Daily Life of Being Turned Gay by the Male Lead After Transmigrating into an Apocalypse – CH52

Chapter 52: Rest in Peace

Watching Su Mubai treat Jiang Lin’s injuries, Chu Yang figured she would be fine. Withdrawing his gaze, he turned and walked over to Jiang Jue and Lin Xiao a short distance away.

The two men were crouching in the snow, examining a crystal core. Jiang Jue held the gem between his slender fingers—it emitted a faint, pale green halo—and quietly wiped the dark stains from its surface using a handful of clean snow.

Chu Yang came to a halt beside them, grinding the packed snow beneath his boots. After a few seconds of silence, he murmured, “Jiang Lin should be alright. Earlier… she actually pushed that kid out of harm’s way.”

Jiang Jue’s hand paused. He looked up at Chu Yang, then cast a brief glance toward Jiang Lin as she received healing in the distance. His dark eyes remained deep and unreadable. Ultimately, he offered nothing more than a faint “Mm,” handing the cleaned core to Chu Yang. “Keep it safe.”

Lin Xiao was far more direct. Wiping the snow from his face, he raised an eyebrow in genuine surprise. “Oh? Didn’t see that coming. So Miss Jiang actually has some guts when it counts? If she hadn’t pushed him, or if you had been a split second slower, Third Brother, both she and that kid would be in pieces right now.”

Chu Yang nodded, taking the glowing core and carefully tucking it away into his spatial storage.

Whatever Jiang Lin might have been like in the past, and whatever complicated history existed between her and Jiang Jue, her split-second choice in a life-or-death moment was undeniably brave. The lingering resentment Chu Yang felt over her earlier behavior faded considerably.

“We can’t stay here,” Jiang Jue’s cold voice cut through the brief silence, instantly shattering the fleeting sense of relief that had settled over the group.

He stood up, his sharp gaze sweeping across the trampled, bloody snow and the scattered remnants of blackened branches. His voice held an unquestionable authority. “The stench of blood and the noise from the fight are too strong; it won’t be long before other things are drawn here. We must leave immediately and find a secure place to rest before nightfall.”

Exchanging a quick look, Lin Xiao and Chu Yang didn’t need any further convincing. Lin Xiao retrieved his blade from the ground, wiping the tainted blood off its edge against a clean patch of snow, while Chu Yang brushed the frost from his coat and stored his own weapon back into his pocket dimension.

Just as they prepared to move out, a muffled, gut-wrenching sob broke from the cluster of survivors.

A haggard-looking woman threw herself across the lifeless body of the middle-aged man whose chest had been impaled by the thorny vines.

Reaching out with trembling hands, she stroked his cold, stiff cheek. Silent, heavy tears spilled from her eyes like broken strings of pearls, splashing against the man’s blood-soaked lapel and the frozen ground beneath him. Her shoulders heaved violently, yet she couldn’t bring herself to wail, choking back her devastating grief into a suppressed, agonizing whimper.

“Auntie Li, Auntie Li… please, you have to stay strong,” stammered Xiaowen, the young boy Jiang Lin had shoved out of harm’s way. Held tightly in his own mother’s arms, his eyes were red-rimmed and his voice still shook with leftover terror.

Beside them, the female college student named Li Yu crouched down. Patting the grieving woman’s shoulder with gentle compassion, she murmured, “Please, ma’am, try to bear your grief… the dead cannot come back to life.”

The woman seemed completely deaf to their words. She simply stared into her husband’s pale, lifeless face with hollow eyes, as though her own soul had been ripped away.

The mother holding her son let out a heavy sigh. Wiping the moisture from the corners of her own eyes, she spoke in a hoarse, urgent tone: “Sister Li… Old Zhang was a good man. He was just unlucky to be caught in this cursed apocalypse. But you have to hold on! Think of your daughter! Think about Niu Niu! She’s only three years old! She’s already lost her father; if you fall apart too, how is that poor child supposed to survive out here?”

As she spoke, she gestured toward an older woman holding a little girl with twin pigtails, her small face flushed bright red from crying.

As if the word “child” had pierced through her shock, a faint glimmer finally returned to the widow’s hollow eyes. Slowly, she turned her head to look at the sobbing toddler. Her lips trembled, but no sound came out.

Sensing her mother’s gaze, little Niu Niu wailed even louder, reaching out with her tiny, mittened hands. “Mommy… Mommy…”

That was right… she still had Niu Niu.

Old Zhang was gone, and her little girl no longer had a father. In this man-eating apocalypse, if she surrendered to her grief, how many days could a three-year-old possibly survive on her own?

“Niu Niu… my sweet Niu Niu…” the woman murmured, her voice raw and hoarse. A fragile spark of life finally reignited in her despairing eyes.

Struggling to push herself up from the frozen ground, her knees gave way twice before she finally stumbled over to the older woman holding her child.

Reaching out with icy, trembling hands, she gently stroked her daughter’s flushed, tear-streaked cheeks. The living warmth of the child’s skin seeped into her fingertips, and a fresh wave of tears broke free. “Niu Niu, don’t be afraid… Mommy is here… Mommy is right here…”

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, summoning every ounce of her strength to steady her swaying frame.

Turning around, she walked back to her husband’s body, step by heavy step. Bending down, she reached out with a gesture of profound, pious tenderness, gently closing the man’s eyes, which still held the lingering terror and sheer unwillingness to die.

Sinking to her knees in the drift, she began to dig into the thick, packed snow beside him with her bare hands—hands that were already frozen red and scraped by ice and gravel from the battle.

“Old Zhang… Old Zhang…” she sobbed softly, digging with mechanical, desperate motions as she murmured brokenly. “In your next life… be reborn somewhere better… somewhere without this damned apocalypse… I… I can’t even give you a proper burial in the earth… I can only… only let you sleep in the snow… Please, don’t blame me…”

The onlookers watched the heartbreaking scene, a heavy, suffocating block lodging itself in their throats. Some turned their heads away, covertly wiping their tears, while others bit their lips hard to keep from crying out.

It was unclear who moved first, but a burly man silently stepped forward, crouched down, and began using his bare hands to shovel the snow alongside her.

One after another, the remaining survivors followed suit. Everyone knelt silently in the freezing white powder, using their stiff, numb hands to carve out a simple grave in the drifts.

Soon, a shallow trench was formed.

Several men carefully lifted Old Zhang’s stiffening body and lowered him into the hollow. Scooping up clean, pristine snow with their hands, they gently covered him layer by layer, eventually forming a small, inconspicuous mound against the vast white landscape.

“Alright… it’s time to go,” Su Mubai called out, looking around to confirm there were no other casualties. His voice carried a faint, telltale hoarseness—it was obvious he was suppressing his own quiet sorrow.

Chu Yang walked over, his eyes lingering on the humble snow mound. “Rest in peace,” he whispered.

His gaze then drifted toward the thick, severed mutant branches scattered across the snow. Just moments ago, these tendrils had been as resilient as solid steel, requiring an immense amount of effort to finally cut down.

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