Picking Up My Ex-Wife in the Apocalypse - Chapter 33

Si Qi maintained a faint, shallow smile, acting as if she truly didn’t care anymore, casually asking about the past like a detached observer.

In Si Ruxu’s heart, a tiny spring seemed to open, a thin, trickling stream winding tightly around her soul. She felt a dull ache, one so subtle she couldn’t immediately identify it. She simply attributed it to the extreme mental exhaustion of the past few days in the Great Purge.

“I felt that dragging it out would have been the greatest cruelty to you,” Si Ruxu’s voice was gentle, but the words felt like a plunge into a frozen lake for Si Qi. She had imagined a thousand answers; she had even thought Si Ruxu might weave a tragic excuse to lie to her.

But Si Ruxu was too candid. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with an abrupt, “cliff-style” breakup. She had never considered how hard Si Qi had to work to crawl out of the year she loved Si Ruxu the most, only to later stand before her with such poise.

Si Qi suppressed the stinging tears in her eyes. She noticed Si Ruxu’s gaze linger on her blood-soaked wounds for a moment before casually shifting away. Her own voice felt heavy, though she forced it to remain steady.

“But Si Ruxu, do you even understand what love is?” Si Qi asked. She had never brought this up, intending to keep it buried forever.

“It requires too much energy and time. There’s no crime in falling out of love, but once it’s over, you need to take the time to put a period at the end of that chapter. You don’t just delete a contact, wipe the chat history, and reset everything to zero.”

Anything can be formatted. The traces of another person in a room can be cleared bit by bit. But memory cannot be wiped, and a sincere heart cannot be erased.

Si Ruxu couldn’t comprehend this. In her world, love and non-love were separated by a clear, distinct line. She felt she had never owed Si Qi anything while they were together; therefore, when the love was gone, she felt it was natural to walk away without a reason.

She looked into Si Qi’s eyes, and beneath the mask of indifference, a flicker of genuine confusion finally appeared. “Are you… angry because of that?”

That one sentence was like a bucket of ice water over Si Qi’s boiling blood. She lowered her eyes. A single tear fell from her left eye, vanishing into her collar so quickly it looked like an illusion. A moment later, she looked up with a perfectly formatted smile.

“I’m not angry anymore.”

She truly wasn’t.

Si Ruxu had long stopped caring. Only Si Qi had spent day and night tossing and turning. Only she was trapped in the dead of night, trapped in dreams, trapped in the moonlight that fell on them in their youth.

Time ticked on. At the final moment, the space around them warped. The dying, younger versions of herself and Si Ruxu blurred and vanished.

*****

The world around Si Qi finally regained its solidity. The rustling of fallen leaves on the ground reached her ears. She heard footsteps behind her, intentionally lightened, but as she turned, the person behind her became flustered and disorganized.

She met a pair of amber eyes. The “peach blossom” eyes were slightly upturned, the corners red as if she had been crying for a long time. Si Qi pursed her lips and offered a faint smile, refusing to read the complex emotions swirling in that gaze.

“I thought you’d go back to the Institute,” Si Qi said. She pulled a wild fruit from her pocket, wiped it, and was about to take a bite when Si Ruxu caught her arm.

The familiar scent enveloped her. Si Qi tilted her head in confusion. “Do you want it?”

Instead of an answer, a bottle of milk and a piece of bread were pressed into her hand.

She froze for a moment, then gave a shallow, polite, and restrained smile. “Thank you.”

The only sound in the air was Si Qi chewing the bread. She was truly hungry; days of eating tart fruit had made her mouth dry. This bread and milk were a literal lifeline. She saw no reason to reject Si Ruxu. Stripped of their past as lovers, they were now just strangers with a common goal.

Si Ruxu watched her, her cheeks puffed out with food. She realized that ever since they reunited, Si Qi always ate like this.

In the apocalypse, the situation for ordinary people was increasingly dire. Meals were irregular. Starvation was the norm and vulnerable groups like women, the elderly, and children were often bullied.

Si Qi must have been hungry for a very long time, Si Ruxu thought. Because she knew the value of food and feared it being taken away, she stuffed her mouth as full as possible.

Si Ruxu didn’t know how to start a conversation. Despite the clear sky, she felt as though a storm were raging in her heart, thick clouds sealing her in, making it hard to breathe.

“How did you find this place?” Si Qi asked after swallowing a sip of milk.

“I… I followed the traces of your energy.”

Si Qi thinned her lips. Si Ruxu had always been sensitive to her power, likely because Si Qi had funneled so much of it into her. She could see that Si Ruxu’s veins were now full of purple lightning energy, similar to Luo Fenghe’s.

Awakened with shattered cores die, but those who have touched ‘special’ energy don’t. Is that it?

“I could see you inside the first Great Purge, but I couldn’t get in, so…” Si Ruxu’s tone was hesitant, like a child who had done something wrong.

Si Qi found it bizarre. If she couldn’t get in, she couldn’t get in. Why explain it to her? “What does it matter if you could see or not?”

She was cold, devoid of any emotion—nothing like the warmth in her memories, nor the awkwardness from when they first reunited.

