Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

”Zhou Zishu.”

Zhou Zishu glanced up from the soft, black carpet under his feet. He felt out of place. He was out of place. He didn’t fit in the minimalistic, black and white office at all. He stood out, and he didn’t like that at all.
“Duan Pengju.” It was more of a statement than an answer to the call. The man in front of him sat behind his large, dark wooden desk with a glass of whiskey beside him. Always whiskey, Zhou Zishu was pretty certain he had never seen the man’s table without a glass of whiskey. And those damn stacks of papers and case files. What did he even do with those? He had assistants and secretaries for at least three lifetimes!

“Boss Jin has an offer for you.”
Zhou Zishu swallowed. He had heard this one, so so many times before. It always ended up in bloodied hands and a drunken stupor that lasted for at least five days, until the faces of the dead would be forgotten.
“I’m not taking any anymore. Haven’t taken since all of this”, Zhou Zishu glanced at the man in front of him once more, chin a little high. All of this. They both knew what Zhou Zishu meant. All of this. The end of the world. The apocalypse. The virus, the dead walking again, the chaos that ensued.

Duan Pengju rolled his eyes, placed his glass of whiskey on the table and stood up after he was done taking a drink from it. His suit didn’t fit him. He hadn’t shaved in a week, either, he usually had a slight stubble, yes, but this was different. The dark circles under his eyes were something new, too, a contrast to his usual state.
“Not that kind of offer. Everyone knows you do them. The trips between the bases.”
It wasn’t a secret, Zhou Zishu hadn’t had the need to keep it as one. 
“It’s a job I was offered”, he simply said.
“And now I’m offering you a new one.” Duan Pengju’s fake grin didn’t reach his eyes. Zhou Zishu sighed, changed his weight to his other leg, looked around. He was a little curious, he had to admit that, but like hell he was going to show that to Duan Pengju.
“Boss Jin wants you to go visit Quarantine Zone 23.”
So much for hiding the curiousity, Zhou Zishu couldn’t help the surprise that washed over his features for a fraction of a second.
“Why would he want me to go there?”
And Duan Pengju had won. Again.
“He needs you to fetch something for him. It’s an easy job, Zhou, and won’t take you much more time, c’mon. It’s quiet out there. Nobody has lived there since all of this started.”

Quarantine Zone 23, also known simply as the Start Point was where it all had begun a few years ago. The place where the first cases of the virus had been detected, and in a matter of hours the entire city had been destroyed by it. It had spread like wildfire, it had plunged the world into a chaos that it had yet to recover from. Zhou Zishu had seen the city from far away during his many trips in between the bases, but never entered it.
“What does he need?” Perhaps Zhou Zishu was, after all, slightly curious. It wouldn’t take all that many days more, four-five maybe, he could do the trip just fine if Boss Jin would pay for his gas. There wouldn’t be zombies in the city, probably, hopefully, since it had already been years since a living person had set a foot into the city and the dead, fortunately, decayed and didn’t stay as… well, undead, for all that long.

Unless stored in a walk-in fridge. Zhou Zishu unfortunately had some experience with that.

Duan Pengju reached for something from his desk before handing it to Zhou Zishu. It was a map of the city, and something that seemed like a marketplace had been circled with red. Zhou Zishu cocked his eyebrow at Duan Pengju as a question.
“There are remnants of a fountain in the middle of the marketplace. You should find a silver briefcase from somewhere around it. Take the case and bring it back with you.”
“You want me to go fetch a briefcase from the Start Point? Doesn’t Boss Jin have people and helicopters for that?” Insane. Absolutely insane. “What makes you even think there’s going to be a briefcase there? It’s been five years.” Zhou Zishu wasn’t very impressed. Duan Pengju stuck another paper into his hands, and from the top of it he could read with red, bold letters: Classified. That word alone sent shivers down Zhou Zishu’s spine.
“I see”, he muttered under his breath. Last time he had been given a paper with that, he had ended three lives. It should have been four. But Zhou Zishu just hadn’t been able to shoot the child into her crib. That had happened five years ago, just three days before the outbreak. After that Zhou Zishu had killed so much he had nearly forgot that one family.

Classified information. The government, or what was left of it, didn’t know. This was a secret mission, that was why Boss Jin couldn’t use his beloved choppers. No one was to know. Even amidst all of the chaos the world falling down had brought, Boss Jin had kept his grip on Zhou Zishu, and now he wanted to send him to run his errands once again. Zhou Zishu had done some small things for him in the very recent years, of course, mostly threatening and bribing for information, with the way they lived nowadays, it was harder to simply kill. Be an assassin. That was what Zhou Zishu was trained for. That was why Boss Jin still kept him around.

But right now, Zhou Zishu just drove his little van through the endless wastelands and tried to report any unusualities to the remnants of the military-government that tried to keep their little societies in control. He tried to forget that he had once been a pay-to-kill, that he still was under Boss Jin’s watchful eye (or more so his little lap dog Duan Pengju’s watchful eye), but every time he almost forgot it all, he was called back. That was how Boss Jin still kept him in his leash, and Zhou Zishu didn’t really know how to get out.

Or, he could disappear. He would be able to live in the wastelands. He could move to another base and stay there. But there was still that itch of a feeling that Boss Jin would find him wherever he went. Sometimes Zhou Zishu was fairly certain that his power reached farther than the virus did.

“What’s in it for me?” Zhou Zishu finally asked, watched the victory in Duan Pengju’s eyes. As if there had even been a chance to say no. He got another paper, read it through.
“That would probably cover all the costs”, Duan Pengju let out a laugh as he saw the confusion on Zhou Zishu’s face. That was a shit ton of money. Why the fuck was this briefcase worth that much money?
“What if it isn’t there? The briefcase.”
“You’ll still get the money.” Duan Pengju pointed at the text at the end of the paper. “We just want the confirmation that the briefcase isn’t there, then.”
What the hell was in that briefcase? Why was it worth so much money that Zhou Zishu would be able to live his entire life in Inner Circle and drink only the best wines that still existed in the world? For all the lives Zhou Zishu had taken for Boss Jin, none of them had been worth this much money. It had to be something big, hadn’t it?

But Zhou Zishu didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t his place to ask questions. He sighed, pondered for a moment, weighed his options. It was an easy task. For a lot of money. A few days more of driving.
“Fine. I’ll pick it up on the way to Base 47. It’s going to take me two weeks to get back, probably. Two and a half.” Zhou Zishu didn’t give any other options to Duan Pengju but to nod. If the briefcase was really that important, then Zhou Zishu could take his sweet time fetching it, since they couldn’t find anyone else to do it for them.

Or they just had no one. No one dared to step outside of the bases. No one but those stupid enough. Or suicidal enough. Zhou Zishu wasn’t sure which one he was.

***

The walk from the Inner Circle to the outer circles was a little depressing. Their little cities consisted of circles, the richer you were, the safer you were, as in you had the money to buy an apartment from the middle of the city. That was a little something that hadn’t changed much as the big, fancy buildings usually were close to the centers. If you couldn’t afford a place of your own or didn’t have all that much money, you lived in the Middle Circle. Or Outer Circle. Or the outermost circle at worst, also known as simply the ‘Zone’. A quarantine zone, that’s what it was, everyone knew that even if no one said anything about it. Zhou Zishu had his little apartment in the Middle Circle, but not all that far from the Outer Circle. Sure, he could have probably afforded a better place to live, hell, Boss Jin could have offered him one if Zhou Zishu would have just swallowed his pride and asked, but Zhou Zishu wasn’t all that keen on living in the center where in a dangerous situation it would be harder to get out.

