Chapter 42: A Stable Life

The world outside was growing increasingly desolate. Wild boars from the mountains had begun appearing in herds within the city limits. Xiao Guang even spotted a few squirrels leaping across abandoned cars. Winter was practically around the corner—what on earth were they doing coming into the city instead of hurrying off to gather pine nuts?

Fixating on a small wild boar, Xiao Guang slammed his foot on the gas accelerator and drove right at it. Unsurprisingly, a thud echoed from the front of the truck, and the little boar tumbled away, letting out a pitiful squeal.

After taking a spin around the city, he had spotted these boars on his way back, patiently waiting half an hour before finding this opportunity.

His home actually still had some supplies of preserved meat and the like, but Xiao Guang now understood the importance of provisions. As for the larger wild boars, it was hard to say; those creatures ate anything, and Xiao Guang worried they might have fed on zombies.

This little boar didn't look very big, at least giving him the comfort of lying to himself that it hadn't eaten any yet. Hitting it to death, dragging it back home, skinning it, and tossing it into the underground freezer was something Xiao Guang could do without a shred of stress.

A lot had changed on the streets. Wandering zombies were becoming scarcer, and nobody knew where they had all gone. The occasional one spotted was mostly standing motionless in place, staring up at the sky as if deep in some unknown contemplation.

Xiao Guang knew zombies gathered in groups, but why they gathered, or what they did after gathering, was completely beyond him. A few days ago, he had pried open a warehouse and found it packed to the brim with zombies, turning him to stone on the spot. Xiao Guang realized he still struggled to adapt to the feeling of being stared at by a multitude of eyes, and it wasn't until Bae Joo-hyun dragged an iron chain forward that he snapped out of it.

"Get the hell out of here, all of you~~"

"Get out of where, my ancestral goddess, look at how many zombies are right across from us."

Xiao Guang picked up Bae Joo-hyun and ran back to the truck, expertly stepping on the gas to escape. He had to admit, Bae Joo-hyun was truly fearless, but Xiao Guang was also genuinely terrified.

Ever since that incident, Xiao Guang cherished Min-ju even more. Anywhere Min-ju said she was afraid of was usually teeming with zombies, and Xiao Guang made it a point never to go near those places.

Seoul was vast to Xiao Guang, and the residual supplies left behind were astronomical. Every time Xiao Guang went out, he would fill a truck to the brim and return, making his life remarkably stable. Most of the time, he holed up in his villa, occasionally heading out for zero-dollar shopping sprees—which was actually quite fun.

If all humans vanished, how long would it take for the Earth to revert to its primitive state? That was a question many people found themselves curious about, but Xiao Guang wasn't curious at all. Given the current condition of downtown Seoul, Xiao Guang felt that nature's capacity far exceeded human imagination.

Looking at the small blades of grass thrusting up through the ground, and the cars blanketed in layers of dust, Xiao Guang figured that in a few more decades, all these traces would be thoroughly buried. Perhaps those towering skyscrapers would remain the ultimate lingering monuments of human civilization.

"Watch the singing, right."

"Watch a movie."

Xiao Guang was genuinely puzzled as to why Kang Hye-won, despite having been beaten by Bae Joo-hyun before, still dared to talk back to her and even muster the courage to snatch the remote control right out of Bae Joo-hyun's hands.

Min-ju would never do such a thing. Just like now, she was sitting right between Bae Joo-hyun and Hye-won, squeezed back and forth by the two zombie girls.

Xiao Guang didn't pay much attention to these matters. It was a good thing they had learned how to turn on the television and the disc player; sitting quietly on the couch was infinitely better than suddenly standing frozen in some dark corner.

Xiao Guang had always wondered why zombies loved to suddenly stand motionless in certain spots. Sometimes it was in the middle of a wide-open space, sometimes facing a tree, or like the ones in his house, standing rigidly in a corner of the room.

Xiao Guang had plenty of things to do—and naturally, not meaningless tasks like sweeping the courtyard. Lately, he had been studying car repair. There were now seven or eight cars parked in front of the villa, and Xiao Guang had already mastered changing tires and replacing batteries.

The book in his hands, *Comprehensive Guide to Small Car Repair*, had been scavenged from a bookstore. According to the text inside, familiarizing himself with common automotive malfunctions was the direction of his studies.

