Don’t Be a Kept Man

Chapter 147: You’re Good Looking

Late in the night, around 2 a.m.
when people were in the deepest stage of sleep, Zhou Cang Ming, Feng Tang and the rest of the group had their heads down and were snoring away, especially tired after fighting with zombies in the morning.

Only Pei Ran was unable to sleep, his worries keeping him awake.
He leaned against the wall, thinking about something, with his legs completely covered in shreds of cigarettes, having torn up half the box of cigarettes.

Qu Yan’s eyes were closed with one hand resting on his knee.
His fingers tapped in a rhythm as if counting the time.
After a while, he finally opened his eyes and a ray of darkness flashed across them.

While Pei Ran was still blanked out, all depressed and lost, Qu Yan turned his head slightly to look at him.
Shadows from the light shining on his face created a dark and a bright side, neither half which looked very likeable.
Whatever happened then, a flash of blue light came across Qu Yan’s dark eyes, and Pei Ran slouched over, weakly falling down.

His body did not drop onto the floor but was instead caught by a hand and slowly placed down.

Holding onto his stomach, Qu Yan silently rose up.
He headed out the door, heading upstairs and out of the supermarket.
The two zombies that had been wandering back and forth in front had been decapitated by Feng Tang earlier today and their rotting bodies were silently lying on the floor, soon to be turned into dust.

He walked under the dangerous red sky, yet he had no fear, as if this world… was supposed to be like this.

Qu Yan could faintly feel that a signal around him, one that merged with his mental ability.
He closed his eyes, stepping over pools of dried blood, over dead grass, as if to find something, before stopping in front of a rotting head.

He bent over, picking up a metal tube lying not too far away and emotionlessly smashed down, with a viciousness that did not match his age.
There was the faint crack of bone before a red and white fluid began to flow out of the brain along with a filthy stench, revealing an ability stone.

Like a perfectly cut diamond, it shone brightly underneath this half red, half black colored night.

Qu Yan used the metal tube to move the stone off to the side before bending down and using a tissue from his pockets to pick up the stone.
He first wiped it clean and then examined it closely with his eyes while sending a faint pulse from his mind to investigate.
It was at this time, a faint invisible light suddenly followed the pulse into his body and that brightly shining stone immediately dimmed, becoming a boring ashy crystal once more.

If Pei Ran was here, he would have definitely recognized that this was a mythical stone used to level up abilities.

Qu Yan stayed outside for a long while before heading back to the storage warehouse before the rest of the people woke up.
He walked into the washroom, emotionlessly cleaning the blood off his hands.
He washed and washed when he suddenly stopped, as if he suddenly found something.

Water was sputtering out of the faucet, the stream evidently looking way smaller than the days previous.
Against the white basin, it was clear to the naked eye that a layer of black cloud had infiltrated the water.

First it was the network outage, then it was the electricity, so the water supply being contaminated was not that shocking.
Qu Yan walked back to his original spot and then closed his eyes to sleep.

In the morning, Pei Ran was woken up by his hunger.
Sleepily opening his eyes, he felt a bit dizzy and, along with a headache, his movements were slow.
A bag of cookies lay beside him and without even looking, out of his survival instincts, he stuffed a cookie into his mouth to appease his stomach when he suddenly spit it out, being electrocuted the next second.

[ Sha la —- ]

[ My dear host, good morning.
The weather is not good outside, so we should hurry and find some provisions.
Let’s be self-sufficient and self-reliant as soon as possible in the apocalypse.
Pinky promise ]

Pinky your fucking promise ……

Sprawled on the ground, Pei Ran didn’t get up, 

“Please, I beg of you, let me go, we aren’t suitable together……:

[ My dear beloved host, laziness is not a good trait ~ These days of red are about to end and the zombies are about to complete their evolution.
A friendly warning, please become strong while the zombies are still leveling up, and increase your strength so you can be certain that you can successfully survive in the apocalypse~ ]

In the original novel, this red sky lasted for more than half a month.
All around the world, people continued to gain elemental abilities, but at the same time, the zombies were swallowing up the energy from this red sky, continually evolving—-

Those that were wandering outside were the lowest level, T0, of zombies.
Their movements were slow; their limbs moved as if they were frozen and they were only able to use the scent of blood to determine where humans were.
But after the period of the red sky, they would evolve up a level to T1, and their speed and vision would improve exponentially.