And Zhou Zishu didn’t fit into the Inner Circle. Just like Duan Pengju’s office and the entire building, he didn’t fit into it. Everything around him, it was neat. Clean. Modern, every single leaf of the hedgerow Zhou Zishu was walking by was cut with millimeter precision. The people looked at Zhou Zishu like he was one of the walkers, zombies, the undead, you name it, even if he was just… well, from the Middle Circle. And a wanderer. And a retired assassin. So maybe he was just as bad as those strangers, who hadn’t set a foot outside of the Inner Circle ever since the apocalypse, ought him to be.

In the Inner Circle, life was normal. The sun was shining on the asphalt streets, some cafés were open, there were kids playing in the nearby park. Everything was normal, like it had been five years ago. Too many lit up billboards, too many neon lights used even during the days (Zhou Zishu couldn’t understand it, why bother, if not to keep the illusion of a normal life). The birds had left, though. Zhou Zishu couldn’t hear them even in the Inner Circle. He rarely heard them anywhere anymore. He turned from a street corner, hands deep in his pockets as he passed by a happy-looking couple eyeing books at the window of a bookstore. He passed by a large government building that seemed quiet. It was after hours already, of course it did, the end of the world didn’t exist in the life of the rich. Perhaps calling it ‘the government’ was a bit of an exaggeration, though, the government no longer had the monopoly of violence and therefore they were merely… a pillar that tried to keep people somewhat at bay. They couldn’t do that, if it weren’t for the zombies, then the people were afraid of each other, the Outer circles more often than not broke into riots as resources were scarce. Sometimes very scarce. The government, mostly consisting of military, only kept the Inner Circle safe and let the rest survive on their own. And they kept up the check points, of course. Always the damn checkpoints.

“ID and reason for passing, please.”
Zhou Zishu fished his ID from the pocket of his leather jacket and held it up for the person examining him in front of the gates. There were four gates in the Inner Circle at each side of it, and there was an unnecessary amount of people guarding the gates leading in and out. They were there to keep the other people out, Zhou Zishu knew that, but it was still sort of funny as the people from Outer Circles weren’t usually even let into the Middle Circle without a good reason, so there weren’t even that many people to pass the gates daily.
“Just going home”, Zhou Zishu answered to the question and got a curt nod as an answer as the guy in riot gear scanned the code from his ID and tapped away with his handheld computer. Then the gate, resembling those in metro stations, was opened, and he got through to the Middle Circle.

High fences had been built in between the circles, the one in between Inner Circle and Middle Circle being made of brick and barbed wire, the ones in between the other circles were just chain-link fencing and barbed wire. Barbed wire everywhere. Always the damn barbed wire. Zhou Zishu had seen enough bodies hanging from it for at least seven lifetimes. The asphalt was slightly cracked in the Middle Circle, Zhou Zishu walked next to the fencing to keep the sunlight away from his skin. His home wasn’t all that far away, it was a few blocks away in an old-ish apartment building. It was alright. Small, but Zhou Zishu didn’t need more. He didn’t need space, he didn’t even spend all that much time in his apartment to begin with.

Zhou Zishu stopped by a small convenience store that had fluorescent lights that hurt his eyes at the corner of his home street, bought himself something to eat for the evening and strolled out, back into the setting sun. Tomorrow he’d have to stop by in a bigger store and buy himself everything he’d need for the trip. Buy. Always buy. Zhou Zishu thought it was kind of funny, the whole world had come to its end, yet money still held value.

Unless you were out of the cities. Then it didn’t matter. What mattered was survival, and to Zhou Zishu, that wasn’t so bad. It was liberating, in a way.

Distant yelling caught Zhou Zishu’s ears. A lot of people, many blocks over. They had cut the electricity for the night from the Outer Circle, hadn’t they? Had to save it for the rich to keep their air conditioners on through the night. The Zone got three hours of electricity every day, the Outer Circle usually had theirs cut for two days in a week and the Middle Circle got a few smaller power outages during the week. They lasted from a few minutes to a few hours at max, didn’t really bother Zhou Zishu all that much, but he knew it was unfair. Of course it was unfair, everything was unfair in their little Base 41, unless you had money. Clean water was scarce, too, especially in the outer circles. So, things were bad, to say in short. No wonder there had been so many riots recently.

Zhou Zishu strolled over the mostly empty parking lot to the door of the apartment building, opened it (the door was never locked) and found his way to the third floor and his own apartment. He opened the padlock on it and let himself in the small apartment. A padlock, because the real key of the apartment was probably with its owner, who Zhou Zishu had never seen, and who probably wasn’t even alive anymore. The apartment had been void of people for a while, all furniture had been left behind along with memories of the owner’s past life of which Zhou Zishu had got rid of. The military had handed him the apartment after he had paid a fee, and now it was ‘his’. That’s how they did with the empty apartments. At least Zhou Zishu had got his own and didn’t need to live with a stranger, unlike his two neighbors.

Zhou Zishu’s little studio apartment was just that. A studio apartment. It was flavorless, bleak colors and uninteresting shapes. There was a kitchen. A sofa. A bed. A tv that rarely even worked these days (it was mostly for government announcements). A bathroom with a somewhat working shower. All Zhou Zishu needed. He glanced at the backpack in the corner before walking to the fridge and placing his lunch there. He should go through the backpack and check everything before leaving tomorrow. He knew everything was in place, as always, but it was sort of a ritual. Zhou Zishu wanted to see for himself that all of his knives were with him. He needed to see that, he needed the affirmation that he had the control. It had always been like that. It would always be like that.

Two weeks, that’s how long he’d be away from his apartment. It didn’t really feel like home, so Zhou Zishu didn’t feel sad. It was routine for him, to go out, drive away from somewhat safety into the wilderness. It was his job, after all. That’s what the government had given him after they had figured Zhou Zishu didn’t mind going outside and putting himself in danger. He was to report any bigger hordes of zombies to the military, or anything else out of the ordinary. There usually wasn’t anything to report. Sometimes Zhou Zishu didn’t even see any zombies on his way to other bases.

The reporting wasn’t the only thing, he usually had to take something into the base he was heading for, too. Papers, other sorts of reports, things that couldn’t be taken there with helicopters. Planes were out of question, airports were way too far from the bases. Trains didn’t move, the undergrounds had been sealed off ages ago. But thank god, the military government had Zhou Zishu and his little van, who could take the trip between bases and succeed in it due to his skills as a retired assassin. Mostly it was just driving and less killing these days, though.

Tomorrow morning Zhou Zishu would go pick up the few papers he was supposed to transport to Base 47 a few days’ drive over. He’d have to take a detour, so that would give him over a week to drive. Base 47 itself wasn’t all that far away, but Zhou Zishu would have to bypass all abandoned cities from as far away as possible as he, still after five years, wasn’t all that fond of the undead. Even if they were starting to decay and were much slower than at the beginning of the pandemic. Back then they had been like people. Just feral and violent and very bitey. Just as fast, just as strong, thankfully stupid as hell. But as the decaying started, they slowed down, until they rotted completely away and left nothing but remains after them. Zhou Zishu had seen enough of those for at least twenty lifetimes, too.

