Chapter 243: Uncle Lu Xiao
“ARGH—!” Xu Yi screamed again. “I’ll heal him, I’ll heal him!”
Lu Weiyi let go of his hair. The bloody knife in his hand made his pale fingers look even more crimson. His blood-streaked face looked down at Xu Yi with an unconscious superiority.
The killing intent radiating from him left everyone too frightened to speak.
Xu Yi placed his hands on Lu Xiao’s body. “He… he’s gravely injured.”
“Then you might have to die,” Lu Weiyi replied, his eyes locked on Xu Yi. “Remember that foreigner…?”
Xu Yi’s whole body trembled.
Clearly, the trauma from Antonio was still vivid.
“He won’t die. He’s treatable,” Xu Yi quickly said, speeding up his healing powers. As his face turned pale, Lu Weiyi pulled an A-grade crystal core from his pocket and handed it over.
“T-Thanks…”
“Dad? Dad!” At that moment, Zhuang Mingxu and the others arrived.
Lu Xi immediately rushed forward. After maintaining the mental shield the whole way, his power was already exhausted. Seeing Lu Xiao in such a state pushed him over the edge — he fainted from emotional shock.
“Xiao Xi!” Lu Xiao suddenly regained some strength, trying to sit up and check on his son.
“He’s fine, Uncle. Just mental exhaustion.” Lu Weiyi turned to instruct someone to take Lu Xi away. Seeing Zhuang Mingxu being carried by Qi Lin, he pursed his lips apologetically.
Zhuang Mingxu shook his head slightly, indicating it was fine.
“Make way,” Lu Weiyi said to the man who, moments ago, had wanted to claim him as a nephew — now stunned into silence.
“Oh, oh,” the man got up, but suddenly realized something was wrong. Just as he was about to approach, Antonio had already brought Dean over and taken his place.
“This one’s also a healing-type ability user,” Lu Weiyi explained to Lu Xiao.
Dean gave Lu Xiao a warm smile, placing his hand on him. Opposite them, Xu Yi happened to glance up and, upon seeing Antonio, his face turned ghostly pale. One of his hands immediately began to tremble.
“Don’t worry, I won’t lay a hand on you,” Antonio said with exaggerated friendliness, even flashing a smile at him.
Xu Yi hurriedly lowered his head and poured the last of his power into Lu Xiao.
With two ability users working on him, not even a scar was left on Lu Xiao’s body. Other than a bit of dizziness from blood loss, he was perfectly fine.
As the two finished, Lu Xiao sat up straight away.
Lu Weiyi finally breathed a sigh of relief.
With Lu Xiao’s team retreating, all ability users from the battlefield returned as well. Seeing the two healing-type users gathered nearby, people from various factions began sizing up the newcomers.
Only one young man stared around in disbelief, his gaze finally landing on Zhuang Mingxu. He asked in shock, “Zhuang Mingxu?”
His eyes openly scanned Mingxu’s legs.
“Zhuang Mingze,” Mingxu replied, confirming his identity.
“What are you doing here?” Zhuang Mingze asked.
“We heard there was a cache of supplies here and came to check it out,” Zhuang Mingxu answered straightforwardly.
“You guys already took the supplies inside?” a burly bald man holding a spiked club, stained with rotting blood, asked.
Lu Weiyi glanced at the few men across from him. They quickly and silently moved to stand beside him.
“C-Can I… can I have my hand back?” Xu Yi, standing between Antonio and Lu Weiyi, looked like he wanted to vanish on the spot.
“This?” Lu Weiyi held up Xu Yi’s severed hand. “I’ll hold onto it for now. It’s been so long since we’ve met. We should catch up properly.”
“I…” Xu Yi clearly didn’t want to, didn’t dare go.
“This gentleman—Mr. Xu is a member of our Hunter Guild,” a young man with glasses appeared with a polite smile and addressed Lu Weiyi.
“You got sold to them?” Lu Weiyi’s tone was emotionless, his eyes flat.
“No,” Xu Yi shrank under his gaze, “I… I’m a member.”
“Oh, then quit,” Lu Weiyi said casually. Everyone around was stunned by how openly he was snatching a healing-type user.
“I think you’d rather follow me, am I right?” Lu Weiyi looked at Xu Yi.
Next to him, Antonio crossed his arms, smirking as he stared at Xu Yi. “Welcome, old friend.”
“……” Xu Yi looked around for help, but no one responded. Upon hearing a soft “Hmm?” from Lu Weiyi, he immediately shouted, “Yes… I’m willing to follow you!”
The last few words were choked with sobs.
Everyone watching felt a bit sorry for him.
“Haha, now that’s more like it. Old classmate, after all these years we’re reunited—what a joyous occasion,” Xu Sa said, stepping in and throwing an arm around Xu Yi’s shoulders, blocking the man with glasses from approaching.
He turned and smiled at him. “Big brother, your Hunter Guild doesn’t force people to stay, right? Our old classmate doesn’t want to follow you anymore, and everyone here can testify.”
The man with glasses pushed his frames up, took a step back, and said no more.
At that moment, Lin Tian drove the truck around in a big loop and came over.
A nine-meter-long double-decker truck immediately caught everyone’s attention.
Before the driver could speak, Zhuang Ai Yi poked his head out and shouted, “Little Daddy! Big Daddy—!”