“If I had gone in, you wouldn’t have had to suffer such heavy injuries again,” Si Ruxu said slowly. “Can we… can we still walk together?”

Si Qi blinked, taking a long time to digest the words. She wanted to go in? She didn’t want to see me hurt? Translation: I still have utility value, and she can’t let me die yet.

“I won’t die anytime soon. Wounds heal if you leave them alone. You don’t need to ‘care’ for me for the sake of the deal or because you want me to do something.”

Si Qi took off her outer coat. The clothes beneath were mottled with blood, stuck to her flesh. “I will do the right thing.”

“There are countless ways to save humanity,” Si Qi continued. “I acknowledge the first step Si Luoheng took—preventing humanity from total extinction and saving civilization. But I don’t agree with what she did afterward.”

Si Qi separated Si Ruxu from Si Luoheng in her mind. Si Ruxu’s departure from the Institute was likely due to a difference in ideology.

“The world doesn’t belong only to humans. It belongs to all living things. She researches zombies and mutated plants, calling them ‘failed creations.’ If the Creator is cruel for making zombies to strike at humans, then Si Luoheng is no different for making things to strike at other species.”

“I know!” Si Ruxu interrupted urgently, desperate not to be misunderstood. “I only found out about Luoheng’s plans much later. We had a huge argument, and I left the Institute to find another way.”

Si Qi let out a soft laugh. “I know.”

Those two words calmed Si Ruxu’s chaotic heart slightly. She looked at Si Qi, her voice trembling with uncertainty. “Then… can we still… walk together?”

“Why do you want to walk with me?” Si Qi still didn’t understand. They should have parted ways. Even though Si Ruxu saved her, she was only in that danger because of Si Ruxu in the first place.

“You provided resources for me to level up my powers so I could survive, but I also protected you in the Purge and let you use me. You saved me when the black hole was swallowing me, but I only entered that danger because of you, and I even freed your powers from the limitations of your core.”

As Si Qi counted their debts one by one, Si Ruxu’s face grew paler with every word.

“So, Si Ruxu, we’re even. You don’t need to follow me, and I won’t come looking for you. From now on, our paths diverge. Let’s just live our separate lives.”

As she said it, Si Qi felt only a sense of lightness. She realized then that when you stop loving someone, parting with a former lover doesn’t even warrant extra emotion. It was the relief of shedding a burden; the freedom of no longer having to compromise for someone else.

“Si Qi!” Si Ruxu’s face was ghost-white. She grabbed Si Qi’s sleeve tightly, her lips trembling with a massive, sudden panic. She lowered her lashes, and hot tears fell onto Si Qi’s palm.

“Don’t let us be even… Use me, okay? I’ll do anything.” Si Ruxu bowed her head for the first time, her words disjointed. The fear of losing her was driving her to the brink; she would even cast aside her pride. “I’m sorry. I was wrong before. Can you give me another chance?”

Si Qi remained confused. She didn’t understand Si Ruxu’s emotional architecture. She asked tentatively: “Do you… like me?”

The moment she said it, she shook her head. Si Ruxu liking me? About as likely as pigs flying.

“I love you,” Si Ruxu whispered. The words were steady and solemn, striking Si Qi’s heart for a brief second and causing a faint ache.

She hadn’t heard Si Ruxu say that in a very long time.

Her youth had been a place of self-loathing, shadows, grey tones, and bruises. She had been afraid to speak of love; she had wrapped herself in indifference so tightly that it blocked out all kindness, icing herself over like a living corpse.

Until Si Ruxu appeared. She had been fearless, telling Si Qi she liked her in tones that ranged from playful to expectant.

******

Si Qi remembered the day they became a couple. It was a rainy day after her part-time job. She had shared an umbrella with a female colleague to get home.

When she arrived, she saw Si Ruxu standing in the corner, soaked to the bone. She was clutching a raincoat and a closed umbrella, standing there like an abandoned kitten.

When she saw Si Qi, she shoved a warm container into her arms and turned to walk back into the rain. Si Qi looked down: it was a bottle of hot milk.

She had chased after her, grabbed her hand, and pulled her back. Si Ruxu didn’t resist; she just followed in silence.

“Why were you standing there? Are you cold?” Si Qi hurried her inside, took off her wet coat, and used a dry towel to wipe the droplets from her hair.

Si Ruxu remained silent. Si Qi took the raincoat and umbrella from her. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. She looked at Si Ruxu with a slight smile. “You came to pick me up, saw me with someone else, so you didn’t even open your umbrella and just followed us the whole way in a huff?”

Si Ruxu looked away, refusing to answer.

Si Qi leaned in close. Her warm breath hit Si Ruxu’s cold lips, feeling strangely hot. Si Ruxu instinctively recoiled.

Si Qi laughed and started to pull back, but in the next heartbeat, Si Ruxu hooked her arms around Si Qi’s neck. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed her—it was clumsy and soft.

“Yeah. You guessed right,” Si Ruxu said, staring at her with eyes filled with a misty intensity. “So, Student Si Qi… how do you plan to handle my affection?”

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