Chapter 36: How could he be so wicked?
“The energy core takes time to convert. During this period, keep it restrained. Alright, let’s head back.”
Xie Chongyi looked at Wu Heng, who seemed at a loss for words, and for some reason, reached out and wiped his cheek with a finger.
By the time Wu Heng tilted his head to dodge, it was already too late.
“Wu Heng, your blood is green.” Xie Chongyi glanced at the faint stain on his thumb, his expression slightly surprised.
“It’s not my blood,” Wu Heng said.
“That’s good then.” Xie Chongyi lowered his hand. “Don’t turn into an Avatar.”
“Avatars are blue.”
“Then turn into the Hulk.”
Wu Heng stared at Xie Chongyi expressionlessly, his pitch-black eyes giving the impression that he might bare his fangs the very next second.
At that moment, the others also rushed out of the teaching building.
Up above, the flames on the third floor had dwindled to scattered sparks, while thick plumes of black smoke continued billowing from the windows.
Meanwhile, a staggering figure also emerged from the staff dormitory across from the building.
He Siyu ran ahead of everyone else, clutching at his constantly slipping glasses, his round head and face full of alarm. “Why did you all come down?”
But the moment he asked, he caught sight of the wide-open school gates. At some point, the two sky-shrouding mutated plants had already collapsed, their leaves littering the ground, their trunks withered, leaving no trace of their wild, frenzied growth from just moments before.
“This is…” He Siyu, still shaken, instinctively turned his gaze to Xie Chongyi. “Class Monitor, did you take them down?”
Wu Heng stood silently behind Xie Chongyi, lips pressed together, and gave him a push from behind.
“…”
Xie Chongyi neither confirmed nor denied it. If there had been a third witness present—even if that third witness was Wu Heng’s bird—he would have pushed the credit onto them.
A flicker of admiration flashed in He Siyu’s eyes before he spoke earnestly:
“Class Monitor, you’re still too impulsive. We all know how many people that drooping jasmine tree has killed and how many zombies it devoured. This time it suddenly launched a sneak attack in the middle of the night… wait a second, just now upstairs, did you slap me?”
He had been so focused on worrying about everyone’s safety that he nearly forgot about the burning pain still stinging his face.
Wu Heng stayed silent and gave Xie Chongyi another little push.
“…”
Xie Chongyi ground his teeth in secret. “Did anyone get hurt?”
He Siyu cupped half his face. “Yeah, every single one of us got slapped.”
“At the time you were all in a deep sleep. Without that method, there was no way to wake you up,” Xie Chongyi said, glancing at the now-empty school grounds.
He Siyu nodded, thinking that made sense.
But that trust didn’t last long—he jabbed a finger at Xie Chongyi. “But you’ve got marks on your face too, while Wu Heng doesn’t.”
“He’s thick-skinned,” Xie Chongyi muttered. How had he never noticed before that He Siyu loved to latch onto a single point and never let go? Some “life committee” he was—didn’t act like one at all.
Wu Heng didn’t care. His gaze shifted toward Lin Mengzhi and Wu Zhi, who had just come running out of the teaching building.
Wu Zhi was clutching X, tears streaming down her face as she rushed over. “Brother, Brother Mengzhi said you died.”
Lin Mengzhi happened to catch up right then, hearing her loud and clear. He grinned sheepishly. “Just kidding. Lighten the mood a little.”
But as soon as he finished, his eyes widened in disbelief, the sharp divide of black and purple in his hair bristling straight up. Staring at Wu Heng, his face flushed with excitement—he knew it had to be Wu Heng who had taken down those terrifying mutated plants at the school gate!
Yet Wu Heng only gave him a slight shake of the head.
?
The others soon gathered. Du Yaoyuan let out over a dozen “holy sh*ts” in a row, then dashed forward with a broom in hand, poking at the withered branches on the ground.
“They’re really dead?”
Dou Lu followed after him, pressing her palm against the earth. “I can’t feel either of their energy sources anymore.”
“Class Monitor… you’re getting stronger and stronger!” Li Shu didn’t dare to touch Xie Chongyi, so he threw a fist into the air instead, his face glowing with the excitement of having a powerful backer.
As usual, Wu Heng was pushed off to the side, lingering on the margins.
Lin Mengzhi—who knew very well the truth of the “death of the drooping jasmine and the banana tree”—had his entire face collapse into gloom.
“It was clearly you who took them down,” Lin Mengzhi muttered under his breath. The others were too caught up in their excitement to notice the anger and murmurs of the outsiders beyond the school grounds.
Wu Heng replied, “I don’t want to be the one sticking out.”
