Lin Wan woke up shivering from the cold.
The chill from the floor crawled up her spine to the back of her head. She curled in on herself, and her fingertips brushed rough fabric—the jacket. She instinctively clenched the sleeve, and only after several seconds remembered where she was.
The gas station. The ruins. The apocalypse.
She opened her eyes.
Gray-white light filtered through the broken windows, illuminating the dust suspended in the air. The break room was quiet. The things on the folding table had been rearranged—the two bottles of water stood side by side, and the compressed rations had been divided into two portions by count.
Lu Yu sat by the door.
His back rested against the wall, one leg bent, an arm draped over his knee. His eyes were closed, but his breathing wasn't that of someone asleep.
He had stood watch all night.
Lin Wan stared at him for a few seconds. The morning light clearly outlined his profile. The wound at his temple had scabbed over, and the dried blood looked black against the dust.
She was just about to speak when he opened his eyes.
“Let's go.”
No good morning. No small talk. He didn't even ask how she was doing.
But when he stood, he pushed the portion of water and rations he'd set aside toward her.
Lin Wan noticed—the portion he'd kept for himself was smaller than hers.
She said nothing. She stuffed everything into her backpack and followed him out of the gas station.
The world outside was even quieter than yesterday.
The abandoned cars were still on the highway, but the smell of smoke in the air had faded somewhat, replaced by a damp, rotting sweetness. Like spoiled fruit, but not quite.
Lin Wan wrinkled her nose.
“Which way?”
“West.” Lu Yu glanced at the sky. The clouds hung low and gray, obscuring the sun completely. But he seemed not to need it. “Go another ten kilometers along the highway. There's a town.”
“How do you know?”
He didn't answer.
Again.
They walked along the highway for about two hours.
Lin Wan's feet hurt badly. The blisters she'd gotten yesterday had burst, and every step felt like walking on shattered glass. But she gritted her teeth and didn't make a sound. She didn't want to become a burden.
Lu Yu walked ahead, his pace steady, like a machine that never got tired. Every so often, he would stop and crouch to examine something—the tracks of tires, cracks in the ground, branches broken along the roadside. Each time, after looking, he would subtly adjust their direction.
Lin Wan didn't understand what he was looking at.
But she was beginning to realize something: he wasn't walking blindly. He knew where he was going, and he knew how to avoid danger.
The first time was in front of an overpass.
The bridge deck looked intact. There were no cracks, and the guardrails were still in place. Lin Wan instinctively started toward it—it was the shortest route.
Lu Yu reached out and stopped her.
“Go around.”
“Why? The bridge looks fine—”
“Look at the piers.”
Lin Wan followed his gaze. Several thin cracks marked the bases of the bridge piers, extending upward from the ground and spreading like a spiderweb. They were impossible to notice without looking closely.
“The stress from the earthquake hasn't been released yet,” he said, his tone as if he were stating an ordinary fact. “If we go up there, the vibrations could bring it down.”
They took a detour that lasted another forty minutes.
Walking behind him, Lin Wan couldn't help glancing back at the bridge.
It stood there quietly, looking perfectly intact.
But she chose to believe him.
The second time was at the edge of a forest.
They needed to cross the woods to reach the town. The moment Lin Wan stepped beneath the trees, she smelled an even stronger cloying sweetness.
Lu Yu stopped abruptly.
His entire body went rigid.
“Don't move.”
Lin Wan froze where she stood.
“Wh—”
“Shut up. Listen.”
She held her breath.
At first, she heard nothing. Then she heard it—a very low, intermittent sound. Like something chewing. Or fingernails scraping against bark.
It came from deep within the woods.
Lu Yu slowly took a step back. His hand rested on the side pocket of his backpack, and only then did Lin Wan notice the folding knife tucked inside.
“Back up slowly.” His voice was very low. “Don't run.”
Lin Wan's heart pounded like it was about to explode. She wanted to ask what it was, but the look on his face made her swallow every question.
They backed out of the woods.
Lu Yu led her in a wide circle along the edge of the forest. It took them nearly another hour.
Lin Wan's legs were already trembling.
“What was that?” she finally asked.
Lu Yu was silent for a long time.
“Not sure,” he said. “But it wasn't an animal.”
It wasn't an animal.
Those three words sent a chill up Lin Wan's back.
She didn't ask anything else.
By afternoon, they finally reached the town.
