Luo Ning's head was held by Lu Xinghe, her face buried in his chest. She had always thought he was a bit thin, but now that she could feel his body, she realized that he was brimming with power beneath his clothes.
She didn't dare to look up easily, because it would be troublesome if someone saw her eyes, so she pulled her scarf up to cover her eyes.
After confirming that she had covered herself properly, Lu Xinghe pushed her behind him and said, "Go home quickly, close the doors and windows and don't come out."
To He Cheng and the others, this meant that an ordinary citizen should hide quickly, but Luo Ning knew that he meant she should leave quickly and not be discovered. Moreover, the female mutant already knew that she was also a mutant, so now that she was leaving, she could escape without any problems.
However, just as she was about to leave, the female mutant indeed smiled charmingly and said, "How interesting! This is the most interesting thing I've ever seen in my life."
The female mutant looked Lu Xinghe up and down, smiled with satisfaction, and then put her finger to her lips, stroking her luscious red lips, and said to him, "Mr. Security Officer, why don't you come with me today? We'll make things even more interesting for you over there."
Lu Xinghe stared coldly at her, and the only response he received was the sound of a bullet being chambered. The others also dispersed and formed a circle around the female mutant.
Facing five or six security officers, the female mutant showed no fear, but she didn't directly expose Luo Ning's identity. Instead, she played with a toying tone, as if she were about to play a cat-and-mouse game.
Lu Xinghe pushed Luo Ning behind him and whispered, "Let's go."
Luo Ning took a few steps back and disappeared into the darkness, but she did not go too far, preparing to make her move at the opportune moment.
Firearms are the most lethal weapon against mutants, and these security officers must use their flesh and blood to stop the cannibalistic aliens.
Gunshots rang out continuously. The security officers took the initiative, but the female mutant quickly dodged and moved nimbly, heading straight for Lu Xinghe as if she was determined to capture him. Just as she was about to get close to Lu Xinghe, he sidestepped and leaped onto the wall, using his height advantage to fire at the female mutant.
The bullet struck the female mutant, splattering blood. She picked up a drop of blood, put it in her mouth, and gave a cold smile. Then, she swiftly attacked a security officer beside her. Her hand flashed like lightning, slashing at the young man's neck, instantly decapitating him.
She then showed Lu Xinghe the blood on her finger, a warning and a provocation.
Everything happened so fast that no one had time to react. Luo Ning was also stunned. She knew how powerful female mutants were, but only after seeing it with her own eyes did she realize just how powerful they were.
The deaths of 80,000 people due to infection were all caused by these mutants. Although they had regained their consciousness, they still took pleasure in killing. Although the novel explained that all the mutants' behavior stemmed from their uncontrollable appetite, Luo Ning felt that it was not entirely because of their appetite, but because they were bullying others at will because of their strength. Otherwise, they could have eaten a few humans and left instead of cutting off a person's head while they were still alive.
"Sir, aren't you coming down?" the female mutant asked with a smile.
After glancing at his fallen companion, Lu Xinghe suddenly turned and ran forward as if fleeing in panic.
"Ah, don't run away! I really like you, sister!" The female mutant abandoned the others and chased after her.
Luo Ning followed. She knew that Lu Xinghe was definitely not running away. He was just using the female mutant's interest in him to lure her away, but this left him alone.
Lu Xinghe was very fast, and he was familiar with the situation in the base. He quickly disappeared from the female mutant's sight. The female mutant followed the scent, and Luo Ning also followed the scent. She didn't know where Lu Xinghe was leading the female mutant.
Ten minutes later she saw a bridge, the bridge where she had hidden just a few days ago. Lu Xinghe had let her leave from under the bridge then. The bridge was still covered in ice and snow, but this time it wasn't her under the bridge, but Lu Xinghe.
She saw him standing among the jumbled rocks. In the shadows, she couldn't see his expression, but she could sense a different aura about him—deep and sharp, like a lurking beast.
The female mutant also chased after them to the bridge. She stepped onto the dry riverbed and walked to a spot four or five meters away from Lu Xinghe. Then she looked back at where Luo Ning was standing. She knew that Luo Ning had not gone far.
Luo Ning also stepped out of the shadows to face the female mutant. There was no one around, only the three of them. In the distance, the cries of agony and gunshots from the civilian area rose and fell. The stone bridge here was so quiet that even the sound of the wind swirling the snow could be heard.
"You don't think you two can kill me, do you?" the female mutant said lazily.
“No need for two,” Lu Xinghe’s voice came from the darkness. “One of me is enough.”