“And even if someone’s going to stick out, it’s not the right time.”
He wasn’t speaking to Xie Chongyi, but to the others.
They were too weak. Wu Zhi, at least, had a face that could serve as decoration. But the rest of them—utterly useless. Even as food, they’d still need fattening up.
Letting a group of burdens know his true strength would only bring him more trouble.
What’s more, Wu Heng opened his palm. The black petals of the poppy flower were curling slightly inward, its color much dimmer than before. The energy he had absorbed beyond his limits had left it frail and weakened, and he had no idea when it would recover.
For now, he’d better keep a low profile.
Lin Mengzhi half-understood, half didn’t.
Wu Zhi lifted her eyes at him. “Haven’t you heard the saying ‘the gun shoots the bird that sticks its head out’? Even I know that much.”
“Wu… Wu Heng!” A breathless voice called from behind the three of them. Wu Zhi turned around even faster than Wu Heng did.
“Teacher Ying?” Wu Heng saw the young man and froze for a moment. “Why are you at the school?”
When the others heard the word teacher, they instinctively fell silent and turned toward where Ying Liuquan stood.
There were actually still teachers in the school?
And when they saw that it really was the teacher from their class, their faces lit up with joy as they crowded around him.
“Teacher Ying, why are you at the school? Are you here all by yourself?”
“My god, teacher, you look just like a skeleton right now!”
“Have you been in the school this whole time? Why did we never see you before?”
No matter how strong Xie Chongyi was, he couldn’t compare with a teacher. Even if this teacher wasn’t the homeroom teacher, wasn’t a director, just an ordinary subject teacher—even if he looked now like his skin and flesh were loose, his face waxy and yellow, his whole body giving off a sour stench…
Ying Liuquan wiped the sweat dripping from his run, his voice hoarse.
“I’ve been hiding in the top floor of the staff dormitory, too afraid to come down. Just now, I saw the flowers growing all the way into the classrooms and shouted for you as hard as I could. Never thought it’d wake all of you up—not a single one missing.”
He really had stayed up there the whole time. Apart from starving and sleeping, he had nothing to do, so every day he counted the surviving students still in the school. When it came to numbers, he knew them by heart.
“W-woke us up?” Everyone looked at each other in confusion. They had all been slapped awake…
“Yes, I woke you,” Ying Liuquan said.
Looking back over the past twenty-odd years, he hadn’t achieved much—buried himself in his studies, ostracized by classmates, treated like a dog by his advisor; after starting work, ignored by colleagues, ordered around like a dog by his superiors; the number of students who ever liked him could be counted on one hand—zero. He had already resigned himself to starving to death up on that top floor.
But now, having “saved” this group of students in one move, his confidence in being a teacher surged back all at once.
Dou Lu rubbed the raised red mark on her face and muttered, “Teacher, if you were calling us, then just call—why did you have to slap us?”
“Huh?” Ying Liuquan looked completely baffled.
“Old Ying, do you have an ability too? Otherwise, how did you manage to slap us from so far away?” Li Shu asked curiously. And the strength hadn’t been small either—when he was jolted awake by the slap, for an instant he’d even heard the sloshing sound of his own brain fluid rattling inside his skull.
At the mention of abilities, Ying Liuquan grew flustered. “I don’t have an ability.”
Li Shu gave an “oh” in response, and immediately grouped him together with Wu Heng and Wu Zhi in his mind.
Wu Heng sat off to the side on the edge of a flower bed, hands braced beside him, head tilted back to look up at the lush canopy overhead.
Dawn was approaching.
Ruan Silian cooked up a big pot of noodles. For vegetables, she only had two wilting cabbages left, and the only seasonings were oil and salt.
Normally, everyone lived for this hot, steaming morning meal each day. Even though there were no toppings, no condiments at all, they always ate like they couldn’t stop, and never got enough. But today, after gorging themselves on piles of snacks last night, the bland aroma of plain noodles made their stomachs churn a little.
Just as she’d promised yesterday, Ruan Silian placed a poached egg at the bottom of Wu Heng’s, Wu Zhi’s, and Lin Mengzhi’s bowls.
“Don’t tell the others,” she whispered to Wu Zhi with a playful wink as she ladled out the noodles.
Wu Zhi nodded hard in agreement.
It had been a long time since Wu Heng had eaten anything hot. Ruan Silian was kind and beautiful, and he couldn’t bring himself to refuse. Besides, he really was hungry—not the bloodthirsty hunger of the poppy, but the very human feeling of a stomach growling in emptiness.
He lifted a chopstickful of noodles to his mouth. To his surprise, the taste wasn’t muddy or gritty anymore, but genuine noodles lightly coated in broth.
