Chapter 7: Volume One & Two, Chapter 7: Goodnight, Sun

At some point, Fuling fell silent. The two of them sat quietly, gazing out at the world beyond the window.

Sunlight poured over them, laying a faint glow across Fuling’s pale, naked body. Warmth spread along her smooth skin and out to the tips of her fingers and toes. She stretched luxuriously, extending every inch of herself.

After enjoying a delicious roast chicken and soup, the girl and the zombie settled into the afternoon.

The warm room seemed to carve out a tiny world from the apocalypse, a place without worry or pain.

They watched the sky as the sun sank toward the horizon. Darkness crept over the earth, swallowing the world and blending everything together.

“I used to do this a lot, too. But every time I watched the sun set, I wanted to follow it down. In the end, I always held back.”

Fuling murmured, then tipped her face up to look at Linglan. She spoke slowly, one word at a time.

“Because I remembered that the sun would rise again.”

Time passed, one second at a time.

Linglan met her gaze without expression. Before long, she watched Fuling’s face turn red right before her eyes.

The girl’s cheeks burned. “Aaaaaah! I-I-I-I’m going to boil some water!”

Cute.

To be honest, Linglan had just been trying to figure out how she should respond. She hadn’t expected Fuling to be the first to lose her nerve.

After a whole afternoon of rest, Fuling had recovered about half her strength. She gathered firewood and hurried to the bathroom to boil water. Then she carried a food box full of maggots outside, presumably to feed the chickens on the roof.

After being taken care of by a beautiful girl for three years, Linglan couldn’t just sit around and freeload. She dragged over a little stool and settled in the bathroom to keep an eye on things.

The single-minded idiot had forgotten to open the bathroom’s ventilation window. It was hard to believe she’d managed to survive on her own all this time.

Glug, glug.

In the bathroom, a hot-water tank made from an oil drum bubbled as it came to a boil. Fuling turned the tap at the bottom of the tank and poured the scalding water into a large wooden tub, where she’d already added cold water.

“Wait here! I’ll get the soap. You should give yourself a good scrub today, too, Senior~”

Fuling skipped out. Linglan silently turned off the tap she’d left running and closed the ventilation window. Then she stripped and stood there calmly, waiting.

Since becoming a zombie, Linglan had felt her thoughts growing sluggish. Nothing seemed to stir her except hunger. She couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing or not.

“Open your mouth. Ahhh~”

“Whoosh…”

Fuling cupped Linglan’s cheek in one hand and carefully brushed her teeth. For some reason, Fuling’s face stayed red the entire time.

The toothbrush kept nudging Linglan’s tongue. Linglan could understand how brushing someone else’s teeth might count as a kind of flirting, but could this girl really get excited while looking at her face?

Could she have a thing for corpses? Wait.

Necrophilia. Pervert.

?

“Senior, you’re so… quiet.” Fuling had almost called her good, but had caught herself in time. Someone as strong as Linglan probably hated being treated like a child.

Sure. What else am I supposed to do?

Linglan’s stiff body made a lot of things difficult, so when Fuling offered to help, she was happy to let her.

Linglan swallowed some water and swished it around in her mouth. Then she let it drain out through the wound in her abdomen.

Next came a sponge bath.

But as Fuling wiped her down, her hands grew bolder, wandering from the gap in Linglan’s abdomen up toward her chest.

Whenever Linglan glanced at her, Fuling let out an adorable little “Eep!”

The girl who hid a key in my pelvis is acting like an innocent maiden. What a joke!

Where did all that confidence go when you kissed me by force?

“Senior, I’ll find a way to make you look the way you used to. I promise.”

After a while, Fuling made her promise with quiet determination.

Linglan rubbed a soapy hand over her body, then used it to write on the floor.

Ling.

“Ling?”

Linglan nodded.

“Do you want me to call you Ling?”

Another nod.

“Ling? Ling… Ling~ Hehe, it suddenly feels like we’re so much closer.”

Watching the girl’s delighted expression, Linglan suddenly felt like she was taking care of a child.

Once they’d dried off, the two of them climbed into the wooden tub. It was only big enough for one person, so it quickly became cramped—which gave Fuling every excuse to press close to Linglan.

“Ling, it hasn’t rained in a while, so this saves water. So, um…”

Fuling sat stiffly. She was about eight inches shorter than Linglan, which meant she could rest her head on Linglan’s shoulder without even trying.

As far as she knew, Linglan had never shared a private bath with anyone. And now this beautiful ice queen was sitting beside her as if it were perfectly natural.

Fuling’s gaze gradually turned hazy. The soothing warmth seeped into her body, and steam rose through the bathroom until it seemed as if the two of them were floating in a white space where all sense of distance had vanished.

For a little while, the water lent Linglan a lifelike warmth. It made Fuling feel as though none of this could be real.

“Ling, do you think… this is a dream?”

She lifted her head. Her eyes were clouded as she looked at Linglan, who hadn’t said a word. Fuling looped her arms around Linglan’s neck and tightened them little by little, as if Linglan would vanish the moment she let go.

“Are you the sun?” Her lips parted. Her wet hair clung to her, making her expression seem all the more serious. “Will you fall? Will you rise again?”

Linglan wrapped her arms around Fuling’s back. That slightly frightening, achingly familiar face drew closer.

Fuling closed her eyes in fear. Then Linglan’s cold lips pressed a faint, damp kiss to her forehead.

Like a spell cast by a witch on a princess, the kiss filled Fuling with such comfort that her body gradually relaxed. It felt as if she could sleep and enjoy this moment forever.

No!

Fuling’s eyes flew open.

Dazed, she stayed in the tub until the water grew cold. Then she climbed out, slipped on her sandals, and dried herself. She gathered the water that had spilled onto the floor and poured it into another bucket.

Once she’d collected enough, she used the dirty water to clean the room and the bathwater to wash the kitchen utensils and water the plants.

She got dressed, checked that the front door was locked, and tied the warning bell back in place.

She let her hair down to dry naturally, straightened the bedding, and remembered that the sheet had been moved into Linglan’s room.

Fuling went through the motions in silence. In the room that had once been silent and empty, there was now another “person.”

She was Linglan. She was a Mutant. She stood silently in the room, without breath or heartbeat, watching Fuling in the dark.

Was she an illusion? A dream?

At least, she couldn’t possibly be the real Linglan.

The whole day had gone too smoothly, been too happy, felt too unreal.

Fuling lay down on the sheet and stared at the bright moon outside. Every day before this, a thin figure had sat alone by the window, her face lit by the moonlight.

Now Fuling was the one in that spot.

A faint sound came from beside her. Her heart leapt, and she anxiously looked over her shoulder—but saw only someone’s back.

Was all of this just a dream she’d have before she died?

Fuling slowly turned around again. They lay back to back.

The sun would set. It would rise again.

Even after sunset, its light would reflect off the moon and keep shining down on the world.

Fuling didn’t want to think about what had happened today. She’d had enough fun.

The girl closed her eyes and let her consciousness sink into the silence.

“Goodnight, Sun.”