To the Start of a New World

3.4

Back when Lu Hao had first been setting up the Survivor Guard, he'd run across all kinds of scum. The man named Zhang Lie was one of them. He was a handsome man, by apocalypse standards, with amorous peach blossom eyes and a smile that made women feel they were the center of his universe.

During the apocalypse, Zhang Lie had gathered together his group of loyal brothers and beautiful sisters to escape the city. They'd stayed with the SG for a short while, where Lu Hao got to watch firsthand how the man operated. Zhang Lie had excellent acting skills. He behaved gently with the women, making them feel a sense of trust and security in him, like they'd be safe through the horrors of the apocalypse so long as they were by his side.

But the group of rough thugs who accompanied him belied Zhang Lie's real nature. The man was a gambler and a conman, and his gentle mask tore right open when he and Lu Hao had gone on a mission to search for supplies together.

At that time, the apocalypse was still in its early years. Level-3 zombies had only just started appearing in rumors and horror stories, and on that day when they were scavenging at the outskirts of F City, two level-3 speed zombies had appeared and surged towards them.

Zhang Lie, in his panic, pushed the girls clinging around him to be his meat shields. He made his escape between their strewn flesh, and when the other girls cried and screamed at how he could do this, Zhang Lie completely broke down and yelled at them how they should be grateful to him, how all they were useful for was being ornaments...

In any case, he was a piece of shit. Lu Hao kicked him out, then offered sanctuary for the women who'd unfortunately been following him. Lu Hao hadn't heard much about him after that, but he had seen him every now and then when coming across teams from F City, still surrounded by women.

Right now, Zhang Lie was just a conman in debt.

So when Lu Hao contacted him offering a large sum of money in exchange for making a girl fall in love with him, he readily agreed.

The private investigator Lu Hao kept on Ji Ling had continued tailing her and sending Lu Hao information. Lu Hao found that Ji Ling at this time didn't seem to have been reborn, for which he was thankful. She was just an ordinary high school girl. Seeing the photos of her meek, withdrawn look made him wonder just what had caused her to transform so greatly after the apocalypse.

Funny to think that even though she'd become so powerful and influential after the end of the world, her innate power, her ability, was to become invisible—the same way she'd been invisible all her life before. Guess some things would always be a part of her.

It was difficult to pry Ji Ling's secrets from distant observation. The best way to find out where she got her 'healing spring' was to get close to her, gain her trust, and have her spill everything.

Ji Ling was a vulnerable and isolated teenager. Perhaps that was why she was so obsessed with being loved. If a handsome man approached her now, and made her feel truly loved and wanted for the first time in her life, it was hard to say what she wouldn't be willing to do for him.

Anyone who preyed on vulnerable people this way were evil scumbags in Lu Hao's eyes. Yet here he was, doing that very thing. He was an evil scumbag, too; but what else was new? He'd figured that out the moment Lisa Xi broke down and made him realize just how severely he had screwed up by letting Hong Sheng die for him.

The thought of seducing Ji Ling himself made Lu Hao feel physically ill. Better to have someone else do this dirty work, which was why he contacted Zhang Lie.

[Take it slow. Gain her trust. Don't rush it.] Lu Hao typed this message to Zhang Lie. [My only bottom line is that you don't do anything criminal.]

[Don't worry. I'm a law-abiding man.] Zhang Lie replied.