As Wu Heng ate, he pondered the reason behind the change in his sense of taste. His pace was slow, while on either side of him Lin Mengzhi and Wu Zhi were slurping away, sweating all over but looking utterly satisfied.
“She’s got skills. No ingredients at all, and she can still make noodles taste this good.” Lin Mengzhi admired anyone with good cooking. “Once we’ve got the chance, I’ll have to spar with her in the kitchen.”
“Soft-boiled egg,” Wu Zhi whispered, her face lit with delighted secrecy.
The one eating the most was geography teacher Ying Liuquan. He downed bowl after bowl until Ruan Silian, holding her ladle with a troubled look, said, “Teacher, that’s the last of it. Maybe you should take a break and eat again at noon?”
At that, everyone turned their eyes toward Ying Liuquan, who’d been polishing off bowl after bowl.
Embarrassed, Ying Liuquan withdrew his hand. “Th-then I’ll wait for the next meal.”
“I have something to say.” Xie Chongyi walked in from the hallway. Somehow, he had changed into a clean set of clothes—the identical jacket he and Wu Heng had been wearing earlier was gone, replaced by a sleek black tracksuit. The sharp lines of his facial structure and the dark fabric only made him look more arrogant and untouchable.
Wu Heng, holding his chopsticks, lowered his head to glance at his own wrinkled clothes. With his other hand, he smoothed out a few of the creases.
When Xie Chongyi spoke, the others listened even more intently than they did to Ying Liuquan.
And as the only teacher among the group of students, Ying Liuquan felt a little nervous for the first time—being the one receiving a lecture instead of giving it.
The boy on the platform pulled out a chair, sprawled into it lazily. “I’m planning to head to Jingzhou.”
The moment the words left his mouth—clatter, clatter.
“Sorry, I dropped my chopsticks,” someone stammered.
“Class Monitor, why go to Jingzhou? Isn’t it good enough for us to just stay at the school? There are zombies and monsters everywhere outside!”
“Jingzhou is so far away too—seven or eight hundred kilometers from here. How would we even get there? You mean we’d have to walk?”
Leaning lazily against the podium, chin propped up on his hand, Xie Chongyi said, “Did I say I was taking you with me?”
Most of the survivors in the classroom instantly went pale. All the voices of doubt vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye.
Wu Heng only froze for a moment. So no one else knew Xie Chongyi was going to Jingzhou.
He had told only him.
And even invited him.
Wu Heng frowned, his expression taut. He didn’t know exactly what it meant to feel flattered—what he felt was more like a burden.
Xie Chongyi cast him a fleeting glance, then broke into a smile. “But I never said I wouldn’t take you all along.”
A few people quietly let out the breath they’d been holding.
“Um…” A short boy raised his hand. “I don’t want to go to Jingzhou, but my home is about eight or nine kilometers from here—that’s… that’s too far. Class Monitor, could you personally send me back?”
As he spoke, tears began to stream down his face.
For more than a week now, he had just been muddling along with the group. Of course, he wasn’t the only one—there were plenty of others just drifting day by day, hoping this disaster would end soon, so they could hurry home, eat their parents’ simple yet precious meals, then sink into a warm, comfortable bed and finally sleep soundly. Pretend that everything—the zombies, the mutations—had all been nothing but a nightmare.
But even their mayor hadn’t survived this catastrophe. And the mayor was a big official!
All they could do was cling to Xie Chongyi, or to Xue Shen—any of those few powerful ability users. Whenever they went out to fight zombies, they could hide behind them. The energy cores brought back might be few, but it was still enough to trade for a bite of food.
As long as they weren’t dead—as long as they weren’t dead—there was still a chance, still hope.
But now, Xie Chongyi had personally shattered their dreams of the future. The despair and fear they had pressed down inside surged out like molten lava.
“Class Monitor, you can’t do this to us! We’re not going to Jingzhou!”
“Then don’t go. Did I force you?”
“You can’t just abandon us!”
“Oh? …And why not?”
“Take us home, Class Monitor. Or have Dou Lu and Li Shu escort us back. You can go to Jingzhou if you want, but I don’t want to stay at this school anymore.”
“What a hassle.”
“Class Monitor, if you really insist on leaving, then can you at least leave us all the supplies stored in the first-floor classroom?”
“…” Xie Chongyi propped his cheek on one hand, pressing his fingers against his face one by one before finally speaking. “Actually, there aren’t as many supplies on the first floor as I made it sound.”