Lu Weiyi got up, reached through the window, and lifted Zhuang Ai Yi out, introducing him to Lu Xiao. “My son, Zhuang Ai Yi.”
“This is your great-uncle.”
Lu Xiao had long heard that Lu Weiyi and Zhuang Mingxu had a child, but he didn’t expect the boy to be traveling with them. Judging by their interactions, they seemed to get along quite well.
“Hello, Great-Uncle! You’re bleeding—does it hurt? Ai Yi will blow on it, it won’t hurt anymore.” Zhuang Ai Yi, who was used to people on the island, wasn’t shy at all. He immediately pouted and leaned over to blow on Lu Xiao’s face.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Lu Xiao laughed warmly and tried to hug him.
“No hugs! Little Daddy says Ai Yi is a chubby piggy—Great-Uncle will get tired,” Ai Yi waved his hands seriously.
“Just like your daddy when he was little,” Lu Xiao chuckled and pulled Ai Yi to sit beside him.
“Sorry to interrupt, Captain Lu,” a scantily dressed woman swayed over and tossed a flirtatious look at Gu Qingji as she passed. “Are we still retrieving the supplies? Now that your unit has pulled out, is the military expecting us to take over?”
“I…” Lu Xiao was about to respond when Lu Weiyi squeezed his arm gently and whispered, “I lost a lot of blood and feel dizzy. I’m not going. You all figure it out.”
“No way…”
“Then you go,” Lu Xiao cut off Zhuang Mingze coldly with a glare.
“How about we all take a break? It’s almost noon, and everyone’s been busy all morning,” a chubby man with a smiling Buddha face and wooden prayer beads around his neck said cheerfully, trying to ease the tension.
“I’ve got beds in my truck. Come rest for a bit, Uncle,” Lu Weiyi offered, pointing at his vehicle.
Lu Xiao had questions to ask anyway, so he nodded and followed him up. Qi Lin carried Zhuang Mingxu and followed close behind.
Before boarding, Zhuang Mingxu turned to the five new team members. “Stay alert.”
“Yes, sir!” Liu Yang, the eldest among them, responded immediately, raising his voice and assigning everyone to guard around the truck.
Xu Sa threw his arm around Xu Yi and sat near the back door of the truck, claiming it was for an “old friends’ catch-up.”
Only Xu Yi knew that there were occasional sparks of electricity flashing from Xu Sa’s hand—his legs were completely weak.
The group entered the truck, while members of the other surrounding factions gathered in twos and threes nearby, murmuring among themselves.
*
As soon as Lu Xiao boarded, he glanced at the unconscious Lu Xi, gently touched the delicate cheek of his son whom he hadn’t seen for a year, and teared up.
“I thought I’d never see him again in this life.”
“He’s been with me all along,” Lu Weiyi gestured for Lu Xiao to sit down, then took out some gelatin cake prepared earlier from his spatial storage.
“Keep it for yourself. Don’t waste it.” Lu Xiao tried to refuse, but Lu Weiyi blocked his hand.
“Great-Uncle, eat it. We have lots of good food at home. Ai Yi will share with you,” Zhuang Ai Yi said as he grabbed it with both hands and stuffed it into Lu Xiao’s arms.
“Eh? What if I eat all your snacks? Is that okay?” Lu Xiao teased.
“Okay,” Zhuang Ai Yi hugged his arm, “After we finish, we’ll go find more tasty stuff in the warehouse.”
Hearing that, Lu Xiao knew that Lu Weiyi had been living pretty well all this time.
Back to the matter at hand: “You came here for the supplies?”
As the topic turned serious, Dean stepped forward to lead Zhuang Ai Yi away to play.
Lu Weiyi glanced at Zhuang Mingxu.
Zhuang Mingxu paused in thought, then said, “We’ve already secured them.”
“Secu…” Lu Xiao immediately lowered his voice. “Secured them?”
Lu Xiao frowned deeply.
“You’re worried that the Capital factions will come after us?” Zhuang Mingxu cut to the chase.
Lu Xiao didn’t bother correcting how Zhuang Mingxu addressed him, only nodded.
“This supply depot was negotiated over for a long time at the base. Allocations were already set. What you did is equivalent to declaring hostility against everyone.”
“Why don’t you tell us about the situation in the Capital first?” Zhuang Mingxu deflected.
After the apocalypse, the national government quickly took control. The sheer size of the population made it incredibly difficult to control the spread of zombies.
All leadership evacuated the urban areas and established a temporary base in the outskirts. As the population grew, it gradually developed into what it is today.
The power structure within the base largely mirrored the pre-apocalypse configuration. The military appeared unified but was actually split between the Zhuang and Zheng families. The police were controlled by the Zhao family, and finally, there was the Hunter Guild.
The Hunter Guild represented all hunting teams and held considerable power.
“More importantly,” Lu Xiao added, “there are only six healing-type ability users in the Capital base. Four of them belong to the Hunter Guild. The only Tier-2 healing ability user is also with them.”
Lu Xiao suddenly remembered and asked, “That’s Xu Yi. Do you guys have a grudge?”
“No. Just an old classmate,” Lu Weiyi replied calmly. He never felt there was a real grudge between them—it wasn’t worth it.
Lu Xiao’s mouth twitched. An old classmate who chopped off someone’s arm without hesitation.
“What’s the situation with the Zhuang family now?” Zhuang Mingxu asked.