And tomorrow he’d have to head for those remains, again. Quarantine Zone 23 and Base 47 were waiting for him and his little van.

***

Zhou Zishu threw his two backpacks in the back of his van, the third one he’d take with him to the front. Zhou Zishu’s van wasn’t really a van, but a car that had once had 8 seats for passengers. Now it had two, as Zhou Zishu had removed the six other seats in order to fit two mattresses in the back of the car. And a small fridge. And everything he’d ever need during his trips ranging from guns to first aid kits to spare clothing and gasoline canisters. It was pretty packed in his little van, but it felt more like home than the apartment upstairs.

Zhou Zishu lifted the hood of the car to check the engine along with other important stuff before cleaning some grime off of his headlights. Grime. Probably zombie remains. Then he lightly kicked the wheels of the car, all four of them had chain roped around them. Not the nicest to drive, but they had got Zhou Zishu out of many troubles.

The entire car had been modified, the windows were made of bulletproof glass, there were metal bars all over the car as a protective shield, the entire body had been changed to a stronger one that could take driving straight through a horde of zombies. Zhou Zishu had first-hand experience of that. The car was somewhat worn-out silver, it had probably once been some other color, but the paint had washed off in the million scrubs the car had had to go through. Zhou Zishu wasn’t a fan of driving around with zombie flesh hanging from the headlights. The car wasn’t originally his, it had belonged to the guy that had during the first wave saved Zhou Zishu and driven around with him, trying to search for shelter. Unfortunately he had got bitten and Zhou Zishu had had to blow his brains out. Before that the man had given the car to Zhou Zishu and told him to survive, so that’s what he had done. Survived. And now the van belonged to him.

Zhou Zishu wasn’t all that well-versed in cars, but he did know how to do some basic fixes. His acquaintance, Han Ying, was much better, and had checked his van a few days prior and told him everything was alright, so his word Zhou Zishu would have to believe. Han Ying had never given him a reason to not to do so, though. Zhou Zishu hunched down to check from underneath the car that all of the pipes were intact (as if he would have been able to do anything about them, it was just part of the ritual and a habit that had stayed with him ever since the end of the world had begun as the zombies sometimes could hide even in the oddest of places).

“I guess you’re the guy they call the errand boy.”
Zhou Zishu nearly banged his head on the side of his car as he stood up, way too quickly. Who the hell had managed to sneak up on him in the quiet of the parking garage? Was Zhou Zishu losing his grip on himself?!

Zhou Zishu spun around, almost bewildered to come face to face with a man who looked like he was straight from the Inner Circle.
“Who asks?” Zhou Zishu was aware of the nickname Duan Pengju used of him behind his back.
The man in front of him was slightly taller and had white, long hair tied to a half-bun. He was wearing a red, fitted coat, underneath it a black polo shirt. He looked expensive. Yeah, definitely from the Inner Circle. One of Boss Jin’s men, probably.
“Wen. Wen Kexing.”
“What do you want, Wen. Wen Kexing?”
The man let out a laugh, and Zhou Zishu had to admit that he had one of those pleasant-sounding laughters. Honed to sound pleasant. The man himself most likely was not pleasant, and by the way he was eyeing Zhou Zishu up and down, he was everything but pleasant.

“A little bird told me you take trips out of the city.”
Zhou Zishu arched his eyebrow just slightly before leaning against the door of his van. People had begged him to take them to other bases or to visit their old homes. Zhou Zishu always declined. It was different the other way around, though. He didn’t take people out of the city, but he could take them into the city. To safety.

“Yeah, and?” Zhou Zishu crossed his arms in front of him.
“I’m coming with you.” The man announced, convincing Zhou Zishu immediately that he was insane.
“Like hell you are.”
“I’ll pay you well”, Wen Kexing said, a little smile quirking the corner of his mouth and a suggestive look on his face.
“I don’t need money”, Zhou Zishu shook his head.
“Pretty, please?” The Wen Kexing guy tried to give Zhou Zishu a puppy-eyed look.
“No.”
“C’mon, I won’t be a nuisance, I promise!”

Zhou Zishu rolled his eyes before he pointed at, well, everything. Wen Kexing had a leather bag on his shoulder that looked rather empty, and he had a slight grin tugging the corner of his mouth, that was apparently a rather permanent feature of his. He looked like he’d absolutely be a nuisance.
“First of all, you’re wearing a fucking suit coat and trousers and leather shoes, do you really think you’re going to step out of the city wearing those?”
“I’m not stepping anywhere, you’re driving”, Wen Kexing cut off Zhou Zishu’s speech.
“Second of all, I’m not going to go where you think I am, I’m on a government-assigned mission and I have a job to do.”
“I won’t be in the way of your job.”
“And third of all, I’m not taking anyone out. You look like you have never even left the Inner Circle. Trust me when I say this, you’re safer here than out there.”

Zhou Zishu could see a little crease forming in between Wen Kexing’s brows, a shadow of something passing over his features before he put that mask of congeniality on again.
“Ah, no need to be so rude!” He pouted just as Zhou Zishu turned his back to him and walked to the other side of the car. Zhou Zishu couldn’t believe this. Why the hell did someone from the Inner Circle want to leave? They were huddled in a military base and were living their best lives there, what kind of masochist would want to go outside? Zhou Zishu opened the driver’s side of the car and sat down, ought to simply leave this stranger in a fancy suit in the basement parking lot, but before he even had time to turn on the car, the stranger opened the door on the other side and hauled himself up to the passenger’s seat.

“Get out of my car!” Zhou Zishu yelled, but simply got a flash of a smile sent his way. “I said I’m not taking you with me!”
“I didn’t give you options, I simply said I’m coming with you”, Wen Kexing smiled before placing his bag on the floor in front of him, next to Zhou Zishu’s backpack.
“No, you aren’t, get out the fuck out!”
“I am, I want to see what it’s like outside.”
“This isn’t some fucking zombie safari or a tourist attraction, get out!”
“It could be a tourist attraction with that pretty face of yours.”
It took Zhou Zishu every single ounce of his willpower to not simply stare at the man next to him, mouth wide open. He was appalled. And Wen Kexing noticed that.
“See? You need company, I’m coming with you.”

At that moment, Zhou Zishu understood he had lost. He closed his eyes, ran a hand through the few strands of hair hanging over his forehead and sighed before rubbing his temples, frustrated.
“Do you even have a fucking gun?”
“Yes!” Wen Kexing fumbled through his bag, Zhou Zishu could see some food, water bottles and warmer clothing. Then he pulled out a handgun and a few magazines of bullets. And a long knife. He just had all of those lying in his bag. Without any regards of safety.
“You know this isn’t going to be some day trip, right? You do understand this may take several weeks?” Zhou Zishu couldn’t hide his annoyance from his voice. Well, he didn’t really want to, either.
“That’s the point, I believe. And I’m sure you have enough for me, too,” Wen Kexing simply nodded.

