By the time they had filled all the remaining empty barrels, Lin Tingxue and the others still hadn't returned. Earlier, they had parked their cars on the opposite side to avoid letting Lin Tingxue and Lin Xuan notice anything unusual, but it turned out they weren't around during the refueling. That was fine, though.
Soon, Jiang Yuntan found out where they had gone. Lin Tingxue, Lin Xuan, and Xia Chujing came back carrying a pile of instant food and a flask of hot water. Noticing their gazes, Lin Tingxue greeted them, "We found some self-heating hotpot and instant noodles inside. Let's eat something here before we set off. Oh, I grabbed some for all of you—we can share."
Lin Xuan frowned at her generosity. If they had been eating together before, that was one thing, but now they were separate. Before the apocalypse, he would have looked down on such things, but now self-heating hotpot and instant noodles were rare. And Tingxue had even boiled hot water for them—she had never been that considerate to him before.
Jiang Yuntan was speechless. Was Lin Tingxue forgetting that they had already eaten in the car? It had been about an hour and a half, but that wasn't long enough to be hungry again. She simply turned and got into her car, slamming the door shut. The filled gasoline was already stored away; she had no time to play-act with Lin Tingxue.
Yu Ke's eyes fell on the steaming flask in Lin Xuan's hand. "Are you really going to use a kettle those people used? Aren't you worried they boiled something else in it?"
Lin Tingxue and the others fell silent. Boiled something else? Considering what Zhang Qiang and his men had done, they could guess. Lin Xuan's hand, which had been gripping the handle, suddenly felt burning. He dropped the flask, and hot water spilled onto the ground, sending up a cloud of steam.
Yu Ke continued, "As for the food, keep it for yourselves. We don't have any room in our car. We ate earlier and aren't hungry." He glanced at the women, elderly, and children trailing behind Lin Tingxue's group but ultimately didn't suggest Lin Tingxue give the food to them. After all, it was Lin Tingxue's group who had gathered it. But with Jiang Yuntan's spatial ability, they had stocked enough food to last half a month, maybe even a month with what was in the car. They didn't feel the need to compete with the vulnerable.
Jiang Yuntan, listening from inside the car, smiled faintly. Without the original owner's arrogance to set off Lin Tingxue's thoughtfulness, Lin Tingxue's eagerness to show off was now revealing more flaws.
Shen Hegui glanced indifferently and said, "Let's go. Time to get moving. We need to leave now; any later and the zombies might smell us coming." They had already been here over two hours—too much time wasted.
Lin Tingxue had no choice but to head to their car, taking the instant noodles and self-heating hotpot with them.
Just as Shen Hegui and Yu Ke were about to get into the car, the women, elderly, and children who had been behind Lin Tingxue suddenly knelt down. They spoke in a jumble:
"You're leaving? Please, take us with you! If you don't, we won't survive in this apocalypse."
"They just saved us and they're so strong. They'll definitely take us, don't worry."
"Yes, benefactors, since you killed Zhang Qiang and his men, you must be willing to take us. While they were here, we didn't have to worry about zombies. Now they're dead, there's no one to protect us. We have no choice but to follow you."
Jiang Yuntan was leaning on the half-open window. Hearing this, she sighed deeply. She had struggled with the decision to rescue others before—not saving them sometimes felt wrong, but saving them risked situations like this. Not everyone had a sense of boundaries or gratitude. Who wouldn't want a strong person to take care of them? She decided that until she could handle clingy survivors, she wouldn't get involved.
Yu Ke rolled his eyes dramatically. "You should have said earlier you wanted Zhang Qiang to stay and protect you. If we'd known, we wouldn't have killed him. If you're so eager to be their livestock, to be their slaves and endure abuse, you might as well be eaten by zombies. Or you can just stay here and wait for the next Zhang Qiang to take you in and go back to the way things were."
His words made their faces pale. They had lived in constant fear under Zhang Qiang, terrified of being the next one eaten or dragged out and beaten. Just remembering gave them chills. Especially when they were first captured—Zhang Qiang had taken a fair-skinned man, set up a hotpot, and sliced him alive while forcing them to watch him die. After that, they knew the true extent of Zhang Qiang's cruelty.
When they fell silent, Yu Ke sneered. "Seems you know exactly what kind of life you had before. You also know that getting rid of him was a good thing for you. But now you're no different from Zhang Qiang—a bunch of leeches." He turned to Shen Hegui. "Brother Shen, no need to waste words. Let's go."
"Yeah," Shen Hegui replied.
Jiang Yuntan watched the scene unfold and thought to herself that it was nice to be a background NPC with a golden finger, living comfortably without having to deal with annoying entanglements. But after seeing Shen Hegui use his Metal Element Ability to confiscate enemy weapons and deflect bullets, she felt an urgent need for an ability of her own. In the original novel, the original owner had an ability, though it awakened late. And her ability crystal nucleus was taken by Lin Tingxue, so the original owner probably had the same Wood Element Ability as Lin Tingxue. She thought Wood Element was pretty good—since Metal could control metal, Wood should be able to control plants.