Chapter 84

Making cement is exhausting work: clay, iron ore and limestone are mixed in precise ratios, ground finely, calcined, blended with other materials and ground again to produce cement. Although they'd set up a small plant with crushers, kilns and other equipment, conditions were limited and many tasks still required manpower.
For example, the grinding and crushing required many earth-type ability users and a lot of strong young laborers; the calcining stage needed numerous fire-affinity ability users. After the cement was produced it took a great deal of water, most of it drawn from rivers outside the base, but having a few water-affinity ability users on hand would make things much easier.
So the earth-, fire- and water-users among the seven were thrown into the grueling work of burning and mixing cement; the other four also put their backs into it. None of the seven had psychic powers, so their threat level was much reduced. Shackled and closely watched, there was no fear they'd cause trouble.
The enforcement squad took over guarding them, and the seven became the first batch of labor-reform prisoners for the Zhengyang Base. Well, not truly the very first, the real first batch were Wang Shuo, He Fan and Shao Ping.
Ye Xiao went back and told Lin Tantan about it. Lin Tantan asked curiously, "Wang Shuo's being sent to labor reform too?"
"Not yet. I originally hadn't planned to keep him alive, but for now I won't kill him, I'll use him to punish Shao Ping." The two were locked together; even if Wang Shuo was half-dead, Shao Ping would be tormented. Ye Xiao loathed Shao Ping, but wood-ability users were scarce and this one's power was strong, killing him would be a waste. After all, he's only wood-affinity; he can't stir up much trouble. A little punishment will do.
But those seven mercenaries made him see things differently: there would be more like them. Letting them go was impossible, killing them all would be wasteful. Except for the truly vicious, they could all be put to hard labor. Losing one Wang Shuo wouldn't make much difference.
"When Wang Shuo recovers a bit we'll put him on the furnace, no food if he refuses. Same for Shao Ping: injuries happen during construction, so he'll be on call all day to treat people." They arranged things like that by day and kept them confined together at night.
They just needed to build the "prison" more solidly and replace the guards with stronger ones...
Lin Tantan checked the time and said to the thoughtful Ye Xiao, "It's almost time."
Ye Xiao took a deep breath, stripped down to a vest and long trousers, and began today's "torment" again.
Compared with yesterday, the suffering had hardly eased: the maddening itch that made him want to claw himself to death, the aching pain that came with the itch, and the overall discomfort from his heart racing, blood pressure spiking and body temperature soaring.
As for the two bottles of wine, Ye Xiao tried a little this time and found the energy inside his body slowed down after drinking. Lin Tantan couldn't help but urge him, "Why not use the wine to ease the pain?"
Ye Xiao hesitated for a moment but refused. Alcohol only offered limited relief, and if the process of activating that energy was good for him, what harm in holding out a little longer?
Lin Tantan, a bit helpless, could only stay by his side, talking to him, changing his water to lower his temperature, and watching for any beneficial changes in his body.
On closer inspection she noticed something: last night she had changed his water too frequently, replacing it whenever it warmed up a little, and because Ye Xiao had been wearing long sleeves she hadn't seen it. This time, with him in a vest, she carefully observed faint gray filaments of grime seeping from his skin.
And then, his skin seemed better, his muscles firmer.
Huh, it even had a detoxifying, beautifying effect.
Lin Tantan was amazed.
Looking at the man lying in the water with his eyes closed, she felt as if she were staring at Sleeping Beauty. She told him what she'd discovered, then asked, "Rebirth? Do you think you'll come out looking better?"
Ye Xiao opened his eyes and gave her a weak sidelong glance. Lin Tantan laughed, "For a more perfect physique, for a finer face, go for it, I'm rooting for you!" After teasing him she still felt a pang of pity, so she leaned over the edge, splashing the water and talking to him.
Shortly after three o'clock, all the discomfort ebbed away. Even a tough guy like Ye Xiao felt as if he'd nearly died. But this time he lasted longer than yesterday; he first escorted Lin Tantan back to her room, then collapsed into a dead sleep.
The next day he was lively again.
After several days like this, though those six hours each night were agonizing, Ye Xiao genuinely felt the benefits: a stronger body, more energy; he could get by on one or two hours of sleep or even none without feeling tired, and using his abilities became much more effortless and precise.
To Lin Tantan, his skin had improved so much it seemed impenetrable by a knife, unusually smooth in a way unlike a woman's skin, she couldn't help but run her hands over it.
