Chapter 47, Chapter 3: The Female Supporting Character in an Apocalyptic Novel
Yu Wanwan was baffled.
"What does it have to do with me that they're coming to see you?"
Shouldn't he be the one hiding?
"..."
Xu Qingzhou choked up, speechless.
"Then...you go out and check, and I'll stay inside and not make a sound?"
Is that correct?
Yu Wanwan rolled her eyes at him and simply opened the door.
Xu Qingzhou tried to stop him, but it was too late.
"wait……"
The wooden door on the outside wasn't much of a barrier; as soon as they opened it, the people banging on it outside spotted them.
"Why haven't you opened the door yet? Hurry up and come out!"
The man in gray didn't look well; his eyes held blatant disdain. He didn't even bother to come in.
What else could Xu Qingzhou do but bite the bullet and go out with her?
She fell asleep...
"I was slightly injured and got it treated."
Yu Wanwan interrupted him with a gentle smile.
Xu Qingzhou's breath hitched.
Damn it!
Since these people have come here, they must know that he is injured, and they must know where the injury is.
She just blurted it out?
Let's scam him!
Xu Qingzhou didn't dare to look at her, so she swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue and nodded in agreement.
Sure enough, upon hearing the word "injured," the man in gray immediately became alert and suspiciously scanned the two of them.
Where are you injured?
The people who had initially been reluctant to come in now pushed open the wooden door and approached the two of them step by step.
Xu Qingzhou's hands, hidden behind his back, tightened continuously, his whole body tense, ready to act at any moment.
Yu Wanwan seemed oblivious to his nervousness. She grabbed his hand and gently but firmly pulled out his injured arm. She even took the initiative to lift up his sleeve, revealing his bandaged arm.
"Look, we just got into an argument, and I didn't notice there was a knife nearby, so I cut his arm."
Xu Qingzhou was internally about to explode, but in action, he subconsciously followed her words and showed a weak appearance.
He lowered his head, and the stray hairs on his forehead fell down, obscuring his eyes and preventing the man in gray from seeing the tension in his eyes that he couldn't hide in time.
The man in gray looked at Xu Qingzhou, who was depressed and weak, and then at Yu Wanwan, who had a calm expression, and was half-believing and half-doubting.
"Where's the knife?"
Yu Wanwan pointed to the room they had come from.
"It's right inside."
The man in gray narrowed his eyes, made a gesture, and called someone over.
"Let's go in and take a look."
"yes!"
Xu Qingzhou's heart skipped a beat, and his back broke out in a cold sweat.
Since Yu Wanwan remained so calm, he could only force himself to remain silent and continue to stand beside her without uttering a word.
While waiting for the people who went in to search to come out, the man in gray was not idle either.
He sized up the two of them, his doubts still lingering.
These two people have such outstanding presence that they seem out of place in Zone E; they're more like people from Zones B and A.
These two people...
How did you two start arguing?
Yu Wanwan sighed in a seemingly serious manner.
"I just heard that a new breathing mask came out on the black market, which is much more effective than an oxygen tank, and I wanted him to buy it for me, but he insisted that it wasn't officially certified and was unhealthy, so he refused to buy it for me!"
A hint of grievance appeared on her face.
"But in a place like Zone E, just being alive is a blessing; who cares about health?"
As she spoke, she tried to squeeze out tears for a long time, but she couldn't manage to.
Sigh, the ability to cry on cue is something not everyone can master.
Unable to squeeze out tears, Yu Wanwan could only cover her face, lower her head, and pretend to sob and choke.
"I think he just doesn't want to spend that money on me!"
Xu Qingzhou watched as she acted so convincingly and vividly that her nervousness was dispelled by her quirky performance.
Is Lin Xiaoman like that?
Isn't Lin Xiaoman a beautiful, kind-hearted, innocent, and naive girl?
Is there a problem with his script, or did she break character?
and……
She looks so familiar!
Despite her doubts, Xu Qingzhou instinctively accepted the role.
He looked at her helplessly, his voice softening.
"I'm not reluctant to part with it, that thing really can't be used..."
He looks exactly like a man trying to appease a wife who's being unreasonable.
Breathing masks are actually developed by the government; they can filter harmful substances and purify oxygen.
This type of breathing mask can solve the problem of bulky oxygen tanks being difficult to carry.
However, the materials for making a breathing mask are extremely scarce, and even the government doesn't have much of them.
Their breathing masks are for people who need to go to the ground to find supplies and collect samples.
In order to make money, the black market also produced similar breathing masks, modeled after the official ones.
However, breathing masks circulating on the black market are not only expensive, but also have serious negative effects.
You may not see any effects in the short term, but long-term use can lead to pulmonary fibrosis and accelerate the failure of bodily organs.
Logically, the authorities should prohibit such things from appearing.
Can……
Yu Wanwan pinched her thigh for a long time before finally managing to squeeze out a few tears. With red eyes, she raised her head.
"It's better to live a miserable life than to die! Without oxygen, we won't even have to wait until our bodies break down; we'll all die soon enough!"
The underground city's energy resources are dwindling and can no longer meet its oxygen needs.
The price of oxygen sold at oxygen stations has been rising steadily, with even the lowest quality oxygen costing as much as an average person's annual income.
The breathing mask on the black market, no matter how many negative effects it has, can at least keep these people who can't afford oxygen alive.
