Daily Life of Being Turned Gay by the Male Lead After Transmigrating into an Apocalypse – CH148

Chapter 148: Can’t Save Them All

She cradled the bread in both hands as if it were the most precious treasure in the world, carefully blowing away the loose grit and wiping the crust against her grimy sleeve before clutching it tightly to her chest. Her other hand was quickly gathered back up by her mother.

A visible flicker of heartache and embarrassment washed across the woman’s face. Offering a hasty, nervous nod toward Chu Yang and the others, she half-dragged, half-carried the little girl away. Keeping her head low, she darted into a narrow alley nearby, her small figure vanishing behind a row of crooked shacks in the blink of an eye.

Chu Yang stared in the direction they had gone, his brow furrowed and his lips slightly parted, but in the end, not a single word came out.

Su Mubai stood quietly in place, his gaze lingering on the shadows of the dark alley. His cool, detached profile looked somewhat blurred under the harsh glare of the midday sun, lost in deep thought.

Seeing him like this, Lin Xiao felt a dull ache in his chest.

Stepping up beside him, Lin Xiao glanced toward the gloomy alley before looking at the surrounding crowd. Some bystanders stared with numb indifference, others with idle curiosity, while a few watched with poorly concealed greed, sizing up their gear. Lowering his voice, Lin Xiao spoke with quiet helplessness: “Mubai, don’t look. That’s just how the world is now. It hurts to see it, but there’s really nothing we can do. People like this are everywhere; we can’t save them all, and we can’t carry everyone’s burdens.”

Su Mubai didn’t answer, offering only a faint nod to acknowledge that he had heard.

Slowly withdrawing his gaze, the quiet ripples in his eyes smoothed back into their usual calm.

“Let’s move,” Jiang Jue’s voice called from behind, steady and devoid of emotion. “It’s time to head to the Mission Hall.”

The group nodded, turning to climb back into their SUV, when a sudden commotion from Wang Qiang’s car drew their attention away.

Seeing the lead vehicle brake abruptly earlier, Li Yu and Jiang Lin had grown worried and hopped out with Wang Qiang to see what was happening.

Before the three could even reach Chu Yang and the others, they were cut off by a few men stepping out from the nearby shantytown.

The man leading them looked to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with decent features but shifty, restless eyes. Despite the suffocating, sweltering heat, he wore a crisp white long-sleeved shirt, standing out conspicuously against the ragged crowd around him.

Trailing behind him were two thuggish youths, laughing and bantering about collecting protection fees for the month.

The man hadn’t paid much attention to the passersby at first, but as his gaze casually swept across the street, he froze the moment his eyes landed on Jiang Lin.

Stunned for a fraction of a second, his face broke into a look of wild, incredulous delight. Pushing past his companions, he rushed straight toward her and seized her by the wrist!

“Linlin! It really is you! This is amazing! You’re alive! You’re actually here!” The man’s voice rose in feverish excitement, his fingers clamping down so hard they bruised her skin.

Caught off guard, Jiang Lin felt a greasy, unpleasant chill from his grip, the contact instantly sending a wave of goosebumps across her skin.

Wrenching her arm back with sharp force, she tore free from his grasp and took a wide step backward. Her delicate brows arched in immediate fury. When she took a clear look at his face, she froze in surprise before her eyes filled with undisguised revulsion. “Zhao Peng? Why the hell is it you? Back off!”

Zhao Peng was a senior from Jiang Lin’s university, two years ahead of her.

Before the apocalypse, he had pestered her relentlessly with every annoying trick in the book—sending unwanted flowers, cornering her at the campus gates, camping outside her dorm building, and even writing self-absorbed nonsense on the university message boards to force her into the spotlight.

Jiang Lin had been thoroughly disgusted by his guilt-tripping and narcissistic delusions. She had rejected him bluntly every single time and blocked all of his contact information. She never imagined she would run into him here in the ruins of the new world.

Seeing that Jiang Lin still remembered his name, the open disgust in her eyes only caused Zhao Peng’s grin to falter for a split second before it was swallowed whole by the thrill of their reunion.