Strictly speaking, Xiao Guang wasn't short of cars; not only were they strewn all over the streets, but any random building with an underground parking lot held plenty of them. Yet Xiao Guang still wanted to learn. He couldn't hole up in this place forever; in the event he ran into trouble while traveling and there were no replacement vehicles nearby, he at least needed to be able to handle things simply on his own.

Skills never weigh you down. Working on cars for a bit, then heading over to the energy base to study alongside a book—Xiao Guang's life was remarkably fulfilling.

Why would a shut-in suddenly become so hardworking and organize so many tasks? He had the three zombie girls to thank for that. If Xiao Guang didn't find things to do for himself and spent all day idling in the house, he would sooner or later actively turn into a zombie himself.

Why didn't the three girls bite him, yet he could still turn into a zombie? The reason was simple: the girls were getting more vibrant and dew-kissed by the day.

Food is heaven to man; this adage was an absolute truth. No matter how formidable that ancient virus was or what beyond-recognition abilities it awakened in people, at the end of the day, the body still required its most basic energy intake.

Yet once infected, zombies clearly forgot many fundamental skills, such as cooking and eating. Xiao Guang suspected that it was this lack of energy that drove the zombies crazy; in other words, back in ancient times, wasn't it true that starving people would resort to eating people?

Xiao Guang had seen zombies gnawing on wild boars, and he had seen wild boars gnawing on zombies. He felt that at their core, both things were identical—nothing more than the body's desperate demand for energy.

Now that the three zombie girls were fed to their hearts' content every day, he no longer had to worry about them biting him. Instead, while they had no desire to bite him, he was practically dying to bite them.

What kind of person was Bae Joo-hyun? Her fans called her the visual queen.

And Min-ju and Kang Hye-won? The moment these two first appeared on a survival show, they were singled out together as representatives of pure visual royalty.

Given Xiao Guang's novice status—someone whose aesthetic standards were stirred simply by catching a glimpse of a fellow student—living every single day surrounded by these three gorgeous girls meant that exercising the extreme self-restraint not to seek out some comfort in the dead of night was already his absolute limit.

Both Durex and Okamoto sat right beside his pillow, their sturdy outer packaging practically worn thin from Xiao Guang constantly touching them. But as much as he wanted to, he didn't dare. Even with protection, people still had a probability of having children; the risks of indulging his desires were undeniably much higher than that.

They had been infected with the virus and turned into zombies, and he could take care of them. But if he turned, who would take care of them?

In other words, making himself look like what they were now was something Xiao Guang still couldn't accept. Their simple, elementary thinking capabilities might look cute, but if he truly lost his food source, Xiao Guang knew he would inevitably turn into one of those grey-eyed creatures wandering the streets.

Mind you, the malice of a child is pure malice. If his intellect was reduced to theirs, he knew that driven by sheer starvation, the outcome would be completely unacceptable to him.

"No."

Min-ju raised her hand to block Xiao Guang's advance. Xiao Guang glanced at Min-ju's posture, switched hands, and patted Hye-won beside her instead. *Hye-won is bigger than your melons, what do you have to be proud of?*

Hye-won looked down at the hand resting on her chest, her gaze naturally drifting toward the cup on the dining table. But before she could even open her mouth, Xiao Guang's hand had already withdrawn.

"We're having rice for dinner. Can you help me pick some vegetables?"

Xiao Guang's words met with absolute silence. This came as no surprise; every single time Xiao Guang tried to get them to help out, aside from the simplest task of carrying things, they completely ignored everything else.

"Want to pet and drink milk?"

"Can't drink it right now."

Xiao Guang's hand was grabbed by Hye-won. Xiao Guang refused, and Hye-won, feeling unhappy, mimicked Min-ju by guarding her chest with her arm. Xiao Guang looked at her, then back at Min-ju, stood up, and walked over to sit beside Bae Joo-hyun.

Pulling Bae Joo-hyun into his embrace, he slid both hands through the gaps of her mascot costume—everything went unsaid.

The two of you want to negotiate terms with me? Do you even have the capital for it?

I happen to have Bae Joo-hyun, and she's the most obedient of all.

"I miss Seulgi~~"

Hearing Bae Joo-hyun's words and looking at the television screen, Xiao Guang's hands froze. Bae Joo-hyun must have recovered quite a few memories recently; she was already able to speak Seulgi's name, though every time she uttered it, Xiao Guang felt a pang of sorrow for her.

In a bastard of a world like this, who knew where Seulgi was, whether she was dead or alive—it was utterly impossible to predict.

"She must really miss me too~~ Right."