Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Playing cards was a bit of a hassle for Xue Ling, who was now a zombie.

First of all, her fingers were stiff and slow to bend, making delicate movements appear clumsy. Poker cards were thin and slippery. Trying to hold a hand of cards and then select and play them was much harder than using a pen to tap on a tablet. If she wasn’t careful, the cards would slip from her hand, and she often couldn’t accurately pinch a specific card or cards.

Secondly, the person playing cards with her wasn’t even human.

Xue Ling was already having a tough time, but Wen Jiuzhe, sitting across from her, took the opportunity to peek at her cards while she was struggling to pick up the ones that had fallen on the ground. Realizing her cards had been seen, Xue Ling looked up and glared at him.

Fuming, she put down the cards and wrote on a whiteboard: "Are you human?"

She slapped the whiteboard repeatedly.

Wen Jiuzhe spun the cards in his hand like a magician. He shrugged. "Oh, woof woof."

Then he swiftly played all his cards and declared, "I win."

Xue Ling: "..."

Xue Ling stopped playing cards and started playing "hit Wen Jiuzhe" instead, which was much smoother.

In the end, the cards became a prop for Wen Jiuzhe to play a bored game of card darts, scattering them on the road.

However, the poker cards seemed to give Wen Jiuzhe some inspiration.

He got a set of Flight Chess from someone in the camp and invited Xue Ling to play.

Xue Ling was so bored that, although she suspected Wen Jiuzhe had no good intentions, she still wanted to play.

Throwing the dice was much easier for her, and although moving the pieces was slow, Wen Jiuzhe didn’t rush her, just patiently waiting for her to make her moves.

At first, it was fine, but just as her red piece was about to reach the finish line, Wen Jiuzhe suddenly knocked her piece back to the start, forcing her to begin again.

Xue Ling: "..."

Well, that’s how Flight Chess is played; pieces can easily be sent back home. No big deal, she could start over.

It really wasn’t a surprise that Wen Jiuzhe did that. Hmph, not surprised at all.

She was almost lulled into complacency by his laid-back attitude, thinking he didn’t want to cause trouble today!

Xue Ling then kept an eye on everything around her, watching both her and Wen Jiuzhe’s pieces, calculating if her pieces were in danger of being sent home.

Her second piece was sent home, then her third piece...

While the goal for other players in Flight Chess was to get all their pieces to the finish line, Wen Jiuzhe’s goal was to send Xue Ling’s pieces back home.

Xue Ling was furious and shifted her goal to sending Wen Jiuzhe’s pieces home, but even when she knocked his pieces back, he didn’t care and continued to obstruct her, playing a self-damaging strategy.

Wen Jiuzhe rolled another six and sent Xue Ling’s last piece, which had just re-entered the game, back to the start, lining up all four pieces neatly at the starting point.

"Alright, we can start from zero again," Wen Jiuzhe said with a smile.

Xue Ling looked down at her fist, feeling it clench hard.

Wen Jiuzhe: "What’s wrong, Ling? Come on, start from ‘Ling’ again."

As Xue Ling lunged at him with her fist, Wen Jiuzhe pressed down on a nearby rock and leaped several meters away in an instant.

The two were playing the game under a tree by the roadside, with open terrain around them. Wen Jiuzhe was agile and quick to react, making it impossible for Xue Ling to catch him.

Frustrated, Xue Ling spun in circles and then grabbed his pieces, throwing them into a nearby ditch.

Still feeling angry, Xue Ling flopped face down on the ground. Since no one was around to see her, she scratched several grooves into the dirt in front of her.

Seeing she wasn’t chasing him anymore, Wen Jiuzhe strolled back, squatting at a not-too-close distance. "Your temper is getting bigger."

"Raaargh!" Xue Ling let out a terrifying zombie growl.

"Even though I don’t understand it, I know you’re cursing quite nastily," Wen Jiuzhe said, trying to coax her to get up. "Alright, alright, it’s just a game. I promise I won’t knock your pieces anymore."

Xue Ling grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at his face. Wen Jiuzhe’s body reacted faster than his brain, dodging it immediately.

Just as Xue Ling had raised her head, she fell back down, seemingly not wanting to get up anytime soon. Becoming a zombie had really let her true nature loose; now when she got angry, it was like a child’s tantrum.

