Chapter 25 Backache
Night fell.
The two burly men were kept in the village.
Actually, who would want to keep them?
Resources were limited, even if they were self-sufficient. But the two men didn’t look like good people; who knew what heinous acts they might commit?
But if they weren’t kept, the two men said—
“Don’t blame us if you don’t keep us. If you let us go, we’ll smash all your iron plates and let the zombies in!”
“Don’t you want us to live? Then let no one live!”
“If you keep us, that’s fine. We guarantee to obey your commands, and we’ll work together with the rest of us unfortunate brothers to protect our only home!”
“We will contribute our strength! We have plenty of strength! We can work! We don’t eat that much!”
Surprisingly, these two big guys were quite good with words.
They talked and talked, and eventually managed to convince the villagers to keep them.
It was just that their living conditions weren’t very good.
They were housed in a room with walls on all four sides and a door that couldn’t be easily opened.
That’s right, the two guys were locked up.
This way, the villagers didn’t have to worry about them causing trouble, and they got their wish, a win-win situation!
Being locked up, naturally they didn’t need to do anything, and their days were extremely boring.
Because the two had sworn that they didn’t eat much, the villagers couldn’t possibly give them a lot of food and waste it.
They only got one meal a day, just enough to keep them from starving.
The two big men would stare at each other all day, cursing their bad luck when they felt frustrated, and then they would sleep.
Zombies would still occasionally wander outside the village. The iron plates provided good defense. As long as everyone didn’t shout loudly, zombies wouldn’t easily climb the iron plates to seek death.
“Get lost!”
It had been three days since Ji Nian slept in the same bed with Qin Xiao.
Not a single night had Ji Nian slept soundly.
On the first night, Ji Nian moved a reclining chair into the room, intending to make do on it.
But in the middle of the night, his back ached terribly, and even after getting into bed, he couldn’t sleep well.
He could barely straighten his back in the morning. Han Qing saw him and asked directly, “What’s wrong? Are you not used to sleeping here?”
Ji Nian repeatedly waved his hands, not wanting Han Qing to know that he had been suffering on the hard chair all night because he didn’t want to sleep with Qin Xiao, lest the old lady worry and find someone to make him a bed.
Although he desperately wanted to sleep in his own bed, he didn’t want to trouble anyone.
Han Qing was really kind to Ji Nian, treating him as her own family. She said, “Is the bed too hard?”
Saying that, she went into the room, rummaged through things, and found two quilts, putting them on the clothesline to air. “I’ll put them on the bed for you later. Little Niannian, this must be your first time sleeping on this hard bed, right?”
Ji Nian’s family was of ordinary means; his parents were ordinary office workers, and he was just a normal child from a normal family.
He hadn’t slept on any high-end smart mattresses; just a regular Simmons mattress.
The kind that many kindergarten children would jump on, using it as a trampoline.
It was indeed quite soft and comfortable to sleep on.
This hard bed, Ji Nian had never slept on it before.
Although the bed had two thick quilts added to it at night, it was slightly better, but sleeping next to the restless Qin Xiao made his back ache even more.
Qin Xiao didn’t snore, but he always liked to hug people.
Sometimes his arm would be on Ji Nian’s waist, sometimes his leg would be on Ji Nian’s leg.
Ji Nian was a light sleeper, but that guy was like a dead pig.
If you pushed him, he would just grunt twice.
Damn it!
Finally, Ji Nian was so annoyed that he kicked Qin Xiao to the floor.
“Ugh…”
Qin Xiao thought he had fallen himself, groggily getting up from the floor. The room was pitch black; he fumbled his way back to bed, and like nothing had happened, touched Ji Nian next to him.
Worried that Ji Nian might fall off, he pulled Ji Nian closer, rubbed his head, and fell asleep hugging him again.
Ji Nian: …
The same thing happened on the third day, for three whole nights, Ji Nian felt like his back was going to break.
He sat up before dawn, leaning against the headboard, watching the dark night sky gradually turn light blue, the sun slowly rising.
The pig next to him would occasionally hug him. At first, Ji Nian would remove his arm and leg, but later, he got fed up and just let him be.
After three days, besides the pain in his back, Ji Nian also had particularly dark circles under his eyes.
While eating breakfast, Han Qing kept staring at Ji Nian. “What’s going on? Why are your dark circles so bad? Qin Xiao! Did you do something to Niannian?”
Ji Nian was drinking his rice porridge and almost spat it out.
Then he heard Qin Xiao say, “No, I didn’t.”
“Then what’s going on?”
Han Qing stood up and walked over. “Come here, Niannian, let grandma take a look.”
Ji Nian said, “I’m fine.”
“How can you be fine?”
Han Qing pulled down his lower eyelid, pulling his face out of shape, staring for a while. “Are you not sleeping well? Is the bed still too hard?”
“No.”
Ji Nian shook his head. Qin Xiao chimed in, “He must be worried about something. I saw him leaning against the headboard this morning, looking thoughtful, and his eyes were a little red.”
“What are you thinking about, Ji Nian?”
Qin Xiao asked curiously, with a puzzled expression.
Ji Nian wanted to say: I want to kick you to death, the redness in my eyes is from lack of sleep!
“You must be missing home, right?”
As expected, they shared the same blood; Han Qing immediately understood Qin Xiao’s words. “You must be missing your parents, right?”
“Sigh.”
Han Qing patted Ji Nian’s shoulder and sighed. “I really don’t know what to say. You two are so young to experience all this.”
“I was thinking, tomorrow, we’ll go burn some paper money together to comfort the spirits of your parents.”
“Actually, they’re still…”
Qin Xiao was about to say something when Han Qing glared at him. “They’re gone!”
If those man-eating zombies could still be called relatives and said to be alive, Han Qing would rather believe that they were already dead.
People should look like people.
Those things, were no longer human.
After eating, Han Qing cleaned up the dishes.
There was a well in the yard, pure groundwater, unpolluted, and they didn’t have to worry about water for the time being.
Han Qing gave Ji Nian and Qin Xiao some paper money supplies and asked them to fold them into ingots and the like.
Ji Nian didn’t know how, but Qin Xiao said he did, and he taught Ji Nian hand-in-hand. “Watch me, fold it like this, turn it over and fold it again, then fold it in half again…”
Ji Nian watched him seriously, his fair fingers resting on the golden paper, his pair of long, narrow eyes looking soft.
His hair at the temples had grown a little, and his hair looked very soft. From Qin Xiao’s angle, his sparse hair slightly covered his eyes, revealing only his straight nose bridge and two crimson, thin lips.
His lips were moist and glossy.
Unconsciously, Qin Xiao’s hand reached out, gathering Ji Nian’s hair by his ear, tucking the hair behind his ear.
Ji Nian, sitting there, his pupils trembled slightly, then he looked up.
Qin Xiao immediately withdrew his hand awkwardly, giggling. “Your hair has grown, why don’t we braid it?”
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