SGT CH106: Unbelievably Enthusiastic

◎Becoming Aix’s little lover and being sheltered by him was probably the best ending he could hope for.◎

Thought he liked it?

When did he ever like…

Mousse’s gaze fell on the jacket, yet he found himself unable to voice a rebuttal.

He did, indeed, like wearing lighter colors.

But the similarity to that healer still made Mousse feel as if a fishbone were stuck in his throat.

“I hate white! It’s not stain-resistant at all, and it’s too conspicuous at night.”

Such a color was entirely unsuited for the apocalypse.

In the past, Mousse never had to consider these issues.

If clothes got dirty, Aix would wash them clean; if they tore, Aix would replace them with new ones. He was never required to face danger in the night.

The two days Aix fell into the zombie horde and mutated were the only suffering Mousse had endured since the apocalypse began.

Aix thought back to the moment he had followed the scent and found Mousse in the shopping mall—the wretched sight of him tormented by stomach pain and besieged by zombies.

His heart, which had long since lost its vitality, actually throbbed with a faint ache.

“It won’t happen again,” Aix said.

He would guard Mousse’s side forever and never let such a situation occur again.

Mousse thought he meant he wouldn’t prepare white clothes for him anymore.

His chest felt stifled, though he couldn’t say exactly why.

That wasn’t what he wanted.

But he didn’t know what he wanted, either.

He simply brushed unconsciously over the faint scar on his wrist, his eyes gradually going blank.

Aix noticed the movement.

Whenever Mousse felt low, he would unconsciously rub that scar, chafing his fair skin until it turned red.

It was as if he wanted to wipe the scar away completely, yet also as if he wanted to deepen it.

That was the only injury Mousse had sustained since the apocalypse began.

It happened during the early days of the apocalypse when Aix crossed half the city to reach Mousse’s home.

He had suffered some minor injuries on the way, which he hadn’t paid much attention to at the time.

When Mousse opened the door and saw him, his expression was incredibly complex. Pursing his lips, he threw himself into Aix’s arms, hugging him proactively for the first time.

During the embrace, he touched the wound on Aix’s arm, causing the hastily stopped bleeding to start again.

The scent of blood attracted nearby zombies.

Whether it was the wound on his arm or the gathering zombies that frightened him, Mousse’s face went pale.

Yet, he still pulled Aix into the house.

Outside, zombies roared. Mousse was clearly scared bloodless, yet he still fetched the first-aid kit and earnestly treated the wound.

Aix once felt that the image of Mousse lowering his eyes to bandage him was extremely heartwarming.

Even if Mousse’s hand was so heavy it felt like he was scraping off a layer of flesh, and even if he forced Aix to swallow a lot of medicine afterward.

The zombies gathered outside the door.

Because it was a villa district, the population was sparse, so there weren’t many zombies gathering.

However, their roaring was likely to attract more.

He decided to go out and clear them.

He had experience dealing with zombies; these mutants moved slowly and had low intelligence. The only things to guard against were their teeth and claws.

Mousse took out a baseball bat and went out with him.

These zombies were even duller than the ones he had encountered before, swaying in place for ages without moving an inch, like fixed targets.

They quickly finished off the zombies, but upon returning, his wound tore open again.

In the latter half of the night, he gradually developed a high fever, his consciousness growing hazy.

He could vaguely sense Mousse guarding his side.

At the time, he didn’t know that a zombie scratch could cause infection and mutation, or potentially bring about the opportunity to trigger superpowers.

Fortunately, it was the latter for him.

He awakened dual abilities.

The “Plunder” ability and a Psychic ability.

Both were extremely special and rare powers.

When he woke up, Mousse was sitting far away on the sofa chair watching him, a bandage wrapped around his left wrist.

He worriedly asked Mousse how he got hurt.

Mousse looked at him with a complicated expression and simply said he had cut his hand while cooking.

After that, he never let Mousse cook a single meal again.

Mousse’s wound healed very slowly, and his mental state was poor as well; he was always groggy and extremely lethargic.

