That night, Lin Wan had a dream.
In the dream, she stood at the entrance of a convenience store. The glass doors were perfectly intact, and the refrigerators hummed. Everything on the shelves was neatly arranged, and a drowsy clerk sat behind the register.
Everything was just as it had been before the apocalypse.
She reached for a bottle of mineral water on the shelf. The instant her fingertips touched the bottle, the entire store began to shatter. The ceiling tore open like paper, white light poured through the cracks, the clerk vanished, the shelves collapsed, and the floor split into pieces—
She stepped backward.
And collided with someone's arms.
The person's arms wrapped tightly around her.
She looked down and saw gauze wrapped around one of those arms. Black fluid seeped through from underneath.
She jolted awake.
The factory was dark. Wind poured in through the broken windows, carrying a chill and that cloying sweetness.
She turned her head.
Lu Yu sat beside her, his back against the wall, his eyes closed.
His left forearm rested on his knee, the gauze starkly white in the dimness.
Lin Wan stared at the gauze for a long time.
The black fluid from her dream still lingered in her mind, like a thorn she couldn't pull out.
She didn't go back to sleep.
After daybreak, they left the factory.
Lu Yu seemed to be in the same condition as usual. His steps were steady, his gaze alert, and he walked three paces ahead of her.
But Lin Wan noticed one detail.
His left hand stayed in his pocket the entire time.
Before, he had walked with both hands hanging naturally at his sides, occasionally resting them on the straps of his backpack. But today, his left hand remained hidden in his pocket, with only his right hand exposed.
She didn't ask.
They followed a country road for most of the day. The scenery on either side changed from withered farmland to deserted villages. Scattered houses stood along both sides of the road, their doors and windows thrown wide open like a row of gaping skulls.
In the afternoon, Lu Yu led her into a two-story house.
This house was better than any of the places they'd stayed before. The walls were intact, the roof had no holes, and the second-floor windows still had glass in them. There was a wooden table and several chairs in the living room. The kitchen cabinets even held half a bag of salt and several cans of expired food.
After checking the entire house, Lu Yu set his backpack on the table.
“We can stay here for a few days,” he said. “This area is safe for now.”
Lin Wan sat in a chair and watched him begin sorting the supplies.
Using his right hand, he lined the cans up on the table one by one and checked their expiration dates. His left hand remained in his pocket.
“Let me see your injury,” Lin Wan said.
Lu Yu's movements stopped for a second.
“There's no need.”
“Lu Yu.”
“I changed the dressing.”
“When?”
He didn't answer.
Lin Wan stood and walked over to him.
“Let me see it.”
Her tone wasn't a request.
Lu Yu looked at her. His eyes held resistance, hesitation, and something else she couldn't quite identify.
The silence stretched on.
Then he pulled his left hand from his pocket.
The gauze was still there. But the edges had been soaked through by something. The color wasn't the dark red of blood, but a kind of grayish black.
Lin Wan's heart sank.
She didn't let it show on her face.
“Sit down,” she said.
Lu Yu sat in the chair.
Lin Wan took out the iodine antiseptic and clean gauze from her backpack—the ones he'd put in there earlier. She crouched in front of him and slowly unwound the old gauze.
One layer. Two. Three.
The farther in she went, the darker the gauze became.
When she peeled away the final layer, Lin Wan held her breath.
The bite marks were still there. The wound hadn't healed. The skin around its edges had taken on an abnormal gray color, as though something had corroded it. The blood vessels around the wound were faintly visible, darker than the normal bluish purple, like ink seeping beneath the skin.
But it hadn't spread.
At least, it didn't seem to have.
Lin Wan soaked the gauze with iodine antiseptic and began cleaning the wound. Her movements were steadier than last time. Her hands didn't tremble.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
She knew he was lying. Not because of his expression—his expression never gave anything away. She knew because when she wiped the edge of the wound, his fingers tightened slightly.
She pretended not to notice.
“That thing's... that black fluid,” she said as she wiped, doing her best to keep her voice calm. “Do you know what it is?”
Lu Yu was silent for several seconds.
“An infection agent,” he said. “It changes the structure of human tissue.”
“Changes it into what?”
“Into what you saw.”
Lin Wan's hand paused for a moment. Then she continued wiping.
“You said before that a bite wound and infection through the air aren't the same.”
“Mm.”
“What happens with a bite wound, then?”
Lu Yu didn't answer.
Lin Wan raised her head and looked at him.
His gaze had shifted elsewhere. It wasn't so much avoidance as deliberation—as though he were weighing how much to tell her.
“Depends on the person's constitution,” he said at last. “Some people can withstand it.”
“What about you?”
“I can withstand it.”
