Chapter 44: Fan Demotion Live
“Who are you?” Lin Yimu choked Dean’s neck, pointing the gun at him as he asked, “Where’s Lu Weiyi?”
Dean didn’t understand the first sentence, but he understood Lu Weiyi’s name. He stared with his cat-like eyes and pointed, saying, “Lu, Wei Yi… home.”
His strange accent was understandable. Lin Yimu roughly understood that this person probably didn’t speak Chinese. Lin Yimu put away the pistol and released him. With a combination of speaking and gesturing, Lin Yimu figured out that Lu Weiyi had gone out to find food. As for anything else, he didn’t understand a word, and the three of them could only sit there staring at each other.
So, when Antonio returned with the supplies and entered the building, he saw the front door wide open. His little boyfriend, who should have been sleeping, was sitting pitifully facing two men. His cry of “David” was full of grievance.
“Who are you?” Antonio threw down the box in his hand, pulled Dean behind him, and looked at the person sitting to the side.
“Brother Li,” the little green-haired guy greeted Li Zhuang, who entered right after, with a grin, taking the initiative to explain, “He said he was here to find Brother Lu. He got the name and room number right and even had a key, so I brought him up.”
Li Zhuang nodded, tossed two packs of instant noodles to the little green-haired guy, who thanked him profusely and quickly ran off. Li Zhuang sized up Lin Yimu, asking casually, “You’re the person here to pick him up?”
Pick him up?
Zhuang Mingxu’s words seemed to be to protect him, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. They were definitely going back to Qingyuan. Lin Yimu nodded, “Where is he?”
Just as he finished speaking, Gu Qingyue’s voice came from outside the door, “At this time, food is the most important. Gold, silver, and jade are worthless. That person was clearly trying to rip you off. If you want to buy jade in the future, definitely don’t give them whatever price they ask.”
“Got it,” Lu Weiyi replied absentmindedly, touching the several pieces of high-quality jade ornaments in his hand.
They had returned with supplies. As soon as they entered the community gate, Lu Weiyi saw someone setting up a stall to sell jade ornaments, all of excellent quality. His first thought was of his space that still had a crack. The person insisted on a box of instant noodles. Lu Weiyi didn’t want to haggle and agreed. But when he took the person to get the goods, Gu Qingyue stopped him and directly cut the price in half, so he was treated like a naive fool and lectured for a long time.
“Gu Qingji? You’re Gu Qingji! Aren’t you?”
Lin Yimu had just heard his young master’s voice and hadn’t even seen him yet when the blond kid next to him exclaimed excitedly.
Seeing Dean’s expression, Antonio covered his face, his good mood towards Gu Qingji instantly vanishing.
“You know me?” Every time he went out or had a concert, his ears would be filled with this kind of exclamation. Gu Qingji was very familiar with it.
“I, I…” Dean pointed at himself, unable to speak in his anxiety, and blurted out in English, “I’m your fan, I came specifically to see your concert.” No wonder Antonio recognized Gu Qingji when he saw him.
As Dean spoke, he waved one hand, accompanying himself as he sang, “You are my heart, my soul, my daydream, even so, I still don’t want to wake up.” (Note: This is a rough phonetic approximation of the Mandarin lyrics in English.)
The most awkward silence.
“No wonder I’ve never heard your song,” Li Zhuang looked at Gu Qingji with a complicated expression.
“This isn’t, I didn’t…” Gu Qingji didn’t know what to say for a moment. If this were before the apocalypse, he would have definitely personally revoked this person’s fan status.
Only Antonio clapped his hands, praising very sincerely, “Dean, that was very beautiful. I think you could completely have your own concert, you don’t need to listen to anyone else.”
Li Zhuang had a new understanding of Antonio’s blatant lying.
It wasn’t until later, after they became familiar, that everyone finally understood that the jumbled lyrics Dean sang were originally.
The group was silent, not knowing what to say. Lin Yimu’s “Young Master” broke the awkwardness.
