RHWHEG – Chapter 34 Blending In

Night fell quickly.

Yu Qunqing and his group walked along the collapsed overpass, and just before dark, they finally found signs of life: drag marks from a burlap sack on the ground.

“Looks like Agricultural University is nearby,” Yu Qunqing said.

“Aren’t we going to find the psychic who attacked us?” Sun Min asked, still annoyed about Dong Changxin’s powerful area-of-effect ability.

“We need to figure out what’s going on here first,” Yu Qunqing replied.

They heard a dispute in the distance. Yu Qunqing listened for a moment. “It seems like it’ll be easier to blend in here.”

They decided to split up.

She Lulang hesitated for a moment. He was used to considering the team’s needs as a powerful leader and vice-captain. Splitting up, with him and Yu Qunqing each leading a group, was the logical choice. It was what they’d done hundreds of times in his past life. But the thought of not being able to see Yu Qunqing made him irritable. When they lived in the residential area, they were almost inseparable, so She Lulang hadn’t noticed his odd behavior. Now, his sense of duty and his inner feelings were at war.

Fortunately, Yu Qunqing immediately said, “I’ll go with She Lulang. You all can go on your own.”

He needed to fool people, and it was better to take the experienced She Lulang with him.

She Lulang’s irritation immediately vanished. He nodded, once again the mysterious, no-nonsense strongman.

“Oh,” Lin Luyi said. “We’ll pretend to be students. You two can be survivors from Shangyuan City.”

Yu Qunqing patted him on the shoulder. “Make sure you play the part well. Study a few more formulas.”

After Yu Qunqing and She Lulang left, Sun Min felt comfortable enough to say, “I’m so worried they’ll get into a fight.”

While Yu Qunqing was strong, She Lulang was no less powerful based on their time together. As the saying goes, two kings can’t share one mountain. Their roles were similar, so didn’t it make their interactions awkward?

Sun Min was also curious about where She Lulang, a man of shifting whereabouts, slept at night.

“Wouldn’t a fight be more fun?” Lin Luyi, with a hint of schadenfreude, said. “I love a good spectacle.”

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Yu Qunqing and She Lulang walked into the night. They took off their down jackets, ripped their clothes, and smeared dirt on their faces.

“Let’s get our story straight,” Yu Qunqing said. “You’re my… cousin?”

“I’m your roommate,” She Lulang said. “Relatives are too close; it’ll seem strange. Blood ties aren’t reliable in the apocalypse.”

“Okay,” Yu Qunqing agreed. “We’re roommates who share a close relationship. We’ve been together since the beginning of the apocalypse and have been through fake deaths, stand-ins, meeting your destined one, memory loss, and emotional turmoil, and we’re still together.”

“I’ll remember that,” She Lulang replied.

He didn’t remember much because Yu Qunqing was standing too close.

As they walked, Yu Qunqing turned on a radio. The sudden, pleasant female voice of the “Agricultural University of Jiangbei City English Listening Channel” filled the night.

“Who’s there?”

Several beams of yellow light shone on them.

“We’re from Shangyuan City…” Yu Qunqing began his performance. His ability to charm people had become much more refined in this life, and he quickly left the others stunned.

The quiet campus of Agricultural University was filled with a brief argument before slowly falling silent.

The university was at the foot of a range of hills, so the campus had a clear slope. At the highest point were large fields near the damaged overpass, where the dorms were also located.

A student named Fang Shanyu led them through the fields, pointing out where traps were and where important crops were planted. She was cautious, but Yu Qunqing’s superior acting skills had quickly won her trust.

“Can you two stay in here? Or do you need separate rooms?” Fang Shanyu asked, leading them to a dorm room on the first floor. The school had plenty of four-person dorms, and since there were only a few survivors, they had plenty of rooms. They were living together for ease of management.

Yu Qunqing remembered their story. “We’ve always stayed together.”

Fang Shanyu looked at the two handsome men strangely. “I’ll take you to the School of Life Sciences building for registration tomorrow. Don’t wander off. Also… are you hungry?”