Zhou Zishu looked at him, then at his bag, then at him again, then he glanced at the back of his van and all of the stuff fit for survival. Then he looked at Wen Kexing again. Wen Kexing had golden jewelry dangling from his ears, defined features and a few scars on the high of his cheekbone. This man was not going to leave his car unless Zhou Zishu put a bullet through his skull, was he?
“Fine. I’m not bringing your body back for a funeral.”
“I don’t expect you to. Besides, you look like you’re perfectly capable of protecting me from those man-eating monsters,” Wen Kexing purred and glanced at the knives strapped onto Zhou Zishu’s thighs on top of his cargo pants, and then at the back of the car which was pretty much full of different firearms.
“I’d rather throw you out to them than shoot a bullet for your sake”, Zhou Zishu mumbled as he finally turned the keys in the ignition switch and felt the engine come to life.
“Ah, so rude, Mister Zhou! I’m just trying to be friendly.”
“Don’t call me Mister Zhou.” Zhou Zishu switched reverse on before backing away from his parking spot.
“What should I call you, then?” Wen Kexing asked.
“Zhou Xu.” Zhou Zishu rarely used his real name anymore.
“A-Xu, then. I think I’m going to call you A-Xu.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“I didn’t give you any options”, Wen Kexing laughed.

Zhou Zishu breathed in deep before he switched gears and pressed the gas down, driving up from the basement parking lot out to the open air. The day hadn’t got far yet, it was probably a little past nine in the morning. A few people were walking along the street, probably heading for work. Work. Not even the end of the world could stop that.
“Do you live here? In the Middle Circle?” Wen Kexing asked, eyeing the surroundings with a little too much astonishment to be believable.
“What do you think?” Zhou Zishu mumbled.
“A-Xu, I’m just trying to get to know you!”
“We’re not friends.”
“We are going to be. Do you own this car?”
Wen Kexing was a kid in that questioning everything-stage, Zhou Zishu was already certain of it.
“Sort of.”
“It’s nice. I haven’t ridden a car in a few years. I don’t need to; the Inner Circle is so small.”
“I know.” Yet somehow the rich always found a reason to use cars, even in the Inner Circle.
“Have you lived here for long?” Wen Kexing asked again. Zhou Zishu shrugged:
“A few years.”
“So you weren’t from here originally?” Originally. As in, Zhou Zishu, too, had had to leave his home to escape the virus and move to an entirely new place.
“No.”

Zhou Zishu turned the car from a street corner to a slightly larger street. There were a few cars parked along the road, but much, much less than there would be if the situation had been… normal. Or well. This was their normal now.
“It’s nice in here. This place looks… lived”, Wen Kexing said, still gazing out of the window.
Apartment building after apartment building, corner stores, more people than in the Inner Circle. Zhou Zishu didn’t answer, simply drove the car to a larger street that led towards the gates leading to the Outer Circle. Except that Zhou Zishu wasn’t going to use the big gates, but the smaller ones, as he could already tell by the military vehicles driving towards the gates that there was, once again, a riot going on at those gates.
“It’s sad, isn’t it? Why don’t the people in power do anything?” Wen Kexing wondered out loud, he had spotted the large black vehicles, too.
“You tell me”, Zhou Zishu muttered under his breath as he turned to another street that would take him to the other gates.
“A-Xu, you overestimate my power. I’m simply a humble man with a lot of money.”
“Aren’t you all?”

To that Zhou Zishu didn’t get an answer. Instead, after a few minutes of driving in silence and the gates approaching, Wen Kexing nearly shrieked out loud:
“There’s a checkpoint?!”
“Of course there is a checkpoint, what did you expect?” Zhou Zishu scoffed.
“Shit!” Wen Kexing cursed, turned on his seat, crawled over it to the back of the van.
“What the- what the hell are you doing?!” Zhou Zishu almost yelled, slowed the car a little as Wen Kexing hid himself under Zhou Zishu’s sleeping bag.
“I’ll explain later, I promise. Pretend I’m not here!” Wen Kexing’s muffled voice sounded from under the covers and Zhou Zishu sighed again: “Your hair is still visible.”

And to be fair, anyone who would glance at the back of the car would see that there was someone in it. It wasn’t even illegal to leave the city or anything, so why the fuss? Zhou Zishu stopped his car in front of the checkpoint and rolled down his window.
“ID and reason for passing?” The woman dressed in riot gear asked. Zhou Zishu handed her his ID and a paper that proved he was on government business. The lady scanned the ID, handed it and the paper back to Zhou Zishu and then waved her hand as a sign to open the gates to him. And Wen Kexing, who remained quiet in the back of the car.

Zhou Zishu pressed the gas again, drove through the gates as he closed his window.
“Did they notice?” Wen Kexing peeped from the back.
“They did, and I’m currently taking you to custody”, Zhou Zishu sighed. What the hell was this guy doing? Why was he avoiding the checkpoints? Sure he had got through one when he had got to the Middle Circle from the Inner Circle.
“Don’t be like that!” Wen Kexing whined.
“There’s going to be another checkpoint in between the Outer Circle and the Zone, keep your head down”, Zhou Zishu said as he heard rustling from behind him.
“No, I want to see.” And then the man behind Zhou Zishu stuck his head in between the front seats to examine his surroundings.

“Hell, I knew things were bad, but I didn’t know they were this bad…” Wen Kexing mumbled, and to be fair, Zhou Zishu agreed.
There were a lot of people in the Outer Circle. The apartment buildings were full, there were people everywhere on the streets, some just sitting, some trying to sell whatever they had to provide for their family. More small stores with broken windows, Zhou Zishu could see that the building they drove past had once been a high one, but had been mostly demolished. This was the part of the city where they had five years ago stopped the outbreak. After that they had somehow managed to push the lines a few kilometers back to get more space for people to live in the Outer Circle. Zhou Zishu could see where they had left pieces from the barricades as no one had bothered to clean them up.

“Most of the people are at the front gates”, Zhou Zishu said as Wen Kexing kept looking around. Zhou Zishu had seen it all a hundred times before, this was nothing new to him, but it clearly was to Wen Kexing. Or he was just a very dedicated actor. Zhou Zishu didn’t know, and that unsettled him. Old habits died hard, he couldn’t stop wondering why on earth this man had decided to sit next to him in his van and insist on going outside. What were his motives? Why was he here?

What was he running from?

“Why?” Wen Kexing asked.
“Protesting.”
“Ah, right, I’ve heard of that.”
“How surprising.”
“A-Xu! You’re being mean.”
“You don’t know me, you have no idea how mean I can get.”
Wen Kexing’s laughter once again filled the air in the car. Zhou Zishu turned from a street corner, there were quite a lot of people out today on the streets. The Outer Circle was the biggest one of the circles, it would take a moment for Zhou Zishu to reach the other side of it.

Outer Circle was dirty. There was a lot of rubbish at the edges of the streets, occasionally the trash bags had been piled up and the pile had fallen and Zhou Zishu had to dodge them to the other side of the street. There weren’t many cars, the people in the Outer Circle couldn’t really afford them. One woman tried to chase Zhou Zishu’s car, most likely to beg him to take her out of the city to another base, but Zhou Zishu pressed the gas, just slightly and left the woman behind. The Outer Circle was as if what Zhou Zishu had once deemed as slums had been taken to the better parts of the city. Those once known as the real slums were mostly dust and fallen houses by now. Not even the Zone reached them.

“We’re approaching another checkpoint”, Zhou Zishu warned Wen Kexing after a few minutes of driving and the man once again hid himself under Zhou Zishu’s sleeping bag. Zhou Zishu didn’t understand it, but then again, he rarely cared to understand very few things these days. Once again at the checkpoint, much less crowded and with fewer guards, he stopped his car and handed the guard his ID and the paper he had with him that would grant him to pass the gates and get back once he’d return. Then the gates were opened for him, and Zhou Zishu drove his car to the outermost circle. The Zone.

