Chapter 84

Translated by boilpoil Edited by boilpoil

Starting from the day after Gu Ronghang gave his promise to Bai Lianhua, a strange scene has been playing out in front of Safe Zone Fengxu every day——there’s always a zombie running head-on to the door of the safe zone to practically commit suicide.

No one took special note of it at first, since it’s just a single zombie, what harm could it really do? And it’s all the lowest tier ones, they’re easily taken care of even from quite a distance away.

And then, what’s strange is that the zombies doing so keep coming one by one. When one is killed it isn’t long until another one comes along. Not once, not twice, not even thrice, and it’s the fifth one now. It’s almost like they’re possessed or something.

Zombies can’t go insane, can they? Is there a virus acting on the nerves that can infect an already dead zombie? The patrol teams are too weirded out to deal with this casually. So they decide to carefully recover the body of the zombie, and then, they find a note on the zombie which warns them to be prepared for a large zombie wave the next month.

What’s even stranger is that after they acquired the note the zombies stopped appearing… Which has even attracted the attention of the upper management. In the end, the whole thing got reported all the way to the top.

——And of course, this is naturally the result of Gu Ronghang stopping after their goals are achieved.

Originally he wanted to directly control the zombies to loudly announce this news to the safe zone. Unfortunately, after turning undead, the biological structures in the zombie would deteriorate and they can no longer utter meaningful sounds. The only voices that would come out are ‘urrrrrrgh’s.

Perhaps higher-tiered zombies would have had their physical forms repaired but Gu Ronghang would obviously not try to approach the safe zone entrance with a high-tiered zombie. Clearly, that would be adding fire to the trouble rather than communication. What if it injures someone at the entrance? He’s finally managed to soothe and convince Bai Lianhua to obediently stop worrying so much, everything must continue smoothly from this point onwards.

So he can only do it this way. Thankfully, even if it is eerily delivered, Safe Zone Fengxu wouldn’t have ignored such a warning. The safe zones now all have their own ways of gathering intelligence, and so if they look at their findings in the context of this warning, they should be able to discover subtle signs to that effect. The safe zone would then be prepared.

So what he needs to do next is to collect more crystal cores. Even if it’s impossible to raise his level again in just one month, at least it can allow him to store more energy to use his abilities with greater ease when push comes to shove.

While Gu Ronghang is busy with that, Bai Lianhua isn’t lazing about either. He’s also trying to strengthen himself using zombie crystal cores… When he left the world before, the effect of the cores on ability users was just recently discovered. Plus zombie hunting was seen as unfruitful and dangerous so crystal cores were rare goods back then. When they returned from missions he and the antagonist used to just sell it in bulk and left none for their own use, so getting to use one now is a new thing for him.

After a month, while he didn’t awaken a new ability as Gu Ronghang hoped, at least his healing ability reached level three. It’s not amazing, but at least it’s enough to help Gu Ronghang relieve his fatigue and restore his stamina when needed, so that he can last longer… Bai Lianhua is quite satisfied with this progress already given the system had always given him utterly trash bodies in general. Thank god the system gave him a body that was upgradable, even if it wasn’t clear due to the lack of resources and methods before.

So the pair are working hard together in preparation… What’s noteworthy is that on day five of Gu Ronghang sleeping on the floor, after a brief hesitation Bai Lianhua decided to put away his cot and move his pillow and quilt onto the bed.

As Gu Ronghang looked on with a confused expression, Bai Lianhua said stutteringly, “you’re exhausted every day, so you would need a better quality of sleep.” His eyes are darting around, not looking at the antagonist… Then Gu Ronghang agrees with a smile.

The system thought the host has surely succumbed to the antagonist’s charms, and it was even ready to cheer on with passion, but what’s unexpected was that the antagonist who surely wanted a happier ending than this stayed righteous throughout, and only just slept besides the host in separate quilts. Even if his eyes were on fire he never did cross the line.

Disappointed, it thought a bit and concluded that perhaps when the host blinked his eyes and bit his lips innocently as he put Gu Ronghang’s stuff onto the bed it was too pure and sacrosanct that even the frenzied and agitated antagonist would hesitate to disturb it… His guilty conscience would hurt if he tried.

Oh well. So in the end it can only wait until the weak little white flower decides to eat him up whole on his own… One antagonist was certainly right in concluding that even if the antagonists all look super imposing and scary, the initiative was always in the hands of its pure, easily-frightened, white lotus of a host.

Tch. Bummer.

…

The day the zombie wave comes, Gu Ronghang and Bai Lianhua are standing on high ground, overlooking a key passage the zombie wave must pass through in their rush towards the safe zone.

The tier five zombie leading the charge is no pushover. Even Gu Ronghang himself can’t guarantee that he can definitely make it fall. It would be bad if he prematurely acts while it is still alive and kicking and agitates it. So even if the likelihood is low, he doesn’t want to take the risk. So instead of targeting it at first, he tries to muddle the situation, controlling part of the zombies in the wave and issuing to them orders to kill each other, messing up the whole progression of the wave. Through this, he has managed to keep the wave that passed through manageable enough for the defences the safe zone has set up and the ability users that are merely busy now but might otherwise panic. Throughout the attack, all areas are thus able to stand firm and put up a successful defence.

