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The first time Lu Jiayao met Lin Yuzu was the day after the world suddenly became chaotic.
She had seen Lin Yuzu’s picture a long time ago. It was during the freshmen enrollment period of her senior year. A good friend of her sent her a picture of Lin yuzu on WeChat and she excitedly paired it with the words;
“Primary school girl from the business school!”
“I’ve seen her in person, she’s small and super cute!”
“Legit Loli!! Aws!!”
Lu Jiayao, “. . .”
The photo didn’t look like a college student at all. She looked more like a junior high student since Lin Yuzu wore a loose-knit shirt, had long black hair draped to her waist with the ends slightly curled. She was holding a cellphone in one hand while pulling a suitcase in the other, waiting at the curb. Her slightly longer cuffs revealed her fine white knuckles.
The autumn sun shone on her and the falling red maple set off her face as white and pure as fresh snow.
Ah, my sister also has this dress. . . but she doesn’t look good as her.
It was her first impression.
When they met, Lu Jiayao recognized her at once. She was the little girl who was panting after running behind the others in pajamas with printed cats. Her legs weren’t fast and her physical strength was poor.
Lu Jiayao was upstairs and saw her fall in embarrassment. Her two companions only hesitated for a moment before leaving her alone and continued running.
She fell hard. The little girl struggled to get up from the ground and when she turned around, the zombies behind her had already caught up to her. She screamed and threw the trash can beside her in a panic.
She actually hit them.
The slow-moving zombies were caught in the garbage can and struggled to get out indiscriminately.
It was probably because of her outburst in the heat of the moment that she dislocated her hand and looked around in confusion while supporting her broken hand. When she found out that she was the only one left, she began to cry while running, crying and hiccuping.
Lu Jiayao, who intended to go down to save the others, was amazed.
With such a pause, they missed each other.
Later, when Lu Jiayao left S city, she ran into her again. A person with a fire ax squatting in the supermarket, her hair tied up haphazardly and her face full of ash. She was eating while choking, choking while eating.
But this time, she looked a little bit like someone who knows how to hide and attack, but even when slashing the head of the zombie, she would still close her eyes.
“Don’t close your eyes!” Lu Jiayao helped her deal with the zombie behind her. She didn’t know where her motherly mentality came from, but she had to strike the iron while it’s hot and taught Lin Yuzu, “When you encounter danger, you must open your eyes and look ahead! Otherwise, you won’t even know how you died!”
“Oh, oh. . .” She clutched the fire ax that was bathed in blood and looked at her with pitiful eyes, “Thank you.”
Lu Jiayao asked, “Do you want to join my squad?”
Lu Jiayao’s squad was pretty much filled with her acquaintances, who were in the same situation as her or those who went to school in S city, but their families are in the north so they wanted to go north to look for their relatives.
Lin Yuzu blended with the squad quickly. It probably had to do with how likable her appearance and personality were.
Lu Jiayao taught her how to use cold weapons. She couldn’t handle heavy ones, so she only practiced using short blades. The other boy in the squad, a rich second-generation young man who often goes to shooting clubs, also taught her how to use a gun.
but she always couldn’t change her habit of closing her eyes when facing danger, so Lu Jiayao trained her every day.
Later, everyone’s psychic abilities gradually emerged. She was looking forward to it at first, but when she later found out that her ability was practically useless, she hid it from everyone and secretly cried.
Lu Jiayao was helpless, “That’s there to cry about?”
Lin Yuzu buried her face and whispered, “What should I do, senior sister? I’m very useless. I always drag people down so everyone else has given up on me. . .”
No one here will give up on you, okay? And if your abilities aren’t good, wouldn’t it be better to train and exercise more? You’re quite a fast learner too.
Lu Jiayao has never been unable to do anything since she was a child, so she couldn’t understand Lin Yuzu.
But. . . forget it.
Lu Jiayao thought. Maybe she just felt uneasy and needed someone to comfort her, so she said, “It’s okay. You just stay in the back and we’ll protect you.”
