Chapter 81: Is It Strange?
Chu Yang paused, raised his voice, and swept his gaze over the survivors trailing behind them. His tone was calm, but it carried an unmistakable edge of warning: “Listen up, everyone. We have about two hours of free time. You can use this window to forage for food and supplies, but above all else—”
His sharp eyes locked onto each person’s face in turn. “Do everything you can to find a drivable vehicle, or at least secure some gasoline. Now that the temperature is climbing and the snow is melting, we’ll be traveling by car from here on out, and we’re going to move fast. If you don’t have transport, or don’t know how to drive and can’t keep up with our pace, we won’t be stopping to wait for you. Understood?”
In this apocalypse, nothing was handed out for free; if you wanted to survive, you had to rely on your own two feet.
The survivors exchanged uneasy glances. Complex emotions flickered across their faces, and they broke into hushed, anxious whispers.
“Right, we need to find a car…”
“I don’t know the first thing about driving…”
“I—I know a little. We can team up and share a ride when the time comes…”
“Should we look for something sturdy like an SUV?”
“Would motorcycles work too?”
“A car is better, definitely safer…”
Chu Yang said nothing more. The harsh rules of survival were lessons they had to learn and navigate on their own.
Before long, the group split into several scouting parties.
Lin Xiao and Su Mubai formed one team, while Wang Qiang and Li Yu made up another. Choosing their respective directions, they tightened the grips on their weapons and vanished with practiced vigilance around the street corners.
Jiang Jue and Chu Yang, taking Little Yu with them, set off down another avenue.
On Lin Xiao and Su Mubai’s side.
The pair moved quietly along the curb, their eyes methodically scanning the abandoned vehicles lining the asphalt and the ruined storefronts on either side of the road.
Lin Xiao twirled his specially forged straight blade with a deft flick of his wrist, the polished steel catching the morning sun and throwing off sharp glints of light.
After walking in silence for a while, Lin Xiao suddenly nudged Su Mubai with his elbow. Lowering his voice, a look of profound confusion and gossipy curiosity washed over his face. “Hey, Little Bai… don’t you feel like the Boss and Third Brother act a little… strange when they’re together?”
Su Mubai’s footsteps faltered for a fraction of a second. Turning his head, he shot Lin Xiao an astonished glance, thinking to himself: This blockhead, usually so thick-skinned and oblivious, actually managed to notice something?
Keeping his expression completely neutral, Su Mubai asked, “Strange? How so? I haven’t noticed anything unusual.”
“Of course it’s strange!” Lin Xiao’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. He glanced left and right as if sharing a top-secret classified file. “You won’t believe what I saw when I got up to take a leak in the middle of the night!”
“What?” Su Mubai asked, playing along even though he had already guessed what was coming.
Lin Xiao leaned in closer, his features twisting into a conflicted, awkward grimace, as though he had witnessed something he desperately wished he hadn’t. His tone dripped with bizarre bewilderment: “I saw the Boss… holding Third Brother in his arms while he slept! And with one hand… he was gently caressing Third Brother’s face!”
As he spoke, Lin Xiao shuddered dramatically. “The look in his eyes… man, I didn’t even dare stare too long. It was so ridiculously tender it practically dripped honey! It was sickeningly sweet!”
Su Mubai remained quiet for two seconds, his fingers curling slightly at his sides as he attempted to offer a rational excuse: “Maybe… the Boss saw a speck of dirt on Chu Yang’s cheek and was just wiping it off? Or maybe he was half-asleep and did it unconsciously.”
Lin Xiao instantly leveled a look at Su Mubai that practically screamed, Who are you trying to fool with that garbage?
“Come on, Little Bai, do you honestly believe that yourself?” Lin Xiao curled his lip, his tone dead certain. “In the dead of night, Third Brother’s face was clean as a whistle—what was there to wipe? Besides, does wiping away a smudge require looking at someone that… tenderly?”
Even Lin Xiao felt that applying the word “tender” to someone as cold, decisive, and ruthless as Jiang Jue felt profoundly bizarre. Pausing, he added, “And you didn’t see the Boss’s eyes. He was wide awake! Not even blinking! He definitely wasn’t asleep!”
Lin Xiao scratched his head, struggling to process his own wild theory. Dropping his voice to an even lower register, he asked tentatively, “Do you think… could the Boss be like Zhang Yuze from the neighboring unit back home… into men? And the guy he likes is Third Brother?”
The moment those words were uttered, Su Mubai’s heart skipped a beat. He came to an abrupt halt, spun on his heel, and looked straight into Lin Xiao’s eyes. The brim of his cap dipped forward, casting a shadow over the turbulent emotions swirling in his gaze.
His voice remained calm, yet it carried an imperceptible thread of tension, as if holding back something heavy: “What if… what if that really is the case?”
“Huh?” Lin Xiao froze, caught completely off guard by Su Mubai’s deadly serious tone. The gossipy excitement from moments ago vanished, replaced by sheer uncertainty. He even took an involuntary half-step back. “No way… I was just throwing out wild guesses… It can’t actually be true, right?”
He genuinely couldn’t reconcile the image of their Boss—a towering, razor-sharp powerhouse with a terrifying presence—with the idea of liking men. And that the object of his affection would be Third Brother, who usually looked laid-back and easygoing, yet turned ruthlessly sharp and dependable in every life-or-death crisis? That pairing… no matter how he turned it over in his mind, felt utterly surreal.
“I don’t know. Neither of them has said anything to me.” Su Mubai turned his eyes away, staring down the empty, sunlit street ahead. His tone drifted back to cool detachment, as though the topic were of no real importance. “If it were true… would you find it disgusting?”
“Disgusting?” The word caught Lin Xiao off guard. He gave it serious, genuine thought, recalling how Jiang Jue and Chu Yang normally interacted—their wordless chemistry when fighting back-to-back, their casual banter, the undisguised protectiveness and deep concern Jiang Jue showed whenever Chu Yang overexerted his powers… Aside from that overly intimate moment he had stumbled upon last night, the atmosphere between the two had always felt completely natural, not fundamentally different from how they treated the rest of the squad.
“Not really,” Lin Xiao finally answered with honest sincerity, shaking his head. “It’s just… bizarre, you know? A little hard to wrap my head around all of a sudden. But calling it disgusting? Nah, that’s not it at all. The Boss is still the Boss, and Third Brother is still Third Brother.”
Hearing Lin Xiao’s reply, the invisible tightness in Su Mubai’s shoulders melted away. The breath he had been holding in his chest released in a quiet, imperceptible sigh. Watching Lin Xiao’s conflicted expression as the man struggled to make sense of it all, a complex mix of emotions flashed deep within Su Mubai’s eyes—a sense of profound relief, laced with a faint, bitter ache.
Su Mubai parted his lips as if wanting to say more, but in the end, he simply pressed them into a firm line. Turning on his heel, his voice returned to its usual crisp, professional tone: “Let’s move. We need to find a car. Stop wasting time.”
“Hey! We’re just dropping it like that? We haven’t even finished the conversation!” Lin Xiao called out, jogging to catch up with Su Mubai’s brisk stride, still muttering under his breath, “I just think it’s weird, that’s all… With the Boss’s textbook straight-laced vibe, there’s no way in hell he looks like someone who’d fall for a guy…”
Su Mubai didn’t offer a single word in reply, only quickening his pace down the ruined road.
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