Chapter 39

Chapter 39

'Asking for trouble' was the only phrase Jie Linyuan felt apt to describe the foolhardy Wu Yin at this moment.

He slightly turned his face, casting a warning glance at the two in the front row of the carriage.

In fact, there was no need for him to say anything, as Qin Yue had already wisely covered his head with a blanket, curled up his legs, pretending to be a cabbage wrapped in cloth.

Lao Hu, in a show of silent understanding, adopted the same posture, covering his face with the blanket, even considerately adjusting the rearview mirror upwards midway to ensure they wouldn't sneak a peek.

The dog-like creature's head, disturbed by the noise, excitedly peeked over the seat, about to bark and show interest in joining whatever everyone was up to, only to be pushed back down by a human-like paw, ending up whining behind the seat, voicing its grievances.

Jie Linyuan said no more, merely turning his face back emotionlessly to look at the fool before him who, even in the face of death, seemed quite pleased with himself.

"Lie down," he commanded, his voice devoid of any warmth or flirtation, sounding more like he was sending Wu Yin off than warming his bed.

Wu Yin frowned, puzzled, "Why should I lie down?"

Seeing his ignorant yet wary demeanor, Xie Linyuan couldn't help but chuckle, "Aren't you supposed to lie down to sleep?"

Wu Yin reasoned, "Then, will you lie down too?"

"If I'm to sleep with you, of course I'll lie down," Xie Linyuan replied.

"...Then let's lie down together." Wu Yin reached out towards Xie Linyuan, his hand finding the area near his collarbone, fully encompassing it and feeling the vigorous warmth of his body along with his steady breathing.

Xie Linyuan chuckled again, grasping Wu Yin's left hand and leaning in to wrap his arm around him, "Alright," he whispered suggestively, as if whispering sweet nothings, "Let's lie down together."

With that, Xie Linyuan supported Wu Yin's neck with his other hand, gently tilting him backwards.

Wu Yin lay stiff as a board, unable to see anything or know what Xie Linyuan intended, unusually nervous and clinging to Xie Linyuan's hand.

Soon, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone by Xie Linyuan, who then lightly grazed his fingers between Wu Yin's jaw and Adam's apple, "Relax, don't look so grim. You insisted I teach you, and... it's supposed to be enjoyable."

Enjoyable? Wu Yin was far from convinced by Xie Linyuan's sweet talk, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. Still, he relaxed his body to see what Xie Linyuan was up to.

Quickly, a hand lifted Wu Yin's shirt, revealing his flat abdomen beneath.

Despite Yang Mo's relatively better job at the Langyan Shelter, it was hard for him to get enough to eat, let alone nutritious food, leading to his slim physique, a few visible abs but lacking definition and aesthetic appeal.

Xie Linyuan positioned himself, one hand beside Wu Yin's head and knees on either side of him, looking down at the man beneath him. His calloused right hand moved under the shirt, tracing from the navel to the side, suggestively caressing there before daring to venture higher.

Honestly, Xie Linyuan wasn't very experienced, his limited knowledge picked up from the military or second-hand stories. Despite his attempts at seduction, Wu Yin showed no signs of discomfort or shame, hardly reacting at all.

This greatly frustrated Jie Lin Yuan, who raised his eyes to observe Wu Yin's current expression, finding it solemn and serious, almost suitable for presiding over a church service.

He then lowered his head again, looking towards Wu Yin's cool demeanor, neat and proper, without any inconsistency between his words and actions, Jie Lin Yuan even felt it was rather understated.

Suddenly remembering the time he accompanied Wu Yin to relieve himself, seeing Yang Mo's pitifully small stature, Jie Lin Yuan suddenly doubted, even if Wu Yin was more elaborate... he couldn't tell, could he?

This thought, needing a wooden fish to beg for Buddha's forgiveness, instantly amused Jie Lin Yuan, who turned over and sat on the ground, laughing non-stop by himself, causing Wu Yin to prop himself up suspiciously: "What are you doing? Is this also a part of making up for lost sleep?"

Jie Lin Yuan fixed the hem of his lifted robe back in place for him and laughed for a while longer, then soothingly patted Wu Yin's shoulder, "No, it's not, I just thought of something very funny."