The female mutant laughed, and Luo Ning was also stunned. She originally thought that Lu Xinghe deliberately lured the female mutant away so that she could also come and help, but she did not expect him to say that he could do it himself.
"I really like you so much, I wish I could take you back to my room right now." The female mutant walked towards Lu Xinghe unhurriedly.
Luo Ning gripped the steel bar tightly, ready to help. However, after a few rapid gunshots, the female mutant knelt on the ground. Lu Xinghe accurately and quickly shot four bullets into her knees and insteps. Because the time interval was too short, the female mutant's wounds did not have time to heal before she collapsed to the ground.
Almost simultaneously, Lu Xinghe rushed in front of the female mutant. He pulled the trigger of his gun at her temple. The female mutant turned her body to avoid the shot, but this exposed her other temple to Lu Xinghe's left hand.
Luo Ning saw a flash of cold light, and something pierced into the female mutant's brain. Then the thing was pulled out of the female mutant's brain, and Luo Ning saw that it was an iron spike.
Iron spikes were her most handy weapon; she had taught him how to use them, and now he had surpassed her in skill.
The female mutant let out a gurgling sound of disbelief; she never imagined that her journey would end before it even began.
The white snow was stained red with blood, and the female mutant fell to the ground.
Luo Ning stared blankly at Lu Xinghe. So when he said "I can do it alone," he wasn't lying. But he was too daring. If he had been even a little bit slower, he would have been injured by that female mutant.
But everything was just right; he wasn't even a fraction slow, and the female mutant didn't even touch a corner of his clothes.
"Didn't I tell you to go back?" Lu Xinghe wiped the iron spikes in the snow a couple of times and asked Luo Ning in an icy voice.
Luo Ning felt inexplicably nervous. He was frightening to her now, but this fear wasn't like the fear she felt a few days ago when she thought he had forgotten her. It was more like the fear of prey towards its hunter.
People were running towards them from not far away; it was He Cheng and his group.
Lu Xinghe tucked the iron spikes into his waistband and whispered to her, "Go back."
Luo Ning was about to leave, but Lu Xinghe grabbed her again and covered her face with the scarf that had fallen off: "Don't let anyone see your eyes, otherwise I won't be able to help you."
He tucked the scarf into her collar, and she could feel his cold fingers touching the skin of her neck. Even though his hands were cold, her skin felt as if it had been burned.
She stared up at him through the gap in his scarf, his hair streaked with white snowflakes, his eyes lowered, his long, thick eyelashes framing his face as if blaming her for her carelessness.
In that instant, for the first time, she truly felt that he was no longer the boy she had repeatedly thrown to the ground, but a real man.
She hadn't felt this way when he kissed her that day, but now, just by adjusting her scarf and covering her face, he had created a clear boundary for her.
She instinctively took a step back, then fled into the darkness in a panic.
When He Cheng and the others arrived and saw the female mutant's corpse on the ground, they couldn't help but feel both respect and fear towards Lu Xinghe.
"Song Pei, you take some men and send the body back to the Gene Department immediately. The rest of you, come with me," Lu Xinghe said.
Song Pei replied, "But I want to go with you, Major, to kill the aliens."
Lu Xinghe's eyes sharpened: "Recently deceased mutants are the best research subjects. Don't think this is unimportant."
"Yes." Song Pei immediately put the body into a body bag along with the other two security officers.
But just as they were about to leave, Song Pei noticed a string of small footprints on the ground. Judging from the marks, they were freshly made. Could it be that there was a third person here besides Major Lu and the female mutant?
Was he an ordinary citizen? But if he was, why would he leave alone?
"Song Pei, what's wrong?" another security officer asked.
"It's nothing, let's go." He thought he might be overthinking things.
Military headquarters dormitory building.
Luo Ning stood in the shadows, looking at the five-story sturdy concrete building in front of her. The wind blew the snowflakes off the trees, causing them to fall in a flurry. She subconsciously touched the spot that Lu Xinghe had accidentally touched earlier, and suddenly felt a little afraid to go back to that room.
"Get the container ready quickly, Song Pei and the others are about to bring the body over." A person from the genetics department was waiting at the building entrance with a trolley pushing a glass container that was taller than a person.
Upon hearing Song Pei's name, Luo Ning immediately cowered and went around to the back of the dormitory, climbed to the fifth floor, and jumped back into Lu Xinghe's room. She remembered the two shots Song Pei had given her, and she also remembered that he was the cold and ruthless male protagonist in the novel. She thought it best to stay away.
