“……Ahem, Chaozi, why don’t you go first? I’ve never tried this before, so I don’t know how to get down.”
Ruan Ning already had a mild fear of heights, and on top of that, this method of jumping down from a building with nothing but a rope and no other safety measures made her nervous. If there hadn’t still been a Tier Three zombie at the door, she would have backed out long ago.
Hearing this, Jiang Jingchao glanced at the girl beside him. Her lips were pressed tightly together, and a trace of anxiety was hidden in her clear black-and-white eyes. It really did seem like she didn’t dare to go down first.
In Jiang Jingchao’s eyes before the apocalypse, Ruan Ning had been the kind of girl who couldn’t lift anything with her hands or carry anything on her shoulders—delicate, fragile, timid, and very well protected. Back then, one prank from Brother Gu had scared her badly. Even though, apart from that one incident, everyone had kept out of each other’s way and had nothing more to do with one another, every time she saw any one of them, she still avoided them as if they were the plague.
To be honest, the fact that Ruan Ning had managed to encounter zombies this past month without crying or making a fuss, and had even killed zombies together with them, was already enough to make Jiang Jingchao overturn his previous impression of her and see her in a new light.
Also, although Jiang Jingchao usually didn’t talk much, he could tell that Brother Gu now valued this girl far more than he had before. At the very least, the fact that Brother Gu had taken the initiative to bring her along to the Imperial Capital while they were in S City had already surprised both him and Lin Yang.
Jiang Jingchao nodded in agreement. “Okay. I’ll go down first and show you. Watch carefully. When you come down later, don’t rush. Hold the rope tightly and come down slowly. Your safety is the most important thing.”
The thick rope Ruan Ning had taken out from her space was not long enough; it still fell short of the ground by some distance.
However, this rope was not a supply she had collected herself. Back in B City, the other members of the Morning Light Squad had put it with her for safekeeping. Otherwise, how could her space possibly have had such a thing? She had never imagined that one day she would face a situation where she had to jump from a building.
Because the rope was not long enough, after sliding down from above, they needed to step onto the air-conditioning unit beside the first floor and then jump down from there to reach the ground.
To Ruan Ning, this looked extremely dangerous. But Jiang Jingchao did it cleanly and efficiently. In less than half a minute, he had safely reached the first floor.
It didn’t look that hard…
From above, Ruan Ning stared fixedly at every movement Jiang Jingchao made. Seeing him land safely, the tension in her heart eased slightly.
When Jiang Jingchao had thrown the rope downstairs, he had already observed the surrounding environment. The area below this building was an open space. There were no plants, and there was no possibility of being ambushed. It was very safe.
Jiang Jingchao looked around. Only after confirming that everything was fine did he wave for the people above to come down.
Ruan Ning stood on the third-floor windowsill, holding the rope, and took a deep breath.
Someone had already demonstrated it for her. If she still hesitated and refused to go down, wasting time, then there would be no excuse for it.
The others present had given her the chance to escape first. Every extra minute they stayed here meant they had to endure more danger.
So even if Ruan Ning was afraid, she would not hold everyone back. The dormitory door did not look sturdy at all, and the banging at the entrance was becoming more and more violent. If this continued and the Tier Three zombie rushed inside, then the people still in this dormitory would probably be in grave danger.
It was just three floors, wasn’t it? What was there to hesitate about? If others could get down, then so could she!
Ruan Ning steeled her heart, gritted her teeth, and decided to just jump first and worry about everything else later.
The thick rope was sturdy and unlikely to snap, but the friction made her hands burn with pain. She clung tightly to the rope, carefully stepping against the wall and inching downward bit by bit. She had not even made it halfway down before her palms had turned completely red, and her arms ached terribly. She almost lost her grip on the rope.
“Ruan Ning, watch your feet,” Jiang Jingchao suddenly called up to her from below.
“Huh?”
Ruan Ning had probably forgotten to check the almanac before going out today, which was why everything kept going wrong. When Jiang Jingchao had climbed down earlier, nothing had happened at all. It had gone extremely smoothly. But just as she reached the second floor and was about to move toward the air-conditioning unit on the first floor, a slimy, cold, thorn-covered vine suddenly stretched out from the windowsill of the dormitory on the left side of the second floor. Taking advantage of her lack of attention, it wrapped around her ankle.