“You can return to your seat, they won’t check the IDs at the last checkpoint”, Zhou Zishu told to Wen Kexing, who finally hauled himself back to the front seat, clearly not missing the chance to hold to Zhou Zishu’s shoulder for support. Zhou Zishu drove rather slowly as there were guards patrolling on the streets. It wouldn’t be the first time a horde of people would run around the Zone, either to get to the Outer Circle, or away from zombies as sometimes they found their way through the gates, or turned in the camps.

The virus hadn’t spread at the quarantine zone all that often anymore, most likely because there weren’t all that many people in the quarantine zone any longer. There just weren’t people living outside of the cities anymore, and those who lived there, had found their way of surviving on their own and didn’t need to come to the cities. Except for occasional medical help, which they were given as the government tried to dub themselves to care for the people in need (to be fair, they did care a little more in the other bases, the one Zhou Zishu lived in was just full of shit).

The Zone wasn’t really a circle. The camps that held people that had wandered from the surrounding areas to the city were kept close to the gates, the rest of the area was sealed off, both from the walkers and the people. Right now, Zhou Zishu was driving through one of those camps close to what had once been a mall. The mall held most of the medical people as well as places for the quarantined to live, but there were tents in the area, Zhou Zishu could see a few people huddling for warmth close to a few heaters the military had brought. There were people distributing food and water and first aid kits as well as checking people’s temperatures. To be fair, there were probably more guards than there were actual people in the quarantine camp.

Wen Kexing had fallen quiet at the sight of the camp. Zhou Zishu glanced at him, noticed that he was staring at the sight, his face all serious. Zhou Zishu couldn’t figure him out. Just minutes, maybe twenty, ago he had been all laughter and jokes and flirting and wanting to get out of the city, but now he was all serious and gripping the sleeves of his coat, leather of his gloves straining. The change was so visible it was striking. It was odd. Wen Kexing held a lot of secrets, didn’t he? He had to. No one without secrets wouldn’t want to get out of the city as badly as Wen Kexing did.

Zhou Zishu stopped at the last checkpoint and the guard simply asked what business he was on, and Zhou Zishu replied with “Just the usual”, as the guard was a familiar one. He noticed how Wen Kexing glanced at the guard a little warily, clearly not fond of the military presence at the last checkpoint. The gates, high and bigger than the other ones except for the one between Inner Circle and Middle Circle, laden with barbed wire were opened for them, and then Zhou Zishu drove out.

And they were out of the city. Away from safety.

“Regretting much yet?” Zhou Zishu asked, a tiny smirk at the quirk of his mouth.
“No.”
That was all. No remarks, no laughter. Wen Kexing had gone pale, he was staring out, staring at the abandoned city they were currently driving through.

The asphalt roads were cracked, greenery was pushing through the concrete where the bombs had struck the city. It was quiet. Silent. Zhou Zishu didn’t even need to roll his window down, he already knew what he’d hear – the hollow sounds of his car’s tires against the rubble on the roads, the noise echoing against the empty, abandoned apartment buildings. And silence. Utter and pure silence, to which he hadn’t really got used to yet. This had once been a metropolitan area. This place had once been alive, always on the move, never silent. And now the silence of the concrete buildings around Zhou Zishu made him feel so very tiny.

They still had a lot of the city ahead of them, their little circles were merely at the heart of the area. Zhou Zishu drove past a mall, then another, through a shopping street with empty, broken windows. There weren’t any carcasses lying around as they had been cleaned, but Zhou Zishu knew there would still be them at the smaller streets, in the buildings, ahead of them in the road. Zhou Zishu could still remember it, how he had driven through the roads for the first time and he had had to dodge so many bodies on the streets, some of them even piled on top of each other. It had been gruesome. He had had three kids sitting at the back of his van, and he had simply told them to not look out.

They hadn’t obliged, of course they hadn’t, and now they would carry that trauma for the rest of their lives. Zhou Zishu didn’t know how those kids were doing these days, and he didn’t want to know. He had left them at the quarantine zone after spending ten days with them there. He had paid himself an apartment at the Middle Circle and hoped someone had taken the kids under their wing in the Outer Circle.

“Are there many walkers here?” Wen Kexing asked, rather quietly as he looked outside of the window.
“Not really. If there are, they’re slow. Unless they’re freshly turned. Sometimes there’s more, sometimes not. They’re mostly alone or move in small groups here”, Zhou Zishu answered.
“Not as many as in the outbreak, I assume?”
“No.”
Wen Kexing nodded. Zhou Zishu drove to a bigger street, then towards a ramp that led to the highway circling the city area, leading away from the city. The sky was grey, Zhou Zishu was pretty certain they would get a bit of rain in the next few hours. Zhou Zishu dodged the multiple cars left on the highways as people had once tried to escape on foot (and failed) and abandoned their cars on the roads. He had to zigzag through the vehicles, all covered by dust and debris.

“They haven’t cleaned up here”, Wen Kexing said, and it was only now that Zhou Zishu realized that the remnants of the corpses had started to appear from in between the cars. Some were still seated behind their wheels, some were just lying on the road. Most of them were skeletal, but those, who were still stuck inside, had yet to properly rot away.
“No, they haven’t.”
“Are they all from the beginning?”
Zhou Zishu shrugged.
“When did you get here?” Wen Kexing had clearly got over the initial shock of seeing the empty, broken-down streets and the bodies, and was back on his bothering Zhou Zishu-business.
“A few months after the outbreak.”
“Really? We’ve clearly got here around the same time, then!”
“I didn’t ask”, Zhou Zishu mumbled as he pressed the gas when he got a bit of space on the road. A bridge that went over the road had broken down in the first attack against the zombies, debris had flown all over the road.
“Don’t be so rude, A-Xu! I’m just trying to make this trip a little more enjoyable for the both of us!” Wen Kexing let out a laugh and Zhou Zishu rolled his eyes.

“Where are you even going? Why are you sitting in my car?” Zhou Zishu asked as he had to once again slow down in order to not crush any skeletons on the road, but to dodge them. As if it would have mattered at all.
“Aren’t you going to the Start Point?” Wen Kexing glanced at him, leaned against the window frame to take a better look at Zhou Zishu. It took all of Zhou Zishu’s willpower to not hit the brakes then and there (he would have if he had worn a seatbelt).

“How the fuck do you know I’m going there?” He hissed at his companion.
“I already told you. Little birds. And we have the same heading, so I figured I’d tag along”, Wen Kexing smiled.
“I’m not taking you back home or wherever the fuck you’re going.”
“You don’t need to. I just need to get to the Start Point first.”
“First? I’m not taking you anywhere else. I’m going to the Start Point to…” Pause. “Fetch something, and then I’m going to Base 47.”
“Works for me”, Wen Kexing grinned and winked at Zhou Zishu. Zhou Zishu sighed, pressed the gas once again as the road ahead was pretty much empty.

Zhou Zishu very quickly learned that Wen Kexing did not like silence. He also couldn’t really sit still, he was constantly on the move, either pushing the radio’s buttons, fidgeting on his seat or looking around. The man frowned when he found out the radio stations didn’t work (duh, the only one that somewhat worked was the one for the emergency alerts), then he fished his phone from his pocket and quickly realized that it was useless as well. The internet didn’t reach them, neither did the phone network. Those only worked in the cities where there were people actually keeping them up and working. Everything outside of the cities was dead space. Literally.

