Chapter 222: You Don’t Know
Zhenlan looked at Huang Zedong long enough to make the man shift his weight toward the door.
Yuche had already pointed him out as the man who set fire to the jungle outside. That part was finished, they knew who did it. The problem was what would happen next? You couldn’t undo a fire like that.
Of course, it didn’t help that Huang Zedong had a smirk on his face as he kept watching the windows, and had looked away too late when Yuche pointed at him. He was practically screaming that it was him that set the fire. He wasn’t even trying to hide it.
If the others needed a confession before understanding what had happened, that was their problem. Zhenlan did not need one.
The man had destroyed something that was becoming essential to them and then walked into the house behind Jiang Meilan as if the fire outside were an inconvenience instead of an attack.
Unfortunately though, killing him would not repair the damage.
And that was the problem Zhenlan cared about right now.
"We know who set the fire," he said, looking away from Huang Zedong and turning his attention to Meilan instead. "Now we discuss how you can repay us for the damages you caused."
Meilan stared at him as if he had started speaking another language. "Repay you?"
"The entire front yard. Several sections of the outer jungle were damaged badly enough that they will need to be regrown from the roots up. The front defenses are weakened, and the fire pulled attention away from Luo Xin while he was trying to keep Rouxi alive. That damage has value."
"They’re plants," Meilan replied, her voice tightening with disbelief. "They don’t mean anything."
"They are defenses," Zhenlan corrected. "The fact that they were alive does not make them decoration. They kill zombies before the horde reaches the house, they control the approach to the property, and they warn us when something gets too close. Your people damaged a working perimeter."
Commander Li’s expression shifted slightly at that.
It wasn’t surprise, exactly. More like he finally understood what had pissed Zhenlan off enough that he started talking compensation. The military side of him recognized understood that defenses in a time when they were literally the difference between life and death was not something to just be shrugged off.
But Meilan clearly didn’t see it like that. No matter how many times Zhenlan kept saying the same thing.
"We are not paying you because some weeds got burned," she snapped, flinging her hands up into the air. "Especially when they were in my way."
Chenghai looked toward the windows, where orange light still flashed against the glass. "Those weeds are the reason this house hasn’t been overrun by zombies."
"Then maybe you should have maintained them better."
Lingyun’s smile widened and Zhenlan wished it hadn’t.
The problem with Lingyun smiling like that was that it made every conversation more urgent. There were only so many minutes left before Lingyun got bored with talking and started setting things on fire, and Zhenlan still had a few things he needed to sort out before the living room became a war zone.
"You came here with six people," Zhenlan said, keeping his attention on Meilan. "You claim that this is your house, that everything in it belongs to you. That is not reality. The reality is that you destroyed something that wasn’t yours, and now you have to do something about it. Something useful."
Meilan’s face went still.
"Excuse me?"
"The defenses took a hit thanks to that guy over there," Zhenlan deadpanned, jerking his thumb towered Huang Zedong. "The broken plants need to be cleaned up, and somebody has to keep an eye on things until the plants fully recover to how they were before. Since one of yours caused the mess, your group can help put it back together."
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Honestly, it confused Zhenlan for a moment...it wasn’t like he was asking for a million cores or for supplies, he just wanted them to take responsibility for their actions. It really wasn’t that unreasonable to expect it.
Only... it seemed like it was.
Even Commander Li looked like he could live with that. Several of his men glanced toward the windows before looking at Huang Zedong, nodding their heads in agreement. Nobody seemed confused about how they had ended up with the job.
Huang Zedong had burned the plants.
The plants protected the house.
The damage needed to be dealt with.
But Meilan still managed to look insulted by the idea that not only did actions have consequence, but she was expected to do something.
"You think we came here to work for Shen Rouxi?" she demanded, her voice hitting a whole new register that Zhenlan hadn’t heard before coming out of a human mouth.
"You came here uninvited, started a fire, and screeched like a harpy when a few hundred cores simply disappeared. I am also pretty sure that you were the one who took them, considering the fact that they were lying on the floor for a while until you walked in," Zhenlan replied. "I’d take the job and call it a win."
Shen Kaiyang’s mouth tightened, but he did not argue immediately. Tao Jun’s expression remained pleasant, though his eyes moved toward Meilan before returning to Zhenlan. Lin Cheng stayed quiet at her shoulder while Guo Renwang continued to watch the doors and windows like they were expecting even more company.
Huang Zedong was also looking at the windows again, but the slight smirk on his face was like he was looking at a job well done and not for potential threats.
"If there is a debt," Shen Kaiyang said slowly, choosing each word with care, "then it can be discussed after the immediate situation is handled."
"The immediate situation is being handled," Zhenlan said, glancing toward Luo Xin. "The medic is keeping Rouxi alive. Yuche is watching him. Lingyun is one wrong sentence away from setting someone on fire. Commander Li and his men are close enough to intervene if the situation becomes worse. That leaves the rest of us free to discuss the fact that your group damaged our defenses."
Meilan laughed once, sharp and humorless. "Our group?"
"Yes."
"You make it sound like we’re some random survivors who wandered in off the street," she sneered, pointing at him with her sunglasses like that was so much better.
"At the moment, that is exactly what you are," Zhenlan sighed, rolling his eyes.
That finally struck the wrong nerve.
Meilan’s face changed, and for the first time since entering the house, the annoyance in her expression cracked enough to show something uglier beneath it.
She wasn’t used to being ignored, she wasn’t used to anyone refusing to be impressed by her father’s name, and she clearly wasn’t used to Zhenlan looking at her the same way he looked at every other problem that landed on his doorstep.
"You have no idea who you’re talking to," she snarled, the dark look on her face changing her completely. The woman who stood in front of him at the moment wasn’t the air headed bimbo he was used to seeing from her.
This one looked like she was a threat.
Zhenlan looked at the five men behind her. "I know exactly who I’m talking to."
"No," she replied. "You don’t. You don’t know what is going to happen next. You have no idea what we have done, who and what we have killed. If you really think that you can beat us, then by all means... Let me show you how you are going to die."
