Chapter 152: A Lucky Man Surrounded by Women?
Early the next morning, the temperature rose again.
Li Qing took off the heavy coat and splashed his face with cold water. “I’m pretty sure it dropped below freezing last night.”
“It’s already November. Freezing temps aren’t strange. What is weird is how it still hits 40–50°C during the day,” Antonio said with a yawn, climbing off the bed. “God, now I have to worry about what to eat again? I really miss Brother Xi.”
“I can cook,” the middle-aged woman said as she walked over holding the quilt. “Thank you for the blanket and medicine last night. I can cook for you—just please… could you give my daughter something to eat? She hasn’t eaten in two days.”
Everyone instinctively looked at Lu Weiyi, since he was the one who let them stay. But nothing had happened last night. If it were just about pity, all those other women were pitiful too.
All eyes were on him.
Lu Weiyi took the damp towel Lu Xi handed him, wiped his face, yawned again, his hair sticking up as usual, and then nodded. He took out a small bag of flour, some rice, and vegetables from his storage.
The woman set the blanket down on the bed and went to clean the dishes. Her daughter joined in, helping wash vegetables while sneaking glances at Lu Weiyi.
Li Qing went over to help and took the chance to ask about their situation.
The woman’s name was Guan Tong, a doctor. Before the apocalypse, she’d taken her daughter Yun Lu on a graduation trip. The family of three got stranded far from home and spent several months rushing back toward Qingyuan.
That’s when they ran into Liu Mo’s gang. There were over a dozen of them, all with powers, who specialized in trafficking women for sex work. They had offended a powerful figure at the last base and were being hunted down—only six or seven of them escaped. When they came across the family, they noticed Yun Lu’s beauty and got evil ideas.
“Where’s your husband?” Li Qing asked.
“Yun Xiang… they threw him to the zombies,” Guan Tong said, holding back tears. Yun Lu beside her couldn’t help it—her tears fell silently and heavily, painfully tugging at the heart.
Li Qing wasn’t sure how to comfort her at that moment, so he could only ask Lu Weiyi for help, lowering his voice to ask him to try to calm her down.
Lu Weiyi gave him a puzzled look. “You made her cry, and now you want me to comfort her? Are you out of your mind?”
“This isn’t…” your person, he thought to himself but didn’t say it out loud, seeing Yun Lu glance toward Lu Weiyi. He held his tongue.
For breakfast, Guan Tong made some potato pancakes by frying shredded potatoes with flour, along with a thin stack of wraps filled with neatly arranged vegetables, and a bowl of thin porridge. It wasn’t on par with her usual cooking skills, but it was better than eating dry bread.
Once ready, Guan Tong took a small potato pancake and handed it to her daughter. She didn’t touch the rest and planned to move it to a corner.
“Let’s eat together,” Lu Weiyi said. He still needed her, and didn’t want her to starve.
Guan Tong froze for a moment, pressed her lips together, and Yun Lu hurriedly pulled her mother over, blushing and whispering, “Thank you.”
At the age of eighteen or nineteen, when a girl is in the bloom of youth, encountering someone who saved her life, who is both handsome and capable—anyone would be moved, right?
Li Qing suddenly remembered Zhuang Mingxu, who was still waiting at the base, glanced at the nonchalant Lu Weiyi, and lost his appetite.
*
After breakfast, the group packed up and left.
As soon as they stepped outside, the door next door, which had been closed the whole time, opened.
It revealed a man named Liu Mo, who had no trace of embarrassment from the previous day’s argument. Still smiling, he greeted them, “Where are you guys heading? We’re going to the Qingyuan base. Want to hitch a ride with us?” After all, their only truck had been sold.
As he spoke, his gaze shifted to Yun Lu and Guan Tong, who were trailing behind the others. His expression cooled slightly. Yun Lu shrank back, pressing deeper into her mother’s arms.
Guan Tong shot him a glare, but Liu Mo made a slashing motion across his neck. She trembled and quickly turned away, following the men out of the yard.
Liu Mo followed them out, thinking of watching them make fools of themselves, but then saw Lu Weiyi pull a RV out from his space. His face darkened, but he didn’t show it.
The other four men saw the RV and understood that Lu Weiyi was taking the two women with him. The atmosphere suddenly became awkward.
Lu Weiyi opened the driver’s side door and turned to the others. “Li Qing rests, Antonio will keep watch tonight, and tomorrow, Li Zhuang and Lu Xi will take turns driving.” After that, he got into the driver’s seat first.
Li Zhuang took the passenger seat, leaving the other three men to look at each other in silence for a while. Finally, they all got into the vehicle. Though they all knew it was inappropriate to bring these two women along, Lu Xi was the younger brother, so it was not their place to discuss it. As for Li Qing, he was an outsider, with no right to voice an opinion.
Antonio, compared to Zhuang Mingxu, was more familiar with Lu Weiyi and naturally wouldn’t question his decision, especially since it was a relatively minor issue.
After the three men got into the car, Yun Lu and her mother hurried to follow, not wanting to be left behind, as no one knew how Liu Mo would take revenge on them after being humiliated by Lu Weiyi.
