Chapter 841: A Growing Suspicion
"Okay... Well, Han Bang’s girlfriend had also been driving out to meet multiple young men in a hotel at Foshan every Friday."
The entire dining table fell into silence. Everyone immediately understood what Yueyue was trying to imply without saying it directly.
"That’s why I don’t want to bring it up. You’d better keep this quiet, or else I’m going to get into serious trouble."
As Yueyue repeated her warning, everyone nodded their head slightly except for Xiaoyun, whose hand was holding the chopstick completely mid-air.
"Xiaoyun? Xiaoyun!"
"Y-Yes?"
"You aren’t going to tell him about this, right? I know you’re good friends with him, but this is all still under investigation."
"I won’t tell him." Xiaoyun quietly murmured, his hands finally resumed moving towards the plate of lecteus.
"Good."
"Ahem, let’s not talk about someone else’s private affair anymore. Wuli, how’s your experience working at Shaoguan?" Leyan asked.
"My work experience? It had been pretty boring. There’s like nothing there, and it’s just a glorified training camp every day."
"It’s a strategic location." Xiaoyun pointed out.
"I know. But it still doesn’t change the fact that nothing is happening... We managed only to find three zombies wandering onto the highway."
Wuli paused for a second as she ate her rice, then continued.
"Three zombies for an entire Army Corps stationed there. Everyone had been complaining about how we’re just rotting in the base."
"Too bad. There’s nowhere near enough supply to go around for a new offensive."
Wuli didn’t argue back this time, opting to eat in silence as everyone’s attention soon shifted towards the living room.
"Mommy! Waaaa!"
"Tianci, that sounds like Ziling."
"Again? Didn’t I already feed her?"
As Tianci got up and headed into the kitchen, everyone could tell she was starting to get sick of taking care of her baby.
"Sounds like a good time for her to be sent out of her home, no?" Yuqi murmured as she looked over to Leyan for a response.
"Not a chance. The baby needs to grow an attachment to her first before another woman could take care of her."
"Hasn’t it been long enough?"
Nami questioned as she turned her head to peek, only to see Tianci gently swinging her baby in her arms.
"Still half a month left. You two are going to do the same thing. Don’t even think of dumping your babies for me to take care of."
As Leyan glanced over to Kate and Anna, both of them shyly ate the rice in their bowl without arguing back.
"Oh snap, I almost forgot to ask this. Yuqi, who’s going to attend the public speech now that Xiaoyun is like... this?"
Yueyue’s sudden question caught Yuqi unprepared as she looked over to Xiaoyun, whose body barely reached up to her stomach.
"I’ll figure it out later myself... I probably will do the speech and announce the person replacing him on the trip."
"Sorry about that." Xiaoyun quietly apologizes as he knew the extra burden he had placed on her.
"It’s fine. You should worry about yourself more first, Mr.Big boss baby."
The moment Yuqi finished talking, both Nami and Lily couldn’t resist the urge to giggle. In their mind, Xiaoyun just looked like too sharp a contrast.
"Not funny."
"Mhm."
As Xiaoyun rolled his eyes, Shuli suddenly helped put a piece of chicken onto his bowl from the other side of the table.
"What’s this for?"
"I notice you had been looking at it for a while... Did I do something wrong?" Shuli questioned back with her innocent-looking eyes.
"Never mind."
This time, the entire table started giggling, leaving Shuli all confused as she couldn’t understand what was so funny.
"Why are you all laughing?"
"Shuli, can’t you tell Xiaoyun is embarrassed in needing help like this?" Wuli finally revealed it out loud.
"Not funny." Xiaoyun grumpily murmured, his face turning redder and redder as he couldn’t hide the embarrassment.
"Okay, that’s enough. Don’t bully our husband like this. He’s going to get really mad and hit us with his whimsy fist—"
As Leyan rubbed salt into the wound, Xiaoyun quickly got up from his seat, leaving the table without finishing his rice.
"What happened to Xiaoyun?" Tianci asked in confusion as she entered the living room, walking right past him.
"He’s just a little mad. Don’t worry about it."
---
In his own bedroom, Xiaoyun was staring at the body mirror in front of him. A young boy reflected in his eyes.
