Chapter 5: A Pity I Couldn’t Kill You
The man was tall and broad-shouldered, clad in the exact same black tactical uniform worn by the base guards. A messy fringe of dark hair fell over his brow, failing to conceal the chilled, murderous glint in his eyes.
Even after tending to him for an entire week, Su Han almost didn’t recognize Shen Chengyin.
The male lead is awake?!
Not only was he awake, but he had tracked him all the way back into the heart of the base.
Instinctively taking half a step back, Su Han pressed flat against the wooden panels of the door.
Shen Chengyin watched the boy in dead silence.
Soft, pale hair. Striking eyes. Fair skin.
He looked completely harmless.
Shen Chengyin knew this youth was the one who had dragged him from the jaws of death. He had briefly regained consciousness right after his ability awakened; what a pity that he hadn’t managed to kill the boy right then and there.
At that thought, the man’s fingers gave a subtle twitch.
“He has to be hiding around here! You guys search that alleyway, the rest of you follow me!”
“Search every house! Don’t skip a single room!”
“Better to kill the wrong person than let him slip away! Fuck, he actually dared to take out our men!”
Frenzied shouts from the patrol squad echoed down the street outside.
Lowering his voice to an urgent whisper, Su Han stared at Shen Chengyin in utter disbelief. “Those people out there are hunting you?”
He had barely opened his eyes, yet he had already stirred up such a massive hornets’ nest. With the firepower the patrol was packing, a single synchronized volley could turn the male lead into a human sieve.
The man offered no response, standing rooted in place like a stone monument. Had it not been for that dark, piercing stare boring into him, Su Han would have thought Shen Chengyin had gone deaf.
There was no time to dissect his silence; the patrol would sweep through here any second.
Stepping forward, Su Han grabbed Shen Chengyin by the wrist and yanked him deeper into the villa.
He hauled the man into the bathroom, then sprinted to the adjoining room to drag over several crates of bottled drinking water. The bathroom featured a massive, two-person soaking tub, plenty big enough to submerge a full-grown man.
Ignoring the sheer waste of precious resources, Su Han tore open the bottles and dumped them frantically into the tub.
Drinkable water was practically liquid gold in the apocalypse. Even after emptying every crate, the water level barely reached the halfway mark. Grabbing a bottle of body wash from the counter, Su Han dumped half of it in and churned the water furiously with his arm.
In under two minutes, thick, towering mounds of white foam blanketed the surface.
A violent hammering rattled against the front door downstairs. The search party had arrived.
“What are you standing there for? Get in!”
Seeing Shen Chengyin remain motionless by the rim, Su Han hissed with frantic urgency.
The tub was spacious, and the foam was thick enough that an adult man could hold his breath underwater without drawing suspicion.
Shen Chengyin lowered his gaze, his dark eyes sweeping over the boy. Only after confirming that Su Han genuinely meant to cover for him did he slowly withdraw the blade hidden behind his back.
Swinging a long leg over the porcelain edge, the man sank beneath the surface, holding his breath as the foam closed over his head.
Su Han scrambled to clean up the spilled cardboard, stripped off his clothes until he was down to just a pair of shorts, and slid into the soapy water, wetting his hair with a quick splash.
Right at that moment, the screech of splintering wood echoed from the living room.
Someone had kicked the door off its hinges.
Heavy bootsteps clattered toward the upper floor, and within seconds, the patrolmen burst into the bathroom, locking eyes with Su Han, who was casually humming a tune.
Su Han widened his eyes in theatrical shock, wiping a dollop of foam from his cheek. “B-Big brothers, what’s going on…?”
The bearded squad leader at the front frowned deeply. Clean water was in horrifyingly short supply across the wasteland; virtually no one had the luxury to indulge in such a lavish bath.
Still, being capable of securing this much water was a testament to the kid’s own prowess, so they couldn’t openly fault him for it.
“An intruder breached the perimeter just now. Very tall, already slaughtered two of our patrolmen. Have you noticed anything unusual around here?”
“Brothers, I’ve been in the tub the whole time. I didn’t even hear you guys come in.”
Su Han looked bashfully flustered, ducking his head down into the bubbles until only the top half of his face peeked out.
The sight was undeniably awkward. Several guards averted their eyes, but a few bolder, lecherous scoundrels couldn’t help but gawk directly at him.
They hadn’t tasted fresh meat in three whole months… The few surviving women in the base were guarded like imperial treasures by powerful figures, completely untouchable for ordinary grunts.
Starved of affection, they were long past caring about gender; their throats ran dry just looking at him.
