Li Chen was having a nightmare.
The moment Mo Chu realized that, she also realized she’d fallen into a misunderstanding.
The Li Chen in front of her wasn’t the same man from her previous life—the god of slaughter everyone feared. Back then, he’d started out as nothing more than an ordinary person with a decent heart, someone who had saved everyone in the climbing gym out of responsibility and basic human kindness. And what had he gotten in return? Betrayed by his own brothers. Abandoned by the very people he’d rescued. He’d clawed his way through a horde of zombies and survived by sheer luck alone.
For a normal person, after going through all that, whether they could survive at all was another question entirely.
He wasn’t yet the cold-blooded killing machine forged by disaster in her last life—the terrifying man whose temperament had changed completely after endless bloodshed. Right now, he was only an ordinary person.
So why had she assumed he wouldn’t feel fear? Wouldn’t panic?
In the end, she was still unconsciously treating him like the Li Chen from her previous life.
But for ordinary people, fear was instinct.
Back then, how many people had survived the apocalypse itself, survived the zombies, survived countless disasters by sheer grit—only to be crushed in the end by their own fear? Even she had suffered nightmares for half a year. During that time, there were nights she didn’t dare fall asleep at all.
So of course Li Chen would be afraid too.
And yet she’d taken it for granted and overlooked it completely.
Mo Chu pressed her lips together. She didn’t pull her hand free from his tight grip. Instead, she carefully climbed into the front seat and crouched beside him, softly calling his name.
“Li Chen.”
Maybe he was trapped too deeply in the nightmare. Normally, he was so alert that even the slightest movement would wake him, but now, even when she called him, he barely reacted. His eyes remained shut tight, his expression twisted with pain and struggle.
She hadn’t managed to wake Li Chen, but she had woken Xiao Jin instead. The little wolf immediately lifted its head warily, about to make a sound, only for Mo Chu to silence it with quick reflexes.
Xiao Jin tilted its head at her in confusion, then looked toward Li Chen.
Mo Chu glanced down at the hand he was gripping so tightly and called him again, her voice soft enough to melt into the dark.
“Li Chen.”
As though the man in the nightmare had finally heard someone calling for him, his tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed. The pain on his face faded little by little.
Mo Chu quietly let out a breath of relief.
Then she heard him murmur in a low, dreamlike voice—
“Don’t leave me behind.”
Mo Chu froze.
Don’t leave me behind?
What exactly was Li Chen afraid of in his dream?
A faint crease formed between her brows. Seeing his expression finally ease, she carefully tried to pull her hand free.
But the moment she moved even slightly, Li Chen reacted violently again.
Without meaning to, Mo Chu remembered that night in the warehouse back in Lin City. When he’d been unconscious then, he’d also clung to her hand with desperate strength, refusing to let go.
What was he afraid of?
Was he afraid of being abandoned by others—
Or afraid of being abandoned by her?
The thought appeared for only a second before she forcefully pushed it away.
Don’t overthink it.
The Li Chen from her last life was not the same as this one.
After a long silence, she lowered her voice and spoke to him the same way she had in the warehouse before.
“I won’t leave you behind.”
But this time, her promise didn’t seem to soothe him.
He only held onto her hand more tightly, as if he would rather die than let go.
Mo Chu stared at his profile for a long moment before sighing softly. In the end, she climbed back into the rear seat and awkwardly fell asleep in the same uncomfortable position, their hands still linked together.
Whatever.
Nothing mattered more than sleep right now. If she didn’t rest properly tonight, where would she get the energy to keep traveling tomorrow?
So she closed her eyes.
Strangely enough, although she’d had no trace of sleepiness before, the moment she shut her eyes this time, she drifted off almost immediately—even while stuck in such an uncomfortable position, still holding Li Chen’s hand.
Silenced and thoroughly confused, Xiao Jin looked at Li Chen, then at Mo Chu, then at their intertwined hands.
It let out a small, aggrieved whine before curling up and falling asleep too.
The next morning, Li Chen woke up.
The moment he opened his eyes, he realized the car was empty except for him.
Almost instinctively, he turned to look toward the back seat—but the person he expected to see wasn’t there.
A flicker of panic rose uncontrollably in his chest.
He swept his gaze across the empty interior, momentarily lost and unsettled.
But he quickly forced himself to calm down.
Mo Chu’s backpack was still there. Xiao Jin was gone too, and daylight had already flooded the outside world.
Li Chen paused, then laughed quietly at himself.
Mo Chu had probably taken Xiao Jin out. As for him… for some reason, he’d actually overslept today.
Once he relaxed, the heaviness in his head hit him all at once.
He couldn’t tell whether he’d slept too much or not rested at all. Even after an entire night of sleep, his head throbbed like he’d stayed awake the whole time.
He lifted a hand to press against his forehead, but as his hand passed through his line of sight, he suddenly stilled.
Long fingers. Strong hands.
And inexplicably empty.
He flexed his fingers slowly. A strange sense of loss swept through him, though he couldn’t even understand what exactly he was disappointed about.
Li Chen closed his eyes briefly, suppressing the fogginess in his mind before pushing open the car door and stepping outside.
The moment he got out, he saw Mo Chu jogging back along the riverside beneath the morning sun.
Xiao Jin circled around her excitedly, weaving around her legs.
She still carried traces of damp mist on her body. Her usual ponytail had come loose, dark hair spilling messily down her back, half dry and half wet. She’d probably gone to wash up.