If Jiang Jingchao had not warned her in time, Ruan Ning probably would not have noticed the vine until it had completely bound her ankle.
When Ruan Ning noticed what had happened, panic rose in her heart. She quickly took a knife out of her space and tried to cut through the vine on her foot. She had personally seen how strong this thing’s blood-sucking ability was. She had not forgotten the unfamiliar young man in the corridor who had been wrapped in vines and bitten by zombies, unable to struggle, nor had she forgotten the many dried corpses neatly piled in the stairwell, dead for who knew how long.
Ruan Ning had no desire to become one of those people who had died miserably.
However, Ruan Ning was currently suspended in mid-air, which made movement difficult. On top of that, she was not very strong. Having to cut at the vine dragging her ankle while also holding tightly onto the rope was a bit too difficult for her. In the end, after her persistent efforts, she did manage to shake off the vine wrapped around her ankle. But because her movements had been too large, the hand gripping the rope slipped, and her entire body dropped straight down.
“Ah!”
Ruan Ning’s mind went blank. She could only instinctively protect her head tightly. She no longer dared to think about whether she was about to break her leg or her arm.
Why did her space have so many supplies, yet somehow not have something lifesaving like an air cushion?!
Even though she knew that the chance of someone dying from a fall from only the second floor was very low, and even if she were unlucky enough to break a leg or an arm, she could quickly heal herself with her healing ability, Ruan Ning was still afraid of pain and death, okay?!
Jiang Jingchao had been standing downstairs watching the whole time. From the moment the person above encountered the vine attack, he had been sweating for her, afraid that if she could not break free from the vine and had her blood drained, or if some other accident happened, he would not know how to explain it to Brother Gu, who was in another building helping him look for his relatives.
Now, seeing that she had failed to hold on properly and was falling from the second floor without any protective measures, he immediately ran over without thinking, intending to catch her.
However, someone was even faster than him. With lightning speed, that person reached her before Jiang Jingchao, who had been standing right under the dormitory building, and caught Ruan Ning as she accidentally fell from the air.
Jiang Jingchao was startled by this guy who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and saved her. Naturally, he would not hand Ruan Ning over to a “stranger,” even if that person had just run over to save her.
However, all those thoughts died down the moment Jiang Jingchao saw the face of the man who had beaten him to it.
Meanwhile, Ruan Ning, who had already expected herself to suffer terribly, waited for a while but did not feel any pain arrive. Instead, she fell into a warm, solid embrace.
It must have been Jiang Jingchao, who had caught her from below, right? At that time, he had been the only person downstairs. Even if Ruan Ning racked her brains, she would never have thought of anyone else.
But then again, why did the scent on Jiang Jingchao’s clothes smell so similar to Gu Yicheng’s?
That time in the S City safe zone, when Ruan Ning had been taken to the factory to kill zombies, she had been injured and had been forcibly carried princess-style by Gu Yicheng, so she still remembered it deeply.
“Ningning, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Just as Ruan Ning struggled to get down from the man’s arms, a slightly anxious voice sounded from above her.
Ruan Ning’s feeling had not been wrong at all.
The person who had caught her in time was precisely Gu Yicheng, whom she had thought could not possibly appear here.
Suddenly hearing that familiar voice beside her ear, Ruan Ning was slightly shocked. She raised her head and looked toward the person who had just saved her. She froze for a moment, then murmured, “Brother?”
“It’s me. I’m here.” Gu Yicheng looked at the girl’s palm, where the rope had rubbed the skin raw, and at her slender ankle, which had been left bruised and purple from the vine’s grip. The hostility rising in his heart was well hidden by him, while a faint trace of worry appeared between his brows.
The sudden fall from the air had badly frightened Ruan Ning, and even now, she had not fully recovered. For some reason, the moment she heard this familiar and gentle voice, her heart turned sour, and tears almost welled up.
