie dog. There wasn’t a single good patch of flesh on its body, and maggots were squirming under its belly.
‘Too ugly.’
[…]
Zero One watched as Yu Yinan quickly cremated the zombie dog’s corpse, while Zheng Yi, with a compassionate expression, clasped her hands together and chanted a mantra for the dead over the body in the flames. It observed that Yu Yinan was painstakingly trying to memorize the specific words Zheng Yi was chanting. Zero One reasonably suspected that Yu Yinan also wanted to memorize the mantra to help Zheng Yi perform her saintly rites for the dead.
But Yu Yinan didn’t make any requests of Zheng Yi. It seemed she had really sobered up quite a bit.
After the cremation was complete, Yu Yinan added the final details to the map, straddled the motorcycle, and waited for Zheng Yi to get on.
“When we get back to the shelter, I want to stay for a few more days,” Yu Yinan said suddenly. “Chu Yi mentioned before that the shelter is building a school and a library. I want to go check out the library.”
“Mm,” Zheng Yi acknowledged, wrapping her arms around Yu Yinan’s waist. “Let’s go back.”
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