Not far from the entrance of Yancheng Base.
Outside a shed on the outskirts of the base, there was a temporary living area built for survivors who could not afford the supplies required to enter. There were several of these places. Chen Ying’er, dressed in rags, lived in one of the broken-down, draughty sheds.
She had just finished one transaction and had only received a small, dry piece of bread. Yet she treated it like a treasure, stuffing it into her mouth ravenously like a starving ghost reincarnated. Here, no matter how much food you got, it only truly belonged to you once you swallowed it into your stomach. Otherwise, the people around you would snatch it away. They would not leave you even a little.
Chen Ying’er had arrived at Yancheng Base a week ago, but because she could not hand over food, she had been stranded outside the entire time. At first, she had thought of saving enough supplies outside and then entering, but she soon discovered that any food she obtained would be stolen if she did not eat it immediately. Staying in this place, it was impossible to save food. Gradually, she developed the same habit as everyone around her: directly stuffing food into her stomach.
And even now, she still had not been able to enter the base.
After Chen Ying’er finished devouring the bread, she got up and walked toward the base entrance. This was where the most people came and went every day. She wanted to see if she could run into a few more pieces of business. When people entering and leaving the base passed by Chen Ying’er and smelled the sour stench on her body, they hurriedly covered their noses and moved far away, as though afraid of catching some kind of virus from her.
As Chen Ying’er wandered around, she vaguely heard the name Ruan Ning near her ear, and her movements could not help slowing.
…Ruan Ning?
Was it the Ruan Ning she knew?
Chen Ying’er’s journey had been especially rough. When the apocalypse broke out, she had been at school. Many classmates around her were infected and turned into zombies. She followed the others at school, hiding here and there. After being trapped for nearly half a month, they finally waited until the rescue team from S City’s safe zone came to the school and rescued the surviving students.
However, at the school gate, they encountered a zombie horde again. She had almost been caught by a zombie, and only escaped disaster by quickly hiding behind another classmate.
After arriving at S City’s safe zone, she stayed there for only a few days before running into her rich second-generation boyfriend. Chen Ying’er thought her good days were about to begin, because not only did her boyfriend have two tall, sturdy bodyguards carrying electric batons, he had also established a team with several ability users. He himself was also an ability user.
Without thinking much, she agreed to leave S City’s safe zone with her boyfriend and go to the neighbouring province to find his family. Although Chen Ying’er had no ability, she ate and used the best things in the team because she was the girlfriend of the team captain. This treatment was much better than collecting supplies with the school team and then having everything divided equally afterwards. Moreover, as the team grew larger, quite a few people began flattering her. Chen Ying’er’s vanity was greatly satisfied.
But the good days did not last. She never expected that not long after one of the bodyguards awakened an ability, he developed evil intentions and persuaded many team members to join his side. He wanted to seize the captain’s position and the team’s supplies.
In the end, her boyfriend was the one who lost. Chen Ying’er was faced with two choices: follow the original team or leave the team with her boyfriend. After thinking about it, she eventually stayed with the larger team. There were only a few people on the other side, and they had no supplies. In the apocalypse, they simply would not survive.
Although she stayed, her status in the team plummeted, and people would often come over to mock her. Once, when a man with foul breath tried to climb into her bed in the middle of the night and assault her, Chen Ying’er knocked him unconscious and ran away under cover of darkness.
After escaping from the team, she regretted not leaving with her boyfriend back then. At least he had genuinely treated her well and would not have let her suffer such humiliation. Later, she finally encountered another team on the road, but who would have thought that in that team, women were treated like goods? They were even more beastly than the previous group. She had tried to struggle and escape, but they watched her very closely, so she could not get away. In the end, when a zombie horde attacked their camp, she took advantage of the chaos as they fled and hid inside a box, escaping once again.
After that, she followed different teams along the way and eventually arrived in H Province. During this time, she had slept with others and had even been used as bait to lure zombies away.
But perhaps even the heavens felt that her life should not end yet. After going through all of this several times, she still did not die. The most serious incident was when she had starved on the road for three days and nights. In the end, she was picked up by a passing team.
However, after that team arrived at Yancheng Base and heard that everyone had to hand over supplies to enter, they abandoned some unnecessary ordinary people. She was one of those abandoned.
Life outside the base was miserable. Seeing the people entering and leaving the base looking like proper human beings while she herself was barely clothed, even having to worry that zombies might rush out at any moment if she went too far away to use the toilet, she felt hatred! She felt unwilling! Why, after finally surviving, did she still have to live like this?!