It was like a child who had suddenly fallen while walking down the road. When no one was around, even if the fall hurt, they could still get up on their own, pat off the dust, and keep walking. But once someone familiar came over to comfort them, the grievance that burst out from deep within their heart was impossible to hold back.
Gu Yicheng watched her pitiful, aggrieved appearance from the side. For some reason, his heart tightened, and he felt somewhat irritated. “Does the wound hurt?”
“It hurts… But when I fell from above just now, I was especially scared. Luckily, Brother, you came.” She took a step closer and hugged the man in front of her. Her voice was soft and gentle, with a faint trace of grievance hidden within it. Hearing it made one’s heart ache.
When Ruan Ning took the initiative to hug him, Gu Yicheng’s body stiffened for a moment. After a brief pause, he raised his hand and patted her shoulder, comforting her. “It’s all right now. It’s all right. You’re safe now. I won’t let something like this happen again.”
While Ruan Ning’s emotions were still unstable, Xie Fei and Li Bao, who were on the third floor, also slid down the rope one after the other.
When they came down from upstairs, they also encountered the attack from the vines at the second-floor window. However, with Ruan Ning as a warning example, they were prepared. When they faced the same situation, they handled it much more calmly. Although the process was a little dangerous, both of them landed safely and were not injured or frightened.
As for Lin Yang and the other two, who had fallen behind because Gu Yicheng had rushed off to save someone, they had also hurried downstairs right after the sudden incident occurred.
Everyone had arrived.
Ruan Ning had only done something like seeking comfort from an adult, the kind of thing only a child would do, because her emotions had overwhelmed her. In reality, she was still quite thin-skinned. After feeling wronged for a short while, she sensed that everyone was looking at her. She also felt that the current situation and the people around her were not quite right for this, so she quickly let go, lowered her head, took a few steps back, and reached up to wipe away the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes.
However, although the tears were wiped away, several black marks appeared on her face instead. She looked like a naughty little calico cat.
The dormitory they had climbed down from had not been lived in for some time. No one had cleaned it, and a thick layer of dust had accumulated by the windowsill. The dirt on Ruan Ning’s hands had been picked up at that time.
After all that, her originally fair, jade-like little face was now dirty. She had gone from a little fairy to matching Jiang Jingyang and Xi Chen beside her, all covered in dust and grime.
Lin Yang hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Brother Gu, how did you get over here just now?” At that time, he had been standing right beside Brother Gu. In the blink of an eye, Brother Gu had disappeared, and immediately afterward, he had appeared downstairs under this dormitory building.
Hearing Lin Yang’s question, Ruan Ning only then remembered how unscientific Gu Yicheng’s rescue had been. Right, how had the male lead suddenly appeared here?!
Once a spatial ability upgraded to Tier Six, it could teleport. This was also one of the reasons why, after reaching Tier Six, the offensive power of spatial abilities greatly increased.
But the male lead was still far from Tier Six right now. It was impossible for him to have gained that ability so quickly.
“I’m not too sure either. Just now, I saw Ningning falling from above from over there. I got anxious, and without knowing what happened, I suddenly arrived downstairs.” Gu Yicheng remembered that from where he had been standing on the road and had seen Ruan Ning fall, there had been at least ten or twenty metres of distance between him and this place.
Could it be related to his other ability?
Anyone who had survived two years into the apocalypse in his previous life knew that, apart from serving as a walking safe warehouse, spatial ability users had no more offensive ability than ordinary people. Like water ability users and healing ability users, they were existences that needed to be protected within a team.
So after Gu Yicheng’s rebirth, regarding this extra ability, he had both paid attention to it and not paid attention to it. He paid attention to it because spatial abilities were convenient for storing supplies. But he did not pay much attention to it because the size of his space was already enough for their current needs, and Ruan Ning, who was beside him, also had a space. His desire to improve this spatial ability was far less intense than his desire to improve his lightning ability.
However, after what had happened today, Gu Yicheng felt that perhaps everyone in his previous life, including himself, had been wrong about spatial abilities. Perhaps this ability still had great uses after all.
**Nomad: Will start posting 2 times a week, Saturday & Sunday*
Leave a Reply