Zhou Zishu had a radio phone in the pocket of his backpack, it was mainly to listen to any emergency reports during evenings, but the line had been dead quiet for months now. Emergency reports meant new outbreaks, and new outbreaks usually meant bases falling. Sometimes he switched through the radio lines, tried to find other people who were looking for a way to safety, sometimes he could help them, sometimes not. Although, that had happened more often in the first two years of the apocalypse, the last time Zhou Zishu had had to guide someone to the right direction towards safety had been many months ago.

All in all, life had got… normal. Not normal. People, what was left of them, had got used to living in cramped areas in cities or military bases, some lived on their own outside of the cities and relied on themselves in terms of protection. People had found ways to make a living, life had got as normal as it could in the given situation and the virus still running rampant. People had found ways to survive, that was probably it. Zhou Zishu rarely heard complaints now of how they couldn’t get any fruits from the other side of the world anymore. All they had were the factories close to the city. The factories, those that they really needed, still somewhat worked, providing the people still alive with goods and basic necessities and places to work at. Occasionally the military would transport needed things from farther away. They always had huge trucks with military escorts coming to the city once a month to bring necessities for living, and the rest was up to the people. Zhou Zishu knew there were people driving their own trucks in and out, bringing stuff from other, better bases and then selling the things they brought. Stuff from overseas couldn’t be transported between the continents or from far away, not because it was impossible, but because people just didn’t dare to put their lives at risk.

Except for Zhou Zishu, apparently.

“So, do you come here often?” Wen Kexing finally broke the silence, turning on his seat in a way that he could fix his gaze on Zhou Zishu. Zhou Zishu merely glared at him, before focusing on the road again. The city around them was slowly turning to suburbs, then what once had been the slums. It was quiet, a few raindrops hit the windshield. Fall was slowly closing in on them. That meant colder weather, which in turn meant the virus slowing down. Again.

“A-Xu, give me something to work on! How old are you, where do you come from? Do you have any family? Do you have other jobs besides this one?”
“Old enough, from nowhere, no and no”, Zhou Zishu sighed.
“Fair enough. Be grumpy.” Wen Kexing crossed his arms on his chest, still not looking away from Zhou Zishu.
Perhaps Zhou Zishu felt an inkling of something tugging his guts, and he didn’t like that feeling. Shame, maybe? He didn’t have a word for it.
“I’m a little over 30. And I’m far away from here, from the north. I haven’t heard of my family since the outbreak but I doubt any of them are alive. We were in different cities when it happened. And I work as the errand boy you mentioned.”

Maybe this was very odd to Zhou Zishu. Maybe he had been traveling completely alone for the past four years (with the exceptions of a few times), and this was odd for him. Out of ordinary. It felt like Wen Kexing was violating his personal space by just sitting on the seat next to him. Zhou Zishu didn’t share things about himself to anyone. He didn’t talk to anyone, except for some daily greetings with his neighbors and the occasional meetings with Han Ying. He had never shared things about his past, and he would never – hell, he could never tell this guy he had worked as an assassin for most of his life, had been brought up as one ever since he had been very little. You didn’t choose to be an assassin, you were brought up as one, that’s what his dad had always told him. And of him Zhou Zishu hadn’t heard in years. The last text from him had been ‘survive’, and then the lines had gone down, and when Zhou Zishu after months had finally got his hands on a working phone, he had never received an answer from his father.

“That’s nice, we are about the same age, then!”
Zhou Zishu had figured out that much, even though he really didn’t get the white hair situation Wen Kexing had going on. Then again, the rich of the Inner Circle did very odd things to flaunt their money now that they couldn’t buy five different houses in five different continents.
“And I also lost my family to the virus. Watched my dad rip my mother’s throat open.”
Zhou Zishu glanced at Wen Kexing just to see if he was joking. He wasn’t. There wasn’t laughter on the high of his browbone. In fact, his gaze was a little glassy, fixated on the window on Zhou Zishu’s side. Then he seemed to snap back to present and continue as if he hadn’t just unloaded years of trauma on Zhou Zishu.

“And nowadays I own a couple of smaller businesses. They’re not all that successful, but…”
“But you were fortunate enough to be born in a rich family?”
Wen Kexing didn’t answer, just grinned at Zhou Zishu’s remark. Zhou Zishu had been correct. Rich family, or illegal ways to get money. Stealing from banks was an option, drugs were an option, everything was an option as the military was busy keeping the zombies out and people in, and cops barely existed. Occasionally the cities were a chaos, especially if you knew how to look past their façades.

“Are other Duan Pengju’s errand boys as sexy as you are, Zhou Xu?”
Ah, so they were back again on this topic. Very copious amounts of flirting was apparently one of Wen Kexing’s ways of changing the topic, or to shield his identity, or to divert Zhou Zishu’s attention elsewhere. And here he was again, thinking in ways that he had adopted through his years of training to become a man-hunter. Zhou Zishu hated it. He hated that he couldn’t just throw it away and analyze whichever situation he was in like a normal fucking person.
“Do you know how to have a normal conversation?” Zhou Zishu decided he’d no longer let Wen Kexing’s stupid comments get the best of him.
“What! To be fair, I was expecting someone… not you. Someone old and gnarly and that smells like gasoline.”
“I smell like gasoline.” It was true, Zhou Zishu had accidentally spilled some on his boots as he had refueled the car.
“But you make it sexy! C’mon, hair in a half bun and a leather jacket and combat boots, what isn’t there to love?”

Yeah, what wasn’t there to love? That Zhou Zishu had found himself thinking in his teenage years, only to understand that he wasn’t one of those people deserving of love. Only to understand he wasn’t one of those people who even had time for it.

Zhou Zishu simply rolled his eyes, glanced to his left. The suburbs were about to be left behind, too, and now there were just scarce farmhouses around them, left to rot ages ago. Wasteland. Endless wasteland. Overgrown fields, fallen utility poles, so much decay. It all looked so… normal in the daylight. Abandoned cars had been pushed to the side of the roads in order for the bigger trucks and army vehicles to get through. There were piles of skeletons, but no movement. Zhou Zishu didn’t see any movement. And for that, he was glad.

“Okay, next question. What’s the thing you miss the most about the time before all of this?”
Zhou Zishu sighed, very deeply before shrugging.
“A-Xu, you’re no fun!”
Zhou Zishu was starting to regret not kicking Wen Kexing out of his car before leaving the garage. This was going to be a really fucking long trip to the Start Point, he was certain of it by now.

***

Cities after cities, Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing drove through the highway towards the Start Point. Everything was abandoned, except for the one base far in the horizon they had passed a few hours ago. They had stopped two times, once at an abandoned gas station as Zhou Zishu had checked the pumps for any leftover gas, there had been some and Wen Kexing had examined the insides of the station, only to find every shelf empty. Then they had had a short lunch break and were on the move again. After that they had stopped at the center of a smaller town that Zhou Zishu knew to be long abandoned, void of any sort of life (except for a few deer they saw, and perhaps that had been a pleasant surprise, it seemed like wildlife was returning from their hideouts back closer to people as most of wildlife had run from the virus as fast as they had been able to). Wen Kexing had seemed a little cautious walking around the city when Zhou Zishu had looked for more bullets to his guns and arrows to his crossbow from that one store, but otherwise he hadn’t seemed too… fazed.