Pei Ran used his not very good brain to think, feeling that there was a sense of truth to the system’s words.
But his strength that was rendered totally useless in battle was also very evident.
He should stay in the storage warehouse, where at least starvation was a better death than being eaten by zombies.

Stuck in between this battle between nature and humans……

Following the passage of time, Pei Ran’s energy was slowly draining away.
At the time where he would be starving and wanted to go find provisions, he’d probably faint before he even stood up.
Why not take the chance, while he still had the energy now, when the zombies haven’t completed their evolution, to try.

But the problem now was that…… he didn’t dare.

As if the system could feel Pei Ran’s faltering resolve, it energetically cheered him on: 

[ Go! Don’t back down! A man should always go forth, even if it takes off your head, even if it takes away your life! There isn’t much to it, so don’t back down! ]

After all, it wasn’t like this could take away its life so the system said all this very easily without much of a guilty conscience.

Pei Ran was starving and the look in his eyes was almost sharp enough to emit razors.
He truly couldn’t be so ruthless to himself, to starve himself, so he planned to head out today to find provisions—-

But before that, he’s going to need to make sure his golden leg still “likes” him or at least has “good feelings” towards him.
Even though Qu Yan doesn’t look very strong right now, with his main character plot armor, he should be able to protect his own life right?

Lying on the ground with his eyes closed, Qu Yan’s body was used to shrinking into a ball, a position that displayed how unsafe he felt.
His breathing was regular and slow, as if deep asleep, and no one would even be able to tell that he had been out the entire night.

Pei Ran walked over to him and knelt down.
He hesitated a bit before lightly prying off the hand clutched around his stomach and unzipped Qu Yan’s school uniform jacket.
He rolled up the t-shirt underneath, preparing to apply some medicinal oil, when he was abruptly met with a perfectly unmarked pale white waist.

Hmm?

Pei Ran’s mind went blank.
There was still a big bruise yesterday so how was it gone now? Was the protagonist’s healing ability really that out of this world?!

So jealous……

Pei Ran had never taken care of anyone else before, so he was quite rough.
His movements couldn’t be said to be too rough, but it wasn’t very gentle either.
Even when Qu Yan wanted to keep pretending to be asleep, he couldn’t endure it anymore.
He suddenly opened up his eyes, sat up from the floor and slowly pulled down his clothes, hiding away that skinny, skinny waist.

Pei Ran had said that he was ugly yesterday so Qu Yan did not think he was doing anything perverse.
His eyes swept over the medicinal bottle in his hand and there was a slight undetectable pause.
He looked back at Pei Ran, hiding away the deep contemplation in his eyes.

Qu Yan’s eyebrows slightly raised, moving his lips, 

“You……?”

From the jealous, sour feeling state that he was in, Pei Ran came back to his senses and threw the medicinal bottle back into his bag with a faint clang, 

“Oh, Feng Tang’s quite strong so I was afraid you sustained internal injuries, especially since you kept holding onto your stomach……but it probably wasn’t that bad as the bruise is gone.
It healed quite fast.”

Qu Yan didn’t respond, playing with his hands with his head lowered.
The nail bed that had been exposed was already starting to regrow, but the wounds on the back of his hand were still faintly there, from being pierced by pencils, burned by water, and cut by knives, all hidden under a blue and white school uniform sleeve.

After a moment, he finally said, 

“Thanks, it’s probably because……my body composition is rather good.”

At some point, Pei Ran had risen from the ground and went to wash up in the bathroom, so he did not hear the latter half of what Qu Yan said, only that he spoke.
In the silence that drowned the room, Qu Yan paused slightly, subconsciously pulling his sleeves down, hiding his hand from sight very well.