No matter how resentful and unwilling Chen Ying’er was, she had no way to escape this environment. She did not dare kill herself, could not beat the men or other women living in the sheds, and certainly could not beat the armed guards. She could only continue being bullied and survive by selling her body.
This difficult and bitter life had made her entire person numb. Hearing a familiar name so suddenly, Chen Ying’er could barely react at first. She remembered that among her classmates before the apocalypse, there had indeed been someone called Ruan Ning.
Chen Ying’er was certain she had not misheard. A trace of excitement appeared on her face. She hurriedly searched the surrounding crowd for someone she might recognise. She remembered that Ruan Ning looked… remembered…
In the direction the voice had come from, there was only one girl wearing a hat, her face unclear, who most closely matched Chen Ying’er’s impression of Ruan Ning. But this person was standing among a group of people. Their clothes were clean, and she stood among them as if surrounded by stars around the moon.
A team like this was not something she could provoke… If she recognised the wrong person, she definitely would not have a good ending. Chen Ying’er had once thought about doing business with ability users, since they should be able to give more food, but before she could even get close, she had been kicked away by that man. Her chest had hurt for several days because of it. After that lesson, she never dared approach ability users again.
Fear rose in Chen Ying’er’s heart, but her desire to enter the base had already become an obsession. She felt that as long as she could enter the base, she could escape her current life.
She would try. Just once.
She jogged toward that direction, shouting as she ran, “Ruan Ning! Ruan Ning!! I’m your classmate Chen Ying’er! Look at me!” She used all her strength to shout at the team ahead, hoping that person would hear her words.
But she was one step too late. That team had already quickly entered the base.
She wanted to get a little closer, but because she had not handed over supplies, several guards at the entrance immediately stopped her outside the base. In the end, she could only watch helplessly as they entered.
Chen Ying’er was thrown to the ground by the guards like a pile of mud. Her eyes widened roundly. Thinking of what had just happened, her expression became somewhat twisted.
Just a little! Just a tiny bit! She could have used this person to enter the base.
They had all been classmates in the same class before. Since she was living so well now, it should not be too much to ask her to pay a little bit of supplies to let her enter the base, right?!
Why couldn’t she walk a little slower? Why?! Why did she still walk so fast when she heard someone calling her?!
Zhou Yu stopped walking and frowned as she looked at the filthy, barely clothed woman on the ground.
Zhou Yu remembered that she seemed to have heard Captain Gu call his younger sister “Ningning” that time. And just now, this woman had been chasing after that team the whole time.
So this woman knew Captain Gu’s younger sister?
Zhou Yu was not certain. She stood a few steps away from her and looked down at the woman. “Do you know that girl from just now?”
Chen Ying’er looked up and saw only a bright and capable-looking woman in short boots standing beside her, her manner proud and lofty.
“Hey, I’m asking whether you know that girl from just now.” Thinking she had not heard, Zhou Yu patiently repeated herself.
After Chen Ying’er understood who she was asking about, she quickly nodded and said, “I know her, I know her! Before the apocalypse, we were classmates. We had an especially good relationship!”
“Unfortunately, she didn’t hear me calling her just now. Otherwise, she definitely would have turned back to find me.” Chen Ying’er lowered her head slightly, her eyes flickering.
In reality, her relationship with Ruan Ning had been very ordinary. Ruan Ning was too beautiful. Anyone standing beside her would be reduced to green leaves by comparison. So the girls in class usually avoided her. Chen Ying’er had been the same.
Zhou Yu knew the base’s policy. She thought that since she could bring in one ordinary person for free anyway, if this woman really had a good relationship with Captain Gu’s younger sister, helping her might earn her a favour. So she said, “In that case, come into the base with me.”
Although their team had reached Yancheng Base, their losses had become even more severe. The team that originally had over thirty people had suddenly fallen to fewer than twenty. Who could have imagined that when they had just left A City, their team had had more than a hundred people?
This time, the reason more than a dozen people had survived the journey through the city was because they had benefited from following the team ahead.
The team’s overall strength was getting worse and worse. After Zhou Yu entered the base, for the sake of her future development, she definitely had to prepare to find another team. But since she had only just arrived, a good team would probably find it difficult to accept someone like her, whose speed ability was not very attack-oriented. Captain Gu’s team was currently her best choice. That previous failure had left her with no idea how to approach them, but Captain Gu’s younger sister might be a breakthrough point.