This is also the main reason why the black market has not been completely eradicated by the authorities.
Some things may indeed be helpful to humanity, but the methods used are too cruel and inhumane.
The authorities cannot allow them to appear openly, but in order for more people to survive, they also cannot completely eradicate these mixed-use things, leaving the underprivileged with no way to live.
So they could only turn a blind eye and not interfere too much as long as the criminals didn't do anything that seriously endangered the safety of the underground city.
As an official patrol team, the men in gray were well aware of this.
Watching the patrol team lead those people out of the dilapidated shantytowns, each one of them was numb and empty, unable to utter a word.
The people in Zone D are not doing well either, but compared to Zone E, which is almost abandoned, at least the people in Zone D have apartment buildings to live in and can try to grow some vegetables.
When the search of District D was conducted, those people were still afraid and made noise, requiring them to be suppressed by force.
But the people in Zone E were all sallow-faced, emaciated, and withered.
When the patrol team brought them out for inspection, they didn't make a fuss and remained quiet throughout.
It's not because they're obedient and cooperative enough, but because they've long since become numb, like walking corpses, and they simply don't have the extra energy to care about what's happening in the outside world.
Most of the people here are not even wearing oxygen tanks.
It's not that they don't want to wear them, but it's useless to wear them because there's hardly any oxygen in their tanks.
Even the two people in front of him who seemed to have an ethereal air about them were just people with good manners.
Their appearance was no different from those in Zone E.
They were both equally thin and bony.
After all, they were his own compatriots. Seeing them like this, he felt particularly distressed, but he was powerless to do anything about it and could only silently watch the two of them argue.
The people who went in to search came out quickly.
He was holding a knife in his hand, which looked like a woodcutter's knife, and the bloodstains on the blade had not been wiped off; it was still bright red.
"team leader!"
The man in gray took the knife and glanced at it.
The blood on it hadn't dried yet; it looked fresh and was dripping down little by little.
If he was injured in Zone B, the blood couldn't possibly still be this fresh after so much time.
Unless, in order to deal with them, he deliberately cut himself again.
"May I take a look at your wound?"
When he spoke again, the gray-clad man's tone was much gentler and more polite than before.
When Xu Qingzhou saw the knife, doubt arose in his heart.
He had no recollection of when the knife had been in the room.
But things had already come to this point, and he couldn't refuse. He could only nod stiffly and let the patrol team remove the gauze.
The wound on his arm was indeed a knife wound, and it was quite deep. Although it had been treated with medicine, some bone could still be seen when the gauze was removed.
After comparing them, the wound does indeed match the knife in my hand.
"Are there any other injuries on your body?"
Xu Qingzhou shook his head.
The man in gray looked him over carefully for a few moments, but couldn't see anything wrong with him.
Have someone re-bandage him and return the knife to the two men.
"Life is tough these days, so since we're together, let's try to be understanding of each other!"
Xu Qingzhou nodded hurriedly, while Yu Wanwan snorted softly and turned her head away without responding.
The man in gray patted Xu Qingzhou on the shoulder and led his men out.
"Captain, no problem found."
"Captain, we haven't found anything here either."
The man in gray glanced at the lifeless E section again and exhaled a breath of stale air.
"Alright, let's call it a day!"
The lights illuminating Sector E were turned off, plunging Sector E into darkness once again.
The sounds outside gradually faded away, and silence returned.
Xu Qingzhou's tense body finally relaxed, and he stumbled, almost falling.
Yu Wanwan paused for a moment, then reached out and helped him back into the room.
There was only one room available for habitation, so Yu Wanwan had no interest in finding another place to stay and simply collapsed back onto the bed.
"Blow out the candles, thank you."
"..."
Her nonchalant attitude left Xu Qingzhou somewhat bewildered.
He sat at the table, staring at the woman who was sleeping peacefully, as if nothing had happened. The doubts in his heart grew stronger and stronger, and he couldn't suppress them anymore.
"Xiaoman, where did that knife come from?"
The only response he received was her even breathing.
Xu Qingzhou cursed inwardly, walked to the bedside, and pushed her.
"Xiaoman?"
Still pretending!
He didn't believe she could fall asleep so quickly.
Yu Wanwan was getting really impatient with him, so she sat up abruptly and looked at him with a smile.
"do what?!"
Xu Qingzhou shivered inexplicably and blinked.
"Where did that knife come from?"
She was right under his nose the whole time, but he had no idea when she did those things!
Moreover, from the time the patrol team appeared to the time she opened the door and went out, there was simply not enough time to make arrangements, right?
This isn't as simple as just getting a knife out; there's blood involved too!
Yu Wanwan didn't blink, looking blank and harmless.
"What kind of knife?"
"That bloodstained knife that was found during the search?"
"Where is there a bloody knife? You're injured in the arm, not the brain, so why are you confused!"
"???"
Xu Qingzhou had a thousand swear words stuck in his throat.
Is she trying to fool him?
With such a large knife and so much blood, she just says there's none left?
And... this feeling of being speechless and choked with emotion feels so familiar.
It's as if I've experienced something similar before and felt the same way.
Yu Wanwan, still smiling, slumped back onto the bed and covered herself with the blanket.
"If you don't believe me, go out and see for yourself. There's no knife or blood there. Be quiet, I need to rest."
Author's note: This is too intense! I'll be adding an extra chapter at 6 PM tonight!
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