He lunged forward again, reaching for her arm with an eagerness that bordered on groveling. “Linlin! I’ve been searching everywhere for you! When the outbreak hit, I asked about you everywhere I went. I couldn’t even sleep at night. Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? It’s incredible—Heaven has eyes, bringing us back together like this! How have you been surviving? Has anyone treated you badly?”

Jiang Lin took another step back, smoothly dodging his reaching hands, her brow knitting into a tight scowl. “Zhao Peng, I have nothing to say to you. Stay away from me! How I live is none of your business!”

Standing at her side, Wang Qiang frowned and stepped forward, placing his broad frame squarely in front of Jiang Lin. “Hey. What do you think you’re doing?”

Only then did Zhao Peng take notice of Wang Qiang. Sizing him up with a condescending sneer, he took in Wang Qiang’s simple clothes and honest, rugged face—dismissing him as nothing more than a dull brute. Raising a hand, he shoved roughly at Wang Qiang’s chest. “Who the hell are you? Where did this punk crawl out from? Get lost! Don’t get in my way!”

His palm slammed against Wang Qiang’s shoulder, but it felt like pushing against solid granite; Wang Qiang didn’t budge an inch.

Instead, Wang Qiang countered with lightning speed, his thick fingers clamping around Zhao Peng’s wrist like an iron vise. With a slight squeeze of pressure, Zhao Peng gasped in sharp pain, his face instantly flushing crimson.

“Let go of me, you bastard!” Shocked and enraged, Zhao Peng twisted violently, but couldn’t break free at all. He immediately barked at his lackeys, “What are you standing around for?! Get him! Take this bastard down!”

He had assumed Wang Qiang was just an ordinary heavy laborer, never expecting the man to possess such crushing strength, let alone the nerve to strike first.

A youth with bleached-yellow hair let out a wild shout, flipping his palm to launch a dull, fist-sized fireball straight at Wang Qiang’s face!

At the same time, a heavily tattooed man drew a rusted machete and hacked viciously toward Wang Qiang’s head!

Wang Qiang’s combat reflexes fired instantly. Letting out a low roar, he stomped his heavy boot against the dirt. With a dull rumble, a thick, half-body-high Earth Wall erupted from the ground, just in time to intercept both the fireball and the descending blade.

The fireball detonated against the packed earth, sending sparks scattering into the air, while the machete gouged only a shallow notch into the reinforced surface.

“An Earth-type user?” Zhao Peng’s eyes narrowed, a sinister glint flashing in their depths.

He was an Ability User himself—a Speed-type. Relying on that swiftness, he had grown accustomed to running roughshod over this district, bullying ordinary survivors without consequence.

Seeing that Wang Qiang was an Ability User didn’t rattle him. Instead, taking advantage of the split second when Wang Qiang’s focus was drawn by the frontal assault, Zhao Peng’s body blurred, leaving behind a faint afterimage. In a flash, he circled around to Wang Qiang’s blind spot, whipping his right leg around in a vicious kick aimed straight for Wang Qiang’s ribs!

Wang Qiang twisted aside in a hurry, but he was half a step too slow. The heavy kick caught him flush in the waist, drawing a muffled grunt as he stumbled back two paces, bracing his shoulder against the earthen barrier to stay upright.

Seizing the momentum, Zhao Peng pushed his speed to its absolute limit. His figure dissolved into a series of rapid blurs, darting around Wang Qiang’s perimeter while raining down a relentless flurry of strikes.

Though Wang Qiang held the upper hand in brute strength and defensive resilience, fighting off a coordinated three-way assault was overwhelming. Zhao Peng’s blistering speed kept him off-balance, while the tattooed thug pressed forward with aggressive chops of his machete, forcing Wang Qiang into a flustered, reactive retreat.

“Qiangzi!” Li Yu and Jiang Lin cried out, their hearts leaping into their throats.

Disregarding the fact that their Water abilities lacked raw offensive power, both women focused their minds and raised their hands simultaneously. Two dense water spheres formed in their palms and hurled forward, splashing straight into the tattooed thug’s face.

Though the liquid dealt no real physical damage, the blast of cool water and muddy grit washed across his eyes, blinding him instantly. The thug lost his target, his swings stuttering to a sudden halt.

Daily Life of Being Turned Gay by the Male Lead After Transmigrating into an Apocalypse