The zombies were increasing in number, and the city was falling at a rapid pace.

They had to leave immediately.

To take care of Mousse, he expended some effort to find an RV and took Mousse on a journey into the unknown.

Later, he obtained a healing ability through plundering.

The first thing he did was treat the ailments in Mousse’s body.

Mousse accepted the treatment for various parts of his body, but refused to let him repair the scar on his wrist.

That pale pink scar remained to this day.

…

Watching Mousse rub the skin of his wrist red, Aix couldn’t help but walk over, take his hand, and gently persuade him:

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Mousse instinctively shook off his hand.

The RV fell into a momentary silence.

Both maintained their positions, their gazes meeting in mid-air.

Mousse pursed his lips and whispered, “Sorry.”

Aix was silent for a moment before saying, “It’s fine.”

Mousse had always disliked him touching the hand with the scar, especially when he was in a bad mood; his reaction would be particularly intense.

It was like a physical manifestation of Mousse’s resistance toward him.

Only before, Aix hadn’t realized it, thinking Mousse was just throwing a tantrum.

Until that day, when he boarded the vehicle and went to hold Mousse’s hand, only to be abruptly shaken off.

In that instant, he saw the emotion in Mousse’s eyes clearly.

Only then did he know it was resistance and resentment directed at him.

Aix lowered his eyes, looked at the white jacket in his hand for a moment, and walked into the bathroom with it.

Mousse opened his mouth, wanting to call him back, but didn’t know what to say. He rubbed his face sullenly and vented all his emotions on the food.

·

After reorganization, the convoy set off again, arriving at the base before the sun went down.

The guards at the gate came up to greet them with faces full of joy.

“Captain Ai, Vice-Captain Xue, you’re back. Wow, such a big RV, the harvest must be plentiful this time. The mission at the Sixth Hospital must have been completed successfully too, right?”

Hearing “Sixth Hospital,” the expressions of the ability users in the convoy darkened.

This was their first return after leaving the base half a month ago.

No one knew that their captain had fallen into a zombie horde.

And no one knew that the Sixth Hospital had been destroyed in an explosion.

After the captain fell into the zombie horde, they had tried to return for a rescue, but aside from the dense swarm of zombies, they found nothing.

Later, they wanted to infiltrate the Sixth Hospital to kill that psychic zombie and avenge the captain.

But before they could act, the explosion occurred.

“Mission accomplished smoothly.”

Aix spoke suddenly, saying, “The items are in my vehicle.”

Mousse, who had lived in the car for half a month and seen nothing: “…”

Even if Aix really had obtained the medicine required for the mission, it was in his spatial storage.

Saying it was in the vehicle was just Aix’s usual cover story.

Whether it was the “Plunder” ability or the Psychic ability, they attracted too much attention.

The only ability Aix revealed to the outside world was Plant manipulation.

He chose the Plant ability primarily because he needed to cook for Mousse.

Fresh fruits and vegetables were rare commodities in the apocalypse; only plant-type ability users could produce fresh produce at will.

The ability users within the convoy showed expressions ranging from surprise to sudden realization.

“So the explosion at the Sixth Hospital was the Captain’s doing.”

“As expected of the Captain!”

Before entering the base, there was a necessary inspection process.

Mousse discovered that their inspection of ability users was extremely lax.

Especially for a high-level “ability user” like Aix, who just sat upright in the vehicle while they scanned his forehead with a thermometer gun. They didn’t even ask him to take off his clothes.

Aix, who could regulate his body temperature, passed easily.

Probably no one imagined that a zombie could use abilities to regulate its own body temperature.

On the contrary, an ordinary person like Mousse had to get out of the car and strip for inspection.

Mousse felt some resistance in his heart, but he also knew this was the treatment for ordinary people in the apocalypse.

Just as he was about to open the door and get out, Aix pulled him back, dragging him onto his lap. With his arms circling him, Aix confined him in his embrace and gave the guard a flat look.

The guard immediately indicated he understood and opened the gate to let them pass.

