For once, Tang Li Yue did not make a joke.
She still had her manners.
Lu Chengran's gaze moved to the covered body.
The three men fell silent.
The broad-shouldered one swallowed hard.
"Zhou Han turned two hours ago. We didn't notice that he got scratched."
The younger man's jaw tightened. His eyes reddened, but he did not cry.
The man with glasses lowered his pistol. "We tried restraining him. Thought it was just another fever. Then he bit through the strap and almost got Chen Qiao."
Tang Li Yue looked at the blood-stained floor.
There were drag marks and other obvious signs of struggle.
A chair overturned nearby and a broken belt. Someone had tried to save him and that someone had failed.
Lu Chengran stood very still.
"Who did it?"
The broad-shouldered man looked down. "I did."
Lu Chengran's voice remained level. "Good."
The man flinched, but not from cruelty. Rather it was from relief.
The captain's acknowledgment despite being only a single word was enough. It was a permission to carry the guilt without drowning in it.
Tang Li Yue looked at Lu Chengran again.
Just as she thought, this man was absolutely not simple.
The three men finally seemed to remember she existed.
Their gazes shifted toward her, then froze.
Tang Li Yue stood there with her torn sleeves, bandaged palm, barbed-wire bat, dust on her face, and the kind of beauty that remained sharp even after being chased by zombies, attacked by plants, and emotionally abused by gasoline loss.
The younger one blinked.
The broad-shouldered one blinked harder.
The man with glasses adjusted his broken frames.
Then all three looked at Lu Chengran.
Then at Tang Li Yue, and back at Lu Chengran again.
She felt that something very strange passed between them.
Tang Li Yue narrowed her eyes. "What?"
The younger man straightened too quickly.
"Nothing, ma'am!"
Ma'am?
Tang Li Yue nearly recoiled.
The man with glasses coughed.
The broad-shouldered one looked like he was desperately trying not to react, despite the corpse behind him and the apocalypse outside.
Lu Chengran's gaze cooled. "Report."
All three snapped into attention.
Ah.
There it was.
Tang Li Yue tilted her head.
They were not ordinary guards, not bodyguards, and absolutely not hired thugs.
They were soldiers, seasoned ones by the looks of it.
Her eyes gleamed faintly.
So, she was right. Lu Chengran was military.
And judging by their treatment of him, he was a not low-ranking one either.
Logistics, huh?
Very good.
How very shameless.
What was so hard about admitting it from the get go? She was only a small, little civilian.
The broad-shouldered man spoke first.
"Captain, communications went down at dawn. We received your last instruction to secure Warehouse East Three and hold position. Six of us arrived. Zhou Han, Chen Qiao, Xu Ren, Old Liu, me, and Fang Yi."
Lu Chengran's eyes sharpened. "Old Liu?"
The man with glasses, likely Xu Ren, answered. "Went out with Fang Yi to scout thirty minutes before you arrived. They haven't returned."
The younger one, Chen Qiao, added quickly, "We heard gunfire from the south side, but then the infected gathered near the entrance. We couldn't get out without leaving the warehouse open."
Lu Chengran nodded once.
Tang Li Yue quietly translated in her mind.
Two missing and one dead.
Three alive. Overall, a battered team holding onto a warehouse full of thunder weapons.
How lovely. A little bit tragic, but useful.
Then the broad-shouldered man's eyes betrayed him and drifted back toward Tang Li Yue.
Lu Chengran noticed his gaze.
His voice dropped. "Gao Jun."
The man's spine straightened. "Yes, Captain!"
"Eyes forward."
"Yes, Captain!"
Tang Li Yue's lips twitched, finding it interesting.
From the corner of the warehouse, the mutated chihuahua sneezed.
All three men instantly raised their weapons.
Tang Li Yue held up a hand in reflex, "Don't shoot it."
Then she paused, contemplating for a beat too long.
"Actually…" She was about to rescind her request but saw Lu Chengran glance at her meaningfully.
She sighed in defeat. "Fine. Don't shoot it."
The chihuahua wagged its tail, utterly unaware of how close it had come to a democratic execution.
Chen Qiao stared at the dog. "Captain, is that…?"
"A dog," Lu Chengran said.
Xu Ren adjusted his glasses again. "It has red glowing veins."
Tang Li Yue nodded gravely. "It is a very unfortunate dog."
Gao Jun looked between them. "Is it… safe?"
"No," Tang Li Yue said.
Lu Chengran contradicted, "Mostly."
They looked at each other.