Soon it was April and the weather warmed day by day. People wore less and thinner clothing. That was both good and bad: in a place short of clothes and water, most people went months without changing garments, and with no means to bathe, having clothes crawling with fleas was nothing unusual.
When it got hot, at least you could take off smelly clothes and air them out, but the sour, acrid body odor from sweat became harder to hide. When Lin Tantan occasionally visited the clinic, the stench in the hall gave her a headache, and that was among people who could at least afford to seek treatment.
She now found it hard to mingle with the crowds. Thinking about the coming summer, everyone sweating with no water to wash, made her feel a little hopeless.
So Ye Xiao setting up a waterworks in the Zhengyang Base was unquestionably a very wise move.
Water now came from three main sources. One was wells, drawing shallow groundwater, but the base's underground reserves were not abundant; often they had to drill very deep before they hit water.
Another was drawing river water from outside the base, but that wasn't fit to drink. Even after a few basic steps, settling, filtering, disinfecting, who could say how many bodies had fallen into those rivers, or what viruses might linger? So the base discouraged drinking it; it was mostly used for bathing and washing. Even so, each person's allocation was meager. For a unit like the Zhengyang Base to set up equipment, pump river water all the way back, and use treated river water for building was a major undertaking.
The third source was pre-apocalypse bottled mineral water, but very few people still had access to that. Which left the most reliable supply: the water released by those with water-based abilities.
The Zhengyang Base's waterworks was where the water adepts came to release and sell water, and where anyone in need came to buy it.
At first people assumed the brigade had only a few dozen water adepts; no matter how much they produced, it couldn't possibly sustain over five thousand people. Yet somehow the plant managed to meet the brigade's consumption. There were purchase limits, twenty liters per person per day, but even that was impressive; after all, anyone with work in the brigade already received between five and fifty liters a day as a basic supply.
On the first day the plant opened, this was the scene: members and relatives who lived nearby queued up at dawn to buy water. It was lively; the line stretched out long. "Hurry up, or we might miss the water," "There are so many people ahead, will there be any left by the time it's our turn?" "Oh, there's more, don't worry."
By the afternoon the latecomers muttered, "Oh, there'll be none left, no bath for me today…wait, there's still water?"
A few days later people began going to the plant at their leisure. As long as they came during opening hours they didn't worry about running out, no need to panic.
At five that afternoon an elderly woman pushed a cart to the plant with her ten-year-old grandson. They entered by swiping their ID card, then swiped again to draw water. "We're buying sixty liters for our three-person household, plus my son's thirty liters of rationed water. My son's name is Zhao Jiang, his card is linked to mine, so just swipe mine."
She handed over two cards to the man running the plant, an older fellow with a wiry frame. He might have looked thin, but he was agile, with keenness in his eyes like an eagle's; a single man could handle five ordinary people with ease. They said he was an ex-serviceman.
At that moment he had been dozing, his eagle eyes half-closed, looking like any other old man. Seeing the pair, he brightened, stood, and took their cards. "Got it, familiar faces, of course I remember."
He said this while efficiently swiping the cards. He first swiped the woman's card on a red terminal, that was for rationed water and wasn't charged. For every employed person the system tracked how much rationed water they received daily. Zhao Jiang, busy but dutiful, had long since linked his card to his mother's so she could collect it.
After the red machine, he swiped both cards again on a blue terminal. He swiped Zhao's mother's twice and entered the purchase amount. This was billed, using the brigade's virtual currency: contribution points.
The man asked as he worked, "It's almost the end of the day, buying this much water?"
The woman laughed, "We're giving my good grandson a proper bath today. My son works all day out there, he's a mess. When he comes back I'll have him scrub up, and put him in decent clothes to go back out. He's always getting filthy, how could I get him clean without extra water? Though those contribution points will go right down the drain."
It sounded like a complaint, but unless you were deaf you could hear the pride beneath it.
Contribution points were earned through work, and different jobs yielded different amounts. Points were credited daily to each person's account. The brigade had only been established a short time; some people's earnings couldn't even cover the twenty liters per day limit.
But the woman's son had done well, he was in a combat squad. Two days earlier, on a sortie outside the base, his team had bagged a lot of game. After meeting their quota, the extras were divided among the squad, either taken and processed personally, or handed over to be converted into contribution points. Her son converted everything to points and earned a great deal on that one mission.