His tone was utterly certain.
But Lin Wan noticed that he didn't look her in the eye.
She wrapped the fresh gauze around his arm. One layer at a time, neither too loose nor too tight.
After she finished, she didn't let go immediately.
Her fingers rested against his wrist.
His pulse beat beneath her fingertips. A little faster than normal.
“If anything feels wrong,” she said softly, “you have to tell me.”
Lu Yu looked down at her fingers.
After a few seconds, he pulled his hand away.
The movement was gentle. He didn't shake her off; he simply withdrew.
“Mm.”
Lin Wan knew that “Mm” wasn't a promise.
But she didn't press him.
That evening, she tried to make something in the kitchen with the half bag of salt and the canned food.
The cans contained chickpeas. They were three months past their expiration date, but they still smelled fine after she opened them. She poured the beans into a pot, added water and salt, and set it over the fire Lu Yu had built.
She wasn't very good at cooking.
To be precise, she couldn't cook at all.
Before the apocalypse, she'd lived on takeout. Convenience store microwave meals, bubble tea, and the occasional bowl of instant noodles. Her kitchen had been used to pile up delivery boxes.
The contents of the pot began to bubble. She stirred them with chopsticks. The beans had turned into a single mushy mass that looked like some kind of unidentified creature.
“...It should probably be edible,” she muttered.
“It's edible.”
She jumped.
Lu Yu was standing in the kitchen doorway. She didn't know when he'd arrived. He leaned against the doorframe, both hands—no, his right hand—in his pocket, while his left hung at his side. The gauze looked very white in the dim light.
“Do you always walk without making a sound?”
He didn't answer the question.
He came over and glanced at the contents of the pot.
“Add more water,” he said. “Turn down the heat.”
Lin Wan did as he said.
The beans slowly broke apart, becoming a pot of thin mush. It didn't look good, but at least it no longer resembled an unidentified creature.
They sat in the living room and ate.
Lin Wan scooped up a spoonful and tasted it.
Salty. Way too salty. And the beans weren't soft enough. They were still powdery and grainy when she chewed them.
She frowned.
Then she saw Lu Yu finish every bite in his bowl without changing expression.
“It's pretty bad, isn't it?” she said.
“It's edible.”
“You already said that.”
“Because it is, in fact, edible.”
Lin Wan stared at him for two seconds.
“Do you not know how to say ‘It's bad’?”
Lu Yu set down his bowl.
He looked at her, his expression still the same—impossible to read.
But Lin Wan thought the corner of his mouth twitched.
Just barely.
So slightly that she wasn't sure she'd really seen it.
“I'll cook next time,” he said.
“Then what will I do?”
“You'll handle the salt. Use less.”
Lin Wan froze for a moment.
Then she laughed.
It wasn't a polite laugh. She genuinely found it funny. In a world filled with death and the smell of rot, he was actually discussing how much salt to use with her in an utterly serious tone.
As she laughed, her eyes suddenly grew damp.
She quickly lowered her head and pretended to drink the last mouthful of soup from her bowl.
That night, she volunteered to stand watch again.
This time, Lu Yu didn't bargain.
“Three hours,” he said, as though confirming a rule that had already been established.
Lin Wan nodded.
He leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes.
Lin Wan sat beside him, listening to the wind outside.
The wind was lighter than it had been the night before. Every so often, something made a sound in the distance—the clatter of metal, maybe a door that the wind had blown open because it hadn't been shut properly.
She turned her head to look at him.
He'd fallen asleep again.
Faster than yesterday.
Lin Wan thought that maybe he was getting used to it. Used to someone standing watch for him. Used to being able to loosen that string pulled taut inside him, just a little, whenever he was beside her.
Her gaze fell on his left arm.
The gauze looked like a white snake in the darkness, quietly coiled around it.
She thought of the gray skin around the wound, of those strangely colored blood vessels.
He said he could withstand it.
She didn't know whether he was lying.
But she knew one thing.
If he couldn't withstand it—
She didn't know what she would do.
The thought suddenly tightened her chest.
It wasn't fear.
It was something deeper, heavier.
Like being afraid of losing something.
But she hadn't gotten anything yet.
The wind stopped.
The house was very quiet.
There was only the sound of his breathing.
Even. Steady.
Lin Wan leaned against the arm of the sofa and slowly, slowly rested her head against him.
Against his shoulder.
Very lightly.
So lightly that she thought he shouldn't be able to feel it.
He didn't move.
His breathing didn't change.
Lin Wan closed her eyes.
Just for a moment, she thought.
Just this once.
Tomorrow, she'd pretend nothing had happened.
But for now, let her lean against him for a while.
In this world where everything was collapsing.
Just for a while.