Wen Jiuzhe laughed for a while, then suddenly spoke in a tense voice, "Quick, quick, quick, get up! There are a lot of ants crawling on you!"

Xue Ling immediately jumped up and frantically checked herself.

Seeing no ants and realizing Wen Jiuzhe was laughing, she understood it was a trick.

Two years ago, when Xue Ling, as a zombie, was walking on an endless highway, she had once thought about stopping.

Conveniently, there was a dug-out pit by the roadside. She lay down in it to test if it could fit her. It was just right.

She lay there peacefully for three days, hoping that a kind-hearted passerby would come by and cover her with some soil, burying her for good.

But no one passed by, only ants came.

When she discovered many ants crawling on her, she was startled and jumped out of the pit, slapping and brushing them off, then soaking in water for a while.

Since then, no matter where she lay down, she wouldn’t stay there long and would often move to avoid ants crawling on her.

If they crawl into my nose or mouth, I won't be able to stand it.

These little creatures rarely crawl on living people, but they have no mercy on corpses.

Wen Jiuzhe casually tried to scare her, not expecting her to react so strongly. She patted herself for a long time and still couldn't help checking her body, flipping her clothes and feeling her hair.

At first, he found it amusing, but slowly, it dawned on him.

Why was she so tense?

After checking herself and finding no ants, Xue Ling stormed over and kicked him.

She grabbed the writing board and declared seriously, "Don't scare me with ants!"

"I'll really get mad!"

To make Wen Jiuzhe understand the severity of the issue, she decided to scare him too. "I was almost eaten by a bunch of ants before!"

Wen Jiuzhe took the writing board and read the words. The remaining smile on his face vanished completely.

After that, he didn't play those little games with Xue Ling anymore, nor did he deliberately tease her. He barely spoke.

At first, Xue Ling was quite satisfied with this state, thinking her warning had worked.

However, after a day or two, when he remained expressionless and silent for three or four consecutive days, lost in thought, she found it unsettling.

Xue Ling was almost unaccustomed to his quiet demeanor.

She realized that what she wrote had quite an impact, enough to depress Wen Jiuzhe.

She found it quite exasperating.

He had strange concerns. No matter how angrily she scolded him, it never seemed to bother him. He was so thick-skinned.

Yet, talking to him calmly had broken his defenses.

Could it be because of the line "she was almost eaten by ants"?

Did he imagine many miserable scenarios for her and suffer for several days?

Usually, when Xue Ling got mad at Wen Jiuzhe, her anger would pass quickly.

Wen Jiuzhe's depression, however, lasted for days.

Xue Ling clicked on her tablet and played a collection of cold jokes she found hilarious.

Even a zombie like her, who couldn't laugh, was about to laugh out loud. Yet, Wen Jiuzhe showed no sign of wanting to laugh.

Xue Ling: "..." Isn't this funny?

In the evening, Xue Ling was cleaning herself inside the tent.

It had been getting colder recently, and the temperature dropped at night. Wen Jiuzhe had boiled some hot water for her to clean up.

Halfway through, Wen Jiuzhe ducked into the tent. He rolled up his sleeves and said, "Let me help."

It wasn't the first time he had helped, so Xue Ling hesitated for a moment before handing him the towel.

Wen Jiuzhe had her sit on his lap and wet the towel to help her clean. As he wiped her back, feeling her distinct bones, he paused.

She felt him rest his head on her back, his breath against her skin.

She was enveloped in his arms, and Wen Jiuzhe's voice was exceptionally gentle. "What's it like being a zombie? Is it unbearable?"

"Do you want release?"

His overly gentle, almost eerie tone sent a chill down Xue Ling's spine. She was horrified and wanted to turn her head to see his expression.

Was he thinking of ending her misery as a zombie?

Xue Ling slapped the arms wrapped around her. "No! Don't scare the zombie like that!"

Being a zombie wasn't so bad. Though she had once thought, "I might as well be buried," upon reflection, it wasn't that terrible. Recently, she had even found some perks in being a zombie!

Xue Ling shuddered, recalling how Wen Jiuzhe had swiftly chopped off zombie heads on the road. She wished she could speak to advise him not to act impulsively!

