Free Web NovelChapter 244: You Won
Meilan’s expression darkened the second the words were out of my mouth, but I didn’t care.
That reaction alone told me I was finally getting close to the real problem, which was impressive considering how much screaming, burning, killing, and plant-based digestion we had needed to get here.
Somewhere under all the betrayal, all the stolen resources, all the ambition, and all the pretty words she wrapped around ugly choices, Jiang Meilan was angry because people had not loved her correctly.
"It’s not stupid," she hissed. If looks could kill... Meilan still wouldn’t be able to do it right.
"If this whole thing was about popularity for two lifetimes, then yes... yes... it’s stupid," I sighed. Seriously, in my past life, I didn’t care about being popular, all I cared about was eating half a meal a day and staying alive.
The outrage that crossed her face answered me before she did. "It is not about popularity."
I was not convinced.
It sounded exactly like popularity, just dressed up in apocalypse clothing and handed a knife.
The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the entire situation became, because in our first life, Meilan had everything people killed for.
She had influence.
She had supplies.
She had men willing to stand in front of her, soldiers willing to listen to her, and survivors willing to believe her smile meant salvation instead of ownership.
Meanwhile, I had spent most of the apocalypse trying to survive long enough to find my next meal.
I had not been building a kingdom, gathering followers, or making grand speeches about humanity’s future.
I had been counting cans, watching shadows, learning which stairwells were safe, and sleeping with a weapon close enough that my fingers could close around it before my eyes opened.
If people had listened to me, it was usually because I had already been right once and they did not want to die the next time.
Even now, after being reborn, the difference remained absurd.
One of us had spent two lives building power while the other had spent two lives trying to take in enough air to guarantee me a few more minutes of life.
The fact that we had somehow ended up standing opposite each other again felt less like fate and more like the world’s least funny joke. frёewebnoѵēl.com
"You know what I do not understand?" I asked.
Meilan crossed her arms, though the gesture looked ridiculous while the vine held her suspended above the torn ground. "What?"
"You had won."
For the first time since this conversation began, Jiang Meilan looked genuinely surprised.
The expression was so honest that I almost doubted what I had seen, but it was there, bright and ugly before she smothered it.
I continued before she could interrupt because I was suddenly tired in a way that had nothing to do with my healing. "You got the compound. You got the influence. You got the supplies. You got the people. You got everything you wanted."
Her mouth tightened, but she did not answer.
I kept my gaze fixed on her because, for once, I was not asking to mock her.
I was asking because I truly did not understand how someone could have everything, but still stare at someone’s empty bowl with resentment. "So why was it not enough?"
The question settled over the yard, and this time the silence lasted longer.
But I desperately needed this question answered. I was not going to be looking at the possibility of a third life with her still breathing down my neck.
Meilan’s eyes flickered toward the men around me, and the answer began forming before she opened her mouth. I saw it in the way her gaze touched Yuche, then Zhenlan, then Chenghai, then Lingyun.
She looked at them the way a starving person looked at locked cabinets, except the hunger in her had nothing to do with food.
She wanted devotion.
She wanted proof that she was the best.
She wanted people to choose her.
Dear Lord... talk about Daddy issues from an absent parent.
Hell, I didn’t have parents and I still wasn’t this bad.
"You do not understand anything," she said finally, and her voice had gone lower. "You never had to try."
A laugh almost slipped out of me, but there was nothing funny about it.
Not really.
My life had been nothing but trying, clawing, crawling, bleeding, starving, hiding, and forcing myself to stand up again because the world did not care whether I was tired.
Hearing Jiang Meilan look at the wreckage of my two lives and call it effortless made something cold settle behind my ribs. freewёbnoνel.com
"You think I never had to try?" I asked, cocking my head to the side.
"You did not have to make people look at you." Her face twisted, and for the first time, the polished mask slipped enough to show the rot underneath. "You did not have to smile. You did not have to be useful. You did not have to become the kind of woman people wanted beside them. You just stood there with that dead expression, and somehow they still came to you for everything."
My fingers curled slowly against Yuche’s shirt. For some reason, it felt like we were not remembering the same last life.
Or did she forget that she made and entire compound stone me to death?
That was not ’undying love of everyone around me’... that was people who used me until they didn’t bother to try and suck up anymore.
I did not look away from her, but I felt Yuche’s arm tighten again, not to restrain me this time, but to anchor me.
That was the part Meilan never understood.
She thought being chosen meant winning something. She thought people were prizes, resources, weapons to be collected and displayed, proof that she mattered more than the girl standing across from her.
I had never wanted any of that.
I had wanted a door that locked, food that lasted, a place zombies could not reach, and enough silence to sleep without jerking awake every time something creaked. I had wanted my house, my garden, my couch, and the right to live without someone deciding my survival was an insult to them.
"You are right about one thing," I said after a moment. "And that is something I never thought I would say."