Contribution points could only be used within the Zhengyang Base. They hadn't moved out yet, so opportunities to spend points were limited. The trading market was one such place, there was already fine grain for sale, and the waterworks was another, especially since water was cheap: one contribution point per liter. Naturally the woman didn't hesitate to spend.
"Thinking back to when every drop had to be rationed like it was the last, it's like a dream," the woman said, watching the water splash into the bucket with a glow in her heart.
Things were still nowhere near what they had been before the apocalypse, but compared to a few months ago life was much better. Her son's success mattered, things would only keep improving.
The man said cheerfully, "That's right."
Watching the water keep flowing, the woman couldn't help asking, "There's still so much water this late, I was worried it wouldn't be enough. How much reserve does our waterworks actually have?"
He replied, "Plenty. Our water ability users are capable. Once we move in, you won't have to collect water every day, pipes will run straight to your homes."
"Ah, now that's convenient," the woman said, eyeing the massive workshops behind them and the huge tanks that surely held water. She felt both envy and awe. "Those water adepts really are remarkable."
As a “very capable” water-type ability user and one of the mainstays keeping the waterworks running, Lin Tantan was at the plant now. She sat on a high stool, her right hand resting against a steel tank-like water container more than two meters tall, pouring water into it. A phone was propped on a clip in front of her, playing a cartoon. A little hamster perched on her shoulder watching along, glancing into the tank from time to time.
Lin Tantan knew full well what tricks it was up to and said, “If you jump in, I won’t give you any nuts.”
The hamster squeaked, nuzzled her neck, and behaved as if it were very obedient.
She glanced at it. For some reason, these mutated rats all loved water. Before Lin Tantan had been hiding her water ability, they had nothing to play with but water; even then they got especially happy at bath time. Now they were nearly ecstatic, because every night Lin Tantan would splash water down from the second floor.
They first dug one puddle, then a second, then a third, and even negotiated with Lin Tantan to have her aim her splashes into the pits. By now almost every rat had its own little “pool.”
Even after being told it was bathwater, they didn’t mind at all, which made Ye Xiao twitch the corner of his mouth every time he saw the backyard dotted with a dozen or so puddles full of his bathwater.
Still, the water wasn’t that filthy, each time it did carry some grime out of their bodies, but diluted by so much water it wasn’t a big deal.
After a while the tank was nearly full. Lin Tantan finished pouring, took her phone and its stand down, jumped off the tall stool, and headed out.
The old woman who'd been drawing water froze when she saw her come out, then broke into a grin. “Doctor Lin! You’re here!”
Lin Tantan had many titles now, Miss Lin, Doctor Lin, Leader Lin, Deputy Captain Lin, different people called her different things in different situations. But most often she was called “Doctor Lin,” since she still treated a lot of patients and her public role was that of a wood-type ability user. She smiled and nodded at the old woman, then glanced at the child beside her. “Is your stomach still bothering you?”
The child was one of her patients: frail, with a weak stomach. The boy’s father had given him something good, though not an ability ingredient, just a mutated white radish intended to strengthen him. But because it was mutated, it nearly cost him his life. Much like Jiang Xiaotian’s case: weak, an insider, and they came begging for help overnight. Lin Tantan treated him and, fortunately, he’d been brought in time; otherwise he really might not have made it.
Ordinary people couldn’t handle ability-altered foods, and weakened people couldn’t handle mutated ingredients, pretty grim, which made mutated food less popular than it once was.
The child gave Lin Tantan a shy smile. She rummaged in her pocket, pulled out a candy, handed it to the child, nodded a greeting to the old man running the waterworks, and walked off.
Her personal bodyguard, Xu Li, who’d been hiding somewhere earlier, slipped out without a sound and followed her along.
The old woman watched her retreating back with gratitude and respect, sighing, “Doctor Lin’s temper is so kind, she’s pretty too, and very capable... By the way, what’s she doing here?”
The old man glanced at her. “Came to take a look, I guess.”
The fact that Lin Tantan was a five-ability user was still something of a secret at the Ning City base, not exactly tightly guarded, but not something to shout about either. It would come out naturally. The old man obviously knew, but he wouldn’t broadcast it. Smart people like him weren’t rare in the Zhengyang Base.
Lin Tantan wandered around the courtyard. People now called the area enclosed by walls the courtyard. Most of the major construction there was finished; next would be the finishing touches and furnishings. She went to her clinic, the building was ready, but inside it was still empty.