The same look that was in his dream before waking up. One that he wished he had grown out of as he looked down at his skeleton arms.
"How did this happen to me?"
Closing his eyes, Xiaoyun leaned back down onto his bed. He tried thinking about what happened in the past, but nothing appeared in his memory.
The most recent memory of him before falling unconscious was walking out of Lily’s room after Houqin’s distress call.
He couldn’t even remember the car ride. Or what happened after he arrived. The only thing Xiaoyun felt was fear.
True Fear.
One that made his bone feel chill. Beyond just making his heart beat faster. A feeling that he hasn’t experienced since fighting a mutant.
"Fuck!"
The pain appeared once again throughout his body as he failed to remember what had happened... Until Xiaoyun saw the blood-stained pistol on his table.
He immediately got up from the bed, walking over to examine the pistol—a blood-stained Beretta with a silencer attached.
"I didn’t kill her... Right?"
Doubts began to form in his heart as his suspicion grew. The hesitation in Tianci and Leyan when talking about Houqin was clearly hiding something.
"No, I didn’t kill her."
Xiaoyun let out a small sigh of relief as he checked the magazine. It was a full mag with zero shots fired.
Still, the blood stain on the gun eluded him. It was clear something bloody had happened when he went to Houqin’s place.
"Maybe I should confront them directly again."
With the decision made, Xiaoyun turned around and headed towards the exit. However, the light bulb suddenly snaps.
Everything turns dark. Fortunately, the moonlight was still enough for him to see what was happening in the room.
"Hey Leyan! What the hell happened to the lights?" Xiaoyun yelled as he stepped into the 2nd-floor hallway.
"The power went out, I think!" Leyan yelled back as her voice traveled from downstairs up to him.
"Seriously?"
Xiaoyun didn’t think too much about it as he walked down the stairs into the living room before seeing his wives with their phone flashlights.
"All the neighbors still have power. It’s probably something wrong with our power box." Yueyue murmured after looking out the window.
"I’ll go fix it."
"You sure you can fix it? We can just call an electrician instead." Yuqi questioned as she looked doubtful.
"I already replaced it before... I bet you don’t even know where the power control of this house is located."
"Let me go with you."
Nobody said anything back as they watched Leyan and Xiaoyun head inside the garage before coming back out with a whole toolbox.
Next, they headed towards the backyard. All of them quickly followed as they soon found a metal box near the backyard door.
"Smells a little funky."
Xiaoyun murmured as he opened the fused box with his bare hand, revealing the insides to be a bunch of switches and wires connected to the house.
"Honey, maybe we should—"
"I got this."
Everyone watched in silence as Xiaoyun started flipping the main switch that somehow had shifted right in the middle.
"Mhm, the house is still dark. But the main switch looks perfectly fine." Xiaoyun murmured after switching it from off to on.
"When did you know how to deal with switches?" Nami curiously asked.
"When you guys aren’t even born yet... Leyan, can you hand me the screwdriver?"
"Here."
With the screwdriver in hand, Xiaoyun turned off the main switch once again as he started checking the smaller switches one by one.
Soon, he finds one that looks much darker than the others, almost as if the insides had been burnt or melted at some point.
"There it is... Wait a moment."
Xiaoyun stopped as he turned around to look towards Leyan, only to see a confused face looking right back at him.
"What are you looking at me for?" Leyan questioned.
"Have you guys been using the basement?" Xiaoyun questioned.
"Basement? Why would we use that? We haven’t been inside the basement since last weekend."
Seeing the straight faces on both Leyan and Tianci, Xiaoyun didn’t press any further as he turned back to the fuse box.
Slowly, he screwed out the broken switch, then replaced it with the new one in the toolbox before flipping it on.
"The light is on!" Lily pointed out.
"Let’s all go back inside. It’s so cold out here." Yueyue murmured as she shivered her arm in the cold air.
"Mhm."
As all of them started heading back into the house one by one, Xiaoyun could feel that the two of them really didn’t want to tell him the secret.
Something inside the basement. Something that’s using power in the basement. Something that the two really don’t want him to see.
Yet.
