The air in the room had gone stiff. They all sat like soldiers waiting for a command, backs straight and shoulders tight.
However, the stranger seed oblivious to the tension he caused. He humd a lazy tune, tossing a coin in the air and catching it again and again like he hadn’t just disrupted their fragile peace.
Liora tried not to groan aloud. How could soone be this relaxed?
To her surprise, it didn’t take long for the tension to loosen. After a few awkward monts, Zhao Ren cracked a dry joke about the man looking like a peacock in a post-apocalyptic jungle, and a few chuckles followed. The others seed to take that as a cue to breathe again.
Even Liora found the atmosphere relaxing slightly.
Still, she didn’t laugh. She only observed him carefully.
She noticed every ti he shifted his weight, like a predator getting comfortable in soone else’s den.
And more than anything, she watched how Eli kept sneaking glances at him.
Eli was practically glowing. He hovered near the doorway, his hands fiddling with nervousness. His lips parted like he wanted to speak, wanted to say sothing, anything, but never found the right mont.
And the white-haired man? He ignored Eli completely. Like he didn’t exist and he did not even know this child.
Which made Liora’s eyes narrow.
What kind of man could look a child straight in the eyes and pretend he wasn’t even there?
Eli tried again, stepping forward just a bit. "Um... You’re here," he said softly, his voice almost hopeful.
But he got no response.
The man casually picked a splinter from his sleeve and blew it away, still humming.
Eli blinked hard at being ignored. His smile faltered as he stepped back with dimd eyes.
Liora’s jaw clenched at the sight. That just pissed her off even more.
She didn’t know what kind of history they had. But whatever it was, the man clearly didn’t care. And now, watching Eli’s expression falter, her already sour mood turned bitter.
No matter how strong this man was—no matter if he had saved them—what kind of grown man treated a kid like he was invisible?
Liora crossed her arms and scoffed out loud, more to herself than anyone. "Annoying bastard."
That got his attention.
He tilted his head toward her, smirking again. "Did you say sothing, Princess?"
"Nothing worth your ti, and my na is Liora, not Princess," she shot back without missing a beat. She didn’t know, but whenever soone called her Princess, it was like picking on her secret. She really did not know why people called her Princess... first that man, now he. Just why?
"Oh, good, Princess," he said. "I only listen to the important stuff."
Liora rolled her eyes so hard she was surprised they didn’t fall out of her head. She forced herself to look away before she lost her temper. She really could not argue with this kind of man.
Breakfast was simple. Canned food heated over a small fire, a few pieces of dry bread, and one can of jam that sohow still had not gotten bad. No one complained. They never did anymore. They just ate what they had and pretended it was enough.
The white-haired man helped himself without asking. Of course.
Liora didn’t even bother to stop him.
She was this close to throwing him out, but figured it wasn’t worth the energy.
After they ate, the group started packing up, preparing to move to their next destination. The house had served its purpose—it gave them shelter for a night.
But Liora decided to confront him. She found him near the window, leaning against the cracked fra like he belonged there. The morning light made his white hair glow almost silver, and his expression was the sa lazy smirk he’d worn since he got here.
Everyone else had scattered after breakfast, pretending to be busy. She took a breath and walked up to him.
He didn’t move. Just raised one brow and sipped again from a new can—where the hell did he keep getting these?
Liora stopped a few steps away with crossed arms.
"I never got a chance to say this," she made her voice as gentle as possible. "But... thank you. For saving us."
His head tilted, expression unreadable for a second. Then he shrugged. "Don’t ntion it."
Liora blinked. "I an it. You saved our lives. Which matters."
"Yeah," he said casually, tossing the empty can into the corner like it was a basketball shot. It clattered against the wall and rolled under the table. "Pretty heroic of , huh?"
Her brow twitched.
She waited, thinking maybe he’d offer sothing beyond that irritating grin. A detail. Maybe his na or how he saved them. Even a ’you’re welco’ would’ve been enough.
But he just leaned further into the window fra and stretched, yawning like her words had tired him out.