Saying this, he couldn't help but let his thoughts wander, considering Wu Yin was completely naive in this aspect, what if, because of his demonstration today, Wu Yin mistakenly thought this kind of thing needed to be done in a car, and that it must be witnessed by two strangers?

Given Wu Yin's twisted thought process, it was very likely.

Thinking of this, Jie Lin Yuan started laughing again.

Wu Yin: "..."

Wu Yin: "Are you sick?"

The question that had always been used to evaluate him was, for once, applied to someone else today. Wu Yin felt a rare sense of empathy with those he had tormented.

Lin Yuan shook his head, then remembered Wu Yin couldn't see, "No, just that those were my attempts. The result is: it won't work, I can't sleep with you."

"You can't sleep with me?" Wu Yin echoed, pondering the statement.

"Right."

"Why?"

"Because," Lin Yuan said with a mischievous tone, "you—no, wait," he leaned closer to Wu Yin, ensuring that only he could hear the following words, "Yang Mo is too small. If we slept together, your excitement would block it, turning you as purple as a beet from the blood congestion. Then, it would have to be cut off, rendering this body unusable."

Wu Yin's mind was on the verge of overheating as he lowered his voice, mimicking the intimate whispers of lovers, "What does sleeping have to do with that?"

"It's very much related."

"You're lying to me again."

"This time, I'm absolutely not lying."

"..." Seeing his certainty, Wu Yin no longer dwelled on whether he was being deceived. Instead, he took a different approach, asking seriously, "So, you can only sleep with me if it's bigger. Then why can't I sleep with you?"

"Either way works, whether you sleep with me or I sleep with you, it's all the same." Lin Yuan placated him like one would a child, planning to claim that any new body Wu Yin found was too small, regardless of its actual size. If Wu Yin had doubts, Lin Yuan would decide whether to prove his innocence by revealing himself, confident that this would dispel Wu Yin's suspicions.

"Oh..." Wu Yin finally quieted down, or rather, he seemed more tired, unwilling to fuss in the middle of the night. He turned over on the ground, waving his hand, "You can go, let the Black Knight come over."

After a series of soft rustling noises, the person lying next to Wu Yin transformed into a dog radiating warmth and with soft fur. Wu Yin found a new spot for himself, nestling into the Black Knight's embrace, indeed finding it both warm and comfortable.

"Black Knight, is everything Jie Linyuan said true?" Wu Yin's palm rested on the Black Knight's belly.

Jie Linyuan, about to rest on the seat bed, instantly became alert, raising his head. He had only thought that Qin Yue and Hu Hongbo would definitely not spread rumors, not considering there was a dog with human intelligence around.

"Oh, half true, half false? I knew it..." Wu Yin murmured, his voice devoid of anger from being deceived, only the hoarseness and drowsiness before sleep remained.

"...Mostly true? Ha, that's really something."

After saying this, Wu Yin fell silent. Jie Linyuan zoned out for a while amidst the dwindling sound of rain, then took out an independently operating radar device from the inside of his arm, placed it on the ground, and turned over, also falling asleep to the sound of flowing water.

*

The next day dawned clear.

The pollutants hanging outside the car window had been washed away by the torrential rain before dawn, but to avoid disappointing the passengers inside, other pollutants took up the job of hanging like zombies on the car early in the morning.

Not just one, but twenty or thirty pollutants, attracted by the scent of breakfast amidst the fresh grassy aroma post-rain, excitedly approached the car from afar, constantly howling and banging on the car body, some even unintentionally forming a zombie wall, attempting to climb to the roof by stepping on the bodies of their kind.

Wu Yin woke up to the severe shaking of the business car, only to see Lao Hu and Qin Yue trembling behind Jie Lin Yuan, clutching a fruit knife and a broom, making him suspect that their shaking contributed to the car’s trembling as much as the zombies outside.

"Scared like this? Haven't you been out for almost a year? Dared to eat human flesh but never seen a horde of zombies?" Wu Yin patted Black Knight's head, signaling it to get to work.

"I've never eaten human flesh!" Qin Yue firmly stated, then timidly added, "I've seen zombie hordes from a distance... but those who encountered them up close like this are all dead."