“Enough. Fan out and search,” the bearded leader barked, gesturing for a few men to clear the adjacent rooms while he led the remainder through a cursory sweep of the bathroom.
The space was plain and easily surveyed at a single glance, with nowhere obvious for an intruder to hide. They weren’t stupid enough to linger pointlessly.
Taking advantage of the guards turning their backs, Su Han reached beneath the suds, intending to tap Shen Chengyin so he could sneak a breath of air. But his fingers bumped against something hard and metallic.
He froze for a fraction of a second, the system sounding an immediate alarm: [That’s a blade! You just cut your hand!]
Su Han jerked his hand back, noticing a sting as a clean slit appeared on his fingertip.
Why the hell is the male lead holding a knife under here? Was he planning to fight to the death if we got caught?
Little did Su Han know that he had hit the nail right on the head—nor did he realize that had their cover been blown, Shen Chengyin’s knife would have slit his throat first before turning on the guards.
A few minutes later, the patrol concluded their search. Su Han submerged his wounded hand beneath the opaque foam once more.
“Everything checks out here. Keep your guard up,” the bearded man grunted, his gaze trailing over Su Han’s bare shoulders before offering an unprompted word of advice: “Someone will be by tomorrow to patch up the door. If any scumbags try sneaking in here tonight, slice their dicks off.”
Under the surface, something brushed against Su Han’s thigh. Given the circumstance, the sensation sent an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. Yet he couldn’t let his composure slip; forcing a sunny, obedient smile, he nodded toward the bearded leader.
“Understood. Thanks, brother.”
The moment the patrol trooped out of the villa, Su Han scrambled out of the tub.
Sharing a bath with a paranoid lunatic who had previously tried to throttle him was taking years off his life.
“They’re gone. You can come up now.”
A dripping hand shot out from beneath the suds, seized Su Han by the collarbone, and slammed him hard onto the tiled floor. The world spun violently. Before Su Han could even register the impact, cold steel was pressed against his throat.
Shen Chengyin pressed the edge a fraction of an inch deeper. The blade parted the pale skin, sending a thin trickle of crimson snaking down the hollow of the boy’s collarbone.
“W-Wait, you aren’t seriously trying to kill me again, are you…? We—we don’t even know each other!” Su Han stammered, panic finally cracking his voice.
The male lead got betrayed just once and blackened into a total psychopath. Is there even any hope of purifying him back to normal?!
“Who are you?” Shen Chengyin demanded in a gravelly, rasping voice.
Having held his breath for so long, the man was panting heavily, warm droplets of water falling from his dark bangs to splatter against Su Han’s cheek.
“I’m Su Han. ‘Su’ as in plain, ‘Han’ as in winter chill!” Desperate to preserve his life, Su Han blurted out his name on pure reflex, only to realize mid-sentence how utterly pointless it was.
He was a transmigrator who had woken up in this world with amnesia; he didn’t even know who he used to be.
How was he supposed to provide a background check? The male lead would have to be an idiot to swallow that.
The blade against his throat seemed to press in with even firmer intent.
Though Su Han felt no physical pain thanks to the system’s dampener, System 111 had a front-row seat to the blood trickling down his neck and went into full hysterics.
[Think of something! Do something! If he pushes any harder, your carotid artery is going to burst!]
“I lost my memories after the apocalypse hit! Aside from my name, I honestly have no idea who I am… Don’t cut, I’m telling the truth—!”
System 111: […]
[…Are you completely out of your mind?! That’s the brilliant excuse you came up with?!]
How was spitting the raw truth any different from begging for a swift death? He could have at least put on an act!
Tightly screwing his eyes shut, Su Han braced himself for the executioner’s strike.
He was terrible at spinning lies on the fly. Staring down this blood-drenched, murderous protagonist, his brain simply refused to fabricate anything believable.
Besides, an uncanny instinct told him that if he dared to lie and this madman saw through it, his death would be infinitely more agonizing.
Curled up on the cold floor tiles with his shoulders hunched, the boy looked entirely resigned to his demise. The reaction caught Shen Chengyin off guard.
Shen Chengyin’s eyes narrowed, his gaze settling on the boy’s trembling lashes.
This was the person who had pulled him out of the zombie jaws outside the perimeter and kept him alive for seven whole days. Why on earth was he cowering like a cornered rabbit now?
With a deft flick of his wrist, Shen Chengyin made the knife vanish, replaced by an unlabeled bottle of white pills resting on his palm.
“Swallow it.”
