Chapter 18

Inside the house, there were four zombies, likely a family of four—a middle-aged couple, a son about seventeen or eighteen, and a daughter in her early twenties.

They wandered around the first floor until Xue Ling managed to capture them all and lock them neatly in the bathroom.

Once the bathroom door was secured, she waved at Wen Jiuze, signaling for him to come inside.

They were hoping to find some clean clothes, mainly for Xue Ling.

She had long been dissatisfied with the sunflower-printed dress she was wearing and wanted to change it.

Hearing the commotion outside and sensing the presence of living people, the zombies in the bathroom roared back and forth.

Amid their terrifying growls, Wen Jiuze stood in the main bedroom in front of a wardrobe, pulling out a sheer skirt. “How about this skirt?” he asked Xue Ling.

She thought his taste was questionable. This skirt looked like something a little girl in elementary school would wear. She remembered having a similar one when she was around seven or eight.

Most of the clothes in the wardrobe were floral silk blouses and pants suited for middle-aged women.

“This outfit isn’t bad either,” Wen Jiuze pointed to a purple floral short-sleeved shirt.

Xue Ling slammed the wardrobe door shut, nearly pinching his fingers.

Sensing the unspoken threat from her, Wen Jiuze fell silent and followed her upstairs.

The clothes in the daughter’s room on the second floor were more appropriate.

Xue Ling selected a T-shirt from the wardrobe that had only a few simple letters on it.

As Wen Jiuze looked around the room, he opened several wardrobe doors. When he opened the last one, he saw a skeletal remains curled up in the corner of the wardrobe.

It was the skeleton of a little girl.

She likely died at the beginning of the apocalypse, with her family turning into zombies. She probably hid here out of fear and ultimately starved to death.

Wen Jiuze’s expression didn’t change, and he didn’t pause in his movements as he casually closed the wardrobe door again.

In the second wardrobe, he found a pair of ripped denim shorts adorned with decorative chains and paired them with a purple-red skull T-shirt.

“How about this outfit?”

Xue Ling turned to look, thinking the girl must have been part of some goth family.

She firmly rejected Wen Jiuze’s suggestion, snatching the clothes from his hands and putting them back in the wardrobe.

Wen Jiuze then pulled out a black leather skirt. “What about this one?”

Xue Ling found him annoying. She suddenly turned around, grabbed an expired band-aid from the wardrobe, tore it open, and slapped it onto Wen Jiuze’s mouth, signaling for him to stop giving his opinions.

The expired band-aid had lost its stickiness and flopped around on Wen Jiuze’s mouth.

Wen Jiuze allowed the item to stick to his mouth, shrugged, and put his hands in his pockets without saying anything.

Xue Ling picked out some clothes and found two new towels in the wardrobe, placing them into her bag.

She reached the last cabinet and wanted to open it, but Wen Jiuze leaned against the door, smiling and showing no intention of moving aside.

Thinking he was just teasing her, Xue Ling decided not to insist on checking that cabinet. Having chosen enough items, she headed outside with her bag.

Afterward, she asked Wen Jiuze to look for something suitable to wear. Unfortunately, the clothes in the master bedroom were too small for him, belonging to the male head of the household and his son.

The two of them split up to search the house for anything else they might need.

Wen Jiuze crouched in front of a moth-eaten TV cabinet, trying out a pair of scissors he found.

He rarely took the time to rummage through things like this. In the past, he would directly exchange what he needed at the base. If they couldn’t find it, he would go to the city, always with a clear goal, rummaging through drawers and leaving quickly.

But now, he even searched through this family’s drawers and found a photo of the five family members together, picking it up to take a closer look.

As he was putting the photo back, Xue Ling came in from the kitchen carrying a pot.

Wen Jiuze looked at her gripping the pot and asked uncertainly, “You’re not planning to hit me with that, are you?”

Xue Ling: “…”

She tossed the pot at his feet and extended her other hand, making a fist to indicate she had something for him to guess.

“What is it?” Wen Jiuze stroked his chin while examining her fist. “You didn’t catch a mouse, did you?”

Xue Ling lightly kicked his leg in response.

When she opened her palm, a small, slightly shriveled tomato rested in her hand.

It was plump and bright red, about the size of a bottle cap.

She tore off the floating band-aid from his mouth and tossed it aside, offering him the tomato.

Wen Jiuze laughed, took it, and put it in his mouth. It had a somewhat overripe, almost rotten taste.

“Hmm, not bad,” he said, his expression unchanged as he praised it.

Xue Ling tugged at Wen Jiuze’s shirt, leading him to the backyard of the house.

The yard had a cement floor, with several pots and foam boxes filled with soil set aside.

Now, both the pots and boxes were overgrown with weeds, but one pot contained a tomato plant, still bearing a few ripe and half-ripe fruits on its branches.

Before leaving, they decided to take the pot of tomatoes with them.

The plant was quite large and had to be secured in the back seat with a seatbelt for protection.

They rummaged through several locked houses in the area and found plenty of items.

Although Wen Jiuze thought most of it was unnecessary and some items were confusing, like a large bunch of dried mugwort, he didn’t protest when Xue Ling insisted on taking it all, stuffing everything into the car.

If the back seat was full, they tossed items into the trunk, and anything that wouldn’t fit there was tied to the roof rack.

Finally, Xue Ling discovered two baskets of dark charcoal.