Wen Jiuzhe rubbed his nose against her back, looked up, and saw the fear in her eyes. He smiled for the first time in days.

"What are you afraid of? I'm just asking. I won't do anything."

Xue Ling looked at him suspiciously for a long time, almost wanting him to swear. She patted her chest, still feeling uneasy.

Wen Jiuzhe helped her clean and even combed her hair.

Xue Ling pondered absentmindedly and prepared to have a conversation with Wen Jiuzhe using her writing board.

She wrote for a long time, preparing a theme: "Encouraging People to Cherish (Zombie) Life."

—Consider her current state as being sick, an infectious disease, so she had to live in isolation, facing some difficulties in life, enduring pain (mainly hunger). But just because life was hard didn't mean one should decide to die, right?

There was no such thing as a patient not giving up, but the family finding it too painful to watch and deciding to end the patient's life, right?

Wen Jiuzhe took three seconds to read what Xue Ling had written for thirty minutes.

"Yes, what you wrote makes a lot of sense, much more sense than those motivational speeches." Wen Jiuzhe said while combing her hair.

Xue Ling found his attitude rather perfunctory.

She couldn't let him keep avoiding treatment!

She rummaged through the bag of psychiatric medications, pried out a pill, and handed it to Wen Jiuzhe.

If not for the fear of accidentally hurting him, Xue Ling would have just stuffed the pill into his mouth.

With the medication already at his lips, Wen Jiuzhe was too lazy to refuse and took it to swallow.

He took a sip of water and said, "This kind of medication isn't as effective as you think. It's not something that makes people happy immediately. In most cases, it's just a placebo."

If taken for a long time, it would lead to what happened to his mother. It kept a collapsing spirit hanging on while making her body worse, with no other benefits.

Shortly after swallowing the pill, Wen Jiuzhe suddenly frowned and got out of the car.

Xue Ling heard him vomiting.

Wen Jiuzhe rinsed his mouth and returned quickly, leaning against the seat back. "Doctor Xue, you can't treat a live horse as a dead one."

Xue Ling felt the medicine box and carefully examined the dense instructions, taking a long time to find the dosage—half a pill each time... She had thought a whole pill was the smallest unit.

She accidentally gave him an overdose, which probably made him vomit.

Feeling a bit guilty, she flipped through the leaflet and saw nausea and vomiting listed under side effects.

It could also be a normal reaction to the medication!

Although Wen Jiuzhe didn't blame her, he looked uncomfortable sitting there.

Xue Ling gently touched him and handed him some water.

Wen Jiuzhe looked at her, took the water, and drank. Xue Ling held up her writing board, "Are you angry?"

"Why would I be angry over something like this?" He chuckled, screwed the water cap back on, and put it away.

Xue Ling wrote, "It's my fault. I won't force you to take medicine next time."

She felt guilty, and though her face was pale and stiff, unable to make many expressions, you could still vaguely see traces of her former self.

It was similar to the reaction when she couldn't help but kick him hard the first time.

The moment before her kick landed on his leg, she was still angry, but the second she realized she had hit him, guilt and fear immediately surfaced on her face.

There was obvious fear in her eyes, and she froze in place, like a child who had caused trouble, nervously waiting for the upcoming scolding.

She was more frightened by her own action of hitting him.

What kind of situation was this?

Wen Jiuzhe wasn't a man with a good temper, and the environment he had lived in all his life made him accustomed to violence.

But when he saw Xue Ling's expression at that moment, he couldn't muster any anger toward her. Instead, he was afraid of scaring her and instinctively put on his usual carefree smile, lazily saying to her:

"If you dare hit me, don't let anyone else who makes you angry off the hook."

During that time, he said this phrase the most.

When Xue Ling, in anger, punched him in the chest, he rubbed his chest and said with a smile, "If you dare hit me, don't be afraid of others."

Maybe because she had hit him, she slowly gained the courage to argue with others.

After being apart for too long, she started to feel afraid again.

Wen Jiuzhe closed his eyes and said softly, "What are you afraid of? Didn't I promise you I wouldn't get angry with you?"

Xue Ling: "..."

Was there such a promise? When was it made? How come she didn't know?