Don’t Be a Kept Man

Yan, grabbing the redhead by the shirt, and forced him to stand up.
He kicked him in the stomach but who could have known that the washroom door was not closed up tightly and he sent the redhead right through the door.

“Gong—-“

Perhaps because of the strength behind the kick, the washroom door lightly trembled from rebounding off the wall.
Pei Ran flung his stinging hands in the air, just about to say something when there was a stink filling up his nose.
When he lifted his eyes, he was met with an overly rotten face……

It was truly way past rotting – its face had no flesh or blood, leaving only a faint faint layer of skin.
Dripping down fleshy water, its pale grey eyes bursting out of its sockets and its teeth gleamed like a shark’s teeth.

Pei Ran: “……”

[ AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MAMA!!! RUNNN AHHHHHHHH ZOMBIE AHHHHHH!!! ]

No one could have expected that a zombie would be hiding in the washroom.
The high piercing screams of the system could not break Pei Ran out of his state of shock; neither could the scream of the zombie as it grabbed onto his shoulder, hiding none of its desire for human flesh.
Its sharp teeth was about to harshly puncture down onto his neck, when for whatever reason, it froze in place as if someone had put a spell on it—–

“Run!”

Taking this chance, Qu Yan dragged Pei Ran out and pushed him to run towards the door.
Sang Yan and the others, realizing that something was wrong, frantically ran outside as well.
Not long after, they heard a horrifying scream from that redhead, and yet no one could bring themselves to care.

Pei Ran was still blanking out, only knowing to hold onto that plastic bag full of supplies in a tight grip.
He didn’t even know how he got into the car.
His black shirt was now all dirty, covered in a fluid that could be blood or water, and there was a fleshy stink coming from him.

Zhou Cang Ming and Feng Tang had grabbed two boxes of provisions from the warehouse which they quickly stuffed into the car and then fled the gas station.
Scenery outside the car window quickly moved past as the blood red tinge in the sky was slowly fading away.

Seeing how Pei Ran’s face was so concerningly pale, Qu Yan lightly pushed him yet received no response.
His fingers came together, bravely grabbing onto the flesh at the other’s waist, and viciously twisted it 180 degrees.

“Cough—-“

Pei Ran suddenly coughed harshly, and the pocket of air stuck inside his throat was finally freed.
Holding onto the back of the front seat, he had to take a moment, unable to lift his head up.
No one in the car cared about him as they were all thinking about how grateful they were to have just escaped from death.
Only Qu Yan put his hand against Pei Ran’s back, slowly and lightly patting him.

Sang Yan was also in a state of shock himself as he had passed by the washroom numerous times, passing by the arms of death multiple times, 

“That zombie, how long has it been in there, that we didn’t find out.”

Holding onto the blade in his hands, Feng Tang lifted his eyes to take a look at the sky outside.
His furrowed eyebrows subconsciously loosened up a bit and he said casually, 

“Perhaps it ran in last night.”

They had lost a person yesterday and now another one today.
Fear uncontrollably blossomed in everyone’s hearts and no one spoke a single word on the way back.

Pei Ran, after he finally calmed down, lifted his head, his handsome face still very pale, and turned to face Qu Yan’s dark eyes.
Silently looking at him for a while, he then quietly said, 

“Just now, thank you.”

As always, following the main character would save your life.

If it was not for how dirty he was, Pei Ran even wanted to give him a hug.

The group returned to the underground storage warehouse.
Seeing that there was one less person returning again, Zhi Zhi did not cry, but the sadness on her face could not be hidden.
Sang Yan quietly comforted her.
When he looked up, he saw the older woman eating from a bag of cookies and he couldn’t help but furrow his eyebrows.
He warned Zhi Zhi, 

“Don’t just casually give food out to other people next time.”

Hearing this, Zhi Zhi paused momentarily before silently nodding her head.
At the same time, a teardrop fell onto the back of her hand.
She leaned into Sang Yan’s embrace and after a long time, she asked with tears in her voice, 

“When will these days pass……when humans aren’t even humans……”

Feng Tang was sitting on the floor, his eyes staring outside the vent window.
After confirming that the sky was really recovering its normal colors bit by bit, he checked over his provisions and weapons, making sure it was all in his sack, and looked as if he was planning to leave at any moment.

Pei Ran was a bit of a neat freak, unable to stand even a bit of uncleanliness.
He grabbed clothing from his backpack, planning to head into the washroom to take a shower and change his clothes.
Although it was only cold water, anything was better than nothing right now.
He washed the blood on his hands, yet when his fingers passed over his shoulder, he suddenly felt a fiery, stinging pain and he stopped his movements with furrowed eyebrows.

Scanning every inch of the image in the mirror, he finally found two or three small scratches on his shoulder.
It was beginning to darken and with the cold, cold water washing it away, it was becoming paler with the lack of blood.

Scratched by the zombie today……

With that realization, Pei Ran’s face immediately turned terrible, spiraling downward very quickly.
He had been scared out of his mind in the car today, his mind gone blank, so he did not find out about the injury on his shoulder.

He’s going to die.

These four words were the only thing on Pei Ran’s mind.
Being wounded by a zombie meant he would be turning into a zombie as well.
Only an extremely small percentage of people with strong enough bodies could turn that infection into an elemental ability, but evidently, with his shoulder unable to move or lift itself, he didn’t belong to the latter category.