This time it wasn’t just the ones who had been noisy before—everyone else who had kept silent until now also burst out in shock, unable to control their voices.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
Leaning casually against the wall by the door, Xue Shen spoke calmly: “Old Xie just didn’t want you all to lose hope. No matter what kind of situation you’re in, only what you can grasp in your own hands is truly yours. If it weren’t for Old Xie these past days, your ability to handle zombies wouldn’t have grown nearly this fast.”
Xie Chongyi lowered his gaze. “Yeah, yeah.”
At the very back, Wu Heng watched Xie Chongyi putting on this act, feeling slightly sick. He didn’t even finish his bowl of soup.
“Th-then… how much of the real stockpile is left?” someone finally asked, voice trembling.
Ruan Silian sat below and turned to answer, her voice calm and soothing:
“There are still two boxes of noodles, one bag of flour, half a box of compressed biscuits, and half a container of cooking oil… If all of us stayed in the school, the supplies would last at most a week.”
Though her tone was gentle and meant to reassure, it did nothing to ease the listeners’ tension.
“What?” Li Shu, who had been silent all along, finally couldn’t hold it in and jumped up.
Ruan Silian fixed her gaze on him until he sheepishly scratched his head and sat back down.
Xue Shen’s eyes swept across every face in the classroom. When they reached the back, Lin Mengzhi and the little girl named Wu Zhi were each holding bowls larger than their faces, hungrily shoveling noodles into their mouths. The air of sorrow and despair in the room seemed to have no effect on the two of them at all.
“I’ll drink up what Brother can’t finish,” Wu Zhi said, finishing her own noodles before moving on to Wu Heng’s.
Xue Shen: “…Some people are just born lucky. One Fire Bro is enough, but now there’s also Vine Bro.”
“Old Xie really is looking out for you,” Xue Shen said earnestly.
“Bullsh*t!” A boy stood up, face red, pointing at Xie Chongyi on the podium, his voice full of indignation. “The supplies aren’t enough! You should have told us from the start. If I’d known there weren’t enough supplies, I never would’ve stayed at the school with you this whole time!”
“Exactly! You say it’s for our good, but it’s really just so we go out and fight zombies to find energy cores for you!”
“What do you take us for? Monkeys?”
“Well… you can’t really put it like that…”
“After all, during this time, the Class Monitor has been taking care of our food and teaching us how to kill zombies.”
Wu Heng leaned on the table. He wasn’t sleepy, but a comfortable position was necessary for watching the show unfold.
The accusations and complaints never stopped. Many people were attacking Xie Chongyi, but Wu Heng glanced at him, then at the ones pointing fingers and shouting—what a boring, ignorant bunch.
“Hey, hey, hey, listen to me for a second.” As a teacher, Ying Liuquan felt obligated to step in and maintain some order and goodwill among the students. But the moment his butt left the chair, he heard someone shout, “None of your business!”
Ying Liuquan sat back down, a look of embarrassment plastered across his face.
At this moment, Xie Chongyi calmly lifted his chin, his expression light. “Done talking?”
He looked completely unbothered, even adding, “One hour from now, we leave the school. Those of you who want to come to Jingzhou, I’ll give you four hours to go home first. Then we meet at the Land Rover 4S dealership on Chunyun Road.”
Their anger was completely ignored.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Their hearts felt like they might explode straight out of their chests.
Bang! A girl, so overwhelmed by frustration, fainted right onto the floor.
“Class Monitor!” someone yelled in exasperation, completely out of options.
Wu Heng looked at each of these faces, about to burst with anger, puffed up like pufferfish—and couldn’t help laughing. For the first time, he laughed purely out of happiness, with no reason beyond simple joy.
Xie Chongyi happened to notice.
The boy’s smile swept away all the usual gloom and melancholy from his aura. His eyes curved into crescents alongside his under-eye lines, teeth as white as his face. Sunlight poured through the window, highlighting the green veins on his neck that reminded Xie Chongyi of writhing, snake-like vines.
How could he be so happy just because others had been mentally crushed?
How could he be so wicked?
“Um… can I ask why we’re meeting at the 4S dealership?” Du Yaoyuan asked. He liked Land Rovers, but unfortunately, they were far too expensive.
“To pick up the car,” Xue Shen said.
“You actually bought a car, Class Monitor?! When did you buy it?” He Siyi suddenly grew concerned. “Wait… aren’t you still underage?”
Xue Shen sighed and corrected himself. “Stole it.”
Xie Chongyi didn’t waste any more time. He stood up, and as if responding to a silent signal, everyone else rose to their feet as well.
The boys got up, hands lazily in their pockets. “Get ready. We leave exactly one hour from now.”
After a brief silence, the sound of chairs and desks scraping and clattering against the floor rang out—like they were afraid of being left behind.