“We could try poking him with a stick,” Zan Xinyi says.

  There’s a new bruise on her shoulder where a wheelchair wheel had clipped her on its way down, and she really wants to hit something.

  “Let’s not do that,” Wei Shengyuan says, shifting uneasily in his new wheelchair. It’s a better brand than the last one, less a ‘use this in the hospital’ and more intended for the active but disabled. “It might be a zombie.”

  “It’s not a zombie,” Zhang Hai says casually. “Xiao Ma takes bites out of those. Always looking for their cores.”

  Zan Xinyi takes a step away from Zhang Hai’s dog.

  It just wags its tail.

  “He probably needs medical treatment,” Jiang Jin says worriedly. “Maybe we should call Shi Yihua’s group back, try and get them to take him back to their healer.”

  Zan Xinyi eyes the unconscious guy, and then once more considers his uniform.

  “Hey,” she says. “Do you think this is one of the men that the other military guys mentioned?”

  “The ones with a boun--” Zan Xinyi claps a hand over Jiang Jin’s mouth. Not in front of the salesman. He’s actually way better suited to collect the credits than them.

  “Probably,” Wei Shengyuan says. “But if you’re thinking of driving him all the way back to the base, you’re crazy.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time, even if they let us get close enough to drop him off,” Zan Xinyi says. “The game deadline is too short for more than one day long excursions.”

  “So, just hand him over to Zhang Hai,” Wei Shengyuan says. “If we can’t handle it, we can’t handle it.”

  “Hey, I don’t want an unconscious mystery guy either,” Zhang Hai says. The minute the Pleasant Hills crew has gone, he’s back to smoking.

  It’s hard to maintain that he’s doing things without a care in the world when she thinks that he didn’t want to smoke around a kid.

  Whatever. Zhang Hai is not her problem.

  “We’re taking him with us,” Zan Xinyi says. “Throw him in the back.”

  “Huh?”

  “You just said it. None of us can approach the base without complications. So, obviously--” She heaves the guy up over her shoulder. Ugh, he’s even heavier than Wei Shengyuan, and his clothes are soaking wet. “Here’s our guy.”

  “Failed a scanner check?” Zhang Hai says, amused. “Welcome to the Reclaimed!”

  Zan Xinyi looks at him.

  Everything about him is completely baseline. No animal features. No extra fingers. Not even any extra eyes.

  “Do people get mad at you when you say that,” she says.

  “Only the ones without a sense of humor.” Zhang Hai snags a lawn chair from the remains of the pile that fell over and sits down. “I used to get a laugh out of the judge, every case. No problem.”

  “Did they laugh after you lost your case, or before?”

  Zan Xinyi dumps the guy into the back of the truck, aiming for the insulation and not the sharp and heavy instruments.

  “I do criminal defense, so--” Zhang Hai shrugs. “It depends.”

  “Then, do your clients think you’re funny?” Wei Shengyuan asks.

  “The rich ones, fuck no. The broke ones, they laugh their ass off all through court. No respect for the procedure. Of course, if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t respect it either.”

  “I think you’re funny,” Jiang Jin says, pulling the passenger seat open for Wei Shengyuan and helping him up.

  “Because you’re on the broke side of my clients,” Zhang Hai says. He blows a huge puff of smoke. “No offense. Speaking of that, why do all three of you still look so-- poor? There’s got to be at least one nice outlet store you can break into.”

  Says the guy in overalls.

  “I bought eight of the same black longsleeve shirt five years ago,” Zan Xinyi says. It’s a great shirt. Soft. Comfortable. “Why would I change?”

  “Yiyi...” Jiang Jin gives her a pained glance. “There are other colors.”

  “There are other shirts,” Wei Shengyuan says, which is rich from a guy who owned at least two green polo shirts.

  “That’s the next milestone then,” Zan Xinyi says, annoyed. “We get the full five levels done, I’ll scout out a shopping trip.”

  She hoists herself up into the back of the truck.

  “See you!” Jiang Jin calls to Zhang Hai. “Byebye!”

  “Bring the luxury soda next time!” Zhang Hai yells back, and there’s plenty of time to watch Wet Dog Post fall away as Jiang Jin drives ever so slowly back into the mist.

  And as always, it’s only after everything’s done with that Zan Xinyi remembers something potentially useful.

  “Jiang Jin. Among your belongings over in Pleasant Hills, did you have an extra pair of glasses?”

  “Oh yeah!” Jiang Jin says. “Not regular ones, but I’ve got a pair of sunglasses with the right lenses. I forgot.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Wei Shengyuan’s groan is so loud that it practically rattles the entire truck.

  “Do you think you’re ever actually getting your stuff back?” Zan Xinyi asks.

  “I mean, why not? There’s no reason for Shi Yan to keep them.”

  “There was no reason for him to keep them when he thought you were dead.”

  This time, the silence is longer on Jiang Jin’s end as she has to focus on the road. Since the route they took to get here seemed fraught with military and restless wildlife, this time, Wei Shengyuan chose a route closer to the river.

  Of course, that just means new problems to navigate around.

  “Puddles shouldn’t be that shade of green,” Zan Xinyi says, staring down at some weird substance stuck to the truck’s wheels. The truck bed she’s perched in is way too exposed for her liking.

  She’s ended up basically pulling the unconscious guy to slump at her feet so she can make sure he doesn’t slide into things whenever the truck moves.

  “Maybe it’s alive!” Jiang Jin says, an echoey tone in her voice as she projects into Zan Xinyi’s ear. When it’s not direct mimicry, even a small bit of projecting her own voice becomes a huge hassle, it seems. Then Jiang Jin has to explain what Zan Xinyi just said to Wei Shengyuan.