She seemed a little embarrassed. She had always been a good person in the apocalypse, and the isolated environment had helped her maintain her morals. She didn’t want anyone to die. Of course, she would fight back if she were hurt. Still, she couldn’t help but feel kind to strangers. How could a person not be kind? Hadn’t they learned that “human nature is good” in all their years of schooling?

But the school’s food supply was running low…

Should she give them some of the remaining food?

Fang Shanyu was torn. She couldn’t tell if she was making the right or wrong choice.

“It’s fine,” Yu Qunqing said calmly, as if he hadn’t just complained about the apocalypse. “We ate some wild fruit on the way.”

Fang Shanyu didn’t realize that the person in front of her had just dropped his pretense, but the answer relieved her. It was a relief not to have to make a decision.

She visibly relaxed and quickly gave them an embarrassed smile before wishing them a good night’s sleep.

Yu Qunqing watched her leave. He wouldn’t test a person’s nature unless he had to.

He was about to talk to She Lulang when a stranger came over. The man had a buzz cut and looked big and brawny.

“You should have asked for food just now,” the man said. “Tomorrow, you need to complain that you’re hungry and ask for more.”

“What?” Yu Qunqing asked on cue. “What’s going on?”

The man seemed to want to bring him into the fold and acted very familiar. “There are three groups of people here.”

Yu Qunqing listened intently.

“First, there’s us,” the man said. “We’re all from Shangyuan City. We’re from the same hometown. Where did you live?”

“Just a village in the city. I was lucky to get here,” Yu Qunqing said.

“You were lucky,” the man said, looking him up and down. He wondered why this person looked so strong. His muscles were clearly visible through the holes in his clothes, but he didn’t seem tough enough. He must have just worked out in a gym.

The man continued. “The students are in two groups. One wants to go out and find food. That’s all nonsense, I say. If we’re really low on food, we can just flatten the university across the way—but more on that later. Why go out? Anyway, don’t mind the person named Yao. We’ve isolated her.”

“The other one is a truly good person. Tomorrow, you can run up to them, hug their leg, and cry, ‘Hey, I’m going to starve to death if I don’t eat!’ It’s 100% effective. Tomorrow, you’ll see a lot of adults in the School of Life Sciences building. Just go there.”

“We’re probably stronger than the students. Why don’t we just take control of them?” Yu Qunqing asked.

“You have no conscience,” the man said. “Don’t even get me started. These are university students. They’re smart. Do you know how to purify water or get rid of pests? You should be grateful you can eat without doing anything!”

He gestured wildly as he spoke and suddenly noticed She Lulang behind Yu Qunqing. “Do you two live together?” he asked, frowning.

There were so many dorms; there was more than enough for one person per room. They weren’t little girls. Who would live together?

Yu Qunqing blocked his view. “Roommates,” he said simply.

The man’s frown deepened. He decided they were gay and walked away, muttering, as if afraid he’d been hit on.

Yu Qunqing closed the door and turned to She Lulang. Several white egrets were burrowing into She Lulang’s clothes. Egret’s can barely see at night, so She Lulang was using the birds’ built-in GPS to survey the surroundings. After turning back into a human, he immediately sat down to update his mental map.

The dorms were without electricity and completely dark, much smaller than their river-view apartment but bigger than the rooms in the official shelters in his past life.

“The location is excellent. I haven’t sensed any powerful calamity,” She Lulang said. “Their losses are mostly due to internal strife. They’ve trapped themselves.”

Yu Qunqing agreed. “Maybe that student, Yao, sent people to find us. She might have a clue about the Klein bottle. Tomorrow, I’ll send a message for Sun Min and the others to approach her.”

He remembered something fun. “We’ll play the part of the immoral adults. You still remember our backstory, right?” He was referring to the part about them being close roommates.

“Of course,” She Lulang said.

On the surface, they were roommates, but in reality, they were a convoluted tale of memory loss and stand-ins.

He decided he would just improvise.

Rest time had come, and She Lulang sent out a black bird before lying down and relaxing. The environment here felt a bit like the dorms in an official shelter. No matter how many nights passed, he was always next to Yu Qunqing.