Gu Ronghang is like a powerful cheat from the outside coordinating the entire event. Whenever an area showed signs of breaching he would react by causing chaos among the zombies in that area. The pressure on all areas never exceeded the safe zone’s capabilities. The entire zombie wave has failed to break through the defences of the safe zone.

This lasted for a whole day and night. By early morning the next day, the tier five zombie well protected in the middle of the wave has become impatient and violent. It has even started to slaughter the low tiered zombies nearby in a fit of rage. Gu Ronghang takes this opportunity to exert his ability on it, forcefully overtaking this zombie that had extreme evolutionary potential, making it lie flat on the ground as its ‘subordinates’ in the wave that now lacked a leader trampled him underfoot to mush.

The zombie wave thus starts to disperse as there was no one else to control them. Some of them aimlessly wander back out while some can sense live humans and wander nearby the safe zone. All in all, it is no longer a threat to the safe zone.

Bai Lianhua and Gu Ronghang know that they don’t have the ability to kill all the zombies present right now. Their goal of protecting Safe Zone Fengxu this time is already met, so they’re not disappointed or anything seeing the zombies go back to what they were before forming a wave. As long as they’re not piling up in a charge, these uncoordinated zombies are quite easy to deal with.

Before, during the fight, Bai Lianhua was always standing besides the antagonist nervously, closely observing his status. His healing ability was always running at full capacity without stopping.

Near the end, he was even afraid of the small delay between his ability being used and it acting on Gu Ronghang, so he stopped just using his hands and instead embraces him fully from the back with the two bodies completely sticking together. His healing ability just rained and rained from above him towards Gu Ronghang. It was truly impressive and mesmerising.

When the tier five zombie was finally killed, Bai Lianhua breaths a deep sigh of relief before realising he is still sticking onto the antagonist. He makes a dumb-sounding chuckle as he awkwardly takes his paws back.

He must have been mad. Why did he have to hug the antagonist on the waist instead of literally anywhere else in his panic?

The system jokes, “host, don’t worry, you weren’t intentionally trying to feel the antagonist up.” In fact, it’s sure the antagonist was overjoyed having such intimate contact with you!

It even feels like asking further ‘how did it feel,’ but given the host is so easily embarrassed, it thinks it would be better off staying quiet so that it won’t get unilaterally cut off again.

Seeing Bai Lianhua take his paws back with this whole ‘not knowing where to put them’ look, Gu Ronghang smiles.

While his body is exhausted from this intense usage of his ability, but he is in quite a good mood. He says lightly, “for the whole day I was the only one on your mind… It was as if we were the only two people in this world.”

“It felt really nice. If only it could last… I really want to hide you where there is nobody else but me, like just now, and you can only see me.”

Gu Ronghang himself can’t help but laugh after saying this, “don’t worry. I can only dream about it. I’ll never do such a thing… you’re always free, of course.”

“If one forcefully removes a white lotus from water, even if they hold it as dearly as possible in their own hands, it will eventually still slowly wilt away until it dies, no?”

Now that he’s personally done away with the stake he can hold Bai Lianhua hostage with, he’s deliberately shattered the hopes of forever tying Bai Lianhua to himself. What he will do from now on is Bai Lianhua’s own freedom.

But, Bai Lianhua’s attitude has been softening for a while now, so Gu Ronghang’s hopes are still quietly raised. Maybe his dream isn’t necessarily going to have to stay one forever? Even without all the scheming, perhaps the one he holds dear to his heart would still be willing to stay by his side and open himself up to him.

Bai Lianhua can see Gu Ronghang’s appearance that shows how tired he is despite being constantly recharged with healing ability. He can also feel the disappointment and the little hope he has in his tone of voice. He feels as if the softest part of his heart is being knocked on gently but repeatedly.

He hesitates but doesn’t hold it back. Instead, he chooses to allow this emotion to overtake him, until his heart has become all bitter but fluffy and soft. It is a feeling hard to put to words. He doesn’t know if this is a feeling he has already experienced in previous worlds, but he is certain that this isn’t a feeling he hates.

His expression thus softens, and he asks, “how do you know that white lotus would definitely wilt?”

Gu Ronghang is stunned. He is the one holding his breath in this time, and with a shaky voice, he’s not even able to enunciate his sentence properly, “you… you mean…” Is it what he is hoping for?

Bai Lianhua smiles, his dimples filled to the brim with shyness and sweetness, “while I’m sorry I won’t be able to ever only truly have you on my mind when facing the whole world, but I think I can always stay by your side, forever.”

“Even if I really live up to my name as a white lotus, then you would just have to be the pond in which I live, isn’t that right?”

At this point, for some reason, Bai Lianhua can feel his heart flutter. His chest feels off. At the same time, he can see a great shock in Gu Ronghang’s expression… Bai Lianhua shakes his head, thinking perhaps it was just that his words were too icky, so he ended up this awkward and Gu Ronghang ended up this shocked.

His face starts burning up. The words sure were embarrassing now that he thinks about it again.

Only the system suddenly starts getting nervous. It surreptitiously gets to work in the shadows for a while… before looking at Bai Lianhua with a complicated expression.

Holy! Jesus! Christ! Only it knows how important the words that were just said were. It’s really depressing how he really really wants to share but it has no conversation partner that knows what it’s saying.

Jeez antagonist. You don’t need a bike anymore. You got the host to say that, your life is complete. You’ve won over the host, honest!

It never did imagine the antagonist can be this excellent since it first contracted the host.

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