Daily Life of Being Turned Gay by the Male Lead After Transmigrating into an Apocalypse – CH64

Chapter 64: I Will Become Useful

Chu Yang was pulled toward the house by Jiang Jue. He glanced back at Jiang Lin, who remained rooted in place with a pale, defeated face, but swallowed the words on his tongue.

He could clearly feel that Jiang Jue was in an unusually foul mood, radiating a cold, biting irritation.

Now was obviously not the time to pry into his past.

Chu Yang could only exchange a quick, meaningful look with Su Mubai and Lin Xiao, signaling them to look after the new recruits and young Little Yu, before letting Jiang Jue lead him back inside.

The heavy wooden door shut tight, cutting off the cold night outside.

In the courtyard, Su Mubai and Lin Xiao traded a helpless shrug.

Clearing his throat, Lin Xiao addressed the remaining crowd, including the newly inducted Li Yu and Wang Qiang, as well as the rest of the ordinary survivors: “Let’s call it a night. Everyone’s been through a lot, and we’re all running on fumes.”

“Find a room that’s relatively intact to sleep in. Before you settle down, make sure to inspect the doors, windows, and walls for any holes, and block them up tight. We’ll sort everything else out once the sun comes up.”

The survivors nodded numbly, still visibly shaken. Deep exhaustion and lingering fear were etched into every hollow face. Some whispered in trembling voices about the bloody skirmish and the companions they had lost, while others stared into the dark, consumed by dread for the days ahead.

Slowly, they dispersed in small groups to find shelter for the night.

Lin Xiao crouched down, softening his rough voice as much as he could as he spoke to Little Yu, who was keeping his head low: “Come on, little guy. Come sleep inside with us; it’s freezing out here.”

Little Yu didn’t budge.

Lifting his head, the boy turned his red, swollen eyes toward the west room—the very place where his grandfather had drawn his last breath.

His voice was tiny, yet filled with quiet resolve: “Brother Lin Xiao, Brother Little Bai… can I… can I stay here tonight to keep my grandfather company? I’ll come find you first thing in the morning, I promise.”

A flicker of deep heartache crossed Su Mubai’s eyes. Stepping forward, he gently wrapped an arm around the frail child. “Good boy… how about I stay with you instead?”

Little Yu shook his head softly. His tone was barely above a whisper, but completely unyielding: “There’s no need, Brother Little Bai. I want to be alone… so I can talk to my grandfather a little longer.”

Lin Xiao and Su Mubai looked at each other, seeing the same helpless sorrow reflected in each other’s eyes.

Finally, Lin Xiao let out a heavy sigh, reaching out to ruffle the boy’s messy hair. “All right, then. Keep your guard up and latch the door tight. If… if anything happens, or if you get scared, come knock on our door right away, okay?”

Little Yu gave a silent nod. He watched quietly as Lin Xiao and Su Mubai turned and stepped back into their room, pulling the door gently shut.

The courtyard plunged into absolute stillness, leaving behind only the heavy stench of blood and the carnage strewn across the snow. Turning slowly, Little Yu walked step by step toward the west room.

Pushing the wooden door open, the thick, pungent odor of fresh blood rushed into his face.

Pale moonlight filtered through the broken window, casting a silver glow over the cold body resting on the bed.

Little Yu had already closed his grandfather’s vacant eyes and wiped the worst of the gore from his face. Though he hadn’t been able to clean it entirely, the old man at least looked peaceful now, as if he had merely drifted off to sleep.

Little Yu knelt by the bedside. His tears had long since run dry, leaving him to stare blankly at the pale, stiff features.

A long, silent stretch of time passed—so long that his legs went completely numb from the cold floor. Only then did he speak, his voice raspy and barely audible: “Grandpa, Little Yu has a place to go now. Brother Chu Yang and the others… they took me in. You don’t have to worry about me anymore…”

He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his grandfather here on a damp, broken bed, waiting to be gnawed on by more mutant rats, or slowly rotting away like the abandoned bodies they had passed along the highway.

Bracing his hands against the frame, Little Yu pushed himself up on his numb legs and searched the dim room.

In the corner, half-buried under a pile of rusted farm tools and junk, he uncovered a small iron shovel. Its wooden handle was short and the blade was quite small, but it was functional.

He was going to give his grandfather a proper burial.

Holding the shovel, Little Yu stepped into the center of the frozen vegetable patch behind the house. Staring down at the rock-hard ground, he drew a deep, icy breath and drove the blade downward with all his might.

The frozen earth was far more stubborn than he had imagined. Every strike barely chipped a faint white scratch into the dirt, jarring his hands so violently that the webbing between his fingers went numb.

He gritted his teeth and threw his whole body weight into every thrust. His thin arms burned with exhaustion until he could barely lift the tool. Blisters soon swelled across his palms, bursting under the friction and oozing fluid that mixed with the grit, gluing his raw skin to the wooden handle. Every movement sent a searing spike of pain through his hands.

Yet he never stopped.

Occasionally, he would wipe his face with his tattered sleeve, unable to tell whether the moisture was sweat or tears.

He lost track of how long he had been digging—an hour, perhaps two. His arms trembled so violently he could hardly raise them, and dark spots swam across his vision. Finally, he had hollowed out a shallow trench just over half a meter deep, barely wide enough to hold a grown man.

Little Yu dropped the shovel and leaned heavily against the crumbling wall, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.

Staggering back into the dark room, he gathered his grandfather’s cold, stiff body into his arms.

The old man’s weight was a crushing burden for a twelve-year-old child.

Gritting his teeth until his face turned crimson, his small frame wobbled with every step. He nearly collapsed into the dirt multiple times, but his arms remained locked in an iron grip, refusing to let go.

Step by painful step, he dragged the body into the garden and gently lowered his grandfather into the shallow trench.

Under the cold light of the moon, Little Yu took one last, long look at his grandfather’s face.

Reaching out with a trembling hand, he smoothed the old man’s furrowed brow, his throat tightening with a choked sob: “Grandpa, in our next life… let’s never live through an apocalypse again…”

Picking up the shovel from the snow, he began scooping the dirt back in, one small spade at a time.

With every mound that fell, he whispered a promise into the dark.

“Grandpa, I’m sorry. Your grandson wasn’t strong enough to protect you.”

“Grandpa, don’t worry about me. I’m going to live.”

“Grandpa, I’m going to become really strong, and I won’t ever let anyone bully me again…”

When the final scoop of soil was placed, a modest earthen mound stood quietly in the corner of the garden.

Little Yu knelt before the fresh grave and pressed his forehead against the freezing dirt, kowtowing three times with solemn reverence.

“Grandpa, rest well,” he whispered, his soft words drifting away on the cold breeze. “Little Yu is going to survive, I promise. I will make myself useful. I won’t ever be a burden to anyone… and I won’t let them leave me behind.”

After speaking his vow, he remained kneeling in the silence until a sliver of pale dawn broke across the eastern horizon, until his legs were so stiff he could barely stand.

Morning had arrived.

Bracing himself against the low courtyard wall, Little Yu pushed himself to his feet and cast his gaze over the dozens of mutant rat carcasses scattered across the snow.

He tallied them in his mind. There were over sixty in the yard, a handful in his own room, and more than a dozen strewn across the other doorways. All together, there were easily over eighty bodies.

He remembered watching Brother Chu Yang and the others carefully extract glowing, polished stones from the heads of fallen zombies—stones that everyone seemed to treat like precious treasure.

Could there be similar crystal cores hidden inside the skulls of these mutant rats?

Little Yu picked up his small, chipped fruit knife and walked resolutely toward the nearest beast.

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