January 18
By the time Xiangzi returned upstairs, it was already noon.
There was no elevator, so she had to climb the stairs on foot. Her chest felt oppressively hot. Tugging down the black silk face covering over her mouth and nose, Xiangzi let out a deep breath.
Because of the cold, the heat escaping from her lungs turned instantly into a cloud of white vapor, briefly veiling her sight.
What she had seen down there—one filthy corner of the world laid bare before her eyes—had left her dazed. After lunch, she still had one more thing to do. Something important. Another task that required going back out, and one directly tied to their group's chances of survival going forward.
The unlocked front door opened easily with a creak.
For once, even Xiangzi—who liked to think she had already seen the worst humanity had to offer—had been shaken by what she had witnessed. The blow to her heart was so severe that, for the first time ever, she did not greet Huaxiu the moment she came home.
Hearing the door open, Hyakugouen Huaxiu set the cloth in her hands aside. The moment she saw Xiangzi, she waved happily, her face brightening into a smile.
"Eh? Xiangzi, you're back already? So you finished dealing with the underground situation?"
"It's done. Where's Doris? I don't see her. What's she doing?"
Xiangzi answered with a few perfunctory words, her mood still foul. As she spoke, she began setting down her things, taking off her weapons, armor, backpack—yet all her movements were slow, dragging, nothing like her usual clean efficiency.
"Xiangzi, you're..." Huaxiu's sharp eyes immediately picked up the weariness in Xiangzi's voice. She started to ask, but Xiangzi cut her off before she could finish.
She had already realized her current attitude might give too much away. She did not want Huaxiu to worry or panic, so she forced herself into an imitation of her usual cheerful self, putting on a flimsy mask of normalcy.
"Oh, I'm just tired. There was a lot of work down there. A whole damn bunch of stinking rats. Really wore me out."
"Ah, I see... Xiangzi, honestly, you always take too much onto your own shoulders. You have to learn to rest too. No matter how strong your body is, even you can't keep abusing it like this forever."
As she said that, Huaxiu stepped closer and wrapped her arms gently around Xiangzi's waist.
Xiangzi did not reject the embrace. At the very least, the warmth of her lover's body was real.
"So... what are the others doing?"
"Doris is up on the roof moving snow. Brent and Miranda are together."
Miranda was with Brent?
Brent was still in recovery. If something happened because Miranda was pushing her too hard...
Without even waiting for Huaxiu to explain, Xiangzi's face darkened. She strode over and threw open the bedroom door Brent had been using.
The scene that greeted her, however, was not what she expected.
The room smelled faintly of medicine, but it was empty.
The neatly made bed did not even have a crease on it.
Huaxiu, who had followed after her, explained at once, "Brent said this morning that she felt much better. After Miranda came by, she insisted on going upstairs. I couldn't really argue with her, so in the end I just helped the two of them back up."
Xiangzi froze.
What?
A patient who had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, with penetrating injuries to the thigh and abdomen, torn muscle tissue, and heavy blood loss—waking from a coma and moving around freely within five hours?
That was a medical miracle.
Unless...
Unless Brent, like Xiangzi herself, had been altered by the virus in some beneficial way. Otherwise, no normal person recovered that quickly.
"This is ridiculous. Huaxiu, I'm going upstairs. Those two idiots really don't treat their bodies like they matter, do they?"
She turned and marched for the door. Only then did Huaxiu truly notice the wrongness hanging over Xiangzi like a shadow. If this were a manga, Xiangzi would have had all sorts of jagged stress-lines bursting around her.
Xiangzi herself probably did not realize it, but Huaxiu, as an observer, could see it clearly. That was the whole point of the phrase the bystander sees what the person involved cannot.
Up close, she had seen the tension in Xiangzi's face. The stiff set of her mouth. The knit of her brows. It all screamed that something was wrong.
Unfortunately, Huaxiu misread the cause. She took it as worry for the two injured women, not as the aftershock of Xiangzi having seen something truly horrific outside.
