Chapter 543: What Did You Do?
Chapter 543: What Did You Do?
An Ran shook her head, looked at Xu Li’er, and said, “No, that’s not why I didn’t accept you. Yes, you ran away. At first, I despised you for it. But later, I realized—I might have done the same if I’d been in that situation. The reason I rejected you completely is because, in the end, you ignored Wang Wei. He was dying, and all he wanted was to see you. But what did you do?”
An Ran felt that the standard she used to choose teammates was, in some ways, unfair to Zhan Lian and the others. In the apocalypse, she had never valued those who only cared about strength. She could overlook the fact that a teammate had once been an enemy, but she could never tolerate someone who lacked even the smallest shred of humanity.
The most obvious example was Zhao Ru. Zhao Ru had done many terrible things in the beginning, but An Ran understood her situation. If it hadn’t been for her aunt, An Ran would never have accepted Zhao Ru into the team either.
That was why, when Xu Li’er wanted back into the team, An Ran refused. Xu Li’er might have been a water-based ability user, but she had no humanity.
Because of this standard, Zhang Boxun was the only recent addition.
This left most of the burden on Zhan Lian and Luo Feifan, who formed the team’s main fighting force. Whenever danger came, it was always Zhan Lian, Luo Feifan, Yun Tao, and Zhang Boxun at the front.
It was unfair to them—An Ran knew that. But it didn’t matter much. She alone could shoulder all the support.
“Who knew he’d end up surviving anyway?” Snow piled on Xu Li’er’s hair as she bent forward, shrieking at An Ran in desperation: “Is seeing him one last time—or not seeing him—really that important to you? You and Wang Wei just want me to feel guilty! You’re forcing me! I won’t see him, so what?!”
Suddenly, Xu Li’er froze. The snowfall thickened, goose-feather flakes tumbling down from the sky. Her eyes went wide, bulging from their sockets. She stretched a trembling hand toward Wang Wei, who stood behind An Ran, and rasped out broken words: “Ah… Wei… help… me…”
Wang Wei frowned and stepped closer to An Ran, scanning the area. Everyone else also looked around the ground, searching, but there was no trace of that white fox tail.
One by one, they turned to An Ran. She blinked, spread her hands, and said, “Why are you looking at me? I didn’t do it.”
Inside the RV, Zhao Ru tilted her head toward Little Mint.
Mint’s face was chalk-white, her fists clenched tight, her eyes burning with rage as she glared at Xu Li’er outside the window.
“Mint… what did you do?” Zhao Ru asked.
The words had barely left her mouth when something wet and red slapped against the glass with a sharp crack—a mass of viscera, like large intestines, smeared across the window.
A chorus of screams erupted from the onlookers.
An Ran turned sharply. In the glow of the RV’s warm lights, she saw pale red-and-white brain tissue clinging to the glass, sliding down in thick streaks.
Her eyes shifted back to Xu Li’er. She was standing motionless in the snow, her gaze vacant, her face slack—like an empty shell.
What had just happened? No one understood.
Wang Wei stepped forward and lightly touched Xu Li’er’s arm. She didn’t move.
“What’s wrong with her?” Wang Wei asked, turning to An Ran. “Why is she suddenly like this?”