Chapter 316: Guilt
Xu Zhenlan reached the edge of the property just as Rouxi told the woman with the shaved head that she was the lesson.
The words carried across the road clearly enough for everyone to hear them, including the men hiding inside the workers’ houses. The vines around their windows shifted again, tapping the glass to make sure that the people had heard her words. That way, there was no way they could pretend they had missed the warning.
Rouxi stood on the porch with one hand resting against the railing, looking almost comfortable as the street filled with blood.
Zhenlan stopped for a moment and simply looked at her.
He had spent the last hour inside Old Chen’s house discussing patrol routes, food distribution, and what the growing number of survivors in the surrounding homes would need before supplies became too scarce. The conversation had been necessary, or at least he had believed they were when he agreed to attend them.
Now, standing in the middle of a ruined road while Rouxi turned an ambush into a public execution, those plans felt strangely distant.
She hadn’t needed him to organize anything.
She hadn’t needed him to return with an answer.
She didn’t even really need him to come home.
The thought followed him as he crossed the last stretch of pavement. A man near the overturned truck tried to rise, but Zhenlan flicked two fingers in his direction and sent a sharp burst of wind into his chest. The attacker flew backward and disappeared beneath the vines before he could lift his weapon.
Rouxi’s gaze moved toward Zhenlan as he approached the porch. "You took your time. I thought you had moved out."
Her voice carried no real accusation, but Zhenlan still felt the words settle more heavily than they should have.
"Old Chen talks too much," he replied with a shrug, trying to pretend he wasn’t impacted by her words. There was no way he would ever consider moving out. Not since both he and Chenghai had agreed to stay at the house.
She was their choice. Now he just had to figure out a way to get himself out of the hole he managed to dig when it came to her.
Rouxi nodded as though that explained everything. "Most people do," she agreed.
Lingyun laughed from somewhere near the burning vehicles, while Yuche drove the end of his bat into another man’s stomach. Zhou Chenghai remained closer to the porch, keeping the remaining attackers from reaching the steps.
Understanding that he wasn’t needed for the fighting itself, Zhenlan moved to Rouxi’s side.
The position felt natural enough that he wondered why he had spent so much time convincing himself that distance was safer.
For years, he had hated the fact that he was attracted to Shen Rouxi. He didn’t like her personality, he would have rather cut off his hand than touch her, but that didn’t mean he could look at her without feeling... possessive.
But even all those years ago, it left a bad taste in his mouth when he refused any guy to come near her.
Now, looking at a woman who couldn’t be more different than his ward, even if they had the same face, it almost seemed to finally make sense.
He wasn’t protecting Shen Rouxi, the daughter of his friend that had died tragically. He was protecting the body for THIS Rouxi. One that could look at the man he had become and still stand by his side.
And Zhenlan admired that more than he wanted to admit.
He admired the way she saw through the situation and used it as a way to educate those around her. He admired the way she had turned a threat into a lesson and made certain the men responsible could not look away. He admired the quiet certainty with which she claimed what belonged to her.
And yes, he was attracted to her.
To her mind.
To her stubbornness.
To the fighting spirit that made armed men look like inconveniences standing between her and her afternoon.
There was nothing wrong with that.
The realization should have felt larger. Instead, it settled quietly into place, like something he had known for a long time and finally stopped arguing with.
Rouxi glanced toward him. "Are you done thinking? If not, can you do it quieter? You’re ruining my entertainment."
Zhenlan’s mouth curved slightly. "For now," he agreed softly. He was done thinking, done fighting, now it was just a matter of planning.
Before she could respond, a shout rose from the eastern end of the road. The remaining invaders had reorganized behind the wreckage of their vehicles, and several men were dragging wooden crates from the back of the last truck.
Zhenlan recognized the explosives before the lids were fully removed.
"They brought rocket launchers," he murmured like this was a pot luck and it was expected that everyone tried to one-up the person before.
Rouxi followed his gaze. Her expression flattened as one of the men lifted a launcher onto his shoulder.
"That seems rude," she grumbled under her breath with a long sigh.
Zhenlan lost the fight with his lips as he sagely nodded his head. "It does," he agreed.
The attacker aimed toward the porch, rightly assuming that killing Rouxi would end everything. But Zhenlan simply raised a single hand.
Wind struck the launcher before the man could fire, wrenching the barrel sideways. The grenade left the weapon a second later and disappeared into the cluster of vehicles behind him.
The explosion lifted the back of one truck from the ground and sent burning debris across the road. Men screamed as they scattered, but the plants closed around them before they could escape the blast.
Rouxi didn’t flinch, she just watched the flames climb over the wreckage, then looked toward Zhenlan’s raised hand. "You could do that the entire time?"
Zhenlan raised one eyebrow as he turned more fully toward her. The wind still moved around them, carrying smoke and heat away from the porch, but Rouxi had managed to pull his attention away from the fighting as though nothing else mattered.
"What would you call it?" he asked, a touch confused.
Rouxi leaned one hip against the railing and folded her arms, studying him with the same suspicion she usually reserved for people trying to take something that belonged to her.
"Guilt."