Lu Weiyi’s gaze, which had been watching the drama, suddenly turned. The moment he saw Lin Yimu, his usually cold eyes brightened slightly. “Big Brother Mu, where’s Zhuang Mingxu?” He looked around, not seeing him, and then looked at Lin Yimu again.
“Mingxu? Isn’t he in the Capital?” Lin Yimu’s information was still from before the earthquake.
“He went back to Qingyuan, said he was coming to pick me up right away. Didn’t you come with him?”
Lin Yimu shook his head. “Before the earthquake, he called me and told me to come over overnight.” Lin Yimu then roughly explained what had happened on the way, saying, “He might have also taken the wrong road. The earthquake changed many places, especially the Yilin County direction we usually take, which became a steep cliff due to the earthquake, leading to a dead end if you kept going. I also took the wrong way and had to turn back and change to the Qiutian County direction, which caused a delay of several days.”
Although Lin Yimu comforted him like this, with the earthquake and zombies, he actually had some doubts in his heart about whether something had happened to Zhuang Mingxu.
“Mm, something must have delayed him,” even though Lu Weiyi said this, his expression still showed some disappointment.
His raven-like eyelashes cast a small shadow as he lowered his head, his delicate features drooping, like an abandoned little prince, stubbornly holding onto the last bit of his pride, which only made him even more pitiful.
“Mingxu will definitely come to pick you up,” Lin Yimu added in his heart, if nothing happened to him.
“Mm,” Lu Weiyi took a deep breath, his usual coldness returning. “Let’s move things first.”
At the same time, hundreds of miles away in Qingyuan City, Zhuang Mingxu asked the child on the sofa in the living room for the last time, “Ai Yi, I’m asking you one last time, are you sure you want to come with me to find your little papa? There will be many monsters along the way, it’s very dangerous, and you could die at any time.”
“Aunt Muzi said that it’s only safe by Big Papa’s side, and told me to always follow Big Papa,” Zhuang Ai Yi said softly, his little hand tightly clutching the corner of Zhuang Mingxu’s clothes, his beautiful eyes, exactly like Lu Weiyi’s, filled with tears as he looked at Zhuang Mingxu. “Big Papa, don’t leave me behind, I’ll be good.”
That day, Zhuang Mingxu got off the plane and found the airport too noisy, so he didn’t call Lu Weiyi back immediately. While waiting to get into the car, he saw the text message Lu Weiyi had sent. Feeling uneasy, he called Lu Weiyi, just in time to hear him shout, “Go to a spacious and less crowded place.”
Without thinking, Zhuang Mingxu told the driver who had come to pick him up, Zheng Xin, to follow him and quickly ran out of the terminal.
Almost as soon as they ran out, vibrations came from under their feet. Zhuang Mingxu stumbled but still ran a bit further, avoiding the panicked crowd.
When the tremors completely subsided, Lu Weiyi’s phone could no longer be reached, and what imprinted itself in his eyes was a scene of human hell.
The earthquake had split the terminal, and countless people were crushed underneath. Cars in the parking lot were squeezed and collided, and there were limbs and blood everywhere. As the crowd surged outwards, a large-scale stampede occurred. Cries and screams filled the air, a true scene of hell on earth.
Zhuang Mingxu and Zheng Xin both suffered some injuries. Compared to others who were missing arms and legs, the little blood they shed could be directly ignored.
The roads around the airport were completely destroyed, and the damage to the power lines plunged the surroundings into darkness. The two could only wait until dawn to walk back.
Going to Wutong City inevitably meant passing through Qingyuan. The two walked two or three kilometers early in the morning before seeing a van parked by the roadside. They smashed the window, and Zhuang Mingxu showed off his keyless ignition skills. Only then did the two of them start their bumpy journey.
Originally planning to go straight home to get an off-road vehicle and head to Qingyuan, they hadn’t gone far when they encountered a familiar person blocking the road – Li Muzi. Her white coat was covered in blood, and she was holding a child in her arms. Zhuang Mingxu stopped the car and recognized after a closer look that it seemed to be his son, Zhuang Ai Yi.
