There wasn’t anything else to say after that.

I had been blunt. If they wanted to keep the house then it was up to them to do it. I knew that I could do it on my own, but now that I was... bending to the idea of living with these four men, they also had to fight for what was theirs.

If they wanted to keep the house, then they would. If they didn’t, then we’d deal with it when it happened. Sitting here staring at broken furniture and blood on the walls wasn’t going to fix anything.

And it wasn’t going to fix itself.

The military would come back, that part wasn’t even a question. The real issue was... when.

I looked around the room again, slower this time, taking in everything that Meilan and the zombies had managed to destroy in a single night. Chenghai was right. This whole thing was now a write-off.

Even if we cleaned the blood and got rid of the smell, the holes in the house itself wasn’t something I could ignore anymore.

But without the ability to simply order what we wanted and get someone else to install it for us, our options were limited.

Was I regretting letting the zombies in?

Not even a little.

The smile that appeared on my face wasn’t something that I could control. I really wished I could have watched how Meilan had reacted.

You know, when the betrayal wasn’t done by her but to her.

I shifted where I was still sitting on Yuche’s lap, wishing that I could just take out a bag of chips and start snacking. But that was still too big of a secret to reveal just for a bag of chips.

"Okay," grunted Chenghai. "We need to have a plan before we leave the house. We have several hours until it is night time again. We need to have at least a solid exterior before the zombies come again."

Zhenlan nodded his head in agreement even as Lingyun had pulled a notebook out from nowhere. Did he have a space system, too?

I must have had a confused look on my face because Yuche leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Don’t ask," he advised me. "I’ve known him for almost his entire life and he always has that fucking notebook in his hand. I’m surprised that it took him this long to pull it out."

I huffed out a laugh, just like Yuche had intended, and sunk back into his embrace.

No one was panicking, they were thinking logically about what we needed, how we were going to get it done, and what our next step needed to be.

That was good.

It also meant they were going to try to fix this properly.

Which meant—

"I’ll go with you," I announced like it wasn’t that big of a deal. But the room went quiet as everyone turned to look at me, their eyes big with panic.

"Absolutely not," said Zhenlan with a firm shake of his head. "You haven’t left the house since the zombies appeared. You have no idea what life is like out there. I won’t take the chance and have something happen to you."

"As much as I hate to agree with him," sighed Yuche and I could feel just how deep that sigh was. "I don’t want to see you hurt. You can double check the lists before we leave, but I think it is best if you stay here."

Even Lingyun and Chenghai were silently nodding their heads in agreement.

Were they stupid? Didn’t they understand what had been happening? Or did they just think that this was all luck?

Furrowing my brows, I looked from one man to another. "Yeah, no. That’s not happening. The house isn’t going to fix itself. We need as many hands as possible to get everything done before nightfall."

I looked back over at the front doors and raised an eyebrow. They hadn’t even been really touched. Since I had left them open, the zombies simply pushed through. The door would hold, the locks would hold.

But the stupid idiots had to go through the windows...

Zhenlan opened his mouth to protest, but I just shook my head. "Go upstairs and go through each one of the rooms. We need to know what we need to secure for the upstairs, too." My voice didn’t offer any suggestions, just a simple, direct command.

Chenghai and Lingyun nodded their heads and left the living room, even as Zhenlan did the same thing. However, he wasn’t going into the main part of the house... the only part that all the intruders seem to know about.

No, he was going to the other wing of the house.

"Look at you," purred Yuche as he tightened his grip around my hips. "You are sounding like a military commander now... barking out orders and having them be obeyed. I didn’t know that Zhenlan’s Princess had it in her."

"Are you doing all this to piss him off?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Or have I become your princess, too?"

Yuche seemed startled at my reply, but his face simply softened after a moment. "Princesses aren’t my type. I much prefer the Shen Rouxi that the bitch was talking about earlier. I go more for someone who knows how to survive the darkness than someone who has only seen the light."

I shifted in his arms so that I could study his face. "If you are asking if I am the Shen Rouxi that she was talking about, the answer is no. You should know my background. How I was raised."

Yuche hummed as he reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek. "And yet... something doesn’t quite match. Or do you think I’m the only one to see it?"

I let out a long breath and maintained my eye contact with him. "Do you want to know what I see?" I purred as the other three men came back into the living room.

Yuche hummed, not saying anything.

"I see that we need a new couch. Now. Be a dear and get the car keys. We need to go shopping."