"You’re really not gonna tell how you did it?"
"Saved them?" he asked, cracking his neck lazily. "Oh, you know. Bit of this, bit of that. Kicked a few zombies’ asses. Threw so healing potions and so on. Standard stuff."
"That’s not an answer."
"That’s all you’re getting. Unless you bribe ." He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Got chocolate?"
Liora stared at him.
He winked.
She stared harder.
"You really talk like this all the ti?"
"Only when beautiful girls try to interrogate after breakfast."
Liora inhaled sharply through her nose. "I’m trying to thank you. You could at least try to be a decent human being and—"
"Who said I was human?"
That shut her up.
He grinned wider at her silence, clearly pleased with himself. Then he reached into his coat, pulled out another can—seriously, where were they coming from—and cracked it open.
Liora decided it was enough. Just as she had predicted, she would not get any answer from him. But the question still gnawed at her—why did he even help them when he was such an arrogant jerk?
As they gathered their things and loaded supplies into Liora’s Humr and Ji Ming’s jeep, she turned to glance over her shoulder and nearly cursed.
The white-haired man was already in the back seat, legs stretched out, hands behind his head.
She froze. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Riding with you," he replied simply, not even opening his eyes. "Thanks for the lift."
Liora stared at him.
She looked at the others. No one dared to speak.
With a long, heavy sigh, she climbed into the driver’s seat and slamd the door shut.
"Fine," she muttered. "But you better not touch anything."
He grinned from the backseat. "Not even the radio?"
"There is no radio, genius."
"Ah, tragic. Guess I’ll just sing instead."
"Touch anything, and I will toss you out in the middle of a zombie nest."
He chuckled. "So violent. And here I thought we were bonding."
She ignored him.
They left the small house behind quietly, like ghosts in the mist. The roads were empty. There was no sign of groaning corpses stumbling from the trees or hos. No mutated insects buzzing through the air.
It was strange. But no one complained.
Liora drove in silence, her eyes fixed ahead. The white-haired man, still unnad and smug, snored softly in the back seat, clearly enjoying the ride like he was on vacation.
Everyone else followed behind, their faces were thoughtful and calm, but not relaxed.
Because even though the journey was peaceful, sothing had changed and they had realized, it wasn’t just about reaching their destination anymore.
That last attack, which made them brush with death, had shaken sothing loose inside them. The realization that just getting to the next place wasn’t enough. That if they didn’t grow stronger, truly stronger, they wouldn’t survive the next battle.
What if the place they were heading was worse?
What if the next ti, they weren’t saved?
During their days at the small house, they had consud countless crystals, almost all of their crystals, so they could beco stronger... most of them had jumped two or three levels in just these days.
But now, after their crystal stash had run dry. And even when they poured low-level crystals into their cores, they barely made a ripple. It was like throwing sand into a deep well and hoping it would fill.
The low-level crystals were not even working on them at all. To see changes in their cores, they had to at least absorb low-level crystals in thousands to see changes, aning they needed interdiate-level crystals.
Which ant only one thing, they had to hunt higher-level zombies.
When Liora spotted the hospital building in the distance, a decayed monolith with shattered windows and ivy crawling up its side, she slowed the vehicle.
Everyone else stopped behind her.
The silence stretched until Ji Ming stepped out of his jeep and spoke, eyes narrowed at the building.
"There’ll be zombies in there. Lots of them."
Zhao Ren rubbed the back of his neck. "Good. We need them."
No one argued. Not a single voice suggested they should keep driving.
They all knew it was necessary. Especially now. The appearance of mutated insects had already begun shifting the balance. Zombies were thinning out. If they didn’t seize this chance while they still could...
They might not find another.
And more importantly, mutated insects had different crystal cores. Liora had tried it herself. The energy was strange, more chaotic, and didn’t translate well into aether. A zombie’s crystal, however—especially from a strong one—was purer, denser, and more suited to humans.
She looked up at the hospital again.
"I say we go in," she said. "Clear it floor by floor. Take every damn crystal we can find."
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