Chapter 57

Lin Tantan made up her mind: no matter what noises came from next door, she wouldn't go check. She nearly ruined things just now.
Also, the soundproofing here really is terrible, maybe she should change rooms.
She thought again: she had worried their couple-vibe was fading, but here they were handing out sweets again. All that fear that Ye Xiao might change his mind was just needless worry.
She listened and listened; the neighbors didn't make another sound. Instead it sounded like other rooms were opening doors and footsteps echoed in the corridor.
Had others noticed too?
Lin Tantan fretted, ran and pressed her ear to the door for a long while, and when it went quiet she went to bed with her head full of thoughts.
She usually got up early, but the next morning she found she was the last to rise. Only Xu Qin remained in the villa; everyone else had left.
Xu Qin told her they'd all gone out of town to fetch supply trucks: Bai Cheng went to recruit people, and the others were helping, they'd been busy since late in the night.
Lin Tantan's first reaction was: so Bai Cheng went to see Ye Xiao about this last night? Or was whatever they were doing interrupted by this?
"Why the rush? Didn't you say we'd wait until the zombies outside had dispersed?" she asked.
Xu Qin said coldly, "If we don't go now, someone else will take it."
A hundred-plus trucks of supplies isn't insanely many, but it had taken effort to collect, load and bring them to Ning City. They weren't about to hand them over to others.
Xu Qin, unlike Ye Xiao and Bai Cheng, didn't go into detail with Lin Tantan. She didn't ask much, ate breakfast and went to the clinic.
Another busy half-day followed. In the afternoon she went to a second shantytown to do free clinics, but they'd barely started when someone came to invite her to a banquet.
As for what kind of banquet, it was a grand New Year's feast hosted by base commander Lu Jianping, with all the notable and powerful figures from the base invited.
But Lin Tantan had only one response: she wouldn't go.
The messenger returned empty-handed. After a while the woman from the medical department came herself, took Lin Tantan aside and said, "We're cooperating now, so don't be so distant. If your Captain Ye hadn't suggested it to the commander, this collaboration wouldn't exist. It's just an invitation to dinner, why make it so awkward?"
Lin Tantan learned then that the medical department's sudden enthusiasm for treating the flu was partly thanks to Ye Xiao.
Once she heard that, it was harder to refuse. Just then Bai Cheng called; he said if she had no objections she should go with him.
Lin Tantan had no problem with that. She asked Jiang Zhongyi to watch Xu Tianjin, went back to the villa to change, and asked Bai Cheng, "Is it appropriate for us to go to Lu Jianping's banquet?"
"It's just a meal; no problem."
That put her at ease. She asked again, "Is Ye Xiao all right over there?"
"He's a bit far; we can't contact them for now, but don't worry. He took many people with him, Qinan and Xiaotian went along. One can foresee things, the other controls a swarm of drones in the sky; nothing should go wrong."
Bai Cheng said this as he got into the car with her, and they drove toward the center of the base.
In the car Bai Cheng outlined the base's main power distribution: "Groups like the Qingying Society are small-time troublemakers and won't affect the big picture for now. The main force at Ning City base is still the military: one camp is the Lu faction led by Lu Jianping, the other is the Li faction led by Li Qun. Both have superiors in the capital; they fight here while their patrons fight in the capital. The outcomes above directly affect us, and our local balance feeds back to the capital. But that's only the tip of the iceberg."
"Besides, there are neutral factions who don't join the larger struggles and mind their own patch, Xing Guoliang is one of them. He now leads ten to twenty thousand men and sits uneasily between sides in the base; his situation is fairly stable."
"Back to the Lu and Li factions: in previous clashes the Li faction was slightly weaker and has been looking for chances to reverse the tide. Lu's faction holds the advantage for now, but managing the base has cost them manpower and resources, gradually weakening them. If this continues, the outlook isn't good."
“So they were all desperate for talent and resources, which is why Ye Xiao chose to stay out of it. Because of Min Yande, we naturally looked like we belonged to the Li faction. To work with Lu Jianping would be to rip things apart with the Lis completely, and to side with the Lis would mean being forced to go up against the Lus.”
Lin Tantan, hearing this, said, “These people really are……”
She wanted to call them meddlesome, but putting herself in their shoes she could see it: whoever won outright would have absolute authority, could build the base to their liking, control all the resource distribution, and wouldn’t have to worry about being picked on.
The stakes were enormous, who wouldn’t be tempted? If it were her and someone came along saying, “Challenge me; if you lose you must follow me,” Lin Tantan would be sure to teach them a lesson they’d never forget.
Thinking that, she understood, but understanding aside, their infighting was bad for the broad masses below, and that was a fact.
She asked, “So are we still going on this trip?”
Bai Cheng explained, “First, the other side is the base commander, so we must give him face. Second, he really did invest manpower to suppress the flu because he followed Ye Xiao’s advice, we’d look awful if we turned our backs on him. Third, compared to those Li-faction people who drag their feet about defending the walls or even try to sabotage things, Lu Jianping actually has some redeeming qualities.”
From agreeing at the start to open the gates to let the Yang City convoy in, to sending troops to rescue Xing Guoliang’s group, to tacitly accepting Bai Cheng’s intermediary arrangement, and then committing people to curb the flu’s spread, he wasn’t purely profit-driven to the point of caring nothing for lives. His attitude toward them was reasonably balanced. If a choice had to be made, both Bai Cheng and Ye Xiao leaned toward Lu Jianping.