She wondered where she would get tables, chairs, and equipment when a commotion rose from outside the courtyard. A convoy had come through the base gate, across the parking lot, and into the compound.
It was the combat squad returning from today’s sortie.
Lin Tantan’s face lit up and she hurried over.
The vehicles rolled through the courtyard gate and stopped in the broad parking lot in front of the multifunction building; two large trucks pulled up right next to the sheep pen.
Yes, the same sheep pen Lin Tantan had arranged back then had been included inside the compound now. The smell was a bit strong, so once the apartments outside the courtyard were ready it would surely be moved.
She ran over. Men on the trucks were unloading one swan after another, white swans and black swans. Most were normal-sized, but two were enormous, clearly mutated, one black, one white, both tied up. The black one looked furious and kept struggling; the white one sat still as if lost in thought.
Lin Tantan stared at them for a long time and found the pair oddly fascinating.
Besides swans there were red birds, foxes the size of puppies, a few white wolves, monkeys bound up like parcels, a baby elephant, a fawn, and even a huge python, though it was already dead. There was more…
She was stunned, was this a zoo someone had stripped bare?
“Tantan.” Ye Xiao climbed down from a vehicle. Yes, he had gone out today. Lin Tantan sized him up: his combat uniform was clean, not a smear of blood, he looked like he’d just stepped out for some fresh air.
“Weren’t you supposed to be hunting tigers? What’s all this?” she asked.
The reason Ye Xiao had gone out was that the squad returning yesterday had some seriously wounded people. They’d encountered two mutated tigers, vicious ones; one even had ice abilities. If the team hadn’t all worked together, generously tossing the prey they’d already collected to the tiger to distract it and then making a swift getaway, they might have lost half their number to the beasts’ jaws.
After hearing that, Ye Xiao decided to go out himself today.
But they didn’t find the tiger. Instead they brought back a whole assortment of animals.
Ye Xiao said, "These probably came from the city zoo. When we went there we didn't see any tigers, so we found these and brought them all back."
Sure enough, they were from a zoo. Lin Tantan asked, "Can you eat all of them?" Foxes, wolves, monkeys, elephants... can you really eat these?
Ye Xiao replied, "If they're tasty we'll eat them ourselves; if not, we'll sell them. We'll try to raise the ones we can. Those swans, if they can lay eggs we'll keep them. Swan eggs are pretty good." These days it's not easy to get fresh eggs, and Ye Xiao wanted to get some nice, fresh ones for Lin Tantan.
Lin Tantan nodded, then leaned in to look at the animals. She looked them over and her gaze kept landing on the two enormous mutant swans. They were really huge, half a person tall, round-bodied with long necks; the more she looked, the more she liked them. As if sensing her attention, the white one glanced at her and then lazily drooped its eyes, looking kind of downcast, or rather indifferent, as if it couldn't be bothered to struggle even if it had been captured.
Lin Tantan was amused by it.
Suddenly the black one snapped free of its rope, angrily flapping its great wings and honking as it tried to bolt. But it was too heavy to fly, and someone held it down again.
"Maybe we should kill it, this one is especially troublesome," the man holding it said. Lin Tantan hurriedly declared she wanted those two mutant swans.
She spoke, so naturally the two swans became hers, but she didn't take them for free, she bought them. The game was priced by the jin in contribution points, with rates varying by condition and species. Together they weighed over 300 jin, and being living, mutated specimens, they came to just over four thousand contribution points. Still, it was fine, that was about as much as she'd spend on a day's worth of water. Ye Xiao offered to pay, but she refused and swiped her card on the spot.
Ye Xiao asked, "How are you going to eat them?"
"Eat them? No, I'm going to train them as guard swans."
Ye Xiao: "……?"
"Look how cute they are. The white one is tall and aloof, super cool. The black one's fierce and super lively. I heard swans can guard a home; if they could watch the place for me, it'd be so stylish."
...That sounds like a domestic swan, doesn't it?
Ye Xiao looked the two silly, plump swans over and couldn't see what was so cute about them. But thinking of the little hamster on his girlfriend's shoulder and how she was often surrounded by a group of mutant rats, he calmed himself and said, "If you're happy, fine. I'll help you train them."
They brought the two big swans to the villa. When the black swan saw the big puddles out back, it immediately barreled into one and smashed itself in.