In Huaxiu's mind, it only made Xiangzi seem even more dependable.
How kind-hearted. How responsible. How wonderful it was to have met someone like her—and even more, how incredible that such a person was now her lover.
She could not possibly guess what hell Xiangzi had looked straight in the face.
"Honestly... always rushing around like there aren't enough hours in the day. When is Xiangzi ever going to take a proper break?"
Watching her hurry away, Huaxiu shook her head and sighed.
Upstairs
Xiangzi was already pounding on the door to Miranda's apartment.
On the way up, she had passed Doris laboriously hauling a heavy bucket of snow. The two had exchanged only a quick greeting before Xiangzi pushed onward.
"It's me—Takagi Xiangzi! Miranda, open up! Why did Brent come back up here? She's in serious condition!"
"I'm coming, right now."
Miranda hurried over, and the door opened.
Xiangzi took one look at her and frowned. Miranda could barely stand straight.
"Miranda, you've got muscle strain all over, and you're still dragging a seriously injured Brent around? Are you trying to kill both of yourselves?"
"I'm fine. Brent is fine too. We just... didn't want to trouble you any more."
"What do you mean, didn't want to trouble me? If either of you ends up in serious danger again, that's the real trouble!"
Xiangzi rubbed at her brow in frustration. If these two went down, not only would she lose two people from the scavenging team, but the household would also lose a laborer and gain two extra invalids to care for.
"Forget it. Leave it at this for now. Don't let Brent move around on her own anymore. For the next few days, just rest. I'll handle outside work by myself."
"How could I? I'm not seriously injured, just sore from overexertion. Brent can rest, but I can still go out with you."
Miranda even made a point of waving one arm, as if to prove she was capable. The gesture came out so weak and sluggish it looked like a kitten pawing at the air.
"No. After you've rested today, you're helping Doris with the indoor work. There's plenty to do here. If you go outside in your current condition, it's genuinely dangerous."
Miranda finally had no room left to argue.
"...All right. Then please be careful when you go out, Xiangzi."
"Where's Brent? What is she doing right now?"
Xiangzi had only seen Miranda so far. There was no sign of Brent in the living room.
That was when Miranda seemed to realize they were still standing in the doorway, and quickly invited Xiangzi inside.
"Come in. Brent ate something, then went back to sleep."
So Xiangzi followed her in and checked on Brent for herself.
"Your place is still a little cold, Miranda. And don't pile thick blankets over Brent's wound area. It'll put too much pressure on her and make her miserable. If anything happens, come get me immediately. Don't try to handle it yourselves."
"Understood. Thank you, Xiangzi. I truly don't know how to thank you enough."
After confirming Brent was stable and giving Miranda a few more instructions, Xiangzi finally returned to her own apartment.
Huaxiu was nowhere in sight.
From next door came the rhythmic sound of an axe striking wood and the bubbling of liquid boiling over a stove.
So that was what Huaxiu was doing.
"Huaxiu, I'm going to sleep for a while. Wake me at lunchtime."
"All right."
She called that much through the doorway, then retreated into the bedroom.
She was at her limit.
Even if she only planned to nap briefly, Xiangzi still took the time to strip down. Sleeping in clothes felt miserable. No sane person deliberately climbed into bed still wrapped up in everything but underwear and a bra, did they?
She closed the door.
Her bare skin brushed against the blanket, and the warm room air wrapped itself around every inch of her. She lay there quietly.
But sleep would not come.
That place.
The images from that basement replayed themselves with sickening clarity in her head.
She had seen things in her life more visually shocking than that—things she herself had caused, scenes of carnage that arguably surpassed it in impact.
But those had been infected.
Not living people.
She had never been able to kill for pleasure. Never. Xiangzi was human. A sane, feeling human being, with a working moral sense and the ability to distinguish right from wrong.
She was not some mad butcher.
"Damn it—go to hell!"
Finally unable to bear it any longer, Xiangzi opened the system interface. She needed someone—or something—to talk to.
