Chapter 12: Shi Changyuan is Surprisingly a Pretty Good Guy…
Shi Changyuan looked at the cat cub before him, whose eyes were curved into crescents, showing no hint of reluctance. The light in his own eyes instantly dimmed.
He didn’t answer Lin Ling’s words directly. Instead, he took out a few pieces of beef jerky, placed them in the little zombie’s hand, and spoke in his usual tone.
“Lingling, wait here for me for a moment. I’m going to give the data to Old Duan.”
“Okay~”
The little zombie didn’t understand the meeting and couldn’t make much sense of it. He was worried that if he went along, he would just be standing there like a statue again. It was better to sit comfortably in the conference room.
However, Shi Changyuan hadn’t expected that the moment he stepped out of the conference room, he would see Old Duan already waiting for him outside.
“Come, let’s talk.”
A glint appeared in Shi Changyuan’s eyes. Before he could speak, Old Duan continued, “It’s not that this old man wants to break up a happy couple. It’s just that this old man is very worried and wants to vet you on behalf of the child’s Auntie Man.”
Shi Changyuan knew about Old Duan’s misunderstanding, but he didn’t explain. He just listened as Old Duan continued.
“Sigh, Little Shi, I know you’re very capable, but do you know what people outside say about you?”
At this, Old Duan sighed incessantly. The words “what a waste of talent” were written all over his face.
“To put it nicely, they say there’s a thin line between a genius and a madman.”
“If you’re still like you were before, I definitely wouldn’t feel at ease entrusting Lin Ling to you.”
Old Duan looked at the man before him, his words a subtle hint. “As for Lin Ling’s side, I’ve made the offer. What you want to do now is up to you to figure out.”
With that, Old Duan took the meeting data and called Miao Xue out of the conference room.
“I heard you guys talking outside.”
The moment Shi Changyuan entered, he saw the little zombie chewing away, having stuffed several pieces of jerky into his mouth. His cheeks were puffed out like a food-hoarding hamster.
“But the door is too thick, I couldn’t hear clearly.”
The little zombie swallowed the jerky, then reached into Shi Changyuan’s pocket and asked curiously, “What did you guys talk about?”
“We talked about some things from the past.”
Faced with the little zombie’s question, Shi Changyuan smiled and confessed, “Old Duan is worried I can’t take good care of you.”
“Huh? Why?”
Shi Changyuan leaned against the table next to Lin Ling’s hand, looking down at the young man.
He chuckled softly, ruffled Lin Ling’s hair again, and teased, “Probably afraid I’ll go out hunting for you and end up dead outside.”
“You don’t go out hunting for me, and I don’t need you to take care of me.”
Clearly, the little zombie didn’t understand the human’s metaphor.
“I used to be the one who hunted for Auntie Man. I’m very capable. At my worst out there, the most that would happen is my clothes getting dirty.”
The “ordinary human” before him had no abilities and no great physical strength. Hunting would indeed be much more difficult for him.
If he really went outside the human base, he would be surrounded by zombies in minutes. Forget hunting; even protecting himself would be difficult.
The great Zombie Emperor had his own standards of judgment, completely forgetting how Shi Changyuan had single-handedly captured him and brought him back to the human base.
“Alright, we should go back.”
Lin Ling finished the jerky and stood up, saying to Shi Changyuan, “Today is probably the last day I’ll be occupying your room. I can move into my new place tomorrow.”
“Sister Miao Xue told me to go pack my things early.”
“Alright.”
Shi Changyuan didn’t raise any objections, which made the little zombie look at him strangely. But before any odd feelings could form, he pushed them to the back of his mind.
After all, he was the one who had taken over someone else’s room and bed, and they had even had a disagreement over whether he could eat snacks in the room.
It was normal for him to agree!
Besides, from the beginning, Shi Changyuan had planned to keep him in his private lab.
And he still had a tracking device on his neck.
When Lin Ling happily went back to pack his things, he realized he had almost no personal belongings. After rummaging around, all he found was the large box of snacks from yesterday.
“Wait, I do have something!”
The little zombie suddenly ran up to Shi Changyuan and held out his hand. “Where are my backpack and keys? They weren’t on me when I woke up.”
“In the lab.”
Shi Changyuan smiled. “Let’s go get them tomorrow when you move.”
**
The next day, Lin Ling and Shi Changyuan, carrying a large box of snacks, took the private elevator and arrived at the lab in five minutes. They retrieved his backpack and two keys.
One was his original key, and the other was for the new apartment.
“So which way do we go now?” the little zombie asked.
“We have to take the public route.”
The public route was the one everyone used to get to and from work, just like the cafeteria everyone went to.
Lin Ling had been excited all night, thinking he should move early. But he ended up right in the middle of everyone’s morning rush hour. He waited for an elevator for over ten minutes, and it still hadn’t come down.
And when the elevator doors opened, it was a sea of heads, packed like zombies.
Everyone swarmed out. Just as Lin Ling thought he could take an empty elevator back up to his apartment, he found that the elevator would continue to go down.
At every floor, more and more humans would get on.
At first, others saw Shi Changyuan standing next to Lin Ling and hesitated to get on. But under the pressure of being late, almost everyone chose to brave it and step on.
The elevator stopped at every floor. After nearly twenty minutes, Lin Ling finally reached the floor where his apartment was located.
The winding corridors and space-saving layout, with almost identical doors, made it take a long time for Lin Ling just to find the apartment number.
But the further he walked, the more he felt that something was wrong.
He seemed to have seen this layout before.
“If I go forward and turn, is it a dead end with a big window and lots of sunlight?”
“Mm, this is a corner unit in the single-person apartment area. It gets much better light and is quieter.”
“Is it the same kind as your room?” Lin Ling instantly realized.
“So smart.”
After turning into the dead end, there was only one door, making it a “private household” of sorts. The layout was almost identical to Shi Changyuan’s apartment, with the only difference being the lack of a private elevator at the entrance.
“So this will be my apartment from now on?”
Lin Ling happily opened the door, stood at the entrance, and scanned the room, only to find something very wrong.
Why did it feel like the innermost wall of his living room was missing?
The little zombie immediately dashed over and confirmed that his living room was indeed missing a wall, connecting it to someone else’s place.
And that place was incredibly familiar. It was the place he had lived in for half a month. Even the empty breakfast plate on the table hadn’t been cleared away yet.
Lin Ling: !!!!
What is going on?!
Lin Ling turned to look at Shi Changyuan. Before he could ask, the other man spoke first.
“If this wasn’t connected, Lingling would have to take the public route to and from work.”
“And the meal delivery robot wouldn’t be able to get through, which means Lingling would have to eat at the cafeteria.”
The human had a magnanimous expression.
“If Lingling is my neighbor, then you can also enjoy the privileges of the chef and the private elevator.”
The little zombie compared the route to the lab with the route he had just taken and instantly made his choice.
He thought about it for a long time and then nodded in agreement.
Oh my.
How is Shi Changyuan actually so nice!
