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Bai Lianhua chokes on his words when countering, “no…”
Gu Ronghang says nothing, just watching him quietly; Bai Lianhua is unable to say anything else when he can’t tell Gu Ronghang’s current mood.
He does understand himself that, in a sense, Gu Ronghang is right. He and the normal people with him back then were used precisely for that.
They were thrown away to buy time for everyone else to return to their vehicles… It wasn’t that the team had no chance of saving them after they’d done that either, yet nobody did. Instead, they left as quickly as they could, as the few normal people next to him wailed and begged.
Seeing Bai Lianhua unable to respond whatsoever, Gu Ronghang’s mood further sinks.
To him, this is just an exact repeat of what happened to him. The softness Bai Lianhua had nurtured in him was broken into pieces, again. His heart is now as cold and hard as metal.
For so long he had been working so hard to keep Bai Lianhua safe, but in the end only an unfortunate end awaited him. He could never forget what he felt the moment he heard of the news that Bai Lianhua died, and the pathetic excuses the people involved made and the insuppressible rage and hate building inside him.
“The day that happened I left the safe zone… I hated zombies, and I hated them who did that to you. Do you think these are people I should save?”
“But, the safe zone doesn’t just have those people. There are many more people there that are innocent, and…” Bai Lianhua explains earnestly, “in the end, I actually volunteered to stay behind myself. Nobody forced me to.”
He wants to calm Gu Ronghang’s grudges by clearing up that at the eleventh hour nobody forced him to, but this seems to have had the opposite effect, making Gu Ronghang’s emotions completely boil over, and his tone of voice grows even growlier.
“That would make it worse. Why is it that any of these other people are more important to you than me? For them, you were willing to make me stay here in this world forever alone?”
“You know that I am someone selfish and self-centred. What you think is more important than even your own life is nothing to me. It is only your own safety that is of utmost importance to me;” Gu Ronghang smiles, and self-deprecates, “yet it is this thing that I hold dearest that you could throw away without a second thought. What do you even make of me?”
Bai Lianhua’s eyes can’t help but widen, shocked by Gu Ronghang’s words.
Gu Ronghang closes in on Bai Lianhua, his hands moving across Bai Lianhua’s eyes that are wide open, its black and its white cleanly separated, and continues, “I really do hate how you yourself holds so many unimportant people dear in your mind. Do you remember that ‘white lotus’ talk online before the apocalypse? The same pronunciation as your name… Of course, I know that you’re not the ones that are black inside. You can actually act in accordance with the kindness you espouse, but, I would rather you are actually hypocritical myself.”
“You’ve always been like this. You’re equally good to everyone. I don’t seem to be an exception even, and yeah, you put your life on the line to save me back then, but see, even if it were anyone else, you would still have put your life on the line to save them. Even if it meant you were abandoning me.”
“… You know, you are the only one, the most special one. To me.”
Bai Lianhua isn’t sure how to respond. As Gu Ronghang finishes, he subconsciously attempts to lower his head, trying to avoid gazing with Gu Ronghang. Gu Ronghang instead lifts him up by the chin, forcing him to look at him, so that his eyes would reflect his silhouette.
“What do I have to do to gain the same weight I have for you in you? To make me the only one on your mind?”
Bai Lianhua’s breathing slows uncontrollably. If he could help it he might even rather disappear in a poof than continue standing here.
The system pops up and says carefully, “this is why host you had to return…”
“If you didn’t come back, then now Gu Ronghang would have ignored the zombie wave about to crash into the safe zone due to his disappointment in humanity and his grudge against the people in the safe zone. The zone will be overrun and that tier five zombie leading the charge would have jumped to tier seven feeding on the great amount of materials there and rise to prominence. The zombie would then lead attacks on other safe zones and replace Gu Ronghang in the original timeline to become the Zombie King.”
“This is likely the self-repair mechanism of the world… So, host, your most important objective right now is to dissuade the antagonist from standing on the sidelines and help the safe zone through this crisis.”
“Then, you know, host——soothe the antagonist with your genuine kindness, and make him unable to jeopardise the world. And of course if you could change the antagonist into a good person and do good deeds with you from now on then all the better.”
Bai Lianhua “…” What else can he say? The situation is just as hopeless as ever. Seriously, this kind of development, god.