Pei Ran normally went to the washroom quite often, and each time lasted no less than 15 minutes.
The rest of the group were just starting to wake up, with the lone woman’s stomach growling quite loudly.
She was starving to the point where her face was overly pale.
Zhou Cang Ming’s eyes were still droopy and while Feng Tang was normally the earliest to rise, his reactions were a bit slow today and he looked very out of it.

After washing up, Zhou Cang Ming urged everyone to head out to find provisions like yesterday.
Seeing Qu Yan rise up, Pei Ran didn’t move.
It was only after the system went crazy and pushed him in his mind that he unwillingly followed along.

Zhou Cang Ming mockingly laughed, 

“Hoh, what a rare sight.”

Pei Ran only had one weapon, his toy gun, which evidently could not bring him any sense of safety.
His stomach was quite empty too but his heart was feeling even worse.
So he turned around, immediately grabbing Qu Yan beside him into an embrace, arms on the other’s shoulders like good brothers.
He whispered, 

“Don’t run around randomly later.
I’ll protect you.”

Pei Ran was quite tall, just like the poster image of a prince on a white horse, about half a head taller than Qu Yan.
Add on the fact that Qu Yan was quite lean and skinny, an appearance that said he did not get enough nutrients, his words had some sense of believability just based on the look of the two of them.

Qu Yan had not been this close to anyone before, so even though he did not outwardly reject it, his muscles were very tense, unable to relax for a very long time.
He only loosened up a bit when they were in the car.

Zhou Cang Ming was driving with Feng Tang in the passenger seat.
The redheaded delinquent, Sang Yan, Pei Ran and Qu Yan were sitting in the back.
Facing the ashy car window, Pei Ran found a zombie screaming as it rushed towards them with its intestines dragging on the ground.
Half of its face had rotted down to the bone, which was extremely disgusting to look at.
An empty barrel rolled across the road, along with endless corpses, combining into a sight that was too terrifying to even describe.

Seeing this, Pei Ran’s left hand started to twitch uncontrollably.
Before even directly facing a zombie face to face, his legs had already become weak.
Subconsciously, as if trying to find a feeling of safety, he tightened his grasp on Qu Yan.
Through their thin layers of clothing, they could even feel each other’s warm temperature.

Sang Yan silently moved away from them.
He furrowed his eyebrows and growled out quietly enough only they could hear each other, 

“Disgusting, will you not stop even in the car?!”

Pei Ran asked, 

“Did I gross you out?”

Sang Yan: “Yes.”

Pei Ran: “Then good.”

Sang Yan: “……!!!”

The car moved, sending them far far away from the zombies behind them.
Qu Yan’s entire body was forced into Pei Ran’s embrace, and if he moved just even a tiny bit, he would immediately be held down by Pei Ran.
He could only give up, leaning against this embrace mixed with the scent of cigarettes and mint.

For the first time in his entire life, Qu Yan leaned against someone’s shoulder.

Sang Yan cursed in his heart, this pair of gays!

Hugging around his golden leg, Pei Ran finally felt less panicked.
Slowly rubbing his left thumb and forefinger together back and forth, he lowered his head to take a look at Qu Yan.
Seeing him quietly lying in his embrace with closed eyes and thick eyelashes, he looked ever so obedient.
Only the wounds on the left side of his face were still as jarring as ever.

Unusually, Pei Ran did not feel any sense of distaste.
He used his index finger to lightly touch Qu Yan’s face, 

“In a few days, the scabs will fall off and then you’ll almost be good.”

With lowered eyes, Qu Yan calmly told the truth, 

“It will leave scars.”

He had applied 100% of his strength with that rock in hand.

Pei Ran was not homosexual and his sexual orientation right now still favored those gorgeous ladies with a big busty front and back.
He thought to himself, how good would it be if Qu Yan was a girl.
Then in half a month, Pei Ran could easily snatch his heart and he wouldn’t need to worry about anything for the rest of his life.

With his fingers, he began to wipe away a small spot of blood on Qu Yan’s cheeks.
Pei Ran said, 

“No worries, you’ll still be good looking even if there’s any scarring.”

At least way better looking than any of the zombies out there.