Within half a month after she declared this, Lin yuzu was scratched by zombies in order to protect her teammates.
Everyone knew what would happen when someone caught the zombie virus. No one had the heart to shoot her and no one wanted to bear the guilt of killing a companion with their own hands for the rest of their lives.
Lu Jiayao felt that as a captain, she should be more decisive, just like with every decision she’s made before.
—— But she couldn’t do it.
So her team left behind the little girl who was still trying to smile at the end and escaped.
Lu Jiayao has lived for more than twenty years and rarely looks back on her life, let alone regret anything. However, after that day, she would repeatedly recall the person she left behind. That lonely figure in the ruins that gradually faded away, the first time she met her, and the photo of their first encounter.
She would occasionally dream of her smiling face in her dreams at night.
It was until she read the information about a certain experimental program at Linshan base.
“Project Venus.”
The girl who was given this title, the smiling girl in the photo didn’t change much compared to how she looked years ago.
Then. . . the moment they met once more, was the same goodbye.
“. . . Senior Sister?”
Why would a person remember such a distant voice until now? Lu Jiayao looked at the person in front of her and thought,
She hasn’t changed at all. . .
Her hair had grown a little than when she saw her photo with the soft tips of her hair slightly curled. Wearing short-sleeved hot pants that offered almost no defense, her weapons exposed, and her white skin that could almost reflect the dazzling sunlight.
She stood on this dilapidated ruin filled with a sense of misplaced incongruity.
Why?
She lowered her weapon and came over, looking at her lake-blue eyes that were shallower than she remembered while hearing her speak using the same tone as before.
“Senior Sister Jiayao, it’s you, right?” After Lin Yuzu’s surprise, she withdrew her dagger to show that she had no malice and walked forward, “Ah, you probably don’t remember me, I’m. . .”
“I remember.” Lu Jiayao interrupted her. Her expression didn’t change much and looked completely indifferent, “You’re still alive.”
“Well. . . I got lucky.”
Lin Yuzu smiled bitterly. They hadn’t seen each other for many years. Although she isn’t someone who would misunderstand that Lu Jiayao has ill-will, she also couldn’t get used to her senior sister’s style of speech.
Because Lu Jiayao stopped attacking, the raccoon that slowed down saw Lin Yuzu and barked twice in aggravation.
Lin Yuzu waved to it and discussed with Lu Jiayao, “Senior sister, I know this raccoon, did you have any conflict with it?”
“You know a mutated creature?” Lu Jiayao asked rhetorically. Her green-golden pupils looked at her critically, and after a while, she put her knife away and didn’t say anything in the end, “Whatever you say. It’s just that it suddenly rushed out and I did it.”
The raccoon hid next to Lin Yuzu. It remembered Xiao Xiao’s words and didn’t go to rub her and simply barked twice in a low tone.
After its fur was stroked, it took out the wild fruit it pocketed with wide leaves from the stones next to it and placed them in Lin Yuzu’s hand.
Is it to deliver this that it ran to such a place. . .
Lin Yuzu’s heart softened and patted its lowered head soothingly.
The wounds on the raccoon needed to be treated and Xiao Xiao is also waiting in the back – because it was a human, Lin Yuzu wanted to negotiate with the person first and didn’t allow Xiao Xiao to come out.
Lin Yuzu looked at Lu Jiayao and thought about her words, “Is senior sister passing through here?”
She seems to be alone.
“. . .” Lu Jiayao didn’t answer. She watched Lin Yuzu and the raccoon’s interaction and suddenly asked, “You live here?”
“Yeah.” Lin Yuzu didn’t deny it. She still remembered the help Lu Jiayao gave her at the very beginning or she could call it a favor, “Senior sister if there’s something you need help with, you can talk to me. Although there may not be much I can do. . .”
Lu Jiayao lightly replied, “No.”
