Chapter 35: Showing Off
Seeing this, Jiang Jue’s hand moved first, his palm coming to rest steadily against Chu Yang’s shoulder to steady his swaying body.
“That’s enough. Let’s head back.” His voice carried an unmistakable note of authority, yet the hand supporting the young man’s waist deliberately eased its grip, carefully avoiding the bandaged wound.
Chu Yang stared at the mountain of provisions filling the cold storage, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he bit his lip in bitter frustration.
The freezing air had coated his long eyelashes with a delicate layer of white frost. As he blinked, a spark of mischievous calculation suddenly flickered across his eyes. Turning back to Jiang Jue and Lin Xiao, an ingratiating smile instantly spread across his face, his voice softening into a wheedling tone: “Brother Jiang, Old Lin… can we discuss something?”
“Hm?” Lin Xiao raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised that he was still scheming after taking a blade to the side.
“Look at this,” Chu Yang said, pointing eagerly toward the endless pallets of food before them. “There’s so much good stuff here. It’s such a waste to leave it behind! If we walk away, someone else is going to stumble on it sooner or later.”
He paused, and seeing that neither of them cut him off, he struck while the iron was hot: “How about… we camp out here for a few days? I can use the time to hunt down some zombies and level up my storage. Once the space is big enough to swallow the whole warehouse, we can pack everything up and clear out. What do you think?”
Jiang Jue looked at Chu Yang’s still-pale complexion, then turned his gaze across the vast warehouse of untouched supplies, quietly weighing the proposal.
These provisions were undeniably vital. In a ruined world, every extra scrap of food meant a greater chance of survival. Leaving it behind meant letting another scavenger reap the rewards.
After a few moments of silent calculation, Jiang Jue gave a slow nod. “All right. But you rest first. Until that wound closes, you are not allowed to go out hunting on your own. If you move, I go with you.”
“Awesome!” Chu Yang was so thrilled he nearly leaped into the air, only to catch himself with a sharp hiss as his waist throbbed. Still, the grin never left his face. “Deal! I swear I’ll be completely obedient, rest up, and wait until I’m healed before grinding for upgrades! But first, we need to find a place to crash.”
Lin Xiao spoke up immediately: “I spotted a few solid factory buildings right next to the warehouse while we were scouting outside. They looked mostly intact and free of zombies. We can clear one out and make camp there!”
The group made their way out of the freezing storage facility, their bodies enveloped in bone-chilling cold as their breath puffed into the air in icy plumes.
Chu Yang blew on his red, frozen hands. Looking up at the row of industrial brick buildings nearby, his eyes lit up. “The location is fantastic! We’ll have a clear line of sight on the warehouse—if anything moves, we’ll know right away!”
Lin Xiao pointed toward the sturdiest-looking structure. “Let’s check that one out first.”
From the outside, the two-story workshop looked fairly weathered, with dead vines clinging to the red brick walls and a dusting of snow coating the flat roof.
The ground-floor entrance hung slightly ajar. Inside, the open floor was littered with discarded machine parts and rusted scrap beneath a thick layer of dust. A few shriveled, frozen-stiff zombie corpses lay scattered across the concrete, having died long ago.
“Let’s head to the second floor. The ground level is too open and exposed,” Jiang Jue said in a low voice, keeping a firm arm around Chu Yang to support his weight.
They climbed the concrete staircase to the upper landing, where a long hallway was flanked by small offices and storage rooms.
Lin Xiao pushed open the thickest wooden door on the hall. Inside was a relatively spacious room, roughly twenty square meters in size. Though the windows were caked in dust, the glass panes were completely intact, effectively sealing out the freezing draft.
A few battered desks and rusted metal filing cabinets sat against the walls, but the most prominent fixtures were two old-fashioned metal bunk beds pushed against the far corner.
“This room will do,” Lin Xiao said, walking over to rap his knuckles against the iron frame, which groaned with a metallic creak. “The beds are pretty narrow, though, and bunk beds are kind of a pain.”
Supported by Jiang Jue, Chu Yang shuffled over to the doorway, poked his head inside, and immediately clicked his tongue in disdain.
The metal frames were pitifully small—barely wide enough to turn over without bumping against the cold iron rails. Sleeping on bare metal would be pure torture for his injured waist.
Glancing toward the empty office next door, Chu Yang’s eyes brightened. “Let’s take the room next door instead. I’ve got a much better bed stashed in my space anyway.”
Jiang Jue inspected the neighboring room. The plaster walls were relatively clean and the window frames were solid. Giving a nod of approval, he guided Chu Yang inside.
The moment they stepped across the threshold, Chu Yang waved his uninjured arm. With a single thought, a thick, plush mattress materialized out of thin air, landing with a soft, heavy thud onto the swept floorboards.
Lin Xiao followed them in and pressed his hand into the mattress. Feeling the deep, luxurious bounce, his jaw dropped. “Holy crap, Third Brother, isn’t this taking things a little too far? Dragging a luxury mattress through an apocalypse? You can tell just by looking that this thing cost a fortune!”
Chu Yang tilted his chin up with shameless pride, basking in the admiration. “You bet! Jiang Jue and I found this while raiding a high-end furniture showroom. It was priced at one cent shy of a million! So of course I tossed it into my storage—in a world like this, a good night’s sleep is worth more than gold.”
Lin Xiao shook his head in pure disbelief. “A million? Good lord… my monthly living allowance in college was barely two thousand. The cost of that mattress alone could have kept me fed for half a lifetime.”
Chu Yang’s grin widened as he continued unloading supplies: a fluffy down comforter, soft cotton bedsheets, and two plush feather pillows.
Jiang Jue stepped forward silently, took the fresh sheets from Chu Yang’s hands, and began making the bed with calm, practiced efficiency.
“Brother Jiang really is the best!” Chu Yang beamed. With Su Mubai carefully supporting his other side, he edged toward the mattress.
Su Mubai held him firmly as he slowly turned, minding the laceration at his waist until he was safely lowered onto the bed.
As his body sank into the deep, plush mattress and the warm down duvet enveloped him, Chu Yang let out a long, contented sigh. The sharp, throbbing ache in his side seemed to ease considerably, and he buried his face into the soft pillow with a happy murmur.
Jiang Jue stood by the bedside, watching him settle in. His gaze lingered on the thick white gauze wrapped around the young man’s waist, his brow knitting slightly as he asked in a low voice, “Is the wound still hurting? Do you want me to check it again?”
The teasing smile on Chu Yang’s face faded, his chapped lips pressing into a thin line.
Perhaps it was the vulnerability that naturally followed a severe injury, or perhaps it was because he had grown close to Jiang Jue and knew the aloof man cared deeply beneath his frosty exterior, but Chu Yang’s long-buried childish streak surfaced. Since childhood, he had hated pain, feared needles, and whined endlessly over the smallest scratch. Under the crushing weight of exhaustion and physical ache, he let down his guard completely.
Lowering his eyelashes, his voice took on a soft, plaintive edge: “It hurts… It stings every time I move, like a burning fire, and it feels all swollen…”
That unguarded admission of pain caused the sharp lines of Jiang Jue’s face to soften entirely.
Reaching out with a hint of awkwardness, Jiang Jue gently patted Chu Yang’s uninjured shoulder. Though the gesture was stiff, his touch was impossibly light, and his deep voice dropped into a slow, coaxing cadence that he didn’t even consciously realize he was using:
“Hang in there. It will feel better tomorrow. In your space… do you have any painkillers? Do you want to take some?”
Chu Yang blinked, momentarily stunned, before smacking his own forehead in sheer frustration: “How on earth did I forget about that?!”
If it hurts, you take painkillers!
