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What makes Bai Lianhua conflicted is that Gu Ronghang is unwilling to let him live in a room alone. Instead, he chooses to give his bed up, take out some new bedsheets and sleep on the ground.
Bai Lianhua wants to refuse, but Gu Ronghang says, “while I did put defences up around the house, it’s not a 100% guarantee against danger. Rather than separating into two rooms, we should live together so that, just in case, I can react promptly to ensure your safety.”
This isn’t a safe zone with dedicated patrols, so there’s zero security besides themselves. True, he can control zombies, but what if he’s asleep or the unwelcome visitor isn’t even a zombie but a human with malicious intentions?
He smiles, “once, when we travelled together we also rested together in the same car, didn’t we?”
Bai Lianhua “…” Uh, that actually sounds reasonable. So he can’t help but feel a sense of guilt. Was he really being oversensitive and misunderstood what the antagonist wanted?
Gu Ronghang continues, staring right at Bai Lianhua, “not to mention that, now, I want to confirm your existence every second of every day or I would probably be unable to sleep soundly.”
That Gu Ronghang said what he was thinking so openly was actually harder for Bai Lianhua to reject when he pauses to think about it. If the antagonist tried to lead him around the garden path then two could play at this game. But with this straight shot he can’t possibly misunderstand.
The system says as well, “if that’s the reason then, emm… host, even if you weren’t willing then do you want to take a guess at how many times the antagonist would secretly come look at you at next? I’m not joking here. They’ve done crazier stuff than that.”
Or maybe you’ll open the door in the morning to find the antagonist having stood guard by your door all night without rest.
Bai Lianhua “…”
He says, looking overwhelmed, “then I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Gu Ronghang though pushes him on the shoulder forcing him to sit on the bed, and with a “your body is weaker than mine” he completely shuts down Bai Lianhua, who could only tacitly agree to this, and watch on the sidelines as Gu Ronghang busies himself with something or another.
The system laments with a ‘tch;’ the antagonist has already went so far as to press the host onto the bed, so why didn’t he go a step further, and just push him onto the bed lying down, then, cough cough cough… Sigh, the antagonist is too much of a wimp, no wonder every time he gets consumed whole by the weak and frail little white lotus.
Then, when in the middle of the night, the system sees the antagonist deciding to stare at the host instead of sleeping, it smacks its mouth in disdain. Nevermind, it should have realised this would happen all along.
…
The next morning, after a simple breakfast, Bai Lianhua then sees Gu Ronghang gather up zombies like yesterday again and making them kill each other.
He carefully glances at Gu Ronghang’s expression, then asks carefully, “this is?”
Gu Ronghang replies with a natural expression, “gathering zombies’ crystal cores.”
He further explains, “you know that there’s crystal cores in the corpses of zombies, which are beneficial for ability users.” Though he mentions none of using this method for entertainment, for venting out the violence bursting to the seams inside of him.
Bai Lianhua nods indifferently hearing that. It’s not unexpected he didn’t realise this reasonable answer at first, given how absurd the scale of this whole thing was no other ability user would have dared picture it in their wildest dreams…
Just one of these would surely have landed them a small pile of crystal cores at least, right?
No wonder Gu Ronghang became so much stronger since he had left. Besides his talents and his own efforts, the antagonist’s access to such abundant resources was surely one of the reasons as well.
Bai Lianhua’s expression brightens up, looking as if he has had a realisation as he asks Gu Ronghang, “so, you moved out here because you couldn’t use your ability freely in the safe zone, right?”
Yet Gu Ronghang glances at him before biting his lips and answers indifferently, “no.”
Before Bai Lianhua could continue asking, Gu Ronghang has already dragged the topic back, “this actually kills two birds with one stone. Isn’t it a good thing this also rapidly reduces the numbers of the zombies?”
Bai Lianhua blinks and slowly reacts by putting up a smile, “yup. That’s certainly a good thing.”
The system can’t help but pop up and mock him for being so cowardly. He clearly wanted to continue asking after probing his response, but then he just goes along with Gu Ronghang’s flow and ends the topic without question.
Bai Lianhua doesn’t even try to mask it up anymore, “yeah, it’s not the first time you knew I’m scared when it comes to dealing with the antagonist… I thought you would have become used to it by now, system.”
System “…” Uh, host, are you sure it’s a good thing to sound so confident?
…
Bai Lianhua remains a spectator as Gu Ronghang orders the zombies to attack each others’ vital spots, preferably killing both zombies in one blow. There is no longer the pure time-killing toying there was earlier. One is that Gu Ronghang doesn’t want Bai Lianhua to see that dark side of his, two is that he does want more crystal cores to both level up his abilities to protect Bai Lianhua and also see if Bai Lianhua could awaken a second ability while leveling up his healing ability.