“. . .” Lin Yuzu said, “Then. . .”
“Won’t you invite me to have a seat?”
Lu Jiayao looked at her quietly, “Is it inconvenient?”
“. . .” Lin Yuzu was silent.
Lu Jiayao is a very perceptive person. Lin Yuzu was afraid that it would be troublesome if she were to notice something so she really didn’t want to make any more contact with her senior sister.
She replied hesitantly, “Sorry. . . Senior sister, my companion isn’t very. . .”
“Convenient.”
An indifferent voice cut off her words and Lin Yuzu looked back in surprise as Xiao Xiao walked out from the corner behind the wall confidently.
“. . .”
The unkind gazes of the two clashed mid-air.
Lu Jiayao held her knife. She was tall and stepped on the ruined wall. Her sharp gaze was oppressive, but Xiao Xiao, who was standing below, raised her head slightly. Her aura wasn’t inferior and her ice-blue eyes were like frozen glaciers.
“Xiao Xiao?” It was Lin Yuzu’s first time to see such a look from Xiao Xiao.
“. . .” Xiao Xiao paused for a moment but still chose to turn her face towards her and smiled, “It’s okay. Yuzu’s friend, right? Don’t worry about me.”
Her aura instantly softened to her usual appearance.
Lu Jiayao’s grip around her knife slowly tightened before loosening. She then asked Lin Yuzu, “Do you live with that?”
Lin Yuzu subconsciously stepped in front of Xiao Xiao, blocking her, “. . . Well, she’s. . . my family.”
Lu Jiayao looked at Xiao Xiao again and this time, they looked at each other briefly before immediately looking away.
Lu Jiayao said, “It’s okay if I stay overnight, right?”
Lin Yuzu looked at Xiao Xiao who curled her eyes and smiled at her, “Yuzu, just decide. I’m fine.”
Ugh, is it really okay?
In the end, Lu Jiayao still followed them back home.
Lin Yuzu was inexplicably worried. Although Lu Jiayao doesn’t look like she’ll make a move, there still seems to be a strange tension between her and Xiao Xiao. . .
It also doesn’t seem like the natural hostility between a human and a zombie, so why. . .
Lin Yuzu headed to the kitchen to prepare the lotus roots she dug today, and Xiao Xiao, who usually comes to help, has volunteered to entertain the guest in their lobby today.
There were two cups of tea on the table, which they found when they went out during spring and fried the wild tea tree themselves.
Xiao Xiao, who was entertaining the guest, was treating the raccoon’s injuries that had become small and didn’t utter a word.
Lu Jiayao looked around the house and also didn’t say a word.
The dull atmosphere in the house didn’t disappear until the sound of Lin Yuzu frying the vegetables with oil came from the kitchen.
Lu Jiayao looked at the table with bits and pieces of fabric sewn together to create a rudimentary cloth doll that barely resembled a flower. Leaning next to it was a golden-brown cat doll. The materials used were probably from the mutant creature lying on its stomach outside.
“. . . She’s still the same as before.”
“. . .”
Xiao Xiao raised her eyes and looked at her. Her gaze was as cold as her ice-blue pupils.
. . . I honestly don’t know what to say about this chapter, I mean, I wonder what’s more bloody, the impending truth about Project Venus, or Xiao Xiao’s jealousy towards Lu Jiayao? Hahahahahaha!!
And I knew Lu Jiayao was a love rival!! I actually thought she’d kiss Lin Yuzu then and there when they first met. I mean, the author clearly painted a picture of Lu Jiayao missing Lin Yuzu like a maiden in love, so yeah. . .
Oh and let’s not forget how cool Xiao Xiao was confidently exposing herself at the right moment!! Hahahaha!! Xiao Xiao totally acting like a domineering lover. I love this side of her.
Anyway, I really wanted to thank Mel for this chapter hahaha!!
I hope you enjoyed this tension-filled chapter as much as I did!!!
May the abyss be with you~!