Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - chapter 99

There was a portion that belonged to Xiao Youqi.

So what?

By the drifter’s law of the jungle, what right did Gu Huaiwei have to give him his share?

Xiao Youqi didn’t even have the strength to crawl out of bed now, let alone tear open a pouch of Nutrient Solution and drink it himself.

If he wanted to drink, he needed Gu Huaiwei to feed him.

Gu Huaiwei didn’t want to waste time taking care of him.

Just like he didn’t want to waste energy answering the questions Gu Huaiwei wanted answers to.

Whenever a deadlock like this showed up, a deal was born right alongside it.

Xiao Youqi tried first to see if he could get out of bed on his own. After all, a few months ago he’d still been able to eat by himself.

Those people in white had cut him open with blades and pumped far too many strange things into his body.

They called it treatment.

Because, they said, Xiao Youqi’s radiation exposure was severe-he was about to die.

Xiao Youqi didn’t believe that.

They weren’t treating him.

They were just dragging out his life to observe whether he could survive.

He struggled on the bed for a while, only to realize his legs were truly done for. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t control them at all. In the end he could only give up, lying there and staring at the cold white ceiling.

“Feed me,” he said.

Gu Huaiwei frowned, fighting down her nausea, and shot back, “Why would I do that?”

Xiao Youqi’s voice was weak. “Because you’re a good person.”

“Don’t hand me that ‘good person’ card. I’m not a good person.” Gu Huaiwei had never thought she was anything decent. She cared about profit, obsessed over gains and losses. Compared to her gentle, kind older sister, she was far better suited to being a mercenary businesswoman.

Xiao Youqi rambled on in fragments-things he apparently found logical-his breath thin, his pace slow, and laced with self-satisfied “reason.”

“You’re rich… You have a hotel this good.

“There aren’t any needle marks from Inhibitor injections on you. Your skin is pale, and your palms don’t have calluses… cough, cough, cough…

“You’ve never suffered. People who’ve never suffered are always kind. They’re always willing to give others a hand.

“You should feed me. Then I’ll feel a little better, and when you see me feeling better, your conscience will be satisfied too…”

What a delusional load of crap.

Gu Huaiwei suspected that from losing too much blood, his brain had gone bad as well.

“Let’s make a trade.” Gu Huaiwei picked up a pouch of Nutrient Solution from the floor and squeezed the brown liquid with her fingers. “Tell me about the tape and the letters, and I’ll feed you.”

“Fine.” Xiao Youqi didn’t seem to have the right to refuse anyway. He forced his head to the side.

His black short hair, unwashed for a long time and clotted with blood, had stuck together in rope-like strands.

His gray eyes fixed on Gu Huaiwei, carrying emotions she couldn’t read. Gu Huaiwei guessed he probably missed his time at the Oasis Hotel-because he’d said before that if he could, he wouldn’t have wanted to leave.

“There’s actually not much to say.”

Xiao Youqi didn’t like repeating his betrayal; it felt like being made to reflect on himself.

But he was hungry.

So he had to talk.

“Cough, cough, cough… I took your hair. After leaving the Oasis Hotel, I found the Black Spiral Research Institute’s branch in the Lower District.

“I exaggerated our relationship a bit… and then told them I could lure you to the Black Spiral Research Institute.

“In exchange… cough, cough, cough… they had to take me to the Upper District and treat the radiation in my body.”

He’d been thin to begin with. After all this abuse, his already unhealthy blue-gray skin looked even duller, and he seemed like someone pasted together out of paper.

“How did you exaggerate it?” Gu Huaiwei had a feeling Xiao Youqi had been badmouthing her behind her back, ruining her reputation.

Xiao Youqi curled his lips into a malicious smile. “You don’t want to know the details.”
Gu Huaiwei didn’t press him further and simply listened as Xiao Youqi went on.

He took a moment to steady his breathing. “I actually had no way to lure you over. At first, I only wanted to trade your hair for a ticket into the Upper District, but Qian Duoduo said she had a way to help me.

“That letter was something Qian Duoduo told me to write. As for the cassette tape you mentioned… cough, cough, cough… I’ve never seen it.”

“You stole my hair. So how did it end up in Qian Duoduo’s hands?”

The moment that came up, the smile on Xiao Youqi’s face vanished.

“She lied to me. After she got the hair from me, she kicked me to the curb.” His eyes darkened.

“You believed her?” The prerequisite for being tricked was trust.

Gu Huaiwei didn’t think Qian Duoduo was the kind of person worth trusting. She was pretty sharp-tongued, especially with her words-she never held back when saying things people didn’t want to hear.

“She and I are friends. Trusting a friend-isn’t that normal?” Xiao Youqi didn’t have many friends. Or rather, some people had once treated him like a friend, but he’d sold them out.

He’d had plenty of chances to make genuine friends, but he didn’t choose those people. Instead, he chose Qian Duoduo-the one who only ever mocked him when he was hurt.

Gu Huaiwei couldn’t quite understand these drifters. She said, “Even someone who hasn’t been through much can tell Qian Duoduo isn’t exactly prime friend material. You’ve been fighting your way through the Lower District for so long, and you can still naïvely believe what she says?”

Xiao Youqi probably didn’t understand it himself.

He thought for a moment, then sighed. “She doesn’t sound nice when she talks.”

“I noticed.” Gu Huaiwei had barely met Qian Duoduo and already been called Four-Eyes.

That was not a polite way to address someone.

“I just always feel like… if someone’s mouth is vicious, their heart won’t be that vicious,” Xiao Youqi said. “How can someone be bad in every way? There’s got to be something good about them, right?”

His damaged body made him more sentimental than usual. All the suspicion and calculation that used to fill his eyes were gone, replaced by a bleak, desolate weariness.

“More of your twisted logic.” Gu Huaiwei tore open a pouch of Nutrient Solution, walked over, and fed him. “So you lie here every day just thinking up these completely unreasonable ‘reasons’?”

One moment it was: people with good living conditions are more likely to be soft-hearted.

The next it was: people with vicious mouths aren’t bad at heart.

What kind of logic was that supposed to be?

Jiang Richen lived in luxury-a custom suit cost four hundred thousand-yet when he laid people off, he didn’t pay severance, forcing an employee all the way to the company rooftop to jump.

And as for people who were both sharp-tongued and rotten inside? There were plenty.

Xiao Youqi opened his mouth. His lips were almost bloodless, and dried blood clung to the corners, coagulated into small black lumps. Mixed with the Nutrient Solution Gu Huaiwei fed him, it went down with a thick gulping sound.

He cooperated completely. After finishing one pouch, he licked his lower lip, wanting more.

Gu Huaiwei reminded him, “You can’t take too much Nutrient Solution all at once.”

“But if you die tomorrow, there won’t be anyone to feed me.” Xiao Youqi felt he should drink more.

He said it plainly, because he believed that since Gu Huaiwei hadn’t killed him right away, she wouldn’t kill him later either.

“Fine.” Gu Huaiwei fed him another pouch. “If you end up dying from being stuffed with Nutrient Solution, at least you’ll die full.”

Xiao Youqi let out a low laugh. “See? I told you-people with sharp tongues usually don’t have bad hearts.”

“Talk less,” Gu Huaiwei said, tossing the empty pouch aside, too lazy to argue with him. “Save your strength. You might live a bit longer.”

After he’d gotten some food in him, Xiao Youqi recovered a little. Once his breathing smoothed out, he pushed his luck and asked Gu Huaiwei, “Miss Gu, can you use that piece of glass over there to cut the tumor off my leg? A part of it’s already rotted. If it doesn’t get dug out, it’ll start growing maggots inside.”