The instant she saw him, her eyes brightened.
She quickened her pace and stopped in front of him.
“Li Chen.”
Li Chen looked at her—and unconsciously smiled.
Then he turned, found a clean cloth inside the car, and instinctively reached out as though to dry her hair himself.
But halfway there, he abruptly stopped.
The motion stiffened awkwardly before he simply handed the cloth to her instead.
“Dry your hair a little,” he said softly.
Mo Chu didn’t notice the hesitation.
She casually took the cloth and rubbed her hair a few times, fingers combing through the damp strands. Once she felt it was good enough, she handed it back after barely two minutes.
Watching him take the towel, she grinned.
“On my way back, I was wondering when you’d wake up. Didn’t expect the timing to be this perfect.”
Li Chen lowered his eyes slightly. “I overslept. Delayed our trip.”
Mo Chu waved it off immediately.
“What’s the rush? We leave whenever we leave.”
As she spoke, she brought out the hand she’d been hiding behind her back and opened her fingers in front of him.
A crystal core lay in her palm, translucent and gleaming.
Li Chen looked at her in surprise.
Mo Chu said, “For you. It’s the crystal core from that Rank Two zombie yesterday. I already have one, so this one is yours. It’ll be perfect when you break through to Rank Two.”
Li Chen stared at the crystal core.
For the first time in a very long while, the still water in his heart rippled with helpless uncertainty.
He pressed his lips together slightly.
“You’re giving it to me?”
Mo Chu laughed.
“How is this me giving it to you? You did the most work fighting that Rank Two zombie yesterday.”
She was obviously praising his strength.
But for some reason, hearing her say it wasn’t a gift from her made disappointment quietly rise in his chest.
Even the excitement of obtaining a Rank Two crystal core seemed to fade a little.
After watching her silently for a moment, he shook his head.
“You should keep it. I don’t need—”
Before he could finish, Mo Chu directly shoved the crystal core into his hand.
“What’s yours is yours,” she said firmly. “Besides, I’m only a healing-type ability user right now. No matter how good my combat skills are, there’s a limit. We both need to become stronger. That’s the only way we’ll have better odds of surviving.”
Logical. Rational. Fair distribution. Strength above all else.
Li Chen stared at the crystal core in his palm and slowly closed his fingers around it.
Then, in a low voice, he answered—
“Alright.”
Become stronger.
Li Chen had woken up, but Mo Chu didn’t plan on leaving immediately.
Before reaching the next survivor base, she wanted Xiao Jin to absorb its first crystal core.
After all, Xiao Jin was still an animal. No matter how intelligent it was, it didn’t think like a human. In her previous life, she’d never seen anyone raise a mutant beast before, so she genuinely had no idea how an evolved animal was supposed to absorb crystal cores.
Unexpectedly, Li Chen seemed far more decisive than she was.
The moment he heard her concerns, he simply walked over to where they stored their crystal cores, picked up a first-rank core, and tossed it directly in front of Xiao Jin.
Mo Chu immediately panicked and reached to grab it back, afraid Xiao Jin might recklessly hurt itself.
But Li Chen caught her wrist.
Looking at her calmly, he said, “Xiao Jin may be an animal, but that’s exactly why its instincts toward power are much sharper than a human’s.”
He turned his gaze forward, and Mo Chu followed it.
In front of them, Xiao Jin tilted its head curiously at the crystal core lying on the ground. Then it lowered its nose and sniffed it carefully.
As if it truly sensed something important, an unusually human-like seriousness appeared on the wolf’s face.
Li Chen continued, “A newborn deer instinctively knows how to search for food and avoid danger. Some things are natural to animals. Instead of worrying here about how to make Xiao Jin absorb the crystal core, you might as well let it try on its own.”
The moment his words fell, Xiao Jin suddenly lifted a paw and nudged the crystal core.
Mo Chu’s heart instantly tightened.
Then, in the next second—
Xiao Jin lowered its head, snatched the crystal core into its mouth, and with a loud crunch, bit straight through it and swallowed it whole.
Mo Chu: !!!
Crystal cores could technically be absorbed through ingestion, but that method was far riskier than external absorption. Once something went wrong, it was difficult to stop midway. Not to mention… that thing had literally come out of a zombie’s brain.
In her previous life, she’d never seen anyone absorb crystal cores by eating them.
And yet now she’d actually witnessed it.
This time, she managed not to overreact. Instead, she stood nearby, watching Xiao Jin nervously.
At first, nothing happened.
But after a short while, Xiao Jin suddenly shook its head dazedly as if losing consciousness. Its legs buckled beneath it, and it collapsed onto the ground, trembling violently all over.
Mo Chu’s expression turned serious at once, ready to intervene the instant something went wrong.
But after trembling for about half a minute, Xiao Jin abruptly opened its eyes again. It coughed violently a few times before strength gradually returned to its body, allowing it to shakily climb back to its feet.
Mo Chu finally relaxed.
It had succeeded.
A smile broke across her face. She bent down and rubbed Xiao Jin’s head affectionately before tearing open a sausage as a reward.
Xiao Jin clearly sensed it had accomplished something impressive. It rubbed enthusiastically against her legs, shamelessly demanding praise.
Li Chen had stood silently behind her the entire time.
Only after Mo Chu finished feeding Xiao Jin and stood up did he finally speak.
“Mo Chu,” he said quietly, “I’m planning to absorb the second crystal core.”