  Jiang Jin’s been having to repeat herself a lot as Wei Shengyuan struggles to hear outside of the sealed truck cabin and Zan Xinyi has gotten sick of shouting from the open truck bed.

  Which could all be fixed if Wei Shengyuan was simply willing to roll down his window and breathe in the mist.

  “He says that puddle’s not alive, but that it’s also not water!”

  Some billionaire would need to fund a thinktank to come up with worse communication methods than the ones that Zan Xinyi’s subordinates brilliantly innovate every day. And the thinktank would still fall behind in pure quantity.

  “As long as it’s not acid!” she yells.

  No reply.

  “It’s not acid, right?”

  “He says he’s trying to get it off the wheels! Can you try to do something, Zan Xinyi?”

  Zan Xinyi accidentally smacks the unconscious guy with the broom handle as she maneuvers her broom to swipe at the back wheel that’s starting to hiss and steam.

  Thankfully, the minute her broom makes contact with the substance, her broom does its trick and the green acid slides right off.

  “Got it off the back!” She yells.

  “Wei Shengyuan’s got it off the front! Alright, we’re all good. I didn’t even see that puddle!”

  Exactly what you want to hear from the driver.

  “Why are there acid puddles now?” Zan Xinyi asks, but in the rest of the time it takes to return to their apartment building, they don’t find an explanation.

  It is helpful that towards the end, Wei Shengyuan barely has to navigate. Their apartment building used to just blend in with all the other apartment blocks right next to it, but that bland anonymity has truly faded.

  Dark green vines have grown out of almost every window on the fourth and fifth floor, and they are slowly climbing upwards.

  But that wouldn’t be enough to spot the building from a distance. A couple of meters away from the grasping plant, the green mist fades into white and then, centimeters from the leaves the green fades entirely, leaving the apartment building haloed in a lone white ring against the dark fog.

  “Wow,” Jiang Jin breathes. “It’s beautiful.”

  “We still have to cart all of this up to the fifth floor,” Zan Xinyi says.

  And by we, she still means mostly just her. Even getting all of it from the car into the lobby was a huge hassle, and that’s nothing compared to what’s ahead. Plus their new, not-yet-paid-for burden.

  “Alright,” she says. “Wei Shengyuan. Am I hauling you up first, or the unconscious guy?”

  Wei Shengyuan wrinkles his nose at her, and then goes over and politely knocks on the elevator door.

  “Qingguang!” He calls. “I’d like to offer you something delicious!”

  He curls his hand, condensing the nearby mist into a faintly green glowing ball that hovers ominously in front of the closed doors.

  With a squeal and screech, the metal doors burst slowly open, revealing an empty cavity where roots have dug into the walls and hang down like rope, ever seeking the ground.

  One of the root extensions reaches out and curls around the offering, absorbing it.

  Then much larger vines shoot out rapidly, engulf Wei Shengyuan and his new wheelchair, and yank him in.

  The door clangs shut behind him.

  “They better not break the new wheelchair,” Zan Xinyi says.

  “That looks like fun!” Jiang Jin says. “Wow, he’s making a strange sound on the way up!”

  Serves him right.

  “I’ll get this guy up the stairs,” Zan Xinyi says. He’s currently laid out on the ground, so she’s having to resist the urge to just pull him across the floor. No. He’s a human and he’ll probably die if she does that.

  “Okay! I’ll negotiate with Qingqing to see if they’ll also agree to cart stuff up while you do that.”

  “You’ve got something to offer it?”

  Jiang Jin nods seriously.

  “I’ve been considering what kind of snacks she likes. Before we left, she conveyed she’d prefer to eat zombies over other types of mutants.”

  “No luring zombies into the building.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Jiang Jin says. “That would be dangerous! My standard for directing zombies around our area is to just keep directing them away, but it’s fine to let a couple stand pretty close to a window, right? They’ll be eaten immediately. It’s low risk.”

  Zan Xinyi doesn’t love it, but she also doesn’t want to haul all of their new stuff upstairs.

  “Sounds a lot like using your abilities like a weapon,” she says. “I thought you weren’t going to do that.”

  Jiang Jin smiles sadly.

  “It’s not about being an unsoiled, pure type of person,” she says. “It’s about saying I won’t do something, and then immediately being pushed to do it. I’d rather die than hurt someone, right? That’s what I said.”

  Zan Xinyi nods.

  “And without you, I would have followed through on that. I would’ve died.”

  Jiang Jin shivers.

  “I don’t regret that. But, being here-- what do you want from me, Zan Xinyi? Why did you come looking for me?”

  “The game needs music,” Zan Xinyi says.

  Jiang Jin laughs happily, twirling in the first floor lobby.

  “Exactly! It’s strange, isn’t it. It turns out that some of my boundaries have to be drawn high because I know they’ll be pushed. But if I’m confident I’ll never be asked to do more and more and more--”

  She stops spinning, bright black eyes staring directly into Zan Xinyi’s.

  “Maybe, I’m willing to bend a little.”

  The words are so, so heavy to hear. Far heavier than the stuff they need to carry.

  “Don’t bend at all,” Zan Xinyi says. “Don’t negotiate with Qingguang over that.”

  She grabs Jiang Jin’s shoulder.

  “I don’t need anything from you except music, and I need even less from that fucking plant. If you’re so committed to your ideals, you at least have to live with them on your own accord. Don’t put it on me. I’d rather you cut your own wrist and feed the plant off of that.”

  Jiang Jin’s smile is so wide, and her eyes are so wet.

  “Zan Xinyi,” she says. “I’m really glad you came to get me. Did I ever tell you that?”

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