What to do? Is he going to die like this?

If this was a tv drama, he probably hasn’t even lived past three episodes……

His thoughts were in a tangled mess, intertwining into a deadlock; no matter hard he tried, he couldn’t untangle it.
Cold water splashed down onto his head, his skin tightening from the sting.

Pei Ran wanted to cry but he couldn’t; wanted to laugh but he also couldn’t.

After the initial brief state of turmoil, his brain strangely calmed back down.
Pei Ran thought that he indeed had no such blessed life; he was destined to be a nameless character, a cannon fodder for life.
Being infected was not bad, as it at least eased away the worries of when he would be eaten one day.

He fiddled around for a long while before changing into clean clothes and heading back out.
With the dichotomy of his new black and white shirt, his hair still dripping with water, he no longer had that rundown look on him, turning back into the image of a clean and wealthy young man.

The zombie virus would take effect in a couple of hours, and even though Pei Ran did not like Zhou Cang Ming and the others, he didn’t want to purposefully stay behind and cause harm.
He tore open a bag of cookies and ate them in a blanked out state, looking as if he was eating wax instead.
He planned to wait until he was full before quietly taking his leave.

Qu Yan had been staring at him the entire time and, feeling that gaze coming from beside him, Pei Ran swallowed down the bit of cookie in his throat, thinking to himself how could he be such an unlucky bastard, getting infected even with the main character protecting him.

He leaned over and hugged Qu Yan.
Perhaps it was because he changed his outfit, his body still held that familiar cologne, the scent of yerba mate, a scent that was like drizzling sprinkles of rain, clean and wet.

Even with death, there should be a procedure, a ceremony of sorts.
Pei Ran began his farewells, 

“Brother in arms, thank you for saving me.”

And then grabbed his luggage, setting it beside Qu Yan and stuffing every provision he had, even the ones from today, into it.
He casually said beside Qu Yan’s ear, 

“These are all for you.”

So generous it was strange.

Qu Yan seemed to have finally noticed that something was not quite right.
His gaze scanned over every inch of Pei Ran’s face before settling onto his shoulder —–

Faint trails of blood were seeping out.

As if to confirm something, Qu Yan reached out and lightly pressed on the area.
Pei Ran’s face immediately paled drastically, suddenly drenched in so much pain he almost called out daddy.
He stumbled backwards and shied away from the touch.

Qu Yan retracted his hands back, rubbed at the blood stains on his fingers and then slightly raised up his eyebrows.
He was just about to say something when Pei Ran covered his mouth.

“Shh—-“

Pei Ran toned down his voice, purposefully trying to scare him, 

“Dummy, don’t make a sound.
I’ll leave after a while.
I won’t bring you guys down.”

What if he was found out by Feng Tang – without even needing to wait to turn into a zombie, he’ll get a knife to the brain.
How pitiful would he be then.

Although, even if he walked out himself, he would still be waiting for death.

Qu Yan grabbed onto his wrist, lightly tugging it.
His gaze swept over the area before silently moving his lips, 

“Don’t need to leave.”

Don’t need to leave?

Why not?

Hearing this, Pei Ran slightly squinted his eyes.
He was just going to say something, but there was a sudden strong hit to the back of his head and then following that there was a pair of dry lips on him.
He lifted his eyes, facing up to Qu Yan’s calm eyes with dilated pupils.

Their kiss was very short because the next second, Pei Ran was pushed aside by Qu Yan, falling onto the floor with a big bang and causing everyone to look over.

Qu Yan, with the back of his hand covering his lips and the other grasping onto his shirt, had a stance that looked as if he had just been molested.
After a moment, he stood up from the ground, speaking with a hoarse voice, 

“Go inside……”

And then quickly pulled Pei Ran into the room beside them, locking the door.

Zhou Cang Ming coldly laughed, 

“Horny X.”

Sang Yan gave one look before retracting his gaze in disgust, 

“Whorish pair of dogs.”

The other room was covered in a thick layer of dust.
The moment they entered, it made Pei Ran’s throat seize up with coughs until his face was entirely pale.
Pei Ran stomped down on the urge to cough, using the dim lighting to lock his gaze onto Qu Yan, 

“Do you know what you are doing right now……”

He went forward, wanting to open the door, but Qu Yan was faster and blocked him.
He did not look like that silent scared kid anymore, and his eyes hid a faint laugh.

Pei Ran’s heart suddenly stopped for a moment.
He slowly reached his hand out to grab onto Qu Yan’s way too skinny shoulder, 

“After a few more hours, I will become a zombie.
I will eat you.”

Qu Yan tilted his head to look up at him, and after a while, he lazily responded with a hoarse voice, 

“Mhmm……”

As if… turning into a zombie was not any big deal.

“At that time, I’ll feel you human meat, and you can still live.”

These words, the more you think about it, the more frightening they were.
Pei Ran didn’t have the time to understand the words when a sudden pain coming from his injury overtook him.
It was quickly spreading all over his entire body, making even the simple act of breathing hard.
He half knelt on the ground, tightly grabbing onto his own throat, and said through the pain, 

“Leave now……”

The veins on his neck looked like they were going to burst and his eyes were turning red, a frightening sight to behold.
He quietly said, 

“Quick, leave–“

Qu Yan looked at him, thinking for a bit before lightly shaking his head, 

“That can’t be though.
Leaving you here by yourself is too weird.”