Chapter 284: What It Felt Like To Be Protected
Yuche kept his hand wrapped around my wrist, but he wasn’t trying to stop me anymore.
Which was probably a good thing in his part.
After all, I was going so off script by willingly saving someone I had never met that I was worried I was going to go off script for the rest of my life.
And that was a whole new level of chaos that I didn’t think anyone was ready for.
But Yuche’s solid grip was... almost anchoring.
His thumb rested against my pulse while his attention moved over the armed men, the vehicles, and the sky above us, rubbing back and forth like he was comforting himself just as much as he was me.
He told me without words that he wasn’t there to stop me. He was there to make sure that nothing touched me no matter what I did.
The earth power user had taken a gun from one of the men beside him and was pointing it at the mother. "Stupid man," I muttered under my breath as I continued to watch him. I wondered almost absently how long it would take him to realize that there were plants moving in his direction.
Lingyun laughed at my words while Xu Zhenlan simply raised a brow. "Thinking that weapons were the better way to go," I replied, answering the unasked question. "He just confessed that his powers weren’t all that and a bad of chips."
Yuche hummed as Lingyun cocked his head to the side, still sitting on the chair of plants that I made for him. "Are we watching the same thing?" he asked, his brows furrowing in confusion. "How is he proving that his powers aren’t as strong as he wants everyone to know?"
"Easy," I replied with a shrug. My attention drifted away from the hostile scene in front of me and toward the flowers that were starting to bloom on either side of the barricade. "He let out a burst of power to show off, but now he is so weak that he needs a gun to continue to make a point."
The flower blossomed as I continued to watch it, and I turned to Yuche. "Only weak men in the apocalypse rely on weapons to prove a point."
Did guns help? Hell yeah. It was the best alternative to dying from drawing out too much power. But there was an order that you needed to go through. You didn’t end with guns, you started with them.
You know the saying: ’beer before liquor, never sicker, liquor before beer, in the clear’? Yeah, it was the same with guns and powers. ’Power before gun, you’re already done. Gun before power, live another hour’.
It wasn’t as catchy, but it sometimes helped the stupid ones who couldn’t remember.
Lingyun snorted but Xu Zhenlan and Zhou Chenghai both nodded their heads in agreement. Yuche remained as still as a statue, his brain already a hundred steps ahead of everyone else.
It would be annoying if I hadn’t learned the benefits of that undivided attention.
Turning back to the earth user, I watched as he stepped closer with a smile on his face, enjoying the way the mother was planting herself in front of the girl as if her body could stop a bullet.
It could not, but that did not seem to matter to her.
Such a good mother. I wondered if her daughter appreciated it. By the way she was clinging to her mother’s jacket I couldn’t tell for sure. Was that because she didn’t want her mom to accidently move? Was it because she was scared?
Did she get comfort by hiding behind someone’s back... being protected?
"You are thinking too much," grunted Zhou Chenghai, a look of confusion passing over his face before it turned blank again. "Why are you so dazed and confused?"
"Just wondering what it felt like to be protected," I replied absently, my eyes narrowing as I stared at the girl’s fingers. They trembled, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a perfect actress. After all, I had seen Meilan hiding behind her guys back like that, too
The woman stayed where she was, shoulders squared and chin lifted as she refused to move. I couldn’t hear what the mother told him, but whatever it was wiped the smile from the earth user’s face.
He pressed the gun against her forehead so hard that I saw the skin around it turning white. But the woman’s face didn’t change at all. If anything, I could see her doubling down.
The vine that I had accidentally called was already slipping through the grass beneath the abandoned vehicles and curled around the earth user’s boot. It was barely thicker than a shoelace, and he was too busy threatening a woman who couldn’t fight back to notice it sliding beneath the leg of his pants.
The mother lifted her chin higher.
The earth user’s finger moved against the trigger and the second his forearm flexed to pull the trigger, thorns burst from the vine and drove into his skin.
He screamed, flung himself backward and fired the gun all at the same time.
Yuche did not release me. He only lifted his free hand, and the bullet jerked sideways before disappearing into the trees. The movement was so fast that the men at the barricade probably thought their leader had missed his target as he was falling backward.
The earth user dropped the gun and grabbed his leg, screaming and snarling in pain. By the time he yanked his pant leg up, the vine had already slipped beneath his skin, leaving several dark holes and blood pouring into his boot.
"What the fuck?" one of the armed men shouted as he backed away.
The earth user slammed his hand against the road. Cracked pavement and dirt rose around him, forming a thick wall while the ground shook beneath everyone’s feet. He tore up half the ditch trying to crush whatever had attacked him, but the little vine was already inside his leg where all the stones in the world could not help him.
With a dark grin on my face, I sent the vine even higher into his body.