Back in her room, she carefully closed the windows and drew the curtains. Then, in the darkness, she cleaned the snow and mud off her body before sitting in the closet and covering herself with the blanket.
Helicopters kept flying overhead, and gunshots and screams echoed all around. The flames shooting into the sky shone through the curtains, casting flickering light into the room.
She held the white scarf in her hand, her mind flashing back and forth between the images of the security officer and the female mutant's deaths, and the scene of Lu Xinghe covering her face with the scarf.
"He's really grown up," she murmured softly.
Time always passes so quietly; when you notice it, you realize that many people and many things have already changed.
When Luo Ning woke up the next day, Lu Xinghe had not returned yet. She hadn't slept much the night before and originally wanted to go out to look for An Xiaoruo again. But when she was about to climb out the window, she found that An Xiaoruo was in the Gene Department across the street, carrying out security work with other security officers. So she stood behind the curtains until almost dawn, and only returned to the closet after An Xiaoruo went into the room.
However, the gunfire outside has stopped, indicating that the mutants have been dealt with. Armed helicopters are still patrolling the skies, maintaining a high level of vigilance.
Footsteps could be heard in the corridor; the security officers had returned after completing their mission.
"Have you heard? The eagle that fell last night was impaled by a steel bar. Who in our base has that kind of strength?" someone said from the corridor.
"Major Lu? Colonel Shen?"
"Although they are very talented, the fact that steel bars can be precisely pierced through the body of such a large eagle still seems beyond human capability."
"You mean there are mutants helping us? That's impossible."
"I didn't say that, I was just curious."
The sound gradually faded away. Luo Ning looked at her hands. Actually, if the base could accept her, she would be willing to help humanity, but that idea was unrealistic. She would probably be riddled with bullets before she even got to them.
Daylight passed slowly, and people walked around outside, but Lu Xinghe still hadn't appeared. Could something have happened again? Probably not. He could even kill the most powerful female mutant, so how could the other mutants be a problem for him?
Just as she was deep in thought, light footsteps stopped at the door of her room, followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock. She immediately closed the cabinet door and held her breath.
With a click, the door opened, and two girls walked in together. She peeked through the crack and saw that the one walking in front was An Xiaoruo.
"Xiao Ruo, doesn't your uncle forbid you from going into his room without permission? Aren't you afraid he'll get angry?" another girl asked in a low voice.
An Xiaoruo sighed, "He was busy all night last night, so I brought him some food."
Then she looked around the room and could still smell that faint feminine fragrance.
Luo Ning was glad that she had put the clothes away earlier, otherwise they would definitely have found them.
"Xiaoling, can you smell any fragrance?" An Xiaoruo asked.
"No, I didn't smell anything," Xiaoling said, puzzled.
An Xiaoruo sniffed the air again and walked towards the cabinet: "Can't you smell such a distinct orchid scent? Do you have a cold?"
After she finished speaking, she was about to open the wardrobe when Luo Ning's heart jumped into her throat. Just then, Lu Xinghe's voice came: "What are you doing here?"
“Uncle.” An Xiaoruo turned to the doorway and said, “I’ve brought you some food. You must have been busy all night last night.”
After entering the room, Lu Xinghe immediately glanced at the cabinet. Sensing that Luo Ning was still inside, he pushed An Xiaoruo out and said coldly, "Give me the spare key, or I'll punish you for a subordinate offending a superior."
An Xiaoruo was startled. She had never been scolded like this by Lu Xinghe before. So she slammed the key into Lu Xinghe's hand and muttered under her breath, "You've forgotten your niece now that you have a girlfriend. You forget your friends for the sake of beauty."
“What nonsense are you talking about?” Lu Xinghe said sternly.
An Xiaoruo replied, "Don't deny it, I can smell the fragrance left by your girlfriend. There was never this smell in your room before."
"But Xiao Ruo, I really didn't smell anything." Another girl, afraid of Lu Xinghe, quickly reminded An Xiao Ruo.
Lu Xinghe didn't say anything, because he could smell it too, but he couldn't admit it.
"Go run ten laps around the track. Go now. If you ever come into my room again, you'll be dealt with according to military law." He said. An Xiaoruo was indeed spoiled by him, but he couldn't control himself. He felt sorry for her when he saw her being bullied. Shen Ni once said that people who didn't know her would think that An Xiaoruo was really his niece.
An Xiaoruo wanted to say something more, but seeing that Lu Xinghe was in a bad mood, she didn't dare to speak. She left with her friends in a sullen mood. Luo Ning could also see through the gap that Lu Xinghe's expression was not right.
