Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - chapter 98

Xiao Youqi kept his eyes closed and didn’t respond to Gu Huaiwei’s question. In the dark glass room, all that remained was his uneven breathing, unusually clear.

Speaking took effort for him.

He didn’t want to waste a bunch of words explaining what Gu Huaiwei wanted to know.

When Gu Huaiwei saw he wasn’t willing to talk, she didn’t push.

She tried to see if she could fall asleep again.

After a while, Xiao Youqi’s hoarse voice came from the darkness.

“The clothes you gave me tore.”

A topic that was completely unnecessary.

Gu Huaiwei had almost forgotten she’d even given Xiao Youqi any clothes.

Her headspace was limited; she usually didn’t make room for things that were too cheap.

Xiao Youqi’s voice carried a trace of regret.

“It was a good set of clothes-just that the fabric was too soft… not durable… cough, cough, cough… When I was doing experiments, I had them help me change first, but that bunch thought it was a hassle and they wrecked it…”

By the time he said that, there was hate in his tone too.

Gu Huaiwei wasn’t sure if she’d misheard.

She really couldn’t get on the same wavelength as these drifters.

He was practically at death’s door, yet he was still obsessing over a set of clothes.

Something was wrong with him-badly wrong.

She thought people really couldn’t afford to get hurt or sick. Once the body weakened, the brain stopped working properly too.

“If you’ve got what it takes to make it out alive, I’ll give you ten more,” Gu Huaiwei said. She was a businesswoman; people in business couldn’t be too stingy, or they wouldn’t be able to do business.

Gu Huaiwei never nitpicked over small things. If anything, when it came to cheap little favors, she was always happy to hand them out.

“Fine,” Xiao Youqi said. Even in this situation, he still thought he could walk out alive.

Gu Huaiwei didn’t know whether he’d left himself any kind of fallback like she had.

She doubted it.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have let himself get so badly injured.

Living, living whole, and living with dignity were three completely different ways to live.

Gu Huaiwei used to chase the second. Now she chased the third.

Xiao Youqi, on the other hand, seemed to only count as the first.

There was a watch inside Gu Huaiwei’s Jade Bracelet. To keep track of the days in here, she would check the time while Xiao Youqi was in a half-comatose state.

This Jade Bracelet was difficult to damage with outside force, and because of Blood Binding, in anyone else’s hands it was just an ordinary bracelet.

Aside from two cars and her sister’s safe, there wasn’t anything of real value in it to Gu Huaiwei.

Gu Huaiwei thought to herself: if Professor Feng tried to snatch her bracelet, she’d pull a car out of her space and drop the armored vehicle right on top of Professor Feng, crushing him to death.

The picture was a little ridiculous, but doing it was absolutely possible.

Gu Huaiwei, of course, wasn’t planning to die here. But if things truly went wrong, then no matter what, she would drag a few people down with her.

When daylight came, Professor Feng and that secretary didn’t show up. The one who came instead was Qian Duoduo, with her leg in a plaster cast.

She pushed her wheelchair over to the door of the glass laboratory.

Gu Huaiwei’s gaze landed on the cast on her leg. Looks like she was in a good mood-good enough to let someone draw colorful graffiti on it.

“Are you here to visit me?” Gu Huaiwei hadn’t planned to speak first, but Qian Duoduo was all alone out in the corridor, sitting in her wheelchair and staring at Gu Huaiwei’s every move. It made her uncomfortable. “What is it-revenge? Or are you here to thank me for sparing your life?”

There were no surveillance cameras in the glass room.

If Qian Duoduo really wanted to kill her, Gu Huaiwei could kill her right back.
“Aren’t you scared?” Qian Duoduo asked Gu Huaiwei.

Gu Huaiwei blinked, her face blank. “Scared of what?”

Qian Duoduo didn’t answer. Instead, she drew a different conclusion. “You’ve got a backup plan.”

“Or maybe I’m just gutsy and not afraid of death?” Gu Huaiwei felt she counted as someone willing to take risks.

Qian Duoduo gave her no face at all. “You’re not that kind of person.”

“One after another, you all act like you know me better than I know myself.” Seeing that Qian Duoduo had no intention of coming in-or doing anything to her-Gu Huaiwei sat back down in the corner again. “Is it because that Professor Feng behind you is worried I’ve got something up my sleeve? He’s afraid he’ll show up here and I’ll kill him, so he sent you to test the waters, right?”

That Professor Feng had never really taken Qian Duoduo seriously.

Gu Huaiwei’s lips curled into an amused smile. “To him, your life is cheap.”

Qian Duoduo understood that more deeply than anyone.

When Qian Duoduo fell silent again, Gu Huaiwei sighed to herself. Environment really could change a person.

Before everything that happened yesterday, Qian Duoduo had been downright talkative, and her words had been razor-sharp. Now that she was injured and stuck in a wheelchair, she’d reined herself in a lot.

Watching her react like this, Gu Huaiwei also realized that the people here seemed to fear her even more than she’d expected.

Maybe the Oasis Hotel’s reputation was simply too loud. Maybe that high-speed rail line that had appeared out of nowhere had shaken the Upper District too badly. Or maybe it was because she never explained where she came from, letting them fill in the blanks with something far more terrifying.

Either way, their wariness of her was the perfect medicine for buying time.

Qian Duoduo came to check on Gu Huaiwei several times. Halfway through, she even had someone bring food in.

She didn’t say a single word to Xiao Youqi.

As if the two of them had never been friends at all-just unrelated strangers.

Looking at the worm-flavored nutrient packs that were delivered, Gu Huaiwei couldn’t help mocking the Black Spiral Research Institute in her head. Big operation, deep pockets-yet they were so stingy they wouldn’t even provide fruit-flavored nutrients.

Xiao Youqi was getting worse by the day.

Gu Huaiwei had already been kept in this glass lab for two days. Professor Feng still hadn’t shown his face, and no new researchers came to torment Xiao Youqi.

Every time Qian Duoduo visited Gu Huaiwei, Xiao Youqi barely spoke afterward. He must have been resentful. You couldn’t see it on his face, but his resistance still leaked out now and then.

People who betray others aren’t any less unwilling when they’re betrayed themselves.

Humans were strange creatures.

When they hurt someone else, there was a rush of satisfaction. But the moment the positions swapped, they felt they shouldn’t have to suffer the same treatment.

Those drifters always liked to say-proudly-that betrayal was how they survived. But they only ever wanted to be the ones doing the betraying. Once someone hurt them, they were no different from ordinary people, grinding their teeth with hatred.

That so-called pride of theirs was fake as hell.

Gu Huaiwei tore open a nutrient pack. She’d never tried worm flavor before.

It tasted awful.

No other description fit-just awful.

The thick sludge clung to her throat. The instant it touched her tongue, it shot straight up to her skull-like drinking watered-down wet soil, with a few disgusting solid bits mixed in, taking over her entire mouth.

“Cough, cough, cough… Those nutrient packs… I should get a share too…”

That was the only thing Xiao Youqi said to Gu Huaiwei all afternoon on the second day.

He was hungry.