Tang Li Yue raised one hand, after that potentially threatening statement.
"I need five minutes."
Everyone turned to her.
Lu Chengran's brows drew together. "Are you injured?"
She shook her head, "No."
"Then why?"
Tang Li Yue looked at him as if he had asked why humans needed air.
"Because unlike you suspiciously durable military weeds, I possess a weak noodle body that has been bullied by zombies, a tree, bad roads, and poor sleeping conditions."
Gao Jun blinked.
Chen Qiao blinked harder.
Xu Ren adjusted his cracked glasses.
They all understood most of her words, but what was it about a tree?
Lu Chengran looked at her bandaged palm.
Tang Li Yue immediately hid it behind her back.
"Five minutes," she repeated firmly. "If I continue moving right now, I will collapse and cry for you to see."
Lu Chengran studied her for a breath before nodding.
"Alright, five minutes. Your Sir Edmund might run off with the RV if you take longer."
"Hmmph. My Sir Edmund is a good boy."
She said with a scoff and turned around, walking deeper into the warehouse.
"Where are you going?" Lu Chengran asked.
"To rest, what else?"
He raised a brow, "That direction leads to the supply section."
"Precisely. I rest better among useful things," Tang Li Yue continued with a sweet smile.
No one had a proper answer to that.
Tang Li Yue did not wait for one.
The warehouse was beautiful though not in the usual sense. There were no silk curtains, no carved screens, no fragrant incense curling through polished halls. It was cold metal, concrete, stacked crates, secured cabinets, reinforced shelves, and sealed boxes.
But to Tang Li Yue, it was glorious.
Firearms. Ammunition. Tactical gear. Medical kits. Fuel packs. Radios. Water filters. Emergency rations. Protective vests. Knives. Tools.
These were the real treasures. Utter treasures of the apocalypse.
Leaving them behind would be a sin against survival itself. And she did not have any plans on becoming a sinner.
Tang Li Yue contemplated on the best possible strategy to store everything.
"I should have asked for more time," she whispered to herself.
The sheer size of the warehouse and the amount of supplies nearly made her audibly admire Lu Chengran's capabilities.
"Five minutes really is cutting it close."
She glanced over her shoulder. Lu Chengran was speaking quietly with his men near the entrance, his posture calm but heavy. Gao Jun was reporting something.
Chen Qiao stood near the corpse covered by the tarp, his eyes red. Xu Ren kept checking the door locks with mechanical precision, as if busyness could keep grief from entering his bones.
Tang Li Yue's gaze drifted toward the covered body.
Zhou Han.
That was his name. He was obviously also one of Lu Chengran's men.
A person who had turned due to a mere scratch. A person they probably went through thick and thin but had to kill.
The mood earlier had loosened when they discovered Lu Chengran had brought back a mysterious beautiful woman and a questionable dog, but Tang Li Yue had not missed what remained beneath it.
Grief. It hung heavy and stale in the air.
It clung to the three men's shoulders and sat quietly behind Lu Chengran's eyes.
He hid it well, a little too well.
The man had the sort of control that reminded Tang Li Yue of clan heirs who had learned to bleed silently before they learned to speak honestly.
It was annoying familiar and reminded her of dangerous, unwanted memories.
Tang Li Yue looked away.
She should not care.
She barely knew them, after all. Zhou Han was a complete stranger. These men were Lu Chengran's people, not hers.
In the Central Plains, a dead man was a dead man. If he had turned into something dangerous, killing him was mercy, efficiency, and survival tied together in one clean knot.
But then again…
Lu Chengran had been dead too. Or near enough in a sense.
The chihuahua had been dead too, once upon a time.
But both of them had changed because of her.
Her bite had reversed Lu Chengran's infection. Her blood had revived and mutated the chihuahua.
Her blood had also touched the chihuahua after death, not while it was merely infected.
The result had not been the same as Lu Chengran's recovery. It became alive, yes, but not normal.
It became a mutated creature.
A loyal one, perhaps, but Tang Li Yue refused to officially acknowledge that.
So, what would happen to a human corpse that had turned into a zombie and then been killed?
Would her blood reverse it? Or would it mutate him?
Would it create a new disaster in the shape of a man?
There were so many possibilities.
A reasonable person would not experiment on something unknown and sensitive.
Tang Li Yue knew this. Truly, she did.
Unfortunately, Tang Li Yue had never claimed to be reasonable. She had survived Central Plains and had developed a bad habit of giving in to random whims and curiosity.