Wen Jiuze: “…”

He had pretty much figured out Xue Ling’s intention—she wanted him to cook.

In the trunk of his car lay some rice that had been there for three months without being touched.

He felt that it didn’t matter what they ate as long as it was quick and easy, so he wondered why they needed to start a fire to cook.

But Xue Ling pointed to the small stove she had found, indicated the charcoal, and lifted a new clay pot.

Wen Jiuze sighed deeply, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright, alright.”

With her pushing him to prepare the tools while watching intently, Wen Jiuze couldn’t slack off.

He lit the charcoal, cleaned the clay pot, added rice and water, and placed it on the stove.

While they waited, Xue Ling got up and walked to their temporary camp nearby.

Wen Jiuze followed, and together they found some lettuce in a neighboring family’s overgrown vegetable garden.

The green bean vines hung on blackened bamboo poles, entwined with winter melon vines.

They harvested a dozen long green beans, but the winter melon hadn’t borne any fruit yet, still only flowering.

After searching the area a bit more, they found a pumpkin hidden among the thick weeds. This pumpkin was long and still had a green skin.

They returned to the camp with their bounty to prepare the ingredients.

Wen Jiuze took a can of meat, ready to open it and pour it directly into the clay pot with the rice, when Xue Ling pulled out a pan from the car.

He had no choice but to retract his hand, wash the pan, and fry the meat in it instead.

Xue Ling watched him closely, and when Wen Jiuze wanted to cut the vegetables and throw them all into the clay pot for a quick stew, she shot him a look that clearly disapproved.

The fragrant aroma of the fried meat and vegetables wafted through the air as he worked.

Xue Ling stood nearby, observing him.

When they lived together, under her insistence, Wen Jiuze had indeed been helpful.

At first, she thought he couldn’t do much, but she later discovered that he was quite capable. He could take care of people and cook, though he didn’t pay much attention to detail.

He preferred to toss everything into a pot, add water, and let it stew until everything was soft and mushy, all tasting the same.

It gives people the feeling that this person has cooked before, but no one taught him, so he figured out a set of habits on his own.

Xue Ling taught him how thick to cut the meat and how to fry the vegetables to make them tasty.

At that time, he seemed distracted and not serious at all, yet surprisingly, he remembered it all well.

Although his movements were a bit clumsy, he was not in a rush, so he managed to look somewhat like a chef.

The fried meat and stir-fried vegetables were placed on a bed of fluffy white rice, topped with two halved small tomatoes, creating a pleasing sight.

Wen Jiuze set the clay pot on the makeshift table, and the steaming rice and vegetables gave an indescribable feeling as they entered their mouths.

It felt as if they weren’t sitting by an unknown roadside but rather at home.

Xue Ling sat across from him, propping her chin on her hand, her eyes fixed on the clay pot in front of him.

What was she thinking? Was she remembering the hunger she endured, envious of his ability to eat? Or was she reminiscing about the times they sat together at a dining table in the past?

Wen Jiuze was chewing the long-awaited food in his mouth when he suddenly asked, “What are you thinking about?”

Xue Ling took the writing board next to her, quickly wrote a sentence and showed it to him.

“Did you add salt?”

As she recalled the cooking process, Xue Ling realized something was off—Wen Jiuze didn’t seem to have added any salt! How could the food taste good without salt?

Wen Jiuze replied, “The canned meat and the broth have a salty flavor.”

Seeing Xue Ling’s relieved expression, he felt a little better.

She looked down and wrote, “We didn’t find any salt today. We can look for some in other places tomorrow.”

Wen Jiuze watched for a moment, then suddenly chuckled. He stuffed a big mouthful of food into his mouth, chewing heartily. The way he ate made even the zombies look tempted by his appetite.

Xue Ling thought to herself that humans were much harder to care for than zombies.

Before bed that night, Xue Ling asked him to burn the dried mugwort, and Wen Jiuze finally understood that its purpose was to repel mosquitoes.

However, even though the mugwort smoke reduced the number of mosquitoes, Wen Jiuze couldn’t fall asleep that night.

Xue Ling checked on him from time to time and noticed he still had no intention of closing his eyes. She got up and rummaged through her medical bag in the car.

She brought a box of sleeping pills over to Wen Jiuze.

She really had thought of everything, even packing sleeping pills.

Wen Jiuze refused.

With some regret, Xue Ling took the pill box back. It was set to expire in just over a month, and it would be such a waste if it went unused.

On the road ahead, they took turns driving. When the road was good, Xue Ling practiced her driving, and when the road was rough, Wen Jiuze took over.

Wen Jiuze also navigated the route because Xue Ling tended to drive wherever seemed best at the moment, not paying much attention to where they were headed.

But Wen Jiuze needed to ensure they were heading toward Andong City.

Even Wen Jiuze didn’t recognize every road, and without navigation, they could only check road signs to know where they were.

The car stopped at an intersection, and Wen Jiuze held a few maps up for comparison. He said to Xue Ling, “It seems we’ve arrived in Yuanhu City.”

If they wanted to reach Andong City, they would need to head north and bypass Yuanhu City.

Just as he was putting the maps away, he saw Xue Ling holding up a sign that read, “I want to travel to Yuanhu City!”

Wen Jiuze: “…”

He suddenly remembered that three years ago, Xue Ling had mentioned wanting to visit Yuanhu City.