Tang Li Yue lifted her chin. "It has poor manners and corpse breath."
"It has helped us fight."
"Against my wishes," She retorted.
"It fought effectively and killed as much zombies as you did."
Tang Li Yue stomped her feet, "Do not defend it in front of strangers."
The three men went silent.
Then, despite everything, Chen Qiao's mouth twitched.
Gao Jun coughed into his fist while Xu Ren looked down, shoulders trembling once before he forced himself still.
For a moment, the grief in the warehouse loosened.
It didn't vanish. There was nothing as kind as that.
But the mood shifted enough to let air back in. It was less suffocating.
From Lu Chengran's men's point of view, this scene was utterly unreal.
Their captain had returned from the dead.
Not literally, they hoped, though given the current state of the world, no one was confident about definitions anymore.
The man who had led them through missions no sane person wanted to remember had walked into the warehouse covered in blood and dust, the very meaning of a survivor.
And he had brought a woman. A very beautiful woman at that.
In fact, beautiful felt too mild for her.
She had the kind of face that made a man briefly forget the apocalypse, then remember it again because she was holding a barbed-wire bat and looking at everyone as if deciding whether they were useful enough to keep.
But that was not the most shocking part.
It was their Captain that was most astonishing.
Captain Lu Chengran, their Millennium Iron Tree, their cold-faced Special Ops commander who treated romance like a viral plague rivalling the zombie infection, had clearly been protecting her.
Gao Jun saw it immediately.
The captain stood half a step closer to her than necessary. His eyes checked her bandaged hand twice in under a minute.
When the strange dog moved too close, his attention shifted at once, not toward himself, but toward her.
Xu Ren saw it too.
The captain's posture was defensive.
It was subtle and restrained but it was also unmistakable.
Chen Qiao, being the youngest and therefore least experienced in the art of not seeking death, almost opened his mouth to ask who she was.
Gao Jun elbowed him sharply.
Chen Qiao swallowed the question.
Good. No one wanted to die after surviving zombies.
Their captain was the Captain of a Special Ops Unit, the sort of man who could dismantle a criminal network by Thursday and submit a mission report by Friday morning with no visible change in mood. He was also the sole reason many of them had survived long enough to stand in this warehouse.
But he was not the least bit gentle. He was far from even the most basic definition of it.
Yet now, when Tang Li Yue shifted her grip on the bat and winced almost imperceptibly, his gaze moved to her hand again.
Gao Jun's eyebrows nearly climbed into his hairline.
It seems that the iron tree really had bloomed.
And the apocalypse had to come first before it happened.
The woman who made it possible looked like she could poison heaven for disappointing her.
What an absurd world.
Tang Li Yue, unaware that she had been mentally promoted into a legendary botanical event, studied the three men with open suspicion.
"So, you are all logistics people too?" She asked innocently, on purpose.
The silence was immediate.
Chen Qiao's face twitched.
Xu Ren stared at the floor.
Gao Jun looked like a man who had been shot.
Lu Chengran's expression did not change.
"Yes," he said.
Tang Li Yue smiled sweetly.
"You are such terrible liars."
No one spoke.
Then, from outside, a heavy thud struck the warehouse door.
It made the prior amusement vanished.
Another thud followed.
The zombies outside had started to gathered again.
Lu Chengran turned toward the inner warehouse, eyes cold and focused.
"Weapons first. Then we retrieve Old Liu and Fang Yi."
Tang Li Yue looked at the sealed crates stacked along the wall.
Oooh! Thunder weapons!
A lot of thunder weapons!
Her eyes gleamed in excitement, the earlier exhaustion temporarily forgotten.
"Well," she murmured, "at least this detour has merit."
The chihuahua barked.
Sir Edmund, still safely in the RV outside, would have judged them all if he could see this.
Tang Li Yue lifted her bat and glanced at Lu Chengran.
"Captain Logistics," she said softly.
His eyes flicked toward her.
The three men froze for the nth time.
Tang Li Yue smiled insincerely. Since the secret's almost out, what's the use of holding back her curiosity? It would be stupid of her to let go of this chance to one-up Lu Chengran in terms of secrets.
"I believe you owe me an explanation later."
Lu Chengran held her gaze for a moment.
Then, very calmly, he said, "Yes, later."
Outside, the undead began to claw once again at the door.
Tang Li Yue sighed in resignation, a little surprised too at how easily he relented.
After all, she was so sure Lu Chengran would continue insisting the logistics persona.
"Fine. But if your explanation includes more expense reports, I'm poisoning everyone."