Chapter 371: Right, That Whole Thing
Rouxi’s smile disappeared before the next tremor finished rolling beneath their feet.
She pushed herself out of the chair, handed the iced tea to the baby vine that had already lifted itself from the grass like it had been waiting for exactly that job, and slipped her phone into her jacket pocket. The branches and grass behind her loosened at once, the lounge chair collapsing back into something that looked almost natural.
The key word there being ’almost’.
Zhenlan had just enough time to wonder what she planned to do about the remaining zombies before Rouxi flicked her wrist.
Every head buried along the road exploded.
Bone, rotten flesh, and thick black fluid burst outward all at once. The sound rolled through the street like hundreds of wet firecrackers, and Zhenlan threw one arm across his face just one second too late.
Something warm struck his cheek.
Then another piece slid down the back of his neck, while the front of his shirt became covered in enough rotten meat that he refused to look closely at any of it.
For several seconds, none of the men moved.
Rouxi remained perfectly clean in the center of the road like the eye of a storm that both terrified any sane person, and commanded respect from anyone around.
Hell, the dirt beneath her boots hadn’t even been disturbed.
Chenghai slowly dragged the side of his hand across his face. Red slime and something that might once have been part of a tongue peeled away from his skin before dropping to the pavement.
"You could do that the whole time?" he demanded, his eyes narrowing on the woman that was looking at him like he was stupid for asking that question.
Rouxi tilted her head as vines moved around her feet, plucking the exposed cores from the ruined skulls and dropping them into the containers. "Do what?"
Chenghai stared at her. "That."
"You’re going to have to be more specific," she sighed like she was talking to a toddler.
"All of their heads exploded," he hissed. Zhenlan wasn’t sure if that was a question or a statement, but either way, she had already answered that question before it was ever asked.
"Yup," Rouxi agreed, watching another vine struggle to drag a core free from the remains of a jaw. "Glad you noticed."
Chenghai’s eyes narrowed until Zhenlan was surprised he could still see through them. "How?"
Rouxi cracked her neck from one side to the other before rolling her shoulders. Whatever playful laziness had settled over her beneath the tree was gone. Power hummed through the ground now, faint but steady, and the roots collecting the cores moved faster with every passing second.
"Now, now," she purred, giving Chenghai a smile that didn’t answer a single thing. "A girl has to keep some secrets to herself. Otherwise, life wouldn’t be nearly as much fun."
Chenghai opened his mouth, probably to explain that being coated in rotten flesh hadn’t been fun for anyone except her, but Lingyun groaned beside him and held his arms away from his body.
His black shirt clung to his chest, soaked through with fluid Zhenlan didn’t want to identify. Pieces of flesh had caught in his hair, and a strip of skin hung from the knee of his jeans.
"I think this is the first time in my life that I’ve wished I was a water element," Lingyun muttered.
He looked down at himself again, grimaced, then turned sharply toward Zhenlan. "Is water part of storm?"
Zhenlan pulled a piece of something grey from his shoulder and dropped it. "Sometimes."
Lingyun spread his arms farther, presenting himself like an offering. "Wash me, and I’ll dry."
The words came out so easily that Zhenlan almost told him no out of habit. Then another piece of rotten meat slid beneath the collar of his shirt, and the argument died before it could begin.
He closed his eyes and reached for the power inside him.
The well Rouxi had forced them to find was still unsettled deep inside of him, and he didn’t know if it had ever been settled in either this life or his last one. Hell, he didn’t even know that he had this well of power in his last life.
Gritting his teeth, he watched as lightning moved beneath the surface, bright enough to make his fingertips tingle, but he pushed past it and reached for the cooler pressure above. Clouds were part of a storm. Rain was part of a storm. He had known that from the beginning, but knowing something existed and controlling it precisely enough to avoid drowning or electrocuting everyone around him were two different things.
Moisture gathered in the air.
When Zhenlan opened his eyes, four small clouds hovered above the men’s heads.
Lingyun looked up. "You gave yourself one too?"
"I’m covered in the same filth you are."
"Fair point," the joker said, the smile still on his face. But Zhenlan noticed that he was keeping his lips as sealed as he could when he wasn’t speaking. He wasn’t willing to risk having anything dripping into his mouth.
Rain poured down before Lingyun could say anything else.
The water struck hard enough to flatten his hair and send the scraps clinging to his clothes sliding toward the pavement. Chenghai bent his head and scrubbed both hands over his face, while Yuche stood perfectly still beneath his cloud, looking deeply unimpressed by the entire situation.
Zhenlan concentrated on keeping the rain where it belonged.
The clouds remained small, each one following the man beneath it while water washed the blood, slime, and rotten tissue from their clothes. He didn’t let a single drop touch Rouxi.
She noticed.
Of course she did.
Her sunglasses had been pushed onto the top of her head, and she watched him with an interest that made the pressure inside his well move again. "That’s a useful trick."
Zhenlan tried not to react to the approval in her voice, especially after watching what the same thing had done to Chenghai earlier.
Lingyun had no such restraint. He slapped Zhenlan on the shoulder hard enough to make the rain above them wobble. "See? I knew you could do it."
"You asked if it was possible less than a minute ago."
"And I believed in you the entire time."
Zhenlan ended the rain before he drowned him.
Lingyun immediately raised both hands to fulfill his end of the bargain.
Heat spread out from his body in a controlled wave, sinking into their clothes without burning the fabric. Steam rose around them as the water disappeared, leaving Zhenlan warm and almost completely dry.
Rouxi’s eyebrows lifted. "Ooh. Good control."
Lingyun’s grin appeared at once, wide and shameless. "Why, thank you."
The praise had barely left her mouth when the road behind them filled with movement.
Zhenlan heard the scraping first. Hundreds of feet dragged over pavement, accompanied by the wet groans of dead throats and the crack of branches being torn out of the way.
The second wave poured between the abandoned houses and through the trees, drawn toward them with none of the hesitation the first group had shown.
Lingyun turned toward the sound while the heat around his hands sharpened into flame. "Right," he muttered, his smile becoming something far more dangerous. "That whole thing."