The two teams travelled one in front of the other, always maintaining a distance that was neither too close nor too far.
Jiang Jingchao told Gu Yicheng about this and asked for his opinion.
After listening, Gu Yicheng rubbed his temples. His expression was cold and indifferent, and his tone carried a sense of unconcern. “Let them be. As long as they don’t get too close, ignore them.”
After the apocalypse broke out, the number of humans had dropped sharply. Now that more than two months had passed, it would already be very good if even one-tenth of the global population remained.
The current situation was that there were more zombies than humans. If they wanted to eliminate these zombies, relying on one person or one team alone would not work. It required all of humanity to work together. That meant reducing casualties on the human side as much as possible.
So as long as these people did not do anything excessive and anger them, Gu Yicheng would turn a blind eye and leave them a path to survival.
Jiang Jingchao understood. After knowing Brother Gu’s intentions, he no longer mentioned the team behind them in front of him.
However, that team had previously sent over two female ability users in a row. Although Jiang Jingchao had been busy repairing the engine at the time, he had still noticed it. As for what those people had been planning, he could guess it with ease.
Jiang Jingchao disliked teams that used schemes like this very much, especially when their schemes were aimed at them. Because of that, he had no favourable impression of those people either. There was a limit to everything. If they had not later behaved sensibly, stopped coming over, and obediently stayed behind them, he would have driven them away before Brother Gu even needed to speak.
…
Ruan Ning was still in the same car as Gu Yicheng.
She had been frightened by Gu Yicheng’s actions earlier, and because of that, she had become especially timid. Whenever she encountered something beyond what she could bear, she would temporarily turn into an ostrich, only returning to normal after she had thought things through.
For example, right now, she did not dare suddenly change cars and sit somewhere far away from Gu Yicheng. She was afraid the man beside her would notice something was wrong, and then something like what had happened at noon would happen again.
Her little heart was quite fragile right now. If it happened again, she might truly be unable to withstand so much.
Although Ruan Ning was still sitting in the car, her mind had long since drifted somewhere unknown. She wished the area around her could turn into a vacuum. Even her breathing was careful. After getting into the car, she had not said a single word. She silently curled up in the back seat alone, closed her eyes, and pretended to be resting. She did not want anyone to come over and talk to her.
She had already tried very hard to selectively forget what had happened at noon. But sometimes, the more you wanted to forget something, the more impossible it became.
Ahhhhhh! She dared to guarantee it! At that time, he had definitely not simply wanted to help her remove a fallen leaf.
Ruan Ning could swear this on all the romance novels she had read over the years.
But this discovery was not something worth being happy about at all, okay? Ruan Ning had been dazed over it for quite a while. She simply could not believe that Gu Yicheng actually harboured those kinds of thoughts toward her.
It was like one day, you suddenly discovered that a handsome man had feelings for you and was only close to you—but then there was an extra condition attached: you thought your close relationship was only because you were siblings, but it turned out he actually wanted to pursue you. That completely changed the nature of things! Damn it!!
Ruan Ning felt a trace of suffocation from this.
Her impression of Gu Yicheng had always remained at the level of someone calm and self-controlled, gentle toward his own people and cold toward outsiders. Along the way, he had led the team, and no matter how dangerous the situation they encountered, he had always kept a calm mind and led everyone through each danger in an orderly manner. It could be said that if Gu Yicheng had not led the team, relying only on the rest of them to travel all the way from S City would probably not have gone as smoothly as it had now.
She simply could not imagine that someone like him would actually fall for her!
Because of this, even now, Ruan Ning still believed there must be some kind of misunderstanding.
Maybe, perhaps, probably, he did have a tiny bit of that kind of thought toward her…
Whenever Ruan Ning remembered the way Gu Yicheng had looked at her at noon, those dark eyes seeming as if they wanted to pull her entirely inside and drown her within them, she could not lie to herself and say she had overthought it. So she could only tearfully admit this matter.
But this could be explained… right?
Maybe he had not clearly distinguished between sibling affection and romantic love? In reality, his care and affection toward her might also be the kind between siblings, only he had misunderstood it himself and mistaken an older brother’s fondness for his younger sister as something else. Or maybe it was because they were usually so close, and she was the only girl in the team. He had no other opportunities to interact with other women besides her. With no comparison, he had developed those kinds of thoughts toward her in this kind of atmosphere?