The puddles had been dug big enough that even such large swans fit completely, able to paddle around a little and happily circle.
It splashed a lot. Unfortunately, two mutant rats had been dozing on the surface of that very puddle; one was swept out with the water and landed on its back with a loud smack, sprawled and dazed, unable to respond. The other was sat on by the black swan and pushed to the bottom of the puddle; after wheezing and struggling it finally scrambled out, clambered onto the swan, squeaking and biting and scratching, but the black swan paid it no mind.
The black swan was delighted. It hadn't soaked in water for a long time. In its old lake many swans and other animals, and people, had died, and it never wanted to go back there to bathe. Water elsewhere was the same. It didn't have that sort of obsessive cleanliness, but it still had no desire to touch that kind of water.
This water looked clean at a glance. It eyed the rats hopping on its body, well, they had polluted it a bit, but it was still much cleaner than the water outside.
Lin Tantan stood there stunned. The white swan beside her wasn't so hasty, it had been lying with its long neck drooped in a meditative, zen-like pose. Now it straightened, lifted its neck into an elegant curve, and demurely honked at Lin Tantan, "Honk."
Lin Tantan, a little puzzled, said, "You want to soak too?"
"Honk honk." Yes, it wanted to soak. But the white swan looked at the puddles and didn't move; Lin Tantan thought she saw a look of disdain in its small eyes.
She thought for a moment and dug a big hole for it, filling it with fresh, clean water. The white swan watched for a long time without moving, and Lin Tantan thought it didn't like it, but the swan waited until the silt settled and then finally stepped in with grace.
It probably meant to take an elegant "bath," but underestimated its own weight. With a splash it fell in headfirst.
Lin Tantan couldn't bear to watch and stepped back two paces, only to be splashed anyway. The white swan flapped a couple of times, churning the water into a muddier mess, but it held itself together, calmly floated up into a pose, and began to preen its feathers with deliberate care.
At first glance it still looked like a noble, graceful bird.
Lin Tantan's mouth twitched; what kind of luck was this, to run into such a bizarre?
Ye Xiao, who had witnessed the whole thing, and the other housemates who had come to gawk, all wore the same twitchy expressions. What on earth, how did she always end up with these strange creatures?
Then the two mutant rats, helpless against the black swan, ran up to Lin Tantan, scrambling up and down her pant leg and squeaking nonstop, clearly complaining. Lin Tantan, feeling a headache, soothed them, "Okay, okay. I'll make a new puddle for you tonight, just for the two of you."
Everyone found it all the funnier.
Ye Xiao was speechless for a long moment, then couldn't help shaking his head and laughing. He went upstairs to negotiate with the two swans on her behalf.
In the end, of course, the two swans settled in here. As long as they could soak every day, getting them to do anything was easy.
Although, apart from guarding, it wasn't clear what else they could do for now, and judging by their size they'd eat a lot. Still, they seemed to indicate they'd be able to forage for themselves…
Aside from the addition of two new members, the nights in the villa were the same as before. Ye Xiao was still working on renovations, but each day was less agonizing than the last. Lin Tantan worried less. Over the past few days she felt she'd said everything she could, so she had Ye Xiao watch videos with her to take their minds off things. But the videos she chose were all...
Ye Xiao looked over, they were martial-arts films from the last century, movies he'd watched countless times as a child. Lin Tantan, however, watched with rapt concentration, so absorbed by the plot she almost forgot there was a living person beside her. They only remembered to change the water when the two anxious mutated rats downstairs jumped up to remind them.
Ye Xiao sighed. It'd only been a few days, and they weren't worried about him anymore.
Suddenly Ye Xiao's radio buzzed. Lin Tantan snapped out of the gripping scene, took the radio and showed it to Ye Xiao. "It's Lu Jianping. Pick it up." His voice was still a little slow, but calm, there was nothing in it to suggest he was off-kilter.
Lu Jianping's voice came through, excited and grave. "Ye Xiao, about seventy kilometers from the base there's a unit asking for help. They say they know you. The leader's name is Han Ying."
Ye Xiao blinked and sat up from the water. "Han Ying? What's going on?"
Lu Jianping said they were a regular army unit, escorting some rescuees northward. They were passing by and hoped to stop at the base to rest and resupply, but were unexpectedly surrounded by a horde of zombies that night and had no choice but to call Ning City Base for help.