That was different.
Her eyes narrowed, a little playful but definitely dangerous. Any sensible Sichuan Tang disciple knew to run far away from the Saintess once she had that look. It meant she was up to no good.
"Just a little test," she muttered.
It was a terrible sentence.
A sentence that should have been stopped by common sense at the door.
But common sense had apparently perished along with civilization.
She moved through the aisles first, passing shelves and brushing her hand along crates.
One after another, supplies vanished silently into her storage ring.
Ammunition. Gone.
Rations. Gone.
Medical kits. Gone.
Spare tactical uniforms. Gone.
Gun cases. Very gone.
Tang Li Yue felt her mood improve slightly with each disappearing box.
Ah, hoarding truly healed the soul.
Perhaps not ethically, but effectively. Besides, ethics had long flew out the window the moment humans turned into jiangshis, into the walking dead.
She was halfway through sweeping the supply section clean when her gaze returned to Zhou Han's covered body.
Again.
Tsk.
This was why she disliked emotions. Be they curiosity or something else. At one point they're useful and fun. But most of the time, they were a hassle.
They were worse than dust. They settled everywhere no matter how often one cleaned.
Tang Li Yue flexed her bandaged hand.
The scrape Lu Chengran had wrapped earlier had already begun to clot. It hardly hurt anymore.
That was good. It meant reopening it would be unpleasant but manageable.
She glanced toward Lu Chengran.
He had his back partially turned, listening to Xu Ren explain something about the disabled security system. Gao Jun was checking ammunition. Chen Qiao had crouched near a crate, his head bowed.
No one was watching her closely.
How excellent of them to make such an awful mistake.
Tang Li Yue slowly approached the body.
The smell struck her first.
It was not as rotten as the zombies outside, but it was still wrong. The sour remains of infection clung beneath the faint scent of blood and disinfectant. They cleaned him up as much as they could, it seems. Her stomach churned with so many questions.
She wrinkled her nose.
"Zhou Han, was it?" she whispered. "If this goes badly, I will deny everything."
The tarp shifted slightly as she crouched beside him.
His face was partially visible now.
Gray skin. Dark veins. Skull damaged where the killing blow had landed. The wound was ugly, and Tang Li Yue had to swallow down the urge to retreat and wash her eyes with spiritual spring water that did not exist in this damn world.
"So disgusting."
Her voice was barely audible.
Still, she reached for her bandage.
Her fingers hesitated.
For one fleeting second, reason returned like a late guest arriving after the banquet had burned.
This was dangerous and fun. But emphasis is on dangerous.
Her blood was unknown.
Lu Chengran had warned her repeatedly.
The tree incident had already proven that spilling her blood around mutated things could lead to unspeakable consequences.
And yet, Lu Chengran had lived.
He had come back, opened his eyes, and became an expert in annoying her.
Tang Li Yue thought of his silence when Zhou Han's name was spoken.
Thought of the way Gao Jun had said he did it.
Thought of the younger man's red eyes.
How troublesome.
She clicked her tongue and peeled the bandage back.
The wound had sealed with a thin fragile layer.
Tang Li Yue pressed her thumbnail into it. Pain sparked sharp and bright.
Her jaw tightened.
A bead of blood welled followed by another.
The scent was faint. So faint that ordinary people would never notice it beneath the warehouse smells. But it was undeniably present, especially to a specific person.
Lu Chengran was no longer ordinary.
His head sharply turned to her direction. But it was already too late.
Tang Li Yue had already held her hand above Zhou Han's exposed wrist.
A drop of blood fell. Then another.
For one terrible heartbeat, nothing happened.
Tang Li Yue held her breath, her face unreadable.
Then Zhou Han's corpse jerked, violently.
Tang Li Yue froze, "Oh."
The body arched beneath the tarp.
Chen Qiao shot to his feet. "Zhou Han!"
Gao Jun spun around, raising his weapon.
Xu Ren swore loudly.
Lu Chengran moved fast, faster than Tang Li Yue had ever seen him move.
But the process had already begun.
Zhou Han's gray skin rippled as if something moved beneath it. The dark veins along his arms pulsed, swelling, then shrinking. His fingers clawed at the concrete, nails scraping harshly against the floor.
A groan tore from his throat.
It wasn't like the hollow sound of a zombie but it wasn't quite human either.
The tarp slid off his body.