After Nightfall
At first, Ruan Ning thought that someone would come looking for the male lead to fight that night. She was both anxious and excited, lying on the bed unable to sleep. She kept playing with her phone, occasionally walking around the living room and glancing down the stairs to see if the group of people had arrived.
However, several hours passed, and it was almost midnight. The hallway was so quiet that not even a single footstep could be heard.
Could it be that the big man’s mutant brother didn’t come after all?
In the days of the apocalypse, with no entertainment activities, Ruan Ning had long gotten used to going to bed early. Eventually, she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore and leaned against the bedhead to sleep.
She thought that with the commotion from the fight, she would definitely wake up in time to watch.
A sleepless night passed. When Ruan Ning woke up again, it was already daylight outside.
“……”
Ruan Ning had been worried that someone might show up in the middle of the night, so she hadn’t even taken off her coat and had just fallen asleep with her head propped against the bedhead. After waking up, she found herself lying peacefully in bed, covered with a blanket.
Ruan Ning mumbled, “Did I get cold in the middle of the night and pull the blanket over myself?” She had never been a sound sleeper at night, so this kind of thing was actually possible for her to do.
After a quick wash in the bedroom’s bathroom, Ruan Ning changed into a new outfit and went out to the living room. However, she didn’t see the male lead there. Instead, she heard some movement coming from the kitchen, so she followed the sound.
On the dining table, there was porridge and several small dishes. Before the apocalypse, these might not have seemed like much, but after the apocalypse, they could be considered a hearty breakfast.
Having slept well through the night, Ruan Ning was in high spirits. As soon as she smelled the food, she felt her hunger kick in. She pulled out a chair and sat down, looking at the food with sparkling eyes. “It smells so good.”
“The porridge on the table is just out of the pot, so it’s still too hot to drink. You’ll have to wait a bit,” Gu Yicheng said as he walked out of the kitchen holding a cup of freshly warmed milk. When he saw Ruan Ning staring at the food on the table, a faint smile appeared on his lips.
“Drink this cup of milk first,” he said, handing her the cup.
“Thank you, brother,” she said, touching the side of the cup. It was still warm.
Ruan Ning was a short girl, less than 1.6 meters tall, and being around a bunch of taller people in the team made her feel particularly self-conscious.
She knew her body was indeed a bit short, but she was only seventeen, so she still had a few more years to grow. So, these days, Ruan Ning made sure to drink a glass of milk every morning and night. She didn’t like it cold and preferred it warm, not too hot. The people in her team knew about this habit.
However, Ruan Ning was still a little surprised that the male lead had gone out of his way to prepare warm milk for her this morning. The temperature was just right.
This made her feel both flattered and a little surprised.
Growing taller was currently the third most important thing to Ruan Ning after survival and strengthening her abilities. Although she was starting to get tired of drinking milk every day, she still drank it up quickly, frowning and finishing the whole cup in three quick sips.
Once the milk was finished, the porridge on the table had cooled down enough, and Ruan Ning happily ate the thick, soft millet porridge, even adding several spoons of sugar to it.
The good thing about staying in a safe base was that the pace of life slowed down. In the mornings, they had time to enjoy a steaming hot breakfast.
“By the way, brother, I accidentally fell asleep last night and didn’t hear any noise.” Ruan Ning still had the matter on her mind and asked, “So, did that group of people come last night?” She hoped she hadn’t missed any exciting scenes. Probably not, right?
Given Ruan Ning’s habit of pacing back and forth in the living room every few hours during the first half of the night, Gu Yicheng certainly knew exactly when she fell asleep.
He replied, “They didn’t come.”
“Oh, that’s good then.” Ruan Ning felt a bit strange. According to normal story development, things like trouble-making should happen the same day, and the antagonists would have come looking for trouble by now. Could it be that the mutant brother was too busy treating his brother’s hand injury? Or maybe they couldn’t find their place?
But it was good that they hadn’t come. What if they had brought too many people, and the male lead couldn’t handle them? She didn’t want him to get hurt. After all, Gu Yicheng was the only one around who could protect her and teach her how to fight. Ruan Ning definitely didn’t want him to get into trouble.
Ruan Ning had a good appetite today, finishing all the porridge in her bowl without wasting any. Noticing that Gu Yicheng seemed in a good mood, she decided to change the subject from last night’s incident and asked something she was more curious about. “Brother, what are we planning to do today?” By the way, she still didn’t know why the male lead had brought her here.
Gu Yicheng answered, “We’re looking for someone.”
“Are we looking for Chaozi’s family?” Since they were looking for someone, Ruan Ning assumed it must be Chaozi’s family. She asked, “Why didn’t you bring the others along to look?”
Such an exciting solo mission made Ruan Ning think the male lead must have something important to do, but she didn’t expect it to just be to find someone. There was no need to hide this from the others. After all, they had come to Base 3 to help Lin Jingchao find his family.
“We’re not looking for Chaozi’s family,” Gu Yicheng said, now that he had a lead, he didn’t hide this from Ruan Ning. “We’re looking for a healer-type ability user.”
“A healer-type ability user?”
Ruan Ning wasn’t surprised that the male lead knew a healer-type mutant. Later, a healer-type mutant named Su Yunjin joined the male lead’s team. She remembered him as a sixteen-year-old boy who had joined the team younger than her.
Now, it seemed the male lead was trying to recruit this mutant healer into his team?
Though healer-type mutants didn’t have any offensive abilities themselves, even when they advanced, they didn’t gain offensive powers like space-type mutants. Their role in a team was just as important as that of a mutant with strong offensive abilities.
In the apocalypse, even high-level mutants capable of taking on ten opponents at once couldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t get injured.
Healers, however, could heal external wounds in a short period of time, and once they reached a certain level, they could even regrow lost limbs.
If they could recruit such a mutant into their team, it would be like having an additional lifeline.
But healer-type mutants were extremely rare, even rarer than space-type mutants. In fact, there were probably less than five healer-type mutants in China, and healing also took longer to upgrade. Since zombies couldn’t awaken this type of ability, healing mutations could only be upgraded slowly through ordinary transparent crystal cores.
Compared to that, Ruan Ning thought her healing ability was more convenient and powerful. She had experimented twice when she was injured, and she could absorb any type of crystal core and still heal effectively.
It was a pity that the male lead didn’t let her experiment with others, as she suspected she could heal others just as well as she healed herself. If that was the case, Ruan Ning could be a high-level healer the moment she appeared.
Ruan Ning had a feeling that her situation would either make her a highly sought-after person or a test subject in a lab.
She wasn’t interested in being the former but was definitely afraid of being the latter.
In this case, having a strong background was quite necessary. Unfortunately, in this world, all her relationships came from the original owner’s connections, and there were very few people she could rely on. So, she had to establish a good relationship with the male lead.
After all, he was her protector.
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