Lin Tantan understood. Historical research showed Ye Xiao didn’t stay long at the Ning City base before leaving, so she hadn’t paid special attention to the whole base, only that it later perished in a tide of corpses. She didn’t know whether Lu Jianping had been driven out in the end.
She glanced at the driver, he was the man who often drove for Bai Cheng, almost his personal driver. Lin Tantan remembered him from when she first met him at Old Xu’s villa complex: a refrigerated-truck driver surnamed Huang. His driving skills were excellent and he knew how to read the situation, so on the trip to Ning City he basically managed all the drivers.
Now that he still drove for Bai Cheng, he was clearly one of them. She didn’t avoid him and asked Bai Cheng, “But being squeezed from both sides like this can’t go on. From what you say, those two factions will fight sooner or later, what will we do then?”
Bai Cheng said, “Ye Xiao’s idea is to return to the capital.”
Hearing that, Lin Tantan caught the implication and asked, “So you mean…?”
“I advised him to wait. If things can be fought to this degree here, it’ll be worse in the capital. We have choices to make here; if we go back the pressure will only increase.” Bai Cheng looked out at the passing scenery and sighed. “In the end, the best thing is to have your own territory.”
Lin Tantan’s eyes lit up. Bai Cheng smiled at her, “I’m a selfish person. Before the end I could follow the rules, but now everything’s changed, rules and laws have become things the strong can rewrite at will. I won’t let myself be ordered around anymore, unless the person giving orders is someone I can entrust with my life and absolutely trust.
And that person, besides Ye Xiao, doesn’t exist in my mind.”
Lin Tantan was momentarily speechless, her heart pounding, had she heard that correctly? This was the most sincere, most steadfast confession, wasn’t it?
She was so excited she could hardly contain herself and said solemnly, “I understand what you mean, but, ” she asked, puzzled, “why tell me this? These are things you should say to Ye Xiao.”
Bai Cheng frowned slightly. His features were gentle and refined, with a noble air; even his frown was more handsome than most. He said, “Ye Xiao still has faith in the military, or you could call it an obsession.”
He sighed. “Most of us are orphans, and Ye Xiao is too, but his foster parents were soldiers who died for their country when he was very young. Before they died they left a wish that he carry on their legacy. Influenced by them, he has a deep belief in serving in the military and won’t leave it until the very end. So… well, you could say our philosophies differ.”
“I want to strike out on my own; he wants to return to the army. Do you see the difference?”
Lin Tantan felt her heart tighten and nodded.
Starting one’s own operation means calling the shots oneself, leading a base; returning to the army ultimately means being under orders.
But in the end Ye Xiao still left the army, after losing several comrades and experiencing a complete disillusionment and break with the military. The armed forces even issued a nationwide statement saying he had been discharged.
When the later archaeological fever flared up, Ye Xiao was the first figure to be thoroughly examined. Most people’s assessments of him were positive, but some used that episode as a point of attack, labeling him a traitor.
A man kicked out of the military inevitably carried a huge stain, how could he be a hero?
In the final analysis, it was Bai Cheng who saw things clearly, Lin Tantan thought. Was it because he was smarter?
No, because Bai Cheng was colder. He didn’t care; he kept his distance. There were too few people and things he truly cared about, so he was clearer about what would benefit him most.
“For the sake of our squad’s harmony, I can’t and won’t argue with him now, nor do I want to force him. He’ll see clearly on his own in time, but I hope that process can be smoother and shorter, so I told you these things.”
Lin Tantan came back to herself and blinked, “Huh?” What causal link was there?
Bai Cheng smiled, “I hope you can persuade him subtly. Your words, he’ll take them seriously.”
Lin Tantan was flattered almost to the point of fainting and hurriedly said, “You don’t dare say it outright, who am I to…?”
Bai Cheng smiled with a hint of meaning: "Don't belittle yourself, you matter a lot to him."
Lin Tantan felt goosebumps rise all over. He... surely wasn't being sarcastic, was he? It didn't quite fit, but seeing him smile like that made her think he was scheming something.
She couldn't accept the remark no matter what, so she hurriedly said, "You're the important one, how many years of friendship have you two had?"
"This has nothing to do with how many years. Trust me, you're more important."
"No, no, no, you're more important."
Suddenly a slightly distorted, electronic-sounding voice spoke up: "More important? What are you two talking about?"
Startled, Lin Tantan glanced at Bai Cheng's jacket pocket. Bai Cheng looked stunned too; he pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket and, seeing the call time, only a few seconds, covered the mic and told Lin Tantan, "It's nothing, it just connected. I set calls from Ye Xiao to auto-answer, so I didn't have to pick it up."
He'd done that so he wouldn't miss anything, but he'd been talking so animatedly he hadn't noticed the little "beep" of connection.
He let go. "You guys back?"
"Mm, almost there. Everything's fine."
"Good. Tantan and I are heading to, " Before he could finish, the vehicle lurched violently. The walkie-talkie slipped from Bai Cheng's hand, but nobody had time to pick it up because a brown thing suddenly shot up in front of the car, thick and long, like a water snake but caked with soil and roots. It was, astonishingly, a plant root!