Zhou Zishu had also learned that Wen Kexing just couldn’t shut up. In the span of the day Zhou Zishu had been presented with more information on Wen Kexing than he would have wanted to know. And it wasn’t even stupid facts that he had learned, it was more of the things he saw from in between the lines. Wen Kexing avoided talking about himself. He talked about life. He talked about people in the Inner Circle, of recent rumors he had heard, of the conspiracy theories surrounding the whole thing around them. He talked about his acquaintances, but gave never too much information of them for Zhou Zishu to really make any connections on how they related to Wen Kexing and his life. He talked about this and that, but never about anything that had something too closely to do with himself. He talked about recent events. About the weather. About how Zhou Zishu’s car was really cozy, but could use some cleaning (Zhou Zishu had given him a death glare). And then he had gone on and on about how killing was hard for him, but he had done it a few times, he had had to, he wouldn’t have survived otherwise! Which made Zhou Zishu realize that Wen Kexing, too, had had to flee over five years ago from wherever he had lived.

But now, for two hours, Zhou Zishu had finally got to drive in silence. Wen Kexing had dozed off against the backrest of his seat, arms crossed in front of him. He snored, just ever so slightly. The sound was somewhat calming, and Zhou Zishu didn’t like the fact that he found it calming. Another person’s presence shouldn’t have felt calming to him, because too many people always meant more chances of getting caught by the walkers.

The sun was slowly starting to set and Zhou Zishu’s back was starting to ache, so he started to look for any spots to pull his car over for the night. He didn’t want to drive during the nights, he had found out that it was safer to stay put. Zombies didn’t care if it was night or day, they wandered around all the time, but the animals were more active in the night and Zhou Zishu also wasn’t so keen on the idea of dozing against the wheel and crashing into a curb.

They had passed by a small town a while ago, and Zhou Zishu knew they weren’t all that far from another one, so as the forest they had driven through turned to an endless plateau of fields, he decided to pull the car to a smaller road and stop it there. Wen Kexing woke up to the motion with an audible gasp:
“Where are we? Did something happen?”
Zhou Zishu pulled the hand brake up and turned the engine off.
“We’re staying here for the night. The Start Point is still at least a few-night drive away, and I need sleep.”
“Oh. Alright.”
“And food.”
“Sounds good.”

Zhou Zishu opened the door on his side of the car and listened to his surroundings. Wen Kexing opened his door as well and slid down on the ground, his shoes scraping against the gravel.
“Be quiet”, Zhou Zishu mumbled at him, and was half-certain Wen Kexing would have complained to him about not having even said anything, if it wasn’t for the serious look on his face. Quietly Zhou Zishu stood up, let the clean air fill his lungs. He didn’t smell anything weird, just nature. The walkers smelled like death, they could be smelled from miles away if the wind was right and there were a lot of them. Zhou Zishu stretched his aching limbs, he didn’t hear anything out of ordinary, just the little wind trifling through the trees. He circled the van, walked around for a moment and checked the curbs on either side of the small road. Nothing. Or rather, no one.

“There won’t be any walkers here now, would there?” Wen Kexing’s voice sounded a bit small.
“What, you’re scared of them?” Zhou Zishu asked as he approached the van again and pulled the trunk open. In the hue of the orange sunset he could see blackened parts on the ground and knew someone had been camping in this exact spot, too (could be Zhou Zishu, he had lost the memory of how many different places he had been to).
“No, just thought to ask.” Wen Kexing had his hands behind his back as he peeped into the van from behind Zhou Zishu’s shoulder. Zhou Zishu took his tiny camp stove, a camping chair, a bottle of water and everything that he’d need to make a somewhat-satisfactory meal that definitely did not taste all that good but had kept him going through the years. No, cooking was not his forte, and even less so with the ingredients he had. He had a few cans of something that resembled meat and some preserved vegetables and that was fine for him. He pointed towards the other camping chair at the back of the van for Wen Kexing. Perhaps he wasn’t all that fond of his company, but he still had his manners and wasn’t going to let him sit on the ground.

“The walkers gather into hordes because they go mostly after sound and movement. They rarely wander this far from the cities, unless they move in big groups. And I mean big. And if there was a big group of zombies close, we’d already know it”, Zhou Zishu said, just to ease Wen Kexing’s mind as he was constantly looking around. He could feel Wen Kexing’s eyes on him as he sat down on his little and a bit creaky stool and started to load the ingredients into the pot.
“Are you seriously going to eat that?”
Zhou Zishu could hear laughter in Wen Kexing’s voice.
“Yes?” He glanced at the man who sat next to him. Thank god he had the brains to sit far enough.
“Suit yourself.” Wen Kexing then seemed to remember that he had his bag still in the car and fetched it, taking out his own dinner. Which wasn’t even all that better, some squashed sandwiches and water.
“Can we drop by some store tomorrow just to see if they have… anything?” Wen Kexing asked. Zhou Zishu glanced at him again as he stirred his sort-of-stew in the pot.
“I literally asked you as we left if you were ready for at least a week’s trip.”
“And I said that you probably have enough for me. But I’m not eating that”, Wen Kexing pointed at the thing in front of Zhou Zishu.
“You don’t really have any options now, do you?” Zhou Zishu was getting annoyed again. Or perhaps annoyed wasn’t the word, just… bothered that someone was here to pick on his horrible cooking. And living. And everything.
“A-Xu! I have taste buds, I’m not touching that!”
“Then starve.”
“I have, and I’d rather not do that again. C’mon, I can cook, definitely better than you, just get me some spices and preserves and I can create magic!”

Zhou Zishu glanced at Wen Kexing again. His eyes looked almost to be sparkling in the blue light of the gas flame, he had an expectant quirk in the corner of his mouth. His white hair looked orange in the setting sun.
“We’re avoiding cities”, Zhou Zishu then mumbled.
“But we’re going to stop by at gas stations, right? And there has to be some small cities in our way.”
“There are”, Zhou Zishu admitted as he took his little pot from the stove and turned the stove off before diving into his dinner. “There are maps in the pocket behind the driver’s seat.”

Zhou Zishu waited for Wen Kexing to fetch the said maps. The man spread one of them in between them and it took a minute for Zhou Zishu to find where they were at.
“It’s odd seeing all the old names in these… Now it’s just bases and numbers”, Wen Kexing mumbled, Zhou Zishu gave him a hum as an answer.
“There’s the Start Point, that’s where we are headed”, he pointed at the city area still far away from them. It wasn’t even that far, to be fair, but they’d have to take a lot of detours while getting there.
“Those are on our way tomorrow”, Zhou Zishu pointed at the few tiny towns and the road they would take.
“Great! Let’s visit one of them to see if they have some spices. That’s all I need”, Wen Kexing smiled, all wide and delighted. Zhou Zishu simply shook his head in sort of a “fine, I don’t care”- way before returning to his food.

And there they sat. Munching on their food, the map now on the ground in between them, staring at the endless fields at the opposite side of the road as the sun set below the horizon. They were at a crossroads, it was completely quiet around them, the only sounds Zhou Zishu could hear were Wen Kexing’s breaths and the slight zephyr around them. Something tiny rustled in the bushes next to the road but Zhou Zishu had heard enough approaching zombies to know it was nothing dangerous in there. Wen Kexing, on the other hand, clearly didn’t know that.

