Chapter 101: His Girl

Why did Yu Xiaoxiao go back over the wall at the exact same spot? Long-term battles in the apocalypse had ingrained the habit into Drillmaster Yu’s blood. It was too dangerous to seek out new paths when there was constant uncertainty. Human lives were too precious, so as long as the first path had no dangers, it should be their return path, too. As for the fact that this world had no zombies to make this relevant and that she’d thoroughly screwed over Prime Minister Zhao, Drillmaster Yu didn’t think it mattered in her case.

After following Yu Xiaoxiao out of the justice courts, one of the shadow guards stared at Xianzong’s wretched image in Yu Xiaoxiao’s hands and asked cautiously, “Your Majesty, do you want to return to the palace?”

“Zhen will go with her to Big Bowl Restaurant,” Xianzong replied. Since he’d finally managed to come out incognito, he might as well make the best of it. Even a diehard shut-in like himself wanted to see the populace now and then.

Xiao Zhuang saw that this was a fellow guard who’d only taken his place for a few days. One of them was even a prior superior to himself and Xiao Wei. However, now he didn’t need to fear him anymore. “It’s fine,” Xiao Zhuang whispered by his side, “With my family’s princess here, what could happen to His Majesty?”

The commander of the shadow guards wanted to slap Xiao Zhuang. What do you mean by “my family’s princess?” Does Royal Son-in-Law know you call the princess that? If we relied on the princess to protect the emperor, then what’s the use of us shadow guards? The commander realized that the originally odd Xiao Zhuang had grown even weirder and more foolish after leaving for the princess’s side.

Xianzong was currently observing the street while speaking to Yu Xiaoxiao. “Looks like the capital is lively at night, ah.”

“Don’t you know? That’s what we call the night life,” Yu Xiaoxiao said.

Besides Xianzong, none of the six shadow guards had heard of the term either!

Xianzong silently calmed his temper before he pointed at his daughter. “Zhen needs to meet your master one of these days!” That martial artist Gu Xinglang’s been a bad influence on my daughter, but this master of hers can’t be any better, either. Look at what my daughter’s become?!

Yu Xiaoxiao didn’t speak. Who knew how her drillmaster was doing now? When she recalled the handsome man who had brought her up since childhood, Yu Xiaoxiao’s mood abruptly sank. Here was a world so beautiful, beyond the imagination of that man. She raised her head to look at the starry skies, her eyes twinkling at the sight. The Yu Xiaoxiao of that world is already dead with no remains. It’s impossible to meet that damned dog man1 again. What a motherf**king life, she cursed silently.

Xianzong noticed that his daughter was standing still in the street and looked up at the skies as well. “Linglong, are you counting stars for fun?” He remembered that his daughter loved to nestle in his arms and count the stars with him when young.

Yu Xiaoxiao withdrew her gaze and said, “There’s at least 7,000 visible stars in the sky, but human eyes can only see 3,500 of them.” Was there any need to count them when this was already common knowledge?2

Xianzong looked at the stars and suddenly felt dizzy at the sight. By the time he looked back at Yu Xiaoxiao, his gaze seemed lost. “You’ve already counted all the stars up there?”

Yu Xiaoxiao simply turned away and continued to walk forward. What’s the use of talking to such an IQ-deficient fatuous ruler!?

At the same time Yu Xiaoxiao stepped into the bustling crowds, another man in a different time-space was currently sitting on a section of broken wall five meters high. A cigarette dangled from his lips as he looked up at the black, moonless skies.

“Chief, it’s time to leave,” a youth dressed in military uniform with half his sleeves missing ran to the foot of the wall and shouted.

The man took a long drag of his cigarette before leaping off the rubble. Before the other figure could react, he had already raised his hand and shot a bullet behind him. It exploded into the brains of a rotting zombie with half its guts spilling out while dragging its severed body across the ground. The shot gave its final release into death.

The young man shrank back, frightened in hindsight. Without a word, the older man walked right past him. The youth chased after him and murmured, “Chief, will Drillmaster Yu be avenged after we’ve cleaned out all the zombies here?”

The older man’s steps faltered before he looked back at his subordinate. The youth didn’t quite dare to meet the man’s eyes as he lowered his head and quickly walked past him.

Before them laid an expanse of ground littered with zombie corpses. The stench of decaying flesh permeated the air. The older man took a final drag of his cigarette before tossing the butt to the ground. A gust of wind blew towards them, carrying with it the howls of more zombies in the distance. The man strode forward, his military boots crunching against the bones of the bodies underfoot.

The man stuck a new cigarette in his mouth and took out a faded lighter to light it, but abruptly stopped. A pattern of stars was carved into the surface of the square shell casing, which he brushed with his fingers. This lighter had been a birthday gift from the girl who had followed him for years, a child he’d raised since youth and then had lost forever.

The flame from the lighter lit the cigarette, sending tendrils of smoke curling up into the air. Narrowing his eyes, the man fell into thought. All humans in the apocalypse had lost something precious to them.

Xiaoxiao, echoed the name in his heart.

Wind swept past the wastelands, sending up swirls of dust to distant plains. The soldiers preparing to set off felt the gust and stopped their work to look towards the man standing over the zombie corpses. A breeze with such destructive potential could only have come from the likes of their commanding officer, the silent figure currently smoking a joint.

Once again, the man looked up at the skies, which were as barren as the lands around them. The Father3 that accompanied the troops always said that when people died, they’d leave for a different world to start their lives over. In the past, the man hadn’t believed those words, but now he did after losing his girl. He was certain that she was in a new world now, a place with no zombies or the apocalypse. It’d be a world just like the one in his stories, with stars in the skies and a land illuminated by the sun and moon, green waters and blue mountains4 and people noisily romping about.

The man settled into his Jeep as the military headed deeper into the expanses of the wastelands.

“Xiaoxiao has to be alive somewhere,” the man told his deputy commander after a long spell of silence.

The young deputy commander gave a start before he smiled. “Yes. Drillmaster Yu definitely went to Heaven.”

The man exhaled a stream of smoke before smiling as well. His icy expression looked a little more alive, softening the sharp contours of his face. He and his girl would keep on protecting the peace, even if they were in separate worlds now.

Their military jeep sent zombies blocking the public roads flying into the air, splashing the windshield with their green blood and guts. The gory mess ruined the view, but none of the people inside batted an eye. What awaited them in the distance was only more of the same.