Bai Lianhua then looks at Gu Ronghang, while digesting his words that are equivalent to a confession almost, as he considers how to dissuade the antagonist. He is so anxious even his face is reddening, and all he could do is just meaninglessly say ‘sorry’ over and over again, stuttering.
If Gu Ronghang isn’t limiting his mobility right now Bai Lianhua would likely have been literally spinning in circles around Gu Ronghang… Help, he’s too dumb and he can’t word things. He doesn’t know how to schmooze.
Bai Lianhua’s panicking finally earns a sigh from Gu Ronghang after a brief pause as he releases him and then pats him lightly on the back.
Really, he can’t toughen himself against him no matter what.
“Don’t give me that look, please… I’m happy you’re back, how ever you did it, at least it meant the Heavens did not merely have contempt for me.”
He closes his eyes, “originally, if I hadn’t gone along with the flow to reveal it all, I was not going to tell you about it this early. It was because I thought about holding you hostage with this in my schemes… Yes. I knew that you would not have been able to stay quiet knowing this, since you’re such a kind person. It was to my advantage then, and if I used it well, knowing that my ability could end up saving the lives of those people, I could do it in exchange for you promising to stay by my side forever.”
Bai Lianhua seems stunned. His mouth starts moving but Gu Ronghang covers it up gently before he could say anything. He will only need to be a quiet listener right now.
“As I was saying, ‘originally.'”
“Now I’ve changed my mind.”
Noticing Bai Lianhua’s expression flash up, looking all ‘I knew you wouldn’t do it,’ all happy and trusting, Gu Ronghang shakes his head, “not because this is an immoral method nor because of whatever was left of my guilty conscience. I cared about none of that… but I was worried about karmatic retribution.”
“It’s my thing that I’m cold and inhumane. I am the evil, and you are the good. Hijacking your moral conscience with the lives of many is something I should not force on you and make you be responsible for…”
“Maybe it’s because you are the good that you could return? If your good faltered would the Heavens take you away again? Or, would something go wrong somehow in this and due to this karma I forced onto us that you would also be held responsible for this?”
“I never did believe in karma and retribution before, because I realised that the evil is having a way easier time in the apocalypse here… But now, I dare not gamble.”
——Not with you at stake.
Gu Ronghang takes his hand back, and embraces him instead.
“Alright. Stop worrying about those people. I will promise you that even if I don’t like it, I will give a warning to the safe zone, and I will do what I can to obstruct the zombie wave’s procession… I will do all the good deeds for you.”
“So, will you please pay more attention to me?”
——Don’t let those unimportant people occupy your mind all the time.
Gu Ronghang genuinely smiles, and he does not look broody at all right now. He falls into thought for a bit before continuing, “but you still can’t approach the safe zone casually, especially not alone. I’ve told you that even with my ability I could only control some zombies at best. It’s still dangerous.”
Bai Lianhua nods obediently like a good boy in his daze. While locking eyes with Gu Ronghang he murmurs to the system, “do you know what is the scariest thing about the antagonists?”
The system doesn’t know where he’s going with this, “mm?” It’s having a good time spectating while being impressed by how efficiently the host is completing his missions these days, then suddenly the host decides to ask this all of a sudden?
“It’s the unexpected displays of kindness… You would think he’s about to hurt or coerce you, but then, he shows you warmly how he understands and embraces you and your values. No matter what it is that you want he would be willing to do them to the best of his abilities.”
——Is this a bound skill for antagonists? They’re all like this, it’s too overwhelming to defend against or avoid.
System “???”
How surprising for its extremely dense host to be affected so deeply. Perhaps there’s a resonance and many emotional seals from the previous worlds are destabilising at once, so it hurriedly goes to work to patch them up.
And at night, the system sees that the two of them have switched. It’s the host who thinks he’s being discreet but is actually quite obviously deep in thought while staring at Gu Ronghang. It feels complicated about the antagonist now, who seems to not have done anything out of place but is lucky enough to have benefited from the emotions leaked out from the many worlds the host has been in before. It’s stabilise now, of course, but the host has clearly already been affected.
Welp, if this continues then it can probably start expecting the antagonist to have much greater achievements like sharing the bed with its host soon in the future. The host will surely fall this time around!
TL’s notes: Huh, I thought the last chapter made it clear that Bai Lianhua has always managed to eat up the antagonist whole in the previous worlds. Oh well, guess I was wrong.
Oriental Rabbit 
Thanks for the update
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