Li Muzi was a professor at a genetic engineering research institute, specializing in dual sperm fertilization. Years ago, Zhuang Mingxu had sponsored this project to cut off Lu Weiyi’s escape route, using their sperm to cultivate a child who was now over two years old.
A child cultivated from two sperm, although surviving, didn’t have a very good physique and spent most of his time in the research institute under the care of specialists. Their relationship naturally wasn’t very close.
But after all, it was his and Lu Weiyi’s bloodline. Zhuang Mingxu still cared about this child. When he heard Li Muzi say that the child had been buried in a collapsed house and only just dug out, he felt a wave of fear. When he saw his son weakly open his eyes and call out “Big Papa” with tearful eyes, Zhuang Mingxu undeniably softened instantly.
He made a turn, not towards home, but directly towards the hospital.
This examination and treatment delayed them for several days. Before they could set off after being discharged, the zombies appeared.
The first moment Zhuang Mingxu heard the news, his sensitivity made him realize the future situation. He gathered his brothers who had retired from the army with him and the company’s senior management, using his suburban villa as a temporary gathering place, and organized a few people to quickly empty several large supermarkets.
There was an army garrison a hundred kilometers outside Qingyuan City. Such a large-scale geological disaster would definitely alarm the army for rescue. Zhuang Mingxu seized a time difference. By the time the army arrived and began to control the food in large supermarkets, he was already discussing getting a batch of firearms with his subordinates. Although they couldn’t deal with zombies, what was more terrifying than zombies in the apocalypse was probably people.
He had just managed to give his subordinates a rough plan when Zhuang Ai Yi fell ill. The onset was fierce in the middle of the night, and at one point, it was determined that he wouldn’t survive. Zhuang Mingxu naturally couldn’t leave at this time. Now that he had finally recovered, he insisted on going with him.
Although he knew that taking the child would be fraught with danger, what he said was indeed correct. In this world, placing the child with anyone would definitely not be as safe as being with his parents. But not going to find Lu Weiyi because of the child was impossible.
Between taking the child into danger and abandoning Lu Weiyi, Zhuang Mingxu chose the former without hesitation.
He sat on the sofa in silence for a while, then said to Zheng Xin beside him, “Pack up. We’ll leave for Wutong City tomorrow morning.”
**
After moving the things, it was already dark. The group simply ate dinner together.
They took out a few self-heating small hot pots, mixed the seasonings together, added a lot of ham sausages and braised eggs, and cooked two packs of noodles on the gas stove.
The Gu Qingyue brothers were in charge of cooking, Dean went over to help, Lu Weiyi sat by the window, silently looking outside while stroking the jade Buddha he had traded for. Li Zhuang and Antonio were smoking and studying the map, deciding where to go tomorrow, occasionally glancing up at Lu Weiyi’s direction.
The solar-powered light bulbs illuminated the room brightly, like a happy gathering before the apocalypse.
Lin Yimu washed up, changed his clothes, and came over to sit beside Lu Weiyi. “Young Master, what are your plans?”
Lu Weiyi shook his head, his expression reflected in the window, looking somewhat helpless.
“Are we… going to keep waiting?”
Keep waiting?
In their previous life, it took Zhuang Mingxu seven days to get from Qingyuan to Wutong City. Even with delays, he should have arrived within ten days at most. Although Lu Weiyi kept saying that Zhuang Mingxu was fine and would come, who could be sure that his rebirth wouldn’t change anything? Dean, whom he had rescued in time, hadn’t faced the things he did in the previous life, had he? And Lin Yimu, who should have appeared with Zhuang Mingxu, had appeared here alone, hadn’t he?
Who could guarantee that Zhuang Mingxu would be fine?
Lu Weiyi was silent for a long while. Amidst Gu Qingyue’s cheerful call to eat, he put the few pieces of jade into his space, feeling the stinging pain in his navel, and made a decision. “In five days, if he still hasn’t come, we’ll go back to Qingyuan.”