“Where were you when it happened?” He asked, broke the silence, tried to desperately fill it. Zhou Zishu didn’t need to ask further questions to know what Wen Kexing meant. He had heard it so many times in the last few years. Where were you when it happened? When you first heard about it? When the world around you started collapsing?
“Training”, Zhou Zishu answered, almost done with his stew. “I got the emergency alert on a radio that the first cases had started to appear in my hometown three days after the big outbreaks.” Three outbreaks. First the Start Point, then two others in other continents. Roughly at the same time. That had got people really talking. “After that it spread so rapidly that I just had to… flee.” And fight. And all that. They all had heard the same stories a hundred times. “How about you?” Zhou Zishu asked, just out of courtesy.
“I was out and strolling through a market area when it… started to spread.”
Zhou Zishu nodded; he didn’t ask further questions. The memory obviously was hurting Wen Kexing, that was visible from his voice and the way his other fist had balled up. Hell, it would be hurtful to anyone, seeing your parents turn and tear each other apart and then probably reach for you. Zhou Zishu hadn’t seen any close people turning (not that he had ever had many close people in the first place), but the strangers were enough to fuel his nightmares.

“What do you think started it?” Wen Kexing asked, then, changing the topic. Again. Away from himself. Zhou Zishu shrugged, uncapping his bottle of water and taking a drink.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Maybe nature finally got sick of us and decided to kick us out of the ecosystem.”
Wen Kexing let out a laugh at that. It wasn’t a happy laugh, it was more of an uncomfortable one.
“If only…”, he muttered under his breath, barely audible.
“How so?” Zhou Zishu questioned.
“Nothing. It’s nothing”, Wen Kexing hurried to answer. He kept his gaze in front of him, didn’t let it wander back to Zhou Zishu.

After a few moments of silence, when the skies started deepening towards a violet hue, Zhou Zishu finally stood up.
“We should probably get some sleep”, he said and took his little camp stove again, packed them all away in the back of his van. Then he took the spare sleeping bag he had and handed it to Wen Kexing, who thanked him, once again clearly in his right mind as Zhou Zishu noted the mischievous glimmer in the corner of his eye. Then Zhou Zishu hauled himself in the back of his van, shucked his boots off as well as his leather jacket and sat on the mattress on the left side of the van.
“Close the door after you. There’s a pillow on the shelf if you need one”, he said. Wen Kexing followed after Zhou Zishu’s lead, pulled the back door of the van close after him, took his shoes and coat off, and then tried to make himself comfortable on the not-so-very comfortable mattress and cocoon himself into the sleeping bag.

The dark-tinted windows let barely any light in, but Zhou Zishu wouldn’t have needed any to navigate in his little van, he knew the insides of it by heart. Wen Kexing was another story, though.
“If you need light, there’s a battery-powered lantern on the shelf next to you.”
“A-Xu, are you worried about me? I’m not afraid of the dark.”
Zhou Zishu could almost hear the grin in Wen Kexing’s voice, and he was glad he couldn’t see his face. He fumbled around, managed to get himself into his sleeping bag that was always spread out on his mattress as he was too lazy to put it away during his trips. He didn’t need to, he always traveled alone.

And that was why this situation was so fucking weird to him.

For a moment, Zhou Zishu laid there, eyes still open, staring at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure which way to turn, or how to sleep with another warm body next to him, a little too close as the mattresses weren’t all that wide.
“Feels almost familiar”, Wen Kexing mumbled as he shifted a little, accidentally brushing against Zhou Zishu’s shoulder. Zhou Zishu flinched away from the touch and covered it with a snort; the thin mattress was probably extremely uncomfortable compared to the one Wen Kexing usually slept on.

Why was he here? Zhou Zishu couldn’t just help but wonder. He could have asked, of course, but that felt too… intimate. To get out of the circles with a stranger meant that Wen Kexing had something he was ready to die for in the Start Point. Zhou Zishu couldn’t understand what. According to all sources, the pandemic had started with a bang – there weren’t any survivors in the entire city area of the Start Point as the virus had spread so rapidly. The entire city had been taken over in a matter of hours. Hours. It was insane. Thank god it had slowed down, now it took anything from 1 to 3 days for the infected to turn. But still, Wen Kexing wanted to travel to the Start Point. Why? What was there for him?

He was probably here just to sight-see. Or perhaps he was a journalist. One of those investigating ones.

There were small noises coming from outside, the wind seemed to have picked up a little and something rustled close to the car. Wen Kexing flinched:
“What was that?”
“The wind. Some tiny animal, probably”, Zhou Zishu answered, tired.
“Not walkers?”
“I can assure you, you will learn to differentiate between walkers and wildlife”, Zhou Zishu mumbled, turned his back to Wen Kexing.
“How?” Wen Kexing sounded a little distressed.
“They walk. And make this gurgling sound or growl. They sound heavy.”
“But that sounded heavy!”
“No it didn’t.”
“It did! A-Xu, what do we do if there are walkers outside?”

Zhou Zishu sighed, closed his eyes. A nuisance. Just as he had thought from the first impression.
“Do you have any idea how heavily armed this vehicle is? How thick the walls are? Even the windows are bulletproof.”
Wen Kexing didn’t answer. Instead, he flinched at a new, tiny noise that sounded from inside of the car.
“Panic when I panic, alright? We’re in the middle of nowhere. Only thrice have I met walkers this far from the city”, Zhou Zishu said.
“You’ll protect me, got it”, Wen Kexing let out a slightly nervous laugh.
“No- You know what, fine. Just shut up, I’m trying to sleep.” Anything to get the man to shut the hell up. Zhou Zishu wanted to sleep.
“Okay. Good night, A-Xu.”

Zhou Zishu didn’t answer. Instead, he nuzzled his head against the pillow, tried to shut the world off for the next few hours until sunlight (or Wen Kexing) would wake him up. There was another tiny sound, as there usually were when you were surrounded by nature, and Wen Kexing flinched again before taking a deep breath. He had been through something. He had faced something, Zhou Zishu was certain of it by now. No one who hadn’t had to fear for one’s life didn’t flinch at small sounds like that. No one was that scared of… well, the dark.

Zhou Zishu had nearly dozed off, until
“A-Xu?”
Zhou Zishu didn’t answer, shut up, be quiet, sleep is the one thing that keeps me sane when driving through these endless wastelands,
“A-Xu? Are you alive?”
“What?” Zhou Zishu groaned, turned slightly.
“Sorry. I couldn’t hear your breathing and thought you had died.”
Was this man serious?

Maybe he was. And he clearly wasn’t comfortable with silence. Zhou Zishu turned to his back again, keeping his eyes still shut. If this wasn’t going to get Wen Kexing to shut up, then he’d kick the man out and give him a tent to sleep in.

Minutes passed, Zhou Zishu began to doze off again as he was so used to sleeping on the uncomfortable mattress of his little van. To be fair, he slept better on the road than in his own bed back at his apartment. Maybe it was the knowledge of being on the move, not stuck in one place. A bit of rustling, a little bit of shifting, something touched Zhou Zishu’s shoulder, and it took a moment for him to realize, hat it was probably Wen Kexing’s own shoulder.

Zhou Zishu decided to not move away from the touch.