"Human flesh... it wasn’t my choice, and I only had one bite! I swear on my life! It was those in the group who forced you to eat, only letting you have one bite, they even fought over the rest, and human flesh isn’t that easy to come by, we mostly ate wild vegetables," Lao Hu awkwardly explained, "Forcing you to eat human flesh was to corrupt you, to make you one of them, easier to control, saying you’re no good either. Ah, there’s nothing to deny, to survive, I indeed did many things against my conscience, ah, so ending up like this is also retribution."

"How is this ending up like this?" Wu Yin frowned, "What’s wrong with driving me? Starving you?"

Lao Hu: "..."

Lao Hu instantly became half sincere and half flatteringly smiled: "Driving for the sir is the blessing of my several lifetimes."

As the three conversed back and forth, Jie Lin Yuan suddenly seized the moment to open the car door, and Black Knight immediately lunged out, heads left and right, instantly killing seven or eight zombies with a combination of stomping and biting. Well-fed and cared for, Black Knight had grown quite a bit of muscle, aside from being a bit sleepy due to the experimental drugs, it excelled in hunting and combat.

With Black Knight leading the charge and Jie Lin Yuan providing suppressive fire from behind, the pollutants fell in swathes, yet these brainless beings kept squeezing towards the opened car door, as if eager to die slower.

From opening the car door to having over thirty zombies lying on the ground, the total time taken was no more than five minutes.

His mechanical arm transforming into a handgun was barely within Lao Hu and Qin Yue's understanding, but this gun... was it a bit too exaggerated? They had seen mechanically modified soldiers before, accustomed to such sights, but never anything as advanced as this metal limb, surpassing common knowledge.

"Driving for the sir and Jie Lin Yuan is the fortune of my many lifetimes!!!" Lao Hu immediately brown-nosed loudly from behind, cheering for Jie Lin Yuan.

After a night tormented by nightmares of death and a morning appetizer of corpses, despite his sore body, Lao Hu wasted no time. He first moved the pollutant bodies blocking the road, and soon after, they set off, carefully planning the route without daring to rest too much, finally finding an excellent place to stay overnight by around 4 p.m.

Fearing they wouldn’t find a proper place to sleep again, and that Jie Ge and the sir might have to perform an R-rated scene in the car.

In their previous lives on the run, to avoid zombies and mutants, they would rest during the day and travel at night. The roads these days were devoid of any light, walking among them felt like being adrift on an island in the deep ocean, doubting if other people still existed in this world.

They frequently encountered blocked roads; often, after overcoming numerous obstacles, they found themselves at a dead-end, forcing a retreat, wasting both time and effort.

The dilapidated business car struggled up the mountainous slope, its angry engine complaining of its age and numerous injuries. To lighten the load, Black Knight had voluntarily jumped off to follow by foot, but this still did little to ease the vehicle’s struggle.

Their chosen shelter for the day was a luxurious mansion belonging to a wealthy family before the apocalypse, located halfway up the mountain, its grand gray roof visible from afar.

Previously, Lao Hu and Qin Yue would never dare to approach such a place, preferring the damp concrete floors of abandoned buildings with rats and mosquitoes rather than risking a location that screamed of being infested with pollutants.

Even now, with the backing of the big boss in the back seat, Lao Hu drove with unease, the mansion seeming more like a trap that had harbored various types of zombie maids, bodyguards, and butlers, fighting and consuming each other over the years to form a super zombie.

"Pollutants rarely attack each other, and mutants aren’t formed this way," Jie Lin Yuan reassured them, casually sitting back and using premium maintenance oil and a velvet cloth to polish his metal arm, items he seemed to have brought from Wolf Smoke Shelter, making one wonder how he managed to smuggle maintenance oil out during their hectic escape.

Wu Yin yawned, resting his cheek on his hand and glancing out at the sun through the window, enjoying the long daylight hours of summer.

"Hurry up," he urged, "I want to have finished dinner and be sleeping in a safe room, on a soft bed, before it gets dark."

Lao Hu dared not delay, pressing the gas pedal furiously.

Finally, the 18-seater business car lived up to expectations, breaking down and shutting off 100 meters from the villa's gate, unable to start again.