Chapter 220: A Welcome Gift
Zhou Chenghai turned toward the front door the moment the handle began to move.
For one second, no one else seemed to react properly.
Luo Xin was still kneeling beside Rouxi with both hands hovering over her spine, his face pale enough that Chenghai honestly wondered if the man was about to pass out on top of her.
Yuche had one hand on Rouxi’s arm and the other already lifting slightly, like he could kill whatever came through the door without standing.
Lingyun was near the window, fire moving under his skin in a way that made the air around him feel sharp, while Commander Li’s men were split between watching the burning jungle outside and staring at Rouxi as she continued to scream without waking.
Chenghai hated that sound.
He hated it more than the fire, more than the smoke, and more than the fact that someone outside had apparently decided that burning down their defenses was a reasonable way to introduce themselves.
Rouxi wasn’t awake. Her eyes were still closed, her body still held together by vines, blankets, and whatever Luo Xin had managed to repair, but the scream kept tearing out of her throat like something was ripping her apart from the inside.
And now someone was opening the door.
Of course they were.
Because apparently the apocalypse had decided that one disaster at a time was going too easy on them.
Chenghai moved first, stepping away from Rouxi just enough to put himself between her and the door. He didn’t go far. He wasn’t stupid enough to leave her side completely, not when she was like this, but he couldn’t let whoever was outside walk straight into the room either.
The moment he shifted, Zhenlan moved with him, taking the other side without needing to be told. They had fought together enough by now that some things didn’t need explanation.
The door opened and the smell of the smoke drifted in first. Then came a woman’s voice, light, irritated, and entirely too comfortable.
"Honestly, it smells terrible in here."
Chenghai stared.
Jiang Meilan stepped inside like she owned the place.
Behind her came five men, and for half a second, Chenghai forgot about the fire outside. He forgot about the smoke slipping through the doorway, forgot about Commander Li going dangerously still near the wall, and even forgot the faint heat of Lingyun’s anger building behind him.
Because he knew those faces.
Shen Kaiyang came in first, broad-shouldered and calm, his attention moving over the room with a fighter’s awareness despite the woman in front of him acting like she had walked into a hotel lobby with bad service.
Tao Jun followed at his side, his expression pleasant enough to look friendly if Chenghai didn’t know better. Lin Cheng entered quietly behind them, while Guo Renwang and Huang Zedong stayed closer to the door, both alert and ready.
And those names meant something.
In his last life, those men had stood at the top.
They weren’t ordinary ability users. They weren’t disposable followers or pretty decorations standing behind a woman who liked having men around her.
They were powerful, famous, and respected by anyone who survived long enough to understand how dangerous the world had become. Chenghai had heard stories about them before he ever saw them in person, the kind of stories people told around low fires when they were trying to remind themselves that the monsters in the dark weren’t the only things worth fearing.
And now they were standing in Rouxi’s living room.
For one ridiculous second, Chenghai almost smiled.
Not because of Meilan.
Never because of Meilan.
But because part of him still remembered the time when they had his back.
The apocalypse had a way of stripping titles down until all that remained was whether a person could fight, survive, and protect what stood behind them. Those men had done all three once. Maybe not here. Maybe not now. But his instincts still reacted to the reputation before the current reality could catch up.
He looked around the room, cataloguing everyone’s faces as they stared at the six people by the door.
Zhenlan seemed to be having the same problem as him. The rest looked like they were trying to find a way to hide the bodies.
But those five me? They weren’t easy kills by any stretch of the imagination.
Chenghai’s eyes trailed back to Zhenlan, noting the way his shoulders eased by a fraction when he saw them. They both knew who these men were supposed to become. They both knew the kind of strength that stood at the door. They type of honor.
"Shen Kaiyang," Chenghai greeted, his voice rough but not hostile.
The man looked at him, surprise flashing briefly through his eyes. "Zhou Chenghai."
There it was.
Recognition.
Respect.
They knew him... and that meant they had either been reborn, too, or they had met before... when he was the ’other’ Chenghai.
Then Rouxi screamed again and the sound ripped through the room, and the moment shattered.
Shen Kaiyang’s gaze moved past Chenghai to the floor. Tao Jun’s smile faded slightly. Lin Cheng’s eyes narrowed. Guo Renwang shifted his weight, and Huang Zedong looked toward the burning orange light outside the window before looking back into the room.
Meilan, of course, looked annoyed.
Her gaze moved over Rouxi’s body as though the unconscious, screaming woman on the floor was an inconvenient stain on a rug she had already decided to replace. Then her eyes moved over Yuche, lingering just long enough for Chenghai’s stomach to tighten at the calculation in her eyes.
Yuche didn’t say a word, but Chenghai saw his expression. He didn’t like Meilan.
Lingyun, on the other hand, was worse.
Chenghai didn’t have to turn around to know it. The heat in the room changed, tightening until it pressed against his skin. Lingyun wasn’t thinking about bodies. Lingyun was thinking about ash. There would be nothing left to bury if he got his way.
Commander Li stood near the wall with his jaw locked.
The man didn’t move, didn’t speak, and didn’t raise his weapon, but everything about him had gone stiff in a way Chenghai didn’t like.
Whatever history existed between him and Meilan wasn’t good. That much was obvious. Commander Li looked at her the way a starving man might look at poisoned food, fully aware that it existed and equally aware that touching it would be a mistake.
Meilan didn’t seem to notice.
Or maybe she did and simply didn’t care.
"This place is in worse condition than I expected," she said, her nose wrinkling as she looked around the living room. "Though I suppose that isn’t surprising. Once trailer trash, always trailer trash."
Nobody answered her.
For once, Chenghai wasn’t sure who would kill her first if they did.
Then Meilan’s gaze dropped to the floor and to the boxes. The crystal cores were scattered across the hardwood like someone had overturned half a treasure room and that was when Chenghai saw her expression changed.
It wasn’t much. A brightening of the eyes. A softening of the mouth. A tiny inhale that she tried to hide and failed completely.
But Chenghai saw it, and the friendly feeling he’d had a few seconds ago disappeared so completely that it might as well have never existed.
Meilan looked at the cores like she had just stepped into a jewelry store with no spending limit.
"Oh," she purred, and the single word made Yuche’s eyes go flat.
Meilan smiled, slow and pleased, as though the universe had finally remembered who it was supposed to serve.
"How thoughtful," she continued, taking one delicate step forward. "A welcome gift."
The room went completely still.
Then every crystal core vanished.
The boxes, the scattered piles, the opal healing cores, the white fighting cores, the colors spread across the floor like spilled candy, all of it disappeared in the same breath as if it had never been there at all.
