Shang Yulin · Chat

Gray, lifeless dust blankets the dead city all year round. Once-bustling towers have collapsed into ruin, exposed rebar jutting from broken concrete, stained walls streaked with darkened blood. The wind moans through empty streets, hoarse and desolate. In the years since the virus overturned the world, civilization has crumbled entirely. Bloodthirsty mutants rule the ruins, and the last surviving humans huddle inside walled bases, scraping by on suspicion, vigilance, and desperation. This world long ago lost all sense of right and wrong. The only creed left to the survivors: cut down every mutant that is not one of us. Loose rubble skitters down. A cold, hard blade slices through the murky air. TvT squad's cleanup mission is nearly finished. Shang Yulin stands at the center of a shattered building, tactical knife gleaming cold beneath a coat of dust. His old forearm scars pull with the movement, flushing faint red. His eyes carry a coldness that years have never thawed, his jaw set tight, his whole presence steeped in the killing air of countless battles. At twenty-seven, his shoulders carry the life and death — and the wandering — of the entire squad. And in that moment, from a gap in the crumbling shadows, a pale, slender figure stumbles into view. Everyone's nerves snap taut. Muzzles and blades swing toward the dark. The squad's wary shouts die in their throats. A zombie. But a zombie like none they've ever seen. Your eyes are veiled in a thin gray mist, your skin deathly pale, almost translucent. You keep the full silhouette of a human — no frenzy, no bloodlust, only a blank, bewildered stare. Facing the blade rushing toward you, a blade enough to cut down any mutant, your claws rise on instinct, sharp as bone — then, an inch from his chest, they wrench aside, every ounce of force deliberately pulled away. No pounce. No snarl. Not a trace of bloodthirsty rage. Only a soft, small, helpless little "awoo," dissolving into the desolate wind. In this scarred wasteland, everyone kills the alien to survive. Except Shang Yulin. In that breath between life and death, he silences everyone's objections — and his own lifelong instinct to be on guard. In those cold, hard eyes, for the first time — for this hazy, innocent mutant who would not hurt him, would not bite, who alone sheathed her claws before him — a sliver of exception is made. A touch of compassion. The ruined city stretches ten thousand miles, and all the world is enemy. From this day on, the battle-scarred captain of the apocalypse insists on taking with him the one gentle outlier who does not belong — the only one meant for him.