As the study on abilities has progressed in the apocalypse, now people have discovered that under the stimulation of a great amount of crystal cores it was possible for one to awaken a second ability.
Gu Ronghang doesn’t want Bai Lianhua to always stay this defenceless. Even if Bai Lianhua might end up relying on him more which is a good thing in a sense, but when it comes to Bai Lianhua’s own security, nothing is off the table. Gu Ronghang isn’t even fully confident in himself either. So he would really rather Bai Lianhua have sufficient capability of protecting himself in danger rather than like before…
So, even if he couldn’t awaken a second ability, he must still be taught live combat skills. In any case, if nothing else, there’s as much zombies here as Gu Ronghang needs to summon.
Bai Lianhua, while thankful of Gu Ronghang’s goodwill, but he is often puzzled in thought when they take rests.
Currently, it seems that outside of matters related to him where Gu Ronghang would be slightly more concerned, nothing else seems out of place. He looks like his brain is working properly, so he’s not sure what kind of earth-shattering bad thing Gu Ronghang might be scheming to do which would threaten the entire world… Now that he has that ability Gu Ronghang would never ever get bitten by zombies to become the Zombie King anymore, you know?
If there’s anything that’s slightly off, though, that might be Gu Ronghang’s odd reaction when the safe zone comes up in their conversation.
Unfortunately, he could ascertain only that currently he and the antagonist is really far away from the safe zone and that’s it. He has no means of acquiring information either… Though, speaking of, if they were too close to any of them, then if Gu Ronghang controlling zombies were seen by anyone else he might get exposed.
While thinking about the safe zone, the system pops up, “congratulations, host, you’ve finally found the nail on the coffin… You could try heading towards the safe zone when the antagonist is watching you. See if he would stop you.”
Bai Lianhua “???”
So, having acquired this ominous advice from the system, even if he knows he’s asking for danger, Bai Lianhua couldn’t do anything but try that out. Later, he ‘happens’ to mention to Gu Ronghang while chatting as he looks in the direction of the safe zone that he feels like heading there to have a look, and see how the place where they once lived now looked.
He comes up with an arbitrary time and asks Gu Ronghang while smiling whether they could go after a few weeks or a month. Or he could head off alone if he didn’t want to follow.
Though Gu Ronghang’s reaction is way out of proportion. He immediately catches Bai Lianhua’s wrist and says, “you can’t go.”
Gu Ronghang realises he was a bit too forward after saying that but he still doesn’t let Bai Lianhua go. When Bai Lianhua looks confused he hesitates before explaining, “the safe zone would be more chaotic than usual at this time… From what I could tell when controlling the zombies, if nothing is done then about a month later the safe zone would encounter a massive wave of zombies.”
Bai Lianhua appears shocked and asks, “so the safe zone will fall into danger?”
Gu Ronghang answers, “perhaps.”
Bai Lianhua widens his eyes, and murmurs, “then you…?”
Gu Ronghang has such a specialness. Maybe his talents were to be able to control zombies naturally no matter the context. If he were bitten and turned into a zombie, then he would become a Zombie King. If it awakened as an ability when he stayed human, then after some growth he might even become the saviour that ends the apocalypse for good in the future.
True, the ability mustn’t be easily exposed before people. But in times like this, he could discreetly save everyone. Especially now when Gu Ronghang’s ability has leveled up so much that, according to the antagonist himself, it is at rank seven. What does that mean? When he just came back to this world, Bai Lianhua could listen to a radio the antagonist scavenged somewhere and the announcements said that even just rank five ability users were rare talents.
Still, even though rank seven was high, he didn’t know how strong it really was. So Bai Lianhua takes a deep breath and looks understanding, “so the wave of zombies is too big for even you to stop it, right?”
He starts walking in circles before saying, “then at least we could warn the safe zone to prepare accordingly.”
Gu Ronghang though smiles and gently disperses Bai Lianhua’s deluded fantasy, “no. While I couldn’t control that many zombies at once, of course, but my ability will have been able to control part of them and cause great chaos that would greatly reduce their impact and lethality.”
“But… I actually don’t feel like stopping that. I’m planning to watch from the sidelines. In fact, I’ve even thought about whether I should add to the chaos, but I gave up on that.” Gu Ronghang says something outrageous with the most indifferent expression.
Bai Lianhua seems stupefied, “… why?”
Gu Ronghang’s expression has turned slightly darker, “I also want to ask why. Why is it that in that mission, there were so many ability users that could battle, but you the healing ability user without fighting power were made to stay and even sacrifice yourself to save the others?”
“Did they not leave you behind as bait?”
TL’s notes: Yeah, I don’t actually understand either. I mean, I can understand leaving normal people behind as bait, but Bai Lianhua is a healing ability user… Aren’t those usually in super high demand in apocalypse settings?
Oriental Rabbit 
It’s was an obvious flag.
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