"I'm not going to send help, at least not until daylight," Lu Jianping said. "Ye Xiao, we all know how dangerous it is out there at night. If I send troops, I'd be trading my people's lives for theirs; I can't give that order. But he mentioned he knows you and asked me to pass along his request. Decide what you want to do."
Lin Tantan saw the thoughtful look on Ye Xiao's face and hurriedly said, "You can't go out!" He could barely walk now, how could he go rescue anyone? Even if he were fine, she wouldn't let him go. It was extremely dangerous outside the base at night. Ye Xiao was powerful, but not a god; going out would be playing fast and loose with his life!
"I know," Ye Xiao said, "but Han Ying and I go way back; I can't ignore this." He considered for a moment, climbed out of the water and drank a cup of liquor, feeling his energy, sluggish before, steady out a bit. He went out and woke Jiang Xiaotian.
Upon hearing the situation, Jiang Xiaotian launched into the computer with fierce efficiency. Using the base's signal station he connected to Han Ying's transmission, at seventy kilometers, it was about the limit.
The line went through. Ye Xiao identified himself. In the background there was chaos, shouts, gunfire, screams and zombies roaring. A man's heavy breathing paused, then an excited, urgent voice came through: "Old Ye, it's really you! I didn't believe it when I heard you were at Ning City Base. When will you get here? There are a lot of zombies here, bring more firepower!"
Ye Xiao hesitated. "Sorry, I can't get there right now. Where are you now and what's your situation? I have a detailed map here that might help."
The man on the other end swallowed and shouted, "There are hundreds of us, over two hundred civilians, surrounded by a horde of zombies. Are you really going to stand by and watch us die?"
Ye Xiao rubbed his head, patience in his voice. "Hold on until dawn and I'll be there."
"You, forget it. I'm not counting on you. Go on and keep sleeping!" With that he cut the call.
Hearing the dead line tone, Jiang Xiaotian said, "It's cut off."
Ye Xiao nodded slightly, leaned back and closed his eyes, arm over his face. His breathing quickened again, sweat broke out across his body, his skin flushed. "What about the location?" he asked.
"We've got a fix," Jiang Xiaotian said, pulling up the electronic map. A clear red dot showed their position, more than seventy kilometers from the base.
Lin Tantan couldn't bear it. "Ye Xiao, you can think about this after three o'clock. For now just go back and rest."
Bai Cheng came over and tried to persuade Ye Xiao as well. "I'll try to contact them and see if I can be of any help. You should go rest."
Ye Xiao didn't refuse; he knew in his condition he couldn't do much. But he didn't go upstairs either; he went to the backyard, picked a puddle and soaked himself. The mutated rats that had been sleeping in it scrambled out in surprise.
Ye Xiao opened his eyes and looked at Lin Tantan. "Tantan, I'll be fine here. I'll just rotate through the puddles. You go rest, you've been with me all these days; you've worked hard."
Lin Tantan shook her head, crouched to the side and, after a moment's thought, said, "How about I go instead?"
Ye Xiao was taken aback and immediately shook his head sharply. "No! Absolutely not! What are you thinking?"
Lin Tantan said in a low voice, "You look torn." She hadn't heard of this Han Ying before, could he really die tonight? If he were to die, Ye Xiao would surely be upset and might even feel guilty.
Ye Xiao said, "I'm indeed feeling rough. Han Ying is someone I knew as a child, we've kept in touch over the years and fought side by side..." His speech quickened and trembled with his discomfort; he took a deep breath to slow himself and said calmly, "But there's nothing to be done. If he's leading troops out there he has to be prepared to face danger and to accept that death is always a possibility. If something happens to him, it's fate."
He fell silent for a moment, then, "But after three o'clock, I want to go."
He looked at Lin Tantan, apparently worried she would be displeased or opposed.
Lin Tantan lowered her eyes. After a long pause she sighed. "If you're sure he's still alive and needs you, then go. But you're taking me with you."
"No!" Ye Xiao rejected at once, his voice rising.
Lin Tantan didn't shout to match him; she spoke calmly. "I haven't gone out in a long time, but do you remember the nights on the road to Ning City? We spent them on edge. If you're going to go rescue people now, the zombies are stronger than before, I can imagine the situation. I know you're formidable, but no one can guarantee they won't get scratched, and some of the people you save might already be infected. If you get scratched by accident, I'll be there to give you first aid."