After listening to her complaints, the system calmly summarized the real issue.
[...There's no need to get like this, Xiangzi. The culprit is dead. You scattered even his remains. What frightens you isn't just the cruelty or the horror of the scene. What you can't stand is seeing something beautiful destroyed. That's what this is really about. Part of it is sympathy for the victims, of course. But you're also afraid that someone close to you—Huaxiu, for example—could one day suffer the same thing. Relax. You're already doing well. And you still have me.]
[You're a good child. The human part of you hasn't been ground away. Sympathy for the weak and hatred for abusers are only natural. You loathe that such things happen—but that isn't your fault. Truly, there's no need for you to drown in anxiety over it. Just be brave, and protect what matters to you.]
Maybe the system was right.
Or maybe Xiangzi was simply too tired.
Her head sank. Her vision dimmed.
The next thing she knew, she had drifted into sleep.
[Sweet dreams.]
The system did not disappear. Instead, a faint projected body remained, standing there and looking at the sleeping Xiangzi.
[Time to get you something nice. I hope you'll enjoy using it.]
After saying that, the system vanished—perhaps off to rummage through some warehouse of rewards.
Either way, Xiangzi lay peacefully on the bed, her soft breathing becoming the main melody in the room.
After waking
"Lunch is ready, Xiangzi!"
"Coming~"
Huaxiu's sweet voice pulled Xiangzi back awake.
She sat up, rubbing her eyes.
Aah... that felt amazing.
Stretching both arms overhead, she let out a huge yawn.
Her mood was much better now. The anxiety from earlier had been swept into some hidden little corner inside her heart. It was still there, but no longer ruling her.
She was not going to let it keep dragging at her.
What had already happened could not be changed. But the future? That was different.
As long as she became strong enough, danger would stop mattering. With enough power, she could probably go dance in the middle of a corpse tide and walk away smiling.
When she reached the table, she found lunch already laid out: a whole spread of cans, square and round.
Peach cans. Hairtail cans. Preserved mustard greens. Beef cans. Everything of that sort.
Today's meal was canned food with rice.
The fresh vegetables Xiangzi had bought for Huaxiu's recovery had already run out. Until Xiangzi restocked through the system, they would have to make do with canned goods for a while.
Fortunately, the apartment building had yielded an absurd amount of packaged food.
Cans were only part of it. There were flour, dried noodles, rice, nuts, soy products, all kinds of snacks, more seasoning and salt than anyone could ever count.
Their lives were absurdly comfortable compared to other survivors. While other people were starving or being torn apart by infected, Xiangzi's household was already spoiled enough to pick and choose what they wanted to eat.
They finished the meal in silence.
No talking while eating. No talking while sleeping.
A simple, efficient lunch.
Then it was back to work.
Xiangzi took the drone and headed upstairs. She intended to go out again today, so first she needed a general read on infected movement.
She released the small black machine into the air. Its propellers hummed, and within moments it vanished from sight.
The corpse tide from yesterday was still there.
The drone's feed showed infected wandering everywhere within a roughly two-kilometer radius centered around the park. Among them were more than a few special infected.
"What a pain... There are way too many of them right on our doorstep."
With Miranda and Brent both injured to varying degrees, Xiangzi would be going out alone.
Which meant that even though her traditional-force combat skills were now truly formidable, she still needed new armor.
Otherwise the infected might just tear her apart.
That reminded her—she had a random equipment card from a mission reward.
"Let's see what this thing gives me."
Then, seconds later:
"What? It's random?"
She had assumed it would either let her choose or simply provide a fixed piece of equipment.
Instead, it turned out to be another gacha pull.
As the cards spun across the screen, Xiangzi's heart leapt into her throat.
Please, let this be something good.
One card after another flashed past. Then finally the selector stopped on an equipment set Xiangzi had never heard of before.
[Russian Manufacture: Samurai-3 Personal Combat Armor]
"What the heck is that?"
Join here to read ahead.
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