The Echo Between Xu and Ye - Chapter 2

When I woke the next day, Zhong Mingye was still asleep. I gathered my clothes with care, slipped out, and headed home with an armful of food.

On the way, I remembered the first time I had climbed into his bed.

He had been in a frenzy then, barely conscious. The cold, aloof stepbrother I knew had pinned me down like a madman, kissing and biting the nape of my neck while ordering me to call him Brother.

I had not understood the fixation. I had obeyed anyway, croaking the word out to stay alive.

Since then, it had belonged only to the two of us.

Whenever Zhong Mingye lost control of his ability, his teammates came for me and pushed me into the room to calm him. The moment I called him Brother, he would go still. That brief pause gave me a little room to breathe.

Afterward, I received enough supplies for an ordinary, powerless person to survive half a year in an apocalypse overrun by mutated plants, animals, and zombies.

I had considered telling him the truth. His subordinates had warned me often enough not to.

“Remember this: Brother Zhong remembers nothing from his frenzies. He won’t remember you. Don’t imagine you can take something that was never yours. Otherwise… heh.”

That threatening little laugh had frightened every confession out of me.

Before the apocalypse, when Mother and I first entered the Zhong family, the proud young heir had said coldly, “If you want to live, take your son, hide in some corner, and stay out of my sight.”

The word *Brother* had lodged in my throat. I never found another chance to say it.

When the apocalypse arrived, Mother fled from place to place with me. It felt as though we had fallen back into the hardest years of our lives.

She had been an excellent student when she was young. Grandfather tore up her admission notice for the bride price and forced her to marry the village chief’s son. After I was born, she could no longer endure the beatings. She took me and ran to the city.

She went from carrying plates to working in sales, and eventually brought us from a basement rental into the Zhong family’s mansion. By then, the strain of living had already crushed her nerves.

When she was happy, she hugged me and promised, “Baby, Mommy will never leave you.”

When she was not, she screamed that I was a burden dragging her down.

In the end, she became a zombie.

Maternal love fought against the hunger destroying her reason. She bit her own arm until it streamed blood, using the pain to suppress her urge to eat me. Then she hid me in a basement, locked the door, and disappeared into the dead, despairing world outside.

Days later, rescuers from Base A forced the basement open. A corpse that had been braced against the door toppled inward—eyes sunken, body rigid.

It was Mother.

She had never left.

I dug the earth with my own hands and buried her beneath a flowering tree. Then I followed the rescuers back to Base A.

The new base needed labor. I became its most ordinary animal feeder, responsible for the mutated creatures penned inside. The work was easy, but the rations were miserable. Eating one full meal a day counted as extraordinary luck.

Then, by accident, I discovered that the base’s leader was my coldhearted stepbrother.

An idea took root.

I sneaked into Zhong Mingye’s room one night and happened to catch him in a frenzy. Three days and two nights later, I staggered out aching all over—and found his anxious men waiting outside.

They saw the marks on me, then the peace inside the room. One look passed between them, and they offered me a deal.

I would calm Zhong Mingye during his frenzies. In return, they would give me food.

The arrangement had lasted a year.

Back home, I had barely set the food down when nausea surged into my throat. As anxiety tightened my chest, a flood of comments appeared before my eyes.

【Does this cannon fodder have no shame? The villain was supposed to stay pure for our precious protagonist bottom. Now he’s lost his one advantage…】

【Once the villain realizes the little thing sneaking into his bed is his cannon-fodder brother, he’ll throw him straight into a zombie horde. Not even bones left.】

【Forget his body. Even the bastard in his belly won’t survive. The villain hates anyone but his darling bearing his child.】

My belly? A bastard?

I covered my lower abdomen and shrank into the corner.

Impossible. Those organs had never fully developed. How could I be pregnant?

I took out a pregnancy test I had once found.

Three minutes later, I stared at two lines. My legs turned to noodles, and I collapsed onto the bed with a thump.

“My neck would like to challenge a ceiling beam to a vigorous duel.”

Unfortunately, the building was concrete. There was no beam.

I curled beneath the blanket at the foot of the bed. After one second of thought, I took out my communicator, tapped out a line, and sent it to Zhong Mingye’s subordinate.

—I don’t want to continue our arrangement.

Less than ten seconds later, someone pounded on my door.

“A-Xu. Open up.”