Mousse: “…”

Between ability users and ordinary people, there was another category of person.

Called the Big Shot’s Little Lover.

No wonder so many people despised him, yet so many wanted to replace him.

In this chaotic apocalypse, becoming Aix’s little lover and being sheltered by him was probably the best ending he could hope for.

However, watching the ability users in the convoy and seeing their relaxed confidence, Mousse also felt a trace of envy.

Aix observed the expression of the person in his arms.

In the past, if he forcefully pulled Mousse onto him and confined him like this, Mousse would absolutely get angry with him.

Now, however, it looked as if he was too lazy to even get angry.

This made Aix feel a wave of unease.

The longing in Mousse’s eyes was too obvious.

He followed Mousse’s line of sight and, through the rearview mirror, saw the convoy members laughing and joking as they passed the inspection behind them.

Aix felt even more uneasy.

“They aren’t as strong as me; they can’t give you the support you want.”

Aix spoke almost indiscriminately.

Mousse looked at Aix in confusion, disliking his words.

“Everyone is trying very hard to live; there’s no rule saying who must be stronger than whom.”

In this chaotic world, just surviving was hard enough.

Yet Aix still had to compare those ordinary ability users to himself.

How could they compare?

He had two top-tier abilities; comparing like that was just bullying people, wasn’t it?

The arm Aix had around his waist tightened again, his jaw clenched almost to the point of stiffness.

He said stubbornly:

“They are inferior to me. Having me is enough for you.”

Did he want him to obediently be his dodder flower?

It wasn’t that Mousse couldn’t accept it.

He had given up his future back then, abandoned his own possibilities, and chosen Aix.

Turning himself into a dodder flower that grew by relying on Aix, the tree.

This meant he had accepted such a future.

However, his voluntary acceptance did not mean Aix could forcefully coerce him into accepting it.

Mousse forcefully pried Aix’s hand from his waist, got up angrily, and moved to sit on the sofa chair in the back.

Aix looked at his empty embrace. His heart, which had long lost physical sensation, transmitted a dull ache, causing even his palms to throb with pain.

He looked through the rearview mirror at the ability users behind them, a wave of tyranny rising in his heart.

If Mousse chose someone else while he still existed in this world…

He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from killing.

Two different voices rang out in Aix’s mind.

One voice said: If you do that, Mousse will hate you even more.

The other voice said: Who told them to be so useless? Dying by my hand just proves they are too weak and insufficient to protect Mousse. Therefore, they are unworthy of standing by Mousse’s side.

Aix looked through the interior rearview mirror at Mousse sitting by the window.

He barely managed to suppress the tyranny and killing intent in his heart.

He first drove Mousse back to their home in the base.

It was a three-story villa located on the east side of the base.

The location was remote, far from the central area of the base, but it was very quiet and spacious—suitable for planting mutated plants.

Aix had planted mutated plants all around the villa; it was practically a fortress.

To better protect Mousse, he used his Psychic ability to place a part of his consciousness into the mutated plants.

When the vehicle drove into the villa’s perimeter, the giant mutated plants parted to the sides, revealing a path.

Aix drove the RV to the front of the villa and stopped.

The mutated plants reached out one after another—some formed ladders, some bloomed flowers, and some bore fruit.

One even knocked on the car window, offering a bright red fruit right in front of Mousse.

They were unbelievably enthusiastic.

Aix stood up and saw this scene.

After putting part of his consciousness into them, these mutated plants had become exceptionally strange.

They were normal usually, but the moment they were in front of Mousse, they couldn’t wait to plaster themselves all over him.

Aix had once worried they might scare Mousse.

But Mousse’s acceptance of them was very high.

At least higher than his acceptance of Aix himself.

Mousse took the bright red fruit and smilingly stroked the branch, causing it to hurriedly burst into full bloom.

The mutated plants, which had been nothing but green for the half-month since Mousse left, blossomed into a riot of colors within a few short breaths.

If anyone were to come here right now, they would surely be shocked by this spectacle.

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