Actually, if she counted carefully on her fingers, Ruan Ning felt that she did not know how to cook, her zombie-killing skills had been taught to her by him hand by hand, and she was not particularly brave. Apart from this overly beautiful face, she basically had no other especially outstanding strengths.
—Could Gu Yicheng be obsessed with looks? No, that did not seem right either. The original owner had looked like this before too. If he had feelings from the very beginning, then when the apocalypse broke out, she would not have needed to worry so much. At that time, he had even turned off his phone. Ruan Ning had really been furious about that.
Ruan Ning really wanted to say: how exactly had he strayed onto the wrong path and fallen for his own younger sister? But that felt too much like insulting herself, so in the end, she could only give up.
Yes, Ruan Ning was still trying hard to find excuses for Gu Yicheng’s behaviour. But the results were not very ideal. She felt that the reasons she came up with one after another simply could not stand. In the face of the facts, they seemed especially pale and powerless.
But Ruan Ning really could not immediately accept this change. The identity of older brother and younger sister had already been maintained for more than two months. If she suddenly had to be together with him as lovers now, she always felt that between the two of them, there was a kind of incestuous feeling.
At least, for the current Ruan Ning, she found it a little difficult to accept. As for what would happen in the future, that would have to wait until the future. Who could think that far ahead?
On the other side.
The worry on the middle-aged man’s face grew heavier and heavier.
At first, things were still fine. Although dealing with scattered zombies here and there was exhausting, because they had benefited from the team ahead, there had not been too many casualties.
However, after entering the urban area, as the number of zombies increased, they gradually began to struggle. Although they were following the same route as the team ahead, that group remained completely unharmed, while their casualties inevitably began to rise.
Fortunately, every time they thought that Yancheng Base was already close at hand, they were able to force themselves to endure and continue.
**
Ruan Ning thought for the entire afternoon and finally made two plans for herself. Both plans would be carried out at the same time.
One was to make Gu Yicheng fully realise that she was only his younger sister. The other was to give him more opportunities to meet other women. That way, he would know that his previous thoughts were actually all an illusion.
Ruan Ning tried all kinds of methods for the first plan. It was not that the effect was insignificant—it was that it was completely useless! Because however Gu Yicheng usually treated her, he continued to treat her the same way now. There was not the slightest abnormality to be seen. Ruan Ning quickly suffered defeat.
The second plan had no conditions for implementation. They were either killing zombies or driving on the road. There was simply no chance for him to meet other women. There were some women in the team behind them, but they had already been rejected by Gu Yicheng before.
Just like that, amid constant testing and inner conflict, when they arrived at Yancheng Base the next afternoon, Ruan Ning completely gave up struggling.
Whatever happens, happens. Fine, she would stop caring!
However, Ruan Ning’s earlier abnormal behaviour still attracted the attention of the others in the team.
Even Lin Yang asked her whether she had run into some problem recently. He said she suddenly felt strange as a whole, and told her that if anything had happened, she could ask everyone for help and discuss a solution together. She absolutely should not be polite just because she felt embarrassed. As long as there was anything he could help with, she should just say it.
Ruan Ning: “…” She would rather choose to collapse and die on the spot. How was she supposed to say this out loud?
…
By this point in the development of Huaxia’s safe bases, entering a base no longer meant that the base would provide survivors with free food. Instead, survivors had to hand over a certain amount of food before they could enter.
Yancheng Base was the same.
However, after handing over one portion of supplies, an ability user could also bring in one ordinary person for free. That person did not need to hand over supplies. This was also a preferential policy implemented by the base to attract ability users. Its purpose was to allow the family members of ability users to save some supplies and draw the ability users in.
To participate in this benefit, one had to prove their identity as an ability user and also have their ability level tested. The Morning Light Squad did not lack the supplies needed for a dozen or so people to enter. Besides, among them, there were only a few who were not ability users. Therefore, they did not get involved just to save food.
They directly took another passage, handed over the supplies, completed the inspection, and entered.
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