After the two girls ran away, Lu Xinghe closed the door, then opened the cabinet door. Luo Ning was sitting inside, looking up at him with worry in her eyes.
He turned and walked away, washing his face with cold water in the bathroom, feeling somewhat exhausted. Although all six mutants were killed last night, more than three thousand civilians were still infected, and they had to deal with them all themselves. The hysterical screams of the infected and the cries of their loved ones still echoed in his ears.
He braced his hands on the table, head bowed, breathing heavily, as if a heavy stone was pressing on his shoulders and heart, making it hard for him to breathe.
Luo Ning came out of the cabinet, poured a cup of hot water and placed it next to him, but he ignored it.
She saw that his clothes and gloves were covered in blood, and could imagine what he had gone through last night. She silently walked away to give him some space.
About ten minutes later, she heard the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. Knowing that he had recovered, she secretly breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that he was strong and wouldn't do something terrible like some security officers in novels who eventually had a mental breakdown.
After washing away the traces of the killing on his body, Lu Xinghe sat down on the bed, remained silent for a while, and then asked, "Did you kill that eagle?"
Luo Ning nodded, then opened the food that An Xiaoruo had brought and placed it in front of him, putting chopsticks in his hand to indicate that he should eat some.
Lu Xinghe stared intently into her eyes, trying to discern her deceit and cunning. He never believed that any mutant would help humans.
But he couldn't tell; perhaps she was hiding it too well.
He ate his food bite by bite, the warm food finally giving him a touch of warmth. Luo Ning put his clothes together to wash later, but when she came out of the bathroom, she found that he was already asleep in bed, with half of his food left in his bowl.
She quietly took the food away and then pulled the blanket over him. He didn't wake up while she was doing this; he just frowned as if he had already fallen asleep.
Unconsciously, she looked at his hand outside the blanket again. It was this hand that had unsettled her last night. After glancing at it, she immediately covered his hand with the blanket, not letting it show at all.
Lu Xinghe slept from noon until evening. When he woke up, the setting sun after the snow was shining on the window, and he felt a sense of bewilderment as to whether it was morning or evening.
Luo Ning was writing something on paper at the table. She had changed into her pink dress. When she saw that he was awake, she stopped listening, then casually closed her notebook, her eyes feigning calmness as if nothing had happened.
He glanced at the ten messages on the wall; it was already 5:30 PM. His communicator was overflowing with messages. He glanced at them, then casually tossed them onto the bed and got up to get dressed. As he passed the bathroom, he noticed that all his clothes had been washed and hung up. The bathroom window was also slightly ajar, and the breeze from outside was blowing in, causing his clothes to sway gently.
"Who told you to open the window? Don't you know your smell will be noticeable to others?" He coldly closed the window.
Luo Ning raised her arm and sniffed, not thinking she had any smell, but he and An Xiaoruo both thought she did.
She pointed to her clothes, indicating that she wanted to dry them, but he still seemed angry. She was at a loss. Although he was still him, their relationship seemed to have changed.
Seeing that Lu Xinghe had lowered his head and pursed his lips, the anger in his heart swelled up again: "The clothes are washed by a professional. You don't need to do these things anymore."
She nodded silently, then went back to the closet and sat down, hugging the blanket.
He walked to the cabinet, took out some clean clothes and put them on, then put all the wet clothes into a bag. He saw that the two clothes she wore last night were also hanging there, so he casually put them into another bag and threw them into the trash can.
Luo Ning opened her mouth, wanting to say that if she lost her clothes, she would have no clean clothes to change into, and more importantly, it would be inconvenient for her to go out at night while wearing a skirt, but he had already taken the bag and the bag of trash and walked out.
She was left alone in the room again. She felt a little angry and a slight pain in her heart. A feeling of being dependent on others welled up in her chest.
You ungrateful wretch! She never treated him like this when he lived with her. She made his clothes by hand and washed them for him so many times without ever complaining. Now, all she wants is for him to help her see her out, and he's so unwilling?
Lu Xinghe first threw Luo Ning's clothes from the previous night into the incinerator, then put the clothes she had washed for him in the laundry room to dry, and finally walked alone towards the civilian area.
After the mutant invasion last night, most of the shops that distributed extra supplies had closed. Although one or two were still open, he didn't plan to go in. He turned a few blocks and entered an alley, then went through an entrance to the underground. This was the base's underground trading market, where he could buy some extra supplies.
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