It was more desolate than Lin Wan had imagined. The streets were empty. The metal shutters of the shops were half-closed, and clothes, shoes, and plastic bags lay scattered across the ground. It looked as if everyone had dropped everything and run at the exact same moment.
Lu Yu led her into a pharmacy.
He climbed over the counter and began searching the shelves. His movements were quick, as if he had known exactly where everything was. He took iodine antiseptic, gauze, painkillers, and a tube of antibiotic ointment, then stuffed it all into his backpack.
Then he glanced at her.
“Sit down.”
“What?”
“Your feet.”
Lin Wan froze.
She had always thought she was hiding it well. She hadn't cried out, slowed down, or even let her stride look abnormal on purpose.
But he knew.
She had no idea when he had noticed.
Lin Wan sat on the pharmacy floor and took off her shoes. The soles of her feet were a wreck—three blisters had burst, the skin had peeled open, and blood mixed with dust covered them. They looked as though they had been scraped with sandpaper.
Even looking at them made her suck in a breath.
Lu Yu crouched down.
He poured the iodine antiseptic onto the gauze, his movements unexpectedly gentle. He held her ankle at an angle that avoided the most sensitive areas around the wounds. The moment the iodine touched the broken skin, Lin Wan still flinched from the pain.
He didn't look up.
He simply held her ankle steady with his other hand, and once she had adjusted to it, continued wiping.
He changed the gauze three times. Each time, he was meticulous.
Finally, he wrapped the wounds neatly with clean gauze, his movements practiced, as if he had done it countless times.
“It'll be better tomorrow.” He stood and put the remaining iodine antiseptic and gauze into her backpack. “For backup.”
Lin Wan lowered her head and looked at her bandaged feet.
The gauze was wrapped perfectly. Neither too loose nor too tight.
Suddenly, her nose stung.
It wasn't because of the pain.
It was because, from the beginning of the apocalypse until now, this was the first time someone had noticed she was enduring it.
“…What did you do before?”
The question slipped out before she could think it through. She hadn't even decided what she wanted to ask.
Lu Yu had his back to her, sorting and bagging the remaining useful supplies in the pharmacy.
His movements paused.
“I've done everything.”
“That doesn't count as an answer.”
“It doesn't need to count.”
Lin Wan watched his back. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, not a single unnecessary movement. He knew how to assess the structure of a building, how to identify dangerous sounds, how to treat wounds, what to bring during the apocalypse, and where to go.
He wasn't like an ordinary person.
But he didn't seem like a soldier or a police officer, either. Those people had an air of obedience, while Lu Yu didn't. He seemed to listen only to his own judgment.
Lin Wan couldn't explain it.
She only knew that, from this morning until now, she had begun relying on him without even realizing it.
Not because she had no choice.
Because following him made her feel that she might actually survive.
That night, they stayed in the pharmacy's storeroom.
Lu Yu blocked the door with a shelf, then placed several empty glass bottles beneath the window—if something tried to get in, the bottles would shatter first.
Watching him set everything up, Lin Wan suddenly remembered the wilderness survival shows she'd watched as a child.
But no one on those shows had ever been as quiet as him.
“Thanks for today,” she said.
Lu Yu was checking the blade of his folding knife. At her words, his hand stopped for a second.
“You don't have to thank me.”
“I mean it.” Lin Wan hugged her knees and looked at him. “Without you, I might have walked onto that bridge today. I might have walked into those woods. I was even planning to tough out my injured feet.”
She paused.
“If I were alone, I'd probably already be dead.”
Lu Yu said nothing.
He put the knife away, leaned against the wall, and looked at the door blocked by the shelf across from them.
After a long while, he said:
“You're not as weak as you think.”
Lin Wan froze.
“With your feet torn up like that, you didn't make a sound.” His tone was still flat, but Lin Wan sensed something different beneath it. “An ordinary person would've been unable to walk long ago.”
She didn't know what to say.
After a moment of silence, she picked up his jacket and held it out to him.
“Here. I forgot to give it back yesterday.”
Lu Yu glanced at it.
“Keep it. It gets cold at night.”
“What about you?”
“I don't get cold.”
Lin Wan stared at him for two seconds.
Then she hugged the jacket to her chest and didn't insist again.
She was getting used to it.
Used to him walking three steps ahead. Used to him dividing the food into two unequal portions. Used to him conveying the most information with the fewest words. Used to looking at his reaction before danger arrived.
She was getting used to relying on him.
And that fact itself frightened her a little.
Because in a world where anything could disappear, getting used to someone's presence was the most dangerous thing of all.