The whole morning was spent with Lu Weiyi driving. They had some bread for lunch in the car. In the afternoon, Li Zhuang took over driving. By about 3 PM, the weather turned gloomy again.
“We should find a place to rest, don’t want to get caught in hail like yesterday,” Antonio’s voice came over the walkie-talkie.
“Okay,” Lu Weiyi replied, looking at the map. He told Li Zhuang, “There’s a village about a hundred kilometers away. We passed by it before. We can stop there to rest tonight.”
Li Zhuang glanced at the map briefly and said, “Alright.”
It took nearly two hours to cover the hundred kilometers, and they still got caught in the rain. Seeing the hail was letting up, they didn’t have time to clear out the zombies. They quickly got out of the vehicle and rushed to the nearest house.
The luck wasn’t terrible; the yard already had some people in it. They seemed to have just arrived, as a dozen or so were surrounding a zombie.
The yard wasn’t big, with several zombies whose heads had already been chopped off. Four women were with a child, huddled around two people who were clearly injured. In the middle of the yard, a dozen people were using various abilities to attack a single zombie.
The zombie retaliated with a fire dragon, knocking back everyone’s attacks. Just by watching the fire dragon’s strength, it seemed almost as powerful as Li Qing’s ability, if not stronger.
Li Qing’s eyes lit up when he saw it.
The only fire ability user in his team had already leveled up. Getting another one would only be a bonus. It was better to give it to Li Qing as a reward for his help these past few days.
Li Zhuang leaned in to whisper something to Lu Weiyi, who nodded and said to Lu Xi, “Take them inside first, be careful.”
“Okay,” Lu Xi nodded and called to the two women behind her, leading them toward the house.
Li Zhuang shouted to the group of people, “Need some help?”
“Thanks, brother,” a man shouted.
“No need to thank us, the crystal cores are ours,” Li Zhuang responded.
The group of a dozen people hesitated for a while, clearly unwilling to give up. Their defeat was evident; unless by some miracle, there was no chance for a comeback.
A man with a knife tried to attack the zombie’s head but was forced to retreat. Meanwhile, the zombie tried to grab a nearby person, but they dodged, leaving the zombie to grab only air. The person was scratched on the arm, though.
“Aren’t zombies supposed to have no consciousness?” one of the four people watching asked, clearly having seen what happened.
“How do you know it won’t evolve?” Lu Weiyi replied.
The zombie dodged a flying knife, and two fireballs launched at it—one collided with the knife, while the other hit a water ball from a water ability user, scattering it into steam. Amidst the smoke, the zombie charged towards the water user.
“Crystal core goes to you,” the man shouted just in time.
Lu Weiyi released the small green twig he had been ready to use and tightly bound the zombie, pulling it in front of the four people. Antonio launched four flying knives at once, blocking all four directions as they aimed for the zombie’s head.
The zombie struggled and released three fireballs at once, which were blocked by several almost equal-sized earth shields from Li Zhuang and the others. As the flying knives pierced the zombie’s skull, the power of the fireballs gradually diminished. The heavy rain extinguished them, and they turned into a wisp of heat, dissipating completely.
“It’s yours,” Lu Weiyi said to Li Qing, who hadn’t had a chance to act.
“Really? I couldn’t possibly take it,” Li Qing, who had been in a bad mood throughout the journey, said with embarrassment. He quickly dug out the crystal core and held it in his hand, turning it over and over as if he could see a flower blooming inside.
After dealing with the zombie, the group didn’t want to stay outside in the rain any longer, so they hurried to the house that Lu Xi had prepared.
The house had a three-room, one-hall layout. With two women there, the living room had been tidied up somewhat. The windows were broken, and a lot of rain had swept in near the window. The sofa was moved further inside, and the area where people would sit was dry.
As they entered, the dozen or so people who had followed them also came in. They seemed dissatisfied about the crystal core being taken, each one glaring at them. Fortunately, their glares were not as sharp as knives, or it would have felt like being slashed with a thousand cuts.
With four or five people who weren’t getting wet, the space felt cramped, and some of them had to stand near the door.
Antonio paid no attention to their glares. He took the fire crystal core from Li Qing’s hand and examined it. “This zombie looks like it’s about to level up to B-class. Its core must have a lot of energy. If you absorb it, maybe you’ll level up right away. Sigh, I just got a B-class crystal core the other day, and now here’s another one. Luck is something you can’t stop when it’s with you.”
Was this bitchy comment really from Antonio?
Hearing such words from a man with a high nose bridge and deep-set eyes, someone who looked like a foreigner and was tall and burly, it was… chilling.
Lu Weiyi thought Antonio must be joking. He shot him a disdainful look and silently turned his gaze elsewhere.
Li Qing clearly couldn’t take it anymore. He muttered under his breath, “This guy must be a fake foreigner, huh?”
Among the group that had entered, two were already injured, and one had been scratched by a zombie on the arm, and they were surrounded by a few others.
“Hubby, hubby… don’t die!” A woman bent down and cried out, holding the man who had been scratched by the zombie.
The others stood silently, and no one spoke.
At first, they thought everyone was a superpower user, but it seemed like the man was just an ordinary person. Lu Weiyi immediately thought of what Zhuang Mingxu had said about giving him a chance to try the snow water.