Chen Ying’er had thought Zhou Yu only wanted to ask about Ruan Ning, so she deliberately said she knew her very well. She had planned to ask for some food in return when Zhou Yu questioned her further. Now that Zhou Yu was actually willing to bring her into the base, she felt as if a grand prize had fallen into her lap.
When the wind blew, Zhou Yu could not stand the sharp smell coming from Chen Ying’er’s body. She said, “Follow me,” then covered her nose and turned away.
Afraid that this person would regret it, Chen Ying’er hurriedly jogged after her.
**
When Ruan Ning entered the base, she kept feeling as though someone was calling her name from behind.
But she did not pay much attention to it and continued walking forward with the team. This was H Province, so far from S City. How could there possibly be anyone who knew the original owner? She must have misheard.
The later the apocalypse went on, the greater the “wealth gap” between survivors in the safe bases became. Some people could eat all kinds of canned meat, food cooked by chefs, and even fresh fruit. Others found even one piece of bread a day to be a luxury.
Every time this happened, Ruan Ning felt very grateful that she had been lucky enough to encounter a team like the Morning Light Squad, and that she also had her own space and healing ability.
…
As usual, they rented a villa in the base and moved in.
Aunt Jiang had Uncle Jiang with her, while Ruan Ning was alone, so this time, she once again had a room to herself.
The villa had three floors and eight rooms. There was plenty of space, so everyone could live wherever they wanted. Ruan Ning chose the room at the very edge of the second floor.
“Everyone, rest properly in the base for the next few days.” Gu Yicheng casually said a few words, then let everyone go rest. After travelling so hard these past few days, everyone was very tired.
Everyone was excited to arrive at the base. Their long-standing tension could finally relax a little, allowing them to rest properly for a while. Even usually calm people like Xue Chen had a trace of a happy smile on their faces.
After getting through the most chaotic period, the base’s infrastructure recovered very quickly. They were even researching a method to use crystal cores instead of diesel for power generation. Coincidentally, Yancheng Base was the first base to develop this. However, the machine was still an early-generation product. Its consumption was high, and its conversion rate was not good. It required quite a lot of crystal cores to produce one unit of electricity. Right now, not many people in the entire base could afford to use it.
Still, this research into using crystal cores as an energy source was indeed a major leap forward for this period.
Later on, even in the apocalypse, as long as you had crystal cores and enough supplies, you could live almost no differently from before the apocalypse.
So even at night, Yancheng Base could still use electricity.
However, because it was a new project, the cost was not low, so very few people could use it. After dark, only the villa district had some lights. Everywhere else remained pitch-black, illuminated only by moonlight overhead.
That night, Ruan Ning stayed alone in her room. Around seven o’clock, she heard a knock on the door.
She had just finished taking a bath in the bathroom and changed into clean clothes. When she opened the door, she saw Gu Yicheng standing outside. He was holding a cup of hot milk in his hand.
“Brother?”
During this period, whether they were on the road or elsewhere, he would prepare a cup of hot milk for her every night. But these past two days, because Ruan Ning had been avoiding him, she had even forgotten about this matter.
Gu Yicheng handed the cup to her with a normal expression. Ruan Ning felt a little guilty. Holding the cup, she immediately took two sips, her gaze drifting as she did not dare look at him.
Every time he delivered the milk, he would leave afterwards. But today, he still stood at the door, quietly looking at her without saying anything.
Ruan Ning raised her eyes to look at the person in front of her. Her eyes seemed to speak, silently asking him what was wrong.
Gu Yicheng took a step forward with his long legs, entered the room, and closed the door behind him. The corner of his lips carried a smile. “If Ningning has questions in her heart, why not ask me directly? As long as it’s something you want to know, I can tell you everything honestly.”
“I-I don’t have any questions.” Ruan Ning’s body reacted faster than her mind. She quickly shook her head, and a bad feeling suddenly welled up in her heart.
Gu Yicheng had seen everything the young girl had done these past two days. If she had remained completely unaware, he would have waited until they reached the capital before telling her about this matter. But now, she clearly already knew, and she even wanted to escape from his side and do unnecessary things. This was something Gu Yicheng absolutely would not allow.
She belonged to him.
In Gu Yicheng’s ink-black eyes, there was only the person before him.
“You thought correctly. I do indeed have feelings for you.”
His deep, magnetic voice was especially clear in the empty night-time corridor.
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